Mia's Scandal

In her life to date, she’d had just two abiding influences. A wonderfully caring but ageing aunt she adored, and an even older man she kept house and cooked for who lived very much in a world of his own. And the worst part was that no matter how hard Oscar and his daughters had tried to bring her out of herself, she was still that quiet, shy and isolated country girl on the inside.

She sighed, turning to face the room again with its bland walls and bland modern furniture and its television playing softly in the corner for company.

I’m going to go out.

The decision sparked out of nothing. It just hit her like a fever in her head and, before she knew it, Mia was striding out of the sitting room and into the bedroom. Ten minutes later she returned, dressed in a short dusky-lilac silk dress with a dipping neckline and tiny lace-cap sleeves. A hunt along the rail of hand-medowns had uncovered a fashionably complicated fitted black satin jacket she pulled on over the dress as she walked.

And most important of all, her resolve to just get out there and do something was burning like a fire in her blood. Gathering up her purse she let herself out of her flat and crossed the plush creamy oval-shaped f

oyer to press the button to call the lift up to the top floor.

She was going to find a restaurant and eat out for a change. Lots of cool independent people in London dined alone. She’d seen them doing it at the lunches Nikos had taken her to so why not go and do it herself?

Brave Mia, she mocked, feeling tense tingles play havoc with her insides in direct opposition to the adventure she was about to embark upon. Because she wasn’t brave. Never had been. And if the lift didn’t arrive soon she was going to—

The sound of a door opening behind her had her spinning about. Instantly her tingling insides crashed to a fizzing burn when she found herself staring at Nikos.

It just was not fair that he had to pick this moment to leave his apartment, she decided as she stared at him in dismayed shock.

He was wearing a formal black dinner suit that sat smoothly on his long powerful frame. A black silk bow tie sat perfectly symmetrical across the butterfly collar of his dress shirt. And his hair was still damp, as if he’d dressed quickly after showering now the hint of curls lay black and thick and glossy on the top of his well-shaped head. Every single inch of him looked strong and sleek and formidably exclusive. Her mouth ran dry and her heart started beating too fast as she flickered her gaze up to stare at his recently shaved jaw, then the sensual shape of his unsmiling mouth. And finally—finally she made contact with his eyes.

He was looking back at her as if this accidental meeting had disconcerted him as much as it had done to her. Defensive tension stiffened her stance.

‘On your way out?’ he spoke first, smooth and cool and, Mia suspected, carefully pleasant.

‘Sí,’ she managed, unaware that her hands had clenched into fists on the ends of her arms held straight like sticks at her sides.

He nodded, the floating veil of his eyelashes sweeping downwards before he turned to pull the door to his apartment shut.

Fortunately the lift arrived then, giving Mia a good reason to drag her eyes away from him, though it made little difference, she realised a few seconds later, when the lift’s mirrored walls allowed her to watch him stride across the lobby and join her inside. The small space instantly grew even smaller, crammed by his superior height and that overpowering sense of presence he always carried around with him.

But then, the mirrors were giving her two or three or even four different views of him. That was a lot of Nikos Theakis to contend with in a confined space. Her breath caught again when he leant across her to hit the button to take them down to the ground floor. The subtle tangy scent of him assailed her nostrils. As his sleeve brushed against her arm she took a step back. So did he, straightening to his full formidable height.

‘Anywhere nice?’ he enquired casually.

Keeping her eyes glued to her own reflection, Mia nodded and watched her hair move against the black satin jacket. ‘Dinner,’ she said, watching her lightly glossed lips part to form the response.

When she looked into her eyes she had no choice but to acknowledge the lurking darkness of deep uncertainty at her impulsive decision to go out like this. Was she mad? Was she stupid? What did she know about surviving in this huge metropolis? She didn’t even know whether to turn to the left or to the right when she reached the street. The left led downtown where the more refined restaurants were situated. The right led to the local high street with its trendy bistros and café bars she passed on the occasions she caught the tube home and walked the rest of the way back here.

Left or right? Refined or trendy?

‘You?’ she asked because she felt she should do.

‘Same.’

She looked up—not wanting to—and wished she had not when she found him checking out the set of his black bow tie in one of the mirrors, chin thrust upwards, beautifully black-framed eyes as dark as night. Sensation sprinkled like static between fine layers of her skin and she looked away again quickly, back to the stranger she saw herself as, dressed in a dusky-lilac shift dress and a black satin jacket, with a lot of long leg showing and her ankles elevated by the fourinch heels on her shoes.

Irritating and juvenile…

Was he on his way to meet the new replacement for Lucy Clayton as Fiona had predicted? Was she tall and blonde and heart-stoppingly beautiful and screamingly intelligent and sophisticated? Was he planning to bring her back here to his apartment to make wildly passionate love with her while Mia lay alone in her bed next door and—

‘Where—?’

Her small chin jerked up and their eyes clashed in a mirror; tiny prickles of attraction attacked her flesh. ‘Scusi?’ she murmured blankly.

‘I was asking where you are going for dinner,’ Nikos enlightened dryly—in English.

‘Oh. I don’t know,’ Mia let slip before she could think about it, watched his eyebrows arch, felt a deep inner niggle at the slip, then thankfully her pride came to her rescue with what she thought was a truly inspirational lie. ‘I am meeting someone,’ she claimed. ‘I don’t know where he is taking me to eat.’