month I will expect you to behave like you are my adoring fiancée, not a stroppy adolescent, which is your current attitude,’ he said tersely.
‘Let go of me.’ Her eyes darkened with temper when he backed her up against the door. He was too close, and her senses leapt as she breathed in his exotic aftershave. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Giving you some acting lessons,’ he growled and, before she had time to react, he covered her mouth with his and kissed the fight out of her.
He kissed her until she was breathless, until she melted against him and slid her arms up the front of his shirt. The scrape of his rough jaw against her skin sent a shudder of longing through Ava. It shamed her to admit it, but Giannis only had to touch her and he decimated her power of logical thought. She pressed herself closer to his big, hard body, a low moan rising in her throat when he flicked his tongue inside her mouth.
And then it was over as, with humiliating ease, he broke the kiss and lifted his hands to unwind her arms from around his neck. Only the slight unsteadiness of his breath indicated that he was not as unaffected by the kiss as he wanted her to think.
His voice was coolly amused as he drawled, ‘You are an A-star student, glykiá mou. You almost had me convinced that you are in love with me.’
‘Hell,’ Ava told him succinctly, ‘will freeze over first.’
PARIS IN EARLY autumn was made for lovers. The September sky was a crisp, bright blue and the leaves on the trees were beginning to change colour and drifted to the ground like red and gold confetti.
Staring out of the window of a chauffeur-driven limousine on his way back to his hotel from a business meeting, Giannis watched couples holding hands or strolling arm in arm next to the Seine. What it was to be in love, he thought cynically. Five years ago he had fallen hard for Caroline when he’d met her during a business trip to her home state of California. Theos, he had believed that she loved him. But the truth was she had loved his money and had hoped he would pay for her father’s political campaign to become the next US President.
Caroline’s pregnancy had been a mistake but, as long as they were married, a baby, especially if it was a boy, might help her father’s campaign, she’d told Giannis. Images of widower Brice Herbert cuddling his grandchild would appeal to the electorate.
However, having a son-in-law who had served a prison sentence would have been a disaster for Brice Herbert’s political ambition. Caroline had reacted with horror when Giannis had revealed the dark secret of his past. He’d sensed that she had been relieved when she’d lost the baby. Motherhood had not been on her agenda when there was a chance she could be America’s First Lady. It was probably a blessing in disguise, she’d said, and it meant that there was no reason for them to marry. But he could never believe that the loss of his child was a blessing. It had felt as if his heart had been ripped out, and confirmed his belief that he did not deserve to be happy.
The limousine swept past the Arc de Triomphe while Giannis adeptly blocked out thoughts of his past and focused on the present. Specifically on the woman who was going to help him prove to Stefanos Markou that he had given up his playboy lifestyle. He should have predicted that Ava would argue when he had given her his credit card and sent her shopping, he brooded.
‘I packed some things when you drove me home to collect my passport. There is nothing wrong with my clothes,’ she’d told him in a stiff voice that made him want to shake her.
‘I am a wealthy man and when we are out together in public, people will expect my fiancée to be dressed in haute couture,’ he had explained patiently. ‘Fleur Laurent is a personal shopper and she will take you to the designer boutiques on the Champs-Élysées.’
Most women in Giannis’s experience would have been delighted at the chance to spend his money, but not Ava. She was irritating, incomprehensible and—he searched for another suitable adjective that best summed up his feelings for her. Ungrateful. She did not seem to appreciate that he was doing her a huge favour by dropping the criminal damage charge against her brother.
Giannis frowned as he remembered meeting Sam McKay briefly when he’d driven Ava home before they had flown to Paris. He had been surprised when she’d directed him to pull up outside a shabby terraced house. It was odd that her family had moved from Cyprus to a run-down area of East London. Perhaps there had been a change in her parents’ financial circumstances, he’d mused.
He had insisted on accompanying Ava into the house to maintain the pretence of their romance. He wasn’t going to risk her brother selling a story to the press that their engagement was fake. But, instead of a swaggering teenager, he’d discovered that Sam was a lanky, nervous-looking youth who had stammered his thanks to Giannis for dropping the criminal charges against him. Sam had admitted that he’d been stupid and regretted the mistakes he had made.
Giannis understood what it was like to regret past actions and, to his surprise, he’d found himself feeling glad that he had given Ava’s brother a chance to turn his life around. While Ava had gone upstairs to look for her passport, Sam had shyly congratulated him on becoming engaged to his sister and had voiced his opinion that Ava deserved to be happy after her previous boyfriend had broken her heart.
The limousine drew up outside the hotel and Giannis glanced at his watch. His meeting had overrun but there was just enough time for him to shower and change before the evening’s function at the Louvre started. He hoped Ava would be ready on time. Theos, he hoped she hadn’t run out on him.
He was aware of a sinking sensation in his stomach as the possibility occurred to him. He acknowledged that he had struggled to concentrate during his business meeting because he had been anticipating spending the evening with Ava. If he hadn’t known himself better he might have been concerned by his fascination with her. But experience had taught him that desire was a transitory emotion.
‘I wouldn’t have thought that you would be interested in a fashion show,’ she had remarked when he’d told her about the evening’s event.
‘The show is for new designers to demonstrate their talent. I sponsor a young Greek designer called Kris Antoniadis. You may not have heard of him, but I predict that in a few years he will be highly regarded in the fashion world. At least I certainly hope so because I am Kris’s main financial sponsor and I have invested a lot of money in him.’
‘Is money the only thing you are interested in?’ she’d asked him in a snippy tone which gave the impression she thought that making money was immoral.
He had looked her up and down and allowed his eyes linger on the firm swell of her breasts beneath her cashmere sweater. ‘It’s not the only thing that interests me,’ he’d murmured, and she’d blushed.
There was no sign of her in their hotel suite, but Giannis heard the sound of a hairdryer from the en suite bathroom. Stripping off his jacket and tie as he went, he strode into the separate shower room and then headed to the dressing room to change into a tuxedo.
He returned to the sitting room just as Ava emerged from the bedroom, and Giannis felt a sudden tightness in his chest. His brain acknowledged that the personal shopper had fulfilled the brief he’d given her to find an evening gown that was both elegant and sexy. But as he stared at Ava he was conscious of the way another area of his anatomy reacted as his blood rushed to his groin.
‘You look stunning,’ he told her, and to his own ears his voice sounded huskier than usual as his customary sangfroid deserted him.
‘Thank you. So do you.’ Soft colour stained her cheeks. Giannis was surprised by how easily she blushed. It gave her an air of vulnerability that he chose to ignore.
‘The personal shopper said I should wear a statement dress tonight—whatever a statement dress is. But I don’t think you will approve when I tell you how many noughts were on the price tag,’ she said ruefully.
‘Whatever