Was he married? Ginny wondered as she studied the slight frown between his dark eyebrows. A sudden urge to smooth the worry line away gripped her and, shaken by the impulse, she turned back to Damon. She didn’t understand her almost compulsive physical attraction to Philip. She was far more aware of him than she had ever been of any male, and that was on the basis of a half hour’s acquaintance. Even, Ted whom she’d seriously considered marrying a few years ago, hadn’t affected her like this. But why? The question reverberated through her tired mind, demanding an answer.
Probably because of the intense emotions behind their meeting, she rationalized. And when she added to that the fact that she was exhausted, it was no wonder that she was acting out of character. With any luck at all, she’d be back to normal by morning and she’d be able to see Philip as nothing more than the ruggedly handsome, gorgeously built, smugly self-righteous man he was. Till then, she’d simply have to be careful not to do or say anything to let him guess just what she was feeling, because one thing she’d bet her last dollar on was that Philip was a man who would ruthlessly exploit any advantage he could get.
Dropping a gentle kiss on Damon’s petal-soft cheek, Ginny got into the front seat.
“Buckle your seat belt,” Philip ordered.
Ginny blinked and reached for the ends of the belt. She really was tired, she thought ruefully, to have forgotten something that basic.
“A miracle,” Philip muttered as he pulled away from the curb. “She actually did as she was told without an argument.”
Ginny ignored the comment. She had the disheartening feeling that she was going to be ignoring a lot of things in the next few days.
“Where does Damon’s grandfather live?” she asked as Philip wound his way through the brilliantly lit streets of Athens.
“I have no idea,” he shot back, “but Jason Papas lives in Glifadha, but we aren’t going there tonight.”
Ginny froze as, for one mad second, images of being driven into the hinterlands and abandoned filled her mind. No, she assured herself. Creon might have been selfish enough to have tried that type of intimidation, but she didn’t think that was Philip’s style.
“Then where are we going?” Ginny was pleased at the evenness of her tone.
“My apartment.” He accelerated around a slow-moving tourist bus and then turned left in front of a speeding taxi.
Ginny gasped and cast a worried look over her shoulder at Damon. He was still sleeping peacefully. “I can see why you want your passengers to wear seat belts,” she muttered. “You have a death wish.”
Philip gave her a quick grin that sent an unexpected rush of pleasure through her. For one moment, he had looked young and carefree and someone she...
Stop it! Ginny hastily pulled her imagination up short because that was all it was. Imagination. She absolutely couldn’t fall into the trap of assuming Philip had the qualities she wanted him to have.
“Let me guess.” she said dryly. “You have an etching you want to show me?”
Philip looked confused. “The only etchings I have are four by da Vinci, and they’re in my London house.”
Ginny stared at him, mentally revising her estimation of his wealth upward by quite a few million. Da Vincis were not cheap and for him to own four...
“Are you an art lover, besides a blackmailer?” he asked.
Ginny determinedly ignored the slur. Hopefully, if she refused to respond to his provocation, he’d lose interest in baiting her. “Sorry, I forgot you were a foreigner and wouldn’t know that ‘looking at etchings’ is an American expression.”
“I am not a foreigner. I am Greek, this is Greece. Therefore, you are the foreigner.”
“Great,” she muttered. “Just what I need. A literalist.”
“And what does inviting someone to see your etching mean?” he persisted.
Ginny stared into his face, watching the way the light from a pink neon restaurant sign engulfed him in a colorful glow. Could he really not have run across the expression before? But it didn’t really matter because if she refused to answer him, he’d realize that she found discussing sex with him unsettling. And no doubt use the information to torment her at some future date. Her only viable option at this point would be to act nonchalant. Or at least try.
“It means that a man is asking a woman to his apartment in the hopes of convincing her to have sex with him,” she finally said.
“Have sex?” He shot her a quick, calculating glance that made her very leery. “And would you have sex with me, Ginny Alton? Would you let me kiss you the way a lover kisses a woman? Would you let me strip that sterile-looking suit off you? Would you let me take your breasts in my hands and explore their texture? Would you let me kiss your breasts and suckle—”
“Stop it!” Ginny choked out, giving up trying to ignore him. Philip was treating her as he would a woman that he’d picked up for one purpose and one purpose only, and she wasn’t going to allow it.
He momentarily took his eyes off the road to glance at her flushed face. He could almost believe she was embarrassed, but that made no sense. His words hadn’t been all that explicit. Certainly not explicit enough to make a blackmailer with an illegitimate child blush. So why had she? He didn’t know but he fully intended to find out. By the time he was through with Ginny Alton she wouldn’t have a secret left.
“Or...or I’ll tell your wife,” Ginny finally threatened.
He chuckled. “I have no wife. You could always threaten to tell my mother, not that you’re likely to meet her. I try to protect her from the seamier side of life.”
Ginny ignored the insult as well as the strange spurt of pleasure she felt at his bachelor state. Instead, she turned her head and stared out the car window at the quiet, residential neighborhood he was driving through. Closing her eyes, she tried to employ one of the relaxation techniques she’d learned to use when her clients were being more exasperating than usual.
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever will be, she doggedly repeated to herself. But instead of evoking a feeling of peace as it was supposed to, all she could think about was how perfectly it appeared to describe Philip’s flat refusal to even consider the truth of what she was saying. But why wouldn’t he consider it? she wondered. Granted, he wanted to protect his sister, but hiding the truth from her wasn’t much protection.
For that matter, why hadn’t he stopped his sister from marrying Creon in the first place? It had only taken her one date to realize that Creon was bad news. Philip should have been able to figure it out, too.
Maybe because Philip didn’t see anything wrong with a man carrying on affairs on the side as long as his wife didn’t find out about it? She found the idea depressing.
“You get the boy.”
Ginny looked around, realizing that Philip had parked the car in front of a tall, ultramodern apartment building. It looked expensive, exclusive and totally unwelcoming. As if it were nothing more than a stage prop. She wouldn’t want to live there. But then she wasn’t being asked to, she reminded herself as she scrambled out of the car.
Ginny bumped Damon’s car seat against the front seat as she was pulling it out of the car. The jolt woke the baby, and he glared at her, for one eerie moment looking exactly like Philip.
“Don’t do that, love.” She gave him a kiss.
Damon was not soothed. He opened his small mouth and emitted a bellow that could be heard for a block in either direction.
“Ah, he must be a boy with lungs like that.” The doorman nodded approvingly at Damon as he opened the lobby door for them.