CHAPTER ONE
RHIANNA was stepping out on to the zebra crossing. It was pouring with rain, the wind battering the rain hood on Nicky’s buggy. She’d checked both ways before starting to cross, but as she pushed forward, eyes stinging with rain, her head bowed into the wind, weak and exhausted but with desperate urgency, it came again, the way it always did.
A screech of tyres, an engine roaring, and then a blow so violent it lifted her up and threw her sideways as the black and white painted tarmac slammed up to meet her. And then the sickening thud of her body impacting—and then the darkness. Total darkness.
She jerked as her brain relived, yet again, the moment when the speeding car had run her down on a pedestrian crossing. The jerking caused pain, shooting through her, but following the pain came worse—much worse.
A voice screaming—screaming inside her head. Distraught. Demented.
Nicky! Nicky! Nicky!
Over and over again. Drowning her with terror and fear and horror. Over and over again—
A hand was on her shoulder. Her eyes flew open. One of the nurses was speaking.
‘Your little boy is safe—I’ve told you that. He’s safe. He wasn’t injured.’
Rhianna stared up into the face looking down at her, her eyes pools of anguish. ‘Nicky,’ she whispered again, her voice husky, fearful. ‘Nicky—where are you? Where are you?’
The nurse spoke again, her voice calm and reassuring. ‘He’s being looked after until you get better. Now, you just relax and get some sleep. That’s what you need now. Would you like something to help you sleep?’
Rhianna pressed her lips together and tried to shake her head. But any movement when she was awake was agony. Even breathing was an agony, her infected lungs raw and painful.
‘I can’t sleep—I mustn’t! I’ve got to find Nicky…they’ve got him. They won’t give him back. I know they won’t—I know it, I know it!’
Her voice was rising again, fear gulping in her throat, and she could hardly get the air out of her.
‘Of course you’ll get him back,’ the nurse said bracingly. ‘He’s only been taken into care while you’re here. As soon as you come out they’ll hand him over—’
But terror flared in Rhianna’s eyes.
‘No—she’s taken him. That social worker. She said I couldn’t look after him, that he’d be better off in care.’ Her hand clawed at the nurse’s fingers, eyes distending. ‘I’ve got to get him back. He’s my son!’
‘I’ll get you a sedative,’ the nurse said, and went off. Dread and anguish filled Rhianna. Nicky was gone. Taken into care. Just like the social worker had said he would be.
‘You clearly can’t cope with looking after a child.’ Rhianna heard the condemning tone ringing in her memory. ‘Your son is at risk.’
Oh, God—why? Why? thought Rhianna. Why had the woman had to turn up just then? She’d felt so ill, and it had only been a few days after her father’s funeral. She’d taken a double dose of flu powder and it had knocked her out, so that when the social worker had arrived it had been Nicky—still in his pyjamas, patiently watching toddler TV in the living room, with a bowl of spilt cereal on the floor—who’d opened the door to the woman while his mother lay collapsed in bed, breathing sterterously and all but unconscious…
The woman had taken against her, Rhianna knew, the first time she’d ever come to the rundown council flat to assess whether Rhianna’s plea for home help for her father was valid or not. The woman had told Rhianna bluntly that her father needed hospitalisation until the end came, that a dying man should not be anywhere near a small child, and that if Rhianna insisted on refusing to name her child’s father she had no business expecting the state to pay for his upbringing instead of his father. Nicky should be in nursery and she should go back to work, because that was government policy.
At the end of her tether, Rhianna had lost her temper and yelled at the woman, not registering that she was still holding the vegetable knife she’d been chopping carrots with in the kitchen before the social worker had come in to harangue her. Seeing the knife blade, the woman’s eyes had flared, and she told told Rhianna she was dangerously violent and brandishing a weapon threateningly.
After that everything had gone increasingly downhill. Her father’s life had drawn to its tormented close, and she’d eventually had to call an ambulance to take him to hospital, where a final stroke had brought the end at last. Her exhaustion, her illness, her desperate need to shelter Nicky from what was happening all around him, had laid her lower than she had ever been in the five bleak years since her world had collapsed around her.
And when the social worker had arrived that fateful morning, to find Nicky unsupervised and Rhianna passed out, it had been the final straw.
‘I’m having a Care Order issued,’ the woman had told her grimly. ‘Before any harm comes to him either from your violent tendencies or your complete lack of responsibility.’ She’d dipped her finger in the trace of flu powder on the bedside table and sniffed it suspiciously, glaring down at the barely conscious Rhianna. ‘I’ll take this for analysis, so don’t even bother to try and hide whatever other drugs you’ve been using.’
She’d left the room, and Rhianna had somehow found the strength to get out of bed and stagger after her—only to crash into the doorframe as if she were, indeed, under the influence of drugs instead of being so ill with a chest infection she could hardly breathe.
When the woman had gone, informing her she would be returning shortly with the necessary documentation to remove Nicky, Rhianna, out of her mind with terror, had dragged clothes on and set off for the doctor’s surgery, desperate to get some antibiotics as well as her doctor’s avowal that she was not a drug user and was not violent—anything she could use to fight off the Care Order. But before she’d been able to get to the surgery she’d been knocked down by a speeding car on a pedestrian crossing.
When she’d surfaced back to consciousness it had been to find herself in a hospital ward, her body in agony, her limbs and torso strapped up, a drip in her arm and her lungs on fire.
And Nicky gone.
Nicky—her only reason for living, the only light in the black pall that crushed her, the only joy in her life.
Nicky—she had to get him back! She would die without him. And he—oh, God—she could not bear to think of his distress, his confusion. Taken into care with no familiar face around him, no mother to keep him safe the way she had kept him safe all his little life. Despite all the strain and pressure, the hardship and the relentless, punishing difficulties of nursing her difficult, cantankerous father, despite coping with no money, coping with her father’s depression and his slow decline into both physical and mental incapacity, with no one to help, no one to turn to, and only the bare subsistence of the state to keep them going.
Nicky! The silent, anguished cry came again and again as she drifted in an out of consciousness, reliving over and over the moment when the car had crashed into her and she’d thought it was Nicky who’d been killed…
But he wasn’t dead! Dear God she’d been spared that. He was alive, but gone, and she was terrified that she would never get him back. Never. He’d be put up for adoption, spirited away, locked away…taken from her…
The nurses had tried to help.
‘Is there no one who could look after him for you? Friends, neighbours, relatives?’
Rhianna’s hands had clawed on the bedclothes. ‘No one.’
She had no relatives—not since burying her father. No friends left. All gone. And neighbours—she’d never befriended anyone in the council flats, too caught up in her own overwhelming problems to have time, or any spare energy, to notice anyone else—too horrified, if she faced up to it, that her life had sunk to these sorry straits.
One of the nurses had spoken again. Very carefully.
‘What about your little boy’s father?’
Rhianna’s eyes had hardened automatically, irrevocably.
‘He has no father.’
Tactfully, the nurse had said nothing more, but as she’d bustled off Rhianna’s own words seared in her mind.
He has no father….
An image leapt in her mind like a burning brand.
Burning through her skin, her flesh.
Her memory…
CHAPTER TWO
RHIANNA had been desperate. Filled with a sick, agitated desperation that had made her do what she had done.
But she had had no choice.
Now, somewhere close to the hospital, she could hear the chilling wail of an ambulance siren. It echoed in her memory—the wailing siren of the ambulance, five long years ago, carrying her stricken father to hospital. A heart attack, and it had been her fault—her fault for telling him what she had just heard from Maunder Marine Limited. That they had themselves been acquired, and so their own corporate investment programme would have to go on hold until their new owners, Petrakis International, had given it their approval. That could take months, she’d been warned.
Months during which Davies Yacht Design would have no idea whether or not the life-saving takeover by MML would ever go ahead.
And without that assurance her father’s company would go under—succumb to its debts as its creditors foreclosed. It would be the end of the company—and the end for her father. He lived for his company—lived for designing yachts. A vocation. An obsession. Taking over his whole life, giving it the only meaning it had.
And she, his daughter, would be no comfort to him.
Unless she could save his company.
She had left the intensive care ward, left her father wired up to monitors, the nursing staff looking grave, and gone back to her father’s office.
And picked up the phone.
There had to be a way to get the go-ahead for the takeover by MML. She had been the one to approach them in the first place, convincing the larger company that Davies Yacht Design was a profitable acquisition prospect. Forward order books were full, and the company’s technical reputation was outstanding, but the chronic under-capitalisation and growing debt-interest burden, combined with a major client cancelling his already completed order and another one changing his mind halfway through, had pushed Davies Yacht Design to the brink. Her father’s complete lack of interest in the mundane details of keeping a company financially healthy had meant the banks had lost confidence in him and they wanted an exit. If it wasn’t going to come from a white knight like MML, then they would foreclose.
She had to get MML to go through with the acquisition!
But it had looked as if it was not on their say-so any more. It was Petrakis International who would have to agree to it.
And there was no reason why they should not, Rhianna had thought desperately. Investing in Davies Yacht Design would pay off handsomely—if she could just convince them as she had convinced MML.
But she’d hit a stone wall. It was standard corporate policy, Petrakis International had informed her, to stall all its acquired companies’ major investments until they’d been checked out. She’d gone as high up the company as she could reach, and the answer had always been the same.
So she’d aimed for the top, as a last desperate throw.
Alexis Petrakis—head of Petrakis International.
Fifteen minutes. That would be all she’d need. Fifteen minutes to run through the figures, to show what a shrewd investment it would be for MML to buy Davies Yacht Design.
But his PA had shot down her hopes. Yes, Mr Petrakis was currently in London, but his diary was full, including the evenings, and he was flying back to Greece in three days’ time. Perhaps next month…
But next month would be too late.
There had been only one thin sliver of hope left to Rhianna. The PA had mentioned that on his last evening in the UK Alexis Petrakis would be attending a business dinner at one of the top West End hotels.
It had been her last, last chance…
She closed her eyes, lying in her hospital bed, feeling memory pour over her like a sheet of acid, burning into her skin. Feeling again the claws, like pincers in her stomach, as they had that fateful evening as she’d sat worried sick, at the table in the thronged banqueting hall.
Because it had seemed Alexis Petrakis wasn’t going to show! It had all been in vain. She’d come up to London, forked out a fortune for a ticket to the dinner, splashed out on a new dress and a session at the hairdresser and beauty parlour—all money she could ill afford, given the parlous state of the finances at Davies Yacht Design—all for nothing. She’d even altered the seating plan posted in the cocktail reception area for the dinner, so that she would be sitting next to Alexis Petrakis. But though she’d managed to take her seat without anyone else challenging her—the seat next to her, with Alexis Petrakis’s nameplate—remained empty.
Her heart had sunk, heavy as lead.
If Alexis Petrakis were not there she might as well give up and take the next train home, to return to the hospital waiting room and wait for any sign that they would move her father out of intensive care.
Worry had closed over her.
A waiter had approached their table, deftly placing a starter course in front of each guest. As she’d murmured her desultory thanks another, taller figure, in a black jacket, not white, had suddenly also been standing there momentarily. Then he’d been taking his seat—right beside her.
‘Do please excuse me—I’ve been delayed,’ he apologised briefly to the table, his English fluent but accented. He nodded at several of the guests, acknowledging them by name, and then turned to his right.
‘Alexis Petrakis,’ he said, holding out his hand.
But Rhianna wasn’t capable of responding. She was simply staring.
This couldn’t be Alexis Petrakis. Alexis Petrakis—chairman of an international company—should be middle-aged and corpulent, like three-quarters of the male guests here tonight.
But the man who’d just joined the table was…devastating.
The word thudded in her brain.
He couldn’t be much more than thirty, surely, with a whipcord leanness to him that was accentuated by the superb cut of his tuxedo—just as the dark tan of his face, his sable hair, were accentuated by the brilliant white of his dress shirt.
She gazed helplessly.
The planed contours of his face, the high, strong cheekbones, the straight nose, sharply defined jawline…And his mouth…
Sculpted, mobile, sensual.
She dragged her eyes upwards.
Straight into his.
Dark—obsidian-dark—but flecked very deep within with gold.
And looking at her—looking at her with total, absolute focus.
She felt weak, breathless.
Something flickered in those gold-flecked eyes.
‘And you are…?’
The questioning voice was deep, with an accent that was making her toes curl in their narrow high-heeled shoes. There was faint speculation in the voice. She could hear it, and it quivered through her.
‘Rhianna Davies,’ she breathed helplessly, her eyes still speared by his.
She couldn’t drag them away, just couldn’t.
Numbly she placed her hand into his waiting one.
It was warm, with slight calluses on the pads below the finger joints.
He must work out, she thought, the words floating, dissociated through her.
The pressure of his grip was firm, but as he slid his hand away there seemed to her to be the slightest, the very slightest, reluctance to do so.
Her insides were simply churning like a concrete mixer.
Then one of the other guests at the table addressed a remark to him.
For one last, brief moment his eyes held hers, and then they moved.
Rhianna’s heart seemed to be pounding in her chest, thumping against her ribcage. Her blood seemed to be pulsing more strongly—which was weird, because she felt as weak as a kitten.
Alexis Petrakis. That’s Alexis Petrakis….
She wanted to stare and stare…
Jerkily she forced herself to start eating. Fortunately the conversation at the table was between the other guests, and Alexis Petrakis was still addressing himself to the man who had spoken to him. Rhianna hadn’t the faintest idea what they were talking about. The results of some company she’d never heard of—she caught snatches of words like ‘interims’ and ‘EBITDA’. She ignored them. All she wanted to do—all she was capable of doing—was to go on gazing at Alexis Petrakis.
She had never, never set eyes on anyone so breathtakingly gorgeous.
She had seen her share of handsome men. Gone out with quite a few of them. She was lucky, she knew—very, very lucky—to have been blessed with a blonde beauty that had always drawn male eyes ever since she was an adolescent.
But her mother had kept her close, frightened she might, as she herself had done, fall disastrously for the first wrong man that came by. So for the most part Rhianna had *******ed herself with casual dating, keeping her admirers at bay. And since her mother’s death in a car crash eighteen months ago she’d been in no frame of mind to look for romance.
Then there had been all the trauma of seeking out her estranged father and discovering the disastrous situation at his company to keep her from thinking about men.
So it was totally immaterial that Alexis Petrakis was the most stunning-looking male she’d ever set eyes on. Her only task was to persuade him to give the green light to MML’s takeover. But that wasn’t a subject she could broach in the middle of a formal business dinner. She’d always anticipated that she would have to use the dinner to give her an opportunity to request a private word with him after it was all over, and then go into her pitch.
In which case—she reached for her champagne flute—there couldn’t be any harm in going on gazing at him, could there? While he talked to his business acquaintances…
She took a mouthful of champagne. It tasted warm. It had been poured out too long ago.
‘Allow me—’
Alexis Petrakis had stopped his conversation. He was helping himself to the bottle of white wine left in its chiller by the wine waiter. As he took it out he glanced assessingly at the label, as if to check it was up to standard, and then filled Rhianna’s white wine glass.
‘Th-thank you,’ she managed.
‘My pleasure,’ said Alexis Petrakis.
His long-lashed, gold-flecked eyes swept over her.
And Rhianna felt her stomach plummet all over again.
‘Rhianna Davies,’ the deep, accented voice murmured, as if searching private files inside his head. His eyes were still on her, and suddenly she felt a wash of liquid warmth go through her. With every inch of her consciousness she became aware of herself. Her silver gown, with the softly draped bodice and shoestring straps, her long pale hair flowing down her bare back, the wings of her hair caught with a silver clip at her nape, the silver necklace around her throat and the matching earrings she was wearing.
‘You don’t know me,’ she got out,
‘Not yet,’ he murmured in reply, his eyes doing that weak-making wash over her again.
For a moment time seemed to stop. She just sat there, with this extraordinarily magnetic man looking at her, and let herself be looked over.
While she looked back.
Deep, deep into his eyes.
Something flowed inside her. Something so powerful and overwhelming that her breath was ripped from her.
The rest of the meal was a blur. She must have made polite, general conversation, picked at her food, drunk her wine, but she couldn’t remember a thing. The only thing she was aware of was the man sitting next to her. He talked to her sometimes, as the conversation meandered, but whenever he did she found herself almost completely tongue-tied.
The meal seemed to take for ever—and yet no time at all.
But as the after-dinner speaker finally stepped down, signalling the end of the formal proceedings, and conversation struck up again across the banqueting hall, Rhianna felt the pincers go to work in her stomach again. And this time it was because she knew that Alexis was the man—the only man—who could save her father’s company.
And it was up to her to get him to do it.
Tonight.
Their table was breaking up. People were getting to their feet, taking their leave, either to leave the dinner completely or to mingle with guests at other tables. She mustn’t let Alexis Petrakis leave! She had to keep him there. She had to do something. But how? She couldn’t just blurt out Please let MML buy my father’s company!
Then, just as she felt sick apprehension pool in her stomach, he spoke.
‘May I offer you some port?’
Her head turned. Alexis Petrakis was reaching out to the port decanter. She watched him fill both their glasses.
She picked up her glass and sipped. The warm, rich liquid was like velvet in her throat.
Alexis Petrakis leant back in his chair. The gesture made the fine material of his dress shirt tauten across his chest, broadening his shoulders.
He had beautiful hands, she found herself thinking. Nails white against the olive tan of his skin. Long fingers.
She gave a hesitant smile. Her nerves were jittering. Any minute now he might glance at his watch, and murmur politely that he must go, or someone from another table might come up and start talking to him, cutting her out…She had to ask him now. And for her father’s sake she had to get this right.
‘Mr Petrakis—’
Her voice sounded high pitched. Where it had come from, she did not know.
She forced herself to go on. She had to.
‘Mr Petrakis, I wonder—I wonder if I might have a word with you?’
Her eyes were wide—very wide.
Something changed about him. She didn’t know what. But there was a sudden, instant edge of tension.
‘In—in private,’ she added.
Her voice was breathy.
For a moment his eyes were veiled, unreadable.
Oh, God, she thought. He’s going to say no…
Then, slowly, he set down his port glass.
‘Of course,’ he replied. His eyes seemed to flicker over her, brushing like a very fine breath. He got to his feet. ‘I’m sure,’ he said, looking down at her, ‘we can find somewhere sufficiently private.’
His voice was smooth, but it was like the smoothness of a sea where deep currents lurked beneath.
Her breath tight in her throat, Rhianna stood up.
He was tall, she realised. Towering over her five foot six. She paused to stoop and pick up her evening bag. Then, with her heart beating like a drum, she let him usher her from the banqueting hall.
As he steered her towards the bank of lifts in the lobby outside Rhianna paused and turned, looking up at the tall, overpowering man behind her. Her stomach was churning again, and she fought to subdue her nerves. Yet at the same time relief was surging through her. She’d done it—she’d got him to agree to listen to her. She had a chance—a last, last chance—to save her father’s company.
Her father—lying in hospital, wires all over him, fighting for life…
‘Mr Petrakis, thank you so much for agreeing to—’
‘This way.’ He cut across her careful speech with a murmur and ushered her inside a lift. Presumably they were going to the foyer, or one of the hotel’s quieter bars.
But when the lift doors opened again they were on the penthouse floor. And the room whose door he opened with a single swipe of his electronic key was a suite.
For a second she hesitated. Then she crushed the feeling down. She needed to speak to Alexis Petrakis, and if he wanted to let her do so in his hotel suite then she was not about to object.
As she stepped inside and gazed around the suite’s opulent reception room her eyes widened. What on earth must a suite like this cost for a night? Thousands of pounds? It must! The thought gave her courage—surely to a man worth as much as Alexis Petrakis buying up a small yacht design business would be peanuts.
She opened her mouth to speak, fumbling with the clasp on her evening bag so she could take out the sheet of paper that gave an at-a-glance summary of the business case she was going to put forward to justify the takeover.
But before she could open her bag she heard a soft ‘pop’ behind her.
She turned.
Alexis Petrakis was pouring champagne, filling up two flutes from the sideboard.
He strolled towards her.
There was something very controlled about the way he was walking towards her. It made her think, just for a second, of a wildlife film, with a leopard approaching the camera. It got closer, and closer—and then the shot cut out, as the cameraman retreated.
But she had no line of retreat.
She shook her head minutely. What was she thinking of? She didn’t need a line of retreat. She just needed fifteen minutes of Alexis Petrakis’s time.
She certainly didn’t want champagne. But it seemed rude to reject it now that he’d opened a bottle specially—she tried not to think how much the hotel charged for champagne in the penthouse suite—so she took the proffered glass.
‘Please—you shouldn’t have—’
She sounded silly and immature. It was going to feel odd, she knew, putting forward a business case with a glass of champagne in her hand and wearing an evening dress, but she hadn’t any choice. Besides, either the figures would convince Alexis Petrakis or they wouldn’t. What she was wearing or drinking was irrelevant.
He was lifting his own glass.
‘Stin iya sas!’
She looked blank.
‘It is the *****alent of your “Cheers”,’ he said.
She gave a hesitant smile.
‘I—I don’t speak any Greek. I’ve never been to Greece.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘You have never been to Greece?’
‘No.’
Her mother had not liked foreign travel. She’d liked to live in her little house in a small town in Oxfordshire, not going far. Nor had she liked the sea. She should never, Rhianna knew, have married a man whose obsession was designing ocean-going yachts. No wonder their marriage had broken up soon after she was born—even though her mother had always blamed her father for walking out on them.
‘You should. It is one of the most beautiful countries on earth.’ He strolled towards the sofa. ‘Won’t you sit down?’
Hesitantly she took a seat at one end, her narrow dress susurrating as she did so, depositing her handbag with its precious financial summary in it on the coffee table in front of the sofa. Alexis Petrakis set the champagne bottle on the coffee table and lowered his tall frame down on to the far end of the sofa. He rested the hand holding his champagne glass on the arm of the sofa; his other arm stretched out along the back of the cushions.
Disconcertingly close to Rhianna.
But then everything about Alexis Petrakis was disconcerting.
Disturbing to her peace of mind, making strange sensations ripple through her, making her body hyperaware of itself—of him.
Distracting to her concentration—which she needed to focus on how to put the business case for MML’s takeover as persuasively as possible.
She didn’t need to continually be stopping herself from just wanting to gaze and gaze at him…
Why couldn’t he be fat and fifty?
She let her eyes flicker to him and promptly she wished she hadn’t. Oh, God, he was just so fantastic-looking—she felt her heart begin to thump in her chest again. She took a draught from her champagne glass, trying to steady herself.
She took a deep breath.
‘Mr Petrakis—’ she began.
Again, her voice had come out breathy. She hated it. She needed to sound cool and composed and businesslike.
‘Alexis…’
His voice was smooth. She didn’t know what to answer. She didn’t feel comfortable with addressing the head of a massive European business empire by his first name. And the low, accented pitch of his voice made a soft quiver go down her back…
Stop it! Just start telling him what you came here to tell him!
But he had started talking again.
‘You really should go to Greece. There are many private places tourists hardly visit—if ever. This time of year, early spring, is especially lovely. The countryside is vivid with wildflowers before the heat of summer arrives. You would find it very beautiful.’
His voice was bland, but his eyes—Rhianna felt her throat tighten—were watching her with an expression that was anything but.
Nerves started to jitter inside her. She took another mouthful of champagne to steady them. The bubbles beaded in her mouth and she swallowed hastily. She could feel the alcohol giving her a jolt. Uneasily, she wondered how much she’d drunk that evening. She’d been careful, knowing how much was at stake, but even small amounts could add up.
And have an impact. Make her feel ultra-sensitive to things—ultra-aware. Make her misinterpret things.
Things like the way Alexis Petrakis was looking at her through dark, veiled eyes, relaxing back against the sofa cushions, casually lifting his champagne glass to his mouth…his mobile, sculpted mouth.
His sensual mouth…
For a moment she felt her gaze hang, unable to pull it away.
He did have the most incredible, sensual mouth…
With sheer effort of will she pulled her gaze away. Her mouth felt dry, despite the champagne she’d just drunk. She pressed her lips together, as if to moisten them.
His eyes narrowed. She saw it happen. Hardly at all, but discernible.
Hastily, she took yet another mouthful of champagne. It fizzed as she swallowed, and again she felt the alcohol kick through her. She took another breath, feeling her breasts lift as she did so.
‘Mr Petrakis—’
Again that low-pitched, accented voice interrupted her.
‘Alexis,’ he corrected.
She pressed her lips again.
‘Alexis.’ She forced herself to say his name. It came out like a soft breath.
‘Rhianna,’ he replied.
The way he said her name was much more evocative than any way she’d ever heard it pronounced before. He took a mouthful of his own champagne. ‘Rhianna,’ he mused. ‘It’s not an English name I know.’
‘It’s—it’s Welsh,’ she said.
‘How do you spell it?’
‘R-h-i-a-n-n-a,’ she spelt out.
He frowned. ‘There seems to be a Greek “rho” in there.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Rhianna, knowing she sounded stupid, but not knowing what else to say.
She didn’t want to sit here discussing her name. Not when Alexis Petrakis was leaning back, champagne glass trailing from one hand, the other dangerously near her bare shoulder along the back of the sofa, one long leg crossed over his knee, looking supremely relaxed…
Or was he? She studied him covertly a moment.
He looked relaxed, but there was something about the way he was holding his body that made her think he was not. Not relaxed at all. As though a fine thread of tension were running through him.
Keeping him on a leash.
She felt her own body tense. Looking at him was a mistake. Every time she’d looked at him over dinner she’d felt that devastating weakness go through her, that tightness in her breath, that quickening of her heart-rate.
And she mustn’t feel that. She just mustn’t.
Suddenly she felt as if the walls of the room had moved in closer, crushing out some of the oxygen in the air. It was very quiet—the luxurious opulence had a deadening effect on sound, and the double-glazed windows let in no sound from the busy street far, far below.
With a tight intake of breath she made a third attempt to broach the subject she had to open.
‘Mr—um—Alexis—’ She stumbled over his name, still finding it hard to address him by his given name and not the more formal and honorific surname.
‘Rhianna…’ he echoed again. And again that was that slight quirk of his mouth, as though he found amusement in what she had just said.
He rested his eyes on her. Night dark, flecked with gold. If she looked long enough she could see the flecks quite clearly…
‘Um—I just wanted to—to…’
Her voice was breathy again, and she hated it, but she couldn’t make it sound crisp and businesslike. She was too wound up, too tense.
‘Yes?’ There was polite enquiry in his voice, and his expression was bland. But that thread of speculation was still there.
As if he’s playing with me.
A prickle went down her spine.
She took another mouthful of champagne. It definitely helped, she thought.
‘Tilt your glass.’
She blinked. He’d reached forward to pick up the champagne bottle on the table. Docilely, she found herself tilting her glass.
You don’t need any more champagne!
Abruptly, she pulled her glass back. For the briefest second the golden effervescing liquid splashed on to her lap, before he straightened the bottle with a Greek expletive. The icy liquid soaked instantly through the fine material of her dress and made her cry out, and jolt, and then the frothing champagne was spilling out of her foaming glass, all down the bodice of her dress, just as icy.
She gave another cry.
‘Oh, no!’ she cried, appalled, jumping to her feet, gazing horrified at the soaked material. Champagne stained, she was sure of it—and, worse than that, the wet material was clinging tightly to her braless breasts, outlining them completely. Added to that, the cold of the liquid had had a predictable effect on her nipples, which were suddenly standing out like pebbles.
Mortified, she spread her free hand as concealingly as she could over her bodice, wanting the earth to swallow her. Abruptly, Alexis Petrakis—who was, she realised gratefully, taking the incident very calmly—removed the all-but-empty glass from her fingers.
‘Perhaps you would like to go and change?’ he suggested.
Rhianna’s eyes flew to him. Was he being sarcastic or something? But she was in no position to care. And she realised he must just be trying to be as tactful as possible in a mortifyingly embarrassing situation.
He set down the champagne bottle and both flutes, and got to his feet.
‘Let me show you where the bathroom is.’
‘Thank you—I’m so—so sorry!’ she gasped, her voice sounding breathy again, her eyes wide with embarrassment.
‘Not at all,’ was all he said, in a smooth, accented voice, as he tugged the light cord to illuminate the interior.
She dived inside and shut the door as quickly as she could. Her eyes flew to her reflection in the mirror over the huge basin, and she dropped her arms.
She had to get the champagne out fast, or it would stain. The dress had cost a fortune—she’d known she had to look as if she were an habitué of posh London business dinners—and she was loath to ruin it the first time she wore it.
Setting her teeth, she reached behind her and slid the zip hdown. It was soaked anyway—water wouldn’t make it any wetter. She stepped out of the dress and caught her reflection in the mirror over the basin.
Her half-naked body looked…different.
Her breasts, still peaked by the effect of the cold champagne, were fuller, rounder. Her waist, accentuated by her suspender belt and skimpy briefs, seemed slimmer. Her legs, in their sheer stockings, more slender. Her hair, cascading down her completely naked back, much longer.
As for her face…
Smoky eyes looked back at her, deep set, with long dark lashes, her mouth, lipstick stained into her slightly parted lips, seemed lusher somehow.
She stared at herself
She looked…erotic.
The word stole into her mind, shocking her. She tried to push it away, but it was no use. She went on staring.
Everything, she realised slowly, was very slightly blurred, very slightly softened around the edges. She felt a creaming in her veins.
It made her feel…different.
And very, very aware of her body—her half-naked, erotic body—revealed in the mirror. And as she stared at herself she started to feel a tremor, deep inside her, as if something were stirring, had just awoken.
She pulled back. No, this was not on. Totally, totally not on.
Hastily she returned her attention to her wet dress. As she did so her eyes caught sight of the bathroom’s courtesy hairdryer, tucked into its socket beside the basin. With relief, she seized it, spread out her dress over her free hand as much as possible, and turned the hairdryer on to it.
The thin material dried blessedly quickly, and without a stain. As she slipped the dress back on again it felt warm to her skin. She did up the zip, she checked her reflection again.
The heat from the hairdryer had brought a soft flush to her cheeks, a warmth to her exposed arms and shoulders. Her long hair had been lightly winnowed, lifted in silken strands. Again she felt that deep tremor stir within her, that creaming in her veins, that languor stealing through her.
What’s happening to me?
She felt strange…dissociated. As if she were moving through a dream.
Slowly, she walked out of the bathroom.
And stopped dead.
Alexis Petrakis was in the bedroom.
He had discarded his tuxedo jacket, his dress tie was unfastened, as was the top button of his shirt, and he was slipping the gold links from his cuffs.
As she stepped out of the bathroom he looked up and across at her.
His eyes flicked over her gown. An expression of slight, mocking surprise lit in his eyes.
‘Unnecessary. But…’ he started to stroll towards her ‘…it has its compensations.’
It was the leopard again. Heading towards her.
But its leash had been slipped.
She couldn’t move. Could only stand, totally frozen, her heart starting to hammer in great, pounding thuds that sent the blood rushing in her veins through all her body.
It was his eyes. She could see it in his eyes. See the gold flecks deep within. See the intent in them. The very, very clear intent.
Her lips parted, taking in breath. Instantly she could see his eyes narrow, that edge of tension tauten through him.
She had to move—but she was frozen. Completely frozen.
Waiting.
Helpless.
He stopped in front of her. She could feel his presence, invading hers. Catch the male musk coming from him, overlaid by the spiced notes of expensive aftershave.
He was looking down at her, out of those obsidian night-dark eyes, and she couldn’t move—couldn’t move. Could only gaze, helpless, up at him.
And drink him in. Drink in the sable hair, the lean planes of his face, the strong, straight cut of his nose, the faint masculine shadow along his jaw, roughening his smooth, tanned skin.
Oh, God, she thought. He is just so, so beautiful…
Her hand half lifted. She wanted to reach up, to cup her fingers along his jaw, feel the roughness of his skin, smooth her finger along the high arch of his cheekbones, reach with her mouth to his, feel the touch of it on hers. To slide her fingers into that silky sable hair and draw him to her, parting her lips…
She tried to stop herself.
But she couldn’t. Had no power over herself any more. She felt her body sway—sway towards him. She felt her hand lift, reach up…
He caught it. A swift, sudden movement that stilled her. His fingers closed around her wrist, pulling her towards him with slow, inexorable strength.
She gazed up at him, drowning.
His pupils were like pinpricks, flared with gold.
‘Indulge me,’ he said softly.
Her pupils dilated. She could not help it. Did not know it. Could only stand there, lips parted, wrist caught, her body swaying towards his.
‘Indulge me,’ he said again, more softly.
And then, with his other hand, he slowly, very slowly, slid one long finger underneath the thin strap over her shoulder and gradually, little by little, drew it down over her arm until he had peeled bare her breast.
‘Ah, yes,’ he said, his voice soft and low.
He let go her wrist and lifted his hand to the other strap. Drawing it down her shoulder, slowly peeling down the bodice of her dress.
She couldn’t move. Not a muscle.
Could only stand while Alexis Petrakis bared her breasts.
For his delectation.
For one long, endless moment he just stood there, looking at her.
‘You really are,’ he said, in that same soft, low voice, ‘exquisite.’
Beneath his gaze she felt her breasts prickle, felt them engorge, her nipples harden, tighten.
Felt the tremor deep within her quicken.
She felt her body sway again.
A small sound came from her throat. She did not know what it was. It was inchoate, unconscious.
But reality had stopped. Stopped the moment she had stepped out of the bathroom and set eyes on Alexis Petrakis, stood still while he advanced on her. With one purpose, one purpose only, in his tread.
He smiled now. His mouth curving.
‘Yes,’ he said, his lashes sweeping down over his dark, obsidian eyes. ‘I know.’
He reached a hand to lightly, oh-so-lightly, stroke her hair. She felt a soft, trembling shiver go through her at his touch. The unformed sound came from her throat again.
Her breasts—swollen, taut—had begun to ache. A low, slow throbbing was resonating through her body. Her pupils distended, her body swaying forward yet again.
She wanted…She wanted…
His hand tightened in her hair, cupping her head.
She gazed at him, eyes huge, quite, quite helpless.
Something flared in his eyes—something that was instantly, ruthlessly leashed.
She went to his bed without a word, without a murmur. Only soft, aching moans that he could stop with his mouth. But when his mouth left hers to shape her breasts, to close over her straining, aching nipples, they came again. They came as he trailed his lips along the taut contours of her belly, as his palms smoothed her loosening thighs. And when his teeth grazed at the tender lobes of her ears, bit softly, so softly, at her swollen lip, the low, aching moans deep in her throat came again.
Reality fled. It was somewhere else. Another universe. A universe where pain and problems were, where worry and anxiety bit deep into the bones, where dread and fear pressed from all directions.
But here—here there was only bliss. Bliss such as she had never known, had never known existed.
How could the human body feel so much? How could the sense of touch be so exquisite? So all-consuming.
And how could she want more of it? And more, and more, and more?
Until her body was a single living flame, a flame that was burning, burning ever fiercer.
His body pressed her down. She felt its strength, its power. Her hands revelled in the taut, sculpted muscles of his back, his shoulders. Her thighs strained against the sinewed cords of his. Against her belly she felt the long, hard shaft of his manhood.
A hunger started to grow in her. She writhed against him. His tongue was laving the swollen, aching peak of her nipple, sending flames shooting through her breast, making her fingers claw over his shoulders. From her throat tore the soft, aching moans she could not suppress.
She writhed against him again, the hunger mounting and mounting.
He smiled against her breast, lifted his head.
His dark eyes, flared with gold, looked down at her.
She felt the quickening pressure of his probing manhood.
Hunger bit through her again, fierce, unsated.
She twisted instinctively against him, feeling the pressure surge.
She wanted…
She gazed up at him, helpless, wanting.
‘Yes,’ he said softly. ‘I know.’
The moan came from her throat again. Her eyes dilated, distended.
Pleading for what she wanted…
His features tensed, as if he were suddenly exerting a huge, overpowering control. Then, with slow, deliberate descent, he entered her.
Rhianna stirred. Her body felt heavy, languorous. She didn’t want to wake. She wanted to stay within the dream she was having, enfolded within the circle of strong arms, clasped tight against the warm, hard body of the man cradling her in his sleeping embrace.
An embrace that had come only after an ecstasy so intense she had cried out, lips parting, throat arching, while her body writhed like a living, burning flame of bliss, on and on and on, until her whole being was one molten sheet of unbearable, exquisite sensation.
Only then, as the burning brand that was her body cooled to nothing more than a softly pulsing warmth, had he rolled back against the pillows in a fluid, exhausted movement, pulling her against him, folding her against his body. He had murmured something to her—she knew not what. Soft, sibilant words that were a breath in her ear. His hand had splayed possessively across her abdomen, his mouth warm against her shoulder.
She had felt weak with wonder, glowing with the last embers of the fire that had consumed her, warm and safe and sated.
She had slept a deep, deep sleep in the circle of his arms, her dreams capturing this moment of perfect happiness.
But now brightness was pressing on her lids, bringing her to reluctant wakefulness. She blinked open her eyes.
He was leaning over her. His eyes were heavy with desire. Deep within, they stirred her, warming the blood in her veins. Slowly he bent down to softly kiss her, his lips warm and tender.
‘Good morning,’ he said, his voice low, husky. ‘I should ask you whether you slept well, but I happen to know…’ long lashes swept over dark eyes ‘…that you slept very little last night.’
His gaze washed over her as she lay back against the pillows, her hair tumbled, her lips beestung from the night’s long, long passion.
‘You are even lovelier than you were last night.’ The husk was thicker, and long lashes swept over his eyes again. ‘I only wish…’ His voice trailed off.
She gazed up at him, breathless, as he stood up.
He looked—breathtaking. He was freshly shaved, his hair very slightly damp from showering—and he was fully dressed in a business suit.
She felt a coldness start around her heart, a pooling of dismay nascent in her stomach.
He was looking at his watch, shooting back his cuff. He spoke again, but now his words were clipped, his voice terse.
‘Unfortunately I have a business meeting this morning which I cannot avoid. So, much as I regret, I will have to leave you now.’
She heard the words, but for one dissociated moment she did not understand what they meant.
Then their meaning hit her with a sickening blow.
Oh, God, he was going—walking out.
She’d been taken for a one-night stand.
That was all it had been.
A convenient, handy, fast-food snack to stave off night starvation. He’d eyed her up, made his move on her, had sex with her, taken his fill, slept it off—and now he was going.
She felt sick. Reeling. And then, out of nowhere, another shockwave hit.
MML.
Horror galvanised her. Oh, God. This wasn’t just any man she’d gone to bed with within hours of meeting him for the first time, who was now walking out on her in the customary brutal morning-after ritual. This was Alexis Petrakis—the one man in all the world who could stop her father’s company going under…
And instead of getting him to approve the MML takeover, she’d fallen into bed with him—like a ripe, wanton peach.
Sickness drenched through her.
He was speaking again, drawing out a mobile phone from his inside jacket pocket.
‘However, I will be—’
‘No! Please—wait—don’t go yet.’
He stopped speaking in mid-sentence.
‘Rhianna, I—’
‘No! Wait—please wait. There’s something I must—something I wanted—’
She broke off. Oh, God—she had to do this. She would have given a million pounds not to, but she had to!
She pulled herself upright, clutching the sheet to her. Her heart was pounding. But she had to do this. However horrible it was to do it now…
‘Before you go—there was—there was something I wanted to talk to you about!’ She took a hectic breath. ‘MML,’ she said.
She stared at him wide-eyed, still clutching her sheet to her, her hair tumbled around her naked shoulders.
Alexis Petrakis had gone still.
‘Go on.’ His voice was controlled. Very controlled.
She swallowed. Forcing herself to speak. He’d told her to go on—she had to do so.
‘You’ve frozen all its corporate investments. One of them is my father’s company—Davies Yacht Design. I came to the dinner last night to meet you. To persuade you—’
‘Yes?’ The voice cut across her. ‘To persuade me—?’
She stared at him. Something was happening to his face. The expression was draining out of it. Completely. Absolutely.
‘Yes.’ Her voice was breathy, her throat tight with nerves, her eyes distended. ‘To persuade you to—’
Her voice broke off. A chill was starting through her. She could feel her skin contracting, tightening.
‘To persuade you…’ Her voice had husked to a low, breathy whisper. It was all she could manage. Her throat was stretched tight with nerves, with desperation, as she gazed up at him, her eyes wide with urgency. ‘To go ahead with the takeover. It would be good for you—it really would. I promise. I can show you right now…’
Her voice trailed off, leaving unsaid the fact that she had a financial print-out in her handbag next door. There was something about his face that was frightening. Chilling her like ice.
Her heart started to thud as she stared up at Alexis Petrakis’s expressionless face. Slowly he slid the mobile phone back inside his jacket.
‘There is something you should know. You have made a mistake,’ he said. And though his voice was soft, it was a softness that was deathly. ‘A very bad mistake. You see…’ He paused, and the eyes resting on her held, she realised, the same chill that was hollowing through her, were as expressionless as his face. ‘I do not do business in bed. Ever. So, although you were very good—very good indeed—’ his voice was a lacerating drawl, like a razor being drawn over her flesh ‘—you have used me for no purpose. Except, of course—’ and now his eyes washed over her suddenly, and the expression in them made her gorge rise ‘—to demonstrate your…expertise. Exceptional expertise, in fact.’ Long lashes swept down over his eyes, and when they swept back up again the obsidian gaze cut like a scalpel into her.
‘You’re very skilled, Rhianna, but you should have *******ed yourself with a cash payment. I’d have been happy to pay for you. In fact…’ He reached inside his jacket again, but this time he took out a slim leather tooled wallet. He flicked it open. A cluster of fifty-pound notes fluttered on the bed. ‘Keep the change,’ he said softly.
Then he turned and walked to the door.
‘You have ten minutes to vacate this suite. Hotel security will escort you out.’
At the entrance to the reception room he paused. He did not turn.
‘As of now, MML no longer has any interest in Davies Yacht Design.’
His voice was hard. As hard as stone.
He walked out. He didn’t look back.
In the bed, Rhianna started to shake.
09-11-07, 02:51 PM
Harlequins SECRET BABIES BUNDLE
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