‘I don’t need this, Mum,’ Billie breathed tautly. ‘But don’t worry. I can still cover your rent for the next couple of months and by then I should have found another job.’
‘You certainly won’t find one as well paid. What got into you?’ Lauren snapped. ‘Alexei Drakos is a young, good-looking single guy and all he is doing is what comes naturally. Of course he doesn’t want to be tied down at his age or with his opportunities. What does it have to do with you?’
‘I just don’t like his lifestyle or his attitudes and I’m with him so much I can’t avoid either.’
Lauren dealt her smaller daughter a scornful look. ‘You’ve got the hots for him and you’re jealous—’
‘No, I haven’t!’ Billie argued, incensed and shaken by that accusation.
‘He’s gorgeous. I wouldn’t say no,’ Lauren replied with a voluptuous pout and a toss of her blonde head.
Billie resisted a shrewish urge to agree that no wasn’t a word that came easily to her mother’s lips. In her forties, Lauren was no longer the siren she had once been and there were fewer men in her life. Eighteen months had passed since Billie had last come home to find that she was sharing her mother’s house with a resident toy boy. But the very suggestion of Alexei and Lauren together made her feel physically sick and this knowledge worked on her that night while she tossed and turned and failed to find restful sleep.
Was she attracted to Alexei more than she was prepared to admit? Had she been mortally offended by Katia and Kerry because they had shared Alexei’s bed? Was that because in some dim dark corner of her mind she was jealous of the carefree and sexually confident twins? She shuddered at the suspicion. Alexei was as bronzed, beautiful and flawless in feature and physique as a Greek god and she was a flesh and blood ordinary woman who could hardly be impervious to that reality. But being aware that he was a very good looking guy did not mean that she was physically attracted to him, did it? And even if it did, what did it matter? Nothing was ever likely to come of the fact. Alexei only went for gorgeous women and she was much too sensible to be tempted even if he should have a weak moment in her radius. Mortified by her growing suspicion that she might not be as unprejudiced or as principled as she had fondly believed, Billie lay awake until dawn.
The following day, she returned to Athens and the apartment she shared with two other women. She needed to be on the spot to job-hunt. She put her short-lived job with Alexei into a mental box and hammered it shut, but she soon discovered that the very brevity of her employment with him had harmed her standing in the eyes of others. A month later, she was less angry with Alexei and angrier with herself for damaging her career prospects. By then her proud and impulsive walkout on a matter of principle was beginning to strike her as more foolish than brave.
That was the mood she was in when the doorbell went one evening and she answered it to find one of Alexei’s security team facing her. ‘Mr Drakos would like to speak to you. I have a car waiting outside for you,’ he volunteered before swinging away and heading downstairs, it not even crossing his mind that she might dare to refuse such an invitation.
Billie stepped back into the apartment, glancing at herself in the hall mirror. Her hair, freshly washed, lay in vibrant waves across her shoulders. She was wearing cropped jeans, a sleeveless cotton top and canvas pumps. She lifted her chin. What did Alexei want? She could just say no to the offer of a meeting and then she would burn with curiosity ever after, she completed ruefully. He could just want to see her about something she had dealt with while she still worked for him. Grabbing her bag, she slammed the door behind her.
Alexei had a ritzy apartment in Athens, just one of the many properties scattered round the world that he owned, since he had already inherited several from his father’s side of the family. She recalled his town house in Venice, a chateau in the south of France, a house in New York, a ski lodge in Switzerland and a ranch in Australia. Taking care of those properties and their staff had been her responsibility and she had been looking forward to visiting each and every one of them at some stage.
Alexei was on the phone chattering in French when she was shown into a massive living area with bold designer furniture and an array of modern art and sculpture. A wide-shouldered, lean-hipped figure clad in linen trousers and an open shirt, Alexei was barefoot and clearly fresh out of the shower. His black hair was still spiky and shiny with moisture, his aggressive jawline rough with the shadow of blue-black stubble that accentuated the wide sensual allure of his masculine mouth.
Just looking at him, she felt his impact like a thud in her ears and a kick in her stomach. He was all rogue male, from his dark-as-midnight eyes heavily fringed by lashes to the slice of torso visible between the unbuttoned edges of his shirt, which revealed a matt of dark curls sprinkled across his bronzed chest and the six-pack stomach that Katia and Kerry had raved about…among other things. Her mouth dry and feeling oddly breathless, Billie squashed those inappropriate thoughts—but not in time to stop her disobedient gaze dropping to the distinctive masculine bulge at his crotch.
Reddening to the roots of her hair as fully as only a woman of her complexion could, Billie yanked her eyes upward and said jerkily, ‘You wanted to see me?’
He shifted a hand, which urged her to wait until he had finished his phone call and, that fast, she wanted to shout at him again. Her spine stiffened, her full soft mouth compressing, for he had summoned her like a minion across the city at seven in the evening and he was still putting his own wishes first. And it would always be like that, she acknowledged tautly. He was poised there, more beautiful than any mortal male had any right to be, and the world was his oyster because he was a blue-blooded filthy-rich Drakos. In his life, people always dropped everything to run and do his bidding. It had been that way for him since he was born.
Constantine Drakos had truly idolised his one and only child. Every cough and sniffle Alexei had suffered had been a major episode for his father. Alexei had had a bodyguard before he could even walk. A weaker child would have been indelibly scarred by such a protected upbringing but Constantine had found that he had a fight on his hands as Alexei had fought his ultra-safe regime every step of the way. He had taken part in dangerous sports at school; he had gone out fishing on the elderly boats of the village fleet; he had learned to sail alone; he had even learned to fly. Full of restive boundless energy, he had always challenged himself and those around him. He’d let nothing and nobody hold him back from what he wanted to be.
‘Sorry about that.’ Alexei sighed, tossing aside the phone. ‘Take a seat.’
Billie sank down onto the sofa behind her, closed her hands together neatly on her lap and sent him an enquiring look.
‘I’ve tried out two personal assistants since you left and rejected both. They couldn’t handle your job—’
‘At the end I couldn’t handle it either,’ she pointed out, and then wondered why she was drawing that failing to his attention again.
‘It is important to me that I don’t have to deal with
all the hassle of being a Drakos—the properties, the social invitations, my relatives. I need to concentrate on business,’ he breathed impatiently. ‘When I’m not working, I like a smooth peaceful life. For the six weeks that you were in charge I enjoyed perfect peace. I want you to come back and work for me again.’
Billie was tense: she was flattered and troubled at one and the same time. ‘I’m not sure that would be a good idea—we didn’t gel.’
‘From my point of view, I barely noticed you were around most of the time,’ Alexei volunteered. ‘You’re very quiet.’
Not best pleased to hear that she was just part of the wallpaper as far as he was concerned, Billie met his stunning dark eyes unwarily and her tummy performed a somersault. ‘I assumed that that was what you would want.’
‘Why are you always so tense?’ Alexei demanded with a sudden frown. ‘You were like that around me even when you were a kid. Look at you now—sitting there as frozen as if you’re waiting to be tipped into a pool of hungry sharks!’
In a defensive move, Billie folded her arms. ‘I never know what you’re going to do or say next. It’s…unnerving.’
‘You could learn to live with it. If you start back to work tomorrow, I’ll double your salary,’ Alexei murmured silkily, watching the sunshine play across the gold and copper shades in her auburn hair, which was much longer than he had appreciated and surprisingly attractive. He went for blondes, not for redheads, but for the first time ever he could see the draw of her striking colouring, particularly in the contrast between her hair and her pale, flawless skin.
‘But I haven’t even said I’ll come back yet and offering to double my salary is just crazy and extravagant!’