CHAPTER NINE
‘YOU LOOK...AMAZING.’
Maggie wanted to blurt out, Really? But she forced herself to be gracious and say, ‘Thank you—so do you.’
It was true. Nikos was wearing a white tuxedo tonight, with a black bowtie, and he’d never looked more urbane or gorgeous.
‘Ready?’
Maggie nodded and walked forward, the long velvet dress moving sinuously around her body. It was high at the front, but completely backless. Which Nikos hadn’t noticed yet. Her hair was up in a high ponytail, and she wore clip-on earrings and a sapphire bracelet which matched the blue of the dress.
When she reached Nikos he put a hand on her back to guide her and stopped dead. ‘Theos, Maggie.’
His hand was warm on her back. ‘What?’
‘Your dress...it’s...’
‘Backless?’
Nikos gritted his jaw.
Maggie might have felt like giggling if his hand hadn’t been having such an effect on her blood. ‘The stylist assures me it’s perfectly respectable,’ she said. She was sure that she’d seen pictures of Nikos escorting women in far less clothing to events.
He said, ‘It’s fine, We should go.’
In the lift on their way down Maggie could still feel the imprint of his hand against her skin. Awareness of him formed a tight ache in her lower body, which only got worse when he put his hand on her back again to guide her out of the lift and through the hotel lobby.
Resisting him was becoming harder and harder, and right now she wondered how long she could last before she didn’t care if he saw her vulnerability or emotion.
A car was waiting outside and they’d soon joined the chaotic Roman traffic to move across the city to the stunning medieval palace where the gala was being held.
Maggie’s jaw was almost on the ground as they walked through an open courtyard and into a palatial frescoed room lit by hundreds of candles and chandeliers. Mirrors on the walls reflected the sheer glittering opulence of the room and the people in it.
‘This is amazing...’ she breathed.
‘Is it?’ Nikos said, sounding almost bored.
She stopped and looked up at him. ‘Are you really so jaded that you can’t even appreciate how impressive this is?’
He looked at her. ‘More impressive than the Colosseum?’
‘Oh, no...well, that was just...mind-boggling. I mean, you’d have to agree that there’s nothing quite like it.’
An expression that looked almost wistful crossed his face, and then he plucked two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray, handed her one and said, ‘I’ve never been in it, actually.’
Maggie’s jaw dropped again. ‘How can you never have visited the Colosseum? What about school trips? There were loads of schoolkids there today.’
Nikos shrugged. ‘I had a tutor in Greece and then I was sent to boarding school in England. By the time I got to Rome I was more interested in staking my claim in the business and being a thorn in the side of my father by behaving outrageously than in sightseeing.’
‘And after he died?’
Nikos’s jaw tightened. ‘I had a reputation to live down to and I was working hard.’
Maggie felt an unexpected lump in her throat. She took a quick sip of champagne to push it down.
‘Nikos Marchetti! The very man!’
They were interrupted by a tall man who clapped Nikos on the back and looked at Maggie with undisguised interest. Nikos put his hand on her back again and Maggie wanted to groan. How was she going to handle an evening of Nikos touching her bare skin? This dress had been a terrible idea.