‘I’m so sorry. He’s a very bad-tempered dog. Thank you for not kicking him away.’ Lindy removed a snarling Pip and then gasped, ‘Oh, my goodness he’s lost one of his teeth!’
‘Is it embedded in my leg?’ Atreus asked.
‘No, it’s lying here on the carpet,’ Lindy answered, deaf to his tone of irony. She peered into the cross little Chihuahua’s mouth and was shocked by the sight of his swollen gums. ‘I never realised he had such bad teeth. He must be in a lot of pain. Poor little thing.’
While Lindy soothed and quieted the canine attacker with copious sympathy, Atreus fumed in silence. He had never had anything to do with dogs, and now he had been bitten by one in circumstances guaranteed to bolster his repugnance. ‘Are you coming up to the house with me?’
Lindy froze, violet eyes locking to his lean, darkly handsome face. ‘I would rather not draw attention to our…er…new…er…’
As her voice trailed off without her finding an appropriate word, Atreus stepped in. ‘Intimacy?’
The word struck Lindy like a brick and she paled, guilt looming large, for the word seemed richly redolent of beds and tumbled sheets—imagery that assailed her conscience like a panic attack. ‘Yes. I don’t want anyone to know.’
That was not a request Atreus had ever received before. Women usually wanted to show off their association with him, not hide it. But he had always had a high regard for discretion and prudence. The Dionides family were, after all, famous for their dislike of publicity. Birth, marriage and death, and occasional references in the business press, were unavoidable exceptions for so very rich a family. But beyond that level Atreus and his relatives shunned public notice and abhorred the brash, extravagant lifestyle of the celebrity world.
‘I’ll be very discreet,’ he assured her. ‘We’ll see each other at weekends, when I come down here.’
Lindy studied him with perplexed eyes, for she could not yet accept that they could be a couple in any way, never mind a couple with an ongoing relationship.
‘We’ve got nothing in common,’ she pointed out.
‘Differences are stimulating,’ Atreus traded smoothly, averting his attention from the little rat-like dog baring its crooked teeth at him from the shelter of her arms before she put it through to the kitchen. The Jack Russell had dropped a rubber bone expectantly at his feet, while the short hairy one was fussing beside a chair and for some reason regarding him with equal anticipation. Atreus decided to spell out his feelings: ‘I’m not into pets—particularly indoors.’
‘I suppose you didn’t have any when you were a child,’ Lindy responded, giving him a huge look of sympathy and not one whit perturbed by his loaded statement. ‘That’s such a shame. But you’ll soon get used to my pets.’
She was trying to imagine seeing him at weekends, slotting him into her ordinary activities and failing abysmally to rise to the challenge. Even the idea of him becoming a part of her life struck her as astonishing. ‘I don’t know why you want to see me again.’
Atreus was bewildered by a response which had never come his way before. A faint stab of guilt assailed him because her lack of vanity and pure likeability shone from her. She was not at all like his usual lovers, he acknowledged wryly. She didn’t know the rules he played by and she would probably get hurt. He recalled the total lack of cool and control she displayed when she hugged him and he almost winced. But she would eventually learn, he reasoned steadily, squaring his broad shoulders.
She would have to learn—because he would not contemplate not seeing her again. The bottom line was that he wanted her in his life. Obviously he was ready for a change, for something different, and she would be a breath of fresh air. She was strong, discreet and honest, qualities which he valued highly and which were hard to find in her sex. He would relax with her at weekends, stepping back from the long, stressful hours he worked and the boring social occasions. He met her bewildered violet-blue eyes and realised that if anything he wanted her even more powerfully than he had some hours earlier. The strength of his desire made him uneasy, but it also propelled him forward to ease her into his arms.
Always more comfortable with the physical than the emotional, Atreus lowered his arrogant dark head and brought his mouth down on hers with passionate urgency. That kiss was like an electric shock, first stunning Lindy and then spreading tingling waves of reaction through her. The pressure of his lips and the plunging penetration of his tongue jolted her and made very fibre of her body sing with sexual awareness. Her nipples tightened, her tummy flipped, and looking up into his smouldering dark golden eyes left her dizzy.