Acquired by Her Greek Boss

by Chantelle Shaw

  The landline phone on his desk rang and Sara instinctively reached out to answer it. Simultaneously Alekos did the same and, as his fingers brushed against hers, she felt a sizzle of electricity shoot up her arm. ‘Oh!’ She tried to snatch her hand away, but he snaked his fingers around her wrist and stroked his thumb pad over her thudding pulse.

  ‘When you dressed to come to work this morning, did you choose your outfit to please me?’ His black eyes burned like hot coals into hers.

  Sara flushed guiltily. ‘Of course not.’ She refused to admit to herself, let alone to Alekos, that for the past two years she had fantasised about him desiring her. She stared at his chiselled face and swallowed. ‘Are you going to answer the call?’ she said breathlessly.

  To her relief, he let go of her wrist and picked up the phone. She resisted the urge to leap out of her seat and run out of his office. Instead she made herself stroll across the room to the coffee machine. The familiar routine of pouring water into the machine’s reservoir and inserting a coffee capsule into the compartment gave her a few moments’ breathing space to bring herself under control.

  Why had she goaded Alekos like that? She had always been careful to hide her attraction to him but he must have noticed how the pulse in her wrist had almost jumped through her skin because it had been beating so hard, echoing the thudding beat of her heart.

  She could not put off carrying their coffees over to his desk any longer, and she was thankful that Alekos did not glance at her when he finished his phone call and opened the file in front of him. He waited for her to sit down and pick up her notepad before he began to dictate at breakneck speed, making no allowances for the fact that she hadn’t taken shorthand notes for a month.

  It set the tone for the rest of the day as they worked together to clear the backlog that had built up while Sara had been away. At five o’clock she rolled her aching shoulders and went to the bathroom to brush her hair and apply a fresh coat of rose-pink lip gloss that was her new must-have item of make-up.

  In Alekos’s office she found him standing by his desk. He was massaging the back of his neck as if he felt as tired from their busy day as she was. She had forgotten how tall he was. He had inherited his six-foot-four height from his maternal grandfather, who had been a Canadian, he’d once explained to Sara. But in every other aspect he was typically Greek, from his dark olive complexion and mass of black hair to his arrogant belief that he only had to click his fingers and women would flock to him. The trouble was that they did, Sara thought ruefully.

  Alekos was used to having any woman he wanted. She told herself it was lucky that there had been no repeat of the breathless moments that had occurred earlier in the day, when rampant desire had blazed in his eyes as he’d trapped her wrist and felt the giveaway throb of her sexual awareness of him.

  He must have heard his office door open, and turned his head in her direction. They had played out the same scene hundreds of times before, and most days when she came to check if he needed her to do anything else before she went home he did not bother looking up from his computer screen as he bid her goodnight. But he was looking at her now. She watched his hard features tauten and become almost wolf-like as he stared at her with a hungry gleam in his eyes that excited her and filled her with illicit longing.

  Something tugged in the pit of her stomach, tugged hard like a knot being pulled tighter and tighter, as if an invisible thread linked her body to Alekos. And then he blinked and the feral glitter in his eyes disappeared. Perhaps it had never been there and she had imagined that he’d stared at her as if he wanted to devour her?

  ‘I’m just off now.’ She was amazed that her voice sounded normal when her insides were in turmoil. ‘I’ll finish typing up the report for the shareholders first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘Did you remember that we are attending the annual dinner for the board members on Thursday evening?’

  She nodded. ‘I’ll bring the dress I’m going to wear for the dinner to work and get changed here at the office like I did for the Christmas party.’

  ‘You had better check with the restaurant that they won’t be serving seafood. Orestis Pagnotis is allergic to it and, much as I’d like to have the old man off my back, I’d better not allow him to risk suffering a possibly fatal reaction,’ Alekos said drily.

  ‘I’ve already given the restaurant a list of the dietary requirements of the guests.’ She smiled sympathetically. ‘Is Orestis still being a problem?’

  He shrugged. ‘He’s one of the old school. He joined the board when my grandfather was chairman, and he was a close friend of my father.’ Alekos gave a frustrated sigh. ‘Orestis believes I take too many risks and he has the support of some of the other board members, who fail to understand that the company needs to move with the times rather than remain in the Stone Age. Orestis’s latest gripe is that he thinks the chairman should be married.’

  Alekos muttered something in Greek that Sara guessed was not complimentary about the influential board member. ‘According to Orestis, if I take a wife it will prove that I have left my playboy days behind and I will be more focused on running GE.’

  Her heart dipped. ‘Are you considering getting married?’

  Somehow she managed to inject the right amount of casual interest into her voice. She knew he had ended his affair with a stunning Swedish model called Danika shortly before her holiday, but in the month she had been away it was likely that he had met someone else. Alekos never stayed celibate for long.

  Perhaps he had fallen in love with the woman of his dreams. It was possible that Alekos might ask her to organise his wedding. She would have to pin a smile on her face and hide her heartache while she made arrangements for him and his beautiful bride—she was certain to be beautiful—to spend their honeymoon at an exotic location. Sara pulled her mind away from her unwelcome thoughts when she realised Alekos was speaking.

  ‘I’ll have to marry eventually.’ He sounded unenthusiastic at the prospect. ‘I am the last male Gionakis and my mother and sisters remind me at every opportunity that it is my duty to produce an heir. Obviously I will first have to select a suitable wife.’

  ‘How do you intend to select a suitable wife?’ She could not hide her shock that he had such a cavalier attitude towards marriage. ‘Will you hold interviews and ask the candidates, who are your potential brides, to fill out a detailed questionnaire about themselves?’ She was aware that her voice had risen and Alekos’s amused smile infuriated her further.

  ‘Your suggestion is not a bad idea. Why are you so outraged?’ he said smoothly.

  ‘Because you make marriage sound like a...a cattle market where finding a wife is like choosing a prize heifer to breed from. What about love?’

  ‘What about it?’ He studied her flushed face speculatively. ‘Statistically, somewhere between forty and fifty per cent of marriages end in divorce, and I bet that most of those marriages were so-called love matches. But with such a high failure rate it seems sensible to take emotion out of the equation and base marriage on social and financial compatibility, mutual respect and the pursuit of shared goals such as bringing up a family.’

  Sara shook her head. ‘Your arrogance is unbelievable. You accuse some of GE’s board members of being stuck in the Stone Age, but your views on marriage are Neolithic. Women nowadays don’t sit around twiddling their thumbs and hoping that a rich man will choose them to be his wife.’

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ Alekos murmured drily. ‘When I decide to marry—in another ten years or so—I don’t envisage I’ll have a problem finding a woman who is willing to marry a multimillionaire.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t marry for money,’ Sara said fiercely. Deep inside her she felt an ache of regret that Alekos had trampled on her silly dream that he would one day fall in love with her. Realistically, she knew it would never happen but hearing him state so emphatically that he did not aspire to a marriage built on love forced her to accept that she must get over her embarrassing crush on him
.

  ‘You would prefer to gamble your future happiness on a fickle emotion that poets try to convince us is love? But of course love is simply a sanitized word for lust.’

  ‘If you’re asking me whether I believe in love, then the answer is yes, I do. Why are you so sceptical, Alekos? You once told me that your parents had been happily married for forty-five years before your father died.’

  ‘And therein proves my point. My parents had an arranged marriage which was extremely successful. Love wasn’t necessary, although I believe they grew to be very fond of each other over the course of their marriage.’

  Sara gave up. ‘You’re just a cynic.’

  ‘No, I’m a realist. There is a dark side to love and I have witnessed its destructive power.’

  A memory slid into Alekos’s mind of that fateful day twenty years ago when he’d found Dimitri walking along the beach. His brother’s eyes had been red-rimmed and he’d wept as he’d told Alekos he had discovered that his girlfriend had been unfaithful. It was the last time Alekos had seen Dimitri alive.

  ‘Love is an illusion,’ he told Sara harshly, ‘and you would do well to remember it before you rush to give away your heart to a man you only met a few weeks ago.’

  After Sara had gone, Alekos walked over to the window and a few minutes later he saw her emerge from the GE building and walk along the pavement. Even from a distance he noted the sexy wiggle of her hips when she walked and a shaft of white-hot lust ripped through him.

  He swore. Lusting after his PA was so unexpected and he assured himself that his reaction to Sara’s transformation from dowdy to a very desirable woman was down to sexual frustration. He hadn’t had sex since he’d split from his last mistress almost two months ago.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ Danika had asked him when he’d told her their affair was over. ‘You say you don’t want permanence in a relationship, but what do you want?’

  Right now he wanted a woman under him, Alekos thought, conscious of his erection pressing uncomfortably against the zip of his trousers. A memory flashed into his mind of Sara leaning across his desk with her skirt pulled tight over her bottom. He imagined her without her skirt, her derrière presented for him to slide her panties down so that he could stroke his hands over her naked body. In his fantasy he had already removed her blouse and bra and he stood behind her and slid his arms round her to cup her firm breasts in his hands...

  Theos! Alekos raked his hand through his hair and forced his mind away from his erotic thoughts. Sara was the best PA he’d ever had and he was determined not to damage their excellent working relationship. She was the only woman, apart from his mother and sisters, who he trusted. She was discreet, loyal and she made his life easier in countless ways that he had not fully appreciated until she had taken a month’s holiday.

  If he made her his mistress he would not be able to continue to employ her as his PA. Office affairs did not work, especially after the affair ended—and of course it would end after a few months at most. He had a low boredom threshold and there was no reason to think that his surprising attraction to Sara would last long once he’d taken her to bed.

  Alekos turned his thoughts to the party he was due to attend that evening. Perhaps he would meet a woman who would hold his attention for more than an hour. He received many more invitations to social functions than he had the time or the inclination to attend, but he had a particular reason for accepting an invitation to a party being given by a wealthy city banker. Alekos knew that a Texan oil baron would be included on the guest list. Warren McCuskey was looking to buy a superyacht to keep his wife, who was twenty years younger than him, happy, and Alekos was determined to persuade the billionaire Texan to buy a yacht from GE.

  From his vantage point at the window he continued to watch Sara standing in the street below. She seemed to be waiting for someone. A large black saloon car drew up alongside her, the rear door opened and she climbed into the car before it pulled away from the kerb.

  He was intrigued. Why hadn’t Sara’s ‘friend’ got out of the car to greet her? Earlier, she had been oddly secretive about her boyfriend. And what was the real reason for her attractive new look? Alekos couldn’t remember the last time a woman had aroused his curiosity and it was ironic that the woman who had fired his interest had been under his nose for the past two years.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ON THURSDAY EVENING, Alekos checked the gold watch on his wrist and frowned when he saw that he and Sara needed to leave for the board members’ dinner in the next five minutes. Usually when she accompanied him to work functions she was ready in plenty of time. He was annoyed that she had not been waiting for him when he’d walked out of the private bathroom next to his office, where he had showered and changed.

  He wondered what she would wear to the dinner. He remembered that a few months ago it had been a particularly busy time at work and Sara had stayed at the office until late, only dashing off to change for the staff Christmas party ten minutes before it was due to start. She had emerged from the cloakroom wearing what he had supposed was a ball gown, but the long black dress had resembled a shroud and had the effect of draining all the colour from her face.

  He had been tempted to order her to go and buy something more cheerful. The shop windows were full of mannequins displaying party dresses for the festive season. But then he’d remembered that Sara was grieving for her mother, who had recently died. For once he had studied her closely, and her pinched face and the shadows beneath her eyes had evoked a faint tug of sympathy for his PA, who reminded him of a drab sparrow.

  Alekos turned his thoughts to the present. The board members’ dinner was a prestigious event that called for him to wear a tuxedo, but he refused to be clean shaven. He glanced in the mirror and grimaced as he ran his hand over the trimmed black stubble on his jaw. No doubt his nemesis Orestis Pagnotis would accuse him of looking more like a pirate than the chairman of a billion-pound company.

  Behind him the office door opened and Sara stepped into the room. His jaw dropped as he stared at her reflection in the mirror, and he was thankful he had his back to her so that she couldn’t see the betraying bulge of his erection beneath his trousers.

  The drab sparrow had metamorphosed into a peacock. Somewhere in Alekos’s stunned brain he registered that the description was all the more apt because her dress was peacock-blue silk and the long skirt gave an iridescent shimmer when she walked. The top of the dress was high-necked and sleeveless, leaving her shoulders bare. A sparkling diamanté belt showed off her slender waist.

  From the front, the dress was elegant and Alekos had no problem with it. But when Sara turned around to check that the espresso machine was switched off, he saw that her dress was backless to the base of her spine. A hot haze of desire made his blood pound through his veins.

  ‘You can’t wear that,’ he rasped, shock and lust strangling his vocal cords. ‘Half the board members are over sixty and I know for a fact that a couple of them have weak hearts. If they see you in that dress they’re likely to suffer a cardiac arrest.’

  She looked genuinely confused. ‘What’s wrong with my dress?’

  ‘Half of it is missing.’

  ‘Well, technically I suppose that’s true. But I don’t suppose the sight of my shoulder blades will evoke wild lust in anyone.’

  Don’t bet on it, Alekos thought grimly. He would not have believed that a woman’s bare back could be so erotic. The expanse of Sara’s skin revealed by the backless dress invited him to trace his fingertips down her spine and then spread his hand over her tempting nakedness.

  Theos, what he actually wanted to do was stride over to her, sweep her into his arms and ravish her thoroughly and to their mutual satisfaction on top of his desk. That particular fantasy had been a common theme for the past four days, which had frankly been torturous. Sara had turned up for work each morning wearing outfits that had sent his blood pressure soaring. Her stylish skirts and blouses had hugged her curvy figure without
being too revealing, and somehow the hint of her sexy figure beneath her clothes was much more exciting than if she had worn a miniskirt and boob tube.

  He checked the time again and realised they would have to leave immediately or risk being late for the dinner. ‘God knows what the board members will make of you dressed like a glamour model in a men-only magazine,’ he growled as he held the door open and then followed Sara into the corridor. ‘You know how conservative some of them are.’ He shoved his hands into his pockets out of harm’s way, but he could not control the hard thud of his heart, or the hard throb of another part of his anatomy, he acknowledged derisively.

  ‘Nonsense, they’ll think I’m wearing a perfectly nice dress,’ she said serenely. ‘The board members like me. They know I work hard and I would never do anything that might harm the company’s image.’

  Alekos had to admit she was right. Even his main critic Orestis Pagnotis approved of Sara and had remarked to Alekos that he should consider marrying someone as sensible and down-to-earth as his PA.

  The trouble was that Sara no longer looked like his sensible PA. She looked gorgeous and unbelievably sexy, and while Alekos certainly had no thoughts of marrying her he couldn’t deny that he wanted her—badly. He was not used to denying himself. But the rules he had made about not getting personally involved with any member of his staff meant that she was forbidden. To a born rebel like himself the word forbidden acted like a red rag to a bull. It was a fact of life that you wanted most what you couldn’t have, Alekos brooded when they were in the car on the way to the dinner. It was also true that rules were made to be broken.

  The restaurant was at a five-star hotel on Park Lane and a private dining room had been booked for the board members’ dinner.

  ‘Alekos!’ A high-pitched voice assaulted Alekos’s ears as he walked into the private function suite, and he swore silently when a young woman ran over to him and greeted him enthusiastically by kissing him on both his cheeks.