A Deal with Demakis

“So wherever you go, you have a girlfri...a woman for sex?”

“Yes. I work hard and I play hard.”

“And you or she have no expectations of each other?”

With slow movements, he unbuttoned the collar of his shirt. “This is sounding like an interview.”

It took everything she had in her for Lexi to keep her gaze on his face. But even in the confusion, she couldn’t stop asking the questions. “Do you spend time with any of them, eat together, go sightseeing? Would you call one of them a friend?”

“No.” He stood up from the couch and reached her. The hard knot in her chest didn’t relent. “You’re feeling sorry for me.”

She raised her gaze to him and saw the detachment in his brown eyes. For all his wealth and jet-setting lifestyle, Nikos Demakis and she had something in common. He was as alone as she was. Except she had no doubt he had precisely tailored his life like that. Why? From the little she had gleaned about Venetia and Nikos Demakis, they came from a huge traditional Greek family. “It’s a horrible life to lead.”

He laughed and the sarcasm in it pricked her. “That’s what I think of your life.” Her gaze locked with his, and for once, there was no contempt or mockery there. Just plain truth. “In my life, there are no lasting relationships, no doing favors for friends who will take advantage of me. And when it comes to sex, the women I see want exactly what I want. Nothing more. You would understand that if you had—”

“If I weren’t an unsophisticated idiot?”

Rubbing her eyes, Lexi flopped onto the couch he had just vacated. Because that’s what Tyler had always said to her, too, hadn’t he? That Lexi needed to live more, do more, just be...more.

That Lexi was living everyone else’s life and not hers. She had always laughed it away, truly not understanding the vehemence in his words.

“I was going to say if you lived your life like a normal twenty-three-year-old instead of playing Junior Mother Teresa of your neighborhood.” He took the seat next to her, and the heat of his body beckoned her. “If that’s how you see yourself, change it.”

This close, he was even more gorgeous, and his proximity unnerved her on the most fundamental level. The constant state of her heightened awareness of him combined with his continuous verbal assault made her flippant. “Is there a market here in Paris that sells sophistication by the pound?”

“You have a smart mouth, Ms. Nelson. I think we have already established that. Sophistication, or for that matter, anything else, can be bought with money. You spent enough time looking at the shops on Fifth Avenue in New York before we left. Why didn’t you buy what you wanted?”

She blinked, once again struck by how far and how easily he wielded his power. “Did your assistant give you a minute-by-minute update on what I did?”

“I was in the limo stuck in traffic and saw you. You hung around long enough in each store. Apparently, you’re as different from Venetia as I truly thought.”

He had an uncanny way of giving voice to her most troublesome thoughts. “I hope you’ll be so busy that I don’t have to see you once we reach Greece.”

“So that you can spend it all with your precious Tyler?”

The man was the most contrary man she had ever met. “Isn’t that the reason you’re paying me that exorbitant amount of money?”

“What did you do with the first half?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“If I find out that you have loaned it to some poor friend who really needs it—” his gaze filled with a dangerous gleam “—I will bend you over my knee and spank you.”

Her cheeks stung with heat as a vivid image of what he said flashed in front of her eyes. The curse of being such a visual person. “I didn’t give it to anyone nor will I spend it.”

“Because of your stupid morals?”

“No. I...just want to save it, okay?” Realizing that she was shouting, she took a deep breath. “If I ever lose my job—and you have proved how easily anyone with a little money and inclination can find out my background—and if I can’t find a new one, I don’t want to go hungry ever again. I don’t ever want to be reduced to stealing or do something wrong again.” The memories of those hunger pangs, the cold sweat of stealing, knowing it was wrong, were so vivid that her gut tightened. Feeling his gaze drilling into her side, she turned and laughed. A hollow laugh that sounded as pathetic as it felt. “You probably think I’m a fool.”

His mouth, still closed, tilted at the corners. The flash of understanding in his gaze rooted her to the spot. “I do,” he said, his hard words belying his expression. “But not for this.”