The Kanellis Scandal. Michelle Reid

‘And I hope you do know what you are doing, Mr Pallis, because if you think you are softening me up to be a pushover, you could not be more mistaken if you tried.’

      She did not miss the dark hue which coloured the face of Kostas Demitris as she said that, even though her gaze was focused on his employer, who showed no such embarrassment at being caught out discussing her in a language they’d believed she could not understand.

      Anton Pallis merely relaxed his stance, leaning back against the kitchen sink again and slid his hands into trouser pockets. The action pushed back the edges of his jacket to display the long solidity of his muscular torso trapped inside the clean, crisp whiteness of his shirt and the delineating line of his slender silk tie. Something suspiciously close to sensual heat flared low in Zoe’s belly as she grazed her eyes lower over his narrow hips then the long length of his legs to the shiny tops of his handmade leather shoes.

      ‘So you don’t hate everything Greek, then?’ he murmured, bringing her gaze skittering all the way back up him again to become trapped by the spark of amusement she could see in his impossibly dark eyes.

      She looked away again, but felt slightly breathless. ‘I would have to hate my own father to do that.’

      ‘And part of yourself, since you are half Greek. Get to it, Kostas,’ he tagged on without changing the soft intonation in his voice.

      Kostas Demitris muttered something beneath his breath as he jerked into movement. Feeling as if she was about to be left alone with a dangerous animal, Zoe turned chicken and decided to escape. ‘Can I show you what I need bringing from upstairs?’ she asked Kostas. ‘And I will need to give you the box containing my personal papers.’

      With that she walked back into the hallway, leaving Anton staring at his shoes, ruefully smiling to himself.

      All hint of humour had left him as they assembled in the narrow hallway half an hour later. Kostas had control of the door; Anton stood against the wall, his demeanour silent and grim as he studied the downturned profile of Zoe Kanellis. What light application of make-up she had applied was useless as a cover up because the strain was back on her face—the ravaged hollows, the barely steady set of her lips. She had pulled on a black jacket and she was trying to fasten the buttons with fingers that shook. On the floor in front of her the baby slept on, oblivious to the silent tension pulsing all around him, Anton saw, looking at the contraption the child slept in which he’d been told doubled as a car safety-seat.

      He wanted to touch her in reassurance. It played on his senses like an itch he could not scratch. The pulling-on of the jacket had somehow placed a defensive space around her that he recognised instinctively would earn him another shrinking rejection, like the one he had suffered when he’d first arrived here, if he tried to cross it.

      She did not want to do this, which was another reason why he was holding himself back from making any risky moves. She’d had time to think about what she’d agreed to and he held a suspicion that the only thing stopping her from changing her mind was the tempting prospect of the sanctuary he had promised her, with the all-important no strings attached.

      Kostas was talking quietly into his mobile; he turned to send Anton a look. With a nod of his head he acknowledged it, aware that his conscience was not happy right now. He was a liar and he knew it. And the only reason why he was determined to let this continue was his belief that what he was doing was for hers and the boy’s own good.

      ‘My car is parked right outside the door.’ He broke through the tension with his voice carefully level. ‘My people will attempt to maintain a corridor for us to reach it. However, I am afraid we can do nothing about the way the media will react once they see us. It will be noisy and intimidating. The trick is to fix your attention on the open car door and walk straight into it.’

      Zoe pressed her pale lips together and nodded that she understood.

      ‘Try to keep in your mind that once we have left here they will leave, and your neighbours will retrieve their peace and quiet.’

      Staring down at Toby sleeping snugly in his car seat, she nodded again.

      ‘Will you allow me to take care of your brother?’

      This time she looked up. Those amazing eyes were burning with so many conflicting things, from uncertainty in what she was doing to straight-out anxiety and fear, that Anton broke his own constraints, reached out and rested his fingers beneath her chin. Her skin felt like the finest silk.

      ‘Trust me.’ He uttered his biggest lie yet, then watched her lips tremble as they parted. ‘I do,’ she told him.

      It was no reassurance. In fact his own expression turned so tough even he felt its harshness as he bent to grasp the handle of the child’s seat. As he straightened up again he looked at Kostas, who said something into his mobile then turned to open the door.

      Zoe’s heart was throbbing in her mouth even before the din hit her. The afternoon sunlight spilled over the threshold just before it was blocked out by Kostas’s bulky shape. Anton placed an arm around her shoulders. She didn’t protest when he drew her close into his side. They walked through the door in a huddle of dipped heads and baby seat. She did as she had been told to do and focused on the limousine standing there with a man at the ready to throw open the rear door.

      There were flashes, shouts, the vague impression of a swirling crowd-surge. ‘What does it feel like to be Theo Kanellis’s granddaughter, Zoe? Hey, Anton, how does it feel to lose a fortune? Is it true Theo Kanellis wants the boy?’

      His handsome face locked in austere lines, lips pinned together, Anton kept them walking. His own body blocked Zoe’s transfer into the car. The baby seat followed, grabbed and hugged to Zoe’s lap as he dipped his long body and followed her inside. One of his men closed the door. Her eyes were wide and stark with alarm. She almost jumped out of her skin when people started banging on the glass beside her, making her swing around wildly to find camera flashes blinding her eyes.

      They started moving. Peeling her eyes forward, she saw the shadowy bulk of a uniformed driver separated from them by a partition of glass.