She paused and stared as he turned his head. His commanding profile caught and held her attention. His full lower lip was now drawn in a tight line as he stared into the contents of his glass. A wave of bleakness passed over his face and she wondered if he was replaying the journalist’s question about his father.
Sakis didn’t often display emotion, but she’d seen the way he’d reacted to that personal question. And his answer had been a revelation in itself. He bore no loving memories of his father but he certainly bore scars from his father’s legacy.
Unbidden, the earlier wave of protectiveness resurged.
He lifted his glass and swallowed half its contents. Mesmerised, she watched his throat as he swallowed, then her gaze moved to his well-defined chest as he heaved in a huge breath.
Move! But she couldn’t heed the silent command pounding in her brain. Her feet refused to move. She was still immobilised when he swung towards the room.
He stilled, dark-green eyes zeroing in on her in that fiercely focused, extremely unnerving way.
After several seconds, his gaze travelled over her, head to bare toes, and back again. Slowly, without taking his gaze off her, he downed the rest of his drink. His tongue glided out to lick a drop from his lower lip.
The inferno stormed through her, ravaging her senses with merciless force.
No. Hell, no! This could not be happening.
Her fingers tightened around her bag until pain shot up her arms. With brutal force, she wrenched her gaze away, walked towards the sofa and dropped her bag beside it.
‘I’m done with the bathroom. It’s all yours.’ She cringed at the quiver in her voice, a telling barometer of her inner turmoil. Her tablet lay where she’d left it on the table. Itching for something to do with her dangerously restless hands, she grabbed it.
He came towards her and passed within touching distance to set his glass down on the cabinet. Brianna decided breathing could wait until he was out of scenting range.
‘Thanks.’ He grabbed his bag and walked to the door. ‘And Moneypenny?’
The need to breathe became dangerously imperative but not yet; a few more seconds, until she didn’t have to breathe the same air as him. ‘Yes?’ she managed.
‘It’s time to clock off.’
The tightness in her chest grew. ‘I just wanted to—’
‘Turn that tablet off and put it away. That’s an order.’
It was either argue with him, or breathe. The need for oxygen won out. She placed the tablet back on the table and stuffed her hands under her thighs.
Satisfaction gleamed in his eyes as he opened the bathroom door. ‘Good.’ His gaze darted to the bed. ‘You take the bed, I’ll take the sofa,’ he said. Then he entered the bathroom and shut the door behind him.
Brianna sucked in a long, sustaining breath, trying desperately to ignore the traces of Sakis’s scent that lingered in the air. She eyed the bed, then the sofa.
The logic was irrefutable. She pulled out and made up the sofa bed in record time. And she made damned sure she was in it and turned away from the bathroom door by the time she heard the shower go off.
The consequences of giving lust any room was much too great to contemplate. Because giving in to her emotions, trusting it would turn to more—perhaps even the love she’d been blindingly desperate for—was what had landed her in prison.
Being in prison had nearly killed her.
Brianna had no intention of failing. No intention of sinking again.
SHE WOKE TO the smell of strong coffee and an empty room. Relief punched through her as she tossed the light sheet aside and rose from the sofa bed. A quick glance at the ruffled bed showed evidence of Sakis’s presence but, apart from that, every last trace of him had been wiped from the room, including his bag.
Before she could investigate further, her tablet pinged with an incoming message.
Grasping it, she tried to get into the zone—business as usual. Just the way she wanted her life to run. Turning the tablet on, she went through the messages as she poured her coffee.
Two of them were from Sakis, who’d taken up residence in the conference room downstairs. Several of them were from people interested in joining the salvage process or blogging about it. But there was still no word about the missing crew.
After answering Sakis’s message to join him downstairs as soon as she was ready, she tackled the most important emails, took a quick shower and dressed in a clean pair of khaki combat trousers and a cream T-shirt.
By the time she’d tied her hair into its usual French knot, the events of last night had been consigned a ‘temporary aberration’ status. Thankfully, she’d been asleep by the time he emerged from the bathroom and, even though she’d woken once and heard his light, even breathing, she’d managed to go back to sleep with no trouble.
Which meant she really didn’t have to fear that the rhythm of their relationship had changed.
It hadn’t. After this crisis was over, they would return to London and everything would go back to machine-smooth efficiency.
She shrugged on her dark-green jacket, grabbed her case and went downstairs to find Sakis on the phone in the conference room.
He indicated the extensive breakfast tray; she’d just bitten into a piece of honeyed toast when he hung up.
‘The salvage crew have contained the leak in the last compartment and the transport tanker for the undamaged oil will arrive in the next few hours.’
‘So the damaged tanker can be moved in the next few days?’
He nodded. ‘After the International Maritime Investigation Board has completed its investigation it will be tugged back to the ship-building facility in Piraeus. And, now we have a full salvage team in place, there’s no need for any remaining crew to stay. They can go home.’
Brianna nodded and brushed crumbs off her fingers. ‘I’ll arrange it.’
Even though she powered up her tablet ready to action his request, she felt the heat of his gaze on her face.
‘You do my bidding without question when it comes to matters of the boardroom. And yet you blatantly disobeyed me last night,’ he said in a low voice.
She paused mid-swallow and looked up. Arresting green eyes caught and locked onto hers. ‘I’m sorry?’
He twirled a pen in his hand. ‘I asked you to take the bed last night. You didn’t.’
She forced herself to swallow and tried to look away. She really tried. But it seemed as if he’d charged the very air with a magnetic field that held her captive. ‘I didn’t think your jump-when-I-say edict extended beyond the boardroom to the bedroom, Mr Pantelides.’
Too late, she realised the indelicacy of her words. His eyes gleamed with lazy green fire. But she wasn’t fooled for a second that it was harmless.
‘It doesn’t. When it comes to the bedroom, I like control, but I’m not averse to relinquishing it...on occasion.’
Noting that she was in serious danger of going up in flames at the torrid images that cascaded through her mind, she tried to move on. ‘Logic dictated that since I’m smaller in stature the sofa would be more suited to me. I didn’t see the need for chivalry to get in the way of a good night’s sleep for either of us.’
One brow shot up. ‘Chivalry? You think I did it out of chivalry?’ His amusement was unmistakeable.
A