that gave her an amazing sashaying walk as she approached.
Thee mou, but she was beautiful! To think she had clutched that damnable bucket and mop and scrubbed filthy floors!
Even as he thought about it, another thought gelled in his mind.
She never will again—never!
Whatever it took to convince her to accept his proposal, he would do it. She deserved no less.
And nor do I.
He felt that low-frequency purring start inside him as she came up to him. This beautiful woman, whose existence he had known of for only four days, had blown him away.
He got to his feet, greeting her warmly, letting the glow in his eyes show his appreciation of her.
It was having an effect, he could see—the very effect he wanted.
She wasn’t impervious to him—he knew that with absolute certainty. He’d seen that revealing flare in her eyes, try to conceal it as she might. And when they’d been in London he had sensed, with his very well-honed male instinct and his considerable experience of her sex, that she was as appreciative of him as he was of her, however offhand her manner had been.
But that initial deliberate indifference to him—caused, he thought ruefully, by his own guarded behaviour towards her, because he’d been unwilling to disabuse her about her father and unwilling to admit to himself how drawn he was to her—was all gone now. There was no longer any need for it.
He felt the purring inside him heighten. Now they could give their sensual awareness of each other full rein.
It was there right now—he could tell—in that flaring of her pupils as he smiled in welcome. In the flaring that was echoed in his own eyes. In the quickening of his pulse...
Impulse took over. An unstoppable urge. Without full consciousness of what he was doing, only male instinct possessing him, he caught her hand, rested his other hand lightly on her slender waist.
‘You look fantastic!’ he breathed. His voice was husky, again unconsciously—he couldn’t help it. His eyes moved over her face, taking in just how exquisitely lovely she looked, gazing at him now, wide-eyed, unconsciously inviting...
That low-frequency purr intensified. Became irresistible...
His mouth dipped to hers...
It was the lightest of kisses—the softest brushing of his mouth on hers, lasting only seconds. The merest fleeting sensation...the merest sip of the honey of her silken lips... The kind of kiss any man could greet any woman with in public.
And yet he had to use every ounce of his self-control to draw back from her, to smile down at her and release her hand, her waist, help her to take a seat. He could see that her face had flushed, her colour heightened and the low purring inside him was glad of this visible evidence of her response to him.
Of his to her he needed no second proof. Desire rushed through him. And an absolute certainty that the half-crazy idea he had blurted out to her that afternoon to stop her fleeing back to London, to the grim, bleak life she lived there—the impulsive offer that, despite his original determination to have nothing to do whatsoever with Stavros’s English daughter, had seemed the most obvious thing to make—was, in fact, the one idea he longed to make happen... He wanted to make her his.
He resumed his own seat, his eyes never leaving her. Her gaze had dipped and she was busying herself smoothing a napkin over her lap, the colour gradually subsiding from her flushed cheeks. Xandros knew he needed to put her at ease with him. There would be time enough to make clear to her just how he felt...
‘I thought it best to dine here at the hotel,’ he opened. ‘The food is excellent and I thought you might like the view.’
He gestured to the picture windows, which opened on to a terrace beyond. He heard her breath catch with delight as she looked past him to see what he was indicating: the ultimate symbol of Athens, spotlit as it always was by night.
‘The Acropolis!’ she breathed, with wonder in her voice, leaning forward to maximise her view.
‘And the Parthenon on top of it,’ he supplied.
Her face had lit up, enhancing her beauty, and as she gazed at the vista Xandros gazed at her face. One thought only blazed in him: whatever it took to convince her to accept his proposal, he must do it.
He could tell that her presence here with him was drawing eyes. Not because he was dining with a beautiful woman—Athens society was well