A Greek Escape(52)
‘No.’ In an instant he was pulling back. ‘Now isn’t the time—and this certainly isn’t the place.’ His breathing came raggedly through his lungs. ‘There will be ample opportunity in the future, I promise you. But in the meantime, if you’re going to get to know me, hrisi mou, somehow I don’t think we’re going to achieve it like this.’
The sensual snub left her bruised and angry with herself—for feeling such bitter disappointment as well as for allowing him to see how much she still wanted him physically. It just showed him, once again, how he had the power to humiliate her just by turning her into a yearning, quivering wreck.
‘I don’t need to get to know you, Leonidas Vassalio. I know exactly what you are. You’re playing games with me for your own amusement! And you’re using my friends to exploit the situation, no matter how you might try to dress it up! All right. I’ll go along with your little game.’
If she didn’t, and Havens withdrew their offer, Kendon Interiors would be plunged straight back into the difficulties they’d been facing before. And if that happened, if Lorna was subjected to more stress during her pregnancy… Kayla shivered, unable to bear thinking that the safety of a baby’s little life might easily be in her own hands.
‘I’ll move in with you,’ she conceded, in a voice clogged with emotion, ‘but I’m not sleeping with you, if that’s what you’re imagining. I’m only doing it for Josh and Lorna’s sake, so don’t you ever forget that—and don’t imagine for one moment that I’m going to enjoy it.’
‘I wouldn’t be so presumptuous,’ he assured her with mockery in his eyes. ‘And now I’m going to take you back. Your firm has a proposed contract to fulfil…’
The sudden seriousness of his tone served to remind her of exactly what he was—a typical high-flying executive, ruthless and manipulative, like all the rest she’d known.
‘And they’re not going to fulfil it if one of their principal staff is out testing her luck by antagonising their biggest client.’
Of course. He had the upper hand and he knew it, Kayla thought, shooting back nevertheless, ‘Is that a threat?’
‘Why not go the whole hog and call it blackmail?’ he suggested smoothly. ‘I’m sure you’d prefer to.’ When she didn’t answer, ‘Tomorrow,’ he reminded her, as he brought his powerful car around to the front entrance of Kendon Interiors. ‘I’ll pick you up at eight.’
The pool threw back reflections of the dazzling white mansion. A modern house, built to Georgian design, Leonidas’s principal UK home was a breathtaking showcase of large airy rooms, all exquisitely furnished, combining modern with Regency and luxury with unfaltering good taste. A rich man’s castle, presided over by a resident staff who catered for this king of enterprise with unstinting respect and affability, as if he was more to them than just the man who paid their wages.
Now, lying beside the luxurious pool in equally luxurious grounds before it was time to get ready for the company dinner to which he was taking her tonight, Kayla was forced to accept, from what she’d observed over her first couple of days in his spectacular house, that the respect shown between Leonidas Vassalio and his staff was entirely mutual.
‘Are you ready?’ he asked two hours later, as she emerged from the suite of rooms he had assigned to her. It comprised a bedroom with floor-to-ceiling wardrobes, a four-poster bed and a carpet thick enough to drown in, a separate dressing room and a bathroom with a huge sunken tub within a setting of honeyed marble.
‘I don’t know,’ Kayla responded, trying hard not to reveal how just the sight of him standing there at the top of the stairs in a dark evening suit and exquisitely fine shirt was making her blood sing with need. ‘I’m your puppet. You tell me.’
He moved towards her like a dark panther, his equally dark eyes taking in every detail of her appearance.
She was wearing a strapless dress with a pale blue bodice that ran into a darker blue, the colour continuing down into purple and then burgundy as it swirled around her ankles. Silver high-heeled sandals gave him a glimpse of burgundy-tipped toes.
She’d twisted her hair up into a knot, leaving a few tendrils to fall softly around her face. Her only concession to cosmetics was a smudge of smoky-blue shading on her eyelids and a burgundy gloss enhancing her lips. Her long lustrous lashes, he was pleased to notice, she’d left naturally gold. Delicate spirals of silver hung from the lobes of her ears, matching the delicately twisted necklace that lay against her softly-tanned skin.