them, new couples formed.
The orchestra played the first note of the next dance and then she was being spun around the floor again.
All the reasons she needed to escape seeped away as the music made its way through her body and down into her dancing feet. Masked faces floated around her, dresses twirled, beautifully played music...
And the heavenly arms of Giannis Basinas.
When that dance finished and the master of ceremonies took to the floor to announce that it was time to dance the polonaise, she met Giannis’s eyes. There was a question in them.
She nodded. She remembered this dance.
He smiled and, holding her left hand, led her to the forming line of couples.
In and out they wove, separating then coming back together, curtseying, separating... She curtsied and danced with other men but her attention was always on Giannis.
She simply could not tear her gaze from him.
Not until they’d danced another waltz, and then a foxtrot, did he steer her away from the dance floor to one of the round tables on the raised dais running the lengths of the ballroom walls with a murmured, ‘Time for a drink.’
Unwilling to leave her side for a moment, Giannis signalled for champagne to be brought to them.
He had a feeling this ravishing creature would disappear if he turned his back on her.
She hadn’t exchanged one word with him during their time on the dance floor.
Their champagne was brought to them. He held his flute to hers then drank from it. ‘Are you hungry?’
She shook her head.
‘You don’t speak much, do you?’ he observed. In his experience, women always had to fill any silence with chatter, however inane. His sisters were the worst for it. Their mother always said Niki had been born with a never-ending battery in her tongue. He’d caught a glimpse of Niki in the arms of a bemused man trying to cut above her incessant chatter to waltz her around the dance floor.
Slim shoulders raised in a tiny shrug. ‘I do if I have something to say.’
He laughed. ‘And do you have anything to say, Tabitha?’
She shook her head again.
‘I thought Beddingdales taught its girls how to make small talk in social situations.’
There was the faintest spark of amusement in the cornflower eyes. ‘I failed that class.’
He laughed. ‘But obviously not the ballroom-dancing lessons.’
‘I liked those.’
‘Do you go to many balls?’
Another shake of the head.
‘I’m going to have to stop asking you closed questions, aren’t I?’
Now there was the slightest of curves in the full heart-shaped lips to accompany her shaking head.
He laughed. ‘Tell me about yourself.’
The faint amusement he’d detected vanished. She looked away from him, her lips pulling in together. ‘What do you want to know?’
Everything.
‘Let us start with how old you are.’
‘Twenty-two.’
That surprised him. The features he could see beneath the mask covering her face indicated youth but the way she carried herself suggested someone older.
‘Have you graduated from university yet or did you take a gap year?’
‘I didn’t go to university.’
That surprised him too. University was a rite of passage in his circle whether the person was academic or not. ‘What do you do?’
He waited for the stock answer of ‘charity work’.
There was a momentary hesitation and her face flushed with colour. ‘I’m in hospitality.’
He could have laughed. After charity work, hospitality was a great favourite for the idle rich wanting to make a point of their usefulness.
No wonder she blushed at the admission.
It surprised him, though. Tabitha struck him as being from a different mould to the usual socialites who filled his world.
What a waste of a good brain and a life, being content to spend days shopping and holidaying. It was a mindset he’d never understood. Giannis had been fortunate to be raised within one of Europe’s wealthiest families and, like his sisters, had inherited thirty million euros on his twenty-first birthday, but it was not in the Basinas nature to be idle. Undoubtedly wealth was something to be enjoyed but it was also a tool to create more wealth, not just for him but for others.
Giannis’s inheritance had been used to build a diverse portfolio of businesses which collectively employed over five thousand people. He had exacting standards, and demanded the best from every person he employed, no matter their position, but he rewarded them well for it both in pay and perks. The staff here in his palace hotel, for example, were considered the best paid hotel staff in the whole of Europe.
He did not understand how people could sleep if their wealth was generated by the unrewarded sweat of others.
He did not understand how people could actively seek to be freeloaders.
His wife had been a freeloader. She’d been many things. A liar. A gold-digger. A cheat. Even now, five years after the fact, five years since she and her unborn child had died, the anger and bitterness still lived, muted but still there.
He’d buried his wife and her child, and while the other mourners had mourned he’d had to bite his tongue to stop himself from ripping into their grief.
He would never allow himself to lose his anger entirely. If he forgot what it felt like he would lay himself open to making the same mistake again and Giannis never made the same mistake twice.
He’d been blinded by his wife’s beautiful façade to the lies beneath it.
What lay beneath this woman’s façade?
His fingers itched to pull the mask off Tabitha’s face and see if it was as beautiful as he suspected.
Her own fingers lifted her champagne flute to her lips.
A tiny drop of gold liquid spilled out of the corner of her mouth. A pink tongue darted out to capture it.
Veins heating at the less than chaste images that tiny action produced, Giannis drank some more of his champagne and swallowed it slowly.
Theos, he could not remember when he’d last been so physically aware of a woman.
He could not remember ever being so captivated by one.
Whatever lay beneath her façade, he could enjoy their time together and enjoy the heady feelings that erupted through him to hold her in his arms.
He rose to his feet and held out a hand to her. ‘Ready for another dance?’
Cornflower-blue eyes met his. A shy smile formed on her lips.
When her fingers wrapped around his he felt a shock of electricity dart through his skin.
* * *
Time slipped away from her.
Tabitha knew she was a fool for saying yes to another dance. She was a fool for not having made her excuses and left.
She could make all the excuses she wanted but the simple truth was she wanted to stay. She wanted this feeling to last as long as it could because she would never feel it again.
She would never have this night again.
Once the ball was over she would