The Balfour Legacy. Кэрол Мортимер

lift didn’t arrive soon she was going to—

      The sound of a door opening behind her had her spinning about. Instantly her tingling insides crashed to a fizzing burn when she found herself staring at Nikos.

      It just was not fair that he had to pick this moment to leave his apartment, she decided as she stared at him in dismayed shock.

      He was wearing a formal black dinner suit that sat smoothly on his long powerful frame. A black silk bow tie sat perfectly symmetrical across the butterfly collar of his dress shirt. And his hair was still damp, as if he’d dressed quickly after showering now the hint of curls lay black and thick and glossy on the top of his well-shaped head. Every single inch of him looked strong and sleek and formidably exclusive. Her mouth ran dry and her heart started beating too fast as she flickered her gaze up to stare at his recently shaved jaw, then the sensual shape of his unsmiling mouth. And finally—finally she made contact with his eyes.

      He was looking back at her as if this accidental meeting had disconcerted him as much as it had done to her. Defensive tension stiffened her stance.

      ‘On your way out?’ he spoke first, smooth and cool and, Mia suspected, carefully pleasant.

      ‘Sí,’ she managed, unaware that her hands had clenched into fists on the ends of her arms held straight like sticks at her sides.

      He nodded, the floating veil of his eyelashes sweeping downwards before he turned to pull the door to his apartment shut.

      Fortunately the lift arrived then, giving Mia a good reason to drag her eyes away from him, though it made little difference, she realised a few seconds later, when the lift’s mirrored walls allowed her to watch him stride across the lobby and join her inside. The small space instantly grew even smaller, crammed by his superior height and that overpowering sense of presence he always carried around with him.

      But then, the mirrors were giving her two or three or even four different views of him. That was a lot of Nikos Theakis to contend with in a confined space. Her breath caught again when he leant across her to hit the button to take them down to the ground floor. The subtle tangy scent of him assailed her nostrils. As his sleeve brushed against her arm she took a step back. So did he, straightening to his full formidable height.

      ‘Anywhere nice?’ he enquired casually.

      Keeping her eyes glued to her own reflection, Mia nodded and watched her hair move against the black satin jacket. ‘Dinner,’ she said, watching her lightly glossed lips part to form the response.

      When she looked into her eyes she had no choice but to acknowledge the lurking darkness of deep uncertainty at her impulsive decision to go out like this. Was she mad? Was she stupid? What did she know about surviving in this huge metropolis? She didn’t even know whether to turn to the left or to the right when she reached the street. The left led downtown where the more refined restaurants were situated. The right led to the local high street with its trendy bistros and café bars she passed on the occasions she caught the tube home and walked the rest of the way back here.

      Left or right? Refined or trendy?

      ‘You?’ she asked because she felt she should do.

      ‘Same.’

      She looked up—not wanting to—and wished she had not when she found him checking out the set of his black bow tie in one of the mirrors, chin thrust upwards, beautifully black-framed eyes as dark as night. Sensation sprinkled like static between fine layers of her skin and she looked away again quickly, back to the stranger she saw herself as, dressed in a dusky-lilac shift dress and a black satin jacket, with a lot of long leg showing and her ankles elevated by the four-inch heels on her shoes.

       Irritating and juvenile…

      Was he on his way to meet the new replacement for Lucy Clayton as Fiona had predicted? Was she tall and blonde and heart-stoppingly beautiful and screamingly intelligent and sophisticated? Was he planning to bring her back here to his apartment to make wildly passionate love with her while Mia lay alone in her bed next door and—

      ‘Where—?’

      Her small chin jerked up and their eyes clashed in a mirror; tiny prickles of attraction attacked her flesh. ‘Scusi?’ she murmured blankly.

      ‘I was asking where you are going for dinner,’ Nikos enlightened dryly—in English.

      ‘Oh. I don’t know,’ Mia let slip before she could think about it, watched his eyebrows arch, felt a deep inner niggle at the slip, then thankfully her pride came to her rescue with what she thought was a truly inspirational lie. ‘I am meeting someone,’ she claimed. ‘I don’t know where he is taking me to eat.’

      Fortunately the lift stopped and the doors slid open then, giving her the opportunity to escape. Her shiny black heels tapped on cream marble as she crossed the ground-floor lobby in her urgency to get away as fast as she could.

      Nikos still reached the door in time to open it for her, then offered a cool nod in acknowledgement of her muffled murmur of thanks.

      It must have been raining. Outside the ground was covered in a shiny layer of wet. Striding out across the private car park, Mia was aware that he had diverted over to where his silver car was parked.

      What she did not know was the way Nikos stood watching her pause uncertainly once she’d hit the street, as if she was unsure which way to go next.

      Dinner with a man…

      Something hard gave him a kick in his gut.

      Was she meeting the tall blond clean-cut guy from accounts he had seen her with today?

      If she was, the damn jerk needed to learn some manners. What kind of man let a young and beautiful stranger to this city find her own way to their chosen venue?

      She looked lost already. And the weirdest kind of tingling sensation was skittering down his torso and legs.

      She struck off to the right, disappearing out of his sight in seconds. Nikos held his stance for a few seconds longer, then he muttered, ‘Damn it,’ giving in to what the tingling represented and slid his hand into his pocket to exchange his car keys for his mobile phone.

      Ten minutes later, Mia was hovering outside one of the bistros. She was pretending to read the menu list stuck on the window but really she was checking out the busy interior, and the bravado that had brought her this far was now lying dead at her feet.

      She could not go in there. She did not know why she had ever come up with the crazy idea that she could! And the evening was chilly, the black satin jacket doing nothing to keep the chill at bay and—

      ‘Been stood up…?’

      Hearing that deeply accented, mildly sardonic and crushingly familiar voice arrive from somewhere behind her caused a sudden burn of weak tears to flood her eyes. It took every bit of self-control she had to blink the tears away again, then lift up her chin and turn to look at him.

      He was standing across the busy pavement, leaning against the side of his silver supercar with his hands resting inside his trouser pockets, his jacket pushed back from his bright white shirt. Tall, dark and so very sexily sophisticated, Mia observed helplessly. The overhead lights shining amber onto the wet pavement also honeyed the skin of his too-perfect face. It was no wonder most of the women passing across the gap between them stared at him, Mia thought as a whole clutch of them went by with their eyes glued to his long, lean, supremely elegant stance.

      If he noticed he did not show it. He did not take his eyes from her face. His mouth was wearing a kind of half-mocking smile that stung her pride and made her wish that some other tall, dark, handsome man would just walk up to her and pull her into his embrace.

       Irritating and juvenile…

      ‘No,’ she answered his question. ‘He’s just a few minutes late.’

      With the ease of a man used to doing everything with grace, she watched him tilt his dark head down and, without