The Greek's Virgin Bride. Julia James

of you for now. You will go to your room and prepare yourself for dinner. We will have a guest. With your upbringing you obviously won’t know how to comport yourself, so I shall tell you now that you had better change your attitude! In this country a woman knows how to behave—see that you do not shame me in my own house! Now, go!’

      Andrea turned and left. The walk back to the door seemed much further than it had in the opposite direction. Her heart was pounding.

      It went on pounding all the way back upstairs to her room. She shut the door and leant against it. So, that was her grandfather! That was the man whose son had had a brief, whirlwind romance with her mother, who had thrown her, pregnant and penniless, out of the country, and left her to bear and raise his grandchild in poverty, refusing to acknowledge her existence.

      She owed such a man nothing. Nothing! Not duty, nor respect—and certainly not loyalty or affection.

      What does he want of me?

      The question went round and round, unanswered. Fretting at her.

      In the end, to calm herself down and pass the time, she decided to make use of the opulent bathroom. Inside its lavish, overdone interior she could not but help revel in the luxury it offered.

      The bath was vast, and it had, she discovered, sinking into its deep scented depths, whirling jets that massaged her body, easing the aching muscles in her tense legs. Blissfully, she gave herself to the wonderful sensation. Towering bubbles from the half a bottle of bath foam she’d emptied in veiled her whole body, from breasts to feet.

      You walk perfectly well…

      She heard the harsh accusation ring in her head again, and her mouth tightened.

      When she emerged from the bathroom, entering her lavishly decorated bedroom suite, swathed in a floor-length towel, it was to see a maid at the open door of her closet, hanging up clothes. The girl turned, bobbing a brief curtsey, and hesitantly informed Andrea that she was here to help her dress.

      ‘I don’t need any help,’ said Andrea tersely.

      The girl looked subdued, and Andrea immediately regretted her tone of voice.

      ‘Please,’ she said temporisingly, ‘it’s quite unnecessary.’

      She walked past the huge bed, covered in a heavy gold and white patterned bedspread, and across to the room-sized closet. Whatever Yiorgos Coustakis had imagined she’d bought with her gleaming gold store card, all she was going to appear for dinner wearing was a chainstore skirt and blouse. But suddenly she stopped dead.

      The racks were full, weighed down with plastic-swathed clothes.

      ‘What—?’

      ‘Kyrios Coustakis ordered them to be purchased for you, kyria. They were delivered just now by a personal shopper. There are accessories and lingerie as well,’ said the maid’s softly accented voice behind her. ‘Which dress would you like to wear tonight?’

      ‘None of them,’ said Andrea tightly. She reached for the hanger carrying her own humble skirt and blouse.

      The maid looked aghast. ‘But…but it is a formal dinner, tonight, kyria,’ she stammered. ‘Kyrios Coustakis would be very angry if you did not dress appropriately…’

      Andrea looked at the maid. The expression on the girl’s face made her pause. There was only one word for the expression, and it was fear.

      She gave in. She could defy her grandfather’s anger, but she was damned if he would get the chance to terrorise one of his own staff on her account.

      ‘Very well. Choose something for me.’

      She went and sat back on the bed while the girl leafed through the clothes hanging from the rail. After a few moments she emerged with two, deftly removing the protective wrapping from them and laying them carefully across the foot of the bed. Andrea inspected them. Both were clearly very expensive, and although it was the short but high-necked cocktail length one that she preferred for style, she nodded at the other one, a full-length gown.

      ‘That one,’ she said.

      It was emerald-green, cut on the bias, with a soft, folding bodice and a long, slinky skirt. Andrea found her hand reaching out to touch the silky folds.

      ‘It is very beautiful, ne?’ said the maid, and sounded wistful as well as admiring.

      ‘Very,’ agreed Andrea. She glanced at the girl. ‘I don’t know your name,’ she said.

      ‘Zoe, kyria,’ said the girl.

      ‘Andrea,’ she replied. ‘And I don’t believe in servants.’

      Some twenty minutes later, staring at herself in the long mirror set into the door of the closet, Andrea was stunned.

      She looked—fantastic! That was the only word for it. The dress was a miracle of the couturier’s art, its soft folds contrasting with the rich vividness of its colour. True, the bodice, held up by tiny shoestring straps, was draped dangerously low over her full breasts, encased in a fragile, strapless bra, but she had to admit the effect was very…well, effective! It gave the dress the finishing touch to the ‘wow’ impact it made.

      She had scooped her hair up into a knot on her head, with tendrils loosening around the nape of her neck and gracing her cheeks and forehead, and she’d redone her make-up to match the impact of the dress.

      With a final look at her reflection, she turned and headed towards the door, where the manservant who had come to summon her stood waiting. Staff though he was, she could see the admiration in his eyes. For an instant, in her mind’s eye, it was not one of the house staff who stood there, but the man she had encountered on the terrace that afternoon, looking at her with those powerful grey eyes, making her stomach give a little skip…

      She bestowed a slight, polite smile on the manservant, and headed towards the curving marble staircase.

      It was time to go into battle once more…

      Nikos Vassilis stepped on the accelerator, changed gear and heard the powerful note of the engine of the Ferrari change pitch. He was not in a good mood. Twice in one day now he’d made the journey out of Athens at the behest of Yiorgos Coustakis. Tonight was not a good night to be dining with the old man. He’d planned a leisurely evening with Xanthe, whose petite, curvaceous body was, he had discovered, a pleasant alternative to Esme Vandersee’s greyhound leanness. Xanthe was proving very attentive—she was clearly keen to take his mind off Esme Vandersee, and was now pulling out all the stops to renew Nikos’s interest. Which meant, he mused, that she was coming up with some very interesting ideas indeed to do so…

      A smile indented his mouth. Last night with Xanthe had been very enjoyable—she had seen to that. Ah, he thought pleasurably, there was nothing like a Greek woman for making a man feel good! Yes, Esme Vandersee might be eager for him, he was certainly a catch for her, but as an American she suffered that infernal affliction of thinking that a woman had a right to give a man a hard time if she chose! Usually, of course, any petulance that Esme displayed he disposed of very swiftly—she was as sexy as a cat and getting her horizontal soon improved her mood…

      But even so, he mused, Xanthe understood what it was that a man wanted a woman to be. And she made it obvious that she was keen to be so very attentive to his every need….

      His smile vanished. Well, he’d be kept waiting tonight before availing himself of Xanthe’s rediscovered charms! Yiorgos Coustakis was obviously taking considerable pleasure in jerking his strings—just for the hell of it, it seemed. Their meeting that afternoon, ostensibly to discus the technicalities of reversing Vassilis Inc into Coustakis Industries, had hardly been urgent, and could have been left to their respective finance directors to sort out. But obviously Old Man Coustakis had relished getting Nikos Vassilis to come traipsing out of Athens to that overblown villa of his whenever he snapped his fingers.

      Thinking about the afternoon meeting brought another image vividly to mind—that of Yiorgos Coustakis’s flame-haired