On a personal front, Alekos had been determined to establish himself as the new company chairman away from his father’s power base in Greece. The grand building in Athens which had been GE’s headquarters looked like a palace and Kostas Gionakis had been king. Alekos never forgot that he was the usurper to the throne.
His jaw clenched. Dimitri should have been chairman, not him. But his brother was dead—killed twenty years ago, supposedly in a tragic accident. Alekos’s parents had been devastated and he had never told them of his suspicions about the nature of Dimitri’s death.
Alekos had been fourteen at the time, the youngest in the family, born six years after Dimitri and after their three sisters. He had idolised his brother. Everyone had admired the Gionakis heir. Dimitri was handsome, athletic and clever and had been groomed from boyhood to take over running the family business. Alekos was the spare heir should the unthinkable happen to Dimitri.
But the unthinkable had happened. Dimitri had died and Alekos had suddenly become the future of the company—a fact that his father had never allowed him to forget.
Had Kostas believed that his youngest son would make as good a chairman of GE as his firstborn son? Alekos doubted it. He had felt that he was second best in his father’s eyes. He knew that was still the opinion of some of the board members who disapproved of his playboy lifestyle.
But he would prove those who doubted his abilities wrong. In the two years that he had been chairman the company’s profits had increased and they were expanding into new markets around the globe. Perhaps his father would have been proud of him. Alekos would never know. But what he knew for sure was that he could not allow himself to be distracted by his PA simply because her sexy new look had stirred his desire.
Turning away from the window, he opened a document on his laptop and resolutely focused on work. He had inherited the company by default. He owed it to Dimitri’s memory to ensure that Gionakis Enterprises continued to be as successful as it had been when his father was chairman, and as Alekos was sure it would have been under his brother’s leadership.
* * *
Sara ignored a stab of guilt as she passed her desk, piled with paperwork that required her attention, and hurried into the bathroom. The mirror above the sink confirmed her fears. Her flushed cheeks and dilated pupils betrayed her reaction to Alekos that she had been unable to control.
She felt as though she had been holding her breath the entire time she had been in his office. Why was it that she’d managed to hide her awareness of him for two years but when she had set eyes on him this morning after she hadn’t seen him for a month her pulse-rate had rocketed and her mouth had felt dry?
The sensation of her heart slamming against her ribcage whenever she was in close proximity to Alekos wasn’t new, but she had perfected the art of hiding her emotions behind a cool smile, aware that her job depended on it. When Alekos had elevated her to the role of his PA over several other suitably qualified candidates for the job, he had bluntly told her that he never mixed business with pleasure and there was no chance of a sexual relationship developing between them. His arrogance had irritated Sara and she’d almost told him that she had no intention of copying her mother’s mistake by having an affair with her boss.
During the eighteen months that she had worked in the accounts department before her promotion, she’d heard that the company’s board members disapproved of Alekos’s playboy lifestyle, which attracted the wrong type of press interest, and she understood why he was determined to keep his relationship with his staff on a strictly professional footing. What Alekos wanted from his PA was efficiency, dedication and the ability to blend into the background—and plain, conservatively dressed Sara had fitted the bill perfectly.
In truth she would have worn a nun’s habit to the office if Alekos had required her to because she was so keen to secure the job. Her promotion to personal assistant of the chairman of Gionakis Enterprises had finally won her mother’s praise. For the first time in her life she had felt that she wasn’t a disappointment to Joan Lovejoy. The surname was a misnomer if ever there was one because, as far as Sara could tell, there had been no love or joy in her mother’s life.
She’d wondered if her mother had loved the man who’d abandoned her after he had made her pregnant. But Joan had refused to reveal Sara’s father’s identity and only ever made a few oblique references to him, notably that he had once been an Oxford don and it was a pity that Sara hadn’t inherited his academic brilliance.
Sara had spent most of her life comparing herself to a nameless, faceless man who had helped to create her but she had never met—until six weeks ago. Now she knew that she had inherited her green eyes from her father. He was no longer faceless, or nameless. His name was Lionel Kingsley and he was a well-known politician. She’d been stunned when he had phoned her and revealed that there was a possibility she might be his daughter. She had agreed to a DNA test to see if he was really her father but she had been sure of the result before the test had proved it. When she looked into a mirror she saw her father’s eyes looking back at her.
For the first time in her life she felt she was a whole person, and so many things about herself suddenly made sense, like her love of art and her creativity that she’d always suppressed because her mother had pushed her to concentrate on academic subjects.
Lionel was a widower and had two grown-up children. Her half-siblings! Sara felt excited and nervous at the thought of meeting her half-brother and half-sister. She understood Lionel’s concern that his son and daughter from his marriage might be upset to learn that he had an illegitimate daughter, and she had told herself to be patient and wait until he was ready to acknowledge publicly that he was her father. Finally it was going to happen. Lionel had invited her to his home at the weekend so that he could introduce her to Freddie and Charlotte Kingsley.
Sara had seen pictures of them and discovered that she bore a striking resemblance to her half-siblings. But the physical similarities between her and her half-sister did not apply to their very different dress styles. Photographs of Charlotte wearing stylish, figure-hugging clothes had made Sara realise how frumpy she looked in comparison. The smart suits she wore to the office reflected the importance of her role as PA to the chairman of the company and she had reminded herself that if Alekos had wanted a decorative bimbo to be his PA he wouldn’t have chosen her.
The new clothes she had bought while she had been on holiday did not make her look like a bimbo, Sara reassured herself. The skirt and blouse she was wearing were perfectly respectable for the office. Shopping in the chic boutiques on the French Riviera where her father owned a holiday villa had been a revelation. Remembering the photos she’d seen of her stylish half-sister had prompted Sara to try on colourful summery outfits. She had dropped a dress size from plenty of swimming and playing tennis and she loved being able to fit into skirts and dresses that showed off her more toned figure.
She ran her fingers through her new layered hairstyle. She still wasn’t used to her hair swishing around her shoulders when she turned her head. It made her feel more feminine and, well...sexy. She’d had a few blonde highlights put through the front sections of her hair to complement the natural lighter streaks from where she had spent a month in the French sunshine.
Maybe it was true that blondes did have more fun. But the truth was that meeting her father had given her a new sense of self-confidence. The part of her that had been missing was now complete, and Sara didn’t want to fade into the background any more. Travelling to work on the Tube this morning, she’d wondered if Alekos would notice her changed appearance.
She stared at her flushed face in the mirror and grimaced. All right, she had hoped he would notice her, instead of treating her like a piece of office furniture: functional, necessary but utterly uninteresting.
Well, she had got her wish. Alekos had stopped dead in his tracks when he’d seen her and his shocked expression had changed to a speculative gleam as his eyes had roamed over h
er. Heat had swept through her body when his gaze lingered on her breasts. She felt embarrassed thinking he might have noticed that her nipples had hardened in a telltale sign that he excited her more than any man had ever done.
Her decision to revamp her appearance suddenly seemed like a bad idea. When she’d dressed in dowdy clothes she hadn’t had to worry that Alekos might catch her glancing at him a dozen times a day, because he rarely seemed to notice that she was a human being and not a robot. Remembering the hot, hard gleam in his eyes when she had been in his office just now sent a tremor through her, and a little part of her wished she could rush back home and change into her safe navy blue suit. But when she’d returned home from her holiday she’d found that all her old clothes were too big, and she’d packed them into black sacks and donated them to a charity shop.
There was no going back. The old Sara Lovejoy was gone for ever and the new Sara was here to stay. Alekos would just have to get used to it.
CHAPTER TWO
AT EXACTLY NINE THIRTY, Sara knocked on Alekos’s door and took a deep breath before she stepped into his office. He was sitting behind his desk, leaning back in his chair that was half turned towards the window, and he was holding his phone to his ear. He spared her a brief glance and then swung his gaze back to the window while he continued his telephone conversation.
She ordered herself not to feel disappointed by his lack of interest. Obviously she must have imagined that earlier he had looked at her with a glint of desire in his eyes. Just because she had a new hairstyle and clothes did not mean that she had become Alekos’s fantasy woman. She knew his type: elegant blondes with legs that went on for ever. In the past two years a steady stream of models and socialites had arrived in his life and exited it a few months later when Alekos had grown bored of his affair with them.
Sara had hoped she would be able to control her reaction to Alekos but her heart leapt wildly in her chest as she studied his profile. Slashing cheekbones, a square jaw shadowed with dark stubble and eyes that gleamed like polished jet all combined to give him a lethal magnetism that women invariably found irresistible. His thick black hair had a habit of falling forwards across his brow and she was tempted to run her fingers through it. As for his mouth... Her eyes were drawn to his beautiful mouth. Full-lipped and sensual when he was relaxed and utterly devastating when he smiled, his mouth could also curve into a cynical expression when he wished to convey his displeasure.
‘Don’t stand there wasting time, Sara.’ Alekos’s voice made her jump, and she flushed as she registered that he had finished his phone call and had caught her out staring at him. ‘We have a lot to get through.’
‘I was waiting for you to finish your call.’ She was thankful that two years of practice at hiding her reaction to his smouldering sensuality allowed her to sound calm and composed even though her heart was racing. The way he growled her name in his sexy accent, drawing out the second syllable...Saraaa...was curiously intimate—as if they were lovers. But of course they were not lovers and were never likely to be.
She forced herself to walk unhurriedly across the room, but with every step that took her closer to Alekos’s desk she was conscious of his unswerving gaze. The unholy gleam in his eyes made her feel as if he were mentally undressing her. Every centimetre of her skin was on fire when she sat down on the chair in front of his desk.
It would be easy to be overwhelmed by him. But when she had been promoted to his PA she’d realised that Alekos was surrounded by people who always agreed with him, and she had decided that she could not allow herself to be intimidated by his powerful personality. She’d noted that he did not have much respect for the flunkeys and hangers-on who were so anxious to keep on the right side of him.
She had very quickly proved that she was good at her job, but the first time she had disagreed with Alekos over a work issue he’d clearly been astounded to discover that his mousy assistant had a backbone. After a tense stand-off, when Sara had refused to back down, he had narrowed his gaze on her determined expression and something like admiration had flickered in his dark eyes.
She valued his respect more than anything because she loved her job. Working for Alekos was like riding a roller coaster at a theme park: exciting, intense and fast-paced, and it was the knowledge that she would never find a job as rewarding as her current one that made Sara take a steadying breath. She could not deny it was flattering that Alekos had finally noticed her, but if she wanted to continue in her role as his PA she must ignore the predatory glint in his eyes.
She held her pencil poised over her notepad and gave him a cool smile. ‘I’m ready to start when you are.’
Her breezy tone seemed to irritate him. ‘I doubt you’ll be so cheerful by the time we’ve finished today. I’ll need you to work late this evening.’
‘Sorry, but I can’t stay late tonight. I’ve made other plans.’
He frowned. ‘Well, change them. Do I need to remind you that a requirement of your job is for you to work whatever hours I dictate, within reason?’
‘I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that I have always worked extra when you’ve asked me to,’ Sara said calmly. ‘And I’ve worked unreasonable hours, such as when we stayed up until one a.m. to put together a sales pitch for a sheikh before he flew back to Dubai. It paid off too, because Sheikh Al Mansoor placed an order for a one-hundred-million-pound yacht from GE.’
Alekos’s scowl did not make him any less gorgeous; in fact it gave him a dangerous, brooding look that turned Sara’s bones to liquid.
‘I can stay late every other night this week if you need me to,’ she went on in an effort to appease him. Alekos’s bad mood threatened to spoil her excitement about meeting her father after work. Lionel Kingsley’s high profile as an MP meant that he did not want to risk being seen in public with Sara. As they couldn’t go to a restaurant, she had invited him to her home and was planning to cook dinner for him before he attended an evening engagement.
‘Oh, I can’t stay late on Friday either,’ she said. ‘And actually I’d like to leave an hour early because I’m going away for the weekend.’ She remembered the plans she’d made to visit her father at his house in Berkshire. ‘I’ll work through my lunch hour to make up the time.’
‘Well, well.’ Alekos’s sardonic drawl put Sara on her guard. ‘You go away for a month and return sporting a new haircut, a new—and much improved, I have to say—wardrobe, and now suddenly you have a busy social life. It makes me wonder if a man is the reason for the new-look Sara Lovejoy.’
‘My personal life is none of your business,’ she said composedly. Technically, she supposed that a man was the reason for the change in her, but she had not met a lover, as Alekos had implied. She had enjoyed getting to know her father when he had invited her to spend her holiday at his villa in the south of France but she had promised Lionel that she wouldn’t tell anyone she was his daughter.
Deep down she felt disappointed that her father wished to keep their relationship secret. It was as if Lionel was ashamed of her. But she reminded herself that he had promised to introduce her to her half-siblings on Friday, and perhaps then he would openly welcome her as his daughter. She pulled her mind back to the present when she realised Alekos was speaking.
‘It will be my business if your work is affected because you’re mooning over some guy.’
Sara still refused to rise to Alekos’s verbal baiting. She tapped the tip of her pencil on her pad and said with heavy emphasis, ‘I’m ready to start work when you are.’
Alekos picked up a client’s folder from the pile on his desk, but he did not open it. Instead he leaned back in his chair, an unreadable expression on his handsome face as he surveyed her for long minutes while her tension grew and she was sure he must see the pulse beating erratically at the base of her throat.
‘Why did you change your holiday plans and go to France rather than Spain?’
‘The holiday company I’d booked with cancelled my trip, but a...friend in
vited me to stay at his villa in Antibes.’
‘Would this friend be the man whose voice I heard in the background when I phoned you with a query from the Miami office a week ago?’
Sara tensed. Could Alekos possibly have recognised her famous father’s voice?
‘Why are you suddenly fascinated with my private life?’
‘I’m merely concerned for your well-being and offering a timely reminder that holiday romances notoriously don’t last.’
‘For goodness’ sake!’ Sara told herself not to be fooled by Alekos’s ‘concern for her wellbeing’. His real concern was he did not want his PA moping about or unable to concentrate on her work because she’d suffered a broken heart. ‘What makes you think I had a holiday romance?’
He trailed his eyes over her, subjecting her to a thorough appraisal that brought a flush to her cheeks. ‘It’s obvious. Before you went on holiday you wore frumpy clothes that camouflaged your figure. But after spending a month in France you have undergone a transformation into a frankly very attractive young woman. It doesn’t take a detective to work out that a love affair is probably the cause of your new-found sensuality.’
‘Well, of course you would assume that a man is the reason I’ve altered my appearance.’ Sara’s temper simmered. ‘It couldn’t be that I decided to update my wardrobe for me.’ His cynical expression fuelled her anger but she also felt hurt. Had she really looked so awful in her navy blue suit with her hair secured in a neat bun, as Alekos had said? It was pathetic the way her heart had leapt when he’d complimented her new look and told her she was attractive.
‘You are such a male chauvinist,’ she snapped. Ignoring the warning glint in his eyes, she said furiously, ‘I suppose you think I altered the way I dress in the hope of impressing you?’
Acquired by Her Greek Boss Page 2
