to wear a gold clingy dress with a plunging neckline. But he knew that Zelda was her grandfather’s favourite grandchild—a fact she used shamelessly to get her own way.
Zelda had developed a crush on Alekos the previous year when he had spent a few days meeting with some of GE’s senior board members aboard the company’s flagship yacht, Artemis. One night, Alekos had found the teenager waiting for him in his bed. He had managed to persuade her to return to her own cabin and had done his best to avoid her since then.
But the gods were ganging up against him tonight, he decided as Zelda linked her arm possessively though his and he had no choice but to escort her into the salon, where champagne cocktails and canapés were being served. He looked around for Sara and his temper did not improve when he saw her chatting with the new whiz-kid CFO. Paul Eddis was in his early thirties, and Alekos supposed that women might consider his blond hair and rather delicate facial features attractive. Sara certainly looked happy in his company, and Eddis was staring at her with a stunned expression on his face as if he couldn’t believe his luck that the most beautiful woman in the room was giving him all her attention.
The evening went from bad to worse when they were called to take their places for dinner and Alekos discovered he was seated next to Zelda. Sara had arranged the seating plan and he’d specifically asked her to put him on a different table from Zelda. Had Sara decided to have a joke at his expense? Alekos glared across the room to where she was sitting at another table. But she was facing away from him and white-hot fury swept through him when he noticed the waiter ogling her bare back.
He forced himself to eat a little of his cheese soufflé, which was as light as air but tasted like cardboard in his mouth. ‘Shouldn’t you be at school, studying for exams?’ he muttered to Zelda as he firmly removed her hand from his thigh.
‘I’ve left school.’ She giggled. ‘Well, the headmistress insisted I leave because she said I was a bad influence on the other girls. But I don’t need to pass exams because I’m going to be a model. Pappoús is paying for me to have my portfolio done with a top photographer.’
‘If you don’t behave yourself, perhaps your grandfather will refuse to fund your modelling career.’
‘Oh, Pappoús will give me anything I ask for.’ Zelda leaned closer to Alekos. ‘If I don’t behave, will you punish me?’ she said artfully.
He would like to punish his PA for putting him through an uncomfortable evening. Alekos’s furious black gaze bored into Sara’s shoulder blades. And yes, they could send a man wild with desire, he discovered. The hellish meal ended eventually but as the band started up and he strode away from the table—ignoring Zelda’s plea to dance with her—he was waylaid by Orestis Pagnotis.
The older man glared at Alekos with his gimlet gaze. ‘Keep away from my granddaughter. Zelda is an innocent young woman and I will not allow you to corrupt her, Alekos. I’ve always been concerned that your womanising ways would bring the company into disrepute. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that you need the support of every member of the board to implement the changes you want to make within GE.’
Alekos struggled to keep his temper under control. ‘Are you threatening me?’
‘I suggest you think hard about what I’ve said,’ Orestis warned.
Sara stood up as Alekos approached her table. ‘What’s wrong? You don’t look like you’re enjoying the party.’
‘I wonder why that is?’ he snapped. ‘Do you think it could be because you placed me next to Zelda Pagnotis at dinner, after I’d expressly asked you to seat her away from me? Or perhaps it’s because Orestis believes that I have designs on his granddaughter, who he thinks is as innocent as a lamb, incidentally.’
‘I didn’t seat you next to her.’ Sara looked puzzled. ‘When we arrived I even popped into the dining room to check that the seating plan had been set out as I had organised it... Zelda must have switched the name cards around.’
Alekos’s frustration with Orestis’s manipulative granddaughter, and his anger with Orestis for threatening to withhold his support at the next board meeting, turned to a different kind of frustration as he stared into Sara’s guileless green eyes. Across the room he saw Zelda heading purposefully in his direction. He caught hold of Sara’s hand.
‘Dance with me,’ he ordered, pulling her towards him. She gave him a startled look, but Alekos was too stunned by the fire that ignited inside him when he felt her breasts pressed against his chest to care.
It was impossible to believe that this was the same Sara who had held herself stiffly and ensured that no part of her body touched his when he’d felt duty-bound to ask her to dance with him at the Christmas party. This Sara was soft and pliant in his arms and he was conscious of the hard points of her nipples through his shirt and the surprising firmness of her thighs beneath her silk dress as she moved with him in time to the music.
‘I noted that you made sure you were sitting next to Paul Eddis at dinner,’ he bit out. The memory of watching Sara leaning her head towards the CFO when they had sat together for the meal evoked an acidic sensation in his gut. Theos, was it jealousy that had made him want to walk over to Eddis and drag the guy out of his seat? Alekos had never been possessive of a woman in his life, but he felt a burning urge to drape his jacket around Sara’s shoulders and hide her naked back from view. ‘You are meant to be on duty this evening, not flirting with other members of GE staff, or the waiters.’
Twin spots of colour stained her cheeks and he could tell she was fighting to control her temper. The thought excited Alekos more than it should. He wanted to disturb her composure like she disturbed him.
‘I haven’t flirted with anyone. You’re being ridiculous.’
‘Am I?’ Alekos succumbed to the demon called temptation and slid his hand up from her waist to her spine. The bare skin of her back was as smooth as silk but, unlike cool silk, her skin was warm and as he spread his fingers wide he felt the heat of her body scald him. ‘You must be aware that every man in this room desires you,’ he taunted her.
Her eyes widened and he thought he might drown in those mysterious deep green pools. ‘Even you?’ she taunted him right back.
Her refusal to be cowed by him had earned Alekos’s respect when she’d been his prim, plain secretary. But now her sassy tongue shattered the last vestiges of his restraint.
‘What do you think?’ he growled as he pressed his hand into the small of her back so that her pelvis came into contact with his. The hard ridge of his arousal could leave her in no doubt of the effect she had on him.
* * *
‘Alekos...’ Sara licked her dry lips. Her intention had been to remind him that they were on the dance floor in full view of GE’s board members and senior executives. But, instead of sounding crisply efficient in her best PA manner, her voice emerged as a breathy whisper as if she were starring in a soft porn movie, she thought disgustedly.
‘Sara,’ he mocked, mimicking her husky tone. The way he said her name in his sexy accent, curling his tongue around each syllable, made her toes curl. When she had danced with him at the Christmas party she’d been so tense, terrified he would guess he was all of her fantasies rolled into one. But he’d caught her off guard when he’d pulled her into his arms just now. Dancing with him, her breasts crushed against his broad chest and her cheek resting on the lapel of his jacket, was divine. Beneath her palm she could feel the hard thud of his heart and recognised that its erratic beat echoed her own.
Every day at the office for the past four days had been a refined torture as she’d struggled to hide her awareness of him. It had been easier when he hadn’t noticed her, but since she had returned to work after her holiday she’d been conscious of a simmering sexual chemistry between her and Alekos that she had tried to ignore. To be fair, he had seemed as if he was trying to ignore it too and a lot of the time they had been so stiff and polite with each other, as if they were strangers rather than two people who had built up a comfortable working relationship over two years.
But