The Greek Tycoon's Secret Child. Cathy Williams

herself because she knew where she was going. She knew why she was doing what she was doing. What did it matter what one passing stranger out of the hundreds thought of her?

      ‘Like it?’ Dominic murmured lazily. ‘Think you might want to refute it?’

      ‘I don’t have to refute anything to you, but let me just tell you that I’m not an easy lay.’ Understatement of the century, she was honest enough to think. One lover in all her years. Frankie King, whom she had known since she was sixteen. And she hadn’t even slept with him for…how many months now?

      ‘So if that’s why you followed me, then you can forget it. I won’t be climbing into your bed, not now, not ever.’

      A mixed group of merry teenagers, drunk but too wrapped up in each other to be threatening to her, jostled past and Dominic took hold of her arm and led her away from the ticket machines to the side.

      ‘I’ll take you home in a taxi.’

      ‘Oh, suddenly a little bit scared of our great British transport system, are you?’ she sneered, not much liking the way she sounded. Hard and jaded and cynical, but this was the best way she knew of protecting herself.

      ‘Oh, don’t be such a damned little fool.’

      ‘Well, it might interest you to know that I’d rather take my chances with that little lot that just waltzed past than cooped up in a taxi with you.’

      ‘Then I’ll just put you in the damned cab and pay the man to take you wherever it is you live!’

      ‘Ah. Not so keen on my company now that you know I won’t be sleeping with you.’ Mattie shook her head with an expression of mock disappointment. ‘Now, why am I not falling down in surprise?’

      ‘Come on.’ He had never met a more suspicious, cynical woman in his life, but did she have spirit! Was that why he was now hailing a taxi for her rather than letting her take the first tube of the morning home? Not liking the thought of her stepping into a carriage with a mob of drunks, even though she was right and was probably more accustomed to dealing with situations like that than he was?

      ‘You, mister, are the last word in arrogance!’

      ‘Watch out. I might start getting used to your line of compliments.’

      ‘Hardly.’ The black cab had slowed down for her and she knew better than to kick up her heels at his insistence. ‘Unless fate decides to behave in a freakish way, this is the last we’ll be seeing of each other.’

      Dominic didn’t say anything. Just opened the taxi door for her, handed the driver some notes, sufficient, he was assured, to cover the trip, before turning to her briefly.

      His large, powerful frame was draped suffocatingly by her open door, and when he looked down at her his presence seemed to fill the entire back of the taxi like a drug.

      ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ he said in a low, silky voice, and Mattie felt a disturbing thread of excitement race up her spine. ‘After all, I have yet to refute your accusations, do I not?’

      ‘I apologise,’ she said quickly. ‘There. Will that do?’

      ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

      ‘I’ll never sleep with you,’ she hissed fiercely. ‘You’ve got the wrong measure of me!’

      ‘In life, I’ve learnt that never is the most fickle word in the English language.’ With which he stood up and slammed the car door.

      What he didn’t tell her was that it was also the most challenging word in the English language. Especially in this context and especially for a man like him.

      CHAPTER TWO

      ‘DUNNO know why you bother wasting your time on that rubbish.’

      Mattie glanced across the room to Frankie. He was sprawled on the chair in front of the television, his feet propped up on the coffee-table he had dragged over, and he was staring at her in a way that she was all too familiar with.

      So she ignored him and returned to the books in front of her. ‘Told you, love, there’s no way you’ve got the brains to do anything in any company anywhere. Left school at sixteen, or you forgotten already?’

      He was on the beer. For that she was grateful. If he had been on the whisky, he would be targeting his comments with a lot more venom. And he would be gone in a little while. It was Saturday, after all. Not a night for a man like Frankie to stay in. Not when his mates would be down at the local, eyes glued to whatever sport happened to be showing on the massive overhead screen that The Lamb and Eagle proudly sported.

      ‘That doesn’t mean I can’t do this,’ Mattie said quietly, knowing that there was no point going down this road but doing it anyway.

      ‘Sure it does. Big shots in companies ain’t looking for a girl like you, Mats. Pretty you might be but let’s not forget the background.’ He gave a cruel little chuckle and her fingers tightened on the pen she was holding. ‘Anyway, what time you off tonight, then?’

      ‘Does it matter? You won’t be here anyway.’

      ‘True, true. Go and fetch us another beer, would you, Mats?’

      ‘You’ll be drinking at the pub, Frankie.’

      ‘Oh not another of your little preachy sermons. Don’t think I can stand it. Any wonder I want to clear out of this place whenever you’re around? A right little Miss Prim and Proper you’ve become ever since you started filling your head with ideas about high-flying jobs in marketing. You should ’ave just stuck it out as secretary in that poxy little company you were at before.’

      Pushed to the limit, Mattie snapped shut the book she had been studying and fixed him with a cold stare.

      ‘But I couldn’t, could I, Frankie? And we both know why!’

      He staggered to his feet, raked his fingers through his hair and headed towards the kitchen with a thunderous scowl on his face. But this time she wasn’t going to let him get away with his jibe.

      Three nights ago it had felt damned good to yell at someone and she was going to do that now. This time at the right person instead of at a perfect stranger who had happened to rub her up the wrong way. A perfect stranger who had, unsurprisingly, not reappeared at her exciting little workplace, even though she had caught herself watching out for him, and then berating herself for letting him get under her skin when she had figured him out for what he was.

      ‘Well?’ Mattie went to the kitchen door and leaned against the frame, her eyes stormy, watching as Frankie helped himself to another lager, which he proceeded to drink straight from the can.

      ‘I can’t be bothered to argue this one with you, Mats. Why don’t you just head back to those books of yours and carry on pretending you can get somewhere in life?’

      ‘No! I want to have this one out, Frankie. I’m sick to death of all your slurs and insults. I couldn’t stick it out in that job because the money wasn’t enough to keep us both!’ She had tiptoed round this long enough.

      ‘I suppose you blame me for the accident!’

      ‘I don’t blame you for anything! But that was nearly two years ago! So isn’t it about time you just woke up to the fact that you will never become a professional footballer? It’s over, Frankie! You need to get your head around that and—’

      ‘Know what, Mats? I don’t need to stand here and listen to all of this! I’m off.’

      She felt tears of frustration prick the backs of her eyes, but she stayed where she was, blocking the doorway.

      ‘You need to get a job, Frankie.’

      He slammed the half-empty beer can on the kitchen table and lager shot out of the top over the table-top.

      ‘An office job, Mats? Think I should get myself decked out in a cheap suit