by Pippa Roscoe
She pulled a slight grimace as she looked down at her black trousers and white silky top. It was definitely better than the beige T-shirt but she was sure that Loukis would manage to find fault with it. A part of her had wanted to find something that would wipe the disdain from his face the next time they met, but she had neither the time nor the money to do so.
Every bit she earned went into either the company or her home. Living in Paris, alone now—without Ella to share the rent—she’d had to move into a new apartment and, although she loved it dearly, it was still a drain on her earnings. Ella and Roman had offered to buy somewhere in Paris but Célia couldn’t, wouldn’t, take that. It wasn’t so much a case of cutting her nose off out of spite, more an awareness of how much she valued her own independence after all those years. Her father would be horrified to see the small loft apartment she had squeezed herself into. It was a far cry from the palatial estate she had grown up in as a child, before being sent to boarding school. And while it had been the height of luxury and status, she shivered at the memory of the way silence had echoed amongst the rooms. Seen and not heard, had been her father’s idiom. And for the millionth time, she wondered if it would have been different had she been born the son that her father had so desperately wanted. The heir to the business that was her father’s sole focus. Would that have prevented the endless well of disapproval she had felt from her father—even as she tried to emulate his path by going into computer sciences and engineering?
When she heard the determined clipped tones of shoes on the sleek flooring, she turned, wondering if Sia had forgotten something, and stopped short.
Loukis stalked towards her, his gait somehow both lazy and predatory, careless yet alluringly so. Dressed in a black tux, his white shirt undone at the collar, the tie balled in his fist, he looked as if he were just finishing his evening rather than starting it. As if he had just departed some mysterious woman’s bed. The thought sent images crashing through her brain and short-circuited the carefully prepared welcome she had wanted to greet him with.
‘Is everything ready?’ he demanded across the space as if he already had somewhere else to be, someone else on his mind.
She took in a breath she hoped would calm the frustration that seemed to be a constant companion to his sudden appearances.
‘Yes.’
‘Kalós,’ he said, scanning the space quickly with an assessing gaze before he reached her.
‘Are you ready?’ she queried, cursing her words the moment his eyes returned to hers and pinned her with an angry stare.
‘Nai.’
‘Really?’ she asked again, despite his assurance. Somehow in all their conversations she’d become strangely touched by his use of half-Greek, half-English words, their meaning evident by the context. It was not the suave language of the playboy, but a signal of understanding, of trust in her and her abilities.
She held her hand out for the tie still clenched in a vicelike grip, wondering which Loukis she would get this evening. She had seen his determined side, she had seen the charming side as he had flirted over the phone with her usually sternly efficient assistant, the result of which was for her to descend into a useless heap of blushes and giggles. Only once had she seen what she thought might be the true Loukis. When he had said that they needed to talk in a tone that had stopped her hasty departure, before they had gone to Comte Croix.
Frowning, he held out the crumpled tie, which she smoothed before stepping closer to him and looping it up over his head. The move had begun as an automatic thing. The mirror image of a memory she had from her childhood. Of watching her mother doing this for her father before every dinner event they attended. Even as her hands crossed over the silky black material, looping it into a bow tie, Célia wondered what on earth she was doing, aching from the past and yearning for something she should not want from the present.
The scent from his aftershave, spicy and earthy, drifted towards her as if propelled by the heat from his body, crashing against her in waves. Refusing to look up at him, unable to face what must have been confusion at her actions, she concentrated on knotting the silks in the right way and just about resisted placing her hands on his chest once she had done. They fell uselessly beside her once she had pulled the silk tight and stepped back, looking out to what must have been a Hockney to disguise her own embarrassment.
‘I don’t think that anyone has ever done that for me before.’
Loukis watched her shrug a shoulder as if to say it was nothing, but the small gesture had exposed the sleek line of her neck and collarbone and obliterated any sense of casualness the moment might have conveyed. The moment she had looped the tie over his neck, she had brought them so close he could smell her shampoo, orange blossom and citrus. He’d had to look away, jaw clenched and body steeled against the sudden shocking wave of arousal she had ignited. If he’d been tense when he had arrived, he was now rigid.
But any thoughts of sensual delight provoked by Célia were doused with the reminder of why he had been so stressed upon his arrival. Sobbing ten-year-olds had that effect. Sobbing ten-year-old sisters tended to drive him beyond despair.
‘Why do I have to go...? Why are you making me do this...? Please, Loukis, I don’t want to go with her...’
The ache in his chest mixed with fury and an impotence, a helplessness, that Loukis simply refused to accept.
‘The MC is here?’
Célia stepped away, as if sensing the swift change in mood from whatever had just passed between them.
‘Yes.’
‘And the—’
‘Valuation has been done, the staff are preparing the food and drink for this evening. The red carpet is lined with a roaring crowd of paparazzi—in case you came in the back way—and all but three invitations have been accepted. We should have a full turnout.’
Loukis nodded, heedless of the way she had interrupted him.
‘Good. We should go.’
‘Go?’ Célia asked. ‘What? Why would we—’
‘We need to make an appearance on the red carpet. My limousine is waiting at the back to circle around the block so we can make our grand entrance.’
The horror covering Célia’s features would have been funny had it not been such a shocking waste of time.
‘No. I’m not... I cannot—’
‘You can and you will.’
She was shaking her head now and backing away from him as if he posed some great physical threat.
‘I did not agree to that and...no. No, Loukis, I will not be walking the red carpet with you. I will not get drawn into whatever publicity you are courting. I can’t be—’
‘Associated with me?’ Loukis demanded. As if he didn’t have enough reasons to regret his wayward youth. A wave of exasperation rode over him, his usual defences having been brought down by Annabelle’s recent misery. At one time in his life, he’d had nothing more to think of than his own sensual pleasures. With hindsight he could see the desperate need to escape, to lose himself in whatever delighted him after years of a bitter, emotionally neglected childhood. To protect himself, even, from all the hurt that it had brought.
He had immersed himself in whatever and whoever he could find, courting scandalous headlines even as he sought, almost childishly, to illustrate just how little he cared. How he had laughed as each of the world’s news stations and papers had reported his latest exploit in competition with his even more scandalous mother.
But he did care. Cared that Célia seemed so horrified by being seen with the legendary playboy. It hurt, more, because in the last month they had worked so closely together on tonight’s event, he’d inch by inch shown a little of his true self. He’d relaxed into her strangely satisfying blunt honesty and thought that just maybe she’d seen him as more than a headline. But he should have known better.
‘No, Loukis, it’s not what you—’
�
��It’s fine,’ he said, cutting off any further words with a hand slashed through the air. Without casting another glance her way, he spun on his heel and exited the room, pulling slightly at the bow tie’s hold around his neck.
It was time to refocus on why this night was so important. Three years ago, his mother had unceremoniously dumped a seven-year-old girl on his doorstep, without any other explanation than ‘sister’, and departed. No return date, no apology, no financial assistance and no belongings—clothes even. Nothing. Until six months ago, legal documents bearing the word ‘custody’ plunged a knife into his heart.
By the time he’d walked through the kitchens and passed staff too preoccupied with their tasks to give him a second look, he’d managed to calm his breathing. By the time he slid into the back of the sleek limousine he’d decided it was better she was not by his side and was already cursing whatever accidental instinct had prompted such a demand. And by the time the town car had circled the building to draw up at the top of the red carpet, to a hail of flashbulbs, he had a particularly charming smile in place.
He opened the door to the limo himself, not waiting for the driver, and stepped out onto the carpet. Initially he’d been against the idea, but had been won over by the calibre of celebrities Célia had somehow managed to draw to the event. He was not so vain as to think for a second that it was because of him. Yes, his name held not inconsiderable weight in the business world, and his private fortune had amassed into the billions, courtesy of his father’s years of hard work. But savvy, intellect and, as he’d once heard an Englishman say, gift of the gab had nearly trebled the shipping company’s income.
All of which had made his board members very happy and his mother even more avaricious. Especially in the years since his father’s death. But it was the years before his father’s death that had created the most damage. Watching his father slowly lose a piece of himself each time his mother disappeared with yet another lover before he finally broke had taken its toll on Loukis, and ensured that the one surefire way of getting what he wanted—sole custody over his sister—was completely untenable. Nothing would persuade him to enter into the devil’s bargain of unholy matrimony, not even to appease the court’s outdated impression of what ‘family’ should look like. After all, that mirage of a family unit had done him no favours.
So no. The only conceivable way forward, the only way to change the tide of public opinion on a reputation he hadn’t actually lived up to in the last three years, was this. This event. It had to be absolutely perfect. So as the flashbulbs strobed through the night, he smiled his most charming smile, waved and stopped to speak with reporters even though his skin crawled and his face hurt. Perhaps Célia had been right not to accompany him along the carpet after all.
‘It’s been such a wonderful event, Célia. You’ve done really incredible things here, not to mention the life-changing amount of money raised.’
‘You’re very welcome. Estía is a wonderful charity and it’s one very close to Loukis’s heart.’
The wryly raised eyebrow from Estía’s CEO was hardly subtle, but he accepted her statement without comment.
‘Loukis Liordis has been deeply involved with every decision on this evening’s event. It was incredibly important to him that it was perfect.’ Nothing Célia had said was a lie—it was, however, open to interpretation. And looking at the now thoughtful expression on Mr Sideris’ features, she felt at least satisfied that she had worked hard to achieve both aims of the night. To help the charity and Loukis’s reputation.
Throughout the evening she had caught glimpses of him as he met and spoke with everyone present, celebrity and charity member alike. She’d tried to ignore the way that every adoring female gaze followed him—not that she could blame them. He was simply stunning—magnetic even as each woman present seemed to be drawn towards him consciously or otherwise. Célia had tried to block out how tactile he was, always touching someone on the arm, leaning forward into space Célia considered far more personal than not. But what she really marvelled at was how unconscious it seemed to be for him. He just...did that. For a person who shrank back into the shadows at every opportunity, Célia found herself oddly jealous at the ease with which he interacted with others.
‘That’s very kind of you to say, Mr Sideris.’
Célia jumped at the sudden and shocking proximity of the man she had just been thinking of. An action painfully visible to both men. She felt the blush rising on her cheeks and cursed her pale skin tones. Loukis speared her with an odd expression—one of either confusion, disdain, or even quite possibly both—before turning back to Estía’s CEO.
‘I very much look forward to doing business with you again,’ he said, grasping Sideris’ hand in his own.
‘Likewise, Mr Liordis. Likewise,’ returned the CEO, before departing with the wife that had been waiting patiently in the background.
Célia retrieved her phone from her trouser pocket, most definitely a benefit of her attire that evening, and clicked through the security pin code to retrieve the web browser she had found earlier.
‘One roaring success, Mr Liordis.’
He took the phone from her hand, using the tips of his fingers as if not wanting to make physical contact with her. It made her plunge her hand into her pocket. It made her feel...hurt having seen him be so open with all the other guests present that evening.
‘What am I looking at?’
‘The online results for this evening’s events,’ she said, the excitement at their achievement that evening cutting through any preceding thoughts. ‘With over two hundred and fifty thousand unique visitors to Estía’s website in the last four hours—’
‘Two hundred and fifty thousand? That doesn’t seem that much.’
‘Loukis, you’re incredible. Truly. But you’re not a Kardashian. It’s great, trust me.’
‘For who, Estía or me?’
‘For both,’ she replied, feeling like growling. ‘If it helps at all, then the majority of those visitors’ page impressions were to your bio on the site. But perhaps you’ll be happier with the fact that you’re currently across nearly every social media site, four international news agency websites and you’ll be on the front cover of the early morning edition of The Times. In five different countries.’
‘What about the American press?’
She was going to kill him. She was really going to kill him. His inquisition seemed solely focused on his own ego and it was destroying any sense of pride and accomplishment she felt at having not only pulled the whole event off—in little less than a month—but also ensuring it was actually a success, despite what Liordis apparently thought. She snatched her phone from his hands, unable to avoid that irritating zing that served only to fuel her ire, and walked away.
‘Is it going to be in the American press?’ he called after her.
‘Why does it matter?’ she tossed over her shoulder.
‘It just does, Célia.’
He was using that tone again. The one that she instinctively knew was more him than anything else he’d said. It caused her to pull up short. Again. She didn’t need to check her phone for the answer. ‘Yes,’ she said, finally turning back to him. ‘Happy now?’
‘Nai.’
He didn’t look happy. He looked more determined and more than a little...triumphant? It was an odd expression. It was...utterly devastating. Her heart began to pound in her chest and she wanted to run. To get away from him as fast as possible.
‘Where are you going?’ he demanded.
‘Back to my hotel. I have an early morning flight back to Paris.’
‘I’ll take you.’
‘I can find my own—’
‘I’ll take you, Célia.’
She shivered, hating the effect of his words on her already overly sensitised thoughts. For a moment, the promise hung on the air between them—as if he, too, realised t
he double entendre. Purposefully sidestepping that thought, she wondered how she would get back to her hotel. Exhausted and not speaking Greek, she decided Loukis’s offer was the easiest and quickest solution.
‘Fine.’
‘Then you are going the wrong way. My car is waiting in a side street. Best to avoid any further press.’
He held out an arm to guide her and although he didn’t touch her, didn’t place it against the white silk of her top, as she passed him she felt the heat of his palm as if he had rested his hand against the lower part of her back.
They made their way through nearly deserted kitchens and out into the alley where, as promised, Loukis’s limousine was waiting for them. The driver leaning against the car hastily jumped to attention, but not quickly enough for Loukis, who opened the door and ushered her inside.
The warm, dark interior was a complete contrast to the shocking white walls and brightly coloured paintings that had decorated Célia’s last six hours and she closed her eyes, taking the first nearly calm breath that evening, desperately seeking that sense of excitement and pleasure at a job well done. Anything other than the awareness of the man sliding in beside her.
‘Champagne?’
‘Non, merci,’ she replied.
She hadn’t touched a drop of the bubbly alcohol in years, because the nutty dry taste on her tongue embodied far too much the hurts of the past. To Célia it reminded her of disapproval, of superiority, of desperately waiting for the moment that her father would finally see her. Would finally recognise her. Love her.
She rubbed at the headache forming at her temples. Too much of that evening, too much of Loukis, seemed to remind her of that. Of powerful men who only wanted one thing...one thing that had never been her.
And she hated that sense of desperation yawning within her. Because of what it had driven her to; the times she had tried, and tried, to be what her father wanted, to choose a profession, a career that would somehow bring her closer to him. Choices that had led her to develop designs that had unwittingly caused such devastation.
