by Lynne Graham
'I am entirely content,' Cristos drawled, his whole attention on the young woman pacing round the limo in a last-minute inspection. He sensed her innate pride in the angle of her small head, the straightness of her spine and the upward tilt of her delicate jaw line. Would she be a challenge? He loved a challenge but he was practical too: he only had a weekend to spare.
'It is a much smaller firm… standards of service may not be what you are accustomed to-'
The beginnings of a wicked smile tugged at Cristos' wide, sensual mouth. 'On the other hand, standards of service might be beyond any I have previously received.'
At that point, Timon took the hint and surrendered to the inevitable.
'I'm afraid you'll have to find your own way back to the office today,' Cristos added without hesitation.
An involuntary grin chased the earnest aspect from the younger man's face.
Betsy was in a very prickly mood. Her boss had warned her that the new client was a mega-rich foreign VIP to be treated like a god in the hope of attracting further business. While amazed that an employer who gave all the best opportunities to the men on his staff had selected her as driver, she had been pleased as well. However, before she’d even left for the airport Imperial Limousines had received a visit from Cristos Stephanides' bodyguards. That had caused a stir. Their usual clients were not in the league' that required hefty personal security. The bodyguards had not been impressed by the shabby premises that housed the limo firm. They had turned up their noses at the vehicle she was to use, queried her excellent driving credentials and warned her that they would be in close supervision at all times. A bunch of unredeemable sexist pigs, she thought bitterly, who had been busily engaged in patrolling the car park like the cast of a gangster movie ever since her arrival.
Sixth sense warned her that she was under scrutiny.
Spinning round, she jerked still at the sight of the male striding towards her. It was as if someone somewhere turned the pace of time to slow motion. He was tall, lean and… and so beautiful that her chest went all tight and she couldn't breathe and couldn't stop looking. But then her brain stepped into the breach and forced her to grab a hold of herself and break free of her own shocking paralysis.
'Mr Stephanides… ' mercifully her voice emerged a little breathless round the edges but calm and quiet in tone.
'And you are…?'
'Betsy Mitchell,' she framed, holding open the door to the rear passenger seat.
'Betsy… ' He said her name as if he were savouring something edible and he had a voice like no other she had ever heard before. His drawl had a dark, deep, masculine pitch; a sizzlingly sexy accented edge that sent a quiver down her taut spine. 'So that's what I call you.'
'Mitchell will do, sir,' she answered without expression, throwing up the barrier of their differing status with a strong sense of relief.
Unaccustomed to being contradicted, Cristos glanced down at her. She was not as tall as he had assumed she was from a distance: she was around five feet eight or nine. What was more; her facade of cool professionalism was a fake. He was a trained observer and he could see the almost undetectable tiny nervous tremors assailing her slight length.
'I prefer Betsy,' he murmured softly to make her look up at him.
Disconcerted, she tipped back her head to lift her gaze and met his brilliant dark eyes for the first time. Her mouth ran dry and her heartbeat took off at a sprint. His provocative appraisal dropped to linger on her soft full lips and then roamed on down to the pouting thrust of her breasts before flicking back up again to spell out a message of sexual interest as blatant as a speech.
Deeply shaken, she tore her gaze from his fiercely handsome features. He swung into the car and she closed the door on him. Her palms were damp on the steering wheel. How dared he look her over as if she were on offer to him? Perhaps he had noticed the way she looked at him, a snide little inner voice mocked and a wash of hot, guilty pink warmed her cheeks. What had come over her? He was the fanciable equivalent of a flying saucer. Of course she had stared. Any woman would have stared. Why was she beating herself up about a perfectly natural reaction? The guy was drop dead gorgeous. He was lucky she hadn't stuck a pin in him to check he was real and not an illusion.
Nervous laughter bubbling in her throat, she hit the communication button.
'Everything in order, sir?' she asked.
'There's no still water in the fridge,' he informed her.
And there she had been thinking he would be dazzled by the array of soft drinks available to him! He was supposed to be very rich, she reminded herself, and the rich were reputed to be picky about little details. There was the proof. His refined taste buds could not tolerate sparkling in place of still water. She pulled off the road at the first garage and was in the act of climbing out when he buzzed down the glass partition dividing them. 'Why have we stopped?' he demanded.
Betsy spun back in surprise and leant back into the limo to address him. 'You wanted still mineral water. My boss said your every wish should be my command.'
'I wish… ' Cristos Stephanides murmured, smooth and soft as velvet.
Staring at him, she was entrapped by his sheer animal magnetism and exotic dark good looks. His luxuriant hair looked very dark against the pale backdrop of the leather head restraint. His bronzed skin was stretched taut over hard masculine cheekbones, an arrogant nose and a beautifully chiselled wide, sensual mouth. With an immense effort, she broke free of the scorching dark 'golden eyes that were making her tummy flip like a schoolgirl's.
She hurried into the garage shop. Her legs felt like cotton-wool supports. She was in a daze. So he was flirting a little-so what was new? Some guys thought you expected it. Some guys flirted with every woman they met. I wish he had said. Why was she suddenly acting and thinking like a ditzy teenager? He made her feel like one. She blinked in bemusement as she turned away from the checkout.
His senior bodyguard, a giant with shoulders the size of tree trunks, barred her passage. 'Who gave you permission to stop the limo without warning us?' he asked in an angry hiss. 'You have left Mr Stephanides in an unlocked vehicle without protection. How could you be so foolish?'
Betsy was astonished by the force of that verbal attack. 'Nobody told me I needed permission or that I should warn you-'
'How else can we do our job? Don't deviate from the agreed route again,' he admonished.
Pale with angry discomfiture, Betsy got back into the car. She passed the mineral water into the rear seat without turning her head and ignited the engine when she heard her passenger speak. She was annoyed at a telling off that she considered unjust. She drove people to functions like weddings and balls and had only once dealt with a minor celebrity. Imperial Limousines was a small firm that did not have a VIP client list. She was not accustomed to dealing with wealthy international businessmen and had not been trained to handle complex security requirements. The sooner she delivered him to his fancy country estate, the happier she would be.
'What happened back there?' Cristos enquired.
'I beg your pardon?' Betsy questioned in turn, face and voice deadpan.
'One of my bodyguards approached you… ' Dolius, the head of his security team, whose abrasive personality would never fit him for a diplomatic career. Cristos had watched her green eyes flare with anger while her chin had tilted at a very feminine wounded but stubborn angle. He had been startled by his own urge to leap out of the car and tell Dolius to pick on someone his own size and sex if he wanted a fight.
'Oh, that…; yes, he was just wondering why I'd pulled off the road,' she advanced with studied lightness.
Dolius had come down on her like a ton of bricks for that impulse, Cristos translated. 'He upset you.' 'No, of course he didn't!' No way was Betsy about to tell tales on another employee whom she had to deal with.
Cristos was furious that she was lying to him. That she was upset was painfully obvious. She was no good at hiding her feelings. She was also driving very, very slowly
and making all kinds of restless, unnecessary adjustments to various switches and dials. He was even less pleased when she closed the partition.
Betsy was trying not to think about what a truly horrible week she had had. She had ignored her ESP when it came to Joe Tyler and she had paid the price. A cold shiver of remembrance ran through her. At the end of the first date he had parked the car down an entry and tried to treat her like some hooker he had picked up off the street. She had had to fight him off and he had been very abusive. It had been a seriously scary experience. In the light of that ordeal, she could only marvel at her own adolescent response to Cristos Stephanides. As she hadn't been remotely attracted to Joe, she should never have encouraged him. Cristos Stephanides? He was as safe a fantasy as a poster on a bedroom wall, she decided, and she accelerated down the motorway.
Cristos had never been so comprehensively ignored by a woman. Having no intention of opening a conversation with the back of her head, he opted for the direct approach. He lifted the car phone to communicate with her. 'Take the next turn off. There's a hotel. We'll stop there for a break.'
'Is this a scheduled stop?' Betsy enquired.
'I don't have a schedule this weekend. I'm not working,' Cristos spelt out.
'Betsy tried not to smile at the thought of the mayhem that had to be breaking out in the bodyguards' car when the limo was seen to deviate yet again from the agreed route. But she resisted any urge to glance into the back seat and catch another glimpse of her passenger. At twenty-five years of age, she was too old to be daydreaming like a schoolgirl over a guy she knew nothing about.
Her footsteps crunching over the gravel outside the gracious country hotel, she pulled open the passenger door.
'I hate being locked in a car for hours on end,' Cristos imparted in his rich, dark drawl. 'We'll have coffee.'
She forgot her embargo on looking at him and tipped her head back to encounter brilliant dark golden eyes fringed by black spiky lashes. 'Thank you, sir… but I'll stay with the limo.'
His gaze narrowed. 'That wasn't a request…it was an order.'
Off-balanced by that unhesitating contradiction, she stared at him for a split second too long and then hurriedly dropped her head, her colour fluctuating. Maybe he was keen to ensure that his driver remained alert by taking an adequate break. Fair enough. She locked the car and followed in his arrogant wake. His head bodyguard strode towards them. Cristos Stephanides addressed him in what she assumed to be his own language. Just a handful of brief softly spoken words and the security man turned pale and backed off with what might have been a hasty apology.
Indoors engulfed in the ticking-clock silence of the kind of luxury establishment set up to create the atmosphere of a private country house she was hugely uncomfortable. But it made no impression whatsoever on her companion. He addressed the receptionist with the calm expectancy of a male who had been waited on hand and foot from the day of his birth.
'Sit with me’. With a lean brown hand he indicated an armchair beside the magnificent marble fireplace.
Betsy stared fixedly into the burning embers of the welcoming fire. 'It wouldn't be appropriate sir.' 'Allow me to decide what's appropriate.'
'But not what I do with my free time. If this is an official break,' Betsy responded with flat clarity. 'I'm entitled to choose how I spend it.'
'Obviously the whip and chair approach is unwise with a woman of your strength of character,' Cristos Stephanides conceded lazily. 'I ask you in all humility… please join me for coffee.'
Involuntary amusement tugged at Betsy. In all humility? Was he serious? She almost laughed out loud. He had the extreme poise and arrogant assurance of a male who had never known what humility was. Why was he even making the invitation? What was in it for him?
'Why?' she asked baldly tipping her head back eyes as bright as emerald chips gleaming with suspicion.
Theos mou, why was she fighting him? Back at the car park in that very first visual exchange, Cristos had recognised her desire. She had not been able to hide the feverish longing that he had seen on so many female faces since he'd been a teenager. But he could not recall when he had last had to make so much effort. She was not encouraging him. She was making everything difficult. He had got lazy, he acknowledged. His women always did most of the running, but now he was dealing with a female who looked as if she would bolt at the first ill-chosen word or move.
'I feel like company,' he murmured with deliberate casualness, hitching back his powerful personality and swallowing the smarter comments hovering on the tip of his tongue.
Betsy was bemused. A client had never tried to cross the boundaries with her before. She saw no reason why he should be any different. Her uniform was old-fashioned and unflattering. In the course of her working day few men had given her a second glance.
'Are you married?' Cristos asked abruptly, belatedly wondering if there was a reason for her surprising hesitance. 'Living with someone?'
'No… but-'
Cristos curved a confident hand to her spine and urged her down onto the richly upholstered sofa. 'Then join me.'
Unyielding as a stone pillar, she sank down. He took her taut silence in his stride and filled it with the story' of a society wedding he had recently attended at the hotel. He was very amusing. She sat there enthralled, unable to take her eyes from his lean, devastating features. Indeed the excuse to watch him was a conscious pleasure and a release from the deprivation of not being able to look. Everything about him fascinated her.
She drank her coffee without tasting it. At his request she took her cap off and coloured at the intensity of his scrutiny. She answered his few questions. She was twenty-five, single, had worked at Imperial for three years, had always wanted to work with cars. That he was not that interested in her answers was not something she judged him on for she initially assumed he was merely making polite conversation. Slowly, very slowly, for she had always held a very modest opinion of her own looks, she realised that Cristos Stephanides actually appeared to be attracted to her and was seeking a response.
At the point where she could no longer mistake his motives and without any hesitation whatsoever, Betsy lifted her cap, replaced it on her head and rose to her· feet. 'I'm your driver,' she said bluntly. 'I'm not interested in anything else.'
In fierce disconcertion at that sudden bold assurance, Cristos sprang upright, brilliant dark eyes cool as black ice. 'That's a lie.'
Mortified colour stained her fair skin at that direct contradiction but Betsy still lifted her chin. 'I can admire a painting without wanting to buy it-'
'This situation may be unconventional-'
'There isn't a situation and if there were, it would be tacky.' Betsy was infuriated by his attempt to excuse his behaviour. 'This isn't a social occasion and I wouldn't risk my job for you. I drive limos for a living and you do whatever you do to afford to hire people like me… and that's it-'…,
'I'm not a snob-'
'No?' A delicate auburn brow rose, questioning that assertion, green eyes scornful and furious. 'But then you don't need to be. You weren't asking me out on a date, were you? The only invite I was going to get was a sleazy sexual one. Well, no, thank you!'
Cristos wanted to rip the cap off her again and…?
His lean brown hands coiled into savage fists. And then do all the sleazy sexual stuff until she was on her knees with gratitude that he had honoured her with his interest. Her attack on him was out of all proportion to anything he had said or done and he was outraged that she had chosen to spring such a scene on him in a public place where he could not freely respond. Across the room, Dolius and his second-in-command were studiously avoiding looking anywhere near him, which told Cristos that they had not missed a single second of the drama. Seething with injured pride and a fierce sense of injustice, Cristos Stephanides watched Betsy Mitchell stalk out of the hotel.
What a smooth, calculating, utterly ruthless bastard, Betsy thought tempestuously, slamming her way into the driver's
seat of the limo and still shaking with fury. Had he really believed that he could sweet -talk her into going upstairs to a hotel room with him? For when he'd insisted she join him for coffee that had surely been his intent! Did she look stupid enough to make a mistake of that magnitude? Or so cheap and easy he had assumed she would be a pushover? Had he planned to reward her with an extra large tip? Or his magnificent body? When she saw him approaching in the wing mirror, she sat tight.
Hard jaw line at a stubborn angle, Cristos refused to open the door for himself. He stood there challenging her and, had it been necessary, he would have continued to stand there through thunder, lightning and a force-ten gale to make his point. Clumsy with resentful haste, Betsy finally scrambled out and wrenched open the passenger door for him.
'Thank you,' Cristos breathed, smooth as glass. She did not believe that she had ever hated another human being so much as she did him at that instant. She drove for an hour with a fierce concentration that shut out every thought. The limo left the motorway for quiet country roads and speed was no longer possible. With scant warning a tractor pulled out of a lane. As the slow vehicle forced a passage out in front of the bodyguards' car Betsy almost smiled at the thought of the annoyance it would cause.
The partition between driver and passenger buzzed down. 'For the record,' Cristos Stephanides breathed with sardonic bite, 'I'm not into sleazy sex.'
'If you want an argument, come back and see me when I'm no longer working for you and forced to be polite,' Betsy snapped.
'Back at the hotel… that was you being polite?' Cristos stressed in a derisive tone of wonderment that made her want to stop the limo, leap into the back seat and beat him up.
'You were out of line,' Betsy snapped at him furiously. 'What sort of a guy tries to pull his chauffeur?' 'One who has just become a convert to total snobbery,' Cristos spelt out with maddening assurance.
It was at that point that Betsy saw a male figure crouched down by the side of the road just ahead. That was the only warning she had before something that gleamed metallic and grey in the sunlight was thrown at the car. The wheels ran over it. A tyre blew out' and then another, sending the powerful vehicle out of her control into a dangerous swerve. The limo hit the ditch with a thunderous jolt that rattled every bone in her body. Almost simultaneously the door beside her was yanked noisily open.
