she had plucked up the courage and revealed her real identity. But Craig had reacted with horror to the news that she was the daughter of the infamous London gangland boss Terry McKay.
‘How could we have a family when there is a risk that our children might inherit your father’s criminal genes?’ Craig had said, with no trace of warmth in his voice and a look of distaste on his face that had filled Ava with shame.
‘Criminality isn’t an inherited condition,’ she had argued. But she continued to be haunted by Craig’s words. Perhaps there was a ‘criminal gene’ that could be passed down through generations and she would not be able to save Sam from a life of crime.
Ava forced her mind away from the past. She refused to believe that her kind, funny younger brother could become a violent criminal like their father. But the statistics of youths reoffending after being sent to prison were high. She needed to keep her nerve and seize the right moment to throw herself on Giannis’s mercy.
In normal circumstances Ava would have found the bidding process at the charity auction fascinating. The sums of money that some of the items fetched were staggering—and far beyond anything her finances could stretch to. Giannis offered the highest bid of a six-figure sum for a luxury spa break at an exclusive resort in the Maldives for two people. Ava wondered who he planned to take with him. No doubt he had several mistresses to choose from. But if he wanted more variety, she was sure that any one of the women in the banqueting hall who she had noticed sending him covetous glances would jump at the chance to spend four days—and nights—with a gorgeous, wealthy Greek god. Giannis was reputed to have become a billionaire from his successful luxury cruise line company, The Gekas Experience.
‘Congratulations on your winning bid for the spa break. I don’t blame you for deciding that a visit to the Maldives would be more enjoyable than a trip to Scotland,’ she said, unable to prevent the faint waspishness in her voice as she pictured him cavorting in a tropical paradise with a supermodel.
‘I bought the spa break for my mother and sister. My mother has often said that she would like to visit the Maldives, and at least my sister will be pleased.’ There was an odd nuance in Giannis’s tone. ‘Perhaps the trip will make my mother happy, but I doubt it,’ he said heavily.
Ava looked at him curiously, wanting to know more about his family. He had seemed tense when he spoke about his mother, but she was heartened to know that he had a sister and perhaps he would understand why she was so anxious to save her brother from a prison sentence.
The auction continued, but she was barely aware of what was going on around her and her senses were finely attuned to the man seated beside her. While she sipped her coffee and pretended to study the auction catalogue she tried not to stare at Giannis’s strong, tanned hands as he picked up his coffee cup. But her traitorous imagination visualised his hands sliding over her naked body, cupping her breasts in his palms as he bent his head to take each of her nipples into his mouth.
Sweet heaven! What had got into her? Hot-faced, she tensed when he moved his leg beneath the table and she felt his thigh brush against hers. He turned his head towards her, amusement gleaming in his eyes when he saw the hectic flush on her cheeks.
‘It is rather warm in here, isn’t it?’ he murmured.
She was on fire and desperate to escape to the restroom so that she could hold her wrists under the cold tap to try to bring her temperature down. Perhaps spending a few minutes away from Giannis would allow her to regain her composure. ‘Please excuse me,’ she muttered as she shoved her chair back and stood up abruptly.
‘Ow!’ For a few seconds she could not understand why scalding liquid was soaking into the front of her dress. The reason became clear when she saw a waiter hovering close by. He was holding a cafetière, and she guessed that he had leaned over her shoulder in order to refill her coffee cup at the same time that she had jumped up and knocked into him.
‘I am so sorry, madam.’
‘It’s all right—it was my fault,’ Ava choked, wanting to die of embarrassment. She hated being the centre of attention but everyone at the table, everyone in the banqueting room, it seemed, was looking at her. The head waiter hurried over and added his profuse apologies to those of the waiter who had spilled the coffee.
Giannis had risen from his seat. ‘Were you burned by the hot coffee?’ His deep voice was calm in the midst of the chaos.
‘I think I’m all right. My dress took the brunt of it.’ The coffee was cooling as it soaked through the material, but her dress was drenched and her attempts to blot the liquid with her napkin were ineffective. At least it was a black dress and the coffee stain might wash out, Ava thought. But she couldn’t spend the rest of the evening in her wet dress and she would have to go home without having had an opportunity to speak to Giannis about her brother.
The hotel manager had been called and he arrived at the table to add his apologies and reprimand the hapless waiter. ‘Really, it’s my fault,’ Ava tried to explain. She just wanted to get out of the banqueting hall, away from the curious stares of the other diners.
‘Come with me.’ Giannis slipped his hand under her elbow, and she was relieved when he escorted her out of the room. She knew she would have to call for a taxi to take her home, but while she was searching in her bag for her phone she barely noticed that they had stepped into a lift until the doors slid smoothly shut.
‘We will go to my hotel suite so that you can use the bathroom to freshen up, and meanwhile I’ll arrange for your dress to be laundered,’ Giannis answered her unspoken question.
Ava was about to say that there was no need for him to go to all that trouble. But it occurred to her that while she waited for her dress to be cleaned she would have the perfect opportunity to ask him to drop the charges against her brother. Was it sensible to go to a hotel room with a man she had never met before? questioned her common sense. This might be her only chance to save Sam, she reminded herself.
The doors opened and she discovered that the lift had brought them directly to Giannis’s suite. Ignoring the lurch of her heart, she followed him across the vast sitting room. ‘The bathroom is through there,’ he said, pointing towards a door. ‘There is a spare robe that you can use and I’ll call room service and have someone collect your dress. Would you like some more wine, or coffee?’
‘I think I’ve had enough coffee for one night.’ She gave him a rueful smile and her stomach muscles tightened when his eyes focused intently on her mouth.
She had definitely had enough wine, Ava thought as she shot into the opulent marble-tiled bathroom and locked the door, before releasing her breath on a shaky sigh. It must be her out-of-control imagination that made her think she had seen a predatory hunger in Giannis’s gaze. She wondered if he looked at every woman that way, and made them feel as though they were the most beautiful, the most desirable woman he had ever met. Probably. Giannis had a reputation as a playboy and he possessed an effortless charm that was irresistible.
But not to her. She was immune to Giannis’s magnetism, she assured herself. As she stripped off her coffee-soaked dress and reached for the folded towelling robe on a shelf, she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror above the vanity unit. Her face was flushed and her eyes looked huge beneath her fringe. Usually she wore her hair up in a chignon but tonight she had left it loose and it reached halfway down her back. The layers that the hairdresser had cut into it made her hair look thick and lustrous, gleaming like spun gold beneath the bright bathroom light.
Ava stared at herself in the mirror, startled by her transformation from ordinary and unexciting to a sensual Siren. She had bought a seamless black bra to wear beneath her dress and her nipples were visible through the semi-transparent cups. The matching black thong that she had worn for practical reasons—so that she would not have a visible panty-line—was the most daring piece of lingerie she had ever owned.
She ran her hands over her smooth thighs above the lacy bands of her hold-up stockings and felt a delicious ache low in her pelvis. She felt sexy and seductive for the first time since Craig had dumped her as she pictured Giannis’s