When his oldest friend Alessio Palvetti had pulled in a favour owed from their school days and asked him to host a masquerade ball, using a specific event team to manage it, Giannis had figured the ball could work in his favour. He could repay his debt and let his sisters believe he was serious about finding a wife. Everyone would be happy.
He didn’t hold much hope that his ideal woman would emerge tonight but this was as good an opportunity to find her as any. He’d even let Niki, his youngest sister and the biggest socialite in his family, select fifty of the four hundred guests to invite. These fifty guests were unmarried women, their wealth determined by their ability to pay the forty-thousand-euro price tag he’d set the tickets at.
If Giannis was going to marry again, he had three criteria. Firstly, and most importantly, his potential wife had to be independently rich. He would not make the same mistake as he’d made in his first marriage. Secondly, she must be of childbearing age, a criterion that was self-explanatory. Thirdly, and least importantly, she must be pleasant to look at. She didn’t have to be a model, or even be particularly beautif
ul, but if he was going to spend the rest of his life with one woman he would prefer it to be with someone he found attractive.
Slipping through a rear door into the hotel he’d bought less than two years ago, he made his way to the ballroom.
Giannis’s business interests were varied but mostly concentrated in shipping and property across the globe. This former palace he’d spent millions on renovating into a world-class hotel was his first venture into the tourism industry outside his Greek home. As a status symbol, there was none better.
About to open a side door into the ballroom, he spotted a female guest on the cantilevered stairs. Her fingers trailed the railing as she made her descent. Her other hand clutched the gold invitation all ball guests were required to show on their arrival.
There was something hesitant about her graceful walk that made him look twice.
He looked at her. Then looked again.
Although much of her face was hidden behind a white-gold eye-mask with a plume of dusky-pink feathers on the left cheek, there was something about her that set his pulses racing.
He couldn’t tear his eyes away.
Her beautiful dress, all delicate pale greens, dusky pinks, golds and jewels that sparkled when the light caught them, was strapless and form-fitting to the waist then puffed out to fall in layers to her hidden feet.
She looked like a princess.
She could be a princess.
He imagined the dazzling circle the skirt of the dress would make on the dance floor...
Leaving the door he’d been about to enter, he approached her as she reached the bottom of the stairs.
She was shorter than he’d thought and, up close, even more ravishing. Honey-blonde hair had been coiled into an elegant knot at the base of a graceful neck adorned with a gold choker necklace covered in jewels, and roses that matched her dress and the drop earrings hanging from the lobes of her pretty ears.
She was the most exquisite creature he had ever set eyes on.
‘You look lost,’ he said in English.
A pair of cornflower-blue eyes met his from behind the mask.
Full, heart-shaped lips curved into a hesitant smile.
‘Do you need directions to the room the guests are meeting in? Or are you waiting for someone?’ She wore a glimmering diamond on her right hand but there was no ring on her left.
She shook her head in obvious shyness.
‘You don’t need directions or you’re not waiting for someone?’ Or did she not understand him? It was a rare event to meet someone in his world who did not speak English.
When she finally spoke, her cut-glass English accent contained a huskiness to it. ‘I’m not waiting for anyone.’
Better and better.
He held an arm out to her. ‘Then allow me to escort you, Miss...’
‘Tabitha.’ Colour stained what he could see of her cheeks. ‘My name is Tabitha.’
‘A pleasure to meet you, Tabitha. I’m Giannis Basinas and it would be my pleasure if you would allow me to escort you to the ball.’
Tabitha could have screamed at her stupidity.