A Greek Escape(57)
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.