A Greek Escape - By Elizabeth Power Page 0,56

even daring to hope that he might be. Wasn’t he using the plight of two people she cared about purely to satisfy his own selfish demands? And he’d already lived up to the type of man he really was in the way he had lied to her in Greece.

Even so, it was with a sick and building excitement that a little later she sat in the shadowy intimacy of his car, acutely aware of him sitting there beside her, changing gear with an immaculately cuffed wrist as he took a bend, driving them home, his jacket discarded in the back…

Only the hall light was burning on a dimmer switch as they came through the electronically operated gates and he admitted them into his magnificent house. Having watched the way he’d used his security card to open the impressively carved door, Kayla couldn’t help comparing this man, with his millions and his discreet surveillance staff and his stringently guarded home, with the one who had slept with his doors unlocked—open to the world—alone on a lonely Greek hillside.

‘Thanks. I think I’ll go straight up,’ she murmured, breathless with anticipation. She wasn’t sure how she was managing to drag herself away from him as she started towards the wide sweeping stairs.

‘Kayla…’

His soft command stopped her in her tracks, her heart beating a frenzied tattoo. If he touched her…

Dear heaven! She wanted him to touch her! To take the decision away from her, carry her up these stairs and drive her wild in the sumptuous luxury of his bed!

She turned round, her legs threatening to buckle under her. ‘What?’

‘You dropped your wrap,’ he said, in a voice that was screamingly intimate.

Even the purposefulness of his tread on the pale marble was a sensuality that made her tense and yearning body throb.

Very softly he moved over and placed the blue and silver sequinned stole which she hadn’t even realised had slipped off lightly over her bare shoulders. Then, with heart-stopping gentleness, he turned her round to face him.

He had retrieved his jacket since stepping out of the car, and the dark cloth now spanning his shoulders was a sensuality she wanted to touch.

It was a replay of all he had tormented her with earlier, and she caught her breath, held in thrall by the scent and warmth and power of him as he stooped and pressed his lips against her forehead.

‘You look tired,’ he remarked, gazing down with some dark, unfathomable emotion at the naked hunger in her eyes. ‘Get some rest,’ he advised softly, leaving her excruciatingly lost and aching for him. ‘We’ve got another busy day tomorrow.’

CHAPTER TEN

‘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.