Kate Hewitt - The Greek Tycoon's Reluctant Bride

‘It’s a closet in the back,’ Demos replied. His eyes narrowed slightly as he added, ‘Probably not what you’re used to.’

‘Not to worry.’ Althea slid from her chair, taking her wrap and her tiny beaded bag, trying to act casual. Her heart was starting to thump so loudly she was sure Demos could hear it, see it through her skimpy dress. ‘Be back in a moment,’ she promised with a little smile, and he nodded.

She wove her way through the tables, down a narrow corridor to the bathroom at the back. She could see a few men in greasy aprons cooking in the tiny kitchen at the end of the hallway. They glanced up as she approached, then turned back to their flaming skillets. There was a door, she saw with relief, to a back courtyard.

She waited a moment, until she couldn’t see anyone either in front or behind, and then strode quickly to the back door. For a second, no more, she imagined turning around and going back to the table. Sitting with Demos, drinking good wine, talking, laughing, learning about each other.

And where would it lead? Where would he expect it to lead? Where did he intend for it to lead? He’d already told her. Hope.

Ha .

With a grim little smile she clenched the knob and wrenched the door open. Outside in the cramped courtyard she breathed in a lungful of greasy fumes; the vent from the kitchen blew out into the cluttered space. There was an overflowing skip of rubbish next to the door, a couple of rickety chairs, no doubt placed for the waiters to have their cigarette breaks, and high, soot-stained stone walls separating the courtyard from those of the neighbouring buildings. On every side.

There was no way out.

Althea slowly circled the courtyard before cursing aloud. She was trapped.

‘Going somewhere, Elpis?’

Her breath came out in a startled rush and her eyes flew to Demos, now lounging in the doorway, a sardonic smile curving that mobile mouth, his eyes glinting in the darkness. He looked lazily amused, yet underneath Althea sensed something deeper, darker.

She swallowed and opened her mouth, but couldn’t think of a single thing to say. The evidence was obvious. Impossible to deny. She’d been trying to run out on him.

He uncoiled himself from his relaxed pose and closed the space between them in a couple of strides.

‘I don’t think you were skipping out on the bill,’ he murmured, though she heard the edge in his voice. Felt it. He was close enough that his breath ruffled her hair. ‘So you must have been skipping out on me.’ He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and Althea shivered. ‘And I’m wondering why.’

He stood so close to her she could feel his heat. She felt her mind go numb. Blank.

‘Cold feet?’ he whispered against her hair, mockery hardening his tone. ‘Or are you just playing a game?’

Althea was tall, but she still wasn’t at eye-level with him. She stared straight ahead at the collar of his shirt, opened at the throat, saw the sharp line of his collarbone, the skin tanned a deep, working man’s brown. She swallowed and said nothing.

Demos lifted his hand, trailed his fingers lightly down her cheek. ‘You intrigue me, Elpis,’ he whispered. ‘You’re different from most of the spoiled socialites I meet. I think you might be as bored with the club scene as I am.’ She arced her head away from him, and his fingers closed around her chin, tilting it so she was forced to meet his iron gaze. ‘But I don’t play games, so you’d better not try them with me.’

Something sparked to life and she jerked her chin from his grip. ‘All of this is a game.’

‘Is it?’ His eyes fastened on hers, searching, demanding. ‘And who wins, I wonder?’

Althea’s lips curved in a smile. Her heart was pounding so hard she felt sick. She shook her hair back, smiled again. She let the smile play about her lips, let Demos notice, saw his own eyes darken with desire even as his mouth remained unsmiling and hard. ‘And the game is over, Demos,’ she whispered. ‘For tonight. If I intrigue you so much you’ll have to work a little harder. Find out my name first…and it’s not Elpis.’ Then, driven by a need she couldn’t even name, she stood on her tiptoes and leaned forward, meaning only to brush her lips with his in the barest kiss of farewell.

She planned on never seeing him again. Certainly not alone.

Demos stilled her, his hands curling around her shoulders. Their lips were a breath apart. ‘Are you sure this is how you want to end tonight?’ he asked in a lazy murmur, and Althea felt control trickling away, felt her body and mind freeze once more. ‘Because,’ Demos continued, ‘I’ve been wondering what it will feel like to kiss you all evening. What you taste like. And I think you’ve been wondering the same thing.’

She couldn’t open her mouth to deny it; his lips were too close.

‘And I think,’ Demos continued with a knowing edge, his lips almost— almost —brushing hers as he spoke, ‘I’m going to let you wonder a little bit more. You want me, Elpis. You want me as much as I want you. I can tell.’

Althea wanted to tell him to go to hell. She wanted to deny it with as much scathing disdain as she could muster. And yet she couldn’t quite make herself say the words.

She’d never wanted anyone. Any man. And she sure as hell wouldn’t want this arrogant ass either.

Demos’s mouth hovered over hers a second longer, long enough for Althea’s lips to part in instinctive invitation, even though her mind was screaming its useless denial. She felt him smile against her mouth, and then he stepped back and released her.

‘I’ll get you a taxi.’

For a shattered second all Althea could do was stare, blink, her mind and body shocked and numb. Then she nodded mutely, still unable to form a thought, much less a sound. She knew it would be difficult for her to get a taxi in this part of Psiri—a woman alone on the street. And she wanted to go home…alone. Even if Demos had won this round. Even if she was left wondering, wanting, unsure and unsated.

She followed Demos through the taverna, weaving her way through the tables, and tried to ignore Andreolos and the other waiters’ speculative looks.

Out in the street a couple staggered past them, laughing uproariously and clearly drunk.

Althea wrapped her arms around herself. The wind had picked up and was now slicing through her skimpy dress.

Demos hailed a taxi in a matter of seconds—an admirable accomplishment in any part of Athens, and certainly in this neighbourhood.

Althea pushed past him without a word, too frozen in body and spirit even to offer her thanks. She felt something heavy drop over her shoulders and she stiffened in surprise.

It was his blazer.

‘You’re shivering,’ he said, and handed the taxi driver a wad of euros.

‘I don’t—’

‘Yes,’ he replied with flat certainty, ‘you do.’ He closed the door in her face, leaving her alone in the darkened taxi, speeding away, his jacket still on her shoulders.

* * *

Demos watched the taxi disappear around the corner and wondered where she was going. He wondered who she was.

He was intrigued by her spirit, her sass , as well as by the hidden depths in those jewel-like eyes. She wasn’t, he mused, an empty-headed socialite—even though she pretended to be one. He had a feeling she wasn’t the easy slut Angelos had claimed her to be either.

So who was she? And why did he want her so much?

Was it the challenge, the mystery? Or the simple fact that he was currently unattached and bored?

No, it had to be more than that; there had been at least a dozen debutantes in that forsaken club that would have gladly come home with him. He hadn’t given them a single look. They hadn’t been worth a single thought.

But her…

She’d been going to run out on him. He smiled at her sheer audacity and nerve, even though he’d been furious—furious and stupidly a little hurt—at the time.

Why had she been sneaking out? Had she been bored? Provocative? Or something else altogether? He didn’t like games. He should have left her there—alone, humiliated. Yet he hadn’t. He couldn’t have.

She had courage. She was beautiful. He wanted her.

Three reasons to make her his, however he could. But first he needed a name.

It didn’t take long. Nothing ever did when you had determination. Demos had discovered that long ago. He paid the bouncer at the club fifty euros to find Angelos and bring him outside.

Demos leaned against the graffiti-splattered brick wall as Angelos came out, looking surly and suspicious.

‘You…!’ he said in disbelief, and then looked quickly around, noticing that the bouncer had stepped closely behind him. ‘What do you want?’

‘A name.’

Angelos shook his head, nonplussed and not a little drunk. ‘What?’

‘The name,’ Demos repeated softly, ‘of the woman I was with tonight.’

Angelos snorted. ‘You didn’t even get her name ?’ He glanced around, saw that Althea was absent. ‘She tired of you quick, hey? She’ll come running to me. Althea and I go way back.’

‘Althea,’ Demos repeated in satisfaction. It suited her.

‘Althea Paranoussis,’ Angelos confirmed with a shrug. ‘Daddy’s little rich girl. Stupid sl—’

‘Don’t,’ Demos warned him. ‘Don’t speak of her again. Ever.’

‘What do you care?’ Angelos took a step backwards, and came up against the bouncer. ‘She left you anyway. She’s good at that.’

‘I’m finished here.’ Demos addressed the bouncer, then started down the street. He didn’t look back as Angelos was hustled into the club.

Althea Paranoussis. He had a name. He knew how to find her. And he would, Demos thought with satisfaction. Soon.

CHAPTER TWO

SUNLIGHT poured through the wide windows of Althea’s bedroom, touching the single bed and the girlish white bureau with gold.

Althea lay flat on her back, unmoving, her eyes focused on the blank ceiling. She heard the deliberate heavy tread of her father down the front stairs of their town house and knew he was up, early as always, ready to take a cup of black tea and a koulourakia in the dining room, as he’d done every day of his adult life.

Althea let her breath out slowly but still did not move. She wondered if her father was still angry about her return last night. She hadn’t been out all that late, but he’d clearly been waiting for her to come home, and every second so spent had strained his patience.

He was tired of her. Tired of her parties, her late nights, her increasingly wild reputation. Althea smiled grimly. She was tired too.

‘This has to stop, Althea,’ Spiros Paranoussis had said last night. He’d been in his pyjamas and dressing gown, his white hair thin and wispy, his face flushed with anger. ‘You stop this behaviour or I shall have to stop it myself.’

‘I’m a grown woman, Father,’ Althea replied coolly. She’d stopped calling him Papa when she was twelve.

‘Acting like a spoiled child! Every day there is another story in the tabloids about what you’ve done, who you’ve been with. How am I to hold my head up in town? At work?’

Althea shrugged. ‘That’s not my concern.’

‘It is, alas, mine,’ Spiros said coldly. ‘And if you cannot see fit to curb your behaviour then I shall have to do so for you…by whatever means necessary.’

Althea had shrugged again and gone upstairs. He’d been threatening her for years with consequences he never cared to enforce. She refused to take her father seriously, refused to grant him the respect he demanded—the respect he felt he deserved—and it infuriated him. But he’d lost the right to her respect too many years ago for her to even consider giving it to him now.