He shook himself. What kind of work environment was this? In spite of Anna’s organization, his work habits were slipping. His usual sixteen or eighteen-hour days just weren’t possible when he was constantly being distracted by the laughter of his son and the gorgeous vision of Anna in a slim-fitting white shirt and black pencil skirt, crossing her killer legs while she took dictation.
No, he had to stick to his plan. Anna would be free of the burden of work, and he’d find some other secretary. He’d make do for the sake of his son having a happy childhood, and return to his eighteen-hour work days. He’d shown his son the empire that would soon be his; he couldn’t slack off on the job now.
But he was leaving tomorrow. He only had tonight to make Anna fall for him before he left for Singapore, and, while he still believed he’d achieve his goal, it might be time to get creative. He’d soon have no choice but to…ugh…talk more about feelings. He had no idea how to do that, but he’d improvise. How hard could it be? He’d talk about his childhood. Didn’t women swoon over stories of poverty and misery?
“What are you doing?” he asked, suddenly distracted by the vision of Anna’s sweet backside in the form-fitting black skirt as she knelt near the trash can and leaned forward on her hands. Wild images went through him.
“This must have bounced off the rim.” She picked up the crumpled résumé from the floor, then spotted something behind the can. Nikos groaned inwardly as she saw the pale blue envelope that he’d tossed there early this morning.
Leaning back on her haunches, she picked it up and read the envelope. “It’s postmarked from Greece.”
Nikos grabbed a new résumé. “Have you looked at this one?”
She refused to be distracted, and held the blue envelope a little higher. “When did you get this letter?”
“Yesterday,” he said, grinding his teeth.
She pushed back a long tendril that had escaped from her sleek chignon. “It hasn’t been opened, but it was in the trash.”
“And your point is?”
“Aren’t you going to read it?”
“I think my actions are self-explanatory.”
“But if your father’s widow wrote all the way from Greece to try to mend the breach in your family…”
“There is no breach, because there is no family,” he said shortly. “My father meant nothing to me, and now he’s dead, so why should I care about his widow? She can write me or not. That is her choice. I’m perfectly capable of throwing her letters in the trash without your advice.”
He still remembered all too well the first letter he’d received from the Greek woman. She’d broken the news of his father’s death, and informed him that he’d had left Nikos a share in his shipping business—the same shipping business that Nikos had tried to crush as an adult. Worse, she’d told him that his father had been the secret investor who had helped Nikos create Stavrakis Resorts. His father had been the one to help Nikos build his very first hotel.
Shaken, Nikos had still refused to go to the funeral, or meet his half-siblings. He’d also refused the shares in the company. He hadn’t wanted any part of the family who’d been more important to his father than he and his mother had been.
But it was the kindness in her letter that had shocked him the most. She’d been so gentle, when he’d expected only hate. The confusion and pain had driven him to Anna’s house. He’d instinctively sought her comfort, her arms, her bed, and they’d conceived Michael…
Anna gave him a piercing turquoise glance, as if she guessed his thoughts. “But how can you still hate your father now that you know that he helped you?”
“If I’d known he was the investor behind the venture capital firm that financed my first hotel, I would have tossed the money back in his face.”
“But—”
“He was a married man when he seduced my mother. He got her pregnant, then sent her packing to New York. The man is nothing to me.”
“But your stepmother—”
“Don’t ever call her that again.”
“Your—your father’s widow said he tried to send you money every month of your childhood. Your mother was the one who always sent it back.”
Yes, he remembered what the Greek woman had said—that his father had always loved Nikos, that he’d tried to visit and send child support but his proud mother had refused. She’d even said that his father hadn’t wanted his mother to go to New York, that he’d been heartbroken when she’d left. She’d said his mother was the one who had refused to let him see his son.
Nikos didn’t know who to believe.
His mother, of course, he told himself furiously. She had died taking care of him. She deserved his loyalty.
The last thing Nikos wanted to do was read another of the Greek woman’s letters. The past was dead and gone. Better to let it remain buried.
Unfortunately, Anna didn’t see it that way. Her lips pressed in a determined line. “I’m going to read the letter.”
He grabbed her hand as she reached for the letter opener on his desk. “You’re quick to arrange my family affairs. Is it to avoid dealing with your own?”
She hesitated. “What do you mean?”
“Why did your sister come here? You’ve evaded the question for over a week. I’d like an answer.”
She tugged on her hand, but he held her fast. “It’s nothing,” she mumbled. “A family quarrel.”
“Does it have anything to do with Victor Sinistyn?”
She pulled away with a savage force that he hadn’t expected. “Just stay out of it! I don’t need your pity and I don’t need your help. I can handle it on my own—”
She grabbed at the letter opener with a trembling hand, plunging the sharp edge of the blade into the side of the blue envelope with far too much vigor. It sliced her palm, and she squelched a scream, holding out her bleeding hand.
“Let me see your hand,” Nikos demanded.
She turned her face away in a fruitless attempt to hide her tears. He was relieved that she didn’t resist as he gently took her hand. Blood from the cut smudged against the cuff of his shirt as he narrowly examined the wound.
“I don’t think you’ll need stitches.” He’d been hurt enough times while sparring in his boxing club to be a pretty good judge. “Let’s just clean it in case of infection.”
He led her into the adjoining bathroom, and she followed him, seemingly in a daze. She winced as he placed her hand under the running water. He dried it off softly with a thick white cotton handtowel.
“This might sting a little,” he said, before he applied the antiseptic he kept in the cabinet for any injuries he got working out at the club.
She closed her eyes. His hand tightened over her fingers and he felt a strangely agonizing beat of his heart that he was hurting her, even though it was for her own good.
He placed the small bandage over the cut. “All done.”
She opened her eyes. “Thank you.” She started to pull away, but he stopped her.
“Anna, tell me what hold Sinistyn has got over you.”
“He doesn’t.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“I don’t need your charity, and I don’t want your help,” she said. “It’s my family’s private business.” But even as she spoke the words he could see the tremor of her swanlike throat, the nervous flutter of her dark lashes.
“Not if it affects my son.”
Her eyes went wide. “You think I would endanger Misha?”
He glowered at her silently until he saw her blush. Good. Let her remember her worldwide travels to unheated ramshackle apartments on her own.
“Go to hell,” she said, and left him. But she’d barely gone three steps back into his office before he caught her unhurt hand.
“Tell me, or I’ll beat it out of Sinistyn. Or maybe I’ll just ask Cooper to track down Natalie. I doubt she’s gone far.”
“Please don’t.” She lowered her gaze to her clasped hands, then sank slowly into the hard w
ooden chair by his desk. “All right. I’ll tell you. We’re in debt.”
“How much?”
She took a deep breath, still unable to meet his eyes. “It was six million, but now it’s four.” She suddenly gave a hysterical laugh and leaned forward, rubbing her temples. “It’s at a thirty-five percent interest rate and compounding daily. That’s why we were at my great-grandmother’s palace, trying to get it into decent shape to find a buyer. But the palace needs a fortune in renovations to make it livable.”
“You should have asked me for the money.”
“You think I’d sell myself for a palace?”
“Anna!”
“Thank you for your kind offer, but we found a buyer already.”
“For the palace, or for you?” he asked, trying to spur her into energy. Anything to make her eyes look less dead and defeated than they did at this moment. But she didn’t even rise to his bait.
“Both, I think,” she said dully. “Victor bought the palace from my mother for two million dollars. That’s why we only owe him four million instead of six. He’s planning to raze the palace and build a new house as a wedding present to me.”
“What?” he exploded.
“Victor has wanted me for a long time.” Rubbing the back of her neck wearily, she rose from the chair and started to pace. “He’s been lending my parents money over the years because he knew that eventually we’d default. I think it was his way to…to back me into a corner.”
Rage went through Nikos. Looking at the circles under her eyes, he wanted to rip the other man apart. “I’ll kill him.”
She shook her head. “No. I can handle him. I’ll talk to Victor, make him understand that I don’t love him and I’ll never be his wife. If you want to help me, there’s just one thing you can do. One thing that would really, really help me.”
“What’s that?” Nikos asked, relieved at her admission that she had no intention of marrying Victor Sinistyn.
She looked at him with a painful expression of hope in her lovely almond-shaped eyes. “Hire me back as your secretary so I can pay back our family’s debt.”
“I told you. You don’t have to worry about the debt. I’ll handle it,” Nikos said. And I’ll start by destroying Sinistyn, he vowed privately.
“Please, just hire me back,” she begged—Anna the proud, who never begged for anything.
He took her hand. He wanted to cover her with kisses, let her know that she was safe, let her know that he’d never let anyone hurt her again. “I’ll keep you safe, and your family, too. I swear to you on my life.”
“I just need a job.” She licked her lips nervously—full pink lips that were made to be kissed. For a moment he couldn’t stop looking at her mouth. Why hadn’t he bedded her yet? Why hadn’t he kissed her every hour, every moment? He tried to remember as she continued desperately, “I’ll work from home so I can still take good care of the baby. And you’ll be glad to have me back in your office, I promise. I’ll make you so glad—”
“No,” he said harshly, furious at how tempted he was to give in to her. Hell, he’d love to have her as his secretary again. His life was so much easier with Anna by his side. And it was hard for him to deny her anything when he wanted to kiss her so badly. But he couldn’t be selfish. Not now. “I don’t want you as my secretary. I want you as my wife.”
“Nikos, please,” she whispered, with those full pink lips. She crossed her arms over her chest, pushing her breasts upwards beneath her slim white shirt. “I need this so badly—”
So did he.
Taking her in his arms, he kissed her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ANNA could not even try to stop him. His kiss was hot, demanding. She felt his fingers run down her neck and along her back, and her whole body seemed to relax like a sigh. For a brief moment she thought she could put all her cares and worries aside. She was safe in his arms. Maybe Nikos could protect her, care for her. Love her…
His tongue brushed against hers as he deepened the kiss, caressing her in an erotic dance that left her breathless. She leaned against him with a sigh.
“Anna,” he whispered, so softly that the words were a mere breath against her skin. “You belong with me. Always.”
He pressed her against the desk, kissing the vulnerable spot between her neck and shoulder until prickles of longing spread across her body. He ran his hands through her hair, causing bobby pins to scatter to the floor and her hair to tumble out of its chignon around her shoulders. She braced herself with an unsteady hand against his muscled shoulder. His fingers played with the waistband of her black pencil skirt, then moved beneath her fitted white shirt. A gasp escaped her as she felt his wide fingers splay lightly against the skin of her belly.
Without warning he lifted her up on the desk, crushing papers beneath her weight, cradling her to his body. He spread her legs to wrap them around him. Through his finely cut trousers, she could feel how badly he wanted her.
She wanted him too. But she was afraid. Afraid to trust too much, to give too much. What if she let herself depend on him and he crushed her?
She couldn’t let herself give in to her desire. If she agreed to be his wife it would mean disaster. She couldn’t give herself away to a man who didn’t love her!
He drew away. “You’re trembling.”
Grasping at straws, she indicated the résumés, their laptops, the appointment calendars spread across his large mahogany desk. “We can’t do this,” she panted. “There’s too much at stake—”
With an angry growl, he swept everything on the desk to the floor. Not even seeming to notice the crash of the laptops as they hit the carpet, he pushed her backward against the glossy wood of the desk. “Here. Now.”
“Nikos—”
He leaned forward, pressing his body against hers. His face inches from hers, his dark eyes pierced hers as he looked into her own searchingly. “Tell me that you don’t want this. Tell me you don’t want me.”
Licking her lips, she tried to speak the words. But the lies could not form themselves on her mouth when all she wanted to do was kiss him all over and feel his naked skin against her body.
She closed her eyes as she felt him slowly unbuttoning her shirt. He kissed her bare skin with each newly revealed inch until he finally pulled the shirt off her body. Without even knowing what she was doing, she whispered, “Please.”
He stopped. “Please what?”
Please hurry.
Please make love to me now.
Please love me…
“Wait,” she gasped. To her surprise, he released her, and, bereft of his touch, she opened her eyes.
He pushed himself up on one arm, looking down at her, and the expression on his face was one she’d never seen before. No, that wasn’t true. She’d seen it once. The night they’d conceived Misha. Nikos Stavrakis, the ruthless billionaire, was watching her with a vulnerable light in his dark eyes. As if she alone had the power to hurt him. Or save him.
“What is it, zoe mou?” he asked softly.
“I’m afraid,” she blurted out, then stopped, aghast.
“Of what?”
“I’m afraid you’ll hurt me,” she whispered.
A smile suddenly curved his lips, softening the hard angles of his handsome face as he gently brushed her cheek with his hand. “I would never hurt you, agape mou. Never.”
And at that moment she believed him.
“I will be gentle. I swear to you on my life.” With two easy movements he pulled off her skirt, murmuring with awe, “You are so beautiful.”
She reached up for him, unbuttoning his crisp linen shirt. Unlike his easy removal of her clothes, her fingers felt clumsy. They trembled in excitement, until finally she gave up on the last button and ripped off the shirt in her impatience.
“That was my favorite shirt,” he said, amused.
“Stupid of you to wear it today,” she murmured.
Growling under his breath, he braced himself with his knees on the desk ove
r her and slowly stroked down her full breasts, beneath the lacy fabric of her bra, until the only sound she could make was a moan.
He unhooked the front clasp of her bra and pulled the fabric off her body, tossing it to the floor. “Beautiful,” he breathed again, cupping them in his hands, and she arched her back against the desk, straining to bring him closer to her. He lowered his head to taste her breasts. Then abruptly stopped.
Wondering why, she looked down and saw that a small trickle of milk had escaped her left breast. She felt a squirm of embarrassment, then defiance. She was a nursing mother. She wouldn’t, couldn’t, be ashamed of it. But still…
He raised a dark eyebrow at her, then lowered his head and slowly licked the other breast with his rough tongue. She sighed with pleasure. She gasped as he lowered his head between her legs.
He worked his tongue with agonizing slowness, spreading her wide to taste the very heart of her. The full thickness of his tongue seemed to touch every nerve-ending of her body, leaving her quivering and taut with longing.
Gripping his hair with her hands, she stared up at the ceiling, knowing she should make him stop, that she should pull away, but she couldn’t. She was naked in his office, her thighs spread wide on his mahogany desk, and her boss—the playboy desired by women far more beautiful than she—was lapping her with his tongue until she thought she would explode.
And then she did. She heard a loud cry and realized it had come from her own mouth. For a few seconds afterward all she could do was breathe, and Nikos took her in his arms, holding her close as he whispered endearments. Anna realized that he wasn’t even all the way naked. But he was all the way hard. She could feel that through his tailored pants, pressing against her. And yet he wasn’t trying to make love to her.
Why not?
She started to stroke him through the fabric, but he caught her hands. His eyes, looking down at her, were vulnerable. “Marry me, Anna. Be my wife.”
Yes.
Yes.
God, yes.
“I can’t.” It felt horrible to say. Ungenerous and so, so wrong. And it wasn’t what she wanted. Especially when it made him abruptly pull away. “We can raise our son together, but I can’t marry you, Nikos. It would never work.”
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