A Greek Escape

chapterTEN

‘WHY DIDN’T YOU tell me you were seeing him?’ Lorna gasped, amazed, after Leonidas had telephoned Kayla in the office on Monday morning. ‘And don’t tell me you aren’t, because that phone call certainly wasn’t about trading figures! You’re going out with him, aren’t you?’

Imperceptibly, Kayla tensed. She hadn’t told anyone that she was staying with Leonidas. All she had told her mother was that she was spending a couple of weeks with Lorna, and as Leonidas lived within a reasonable driving distance of Kendon Interiors, which meant that she could still come into the office, she had decided not to involve her friend in the lie.

‘Don’t spread it about,’ she implored, reluctant to reveal her secret or to face the awkward questions that people would ask if she did.

What could she tell them, anyway? That she was only with Leonidas because he had made it impossible for her to refuse? That he was as good as blackmailing her to get her to comply with his wishes, and that she didn’t intend staying in his house a second longer than after that contract was signed?

‘If the paparazzi get wind of it they could turn his life into a circus,’ she tagged on as casually as she was able to, although she was aware, from things Leonidas had already mentioned in passing, that they really could do just that.

‘I won’t. Well, only to Josh, of course,’ Lorna stated unnecessarily. ‘But how did you manage it? No, scrub that,’ she put in hastily. ‘You’re smart and you’re beautiful—he wouldn’t have been worth his salt if he hadn’t noticed you the moment you walked into the conference room last week. Wow! Won’t that be one in the eye for Craig!’ she continued, clearly flabbergasted. ‘Honestly, Kayla! Do you know how rich he is?’

Rich and manipulative and using his power to get exactly what he wants, Kayla thought desolately. Because what he wanted was her, back in his bed. She was certain of that, despite the fact that he was making no advances to her in that respect, and regardless of how much he had hurt her—was still hurting her with his calculated plan to use her friends’ precarious position as a lever to get her to fall in with him.

It was for that reason that she still couldn’t bring herself to tell Lorna about meeting him in Greece. Lorna, who always thought the best of people, would instantly imagine that he had cast his company’s business their way because Kayla had recommended them. She might even think he was doing it as a favour to her, Kayla, and she couldn’t bear her friend to be deceived by him as she had, when nothing could be further from the truth.

‘His money doesn’t interest me,’ Kayla tried to say nonchalantly, which produced a knowing little laugh from her friend.

‘Well, no. I can see that there’s far more that would interest you before you even got to his wallet! Gosh! If I wasn’t married—and pregnant…’

‘Which you are,’ Kayla emphasised, managing a smile, knowing that her friend was only jesting. Lorna adored Josh, and her one desire in life was to give birth to their healthy baby. Dropping an almost envying glance to her dearest friend’s burgeoning middle, Kayla decided right there and then that whatever it took to help Lorna fulfil that desire she would do, regardless of the cost to her own emotions.

During that week Leonidas went away on some unexpected business, returning a couple of days later to steal Kayla away early from the office and take her to a charity auction, where canapés were handed round on silver dishes and champagne flowed like water from a spring.

It was an event where the proceeds from the various items on offer went to a tsunami relief fund, and it soon became clear to Kayla that it was because of Leonidas’s attendance and his company’s support of the event that so many people had got involved.

‘Did you enjoy that?’ he asked her afterwards, when they were in the car, pulling away. ‘As far as you were able to, of course, bearing in mind that your enjoyment level was probably stuck on zero in view of who you were with.’

Like her, he had refused the champagne after the first half-glass, and she was beginning to discover that his driving standards—as with most of what he did—were impeccable.

‘Very amusing,’ she remarked dryly, turning to look out of the window, secretly admiring the gardens surrounding the grand English country manor his company had hired to host the event. ‘What was the object of the exercise in bringing me here today? To show me how charitable you can be?’ She’d been surprised when he had paid over the odds for a small and not particularly well done watercolour of one of the local landmarks. ‘There are those who might say you can afford to be.’

‘You would be one of them, I take it?’ When she didn’t answer, already wishing she hadn’t been so quick to snipe at him like that, he went on, ‘It isn’t about affording it, Kayla. It’s about having enough clout to make others aware of the importance of events like this and bringing everyone together to contribute.’

Which he had done—and very successfully, she accepted, secretly impressed. Although she couldn’t bring herself to admit it aloud, privately she couldn’t deny that she had enjoyed herself—very much.

He took her to a West End show one evening—one she had wanted to see and for which she had been unable to get tickets. Afterwards, coming out of the exclusive restaurant where he had taken her for a late dinner, they were leapt on by photographers who almost succeeded in trampling her to death before Leonidas got her into the waiting limousine he’d had one of his aides bring to whisk them away.

‘How do you cope with all this?’ Kayla challenged, and he could tell from the all-encompassing gesture of her small chin that she meant the security and the car and the public demands his billionaire status made upon him, and not just the frightening intrusion of the paparazzi.

‘One learns to live with it,’ he said in a matter-of-fact voice, and then, more solicitously, asked, ‘Are you all right?’

She nodded, but he could see that she wasn’t. That anxious line between her eyes assured him that she was anything but happy being there with him. Also, being jostled by those photographers had caused the fine white silk of her dress to tear, and her beautiful hair, which she had styled so elegantly before they had left the house, was coming out of its combs. She looked as if she had been out in a gale—or with a far too impassioned lover.

The thought made him hard, but he steeled himself against it. She wasn’t ready to accept him back into her bed just yet.

Consequently, when they reached the house he left her to go to bed alone and went straight to his study, where he spent hours catching up on some pressing paperwork in an endeavour not to give in to the almost overwhelming urge to mount the stairs two at time, rip back her bedcovers and watch her hollow protests dissolve beneath the surging demands of their entwined bodies.

The photographs were emblazoned across the tabloids the next day, with Kayla caught looking surprised and dishevelled and Leonidas urging her determinedly into the car.

‘Have you seen them?’ she wailed, ringing him on his mobile, having already spent half an hour on the phone, dodging awkward questions from her mother. She wasn’t sure where he was, but her call had been diverted to his secretary first, who had obviously been asked to field his calls.

‘Yes, I did, and I’m sorry,’ he expressed, sounding annoyed over the publicity.

She was beginning to appreciate why he’d gone off to that island to escape it all for a while. Why he had been so angry when he had caught her supposedly taking photographs of him that first day.

‘Say nothing,’ he recommended, when she told him that someone from the press had found out where she worked and had been ringing the office to try and get her to talk to them. ‘Throw them a crumb and they’ll knead it into a whole loaf. If you say nothing it will blow over within a week.’ He apologised again before ringing off.

A couple of hours later a large bunch of red roses was delivered to the office as added consolation from Leonidas, much to the excitement of everyone at Kendon Interiors—particularly the female contingent, who had already seen the article and were still drooling over the hard and exciting image of the high-powered tycoon.

As arranged, he picked Kayla up himself from the office that evening, using his car’s superior power to roar out of the business park before one lurking newspaperman and a couple of young girls from the office who had rushed out to get a glimpse of him knew what had happened.

‘Thank you.’ Kayla looked gratefully across at him as he brought the powerful car into the early rush-hour traffic. ‘For getting me out of there so fast—and for the roses.’ Remembering her telephone call to him earlier, however, and the manner in which she had finally got to speak to him, she asked, before she could stop herself, ‘Did you get your secretary to send them for you?’

Wasn’t that what company men did? she reflected bitterly, remembering other roses. Before turning their focus on their adoring secretaries themselves?

‘I’m not your father, Kayla,’ he answered grimly, without taking his eyes off the rear window of the car in front of them, uncannily reading her mind. ‘Nor am I your ex-fiancé. When I send flowers I never do it without choosing exactly what I want myself.’

Which put her in her place, good and proper! She didn’t doubt that in this instance at least he was telling her the truth.

He was due to fly to the Channel Islands for a conference that weekend. Expressing concern, however, at Kayla being left to the mercies of the press for a couple of days, he instructed her not to stray beyond the boundaries of his home, and made sure she complied by instructing one strong-armed member of his security staff to keep his eye on her.

‘What are you imagining I’ll do if I go out?’ she quipped as he was leaving for the helicopter that was standing, its blades whirring, on the landing pad in front of the house. ‘Find some man to impregnate me so I can tell everybody it’s yours?’

She regretted it almost as soon as she’d said it.

‘You aren’t a prisoner, Kayla,’ he said, all emotion veiled by the dark fringes of his lashes. ‘I’m only thinking of your privacy and your safety.’

And he was gone, leaving her with only the briefest touch of his lips branding her cheek.

As it was a good weekend she swam in the pool and sunbathed on the terrace, catching up with some reading and watching a couple of adventure movies in the mansion’s impressive professionally equipped cinema room.

Nothing, though, could compare to her traitorous excitement at hearing Leonidas’s helicopter returning on Sunday evening after she had gone to bed—deliberately early so that she wouldn’t have to see him. Wouldn’t have to battle with this underlying sexual tension that was building in her daily with a terrifying intensity, and which was becoming almost impossible to keep from him whenever he touched her—however casually. And she had to keep it from him, she thought, harrowed and racked with frustration. Because wasn’t this part of his ploy? To wear her down with wanting him? Just to redeem his indomitable masculine pride? And if she did ever succumb again to her own foolish and weak-willed desire for him, what then?

No, she had to be strong, she determined. Had to resist him at all costs. Just until that contract was signed.

When Leonidas picked her up from the office the following evening it was to take her for an early dinner in a favoured bistro he knew and then, much to her surprise, on to a photography exhibition.

‘I thought as you’re so attached to that camera of yours,’ he said, pulling up outside the small but well-attended little gallery, ‘you might appreciate seeing what the professionals have to offer. Of course if you’d rather not…’

‘No. No I’d like to,’ Kayla put in quickly when he looked in two minds about whether to park or drive away. Craig had hated anything like this, and even Josh and Lorna couldn’t understand what Craig had used to call her ‘camera fetish’. Just the chance to be among like-minded people for a change was something she didn’t want to pass up.

The exhibition, by private invitation only, was being hosted by an acquaintance of Leonidas’s, and Kayla could tell as soon as they were inside that he and the gentle grey-haired man were true friends. There was none of the deference or playing up to Leonidas that she had seen among some of the people at the functions she’d attended with him, until she’d wondered how he could ever tell who was really sincere.

‘Leonidas tells me that you’re quite the enthusiast,’ the man said to her, smiling. Leonidas—still dressed, as she was, in a dark business suit—was, with the rest of the twenty or so guests, browsing some of the artwork around the gallery. ‘If ever you feel you have something to offer, then you know where to come.’

‘It’s just a hobby!’ Kayla laughed warmly, wondering what Leonidas had been saying to his friend about her. That he had said anything at all gave her a decidedly warm feeling inside.

‘So what do you think?’ Suddenly he was there beside her, sharing her interest in a waterfall scene with some interesting use of light.

‘It’s good,’ she expressed, enervated by his dark executive image. ‘But if it had been mine I’d have toned the light down a little.’ She was finding it hard to concentrate when she could feel the power of his virility emanating from him, and her nostrils were straining for every greedy breath of his cologne. ‘It isn’t subtle enough for me.’

‘And you like subtlety?’

Dry-mouthed, Kayla touched her tongue to her top lip and saw the way his eyes followed the nervous little action. ‘Every time.’ She even managed to smile, but her lips felt stretched and burning.

‘Perhaps this will be more to your taste.’ They had moved on and he was referring to a landscape captured beneath an angry sky.

‘Much too wild,’ she dismissed laughingly, and saw the sexy elevation of a dark eyebrow.

‘Are you saying you prefer something more…tamed?’

There was sensuality in the way he said it, in that momentary hesitation. Or was she imagining it? she wondered, her heart still racing when he immediately invited her opinion on the technicalities of the photograph—its depth of field, how it captured the eye.

He knew a lot about the subject, and she was impressed.

‘I’ve studied a bit,’ he said modestly, when she told him so. ‘Unlike you. You’re a natural,’ he commented, making her glow inside. ‘So, what about this one?’

‘Too much Photoshop,’ she quipped, wrinkling her nose, and he laughed.

For a moment it felt as it had that day he had taken her to that little island and she’d been insisting on racehorses on a piece of land not a mile wide. Indulging in make-believe. Playing games with him. Except that it was different tonight. Tonight the very air around them was pulsating with a dangerous chemistry, and she wasn’t with Leon, the man she’d believed to be open and carefree with scarcely two pennies to his name. She was with Leonidas Vassalio, hardened billionaire, powerful magnate and the man who had hurt her—was still hurting her just by being the type of man he was. The type who would use her concern for her friends to get what he wanted.

‘My Gran used to say that the camera doesn’t lie. But it does,’ she accepted, suddenly feeling low-spirited. ‘Maybe not in her day,’ she went on, ‘but in this day and age the emphasis seems to be on how much you can artificially enhance or embellish, and on what you put in or take out. You can’t really tell what’s real any more and what isn’t. There’s so much that isn’t as it seems.’ Including you, she thought achingly, and had to glance away, pretending to be temporarily distracted by the other guests milling around them so that he wouldn’t see the emotion scoring her face.

‘And that means so much to you?’

‘Yes, it does,’ she said. ‘I like the camera to capture things as they really are.’ She turned back to him now, her feelings brought under control. ‘Men and women. Places. Things. I like them portrayed “warts and all”, as the saying goes. I’m not a fan of illusion. Being fooled into seeing something that isn’t really there.’

He tilted his head, the movement so slight that she wasn’t sure whether she had imagined it or not. His eyes were dark pools of inscrutable emotion and she wondered what he was thinking. That he had done just that with her when he hadn’t told her who he was?

‘Let’s go home,’ he said.

He spoke very little to her on the relatively short journey back, while the car ate up the miles in the gathering dusk.

There had been a sporadic press presence at the main gates of the house over the past few days, and Leonidas wasn’t taking any chances when they arrived home.

‘We’ll take the east entrance,’ he told Kayla as he turned the car down a quiet lane that stretched for a couple of miles and which, from the manicured trees above the high wall that soon came into view, obviously skirted his property.

Another pair of electronically opened gates brought them past a small lodge and into his home through a smaller and more secluded side entrance.

‘Why isn’t this part of the house used?’ Kayla whispered as they came out of rooms covered in dustsheets which Leonidas had had to unlock to allow them into the main body of the house. She felt like a child creeping around when she should have been in bed. Or a guilty mistress sneaking away from the ecstasies of her lover’s bed…

‘I had this part converted for my father, but he never came here,’ he said, his voice taking on a curiously jagged edge.

‘Why not?’ Kayla asked, thinking how thick and black his hair was as he stopped to lock the door behind him. It made her want to rake her fingers through it, twist the strong tufts around them as she lay beneath him, crying out from the terrifying pleasure he was withholding from her.

‘I believe I told you before. We were never able to get on. I wanted us to try and establish some sort of rapport as he was getting older.’ They were moving along a softly lit carpeted passage now. ‘To try and forge some sort of bond with him.’

He was so close behind her that if she stopped he would collide with her, Kayla thought hectically, craving the feel of his warmth through her prim little jacket and tight pencil skirt.

‘And did you?’

‘No. There was too much between us—far too much to even imagine we could repair it. He didn’t want to share in my good fortune or the things I could give him. He didn’t want anything from me,’ he concluded, with something in his voice that she might have mistaken for pain if she hadn’t known better.

‘Why not? Wasn’t he proud of you?’ she queried, feeling for him in spite of herself as they came through an archway into the main hall alongside the sweeping staircase. She couldn’t believe that any parent with a son like Leonidas—driven, enterprising, so overwhelmingly successful—could possibly be anything else.

‘Oh, I think he was satisfied that I’d turned out to be the man he had been determined to mould me into,’ he accepted harshly.

Kayla glanced back over her shoulder and saw the rigidity of his features, the hard cynicism touching his mouth. ‘And what type is that?’

‘The type who understands that sentiment and idealism are for fools and that common sense and practicality are the only two reliable bedfellows.’

‘Do you really believe that?’ she murmured, with wounded incredulity in her eyes as she stopped, as he had, at the foot of the stairs.

‘What does it matter what I believe?’ he said.

He meant to her. And yet it did matter, she realised—far too much—and she had to sink her nails into her clenched palms to keep herself from blurting it out.

He was hard and ruthless. She’d realised that even before she’d left Greece. Although she hadn’t known how hard and how calculating he could be until she’d seen him in full corporate action, which was how he had managed to climb to the very top of the executive ladder while still only thirty-one. Yet there was an altruistic side to his nature too, reined in beneath that cold and ruthless streak, which could have had her eating out of his hand if she had been weak enough to let it. But she wasn’t, she thought turbulently as she found herself battling against a surge of responses to that dark and raw sensuality that transcended everything else about him.

‘Thank you for taking me to the exhibition,’ she said, in a husky voice that didn’t sound like hers. ‘It was thoughtful of you. I think I’ll go straight up. Goodnight.’

If she had thought he would let her go then she had been fooling herself, she realised too late, when his firm, determined fingers closed around her wrist.

‘You might not like the man you think I am—or what I stand for—but it excites you, Kayla.’

How right he was! She felt panicked as he drew her towards him and brought the fingers of his other hand to play along the pulsing sensitivity of her throat.

‘This excites you.’

‘No, don’t—please…’ It was a hopeless little sound. The sound of one who knew her cause was lost.

‘Why? Are you afraid that if for one minute you let your guard down you might just have to acknowledge how much you want me?’

‘I don’t want you.’ Rebellion warred with the dark desire in her eyes. Futile rebellion, she realised when she saw him smile.

‘No?’

He was barely touching her, yet every feminine cell was screaming out to the steel-hard strength and warmth and power he exuded. She could feel her breasts straining against her blouse, could feel the moist heat of her desire against the flimsy film of her string.

‘You want me and it’s driving you mad. It’s driving us both mad,’ he admitted, and his scent and his nearness and that iron control were electrifying as he tilted her chin with a forefinger—all that was touching her now. ‘You want me,’ he said huskily, his dark eyes raking over her upturned mouth. ‘Say it.’

It was a soft command, breathed against her lips, and it was that excruciating denial of the kiss she was craving, which finally broke her resolve.

‘I want you! I want you! I want—!’

His mouth over hers silenced her wild admission in the same moment that she twined her arms around his neck to pull him down to her.

He caught her to him, those strong arms tightening around her.

Kayla wriggled against him, seeking even closer contact with his body, her own a mass of desperate wanting as their mouths fused, broke contact, devoured in a hunger of frenzied need.

He was tugging off her jacket, letting it lie where it fell, ripping buttons in his urgency to get her out of her clothes. But when her hands slid under his jacket and it fell away from those broad shoulders he suddenly swept her up off her feet and mounted the stairs with her as effortlessly as if she were a rag doll.

Of course. The staff.

The thought penetrated her consciousness, but only for a second, because all that mattered was that she was with this man, destined for his bed, and she was going to know the full meaning of his loving her.

In the physical sense…

She shook that thought away, because all she wanted was to have him inside her—anyhow, anywhere and any way it came.

He set her down on her feet before they had even reached his room, pressing her against the wall of the carpeted landing, as hungry for her mouth as she was for the pleasuring mastery of his hands on her body.

He surfaced only to tug off her gaping blouse, pulling her against his hard hips so that he could deal with the back zipper of her skirt.

It slipped to the floor and she was standing there in nothing but a white lacy bra and string and black high-heeled sandals, revelling in his groan of satisfaction as he caught her to him again.

His tongue burned an urgent trail along the shallow valley between her breasts and, clutching his shoulders, she arched against him as his mouth moved ravishingly over a lacy cup.

The fine silk of his shirt was a sensual turn-on under her urgently groping hands, the fabric of his immaculately pressed trousers heightening her pleasure as he suddenly cupped her buttocks and lifted her up and her legs went around him, her fingers tangling wildly in his thick black hair.

It was the culmination of everything he had promised and everything she had dared to imagine, she realised as they finally made it to his room and he dropped her down onto the yielding sensuality of his big bed.

They had been lovers in the spring, but it hadn’t been like this, she thought as he came down to her, still fully clothed, and removed the last scraps of her underwear with swift and amazing dexterity. Perhaps he had been right when he’d suggested that his power and influence excited her. Perhaps she was no different from all those other women she’d seen visually devouring him, she thought. Because she had no control over the desires he aroused in her.

Naked, she writhed beneath him, wanting him naked too, wanting the hands that were reclaiming her body never to stop—because she had been made for them. For this…

When he moved away to hastily shed his clothes, she watched with her hair spread like wild silk over the darker sheen of his pillow, her arms arched above her head in wanton abandon to the thrilling anticipation of what was to come.

‘I called you an angel once,’ he said hoarsely, looking down at her from where he was standing, unashamed and magnificent in his glorious nakedness. ‘But I was wrong. You’re a she-devil.’ It was said with a curious tremor in his voice.

‘And you…’ she whispered, her body pulsing as he finished sheathing himself—not taking any chances this time—and came back to join her ‘…are the devil incarnate.’

‘Yes,’ he murmured, his voice humorously soft against her lips.

But she didn’t care, because she was on fire for him, burning up in a conflagration of need and wanting and desire.

Skilfully and with controlled deliberation he slid down her body, anointing her skin with kisses, although his body was taut with his own need and his breathing was as ragged as hers.

Their hunger was too demanding for much foreplay. As he moved above her, positioning himself to take her, Kayla welcomed his hard invasion, her legs opening for him like silken wings for the sun.

His sliding into her was an ecstasy she couldn’t have imagined and she lifted her hips to accommodate him, a small cry spilling from her lips.

His penetration was deep, with each successive thrust taking him deeper, until he was filling her, stretching her, turning her into a being of mindless, unparalleled sensation where nothing else mattered but the union of their two bodies.

She was riding with him, being taken to a place where only the two of them existed—a rapturous world of feeling and sharpening senses that grew into a mountain of exquisitely unbearable pleasure, urging her upwards to its summit. And suddenly as she reached the top the mountain started to explode, and she cried out from the pleasure that was bursting all around her. She was falling, tumbling in a freefall of interminable sensation, clinging to the man she never wanted to let out of her arms, part of him, belonging to him, as he tumbled with her through the sensational universe.

When she came back to earth she was sobbing uncontrollably, all her pent-up feelings for him released by the shattering throbs of her orgasm.

Some time afterwards, when her sobs had subsided, Leonidas asked, ‘Are you all right?’

She was lying in the crook of his arm and the warm velvet of his chest was damp from her tears.

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ Kayla murmured, and rolled away from him, unable to tell him why she had wept. If she did, then he would know, and she didn’t want to admit it to herself. So she stayed where she was, on her side, with her legs drawn up, not wanting to face the truth or the reality of what had just happened.

Leonidas woke shortly before dawn.

Kayla was still lying with her back to him, as far over on her side of the bed as it was possible to get. With a crease between his eyes, Leonidas slipped quietly out of bed, so as not to disturb her, and went to take a shower.

When he returned, wearing a dark robe, she was still sleeping, but now lying on her back. What little make-up she’d been wearing last night was smudged—either from his over-zealous treatment of her or from crying, he remembered uneasily—and her hair was alluringly tousled from making love.

Unable to help himself, he stooped to press his lips lightly to her forehead. She stirred slightly, her brow furrowing as though her dreams were troubled.

‘Leon…’

He wasn’t sure, from her soft murmur, whether that was what she’d said, but if it was it wasn’t meant for the man who had made love to her last night. Not Leonidas Vassalio, corporate chairman and billionaire. Not after the way she had cried after they had made love.

She didn’t trust him or even like him, and she despised herself for wanting him. Why else would she have shed tears of such bitter regret when she’d been overtaken—as he had—by their mutual passion last night?

It was his fault for thinking in the beginning that he could have a casual fling with a girl like her and that keeping the truth from her wouldn’t matter. Nor had he been right in thinking he could bend her to his will in making her come here to try and get her to want him as she had in Greece. She was never likely to. She was hurting, and he had never intended that.

What was that old adage? he pondered distractedly, moving away from the bed. If you loved something, you had to let it go. If it came back to you, it was yours. If it didn’t, it never would be.

But what he felt for this beautiful, bewitching girl wasn’t love, he thought, steeling himself against any emotion. Not as she deserved it. And she certainly wasn’t his. So wasn’t it time to let her go?

Wearing a silver-grey suit, white shirt and silver tie, Leonidas was perched on one of the high stools, browsing through a newspaper, when Kayla came into the huge, sterile-looking kitchen an hour or so later. Behind him the sky was overcast beyond the panoramic window, and even a myriad lights in the halogen-studded ceiling couldn’t detract from the dreariness of what should have been a bright summer day.

‘Good morning.’ He scarcely glanced up from whatever he was reading in the Financial Times, although just that briefest glance from him set her insides aflame as she thought about how intimately and passionately he had pleasured her last night.

After a moment he cast the newspaper aside on the kitchen counter beside him. ‘Kayla, we have to talk,’ he stated without any preamble, angling his long, lean body to face her on the stool.

‘About what?’ she queried, with sudden queasiness in her stomach. What was he going to say that lent such a serious tone to his voice?

‘I’ve been a moron,’ he told her. ‘If that’s the correct expression. You were right. I have been trying to keep you in my life for the sake of my own pride—my ego, if you like—because I didn’t like my ethics being brought into question in anyone’s mind. Particularly the mind of a girl who was very sweet and trusting and whom I treated very unfairly when I was with her in Greece and I needed to put that right.’

‘What are you saying?’ Kayla queried in a small, broken voice.

‘That I’ve been very selfish and inconsiderate and that you don’t need to pander to my fragile ego any longer. Your friends’ contract is assured, if that’s what you’ve been worrying about, so you’re free to cast me off…if that’s what you wish,’ he added with some hesitancy, and as though he was picking his words very carefully. ‘Whenever you like.’

If it was what she wished?

Pain speared through her so acutely it felt like a knife slicing through the life-force of her very being. She’d never been let down and effectively rejected in such a considerately phrased manner before. But he’d got what he wanted, she thought wretchedly, trying to concentrate on her breathing. It was her total capitulation that he had needed to redeem his pride, and now she had given him that he needed nothing more.

He was just like all the others—right out of the same mould. The type of man she’d vowed never to be attracted to again. Except that this man was different. This man wasn’t even capable of feeling. Not love, she accepted, anguished. He’d practically admitted that to her himself last night. Loving was a weakness—something only fools entertained—and Leonidas Vassalio was anything but weak, and certainly no fool.

‘Well…’ Her smile felt stretched as she tried to put on a brave face, and she wondered if she was visibly shaking as much as she was trembling inside. It occurred to her then why he’d wanted her kept out of the way of the press while he’d been away last weekend. Because he didn’t want anyone thinking she was a permanent fixture in his life. ‘I’d better go and start packing,’ she said as tonelessly as she was able, and wondered at the unfathomable emotion that turned his eyes almost inky black.

‘I have to fly to Athens,’ he informed her, consulting his watch, his tone similarly flat.

It was a trip, she’d discovered, which he took on a regular basis, often going back and forth between London and his Greek office. ‘If you’re keen to go today, I obviously won’t try and stop you, but I shan’t be able to take you myself. I can, however, arrange for a car to be put at your disposal whenever you wish to leave.’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ Kayla murmured, wanting to get out of there—and quickly—before the tears that were burning the backs of her eyes overflowed and gave her away.

He nodded as though he understood, and somehow she managed to drag herself from the room with her pride intact, safe in the knowledge that he would never know the truth. A truth she only admitted to herself now, as she stumbled over the stairs up which he had carried her so purposefully last night. That she was deeply and hopelessly in love with Leonidas Vassalio.