Expectant Bride

'Oh...' Her shadowed gaze clung to that lean strong face, her mouth running dry, her breath feathering in her throat. 'You don't seem as angry as I thought you'd still be.'

'I put my plans for a buy-out on hold. And before word got out I made a healthy profit selling the stock I held in company A...' His brilliant dark eyes held hers as he utilised the same terminology he had employed to explain his tactics as they had lain in bed together at the beach house.

Ellie flushed, but she still couldn't break that enervating visual link.

'As for company B, my competitors mistakenly assumed that if I was interested, company B must have some won¬derful new technology under wraps. They bought a massive amount of their stock,' Dio continued with a sardonic edge to his deep-pitched drawl. 'Having now discovered other¬wise, when they unload that stock, they are likely to make a loss.'

'So in the end you'll probably pick up that company for a song...'

Silence fell and lingered. Dio studied her with dark, deep, intent eyes. Ellie tensed like a mouse sensing a cat. She was unbearably aware of his potent masculinity. Indeed, beneath that slumbrous appraisal her breasts stirred and ached, their sensitive peaks straining to wanton tautness. Hot pink em¬bellished her cheekbones.

In one fluid movement, Dio closed the distance between them. 'I won't hurt you like that again, Ellie.'

The colour in her face receded. 'I think you should leave now, Dio.'

His winged ebony brows pleated, his surprise unconcealed. 'Why?'

And with that one word, which revealed just how easily Dio had expected to win her forgiveness, Ellie was armoured against him. All weakness put back under safe lock and key. 'Surely that's obvious?' she murmured drily. 'What hap¬pened on the island isn't ever going to happen again. We've got nothing more to say to each other.'

'I won't let you go,' Dio declared in a silken tone of steel.

Her green eyes flared bright with resentment 'Who the heck do you think you are to say that to me?'

'Your lover,' Dio responded softly.

Ellie paled at that retaliation.

'I told you I wasn't into one-night stands,' he reminded her steadily. 'You're still angry with me, Ellie. I understand that, but it's hardly an insurmountable problem.'

'Whether I'm angry or not is irrelevant,' Ellie protested tautly. 'On the island...us...well, it was more like a fantasy, a dream.'

Dio dealt her a sizzling smile. 'Thanks.'

Ellie stiffened, annoyed that he wasn't taking her seriously. 'But now we're back in the real world, Dio.'

'Even on Chindos, I was not aware that we had left it—'

'Well, I certainly had,' Ellie countered vehemently. 'It was my natural environment. Idyllic moonlit beach, handsome foreigner saying all the right things...and pow, suddenly we're in bed!'

Dio frowned. 'What are you trying to say?'

'We let ourselves forget who we both are,' Ellie stated curtly.

'And what are we but two people who desire each other?' Dio demanded forcefully.

'I'm an ordinary working girl and you're a super-rich Greek tycoon! Stop trying to duck the issue,' Ellie told him in exasperation. 'I could have been the cleaner on the top floor all my life and you'd never have noticed that I was even alive!'

'I would have noticed you—'

'No, you wouldn't have!' Ellie was determined to drive her point home. 'Because someone like you doesn't really ever look at someone like me—'

'But now that I have looked, I'm not backing off,' Dio interrupted with stubborn assurance. 'As for you being an ordinary working girl, that's a problem I would be happy to deal with.'

'A problem?' Ellie gave him a bemused look. 'What are you talking about?'

'I want to keep the fantasy going. Fantasy I understand,' Dio confessed as he calmly linked his arms round her small but taut figure. 'I think you're adorable, yineka mou.'

'A-adorable...' Ellie echoed weakly, feeling like a woman trying to stem a damburst with a piece of paper.

"There's no need for you to work,' Dio murmured with a husky intimacy that sent a flick of fire dancing over her entire skin surface. ‘I’ll buy you an apartment—'

'An a-apartment?' Ellie stammered in total bewilderment.

Dio ran a long brown forefinger in a silken caress along her sensitive jawbone and tipped up her chin to gaze hungrily down into her widening eyes. Tm Greek. I want to take care of you in every way. You look stunned. Why? I told you on Chindos that I had plans for you.'

In serious shock, Ellie parted her lips, but no sound came out the first time. Her vocal cords had seized up. The second time, a thready version of her usual brisk voice emerged. 'Let me get this straight...you are asking me to be your mistress?'

'I am asking you to be my woman,' Dio countered with megawatt cool.

'Your little toy...' Ellie squeezed out, since her lungs felt as if they were on the brink of collapse. Oh, what a bitter irony that he should make such a suggestion! She didn't know whether to laugh or scream.