Greek Bachelors: Buying His Bride

CHAPTER SIX

SERIOUSLY distracted, Angelos took his business call, snapped the head off the person on the other end of the phone and then instructed his PA in Athens not to put through any more calls.

At that moment he wasn’t interested in talking to his senior management team. Nor was he interested in talking to any of the businessmen who clamoured for his attention on an almost hourly basis.

There were urgent matters demanding his attention. But for the first time in his life he didn’t even care.

He should have been thinking about work, but all he could think about was sex.

Sex with Chantal.

Cursing softly in Greek, he paced the length of his office. His entire body was burning and unfulfilled and all he wanted to do was stride back onto the terrace, drag her somewhere extremely private and indulge in a repeat performance—complete with several encores.

Never in his life had he been so hot for a woman, and he didn’t understand it because she possessed none of the qualities that he admired.

True, she was beautiful, but she was also dishonest—and she’d admitted as such. All right, so she wasn’t Isabelle Ducat. She’d hadn’t chosen to make a living out of divorce. But she had taken a ticket that wasn’t hers, and she hadn’t corrected him when he’d assumed her to be the owner of the ticket.

She’d posed as someone else, apparently more than comfortable to perpetrate that particular untruth. That fact alone should have been the sexual equivalent of sitting in a bath of ice cubes, because he hated deception.

He might have felt more kindly towards her had she just admitted that a few weeks in Greece with a billionaire had sounded like fun. Instead of which she’d insisted that she’d agreed to accompany him out of concern for his father.

So why, knowing all that, was his libido raging madly out of control?

Why did he feel like a teenager whose hormones were well and truly in control?

With a humourless laugh he forced himself to accept the obvious.

Because the sex had been nothing short of stupendous. That was why.

Deceitful she might be, but she’d also been a virgin, and the fact that he was her first lover had given him an incredible buzz.

Which meant that clearly he wasn’t as modern in his attitudes as he liked to think.

He narrowed his eyes and ran through the facts logically.

All right, so she hadn’t told him the truth. But she was right that he was the one who had insisted that she come. And, had she told him the truth about her identity, would it have changed anything?

No. He still would have wanted her to come for the sake of his father.

So what difference did any of it make?

She was here now, wasn’t she?

The chemistry between them was amazing.

What was the problem?

She was here for a free holiday with a billionaire, so why not give her that holiday? And if it cost him a few dresses and the odd diamond necklace, so what?

They’d share incredible sex during the night, and during the day he’d arrange for her to spend as much time shopping as she could handle. She was using him for money, so why shouldn’t he use her for sex?

Unable to concentrate, and deciding to abandon all further thoughts of work for the day, he strode into the suite of rooms that his father occupied when he was staying in the villa. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Better by the hour.’ Costas Zouvelekis was already dressed, ready for dinner. ‘What did you do with your afternoon?’

Angelos stilled as erotic images flew into his brain. What had he done with his afternoon? He’d had the most incredible sex of his life.

In a public place.

He ran a hand over the back of his neck, seriously discomforted by the thought of what his father might have seen if he’d woken early from his rest and decided to relax by the pool. ‘I worked.’

‘Did you? Well, I hope you didn’t leave Chantal on her own for too long. She’s a woman worth guarding.’

‘From whom? There is no one else here.’

‘From boredom,’ Costas said dryly, as he adjusted his shirt. ‘When women become bored, they stray.’

Stray?

Angelos reflected silently on the fact that the last time he’d seen Chantal she’d been so shattered after his lovemaking that she hadn’t seemed capable of moving her lips, let alone her legs.

‘She isn’t going to stray.’ Why would she? He was in a position to give her the fantasy, and he had enough experience of her sex to know what she’d want. Jewels, dresses, handbags with strange names that were only available for a price, an unreasonable number of shoes, probably still more shoes—

He gave a faint smile. As long as he didn’t have to be part of the selection process, he was more than happy to fund a seriously extravagant shopping spree.

Clearly she wasn’t used to a life of luxury.

It would be fun to spoil her.

Never, ever become involved with a gorgeous Greek billionaire.

Having made herself sign off on that promise, Chantal snapped the suitcase shut and placed it on the floor. In the spacious, elegant room it looked laughably out of place.

Determined not to brood, she gave a little shrug and told herself that it didn’t matter. The one good thing about having very few belongings was that it didn’t take long to pack.

She was just about to reach for the phone and see if she could arrange for a car to take her to Athens when the bedroom door opened and Angelos strode into the room.

Clearly fresh from the shower, he’d changed into a pair of lightweight linen trousers and a shirt that emphasised his athletic physique. Tall and broad-shouldered, he emanated power and sexuality.

Her body leapt to life and she turned away, mortified that she was so susceptible to him. Well, tough. She was going to do what he was obviously doing and just not think about the sex. ‘I was trying to arrange for a car. Now you’re here, perhaps you could do it for me?’

‘To go where, precisely?’

‘Athens. I’ll arrange a flight home from there.’

There was a tense silence. ‘Home?’

‘Yes.’ Summoning up as much dignity as she could, she reached into her bag and removed the roll of cash she’d counted out carefully a few minutes earlier. ‘This is for you.’ She thrust it into his hand and he stared at it in astonishment.

‘What is this?’

‘Money. You should know, since it obviously plays such an important part in your life.’ It was all the money she had, minus the amount she was going to need for her flight home. ‘You can put that towards what I’ve cost you so far. Whatever you may think, I don’t want a free holiday. I never should have come. I see that now. It’s inevitable that a man like you would think that my reasons for coming here have something to do with money. In the circumstances, I don’t even blame you for thinking that.’ Some of her pride salvaged, she stepped forward and picked up the case, avoiding eye contact. It was terribly, terribly important that she didn’t look at him. If she looked, she was lost.

‘I don’t want your money.’ He dropped the money unceremoniously onto the nearest hard surface and Chantal tried not to flinch as she remembered just how long it had taken her to earn that amount.

‘Well, I want you to have it. In fact, I insist.’

He glanced at the roll of notes and then back at her. ‘Obviously my comments upset you,’ he breathed. ‘But you have to admit that I had cause.’

‘Of course. Why else would someone like me be with someone like you?’

His body tensed. ‘You pretended to be Isabelle Ducat, and she is the queen of gold-diggers.’

‘Maybe. But even when you knew that I wasn’t Isabelle your assumption was that I’d just come along for a free holiday.’ Still suffering from a serious assault on her pride, Chantal clutched her case. ‘It’s obvious that you’ve discovered the sort of person I really am, so there’s no point in me staying. Please arrange for me to leave the island. Is there a water taxi you can call?’

‘I have no intention of calling you a taxi.’ His tone had a raw edge to it. ‘Put the case down.’

‘No.’

He inhaled deeply. ‘I can see that I’ve seriously upset you—’

‘What makes you think that?’ Her tone flippant, she walked towards the door. ‘We gold diggers have very thick skins. It’s part of the job description.’

With incredibly quick reflexes, he crossed the room and grabbed her. ‘Tell me why you accepted my invitation.’ He hauled her hard against him, and she gasped as the contact ignited a flash of excitement deep inside her.

‘You already know why.’ Desperately she tried to shut down her response. ‘It seemed a perfect way to enjoy a free holiday in the sun.’

‘So, if that is the case, then why are you leaving now?’

‘Because what we did makes it impossible for me to stay.’

‘You are saying that because your feelings are hurt.’ His mouth was dangerously close to hers and the heat between them was mounting. ‘I am willing to admit that I owe you an apology.’

‘No, you don’t. I don’t blame you for what you thought. It was a perfectly reasonable assumption in the circumstances.’ Desperate to get away before she made a fool of herself yet again, Chantal tried to wriggle out of his grasp. ‘Why else would someone like me have accompanied you?’

He held her firm. ‘Why did you?’

Swamped by an almost agonising sexual tension, her anger subsided. ‘Because of your father,’ she muttered. ‘You persuaded me that I could make a difference to his recovery. He was so kind to me that night at the ball. No one has ever been that kind to me before. I was feeling really vulnerable and horribly out of place. Which just goes to show that Isabelle was right all along. I didn’t fit in.’

‘Why would you want to?’ He looked genuinely perplexed. ‘Individuality is to be celebrated.’

Spoken like a billionaire who didn’t follow any of life’s rules, she thought weakly, wishing she possessed just a fraction of his self belief. ‘You need masses of confidence to be different. I stood out. I felt as though everyone was staring.’

‘They were staring. Because of your dress.’

‘Yes, the dress was a huge mistake.’

‘The dress was amazing. Where did you find it?’

She concentrated on one of the buttons of his shirt. ‘They were refurbishing one of the hotel rooms and I found some red lining material that they’d thrown away. I thought it would look perfect.’

A stunned silence followed her frank confession. ‘Are you telling me that your red dress started life on the inside of a curtain?’

‘A very expensive curtain.’ She shrugged. ‘Why are you looking so shocked? You just said that individuality is to be celebrated.’

His handsome face was a mask of incredulous disbelief and he released her. ‘That night—’ His voice not quite steady, he rubbed his fingers over the bridge of his nose. ‘You really didn’t have a clue who I was, did you?’

She tried not to feel disappointed that he’d let her go. ‘Of course I didn’t know who you were. Why would I?’

It took him a moment to answer. ‘Women usually do.’

‘The women you mix with do. But I’m not one of those. And I wouldn’t want to be,’ she said firmly. She knew far too much about that type of woman. ‘I only spoke to you because you spoke to me first. I’d been standing there, wishing I’d never decided to go to the ball, and then there you were.’ She swallowed as she remembered the sharp intensity of that moment. ‘And you were—there was—something—’

Their eyes met for a moment and he frowned. ‘If all that is true, and you genuinely came to the villa because of concern for my father’s health, then why are you leaving now?’

Because she had to.

Her fingers tightened on the case and she looked away from him so that she wouldn’t be tempted. ‘Because everything has changed. You know I’m not Isabelle, and our relationship has become—’ She broke off and searched for the right word. ‘Become personal. It goes against my principles.’

‘Our relationship is now exactly the way my father always wanted it to be so to leave now makes no sense. We’ve merely dropped the pretence. It actually makes the situation simpler, not more complicated.’

‘Not to me. We had—’ She broke off again and cleared her throat, trying not to mind that he was quite prepared to pretend that the sex had never happened. ‘What we did changes things.’

‘I don’t see how.’

‘You think I’m just leeching from you.’

He glanced briefly towards the roll of notes he’d so carelessly discarded. ‘Is that why you gave me the money?’

‘I’m giving you the money because I don’t want you to pay for me. I’ve never taken money from a man in my life.’

‘I haven’t offered you money.’

‘You’re paying for me to be here. That amounts to the same thing. You think I’m a gold-digger.’

Amusement flickered in his dark eyes. ‘Gold-diggers generally aren’t innocent virgins, agape mou. You’re obviously not quite as familiar with the job description as you think you are.’

She couldn’t think of a suitable reply, so she stayed silent.

He sighed. ‘You’re not leaving.’

She wished she could put the whole episode behind her as easily as he clearly had. ‘I have to.’ For so many reasons. Preserving her sanity was one, but so was maintaining her self respect.

‘Chantal.’ There was a decisive tone to his voice, like a judge who was summing up. ‘You claim that you came here because of my father—’

‘I did.’

‘Then why would you leave? My father’s needs are as great as they ever were. Greater, in fact. Since you arrived he has talked of nothing else. He is looking forward to joining us at dinner tonight. Nothing has changed.’

Chantal chewed her lip.

For him, nothing had changed. She wished she felt similarly indifferent. ‘Everything has changed.’ Her eyes moved to his and then skidded away. ‘We—’

‘Yes,’ he said softly, ‘we did. And given that you were a virgin I’m assuming that you aren’t protected by any form of contraception?’

Her heart stumbled.

Pregnant? It hadn’t even occurred to her that she might become pregnant. For a moment she forgot he was standing there as she considered that possibility. After her own childhood she’d never thought that she’d—

‘I’ll take your silence as a no,’ he drawled softly, and she was silent for a moment as she did some rapid calculations in her head.

‘It will be fine,’ she muttered finally, her cheeks blossoming with colour because this was one topic she wasn’t used to discussing with a man. ‘So you don’t need to think what you’re thinking.’

‘What am I thinking?’

‘That I’ve set the ultimate honey trap.’ She looked him in the eye, her expression fierce. ‘Even if I were pregnant, I wouldn’t take money from you.’

‘Let’s not argue about an issue which might never arise. The more pressing concern is what we do in the short term.’

‘You’re going to let me leave the island.’

His exasperated glance suggested that he wasn’t used to people defying him. ‘Whatever you may think of me, I’m not in the habit of indulging in careless sex regardless of the consequences.’

‘So why did you with me?’

His dark eyes fastened on hers. ‘I have been asking myself that same question for the past few hours. I’m sure the answer will come to me in time.’

She shrank as she imagined how much he must now be regretting his uncharacteristic lack of control. It was all too easy to imagine him calculating what that one awkward lapse was going to cost him in terms of money and adverse publicity. ‘Well, anyway, it doesn’t change the facts. I need to leave.’

‘My father was kind to you.’

‘Yes.’

‘Then you must stay. You owe him this favour.’

She stared at him helplessly. ‘That’s not fair—’

‘I don’t play fair, Chantal,’ he said softly. ‘I play to win.’

She closed her eyes and tried to find the steely streak she needed to refuse. ‘I can’t—’

‘His health is fragile. You have the ability to make him happy. Can you deprive him of that?’

She opened her eyes. ‘You’re totally ruthless, aren’t you?’

‘Focused.’

She turned her head away, feeling as though she were a leaf caught in a hurricane. The force of his personality was too powerful to resist.

‘I don’t see how my presence will really help him…’ But she was wavering and he sensed it, moving in for the kill like a lion spotting a wonded antelope.

‘Your presence could make all the difference to his recovery.’

She wanted to say no, but she couldn’t forget the kindness his father had shown her.

‘All right.’ The words were dragged from her lips. ‘I’ll stay—’

‘Of course you will.’ Clearly supremely confident of his own negotiation skills, he didn’t look surprised by her decision.

‘—But only if you let me pay you.’

‘I don’t understand your desire to be independent.’

‘It isn’t about independence—’ She broke off, realising that if she stuck by that claim then she’d have to explain herself. And she had no intention of doing that. He already knew far too much about her.

His dark eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t want your money.’

‘Take it,’ she said fiercely. ‘Or I’m going home right now.’

He studied her in silence, his expression unreadable. ‘All right. If it makes you happy.’ With economy of movement he reached for the roll of notes and slipped it into his pocket. ‘So, now that problem is solved you can unpack your suitcase. My father is waiting for us on the terrace. Why don’t you change and then join us?’

It was only after he’d strode from the room that Chantal realised they still hadn’t discussed what had happened in the pool.

‘I’m not that hungry,’ Costas protested as Chantal spooned a small helping of roasted peppers onto his plate.

‘They’re delicious,’ she enthused. ‘You just have to try them. Just a mouthful.’

‘Women.’ Costas sighed and picked up his fork. ‘They never let a man rest.’

‘You can rest later.’ She helped herself to a different dish, examining the contents closely. ‘What’s this?’

‘Fasoláda—kidney beans baked in the oven with vegetables, herbs and olive oil. It’s delicious. Try it.’

‘Only if you try some, too.’ Her smile engaging, she spooned a small amount onto his plate and watched while he ate. ‘Well?’

‘It’s good.’

Feeling like a spare part, Angelos watched as she cleverly coaxed his father to eat, selecting small quantities of healthy food for him to try.

Only when she was satisfied that he’d eaten something did she turn her attentions to her own plate. After several mouthfuls she smiled at his father. ‘You’re right, it is delicious. I’d swim through a shark-infested pond to eat this again.’

His father laughed with delight and reached for another dish. ‘If you think that’s good, then you should try this one—’

The two of them were like excited children and Angelos watched as his father flirted outrageously with Chantal.

Now that he knew she wasn’t Isabelle Ducat, he was noticing things he should have noticed before. Like the fact that she didn’t actually flirt. No simpering, no hair tossing, no lowered lashes. Nothing, in fact, that could be described as flirtatious. She just had an open, friendly attitude.

He remembered that night of the ball, and recalled that one of the things about her he’d found so attractive was that she’d been so different from everyone around her.

She’d shown a cheeky sense of humour, a playfulness that was quite different from flirting.

It was no wonder his father had liked her.

And no wonder that she was having such a powerful effect on him.

He’d never been so aware of a woman. The curve of her mouth when she smiled; the slight dimple at the corner of her mouth, the light that appeared in her eyes when she laughed.

And then there was her body…At that point he found his descriptive powers severely challenged. All he knew was that she appeared to have been designed specifically to distract a man from whatever path he was taking.

Suddenly he couldn’t wait for dinner to end so that he could finish what they’d started in the pool.

Trying not to dwell on the fact that Angelos had barely spoken to her over dinner, Chantal stepped into the shower. In the end she’d left him on the terrace with his father, both of them engrossed in an unintelligible conversation about the Far Eastern money markets.

And now she stood under the sharp jets of water, satisfied that Costas had at least eaten something. She just needed to make sure that he did that at every mealtime.

Reaching for one of the fluffy towels that were piled in uniform rows, Chantal walked out of the shower and into the bedroom.

Angelos was sprawled on the bed, talking in rapid Greek into his mobile phone.

Shocked to see him there, she was about to retreat into the bathroom when he noticed her and ended the call with a decisive stab of one long finger. ‘You were so long I was about to join you in the shower.’

‘What are you doing in my bedroom?’

‘Our bedroom, agape mou,’ he drawled softly, extending a hand in her direction. ‘Come to bed.’

She clutched the towel. ‘What for?’

His eyes shimmered with amusement. ‘I understand that you’re inexperienced, but surely not that inexperienced.’

Chantal didn’t move. ‘You’re suggesting that we share a bed?’

‘Generally that’s what happens.’ Dark lashes veiled his expression and she felt her tummy jump like a grasshopper.

‘But you—I—’ She broke off. ‘It was a one off.’

‘I don’t do “one-offs”. I’ve already told you, casual affairs are not my style.’

‘But that’s ridiculous—we hardly know each other.’

‘On the contrary. We know each other in the most literal and intimate sense of the word,’ he drawled, and she felt the colour flood into her cheeks.

‘That’s different. Neither of us was thinking.’

‘Sex doesn’t generally require a great deal of intellectual input.’

Her heart was pounding against her chest. ‘But you didn’t even enjoy it,’ she blurted out impulsively. ‘You were really bored.’

‘Bored?’ Incredulous dark eyes swept her flushed cheeks. ‘At what point, precisely, did I appear to be bored?’

‘Afterwards—when you didn’t once mention it.’

‘I’ve always considered sex to be more of a practical than an academic subject. More about doing than talking.’ His voice was deep and impossibly sexy. ‘And at the time we had rather more pressing topics to discuss—such as your identity. Call me old-fashioned, but my preference is always to at least know the name of the person with whom I’ve been intimate.’ He sprang off the bed and strolled towards her, a look of intent on his handsome face.