The Millionaire's Virgin. Anne Mather

I have offered Miss Tennant and her sister an aperitif,’ Nikolas answered evenly, removing her hands from his wrist. ‘Paige?’ He indicated that she should follow him across to an ebony drinks cabinet. ‘What will you have?’

      Paige hesitated; then, after exchanging a warning look with Sophie, she crossed the room. She wasn’t happy about leaving the two girls alone, and she kept glancing back over her shoulder as if she expected something awful to happen.

      ‘Ouzo? Retsina? Or something more familiar?’ asked Nikolas at her approach. ‘And relax. It will do Ariadne good to spend time with someone of her own age for a change.’

      Paige expelled a breath. ‘I thought you said she still attended school.’

      ‘I did.’ Nikolas lifted a bottle of white wine from the refrigerated cabinet and arched an enquiring brow. Then, after she’d nodded her approval, he went on, ‘But Ariadne has been too much with older people this past year. She’s had a series of minor infections which have kept her away from school, and I had to hire a tutor to give her extra lessons.’

      ‘I see.’ Paige watched him pour her wine. ‘She seems very—attached to you.’

      ‘You noticed.’

      ‘It would have been hard not to.’ Paige took the glass he offered, carefully avoiding his fingers, and then looked up to find him watching her with a whimsical expression. ‘What?’ she exclaimed. Then, glancing over her shoulder again, she said, ‘Well—she’s hardly discreet.’

      ‘Unlike you,’ he remarked drily, pouring a generous measure of Scotch into a cut-glass tumbler. ‘I must admit I was surprised when I heard that you’d been in touch with Jamieson. If I’d thought for a minute that you’d change your mind, I’d have hung on for a few more days. Why did you?’

      ‘Why did I what?’

      He pulled a wry face. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.’

      ‘Oh—’ Paige knew she should have been prepared for the question, but she wasn’t. ‘I—I decided it was too good an opportunity to miss.’

      ‘Did you?’

      His eyes were lazily intent and she hurried to explain herself. ‘Financially, I mean,’ she assured him. ‘And although it meant taking Sophie out of school a couple of weeks early all her exams are over.’

      ‘Ah, yes, Sophie.’ His eyes moved past her to where her sister was waiting, a look of resentment on her face now. ‘She’s not at all like you, is she?’

      Paige shrugged. ‘If you say so.’

      ‘I do.’ His mouth took on a sensual curve. ‘And before I ask your sister what she would like to drink, let me say that you have many advantages that she has not.’

      ‘I’m older, you mean?’

      Paige refused to let him disconcert her, and Nikolas’s eyes narrowed on her tense face. ‘Older, of course. But age has its compensations. You know what I am saying,’ he added softly, and then broke off as an argument erupted across the room.

      ‘Who the f—? I mean, who the hell do you think you are?’ Sophie’s voice rose in outrage. ‘You can’t speak to me like that. You’re not the mistress here!’

      ‘Arketa! Arketa! That is enough!’

      As Ariadne opened her mouth to respond, Nikolas slammed down his drink and strode across the room. For a moment, he seemed to have forgotten his command that they should speak English, and his initial remonstrance was issued in the language of his youth.

      Then, as if realising that Sophie couldn’t understand him, he gathered himself, and when he spoke again his manner was more controlled. ‘Ariadne,’ he snapped. ‘Do you want to tell me what is going on? What have you been saying to upset our guest?’

      Ariadne looked indignant at first. And then, as if realising her guardian was not going to respond to that kind of attitude, she mumbled, ‘It was nothing, Nikolas. Really. I was merely saying that Kiria Papandreiu does not like to keep dinner waiting.’