The Millionaire's Virgin

‘That was unwise,’ he said softly, his eyes lingering on her embarrassed face. ‘Was it so stressful? The journey, I mean.’

‘No. No, of course not.’

Paige wished he would leave her alone. Sophie wasn’t a fool and if he continued to behave as if her well-being was of some importance to him her sister would begin to suspect she had something to hide.

But perhaps that was his intention, she mused uneasily. She’d never truly believed he’d offered her this job out of the goodness of his heart. Men like Nikolas Petronides didn’t forgive—or forget. And, although she had no illusions that she’d ever meant a great deal to him, she had walked out on him, which in his eyes was probably unforgivable.

‘Kala,’ he murmured now, inclining his head towards a room on his left. ‘Ariadne is waiting for us. We will go and introduce you, ne?’

Paige nodded, glancing at Sophie before accompanying him across the vast expanse of marble that lay between them and what she seemed to recall from her previous visit was an elegant drawing room. Around them, the plain walls of the reception hall were hung with literally dozens of paintings, large and small, that added vivid colour to what was essentially a neutral area. But there were flowers, too: huge bouquets of magnolia and oleander and lily in sculpted vases, whose distinctive fragrance hung sweetly in the cool conditioned air. It was all very beautiful and very civilised, and Paige wished she could relax and stop thinking that she’d made a terrible mistake.

The lamplit salon they entered was as she remembered: high ceilings above striped silk walls; long undraped windows at either side of an enormous stone fireplace, above which hung an impressive portrait of a woman she knew to be Nikolas’s mother; several upholstered sofas in green and gold; and rich, subtly woven rugs scattered over a polished floor. The many display cabinets were the repository for delicate china and ceramics, a collection Nikolas’s grandfather had begun in his lifetime and which his late father had continued. And, although there were other paintings here, too, there were also a handful of jewelled icons to draw the eye. It was a beautiful room, casually luxurious, yet revealing a lived-in comfort and informality in the sprinkling of cushions on the sofas, in the sprawl of magazines decorating a low granite table, and the squat vase of wild flowers residing on the mantel.

But it was the girl who was standing on the hearth who took Paige’s eye. Ariadne—Stephanopoulous, as Donald Jamieson had advised her—was nothing like the schoolgirl she had been expecting. Tall and slender, with a long coil of night-dark hair hanging over her shoulder, she looked years older than the seventeen she admitted to. She was wearing black: an ankle-length gown that moulded her figure, and would not have looked out of place on a woman twice her age. She looked more like Nikolas’s wife than his ward, thought Paige in some dismay, wondering how on earth she was supposed to deal with her.

And, indeed, Ariadne reacted to their appearance with the kind of studied arrogance that seemed to confirm Paige’s assessment of her. ‘Nikolas!’ she exclaimed, ignoring the two women with him and going towards him, her hands held out in front of her so that he was obliged to take them in his own. ‘Ola entaksi?’

‘Speak English, Ariadne,’ Nikolas chided her mildly. ‘Our guests are not familiar with our language. And, after all, that is one of the reasons I have invited Miss Tennant here: to help you improve your accent.’

‘My accent doesn’t need improving,’ retorted Ariadne at once, with a little less maturity. But Paige had to admit she was right. The Greek girl appeared to speak English very well indeed. A lot better than the schoolgirl Greek she could manage.

‘Whatever…’ Nikolas’s tone had hardened now. He turned to Paige. ‘My ward,’ he said simply. ‘I hope you’ll become good friends.’

‘I hope so, too,’ said Paige firmly, taking the limp hand Ariadne offered her. ‘It’s very nice to meet you, Miss Stephanopoulous.’

‘Miss Stephanopoulous!’ Nikolas was impatient. ‘Her name is Ariadne.’ He glanced at the girl beside her. ‘And this is Sophie. Miss Tennant’s sister.’

‘Hi.’ Sophie greeted the other girl without enthusiasm, and Paige hoped she wouldn’t say anything too outrageous. ‘I guess we’re the same age, right?’

‘Are we?’ Ariadne sounded bored, and she immediately turned back to her guardian, wrapping her hands around his forearm and gazing up at him with wide, appealing eyes. ‘Isos—maybe we can have dinner now?’

‘After I have offered Miss Tennant and her sister an aperitif,’ Nikolas answered evenly, removing her hands from his wrist. ‘Paige?’ He indicated that she should follow him across to an ebony drinks cabinet. ‘What will you have?’

Paige hesitated; then, after exchanging a warning look with Sophie, she crossed the room. She wasn’t happy about leaving the two girls alone, and she kept glancing back over her shoulder as if she expected something awful to happen.

‘Ouzo? Retsina? Or something more familiar?’ asked Nikolas at her approach. ‘And relax. It will do Ariadne good to spend time with someone of her own age for a change.’

Paige expelled a breath. ‘I thought you said she still attended school.’

‘I did.’ Nikolas lifted a bottle of white wine from the refrigerated cabinet and arched an enquiring brow. Then, after she’d nodded her approval, he went on, ‘But Ariadne has been too much with older people this past year. She’s had a series of minor infections which have kept her away from school, and I had to hire a tutor to give her extra lessons.’

‘I see.’ Paige watched him pour her wine. ‘She seems very—attached to you.’

‘You noticed.’

‘It would have been hard not to.’ Paige took the glass he offered, carefully avoiding his fingers, and then looked up to find him watching her with a whimsical expression. ‘What?’ she exclaimed. Then, glancing over her shoulder again, she said, ‘Well—she’s hardly discreet.’

‘Unlike you,’ he remarked drily, pouring a generous measure of Scotch into a cut-glass tumbler. ‘I must admit I was surprised when I heard that you’d been in touch with Jamieson. If I’d thought for a minute that you’d change your mind, I’d have hung on for a few more days. Why did you?’

‘Why did I what?’

He pulled a wry face. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.’

‘Oh—’ Paige knew she should have been prepared for the question, but she wasn’t. ‘I—I decided it was too good an opportunity to miss.’

‘Did you?’

His eyes were lazily intent and she hurried to explain herself. ‘Financially, I mean,’ she assured him. ‘And although it meant taking Sophie out of school a couple of weeks early all her exams are over.’

‘Ah, yes, Sophie.’ His eyes moved past her to where her sister was waiting, a look of resentment on her face now. ‘She’s not at all like you, is she?’

Paige shrugged. ‘If you say so.’

‘I do.’ His mouth took on a sensual curve. ‘And before I ask your sister what she would like to drink, let me say that you have many advantages that she has not.’

‘I’m older, you mean?’

Paige refused to let him disconcert her, and Nikolas’s eyes narrowed on her tense face. ‘Older, of course. But age has its compensations. You know what I am saying,’ he added softly, and then broke off as an argument erupted across the room.

‘Who the f—? I mean, who the hell do you think you are?’ Sophie’s voice rose in outrage. ‘You can’t speak to me like that. You’re not the mistress here!’

‘Arketa! Arketa! That is enough!’

As Ariadne opened her mouth to respond, Nikolas slammed down his drink and strode across the room. For a moment, he seemed to have forgotten his command that they should speak English, and his initial remonstrance was issued in the language of his youth.

Then, as if realising that Sophie couldn’t understand him, he gathered himself, and when he spoke again his manner was more controlled. ‘Ariadne,’ he snapped. ‘Do you want to tell me what is going on? What have you been saying to upset our guest?’

Ariadne looked indignant at first. And then, as if realising her guardian was not going to respond to that kind of attitude, she mumbled, ‘It was nothing, Nikolas. Really. I was merely saying that Kiria Papandreiu does not like to keep dinner waiting.’