Chantal stepped away from the dress, feeling suddenly faint. ‘That’s outrageous.’
‘Is it?’ Angelos frowned. ‘If you like it, at least try it.’
She turned towards him, her jaw set at a stubborn angle. ‘At forty thousand euros? I don’t think so.’
‘The price isn’t relevant.’
‘Of course it’s relevant. I can’t afford it.’
‘But I can.’
His casual statement merely reminded her of the enormous gulf between their circumstances and she shook her head, taking another step back from the dress.
‘No.’ Aware that the assistant was gaping at her as if she’d lost her mind, Chantal backed towards the door. ‘Can we talk for a moment?’
Anglos let out an exasperated sigh and followed her out into the stifling heat of the street. ‘What is going on? Stop dithering. You need something to wear this evening. You have to buy a dress. That one will do fine.’
‘Why did you bring me here?’ Feeling raw inside, she wrapped her arms around her body. ‘Were you trying to make me look stupid or something?’
His dark eyes were suddenly wary, as if he sensed a trap. ‘I brought you here to buy you a dress.’
‘But that dress is forty thousand euros.’ She almost choked on the words. ‘I can’t afford that.’
‘Obviously I was not intending you to pay.’
Her breathing grew more rapid. ‘Haven’t you learned a single thing about me in the time we’ve been together? I don’t want your money.’
‘I wasn’t offering you money,’ he replied, his tone suddenly guarded. ‘I was buying you a dress. A gift.’
He just didn’t get it.
‘I don’t want a forty-thousand-euro gift. What does that say about our relationship?’
‘That I care about you enough to be generous?’
‘I don’t want that sort of generosity. That isn’t how I want our relationship to be.’ Discovering that her eyes were swimming with tears, she blinked rapidly. ‘Anyway, anyone who spends that much on a dress that someone else could be wearing too has got to be stupid.’
He drew in a long breath. ‘You are very difficult to please.’
‘No, I’m not. I’m easy to please. When you peel my orange for breakfast, you please me. When you rub my shoulders before I go to sleep, that pleases me. When you defend me from a nasty comment, that pleases me. I’m easy to please, Angelos.’ Her heart was pounding. ‘Just don’t try and buy me.’
‘I am not trying to buy you.’ This time his tone was exasperated. ‘I’m trying to spoil you. And I did not bring you here to make you look stupid. I brought you here because this is the place where every other woman of my acquaintance begs to be brought. I understood it to be retail Nirvana.’
‘Not for me.’
‘Obviously not. You are very complicated. Keeping pace with you requires a degree in psychology. So—’ he gestured towards the row of expensive shops ‘—if this isn’t the place for you, where do you want to go?’
‘Somewhere I can afford.’ On impulse she grabbed his hand and dragged him down the street towards the market they’d passed in the car.
‘Where are we going?’
‘To find a dress.’
‘There are no boutiques in this direction. And it’s forty degrees in the shade,’ Angelos muttered as he strode along next to her. ‘No one walks at this time of day in Athens.’
‘Billionaires don’t walk, but normal people do walk, Angelos. Just for five minutes, try living like a normal person.’ She crossed the road, dodging between the frantic traffic, and found the market. ‘I want to look here.’
Angelos scanned the crowded market in speechless amazement, and then jerked her against him. ‘You are going to a ball. The cream of Athens society will be there. And you want to wear a dress that you have purchased from the stall of a market trader?’