by Kim Lawrence
It was a risk Zach was not prepared to take.
He acted on instinct; the question was, what instincts?
He moved with speed that bewildered Kat, certainly gave her no opportunity to react as he dragged her with casual ease into his body.
There were no shallows in the kiss. It was hard, deep and possessive. Above the paralyzing shock, on one level she registered the taste of his mouth, the skill of his lips, the hardness of the body so close to her own, but those factors were drowned out by the level that was all shuddering pleasure and heat.
It ended as abruptly as it had begun.
Rocking back on her heels like a sapling in a storm, Kat opened her mouth and no words came. There was a disconnect between her brain and her vocal chords.
‘Let’s take the “how dare you?” outrage as read,’ he drawled, sounding bored and smoothing back his dark hair with a hand that might have held the slightest of tremors as his head turned towards the shouts of protest being issued by the paparazzo as he was escorted away.
Kat followed the line of Zach’s gaze, comprehension dawning. The colour rushed to her pale cheeks. It wasn’t as if you thought he’d been overcome by lust for your body, Kat.
‘A shot of me kissing a woman is not worth much.’
‘The market being saturated.’
‘Whereas the face of a mystery woman fighting me off would be, and that guy may be scum, but he’s not stupid,’ Zach conceded. ‘He has a nose for a story and there were some shots of me leaving the hospital after visiting Alekis. If he had made the link...’
Kat barely heard anything he said after his initial comment. ‘I wasn’t fighting you!’
‘Never allow the truth to get in the way of a good headline,’ he told her with a cynical smile. ‘It’s all about perception, trust me, and don’t worry, the boyfriend didn’t see.’
‘He’s not my boyfriend, and even if he was that would be none of your business.’
He clicked his long brown fingers. ‘In that case, no problem.’
Actually there was, and it was a problem of his own making. His strategy had been effective but it came with a price tag.
His gaze sank to her lush lips.
The price was the frustration of starting something he couldn’t finish, and finishing was obviously a non-starter. It would be a massive betrayal of the trust Alekis had put in him.
His expression concealed by hooded eyelids, he watched as she angrily tapped one foot clad in a spiky little ankle boot. There was an element of compulsion in the slow sweep of his eyes as they travelled up the long smooth curve of her calves covered in dark tights. Not being able to see the outline of her thighs through the kicky little woollen skirt she wore somehow made it more sexy. Imagination was a powerful aphrodisiac.
‘Plenty of problems,’ she rebutted grimly.
Zach found himself agreeing.
‘I do not appreciate being mauled by you whatever the reason.’
‘You have a novel way of showing your lack of appreciation.’ The memory of how soft and yielding she had felt, how well her curves had fitted into his angles, created a fresh crackle of heat that settled in his groin.
If she had needed a warning that he was dangerous, the slow, predatory half-smile that left his eyes cold would have provided it.
The gesture was casual, his hand did not even make contact with the skin of her cheek, but it was close enough for her to feel the warmth. She swayed away from it but, warning or not, she had no facility to prevent the image that surfaced in her head. It was a very specific image, sensory in its strength, long brown fingers moving over pale... She escaped the images in her head before she fell over, her breath leaving her parted lips in a raspy gush.
Well, that couldn’t be good, could it?
Shame rushed through her as she lifted her chin. There was no way she was going to add herself to the long list of women who had made fools of themselves over Zach Gavros. For starters, she had too much self-respect, and secondly, a much too strongly developed sense of self-preservation.
History would not be repeating itself. That was not an option, she told herself, as an image of the sad, overgrown grave flashed into her head. It was an image that represented a life wasted. She was not her mother; her hormones were not in charge. If that meant staying a tight, buttoned-up, but safe virgin, it was a price she was happy to pay.
Kat might not know a lot about heart-racing excitement, but she did know she didn’t need it and this man was the living embodiment of heart-racing.
His hand dropped; useless to deny this situation was eating into his reserves of self-control. It was going to get very tiring if he had to remind himself every five minutes that she was Alekis’s granddaughter, and as such totally off-limits—a matter not just of respect but practicality.
He needed a distraction, not to mention a release for all the sexual frustration that was clawing low and painfully in his belly, threatening the legendary cool he had long taken for granted. And he knew just the distraction. Andrea Latkis, a very talented and ambitious lawyer on Alekis’s Athens-based legal team. Not coy, she had made her desire to sleep with him clear. It was an invitation that he had always intended to accept, but they both had busy lives and their calendars had never been in sync.
It would never have occurred to Andrea to make adjustments to her calendar. He liked that about her, because neither would he, but then maybe drastic situations, or at least uncomfortable ones, required him to make some concessions.
Having come to this conclusion, he was able to experience the rush of heat he endured when Kat removed a glossy strand of hair from her plump lips with something that approached acceptance.
His problem was not Alekis’s granddaughter, it was the fact that he had not scheduled a sexual outlet into his life for too long—hence this reaction to having a beautiful woman forcibly thrown into his orbit.
He could relax, though not too much, he cautioned, remembering how he had felt as she’d smiled at the boyfriend. At least there was one interpretation of that moment he could delete—he did not do jealousy.
‘Your grandfather is looking forward to meeting you.’
Like ice cream in a heatwave, the antagonism and defiance in her face melted, leaving wide-eyed deer-in-the-headlights fear. He ignored the tightening in his chest that was perilously close to sympathy and looked around.
‘Where’s the rest of your luggage?’
‘I just brought the essentials.’
‘For an overnight trip? No matter, we can take your wardrobe in hand when we arrive, and I can arrange to have your belongings shipped over.’
She adopted a calm, no-compromise attitude as she explained, ‘No. I intend to keep my London flat on.’
‘Alekis has several properties in London. Your things can be moved into whichever you prefer.’
Clearly he had trouble recognising no compromise. ‘I prefer my own place, and what do you mean by take my wardrobe in hand?’ She stopped. She was talking to empty space. Zach had turned and was striding off, his elegant long-legged figure drawing glances to which he seemed utterly oblivious.
She had to trot to catch up with him. ‘In hand?’ she echoed in a dangerous voice before tacking on breathlessly, ‘Will you slow down? We’re not all giraffes,’ she told him, thinking that a panther was probably a better animal kingdom analogy. His legs might be long but they were in perfect proportion to the rest of his lean, square-shouldered, narrow-hipped frame.
His mouth quirked as he angled a glance down at her lightly flushed face. ‘Sorry, I’m not used to—’
She paused as a thoughtful expression flickered across his saturnine features.
‘Used to what?’
‘Considering anyone else.’
There was nothing even faintly apologetic about his admission. ‘Never...?’ Was anyone really that selfish? Ka
t struggled with the concept.
‘You sound shocked.’
‘That there are selfish people in the world?’ She shook her head. ‘I’m not that naive. It’s just mostly people try to hide it.’
It wasn’t as if he had never been criticised—he’d actually been called a lot worse than selfish—but this was the first time he had ever experienced an inexplicable impulse to defend himself. It wasn’t as though her approval meant anything to him—it was an impulse that he firmly crushed as he pushed out coldly, ‘There are also virtue-signalling martyrs in the world who, in my experience, rarely try and hide it.’
He heard her sharp intake of breath as she came to an abrupt halt. He took a couple of strides before he stopped and swung back. She was standing there, hands fixed on her hips, her head thrown back as she stared up at him through narrowed amber eyes.
‘Are you calling me a martyr?’ Her eyelids fluttered as her eyes widened with astonished indignation.
He arched a sardonic brow and heard the sound of her even white teeth grating.
‘If you can’t take a little constructive criticism, Katina—’
She recognised he was baiting her but not before a strangled ‘Constructive!’ had escaped her clenched lips; then she managed a smile of jaw-clenching insincerity. ‘Then I suppose I should say thank you, and I promise you that any further constructive comments from you on my behaviour will be treated with the same degree of appreciation that I’m feeling now!’
His low, quite impossibly sexy rumble of appreciation—was it possible for a laugh to make you tingle?—had her tumbling from sarcastic superiority back to tingling sexual awareness.
She looked away quickly, embarrassed and confused by her reaction to a laugh, and took a moment before she trusted herself to look up again. When she did the mockery she had come to expect had faded from his lean face, replaced not by sympathy but something that came close to it.
Zach had not got to where he was without possessing an ability to read feelings, so recognising the fear underlying her tough stance was nothing more than he would have expected. What he didn’t expect was the surge of irrational guilt attached to the surfacing need to offer her some sort of reassurance.
‘I know this must feel frightening, being plunged into an alien environment, but you know, it does us all good to step outside our comfort zone once in a while.’ He stopped, his expression closing as he realised how far outside his own comfort zone he was straying. There was a very good reason he didn’t wander around emoting. In the financial world, empathy had a way of revealing your own weaknesses.
In his private world it had never been an issue. His relationships, if you chose to call them that, were about sex, not establishing an emotional connection.
The unexpected softening of his tone hit Kat in a weak spot she hadn’t even known she had. If he had opened his arms she’d have walked into them wanting...what?
When did I turn into the sort of girl who needed a big strong man to turn to?
She let her breath out in a slow, slow hiss, tilted her chin and gave a cool smile. She hadn’t turned into that girl and she never would.
‘Please don’t insult my intelligence by pretending you care,’ she snapped back, ignoring the voice in her head that said she was using him as a scapegoat.
The weakness might be hers, but he had exposed it.
‘Or do you even know how to spell empathy?’
‘Well, if I need to borrow some, I’ll know where to come.’
‘Meaning?’
‘You really are the original bleeding heart. How many men have figured out the way into your bed is by being weak and needy and...damaged?’ he sneered.
She sucked in an outraged breath through flared nostrils and stalked past him, tossing over her shoulder, ‘You are worse than disgusting!’
The sardonic arrogance stamped on his features faded as she walked across the tarmac, her angry posture as graceful as a ballroom dancer’s, chin up, her long neck extended, narrow shoulder blades drawn back. He might arguably have won the brief war of words, but the triumph felt hollow. Something possibly to do with the fact his body, reacting independently of his brain, was sending painful slug after slug of raw hunger in response to the movement of her slim body.
Theos, but this woman was killing him, or rather the lusting after her was.
He might consider her out of bounds but there were plenty that wouldn’t. His task was getting less enviable with each passing moment.
CHAPTER FIVE
ANY OF THE pleasure Kat might have felt at the sheer novelty value of the travelling style of the rich and famous was ruined for her by the thought of what lay ahead when they landed.
Every time she thought of the man who had left his only daughter to suffer a life a step from the gutter, icy anger rose up in her like a tide. She was not used to such feelings and they made her feel physically sick.
What did he want from her? Forgiveness? A second chance? Kat did not feel she had either in her.
The emotions surging and churning inside her must have shown on her face because at one point during the flight an attendant came and discreetly pointed out the bathroom facilities.
Happy to play along with the assumption she was a poor flyer, Kat vanished in the restroom for a few minutes of solitude she didn’t really want—it left too much time for her dark thoughts.
Trailing her hand under the water and looking at herself in the illuminated mirror, she found it easy to understand the attendant’s assumption she was about to throw up. She looked terrible, the emotional tussle in her head reflected on her face. She felt bad enough to wish for a foolish split second that Zach, who had fallen into conversation with one of the pilots as they’d boarded and vanished with him, was actually there to distract her—and that was pretty bad!
Nothing as dramatic as the kiss, of course. That had definitely been a step too far, she decided, a dreamy expression drifting into her eyes that she had no control over as she trailed her fingers across the outline of her lips, before snatching them away a moment later with a self-conscious grimace as she realised what she was doing.
When she retook her seat, despite her assuring the attendant she was feeling much better, the woman suggested she should alert Mr Gavros to the situation.
Kat hastily assured her that the only situation was her need to catch up on some sleep.
The attendant reluctantly complied, leaving Kat alone with her own thoughts and her rising sense of panic and trepidation for the rest of the flight. Zach didn’t reappear until after they had landed; actually she didn’t see him first, she felt his presence.
Even though she hadn’t looked around she knew the exact moment he had appeared. It made her fumble as she released her seat belt and got to her feet, smoothing down her hair and straightening the row of pearly buttons on the square-necked sweater she wore tucked into the belt that emphasised her narrow waist, then stopped because her hands were shaking. The amount of adrenaline circulating in her bloodstream was having a dizzying effect. A situation not improved when she lifted her chin and was no longer able to delay the moment she looked at him.
He had lost the coat and jacket and was standing there, looking elegant and as relaxed as someone as driven as him could. Also, overpoweringly sexy. She blamed the enclosed space and the slight tingle left on her lips from that kiss.
‘Where... How...?’ She stopped, hating the breathy delivery, and ran a tongue across her dry lips and lifted her chin and husked out, ‘Is he...my...grandfather here?’
The toughness she had adopted was paper thin; something about the way she stood there looking as vulnerable as hell and too proud to show it awoke something in a tiny, previously dead corner of Zach’s heart. He tensed as some nameless emotion clutched at him, making his voice abrupt when he finally responded.
‘He’s waiting in a hotel next door to the
terminal, but don’t worry, it’ll be private.’ Alekis had taken over the penthouse floor to ensure privacy for the meeting, and presumably space for the specialist team on hand with defibrillators.
Zach just hoped this meeting was not going to be memorable for all the wrong reasons.
Her lips tightened. ‘I hope he doesn’t expect me to pretend, because I won’t. I’ll tell him what I think of him.’
Her words jolted loose a memory. He remembered saying as much to himself before he’d walked back into the seedy apartment that for seven years had been what some would laughingly call his home. His nostrils flared now as he remembered the sour stale stench that had hit him as he had opened the door.
He was a realist; he hadn’t anticipated any sort of an apology or even regret, just an acknowledgement of what they had done. It had become obvious very quickly that he wasn’t going to get even that. He’d found his grandmother in her bed, hair matted, unwashed; her eyes had had a vacant look as she’d stared at him without recognition.
Of his uncle there had been no sign. Clearly when free bed and board was not worth the effort of living with a woman with what the doctors had diagnosed as advanced dementia, he had vanished. Later, Zach had discovered he had not got far. It seemed he’d picked a fight with the wrong solitary, weak-looking person, who, it had turned out, had not been alone. His uncle had died of his head injuries three days later—a sordid end to a sordid life.
He pushed away the memory and simultaneously dampened an uncharacteristic need to say something comforting, and almost definitely untrue, to soothe the conflict he could see in those golden eyes.
He couldn’t see this meeting being comfortable.
‘You mean you can pretend?’ He had rarely encountered honesty of the variety she possessed in a world where it was rare for people to speak the truth. She stood out. His eyes slid down her body. She stood out for a lot of reasons.
