It set the tone for the rest of the day as they worked together to clear the backlog that had built up while Sara had been away. At five o’clock she rolled her aching shoulders and went to the bathroom to brush her hair and apply a fresh coat of rose-pink lip gloss that was her new must-have item of make-up.
In Alekos’s office she found him standing by his desk. He was massaging the back of his neck as if he felt as tired from their busy day as she was. She had forgotten how tall he was. He had inherited his six-foot-four height from his maternal grandfather, who had been a Canadian, he’d once explained to Sara. But in every other aspect he was typically Greek, from his dark olive complexion and mass of black hair to his arrogant belief that he only had to click his fingers and women would flock to him. The trouble was that they did, Sara thought ruefully.
Alekos was used to having any woman he wanted. She told herself it was lucky that there had been no repeat of the breathless moments that had occurred earlier in the day, when rampant desire had blazed in his eyes as he’d trapped her wrist and felt the giveaway throb of her sexual awareness of him.
He must have heard his office door open, and turned his head in her direction. They had played out the same scene hundreds of times before, and most days when she came to check if he needed her to do anything else before she went home he did not bother looking up from his computer screen as he bid her goodnight. But he was looking at her now. She watched his hard features tauten and become almost wolf-like as he stared at her with a hungry gleam in his eyes that excited her and filled her with illicit longing.
Something tugged in the pit of her stomach, tugged hard like a knot being pulled tighter and tighter, as if an invisible thread linked her body to Alekos. And then he blinked and the feral glitter in his eyes disappeared. Perhaps it had never been there and she had imagined that he’d stared at her as if he wanted to devour her?
‘I’m just off now.’ She was amazed that her voice sounded normal when her insides were in turmoil. ‘I’ll finish typing up the report for the shareholders first thing tomorrow.’
‘Did you remember that we are attending the annual dinner for the board members on Thursday evening?’
She nodded. ‘I’ll bring the dress I’m going to wear for the dinner to work and get changed here at the office like I did for the Christmas party.’
‘You had better check with the restaurant that they won’t be serving seafood. Orestis Pagnotis is allergic to it and, much as I’d like to have the old man off my back, I’d better not allow him to risk suffering a possibly fatal reaction,’ Alekos said drily.
‘I’ve already given the restaurant a list of the dietary requirements of the guests.’ She smiled sympathetically. ‘Is Orestis still being a problem?’
He shrugged. ‘He’s one of the old school. He joined the board when my grandfather was chairman, and he was a close friend of my father.’ Alekos gave a frustrated sigh. ‘Orestis believes I take too many risks and he has the support of some of the other board members, who fail to understand that the company needs to move with the times rather than remain in the Stone Age. Orestis’s latest gripe is that he thinks the chairman should be married.’
Alekos muttered something in Greek that Sara guessed was not complimentary about the influential board member. ‘According to Orestis, if I take a wife it will prove that I have left my playboy days behind and I will be more focused on running GE.’
Her heart dipped. ‘Are you considering getting married?’
Somehow she managed to inject the right amount of casual interest into her voice. She knew he had ended his affair with a stunning Swedish model called Danika shortly before her holiday, but in the month she had been away it was likely that he had met someone else. Alekos never stayed celibate for long.
Perhaps he had fallen in love with the woman of his dreams. It was possible that Alekos might ask her to organise his wedding. She would have to pin a smile on her face and hide her heartache while she made arrangements for him and his beautiful bride—she was certain to be beautiful—to spend their honeymoon at an exotic location. Sara pulled her mind away from her unwelcome thoughts when she realised Alekos was speaking.
‘I’ll have to marry eventually.’ He sounded unenthusiastic at the prospect. ‘I am the last male Gionakis and my mother and sisters remind me at every opportunity that it is my duty to produce an heir. Obviously I will first have to select a suitable wife.’
‘How do you intend to select a suitable wife?’ She could not hide her shock that he had such a cavalier attitude towards marriage. ‘Will you hold interviews and ask the candidates, who are your potential brides, to fill out a detailed questionnaire about themselves?’ She was aware that her voice had risen and Alekos’s amused smile infuriated her further.
‘Your suggestion is not a bad idea. Why are you so outraged?’ he said smoothly.
‘Because you make marriage sound like a...a cattle market where finding a wife is like choosing a prize heifer to breed from. What about love?’
‘What about it?’ He studied her flushed face speculatively. ‘Statistically, somewhere between forty and fifty per cent of marriages end in divorce, and I bet that most of those marriages were so-called love matches. But with such a high failure rate it seems sensible to take emotion out of the equation and base marriage on social and financial compatibility, mutual respect and the pursuit of shared goals such as bringing up a family.’
Sara shook her head. ‘Your arrogance is unbelievable. You accuse some of GE’s board members of being stuck in the Stone Age, but your views on marriage are Neolithic. Women nowadays don’t sit around twiddling their thumbs and hoping that a rich man will choose them to be his wife.’
‘You’d be surprised,’ Alekos murmured drily. ‘When I decide to marry—in another ten years or so—I don’t envisage I’ll have a problem finding a woman who is willing to marry a multimillionaire.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t marry for money,’ Sara said fiercely. Deep inside her she felt an ache of regret that Alekos had trampled on her silly dream that he would one day fall in love with her. Realistically, she knew it would never happen but hearing him state so emphatically that he did not aspire to a marriage built on love forced her to accept that she must get over her embarrassing crush on him.
‘You would prefer to gamble your future happiness on a fickle emotion that poets try to convince us is love? But of course love is simply a sanitized word for lust.’
‘If you’re asking me whether I believe in love, then the answer is yes, I do. Why are you so sceptical, Alekos? You once told me that your parents had been happily married for forty-five years before your father died.’
‘And therein proves my point. My parents had an arranged marriage which was extremely successful. Love wasn’t necessary, although I believe they grew to be very fond of each other over the course of their marriage.’
Sara gave up. ‘You’re just a cynic.’
‘No, I’m a realist. There is a dark side to love and I have witnessed its destructive power.’
A memory slid into Alekos’s mind of that fateful day twenty years ago when he’d found Dimitri walking along the beach. His brother’s eyes had been red-rimmed and he’d wept as he’d told Alekos he had discovered that his girlfriend had been unfaithful. It was the last time Alekos had seen Dimitri alive.
‘Love is an illusion,’ he told Sara harshly, ‘and you would do well to remember it before you rush to give away your heart to a man you only met a few weeks ago.’
After Sara had gone, Alekos walked over to the window and a few minutes later he saw her emerge from the GE building and walk along the pavement. Even from a distance he noted the sexy wiggle of her hips when she walked and a shaft of white-hot lust ripped through him.
He