‘It wouldn’t work…it didn’t start out right,’ she muttered tightly
Sardonic amusement lightened his lean bronzed features. ‘Is that the problem? You imagine I might think less of you for matching my passion?’
Maddie shot him an unconvinced glance. ‘You don’t? You mean, you treat all women this way?’
Stung on the raw, Giannis dealt her a fulminating appraisal
But it was wasted on Maddie, who had just realised what time it was and groaned in dismay. ‘Oh, my goodness. I’m going to be late for work!’
‘Work?’ Giannis repeated. ‘You work at the weekend as well?’
‘Yes.’ Snatching up her bag and her overall, Maddie hauled open the door. ‘I have to go,’ she told him feverishly.
Giannis strode out on to the landing and watched her lock up. ‘Where do you work?’
‘In the supermarket down the road.’ Maddie hurried down the stairs at a rattling pace.
‘When do you finish?’
Out on the street, Maddie focused wide-eyed on the opulent black limousine with its tinted windows, and on the number of well-dressed men wearing sunglasses hovering watchfully in its vicinity. The instant Giannis appeared behind her all the men went on visible alert. He was protected everywhere he went. He did not live anything like a normal life. They might as well have been creatures from a different planet, she acknowledged painfully.
‘Madeleine?’ Giannis prompted drily.
‘Six—but what’s that got to do with anything?’ A rueful laugh fell from her lips. ‘Guys like you don’t date shopgirls!’
An hour after she started work the flowers arrived. A glorious bouquet of old-fashioned buttery yellow and cream roses was brought to her. Nobody had ever sent her flowers before, and at first she thought there had been a mistake. The sight of her own name on the gift envelope convinced her, however, and she opened the card.
Personally selected and delivered. See you at six, Giannis.
She laughed at that first assurance, and then her face fell. Even had she been tempted she wasn’t free this evening. But he didn’t quit, and she had always admired that in a man. She thought of what he had done for her dying sister and reminded herself that Giannis Petrakos was very far from being all bad. And she was as much to blame as him for their sexual encounter. Was he right? Was she just angry with him because he hadn’t got in touch sooner? She was being torn in two by conflicting promptings, and she felt horribly confused and out of her depth. His arrogance still infuriated her, and she could not shake free of her guilt at having slept with him. Furthermore he was not trying to conceal the fact that only sexual desire drove his continued interest. That was no basis for a relationship—at least not the kind she wanted and needed. So why was she still tempted by him? Why did the gesture of the roses delight her so much?
Half an hour after she got home, Giannis called back for her.
‘I never even asked you how you got my address,’ she muttered awkwardly, drinking in the sight of his lean bronzed features with strained green eyes.
‘Such information is always available for a favour or a price.’
To Maddie, that was yet another unsavoury glimpse of a world and a way of thought foreign to her principles. ‘Look, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t see you tonight,’ she told him hurriedly, keen to bring the conversation to a swift conclusion.
‘How so?’ he incised, level dark golden eyes pinned to her with questioning force.
There was no apology in Maddie’s quiet voice as she explained that she had agreed to sit with her elderly neighbour so that the lady’s daughter, who looked after her mother full-time, could enjoy a rare evening out.
‘How praiseworthy, glikia mou.’ A wry smile of approval curved his wide stubborn mouth. ‘Naturally I’ll organise a qualified carer to stand in for you.’
‘No, you can’t do that. I never said I would see you tonight, and even if I did want to—which I don’t—I wouldn’t consider letting my friends down at the last minute,’ Maddie declared, her chin coming up at a pugnacious angle because she was indignant at his assumption that she would rearrange her life and her responsibilities to suit him.
But she was even more appalled by her spasm of disappointment that it was not possible for her to consider his offer of providing another companion for her neighbour. She no longer knew what she wanted any more.
Giannis released his breath in a slow, sardonic exhalation. ‘Why do you make such a fuss about trivia?’
Maddie was very tense. ‘When I make a promise to someone it’s not trivial. Mrs Evans would be upset if she was left with a stranger. You are being selfish.’
‘Do not insult me again. I will not tolerate it!’ the tall, powerful Greek interposed, with cold, cutting emphasis.
Maddie paled and focused on the beautiful roses she had arranged in a utilitarian plastic bowl. Her emotions were all over the place and her eyes were suddenly stinging like mad. ‘We’re oil and water—’
‘Between the sheets we’re dynamite.’
A red-hot blush crept up her slender throat and she could not trust herself to look at him. ‘You’ll have to leave. I have to go down to Mrs Evans.’
‘Is this a joke? Or are you wondering how far you can push me?’ Giannis demanded with hauteur. ‘I leave London again tomorrow.’
Reluctantly she lifted her head again, and collided with hot, dark golden eyes that made her tummy lurch as if she had gone down in a lift too fast. ‘It’s not a joke.’
With languorous cool he let his fingers feather through her long, rippling coppery curls. The faint brush of his fingertips against her taut temples sent a quiver through her, and a feeling of sensual paralysis swallowed up all her good intentions. He brought his darkly handsome head down, and her hand seemed to rise of its own volition to glance across one smooth olive cheek and move into the luxuriant thickness of his black hair. It was all the encouragement he needed. He took her mouth in a storm of passionate hunger and pinned her back against the wall with his lithe, powerful body.
‘So what’s this?’ he enquired lethally.
‘Madness,’ she mumbled, stretching up on tiptoe to find the heat and hardness of his mouth again in a fruitless attempt to assuage the painful ache low in her belly.
He sank his hands below her curvaceous behind and lifted her, cradling her easily on his lap as he seated himself on the bed. ‘How long have you got?’ he intoned thickly.
She felt surrounded and controlled by him, and it was incredibly sexy. Her bra was tight over her full breasts, the tender nipples swollen and sensitive. While her body felt weak, her heart was racing with anticipation. She pressed her hot brow against a broad shoulder and wondered frantically what was happening to her. She fought to rescue her self-control. Giannis would take her back to bed if she allowed him to. Was she really that besotted with him?
Maddie was shaken by that inner question, and in a sudden movement of denial scrambled off his long, lean thighs with more haste than grace. ‘We mustn’t…No, absolutely not. Not unless we get to know each other better…’ Her voice petered out as a wave of giddiness momentarily left her head swimming.
Giannis sprang upright in an equally abrupt movement, and swung away to stand by the window. He was fully aroused, hotter than hot. Rampant sexual frustration laced the raw sense of disbelief that held him taut. He was not accustomed to suffering that particular discomfort. He could not remember when a woman had last said no to him. The intensity of his desire for her infuriated him. And now she was laying down pre-conditions. Unexpectedly, the