‘I need to work for another couple of hours,’ he told her as he pulled on his trousers. ‘This evening we’re attending a reception. The shipping magnate Christos Petrelis is hosting a party on his private island.’
‘Which dress shall I wear?’ Tahlia mused. ‘The black or the pink?’
He gave her a level look. ‘Neither.’
‘You think I should go nude?’ she teased him, her impish smile tugging faintly on his heart.
‘It would certainly be an attention-stealer, but I admit I like the fact that I am the only man who has ever seen your naked body,’ he told her, frowning slightly as he acknowledged a degree of possessiveness that was unexpected. He reached for his phone and spoke rapidly in Greek before cutting the call. ‘Fortunately, I am a much better shopper than you. Come and see.’
Puzzled, Tahlia pulled on her robe and followed him into the lounge. He strode over to the door and opened it, to admit three porters laded with bags and boxes emblazoned with the names of famous design houses.
‘What…?’ She lifted her eyes to his face and waited for his explanation.
‘You need new clothes,’ Thanos murmured coolly. ‘So I phoned a friend in Paris who is a personal stylist, gave her your measurements and a description of your colouring, and asked her to send over a selection of suitable outfits.’
‘Well, you can just send them straight back.’ Tahlia stared around at the dozens of boxes and bags, from Chanel, Gucci, Prada, and felt sick with misery. The laughter she had shared with Thanos a few moments earlier had been replaced with a tangible tension. ‘I won’t wear clothes paid for by you. I told you—I pay my own way and I won’t accept hand-outs. Even though they are haute couture,’ she added grimly.
Thanos’s smile had faded and his expression was unreadable, although Tahlia sensed that she had angered him. ‘You will wear them,’ he told her, with a note of implacability in his voice that warned her she would have a fight on her hands if she refused. ‘As we discussed before, your sole purpose for the next month is to please me, and I expect you to dress appropriately.’
‘I don’t need reminding that you are paying for me to act the role of your mistress,’ she said stiffly, hurt pride churning in her stomach. In a battle of wills he would be a clear winner, and a dignified retreat was her only option. ‘Very well, I’ll wear the clothes while I am here on Mykonos. But I shall regard them as a uniform, and I will leave them behind when our contract is over.’
Thanos restrained himself from pulling her into his arms and shaking some sense into her, and ignored the stronger urge to kiss her into submission. ‘Suit yourself,’ he said laconically, snatching up his jacket from the back of the chair and heading for the door. ‘I believe Monique included a Valentino evening gown in the collection. Wear that tonight,’ he ordered, and he stepped into the corridor and slammed the door behind him without giving her the chance to argue further.
Tahlia worked off her fury at Thanos’s high-handedness by swimming thirty lengths in the private pool. When she returned to the bedroom she discovered that the maid had unpacked the clothes and hung them in the wardrobe: beautiful classical evening dresses, elegant trousers, skirts and tops, all with matching shoes and accessories, and a variety of exquisite nightgowns and sets of lacy underwear which were nothing like the plain cotton bras and knickers she usually wore.
Presumably Thanos believed that as he was paying for her he could indulge in a typical male fantasy of seeing her in flimsy scraps of silk and lace, she thought dully as she held up a low-cut black basque complete with silk ribbons which laced up at the front. In different circumstances she would have taken huge delight in a cupboard full of designer outfits, but the knowledge that Thanos had bought them emphasised the fact that she was—as he had pointed out—here to please him.
The Valentino dress was stunning, she was forced to admit later, after she had taken a leisurely bath and smoothed fragrant body lotion onto her skin before dressing for the party. The heather-coloured silk gown left her shoulders bare and clung lovingly to her waist and hips, the side-split in the skirt reaching to mid-thigh. It was the most daring dress she had ever worn, and as she stared at her reflection in the mirror she barely recognised the sultry seductress looking back at her as sensible Tahlia Reynolds.
Thanos walked into the bedroom as she was spraying perfume to her pulse points. She guessed he must have used the spare bedroom as a dressing room, because he had changed into a black dinner suit which emphasised his lean length and the formidable width of his shoulders. She hated the way her heart jerked as her gaze skittered over the chiselled beauty of his face.
Her heart thudded as his eyes swept over her.
‘You look beautiful.’ His voice was as deep and sensuous as crushed velvet, and her senses flared as she caught the drift of his cologne when he strolled over to her. ‘I bought this for you to wear tonight.’
Tahlia caught her breath when he held up a large peardropshaped amethyst, surrounded by diamonds and suspended on a fine white-gold chain. Before she had time to argue Thanos fastened the pendant around her neck and stood back to admire the sight of the violet-coloured gem sitting in the V between her creamy breasts.
‘Perfect,’ he murmured, his eyes gleaming with feral hunger as he traced his finger over the pendant and then slipped it lower and settled it between her breasts. ‘It matches the colour of your dress exactly. But whenever I look at you this evening I will be imagining you wearing nothing but the necklace,’ he added thickly.
The pendant felt heavy on Tahlia’s skin, and she was tempted to tear it off. She felt as though he had branded her—as if every time he looked at her he would be reminded that he had paid for her.
‘You think you can buy everything, don’t you?’ she snapped. ‘You have so little understanding of the value of money that the cost of a valuable piece of jewellery is irrelevant to you. I suppose that’s what comes of being born into wealth,’ she finished scathingly.
Thanos’s face had darkened at her outburst, and now he gave a mirthless laugh. ‘I wasn’t born into wealth,’ he said harshly. ‘There was no grand mansion house in my family to pass down through generations. I didn’t enjoy a privileged childhood or have the advantage of a private education. I was born on a small island called Agistri, and I grew up in a tiny stone-built house with no running water,’ he explained flatly. ‘As a youth I assumed that I would spend my life as a goat-herd. I had no expectations of ever moving away from the island where my family had lived for generations.’
‘What made you decide to leave?’ Tahlia asked, stunned by his revelation that he had not inherited his vast fortune.
‘An English woman called Wendy Jones.’Thanos could not disguise the bitterness in his voice. ‘She was my father’s mistress—and after he walked out on his family and divorced my mother she subsequently became his new wife. Wendy had already been married and divorced twice when she bought a villa on Agistri. She employed my father to carry out renovation work on her house, but it soon became apparent that she wanted him for more than his building skills. A few months after he began working for her he dropped the bombshell to my mother that their marriage was over.
He continued harshly, ‘My mother was distraught, especially when my father stopped all financial support. I was fifteen, and Melina was just three years old. I dropped out of school, lied about my age, and managed to pick up some labouring work, using the skills my father had taught me. My mother wept about the disruption to my education, but I had no choice—I couldn’t allow her and my sister to starve, and my father was too besotted with his tart to spare a thought for his wife and children. I lost all the respect I had felt for my father,’ Thanos said savagely. ‘He made a complete fool of himself. Wendy flirted with him outrageously. She knew he was married, but that little fact didn’t seem to matter to her. She’d decided that she wanted him for herself and she deliberately pursued him, uncaring that