'I can't wait…' Andreas confessed rawly, passion breaking through his formidable control at a level of excitement he had never known before.
The sheer overload of physical pleasure had driven her to a tortured peak and she was helpless in the hold of the powerful craving that controlled her. He pulled her under him and she was with him every step of the way. With an earthy groan he sank into the slick, hot heat of her and met with unexpected resistance.
'You're a virgin?' he breathed in stark shock. 'Don't stop…' she gasped, reaching up to lock imprisoning arms round him. He yielded and swept her through the sharp little pain into a fast, frantic rhythm as primal as the overpowering sensations that had taken her over. Intolerable excitement pushed her into ecstasy and a cocoon of pleasure. In the aftermath, she felt amazingly silly and happy and buoyant.
Andreas gazed at Hope with wondering golden eyes and then he gathered her very carefully back into the warmth of his coat and tugged her into his arms. He kissed her brow. 'You're very sweet, but you should have told me I'd be the first.'
'It was my business,' Hope muttered, burying her face into his shoulder, fighting off the shock of what she had just done.
'But now's it mine,' Andreas asserted, determined fingers tipping her chin up so that he could look at her again in the flickering light cast by the burning logs. 'I think that in the very near future you will decide to move to London and I will be your lover.'
'Why would I do that?' Hope dared to ask although sparkles of joy were running through her like precious gold dust. His hard, sensual mouth slashed into a sudden smile of breathtaking assurance. 'Because I will ask you to and you won't be able to resist.' Her heart was bouncing like a rubber ball inside her chest and she smiled up at him with all the natural warmth that was the very core of her character.
CHAPTER ONE
ALMOST two years later, Hope sat in a fashionable London cafe waiting for her friend Vanessa's arrival. Her thoughts were miles away and centred entirely on Andreas. She was dreamily wondering how she could best celebrate the second anniversary of that first eventful meeting. By seeking out a snow-bound barn? That would not be a good idea, she conceded with a grin. Andreas disliked inconvenience, cold and, indeed, had a very low tolerance threshold for any form of discomfort.
'Sorry I'm late.' A slim redhead with sharp but attractive features and bright brown eyes sank down into the seat opposite and settled a heavy camera case down. 'If that hair of yours grows any longer,' she remarked, surveying the pale blonde hair Hope wore secured at her nape but which reached halfway to her waist, 'people are going to start wondering if you've got Rapunzel fantasies.'
Hope blinked. 'I beg your pardon?'
'You know… the lady in the fairy tale who got locked up in the tower and let her long hair down to be used as a ladder to rescue her,' Vanessa clarified. 'Only unfortunately for her, it wasn't the handsome prince who climbed up, it was the witch. Be warned.'
Hope laughed and they ordered coffee. She was accustomed to her more sophisticated friend's cynical outlook on life. The daughter of a famous artist, Vanessa had survived a Bohemian and unstable childhood to become a gifted photographer. But the redhead still bore the scars inflicted by parents who had enjoyed tempestuous love lives.
'So, how is your handsome prince?' Vanessa enquired a tinge dryly.
Hope was impervious to that tone and her eyes sparkled. 'Andreas is great. Very busy, of course, but he phones me a lot when he's out of the country-'
'A mobile phone being Andreas's equivalent of a ball and chain,' her friend mocked. 'I seem to recall that if you switch it off he wants an explanation in triplicate. '
'He just likes to know where I am. He worries about me,' Hope countered equably. 'Do you realise that in ten days' time, Andreas and I will have been together for two whole years?'
'Wow. The guy who doesn't commit is going for gold. You could be making gossip column headlines. Of course,' Vanessa murmured wryly, 'the world would first have to know you existed and you remain a very well-kept secret.'
'Andreas hates media attention and he knows I wouldn't like it either. I'm a very contented secret,' Hope admitted, telling herself with the ease of long habit that what little time she had with Andreas would be very much diluted if she had to share him with a social whirl and lots of people as well. 'Right now, I'm trying to think of some special way to celebrate our anniversary.'
'Andreas didn't make the effort to mark the occasion last year, did he?'
'I doubt if it even occurred to him that we had been together an entire year. I shouldn't have sat around waiting for him to say or do something, I should just have reminded him,' Hope said ruefully
'Did he ever mention it afterwards?' Hope shook her head.
'Then, let me offer you a piece of advice,' the younger woman remarked. 'If you want to hang onto Andreas Nicolaidis, resist the urge to celebrate your second anniversary in his presence.'
'But why?'
'The reminder that you've been around for two years might set the cold wind of change blowing.' 'What are you trying to say to me?' Hope prompted anxiously.
Vanessa compressed her lips and sighed. 'I just feel you're wasting your time with Andreas. He didn't even bother to show up the night you collected the top award for your design course.'
'His flight was delayed.'
'Was it?' The younger woman looked unimpressed. 'He has no interest in anything in your life unless it directly affects him.'
'Andreas isn't artistic… or into fashion. I don't expect him to take an interest in the handbags I design.'
'He hasn't introduced you to a single member of his family or to any of his friends. If he takes you out it's to some place where he won't be bothered by the paparazzi and where he won't be seen with you. He's kept his life separate from yours and he keeps you in a little restricted box. Why don't you face facts? You're his mistress in everything but name.'
'That's not true! Andreas doesn't keep me. I take nothing from him… OK, I live in that flat, but I pay all my own expenses and I don't accept expensive gifts or anything from him,' Hope reasoned in a low-pitched tone of urgency.
'But it's not a question of what you think, it's all about what Andreas thinks and how he treats you-' 'He cares about me, he treats me really well,' Hope argued tightly. Vanessa gave her a concerned look but Hope felt far too raw to take comfort from a sympathy that could only further dent her pride. 'Why shouldn't he? You're devoted to him and he knows it and he uses it. He set the boundaries of your relationship way back at the beginning-'
'No there were no rules set. I am not his mistress I wouldn't be his mistress!' Hope stated in an almost fierce undertone.
'So he was too smooth an operator to put a label on it. Has he ever mentioned a future with you? Love?Marriage?Children?'
Battered down by those bold words, Hope almost flinched.
'You have a right to ask where things are going at any stage of a relationship,' Vanessa informed her and then she changed the subject.
Afterwards, Hope had no real idea what she had discussed with Vanessa beyond that point. She remembered having smiled a lot. She had been keen to reassure her closest friend that she was not offended by that blunt appraisal of her relationship with Andreas. But, in truth, those same comments had blown her peace of mind sky-high and caused her considerable pain. Vanessa's every word replayed again and again in Hope's troubled thoughts. She was devastated when she was forced to acknowledge that most of what the other woman had said had been based on unarguable fact rather than personal opinion. Only hours earlier, Hope had felt supremely happy and perfectly contented with her life and with Andreas's central position within it. It had been Vanessa who had sowed discontent inside her. Yet she did not blame her friend. After all, Vanessa had only shown her a more disturbing interpretation of limitations that Hope had simply accepted. Slowly and painfully, Hope felt all the concerns that she had suppressed and all the questions she had never dared to ask Andreas rise like taunts
to the surface of her mind. Andreas had never taken her to Greece, although he knew that she longed to visit the country of his birth with him. Even though his one and only sibling, his younger sister, Elyssa, was married to an Englishman and lived in London, Andreas had not succumbed to Hope's gentle hints that she would like to meet Elyssa. Hope had always avoided dwelling on that omission and had told herself that in time Andreas would make that suggestion on his own account. In the same way, she had also convinced herself that she was unconcerned by her lack of contact with Andreas's family and friends. But he had never given her the option, had he?
It was equally true that Andreas had never been known to make a reference to the future as something they might share… at least not a future that extended further than a calendar month ahead in his highly organised schedule. Not once had he mentioned marriage or a desire for children. As for love, well, he was prone to making cutting comments on that topic and she had learned to avoid the subject. Her eyes stung with a surge of rare tears as she entered the big penthouse apartment that had become her home. Andreas might be in no hurry to offer commitment, but that still did not mean that she was his mistress. Did it? By nature, Andreas was reserved and cautious. Another doubt crept in to make itself heard; how could she even tell herself that they lived together? In the strictest sense they did not because Andreas continued to own and make occasional use of another, even more substantial city property. He had pointed out that the apartment was a necessary convenience for him because it was a lot closer to his office than his town house. His relatives also stayed at the town house when they visited London, as did he when it suited him. Furthermore, Hope had never set foot inside the town house.
Suddenly, Hope was seeing the foundations of her happiness wash away like sand on a beach. She adored Andreas. She had truly believed that their relationship was wonderful and well worth cherishing. But Vanessa's frankly offered opinion had lacerated Hope's pride and destroyed her confidence. Was it possible that she had been wilfully blind rather than face the harsh, hurtful truth? Was it possible that, like the penthouse apartment, she was really just a convenience to Andreas too? A sexual rather than residential convenience? The phone in the echoing reception hall was ringing. After a moment of hesitation, she picked up.
'Why has your mobile been switched off for three hours?' Andreas demanded. 'Where have you been?' 'I was meeting Vanessa and… er… shopping and I forgot to put it on again.' Hope crossed two sets of fingers as she told that small lie and swallowed hard. 'I'll be with you by eight tomorrow night. So, talk to me,' Andreas invited, because he had taken a break for coffee and he could always depend on her to fill the space with the minutiae of her daily existence. No matter where he was in the world, he could pick up the phone and within minutes her tide of chirpy chatter would filter away all stress and entertain him. Hope had been very well named. She never said anything bad about anyone. She went out of her way to do favours for total strangers. She put a positive spin on every experience.
Her mind was blank. 'What about?'
'Anything and everything… how clothes are shrinking in size to fuel the diet industry… the addictive quality of chocolate… what a lovely day it is… how even wet days can be fun… what wonderfully pleasant people you have met in the apartment foyer, on the street, in the stores,' Andreas enumerated without hesitation. 'I'm used to a deluge of irrepressibly cheerful chatter.'
Hope's face flamed. Did he see her as a mindless babbler? What did he see in her? She had always wondered. It took huge effort but she managed to talk and it must have been mindless because, the whole time, one half of her was concentrated on the less than-encouraging reflection she could see in the contemporary mirror on the wall opposite. How could any guy who looked like Andreas really care for a woman her shape and size? Stop it, stop it, stop it, the voice of common sense urged her. With resolute courage, she turned away from the mirror and assured herself that self-doubt was not about to make her bolt to the kitchen and use food as a source of comfort.
In Switzerland, Andreas set down his phone, a frown dividing his ebony brows as his analytical brain homed in on the question of what had upset Hope. She was not prone to moods. Indeed her temperament was remarkably even and upbeat. When something bothered her, she shared it with him. In fact, she told him immediately and appreciated his advice. What kind of problem would she choose not to share with him?
Although she remained blissfully unaware of the fact, Hope was currently enjoying very discreet twenty-four-hour protection. Andreas, in common with many wealthy individuals, had suffered threats. Concerned that Hope might also be targeted, Andreas had hired security professionals to watch over her. Initially he had planned to tell her. But he had feared that the safeguards he had put in place might frighten her. She was friendly and trusting and thought the very best of everyone she met. He did not want that to change and had decided that it was kinder to leave her in ignorance. Only for an instant did he consider contacting her security team to find out where she had been and whom she had been with. That would be taking advantage of the situation and he respected her privacy. Even so, a sense of annoyance that Hope should for once have given him cause for disquiet made Andreas icy cold and tough with the executives who at his signal returned to the conference table.
Hope always dressed up for Andreas. Staring into her wardrobe, she was mentally dividing it into three separate collections of clothes. Of the three, usually only one set fitted her at anyone time. The first had enjoyed a brief but glittering life after a crash diet and the second was filled with all the replacement clothes in different sizes that she had had to buy while she'd steadily regained the weight she had lost. The third was full of stalwart outfits with forgivingly stretchy proportions. Almost everything was bright in colour. As she yanked out a dress her head spun a little and she felt momentarily dizzy enough to sink down on the edge of the bed. It had not been the first time that she had felt that way in recent weeks but she reckoned that the light-headed feeling was an irritating hangover from a virus she had found hard to shake off during the autumn. No doubt the bug was still working its slow way out of her system and she would be wasting her doctor's time if she approached her with such a vague symptom.
In an hour, Andreas would be with her again and excitement was leaping through Hope in intoxicating waves. She refused to torment herself with Vanessa's gloomy forecast of doom and disappointment. Her friend had only wanted to put her on her guard, had in short spoken up out of pure, disinterested kindness. But Hope was equally well aware that Vanessa, who had had several unfortunate experiences, cherished a pronounced distrust of men and their motives. Furthermore, Vanessa had never met Andreas, had not even had the opportunity to appreciate what a wonderful guy he was.
Andreas kept the media at arm's length and suffered accordingly for his determination to protect his privacy. It took a great deal to anger Hope but she had been very much annoyed by several magazine articles and newspaper columns that had utilised old photos and old stories to enable their continued unjust depiction of Andreas as a ruthless, callous womaniser who was merciless in business. Had Vanessa read those items and been influenced by them?
As Hope brushed her hair she was thinking about the male she knew. Strong, generous, wildly passionate, literally everything she wanted in a man wrapped up in one fantastic package. Even though Andreas hated roughing it, he took her on picnics because he knew she loved them. Sightseeing bored him to death but he had flown her out to Paris, Rome and a host of other fabulous cities so that she could explore her passion for history in his company. Whenever she had been scared, discouraged or in need of support, he had been there for her. She loved him with her whole heart and soul for a host of very understandable reasons. On the debit side…? No, no, she wasn't going there, she was determined not to allow foolish negativity to creep in and wreak havoc with her happiness.
Andreas called her from the airport.
'I'm counting the minutes,' she told him truthfully. He ca
lled her from the limo when it got stuck in city traffic.
'I can't bear it… ' she gasped strickenly.
'Have you any idea how much I've missed you?' Andreas finally broke through his cool to demand in his final call made as he stepped into the lift to come up to the apartment.
By that stage, Hope was in a heady fever of anticipation. The front door opened, she saw him and all intelligent thought ceased. Her knees felt weak. She leant back against the wall to steady herself. Everything about Andreas thrilled her to death. From the stubborn angle of his proud dark head to the lithe, leashed power and grace of his hard, muscular frame, he was spectacularly male. Lamplight burnished his cropped black hair and cast his lean, bronzed features into tantalising angles of light and shade. He was breathtakingly handsome and he still only had to walk through the door to make her heart threaten cardiac arrest.
Andreas kicked the door shut behind him and powered on across the hall to haul her into his arms. For an endless moment of bliss she was lost in the glorious touch and feel of him. Her nostrils flared on the familiar male scent of his skin overlaid with a faint tang of designer lotion and her responses went into overdrive. 'Andreas…' she breathed unsteadily.
'If you could travel with me, we would have more time together.' Brilliant dark golden eyes entrapped her misty gaze, his accented drawl husky and reasonable in tone, for he chose his moments with care. 'Think about that. You could let your artistic endeavours take a back seat for a while.'
And lose her independence, which was quite out of the question, Hope acknowledged while she agonised with guilty longing over the seductive idea of being able to see more of Andreas. 'I couldn't…'
His hands closing over her smaller ones, and content to have planted yet another seed, Andreas pinned her back against the wall with all the single-minded purpose of a male guided by lustful intent. She succumbed to the allure of his hard, sensual mouth with the same fervour she would have employed in a life or death situation. He tasted like heaven, like something addictive she could not do without, and she clung. The tight knot of excitement in her belly fired her every nerve ending into an eager blaze of expectation. He dropped her hands to curve possessive fingers to the full, feminine swell of her hips and lift her into stirring connection with his bold erection.