by Jennie Lucas
How strange it was, he thought. To want a woman like this, but not be able to touch her, not be able to seduce her. He thought he might literally die if he never possessed her again.
He would win her, he told himself fiercely. He would. And not just for one night, but forever.
“This is so good,” Daisy moaned softly over the sweet crepe, drizzled with butter and sugar. Automatically pushing his own dessert crepe toward her, he tried to distract himself from his unbearable desire.
“I’m sorry you didn’t care much for the shopping today.”
“I liked the people... They were very nice.”
“Some other day I’ll show you more of Liontari’s brands. I want you to appreciate my company. It will all belong to our child one day.”
Daisy’s eyes almost popped out of her head. She actually put down her fork. “Our daughter will inherit your company?”
Hadn’t she realized that? Incredible. With any other woman, he thought, his business empire would have been the first thing on her mind. “Of course. It will all be hers.”
Her forehead furrowed. “But what if...she doesn’t want it?”
Now Leonidas was the one to be shocked. “Not want Liontari? Why would she not want it?”
Daisy took another bite, slowly pulling her fork out of her mouth, leaving a bit of sugar on her lower lip. He was distracted, until she said thoughtfully, “Not every child wants to follow in the footsteps of her parents’ professions.”
He looked up, annoyed. “It’s not just a profession. It’s a multibillion-dollar conglomerate, with the biggest luxury brands in the world—” He steadied himself, took a deep breath. Daisy couldn’t have meant her words as an insult. “Don’t worry.” He made his voice jovial, reassuring. “I will teach her everything she needs to know. When it’s her time to lead, she’ll have the board members eating out of the palm of her hand.”
“Yes. Maybe. If she wants.”
“If she wants?” Leonidas repeated incredulously. “Why would anyone not want an empire?” Especially one he’d created out of his own sweat, blood and bone!
Daisy shrugged. “She might find running a corporation boring. Maybe she’ll want to be... I don’t know...an accountant. An actress. A firefighter!”
He was offering everything he had, everything he’d spent his life pursuing—everything that proved to the world, proved to himself, that his parents had been wrong, and Leonidas Niarxos had value, had a right to be alive.
But Daisy, who had such warmth and concern for strangers, didn’t think his empire was worth anything? He thought their daughter might not want it?
He stared at her. “Are you serious?”
“I just want her to find her true passion. Like you found yours.”
“My passion?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” She gave him a cheeky smile. “Business is your passion.”
Her smile did crazy things to his insides. “Business is my passion?”
“The way you’ve done it—yes. What else would you call it? There’s no guidebook for creating a world empire. No business degree could tell a person how to do it.”
“What’s your passion, then?” he countered.
Her face fell, and she looked down at her plate. “Art, I guess. Even though I’m not very good at it.”
She looked sad. He thought again about how she’d treasured that old painting.
Leonidas wanted to reassure her, but he didn’t know how. At work, his leadership style was based on giving criticism, not reassurance.
As they left the restaurant, he thought about her words. Business is your passion. If that were true, why was it that for the last six months, he’d just been going through the motions at Liontari? He hardly cared about it at all anymore. He had yet to drag himself into the New York office, and the last few months in Paris, he’d barely bothered to criticize his employees.
As they walked out to where their driver waited with the Range Rover, Daisy suddenly nestled against him, wrapping her arm around his.
“Thank you,” she whispered, and he felt her lips brush against the flesh of his ear. “For the crepes. The coat. The perfume.” Pulling back, she looked at him, her eyes sparkling in the spring sun. “Thank you for a wonderful day.”
He looked down at her, his heart pounding at the intimacy of her simple touch.
And suddenly, Leonidas couldn’t imagine any passion, any longing, any desire greater than the one he had for her.
CHAPTER SIX
DAISY STARED AT herself in the mirror of her pretty cream-and-pink guest suite in Leonidas’s New York mansion.
A stranger looked back at her, a glamorous woman in a red gown straight out of Pretty Woman. The dress caressed her baby bump, showcasing her full breasts, with a slit up the side of the skirt that showed off her legs. Long honey-brown hair hung thickly over her bare shoulders. Her eyelashes were darkened with mascara, her lips as red as the dress, all bought from the drugstore a few months ago. But she was wearing the scent Leonidas had bought her on their shopping excursion three days earlier. Even the shoes on her feet were new. That morning, just as she’d realized she could not possibly wear her scuffed-up black pumps with this dress, new shoes had mysteriously appeared at her door—strappy sandals covered with crystals in her exact size.
“Who are you?” Daisy said to the woman in the mirror. Her voice echoed against the bedroom’s high ceilings and white bed.
From the dog bed by the elegant fireplace, Sunny lifted her head in confusion. With a sigh, Daisy said to her, “It’s all right, Sunny. I’m all right.”
But was she?
She glanced back at her cell phone sitting on the vanity table, feeling dizzy. She didn’t just look different now. She was different.
When she’d come out of the shower an hour before, she’d anxiously checked her online bank account to see if her most recent payment, a deposit for nursing school, had cleared yet. Once that money disappeared from her account, she expected to have very little left, so she was nervous about checks bouncing if she’d forgotten anything.
But looking at her bank account, she’d lost her breath. She’d closed her eyes and counted to five. Then she’d looked at her account again.
Her bank account had the scant hundreds she’d expected—plus an extra million dollars.
Leonidas had just made her a rich woman.
Why? How could he? She’d never asked for his money! Daisy shivered in the red dress. But she knew it wasn’t for her, not exactly. It was to protect their baby, so she’d never worry or be afraid.
I will always provide for you. It’s my job as a man. You would not try to deny me that.
Especially since she’d denied him other things. Like kisses. When, her first night here, he’d almost kissed her outside her bedroom door, she’d been far too tempted. It had scared her. She’d known, if she ever let him kiss her, that she would surrender everything.
And her life had already become unrecognizable enough. She looked at herself in the ball gown. Could she really keep his money—even for her baby?
It was true she’d already quit her job. When she’d gone to the diner, her boss had been all too happy for Daisy to leave her job, no advance notice required.
“We don’t actually need an employee sitting at the register,” Claudia had confided. “But I knew it hurt your feet to wait tables, and I couldn’t fire you.” She’d glanced at the Range Rover through the window. “But look at you now! It’s a fairy tale! You said this Greek billionaire even wants to marry you?”
Daisy had winced. “I haven’t agreed.”
“Are you crazy?” Claudia gazed reverently at the handsome dark-haired tycoon, typing on his phone in the back seat. Then she frowned. “Have you told Franck?”
“I don’t know why Franck would care.” Daisy had smiled weakly. “I’m sure he’ll just be glad
to get me out of his apartment,”
“You know he’s in love with you.”
Daisy rolled her eyes. “He was my father’s best friend. He’s not in love with me.”
Claudia lifted an eyebrow. “Isn’t he?”
She’d thought of his strange awkwardness when the middle-aged artist had proposed to her. Stay as long as you want. Stay forever.
And now, as Daisy looked in the mirror at the glamorous stranger in the red dress and red lipstick, she felt guilty that she hadn’t told Franck she’d moved out and was now living with her baby’s father. She didn’t look forward to confessing Leonidas’s name. Daisy hadn’t even shared that with Claudia. Her bohemian friends had been her father’s friends, too; they hated billionaires in general, but Leonidas Niarxos in particular, after he’d put her father in prison.
They would be horrified if they found out Daisy was having his baby. And if she ever became Leonidas’s wife...
She took a deep breath. She didn’t want to imagine it. Bad enough that tonight she’d be facing all of Leonidas’s friends at a charity ball. They’d probably feel the same scorn for Daisy. They’d ask themselves what on earth the billionaire playboy saw in her. They’d think Leonidas was slumming with a waitress. Worse. Sleeping with the daughter of the convicted felon he’d put in prison.
Swallowing hard, Daisy looked at herself one last time in the mirror. Steadying herself on her high-heeled sandals, she lifted her chin, straightened her spine, and went downstairs.
Leonidas stood waiting at the bottom of the wide stone staircase. Her heart twisted when she saw him, darkly powerful and wide shouldered in a sleek black tuxedo. Their eyes locked.
“You look beautiful,” he said in a low voice as she reached the bottom of the stairs. He visibly swallowed. “And that dress.”
She gave him a shy smile. “You like it?”
Leaning forward, he whispered huskily, “You make me want to stay home tonight.”
She shivered as he touched her, wrapping her faux fur stole around her bare shoulders. Taking his arm, she went out with him into the cold spring night, where Jenkins waited with the Rolls-Royce at the curb.
“Sorry,” Leonidas said with a grin. “For tonight, a limo is required.”
When they arrived at a grand hotel in Midtown Manhattan, Daisy was alarmed to see a red carpet set up at the entrance, where paparazzi waited, snapping pictures of the arriving glitterati. She turned accusingly on Leonidas. “You didn’t say the charity ball was this big of a deal!”
“Didn’t I?” His cruel, sensual lips curved upward. “Well. It’s all for homeless kids.”
Daisy looked with dismay at all the wealthy people walking the red carpet with photographers snapping. “I’ll stick out like a sore thumb!”
“Yes.” Leonidas looked at her in the back of limo, his black eyes gleaming as his gaze lingered on her red lips and red dress. “You’re the most beautiful of them all.”
As their driver opened the door, Leonidas stepped out, then reached back to her. “Shall we?”
Nervously, she took his hand. As they walked the red carpet, she clung to his muscled arm, trying to focus just on him, ignoring the shouts and pictures flashing.
“Leonidas Niarxos—is that your girlfriend?”
“Is she pregnant with your baby?”
He didn’t answer, just kept looking down at Daisy with a soothing smile. For a moment she relaxed, lost in his dark eyes. Then she heard one of the paparazzi gasp.
“Oh, my God! That’s the Cassidy kid! The daughter of the art forger who tried to swindle him!”
At that, there was a rush of questions. She quickened her step and didn’t take a full breath until they were safely inside the hotel ballroom.
“How—how did they know who I was?” she choked out.
“They were bound to figure it out.” Leonidas’s dark eyes looked down at her calmly. “It’s better this way.”
“How can you say that?”
“There was always going to be some kind of scandal about us. Better for it to happen now, rather than later, after our daughter is born.” He put his hand gently on her belly. “That way, it will only affect us. Not her.”
It was the first time Leonidas had touched her belly. Even over the red fabric, she felt his gentle, powerful touch, felt his strength and how he wanted to protect them both.
It was strangely erotic.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
Holding her breath, she nodded. His dark eyes crinkled as he took her hand and led her through the double doors.
The hotel’s grand ballroom was enormous, far larger than the one in his house, which now seemed quite modest by comparison. A full orchestra played big band hits from the nineteen forties as beautiful women in ball gowns danced with handsome men in tuxedos. On the edges of the dance floor, large round tables filled the space, each with an elaborate arrangement of white and red roses. Crystal chandeliers sparkled overhead.
Leonidas took two flutes of sparkling water from a waiter’s silver tray. He handed her one of them, then nodded toward the far wall, his dark eyes gleaming. “Over there are the items that will be up for bidding in the auction tonight. Would you like to go see them?”
“Sure.” Anything to give her something to do. To make her feel less out of place. People were staring at her, and she had no idea whether that was because her dress looked strange, or because they’d heard she was the art forger’s daughter, or just because she wasn’t beautiful enough to be on Leonidas’s arm. She knew she wasn’t, fancy ball gown or no. He was a handsome Greek billionaire. Who was she?
An ex-waitress. The daughter of a felon. A failed artist. Pregnant and unwed.
Nervously sipping the sparkling water, Daisy followed Leonidas to the long table lining the far wall of the hotel ballroom. Walking past all the items put forward in the upcoming charity auction, she stared at them each incredulously.
There was a guitar that had apparently once belonged to Johnny Cash. A signed first edition of a James Bond novel. Two-carat vintage diamond earrings. A small sculpture by a famous artist. And if the items weren’t enough to whet the appetite, there were experiences offered on small illustrated posters: a week at someone’s fully staffed vacation house in the Maldives. An invitation to attend Park City Film Festival screenings as the guest of a well-known actor. A dinner prepared at your home, for you and twelve of your best friends by a world-famous chef, who would fly in from his three-Michelin-star Copenhagen restaurant expressly for the occasion.
Walking past all the items, each more insane and over-the-top than the last, Daisy shook her head. Rich people really did live a life she could not imagine.
But on the other hand, it was all for charity, and if it really helped homeless kids...
She nearly bumped into Leonidas, who’d stopped at the end of the final table, in front of the very last item.
“Hey.” She frowned up at him. “You nearly made me spill my—”
He glanced significantly toward that last item, his dark eyebrows raised. She followed his glance.
Then her hand clutched her drink. She felt like she was going to faint.
“That’s—that’s my—”
“Yes,” he said. “It’s your painting.”
It was. Her final project from art school, in all its pathetic mess. Sitting next to all those amazing items that rich people might actually want.
Daisy looked around wildly. The noise and music and colors of the ballroom seemed to spin around her. She felt like she was in one of those awful dreams where you were in the hallway of your school and everyone was standing around you, laughing and pointing, and you suddenly realized you’d forgotten your homework—and your clothes.
She looked up at Leonidas with stricken eyes. “What have you done?”
He looked back at her. “Given you another cha
nce.”
“A chance at what!” she gasped. “Humiliation and pain?”
“A chance to believe in your dream,” he said quietly. “I believe in you.”
Shaking, Daisy wiped her eyes. She wanted to grab the painting and run, before any of these glamorous people could sneer at it.
But too late. She stiffened as two well-dressed guests came up behind them.
“What is this?” said the woman, who was very thin and draped in diamonds. “It’s not signed.”
Her escort peered doubtfully at the painting’s description. “It says here that the artist wishes to be anonymous.”
“How very strange.” The woman turned to call to another friend, “Nan. Come tell me if you can guess who this artist is.”
Daisy’s cheeks felt like they were on fire, and her heart was beating fast, as if she’d just run two miles without stopping. Leonidas took her arm, and gently led her away from the auction table.
“It’s to earn money for the charity. For the kids.”
“It won’t earn anything. No one will bid on it,” she whispered. Why did he want to hurt her like this? She knew Leonidas didn’t love her. But did he outright hate her? What other reason could he have to humiliate her, in front of all his ritzy friends?
She felt like she’d been ambushed, just when she’d started to trust him. Leonidas believed in her? How could he, when she didn’t believe in herself?
Later, after they sat down at their table for an elegant dinner of salmon in sauce, roasted fingerling potatoes and fresh spring vegetables, Daisy could hardly eat. She barely said a word to the guests sitting around them, in spite of their obvious curiosity about her. She let Leonidas speak for them. Yes, she was his date. Her name was Daisy. They were good friends. He was proud to say they were expecting a child together in June.
And all the while, Daisy was wondering how he could have done this to her.
During the days she’d stayed at his house, he’d gone out of his way to be kind to her. Leonidas Niarxos, the supposedly ruthless tycoon, had spent almost no time at work, other than the day he’d taken her shopping at Liontari’s luxury boutiques. Instead, he’d kept her company doing the activities she enjoyed, like walking the dog, watching movies on TV and playing board games. Leonidas had listened patiently for hours as she’d read aloud from her pregnancy book, especially the section titled “How To Be an Expectant Father.” She’d started to think he cared. She’d started to think he actually...liked her.
