by Tara Pammi
“You left that bar at five in the morning, and two hours later, you weren’t at your apartment in Brooklyn. I’ve no idea how you’ve managed to not get yourself killed all these years.”
Her breath lodged in her throat, painfully. Hugging her knees tight, she stared at him. Shock pulsed through the exhaustion. She lived in the liveliest city on the planet, and even with Tyler around, she’d felt the loneliness like a second skin most of her life. Nikos’s matter-of-fact statement only rammed the hurtful truth closer.
“You don’t have to worry about me. I take my safety very seriously.” His anger was misplaced and misdirected. Yet it also held a dangerous allure.
His nostrils flared, his jaw tight as a concrete slab. “My sister’s welfare depends on you,” he said, enunciating every word as though he was talking to someone dimwitted. “I need you alive and kicking right now, not dead in some Dumpster.”
“You don’t like it that you felt a minute’s concern for me? At least it makes you human.”
“As opposed to what? Are you also a part-time shrink?”
The caustic comment was enough to cure her stupid thinking.
“As opposed to an alien with no heart. Why is this even relevant to you? Are you keeping tabs on all my friends so that you can manipulate me a little more?”
“She took advantage of you.” He looked at her as though he was studying a curious insect, something that had crawled under his polished, handmade shoes. “Aren’t you the least bit angry with her?”
“She doesn’t mean to—”
“Hurt you? And yet it seems she has accomplished that very well.”
Was she imagining the compassion in those brown depths? Or was her sleep-deprived mind playing tricks on her again? She scrunched back into the seat, feeling as stupid as he was calling her. “Faith’s had a rough life.”
“And you haven’t?”
“It’s not about who had the roughest life or who deserves kindness more, Nikos. Faith, for all her lies and manipulation, has no one. No one who cares about her, who would worry about her. And I know what that loneliness feels like. I don’t expect you to—”
“I know enough,” he said with a cutting edge to his words. “You haven’t signed the contract yet. Now you have forced me to fly back to New York for the express purpose of accompanying you to Greece.”
Way to go, Lexi, exactly what you wanted to avoid.
“I’ve been busy.”
He leaned forward in a quick movement. For such a big man, he moved so quickly, so economically. But she must be getting used to him because she didn’t flinch when he ran the pads of his thumbs gently under her eyes. The heat of his body stole into hers. “Are you having second thoughts about dear Tyler? Have you decided that he’s not worth the money I’m paying?”
It almost sounded as if he wanted her to refuse to help him. Which couldn’t be true.
She had been unable to sleep a wink ever since the horrid contract had arrived on her doorstep and she had taken a look at the exorbitant amount of money listed there. More than she had ever seen in her lifetime or probably ever would.
Just remembering it had her heart thumping in her chest again.
Money she could use to take art classes instead of having to save every cent, money she could use to, for once, buy some decent clothes instead of shopping the teenager section at the department store or thrift store.
Money she could use to take a break from her energy-draining bartending job and invest her time in developing her comic book script and develop a portfolio without having to worry over her next meal and keeping a roof over her head.
The possibilities were endless.
Yet she also knew that anything she bought with that money would also bring with it an ick factor. It would feel sullied.
But there had been something more than her discomfort that had held her back from signing that contract.
The man studying her intently had volunteered it happily enough. In fact, he had seemed more than happy to make her his paid employee.
Because it gave him unmitigated power over her. That was it.
She stilled in place, her stomach diving at the realization. That’s what had given her the bad feeling.
If she had accompanied him without complaint, it meant she was doing him a favor. This way, she wasn’t. It seemed he was either prepared to blackmail her into it or pay her an enormous amount of money so that she was obligated to do as he ordered.
Rather than simply ask her for help. The lengths he would go to just so that his position wasn’t weak made her spine stiff with alarm.
“About that money,” she began, feeling divided in half within. She couldn’t even stop seeing the number in front of her, a bag with a dollar sign always hovering in her subconscious as though she was one of her own comic characters, “I was angry with you for manipulating me. I can’t accept—”
His long, tanned finger landed on her mouth, short-circuiting her already-weak thought process. Her skin tingled at the barest contact. “In the week that I have had the misfortune to make your acquaintance,” he said, leaning so close that she could smell his cologne along with the scent of his skin, “asking for money to look after Tyler was the one sensible, one clever thing you did.”
Really, she had no idea what he would say next or what would suddenly send him into a spiral of anger.
“Don’t embrace useless principles now and turn it down, Ms. Nelson. Think of something wild and reckless that you have always wanted but could never afford. Think of all the nice clothes you can buy.” His gaze moved over her worn T-shirt, and she fought the impulse to cover her meager chest. “Maybe even something that will upstage Venetia in front of your ex?”
Her mouth falling open wordlessly, she stared at him. Apparently, her new, standard expression in his company. “I have no intention of competing with Venetia, not that I harbor any delusion that I even could.”
Dark amusement glittered in his gaze. It was as if there was a one-way connection between them that let him see straight into her thoughts. Like Mr. Spock doing a Vulcan Mind Meld. If only it worked both ways. She had absolutely no knowledge about him, whereas he literally had a file on her.
He settled back into the seat and crossed his long legs. “You’re a strange little woman, Ms. Nelson. Are you telling me you didn’t think of using this opportunity to win him back? That the idea didn’t even occur to you?”
“No,” she repeated loudly, refusing to let him sully her motives. She would love to have her friend back, yes, but she wasn’t going to engage in some bizarre girl war with Venetia to get Tyler back the way he assumed.
“Fine. My pilot’s waiting. We leave in four hours.”
“I can’t leave in four hours,” Lexi said, anxiety and the energy it took to talk to him beginning to give her a headache. “I have to find someone to sublet my room, have to get the plumber to fix the kitchen before I leave and I promised Mrs. Goldman next door that I would help her after her surgery in two days. I can’t just up and leave because your sister can’t bear the thought of not being the center of Tyler’s universe for a few more days.”
He shrugged—a careless, elegant movement of those broad shoulders. “I don’t care how many things you had lined up to do for your parasitic friends or how much you were planning to bend over backward for the whole world, Ms. Nelson. I won’t wait anymore.”
She frowned. “I don’t bend over back—”
His gaze sliced through her words. “You’re the worst kind of pushover.”
She slumped against the seat, bone-deep exhaustion taking away her ability to offer even token protest. She shouldn’t be hurt by his clinical, disparaging words. But she was.
And the fact that his words could even affect her only proved him right.
How could she feel bad about w
hat a stranger, someone as ruthless as Nikos Demakis thought about her?
“Your room at the apartment will go nowhere. If there’s anything else you need help with—” his gaze lingered on her clothes again “—something that is solely your concern, your problem, I can have my assistant at your disposal.”
“If I don’t agree?”
He shrugged. “Your agreement or the lack of it doesn’t play into it. The choice is whether you travel as my guest or my captive.”
“That is kidnapping.”
He plucked a couple of pages from his case and pushed it toward her along with a legal pad and a pen. “It’s hard to admit, but I see that I did this all wrong.”
“What?”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. His gaze solemn, he blinked. Really, no single man should be allowed to be so gorgeous. “I should have appeared on your doorstep with my heart in my hands, pleaded my sister’s case, begged you to help, tried to become your best friend. Maybe talk about my own horrible childhood, pretend to be on my death bed—”
“Okay, okay, fine. You’ve made your point,” Lexi said loudly, cutting off his mocking words. She had always liked to help if she could. She would not let the manipulative man in front of her make her feel stupid about it.
Pulling her gaze away from him, she scanned the document again. She’d had the contract looked over by a paralegal friend, but there was no discounting the hollow fear in her gut.
She would be in his personal employ for two months and would be paid fifty thousand dollars for it, half now, and half when he deemed her job done, subject to his sole discretion.
She was being paid an exorbitant amount of money to spend time with Tyler on a Greek island, the likes of which she had no other hope of seeing in this lifetime.
Yet as the limo came to a stop on her street in the cheap neighborhood of her apartment complex, she couldn’t shake off a feeling that there was an unwritten price that she would have to pay.
And she had no idea what that was.
CHAPTER FOUR
NIKOS CLOSED HIS laptop, and refused the stewardess’s offer of a drink. He hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in four days now. He had finalized the deal with Nathan Ramirez; he finally had a solution for Venetia’s problem. And yet he was restless with a weird kind of pent-up energy simmering just below his skin.
He itched to get back to his garage and get his hands dirty. He had been pushing himself this past month and he needed a break. Once everything was settled with Venetia, he would take her on a vacation. She had always wanted to see more of New York.
The passing mention of New York and his thoughts immediately shifted to Ms. Nelson. Not a peep sounded from the rear cabin. There was something about the woman that always left him on edge. Stepping into the cabin, he froze.
She lay on the very edge of the bed, half out, half in. Her knees tucked tight into her legs, her hands wrapped tight around herself, she slept hunched tight into a ball.
Her honey-gold hair glinted in the low lights, her wide mouth open like a fish.
Her white T-shirt couldn’t hide the outline of her small breasts. A plastic watch with a big dial in the shape of a skull covered most of her wrist. A thoroughly distracting strip of her back was exposed by the scrunched-up top, above denim shorts. Delicate calves and even more delicate feet topped with toes painted black completed the picture.
Even while telling himself that he should just walk away, he stood rooted to the spot.
He usually paid very little attention to the women he slept with. What he wanted, he took and got the distraction out of the way. Because that’s all anything a woman ever had been to him. Something to take the edge off the grueling hours, or the pace he had set himself to succeed.
Ms. Nelson, on the other hand, perplexed, irritated and downright annoyed him with her mere existence. There was such a mix of innocence and calculation about her that he found mesmerizing. He smiled, remembering her confusion, her beautiful blue eyes widened, her breath hitching in and out uncomfortably, when he had leaned toward her in the car.
Noticing a page peeking from under her arms, he leaned over her and pulled the rolled-up magazine.
His blood slowed in his veins to a sluggish pace as he breathed in that scent of her. Vanilla, that’s what she smelled of. Simple yet fascinating, like her.
He straightened the magazine and looked at the article she had been reading. How To Use Sex to Get Your Man Back.
So the little minx did want that parasite back. Apparently, being called a selfish bitch wasn’t enough of a deterrent for her. Displeasure and a relentless curiosity vied within him. What kind of a woman worried about an ex who turned his back on her, a friend who manipulated her and yet faced Nikos down when he had cornered her?
Shaking his head, he tried to stem the flow of resentment coursing through him. Because that’s what it had to be. Ms. Nelson’s effervescent outlook toward life and her sheer naïveté were beginning to grate on him. The sooner he got her out of his life and back to her I’m-all-that-is-love-manipulate-me-all-you-want existence, the better.
Muttering a curse, he turned around to leave when a sleepy moan rumbled from the bed. Still hunched tight, she scooted a little more over the edge. With a quick movement, Nikos caught her just as she would have toppled off the bed.
He ended up on his knees next to the bed, her slender body cradled on his forearms. Blue eyes flew open, terror cycling through them.
Before he could blink, she squirmed in his hold, throwing punches and kicking her legs. He turned his face just at the right time, and her punch landed on his jaw. His teeth rattled in his mouth. Grunting at the pain shooting up his jaw, he threw her onto the bed none too gently.
She rolled over to the other side, and stared up at him, her eyes wide and full of shock. “What are you doing?”
“What do you think?” he shouted back, running a hand over his jaw. “I should have let you fall. The bump would have given you some much-needed sense.”
Theos, but the woman could throw a mean punch. If he hadn’t turned he would have had a severely displaced nose.
She scooted to her knees on the other side, her movements wary and tight, her mouth pinched. “I’m sorry. I just acted on reflex.”
Running a finger over his jaw, he looked at her and curbed his anger. “Would you like to explain, Ms. Nelson?”
Her hair stood up at awkward angles. Moving as though in slow motion, she got off the bed, walked around it and stopped at a good distance from him.
Her gaze was set on his jaw, her lips trembling. “I’m fine,” he said, cringing at the thought that she might cry. He sat down on the bed and waved toward the empty spot. “Sit down.”
Remaining silent, she slid down onto the edge of the bed, leaving as much distance as possible between them. And it finally struck him. All the times she had scrunched tight when he came near. Even now her slender frame was coiled with tension. For some reason, the thought filled him with a cold anger.
“You’re afraid of me.”
Her silence rang around them.
He shoved away the questions and, of all the strangest things, the dent to his ego, aside. He might not like her but the fear in her eyes, it had been real. “I know that you think me a heartless bastard, and you are right, but I would never lay a finger on you.”
She met his gaze finally. “I think I know that.”
“Well, that’s good, then.” This time, he couldn’t keep the sarcasm out.
She grimaced, and took a deep breath. “Sorry, that didn’t come out right. I know that you won’t harm me, Nikos, at least not physically,” she added, just to annoy him, he was sure. “And it’s not your intentions I’m scared of but...” Pink flooded her cheeks “But your... I mean...”
“Theos, Lexi! Just say it.�
�� Sitting here in the intimate confines of the luxurious cabin, he had never felt the strange energy that suddenly arced into life in the cabin.
Lexi sighed, fighting the urge to run away from the cabin. Even though the temperature was perfect, she still felt a line of sweat down her spine. And their sitting here on the same bed, even with the breadth of it separating them, it felt too intimate. Too many things, strange and unnerving, crowded in on her. But the man did deserve an explanation.
“Your size...I mean...you are a big man.”
Amusement glittered in his gaze. “Yes. I’m six foot three. I am big, everywhere. And so far, you’re the only woman who has not been spectacularly happy about it.”
“What does your size have to do with women being hap...” Heat rose up through her as she realized his meaning, tightening her cheeks, and there was nothing she could do about it. “Oh.”
He laughed and she couldn’t help but smile back. He looked gorgeous, down-to-earth and not at all like someone who should have scared her so much. “You gave me the perfect opening.”
She nodded, and made a movement to stand up when he threw out his arm to stop her. He did it slowly, as if to not frighten her again. “Once again, you’ve made me extremely curious. And you owe me an explanation,” he said, rubbing at his jaw.
Lexi pulled up her feet and hugged her knees. “This...it’s nothing that is useful to you,” she said, dragging her feet.
He didn’t bat an eyelid at the insult. “Tell me anyway.”
“I was transferred to a new foster home when I was twelve.” She smiled, warmth filling her despite everything else that had happened. “I loved it immediately because the last one, they had always been kind to me but I was the only kid. The new home was perfect because there were six of us and it’s where I met Tyler.