by Maya Blake
Think of Hope House. Of every child you’ll be helping.
‘How long do you think we’ll be there?’
‘Prepare yourself for a few weeks, maybe a couple of months.’
She gasped. ‘Months?’
His gaze turned hard. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were thinking of reneging on our agreement.’
Alexis was aware she had no choice. Not if she wanted to continue providing for Hope House. She’d read through the contract, knew he had a certain leeway she couldn’t object to. And really, what would she be protesting against? There was no fear that this would evolve into anything beyond the clinical requirement Christos sought from her. And she...she’d given up on love or companionship long ago. It was why she’d been thankful for the black and white safety of a legal agreement. She had nothing to fear, least of all from her emotions. And yet...
She rose, ignoring the quivering in her belly as Christos watched her. ‘I... I need to think about it.’
For the longest time, he stared at her, one long finger caressing the rim of his crystal glass. Then, with the litheness of a predatory cat, he rose, sauntered to the door and held it open for her. And as she passed him, he leaned in and whispered in her ear, ‘Think about it if you insist. But know that anything but a yes will be unacceptable.’
CHAPTER FOUR
THE NEXT THREE days were hell on her nerves. She’d barely been able to sleep on Monday night. Or any night since. Christos’s announcement that they were leaving for Drakonisos on Friday had merely exacerbated the unnerving sensation in her stomach. He hadn’t pressed her for an answer, although announcing their impending departure suggested he fully expected her to fall in line.
That she needed to get her game face on sooner rather than later.
And it’s not like you haven’t had a dress rehearsal...
The snide inner voice made her cringe, and yet the truth blared starkly. She knew what unravelling in Christos’s arms felt like. And it wasn’t as if they’d need a full repeat performance of that episode to convince his grandfather and cousin, would they?
So why did her skin tighten with alarmed excitement each time she thought of it? Why did she hold her breath each time Christos spoke to her, anticipation beating wild wings in her stomach?
She really needed her head examined.
Hard on the heel of that thought, he materialised in front of her desk minutes before she planned to leave. As per usual this late in the day, his sleeves were folded back, displaying muscular, olive-skinned, hair-dusted forearms and those far too capable hands that occupied far too much of her attention.
To reverse the effect, she dragged her gaze upward, met steely grey eyes, which at that precise moment glinted with intense purpose.
‘There’s been a development. Demitri’s wife has left the family home and taken their son with her. Apparently, she’s moved in with her new lover in Athens.’ Again, the tight edge in his voice denoted an attachment to this case that tweaked her senses.
She rose and rounded her desk. ‘Is the boy okay?’
His nostrils flared as he straightened, and she saw the tension riding his shoulders. ‘No, he’s not. How can he be? He’s already called Demitri several times, begging to come home.’
Distress slashed through her, thankfully banking her chaotic nerves from before. ‘Is there anything we can do?’
His jaw clenched for a moment before he shook his head. ‘I’ve already instructed the partners in Athens to issue an injunction. But at the very least, the child will have to remain with his mother until after the weekend.’
The observation didn’t please him one iota. And Alexis wasn’t sure if his displeasure triggered something inside her. Before she could think better of it, she laid a hand on his arm. ‘She’s his mother. Surely she won’t let any harm come to him?’
His muscles tightened beneath her hold, his eyes turning stormy as they narrowed on her. ‘Her negligence where her child’s concerned is well-documented. It’s imperative that he’s removed from her influence sooner rather than later.’
‘This case means more to you than you’re letting on, doesn’t it?’ she ventured, recalling their talk on Monday night. As much as he tried to remain aloof, Christos cared.
His gaze dropped to the hand on his arm, a peculiar expression flitting across his face before he answered. ‘He’s my godson.’
That was news to her, but she couldn’t help probe deeper. ‘Is that all?’
For the longest time she thought he wouldn’t reply. He captured her hand, disengaged it from his arm but didn’t release it. He held her wrist, his expression almost bleak, but still hard and unforgiving. ‘I despise children being used as pawns when their parents decide they no longer wish to be together. Inevitably, it’s the child that gets the raw end of the deal.’
Maybe it was the warm hold on her that weakened her resistance, but she found herself confessing. ‘I know how that feels,’ she muttered, then immediately wanted to take the words back.
But his laser gaze had sharpened. ‘How?’
‘I grew up in an orphanage. I know exactly what it feels like to be unwanted.’
Enlightenment glinted in his eyes. ‘Hope House,’ he surmised, his voice low and deep.
The combination of his touch, her jangling emotions and the fact that she’d divulged a huge part of her life that drew pity from most people made her pull away.
He held on, his eyes narrowing on her face for a long contemplative moment before he set her free.
But stepping away did nothing to ease the quaking inside. She felt as if a layer of her skin had been stripped away, allowing him a glimpse of something she’d rather have kept cloaked.
‘Did you need anything else?’
He shoved his hand into his pocket, the motion stretching the material of his shirt across his torso and lighting even more confounding flames inside her.
‘I came to tell you we might have to make a detour to Athens tomorrow if the team come up against any resistance.’ His eyes narrowed on her face. ‘I’m assuming you’re still on board with accompanying me to Drakonisos?’
‘Do I have a choice?’ she asked, striving for a briskness that failed miserably.
He frowned. ‘Not if you don’t want to fall foul of the spirit of our agreement. Do you?’
Alexis swallowed, knowing she was caught. ‘No.’
He nodded briskly. ‘I’ll pick you up in the morning.’
* * *
Christos hung up the phone and suppressed another curse. To say this was proving to be the week from hell was an understatement.
While Monday’s loss had been a direct hit to his pride, the thought that he’d left the field open for Demitri’s son to become a pawn was more visceral. It struck much too close to home for his liking.
This was why he didn’t usually deal with such cases. Why the institution of marriage had been anathema to him since dragging himself from the harrowing battlefield of his parents’ divorce.
But regardless of how he’d felt about his friend’s too-good-to-be-true love proclamations and his subsequent rush into marriage, Christos had witnessed the genuine adoration in Demitri’s face seven years ago when he’d talked about his future with the woman of his dreams. Even more astounding was that Demitri was a man who’d been previously cynical and jaded about the state of matrimony second only to Christos himself.
But even then, Christos had kept his scepticism to himself, choosing to give his friend his blessing along with the benefit of his silent doubt.
It didn’t please him at all to be proven right that, beyond the first few weeks of a new liaison, all that remained were pathetic illusions waiting to turn to bitterness and acrimony.
And even then, as he was discovering lately, the initial spark of interest didn’t have to progress to the bedroom for its looming demis
e to become patently clear.
Now the same pattern that had shattered Christos’s childhood was being replayed in his best friend’s marriage.
Christos swivelled his desk chair in his private jet’s conference room around, but the view that met his gaze, like yesterday, remained abysmal to the point of depressing. They’d only just taken off, and while England had its charms, the weather wasn’t one of them.
He didn’t know whether it was talking to Kyrios that had triggered it but suddenly he yearned for the warmth and vibrancy of Drakonisos, the only place he’d truly called home. The place his greedy cousin was attempting to steal from him.
His harsh exhalation was punctuated by Alexis’s entry. A different type of disturbance took hold of his chest that had nothing to do with the plane’s mild turbulence, intensifying his unsettled mood. He wasn’t sure exactly what had happened on Monday night in his penthouse suite. To be honest, whatever it was had started in the conference room with the tiniest display of evidence that his able and talented assistant wasn’t superhuman after all.
For some absurd reason, seeing her less than perfectly put together, he’d wanted to explore that flaw. To dishevel her even more, pull her shirt tails from her tight, prim skirt, fully let down her slipping hair and mar her fading lipstick with his mouth.
The urge to push her buttons had been unstoppable. At the end of the night, once he’d put two doors between them and stood beneath a lukewarm shower, he’d relegated the aberration to the events of the day. Now, as he watched her walking across the carpet towards him, Christos wasn’t so sure.
To his recollection, his assistant had never worn a trouser suit to work or any work-related function. She favoured skirt suits or classy dresses with matching jackets.
Now she looked completely different.
Christos couldn’t drag his gaze from the body encased in a pair of dark blue jeans, a shimmery navy sleeveless top and waist-length leather jacket. Her hair was caught up in its usual style, but the transformation was disconcertingly visceral enough to knock the breath out of him while firing spikes of heat to parts of his body he preferred not to call attention to in public.
He’d never bothered to categorise which female body part he most favoured, but, seeing Alexis’s denim-clad behind as she turned to shut the door, he was slammed with a need so acute his fist clenched on his thigh. He knew how those luscious twin globes would feel in his hands. He wanted to knead them again, leverage their delicious weight as he dragged her into his body until those breasts were pressed into his chest. He wanted to drag his nose along her sleek neck, investigate whether she’d worn that rose-scented perfume tonight or the one that made her smell like the lightest ocean breeze.
His gaze traced her skin to her wrist, the memory of her frantic pulse beating beneath her silky flesh gliding to centre stage in his mind. Now, like then, the stirring in his groin announced a new dimension to his relationship with his assistant. Because she didn’t look at him with stars in her eyes, with bated breath and false promises that could never be realistically fulfilled? Because she didn’t throw around words he didn’t want to hear, like companionship and relationship and, heaven forbid, love?
Ne, perhaps that was it. His parents had uttered words like that once upon a time and look where they’d ended up. Look where he’d ended up, a pawn between two merciless predators, uncaring that they were tearing him to shreds.
He drew his gaze from the curve of her hip, past the slim watch and silver bracelet that circled her wrists. By the time she stopped in front of him, he’d smashed down hard on the unwanted physical reactions.
‘Is there any news about Demitri’s case?’ She was the epitome of professionalism, with her tablet and the electronic pen and perfectly coiffed hair.
The need to see that thick, rich hair unfettered flared through him. But a moment later, the reminder of his friend’s plight caused his jaw to clench. He nodded at the chair. She sat down and crossed her shapely legs.
‘I just spoke to the lawyers. They’re on their way to court. We’ll know in the next hour if we need to change course to Athens instead of Drakonisos.’
‘Have you heard from Demitri? Is your godson all right?’
Her enquiry, though it strayed far too much into personal territory, pleased him, nonetheless. But the tightness in his chest as he answered didn’t. ‘The mother is refusing to let Demitri see him. Same goes for the mother of his older son. She’s refusing to let him see his other son, too.’ No matter how clinically he recited the facts, a part of him bristled with rage.
Alexis nodded. ‘So we might be staging custody battles on two fronts instead of one?’
‘Potentially, yes. But securing the return of my godson is paramount. He cannot remain in that toxic environment.’
Her lashes lifted, her eyes searching his for the reason for his caustic tone. ‘When was the last time you saw him?’ she asked.
A twinge of guilt snagged his gut. ‘Why does it matter?’
‘I have a fair grasp on your daily schedule. For all intents and purposes, we’re joined at the hip. I don’t recall you mentioning Demitri’s son.’
A different sort of sensation attacked his lower abdomen, arrowing into his groin, the image of being attached to Alexis making his temperature rise. ‘I haven’t seen the boy in a...while,’ he confessed, ignoring the bite of shame.
‘So you didn’t know that their marriage was in trouble? That all the things listed as the reason for their divorce...’ She stared down at the tablet to refresh her memory, but Christos knew everything by heart.
‘The infidelity? Neglect of both her husband and her child? Verbal abuse and the as yet unproved physical abuse of her child? All the usual reasons two people who shouldn’t marry ignore reality and end up in these types of situations. I’m not the morality police, Alexis. My only task is to ensure the right people are saved from anguish in the fallout.’
Again, her lashes flew up, questions flitting across her expression. ‘I didn’t mean...of course I don’t think you’re the morality police...’
His teeth gritted, the knowledge that he’d revealed too much biting him hard. Alexis opened her mouth to speak but he waylaid her questions by sliding a sheet of paper across his desk. ‘Contact these clients, let them know we’ll be out of town for a while but that I’ll let them know if there are any developments.’
She nodded, her teeth trapping her lower lip as she glanced down at the page. The sight of the plump curves glistening with the peach gloss she favoured renewed the pounding in his groin.
Her gaze darted up, caught him watching her, and her breath hitched. She raised her tablet to her chest, holding it close like armour.
Christos suppressed a grim smile, even as he clenched his fist to stop himself from tracing his knuckles across her smooth cheek. He momentarily lost track of time, his senses absorbed by the pulse racing at her throat, the susurration of her breathing and the intensifying temptation of her perfume.
His gaze dropped once again to her lips. They parted as if by command and she slicked her lower lip with the tip of her pink tongue.
The mobile phone beeped. She jumped, sending the gadget a startled look before taking a hurried step back. ‘I... I’ll get this done.’
He didn’t answer as she rushed out. He wasn’t sure he had adequate words to describe what the hell was happening. No explanations for his sudden wish to throw caution to the wind, go against his better judgement and test the depths of the blazing awareness between himself and Alexis.
Despite the rumours circulated by gossipmongers, he’d never been interested in mixing business with pleasure. It was the reason he’d sent his previous assistants packing the moment they exhibited signs of unprofessional interest.
But Alexis was different. And not because he’d struck a deal with her twelve months ago and placed a ring on her finger. Although that know
ledge seemed to beat a curiously persistent drum in his blood. The kind that reeked of possession.
Her revelation about Hope House had thrown him. Granted, the first time she’d mentioned it, he’d been too preoccupied with sealing the terms of their agreement to pay attention to why a children’s home meant that much to her. None of the women he’d dated in the past would’ve spared a thought for an orphanage past the need to look magnanimous at a fundraiser. But Alexis had reached back into her past with a helping hand. Whereas the only association he wanted with his childhood was the grim and relentless drive it gave him never to return to that helpless state.
As much as he wanted to deny it, that discovery about Alexis...affected him. Perhaps all this was because he hadn’t taken a woman to bed in over a year. Even before their agreement, for some confounding reason, the thrill of the chase always seemed to end somewhere around the second course of a Michelin-starred meal or in the third act of a West End play, seeing him return to his main Mayfair residence alone.
At first he’d thought nothing of it. His workload was crushing, just the way he liked it. But then it always had been. In hindsight he recognised that the niggling dissatisfaction about the state of his transient dating had started when he’d heard Delilah Armitage threatening Alexis on the phone. The distaste and censure on his assistant’s face had stayed with him long after he’d taken care of his ex. Perhaps he’d never thought he would care about being judged over the way he conducted his sex life.
But in that moment, he’d felt...less.
And that had grated.
He lunged to his feet now, unwilling to further explore the reason. Not on top of everything that had happened this week.
He had the time on Drakonisos to figure this dilemma out. And when his phone rang an hour later and he’d finished the brief conversation with his team, he registered that his stride was a little lighter, the anticipation in his belly swelling as he went in search of his assistant.
