The Greek Millionaire's Secret Child

They passed the remainder of the meal in idle conversation, interrupted only by intermittent bursts of rain at the windows, but before coffee was served, she’d run out of things to say and was wilting visibly. Even he, unscrupulous bastard though he undoubtedly was, felt sorry for her. The long transatlantic flight would have been tiring enough, without the added strain of looking after his father. So when she set aside her napkin and begged to be excused, he made no attempt to stop her, but left the table himself and walked her to the foot of the stairs.

“Good night,” she murmured.

“Kali nikhta,” he returned. “Sleep well.”

She was perhaps halfway to the upper landing when a brilliant flash of lightning arrowed through the night. Almost immediately, the electricity failed and plunged the house into darkness.

He heard her startled exclamation and the click of her high heel hitting the edge of the marble step as she stumbled to a halt. “Stay put,” he ordered, well aware how treacherous the staircase could be to the unwary. Once, when he was still a boy, a new housemaid had slipped and broken her arm—and that had been in broad daylight. But he’d grown up in the villa; could quite literally have found his way blindfolded anywhere within its walls, and was at Emily’s side before she, too, missed her footing.

Just as he reached her, a second bolt of lightning ripped through the night, bleaching her face of color, turning her hair to silver and her eyes into pools as huge and dark as those found in undersea caverns. “What happened?” she whispered, clutching the bannister with one hand as she teetered on the edge of the stair.

Instinctively he pulled her close with an arm around her shoulders. They felt slender, almost childlike to the touch, but the rest of her, pinned warm and sweet against him, was unmistakably all woman. “The lights went out,” he said, resorting to the absurdly obvious in an attempt to deflect her attention from the fact that his body had responded to hers with elemental, albeit untimely vigor.

She choked on a laugh. “I pretty much figured that out for myself.”

“I expect a power pole was struck.”

“Oh,” she said faintly, aware as she had to be of her effect on him. Blatant arousal was difficult to hide at such close quarters. “Does it happen often?”

Were they talking about the same thing, he wondered, as his mind fought a losing battle with his nether regions. “No, especially not at this time of year.”

“I ought to make sure your father’s all right.”

“No need,” he said, hearing footsteps and noticing the shadow of candle flames flickering over the walls at the rear of the downstairs hall. “Georgios is already on the job. But if it’ll ease your mind any, I’ll see you as far as your suite, then go check on him myself. Do you know which one you’re in?”

“Only that it’s blue and cream, with some gorgeous antique furniture, including a four-poster bed.”

He nodded, recognizing her description, and keeping one arm looped around her waist, steered her the rest of the way up the stairs, turned right along the landing and felt his way along the wall on his left until he made contact with her door. Pushing it wide, he directed her inside.

The logs in the fireplace had burned down, but enough of a glow remained to fill the room with dim orange light. Enough that when she looked at him, their gazes locked, held prisoner by the sexual awareness, which had simmered between them from the moment they’d first set eyes on each other.

He hadn’t meant to kiss her this early in the game, had planned a much more subtle attack, but when she turned within the circle of his arms and lifted her face to his, it was the most natural thing in the world for him to tighten his hold until she was once again pressed against him. The most natural thing in the world to bend his head and find her mouth with his.

CHAPTER THREE

EMILY had been kissed before, many times, but always with some part of her brain able to rate the experience objectively: too slobbery, too bland, too aggressive, too many teeth, too much heavy breathing, not enough tenderness. More often than not, kissing, she’d concluded, was a vastly overrated prelude to romance. Until Niko Leonidas came on the scene, that was, and felled her with a single blow.

Except “blow” was no more the right word to define his effect on her than “kiss” adequately described his action. What he did with his mouth transcended the ordinary and surpassed the divine. Cool and firm, it yet seared her with its heat. Though undemanding, it somehow stripped her of everything—her independence, her focus, her moral compass, even her sense of survival.

Apart from one rash, distinctly forgettable experience, she’d chosen to remain celibate because sex for its own sake held no appeal, and she’d never come close to being in love. But she’d have let him take her there on the floor, if only he’d asked. Would have let him hike up the skirt of her dress and touch her as no other man ever had. For as long as his kiss held her in its spell, she would have let him have his way with her however he wished.

Obviously he did not wish for a fraction of what she was willing to give. Because releasing her, he stepped back and said, rather hoarsely to be sure, “I’ll go look in on my father and see about getting some candles up here.”

Weak as water, she clutched the back of a nearby chair and nodded. She couldn’t have spoken if her life depended on it. Although he’d put a respectable distance between them, she remained trapped in his aura. Her body still hummed. Her breasts ached. Moisture, warm and heavy, seeped between her thighs.

When he turned away, she wanted to cry out that she didn’t need candles, she only needed him. But the words remained dammed in her throat and he was gone before she could free them. Dazed, she lowered herself to the chair and waited for him to return.

A brass carriage clock on the mantelpiece marked the passing minutes. Gradually its measured pace restored her racing pulse to near-normal and brought a sort of order to her scattered thoughts. What kind of madness had possessed her, that she’d been ready to give herself to someone she’d known less than a day? He spelled nothing but trouble.

I won’t let him in when he comes back, she resolved. I’m out of my league with such a man and don’t need the heartbreak an affair with him would bring.

But when a discreet tap at her door signaled his return, all logic fled. Heat shot through her, giving rise to a single exquisite throb of anticipation that electrified her. She couldn’t get to him fast enough.

Pulling open the door, she began, “I was beginning to think you’d abandoned—!” then lapsed into mortified silence at the sight of Georgios standing there, a lighted silver candelabra in one hand, and a battery operated lantern in the other.

“Niko asked me to bring these, thespinis,” he informed her politely, “and to tell you that Kirie Pavlos is sleeping soundly.”

Rallying her pride, she stood back to let him pass into the room, and mumbled, “Thank you.”

“Parakalo.” He placed the candelabra on the dresser and handed her the lantern. “I am also to tell you that he has been called away.”

“At this hour of the night?” She made no attempt to hide her disbelief.

He nodded. “Ne, thespinis. He received an urgent phone call and will most likely be gone for several days.”

Oh, the louse! The cowardly, unmitigated rat! Swallowing the anger and humiliation threatening to choke her, she said scathingly, “It must have been some emergency to drag him out in the middle of a storm like this.”

Georgios stopped on his way to the door and shrugged. “I cannot say. He did not explain the reasons.”

“Never mind. It’s not important.” He wasn’t important. She was there to look after the father, not chase after the son.

“Thank you for the candles and flashlight, Georgios. Good night.”

“Kalispera, thespinis. Sleep well.”

Surprisingly she did, and awoke the next day to clear skies and sunshine. Last night’s storm was as much a part of the past as last night’s kiss.

Pavlos was already up and dressed when she went downstairs. He sat on the veranda outside his sitting room, gazing out at the garden. A small empty coffee cup and a phone sat on a table at his side. A pair of binoculars rested on his lap.

Catching sight of her, he pressed a finger to his lips, and gestured for her to join him. “Look,” he whispered, pointing to a pair of fairly large birds. Pretty, with bluish-gray heads, pearly-pink breasts and brown wings mottled with black, they pecked at the ground some distance away. “Do you know what they are?”

“Pigeons?” she ventured.

He grunted disdainfully. “Turtle doves, girl! Timid and scarce, these days, but they come to my garden because they know they’re safe. And those over there at the feeder are golden orioles. Didn’t know I was a bird fancier, did you?”

“No,” she said, noting the spark in his dark eyes and his improved color. “But I do know you look much better this morning. You must have had a good night.”

“Nothing like being on his home turf to cure a man of whatever ails him. Not that that son of mine would agree. Where do you suppose he is, by the way? I thought he might at least stay over, my first night back.”

“No. He was called away on some sort of emergency.”

“Gone already, eh?” He squared his shoulders, and lifted his chin, a formidable old warrior not about to admit to weakness of any kind. “Off on another harebrained escapade, I suppose. Doesn’t surprise me. Never really expected he’d stick around. Ah well, good riddance, I say. You had breakfast yet, girl?”

“No,” she said, aching for him. He could protest all he liked, but she saw past his proud facade to the lonely parent underneath. “I wanted to see how you were doing, first.”

“I’m hungry. Now that you’re here, we’ll eat together.” He picked up the phone, pressed a button and spoke briefly with whoever answered. Shortly after, Georgios wheeled in a drop-leaf table set for breakfast for two, and equipped with everything required for what she soon realized was the almost sacred ritual of making coffee. It was prepared with great ceremony over an open flame, in a little copper pot called a briki, and immediately served in thick white demitasses with a glass of cold water on the side.

“No Greek worthy of the name would dream of starting the day without a flitzani of good kafes,” Pavlos declared.