Acquired by Her Greek Boss

by Chantelle Shaw

  ‘Thank you, Mike,’ Alekos said to the chauffeur as he climbed out of the car and held out his hand to Sara. After a few seconds’ hesitation she put her fingers in his and stepped onto the pavement. She stiffened when he slid his arm around her waist and escorted her over to the entrance of the art gallery. As Alekos had predicted, the paparazzi took pictures of him and Sara, and she pressed closer to him and put her head down as the flashbulbs went off around them when they walked into the building.

  A doorman stepped forwards to take her coat. It had been raining earlier when the car had collected her from her house and Alekos hadn’t seen what she was wearing beneath her raincoat until now.

  Theos! He tore his eyes from her and glanced around him, thinking he had spoken out loud. But no one was looking at him. He returned his gaze to her and stared. ‘Your dress...’

  ‘Is it all right?’ Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips. The gesture betrayed her nervousness and sent a shaft of white-hot desire through Alekos. ‘Is my dress suitable?’ she said in an undertone. ‘Why are you staring at me?’

  ‘It’s more than suitable. You look incredible.’ He ran his eyes over her bare shoulders, revealed by her emerald silk strapless dress, down to the rounded curves of her breasts that made him think of ripe peaches, firm and delicately flushed, tempting him to taste them. Lowering his gaze still further, he noted how the design of the dress drew attention to her slim waist before the skirt flared over her hips and fell to just above her knees.

  Forcing his eyes back up her body, he noted how her layered hair swirled around her shoulders when she turned her head, and the hot ache in his groin intensified when he imagined her silky hair brushing across his naked chest as he lifted her on top of him and guided her down onto his hard shaft.

  ‘Theos.’ This time he spoke aloud in a rough voice as he curved his hand behind her neck and drew her towards him. He saw her eyes widen until they were huge green pools that pulled him in.

  ‘Alekos,’ she whispered warningly, as if to remind him that they were not alone in the lobby. But she didn’t pull away as he lowered his face towards hers.

  ‘Sara,’ he mocked softly. And then he covered her mouth with his and kissed her, long and slow, and then deep and hard when she parted her lips and kissed him back with a sweet intensity that made his gut twist and made him want to sweep her up in his arms and carry her off to somewhere where they could be alone.

  The low murmur of voices pushed into his consciousness and he reluctantly lifted his head and snatched oxygen into his lungs. Sara looked as stunned as he felt, but he had no intention of admitting that what had just happened was a first for him. He had never kissed a woman in public before. As he stepped away from her he caught sight of Zelda Pagnotis hurrying out of the lobby wearing a sulky expression on her face.

  ‘First objective of the evening completed,’ he told Sara smoothly, keen to hide the effect she had on him. ‘Zelda can’t doubt that we are having an affair. I’ve just spotted Lionel Kingsley and his son and daughter. Are you ready to meet your half-siblings?’

  * * *

  Sara could feel her heart hammering beneath her ribs as she walked with Alekos into the main gallery. She was excited that in a few moments she would meet her half-brother and half-sister for the first time, but she was still reeling from the sizzling kiss she had shared with Alekos.

  While she’d been in his arms she had forgotten where they were, or why he had brought her to the art gallery. But when he had lifted his mouth from hers, she’d seen Zelda Pagnotis walk past them and realised that Alekos had deliberately kissed her in view of the teenager. First objective completed. She recalled his words ruefully. What an idiot she was to have believed that he’d kissed her because he desired her.

  She looked ahead to the group of people Alekos was heading towards and her heart beat harder when she saw her father. Lionel was frowning as he watched her approach and her hesitant smile faltered. She shouldn’t have come. The last thing she wanted to do was alienate her father. Her steps slowed and she felt a strong urge to run out of the gallery, but Alekos slipped his arm around her waist and propelled her forwards.

  A tall woman with purple hair detached from the group and greeted them. ‘Alekos, darling, I’m so glad you were able to come this evening. That was quite an entrance you made,’ she said in an amused voice that made Sara blush. ‘You must be Sara. I’m Jemima Wilding. I’m so pleased to meet you. Alekos, I think you and Lionel Kingsley have met before.’

  ‘We have indeed.’ Lionel shook Alekos’s hand. ‘Your financial support of the Greek art exhibition last year was much appreciated. But actually we met very recently at a party earlier this week.’ He glanced at Alekos’s hand resting on Sara’s waist. ‘You were unaccompanied on that occasion.’

  ‘Yes, unfortunately Sara had another commitment,’ Alekos said smoothly. He tightened his arm around Sara’s waist as if he guessed that her heart was fluttering like a trapped bird in her chest. ‘This is Sara Lovejoy.’

  To Sara, the silence seemed to last for ever and stretched her nerves to the snapping point. But in reality Lionel Kingsley hesitated infinitesimally before he shook her hand. ‘I am delighted to meet you...Miss Lovejoy.’

  ‘Sara,’ she said thickly. Her throat felt constricted and she smiled gratefully at Alekos when he handed her a flute of champagne from a passing waiter.

  Lionel introduced the other people in the group, starting with a stockily built man with a rubicund face. ‘This is my good friend Warren McCuskey, who flew to London from Texas especially so that he could attend the gallery launch and support my son Freddie’s first exhibition.’

  Sara greeted Warren with a polite smile, but her heart was thumping as Freddie Kingsley stretched his hand towards her. She prayed no one would notice her hand was trembling as she held it out to him.

  Her half-brother smiled. ‘Pleased to meet you, Sara.’

  ‘I...’ Emotion clogged her throat as Freddie closed his fingers around hers. His handshake was firm and his skin felt warm beneath her fingertips. Her secret drummed in her brain. Freddie was unaware that the blood running through his veins was partly the same as her blood. She swallowed and tried to speak but the lump in her throat prevented her.

  Alekos moved imperceptibly closer, as if he understood that her emotions were balanced on a knife-edge. There was something comforting about his big-framed, solid presence at her side and, to her relief, she could suddenly breathe again.

  ‘It’s lovely to meet you,’ she told Freddie softly. Her half-brother was taller than she had imagined, his brown hair curled over his collar and his smile was wide and welcoming. She looked into his green eyes and recognised herself.

  He gave her a puzzled look. ‘Have we met before? Your face seems familiar.’

  ‘No, we’ve never met.’ Sara was conscious of her father standing a few feet away and wondered if she was the only person in the group who could sense Lionel’s tension.

  Freddie shrugged. ‘You definitely remind me of someone but I can’t think who. Are you interested in art, Sara?’

  ‘Very. I’d love to see your work.’

  She followed Freddie over to where six of his paintings were displayed against a white wall. Even to her untrained eye she could tell that he was a gifted artist. His use of intense colour and light made his landscapes bold and exciting.

  ‘My brother is very talented, isn’t he?’

  Sara turned her head towards the voice and discovered her half-sister standing next to her.

  ‘I’m Charlotte Kingsley, by the way. I really like your dress.’ Charlotte grinned and murmured, ‘I really like your gorgeous boyfriend too. And he seems very keen on you. Even when he is talking to other people he can’t keep his eyes off you. Have the two of you been together long?’

  ‘Um...not that long.’ Sara experienced the same difficulty speaking that had happened when she’d met Freddie. She felt an instant connection with Charlotte which made her think that maybe they
could become friends. But perhaps her half-siblings would hate her if they learned that she was the result of Lionel Kingsley’s affair with her mother.

  She chatted for a few minutes and then slipped away to a quiet corner of the gallery, needing to be alone with her churning emotions. It was obvious that Charlotte and Freddie were deeply fond of each other. Sara felt a pang of envy as she watched them laughing together. Her childhood had been lonely because her mother hadn’t encouraged her to invite school friends home. She had longed for a brother or sister to be a companion, unaware that growing up in Berkshire had been her half-sister, who was a year older than her, and her half-brother, three years her senior.

  Tears gathered in her eyes and she quickly blinked them away when Lionel walked over to join her. She glanced around the gallery, searching for Alekos. Her instinctive need for his protection was a danger that she would have to deal with later. She saw him chatting with the Texan, Warren McCuskey, and her heart gave a silly skip as she realised that Alekos must have purposely given her and her father a few minutes of privacy.

  ‘Sara, it’s good to see you.’ Lionel’s smile allayed her concern that he was annoyed she had come to the party. ‘I had no idea you were dating Alekos Gionakis. I thought you worked for him?’

  ‘I’m his PA, but recently we...we’ve become close.’ She felt her face grow warm. Lying did not come naturally to her. But she had to admit that Alekos’s idea for her to pretend to be his girlfriend had allowed her to meet her half-siblings, and maybe she had a chance of persuading her father to reveal her identity to Freddie and Charlotte.

  ‘Gionakis is an interesting man. He is knowledgeable of the arts but I’ve heard that he’s a ruthless businessman.’ Lionel lowered his voice so that he couldn’t be overheard by anyone else. ‘Sara, if Joan had told me she was pregnant I would have offered her financial support while you were a child. I regret that you did not grow up in a family.’

  ‘I have a half-brother and half-sister who are my family, and I would love to get to know Charlotte and Freddie if only you would tell them I am your daughter,’ Sara replied in a fierce whisper.

  Her father looked uncomfortable. ‘I will tell them when the time is right. Maybe if they got to know you first it would help when I break the news that I once cheated on their mother.’ He looked round and saw Alekos approaching. ‘Does Gionakis know of our relationship?’

  Sara hesitated. ‘Yes. But I know Alekos won’t say a word to anyone,’ she said hurriedly when Lionel frowned.

  ‘You must love him to trust him so much.’

  Love Alekos! Sara found she could not refute her father’s comment. Her heart gave a familiar lurch as she watched Alekos walk towards her. He looked outrageously sexy, wearing a casual but impeccably tailored light grey suit and a black shirt, unbuttoned at the neck. His thick hair was ruffled as if he’d raked it off his brow several times during the evening, and the dark stubble shading his jaw added to his dangerous magnetism.

  Of course she was in love with him; she finally admitted what she had tried to deny to herself for two years. She loved Alekos, but he’d told her he did not believe in love. Just because you loved someone didn’t mean you could make them love you back. Her mother had discovered the truth of that when she had fallen in love with Lionel Kingsley.

  * * *

  ‘I told you my plan would work.’ Alekos knew he sounded smug but he didn’t care. He’d had a couple of drinks at the gallery launch and, although he was certainly not drunk, he felt relaxed and pleased with how the evening had gone. He leaned his head against the plush leather back seat of the limousine as they sped towards north London. His thoughts were on Warren McCuskey. The Texan billionaire was definitely interested in buying a superyacht and Alekos had used all his persuasive powers to convince him to commission a yacht from GE. He was confident he was close to finalising a deal with McCuskey. He could taste success, smell it.

  He could also smell Sara’s perfume. The blend of citrusy bergamot and sensual white musk, that had tantalised him every day at the office, filled the dark car and his senses. Suddenly he didn’t feel relaxed any more. He felt wired up inside, the way Sara always made him feel lately. He was conscious of the hard thud of his heart and the even harder ache of his arousal that jerked to attention and pushed against the zip of his trousers.

  ‘I don’t think Zelda will continue to be a problem now that she believes you are my mistress,’ he drawled, more to remind himself of the reason why he had spent most of the evening with his arm around Sara’s waist. She’d fitted against his side as if she belonged there. He frowned as he remembered how, every time he’d leaned towards her, he’d inhaled a vanilla scent in her hair that he guessed was the shampoo she used.

  ‘Good. That’s one problem solved at least.’ She sounded distracted.

  Alekos glanced at her sitting beside him. She had put her coat on before they’d left the gallery, but it was undone and he could see the smooth upper slopes of her breasts above the top of her dress. ‘Is there another problem?’ he said abruptly.

  ‘There might be.’ She flicked her head round to look at him and her hair brushed against his shoulder, leaving a trail of vanilla scent. ‘Alekos, we need to talk.’

  Talking to Sara was not uppermost in his mind. But if he told her of his erotic thoughts about her she would probably slap his face. The car pulled up outside her house. ‘Invite me in for coffee and you can tell me what’s troubling you.’

  ‘All right,’ she said after a moment’s hesitation. ‘But I only have instant coffee. Will that do?’

  As Alekos followed her into the house he regretted his suggestion. He detested the insipid brown liquid that the English insisted on calling coffee. But, more pertinently, he couldn’t understand why he had suggested to Sara that she could confide in him what he assumed was a problem with her private life. He was about to tell her not to worry about the coffee but she showed him into the sitting room, saying, ‘I’ll go and put the kettle on.’

  It was difficult to imagine a room more characterless than the one he was standing in. The neutral décor was joyless, as if whoever had chosen the beige furnishings had found no pleasure in life. It was a strangely oppressive room and Alekos retreated and walked down the bungalow’s narrow hallway to the kitchen.

  Sara had taken off her coat and she looked like a gaudy butterfly in her bright dress against the backdrop of sterile worktops and cupboards. She had also slipped off her shoes and he was struck by how petite she was without her high heels. The sight of her bare feet with her toenails varnished a flirty shade of pink had an odd effect on him and he felt his gut twist with desire. He searched for something to say while he struggled to control his rampant libido.

  ‘How come your bedroom is so colourful, while the rest of the house is...’ he swapped the word drab for ‘...plain?’

  ‘My mother didn’t like bright colours. Now Mum has gone I’ve decided to sell the house. The estate agent advised me not to redecorate because buyers prefer a blank canvas.’ She placed a mug on the counter in front of him. ‘I made your coffee extra strong so it should taste like freshly ground coffee.’

  Alekos thought it was highly unlikely. But remembering Sara’s brightly coloured bedroom brought back memories of his previous visit to her home when he had kissed her and passion had ignited between them. There was barely enough space for the two of them in the tiny kitchen but he didn’t want to suggest they move into the sitting room, which was as welcoming as a morgue. He sipped his coffee and managed not to grimace. ‘What did you want to talk about?’

  ‘Lionel thinks it would be a good idea if I could mix with Charlotte and Freddie socially so they can get to know me before he tells them I am their half-sister. He intends to use his association with you—namely your support of art projects—to invite us both to his villa in Antibes, where he’s planning to celebrate his birthday.’ Sara tugged on her bottom lip with her small white teeth, sending Alekos quietly to distraction as he imagined cove
ring her lush mouth with his.

  ‘Go on,’ he muttered.

  ‘I couldn’t tell my father that I had pretended to be your girlfriend tonight so I could meet my half-siblings. Lionel believes we are genuinely in a relationship and we would have to continue the pretence if you accept his invitation.’

  ‘Who else has your father invited to his villa?’

  ‘Charlotte and Freddie and my father’s close friend Warren McCuskey. By the way, thanks for chatting to Warren at the gallery while I spoke to my father privately.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’ Alekos ignored the irritating voice of his conscience, which reminded him he was an unprincipled bastard. It was a fact of life that you couldn’t head a multimillion-pound business and have principles. He’d seized his chance to grab McCuskey’s undivided attention while Sara was talking to Lionel. ‘When is your father’s birthday?’

  ‘Next weekend. I’d mentioned that we will be in Monaco for the yacht show and he said that Antibes is only about an hour’s drive away. But I did warn him that we will be busy with the show and might not have time to visit him.’

  ‘Our schedule for the three days of the show is hectic. But how about if I arranged a birthday lunch for your father and his guests aboard Artemis for next Sunday? That way we can catch up on paperwork in the morning, and you’ll be able to spend time with Lionel and your brother and sister in the afternoon.’ It would also be an ideal opportunity to give Warren McCuskey a demonstration of GE’s flagship superyacht, but Alekos kept that to himself.

  ‘Would you really be prepared to do that on my behalf?’ Her smile stole his breath and he shrugged off the niggling voice of his conscience. Sara caught her lower lip between her teeth again. ‘But will you mind having to keep up the pretence that I am your girlfriend?’

  Alekos dropped his gaze from her mouth to the delectable creamy curves of her breasts cupped in her silk dress, and he was surprised that the thud of his heart wasn’t audible. ‘I think I can put up with pretending that we are lovers,’ he drawled.