Modern Romance August 2018 Books 5-8 Collection. Julia James

      The warmth of his olive-gold skin beneath her fingertips sent heat racing up her arm. She attempted to snatch her hand away but Giannis captured her fingers in his.

      ‘That depends on whether you are an entertaining dinner companion,’ he murmured. He smiled at her confused expression and stroked his thumb lightly over the pulse in her wrist that was going crazy. ‘Relax, glykiá mou. I think there is every possibility that we can have a private discussion later.’

      ‘Thank you.’ Relief flooded through her. But she could not relax as concern for her brother changed to a different kind of tension that had everything to do with the glitter in Giannis’s eyes. She couldn’t look away from his sensual mouth. His jaw was shadowed with black stubble and she wondered if it would feel abrasive against her cheek if he kissed her. If she kissed him back.

      She took another sip of wine before she remembered that she hadn’t had any lunch. Alcohol had a more potent effect on an empty stomach, she reminded herself. Her appetite had disappeared but she forced herself to eat a couple of forkfuls of Dover sole.

      ‘So tell me, Ava—you have a beautiful name, by the way.’ Giannis’s husky accent felt like rough velvet stroking across Ava’s skin, and the way he said her name in his lazy, sexy drawl, elongating the vowels—Aaavaaa—sent a quiver of reaction through her. ‘You said that you are not a journalist, so what do you do for a living?’

      Explaining about her work as a victim care officer might be awkward when Giannis was himself the victim of a crime which had been committed by her brother, Ava thought ruefully. Sam deeply regretted the extensive damage that he and his so-called ‘friends’ had caused to Giannis’s luxurious yacht. She needed to convince Giannis that her brother had made a mistake and deserved another chance.

      She reached for her wine glass, but then changed her mind. Her head felt swimmy—although that might be because she had inhaled the spicy, explicitly sensual scent of Giannis’s aftershave.

      ‘Actually I’m between jobs at the moment.’ She was pleased that her voice was steady, unlike her see-sawing emotions. ‘I recently moved from Scotland back to London to be closer to my mother...and brother.’

      Giannis ate some of his beef Wellington before he spoke. ‘I have travelled widely, but Scotland is one place that I have never visited. I’ve heard that it is very beautiful.’

      Ava thought of the deprived areas of Glasgow where she had been involved with a victim support charity, first as a volunteer, and after graduating from university she had been offered a job with the victim support team. In the past few years some of the city’s grim, grey tower blocks had been knocked down and replaced with new houses, but high levels of unemployment still remained, as did the incidence of drug-taking, violence and crime.

      She had felt that her job as a VCO—helping people who were victims or witnesses of crime—made amends in some small way for the terrible crimes her father had committed. But living far away in Scotland meant she had missed the signs that her brother had been drawn into the gang culture in East London. Her father’s old haunts.

      ‘Why do you care what I get up to?’ Sam had demanded when she had tried to talk to him about his behaviour. ‘You moved away and you don’t care about me.’ Ava felt a familiar stab of guilt that she hadn’t been around for Sam or her mother when they had both needed her.

      She dragged her thoughts back to the present and realised that Giannis was waiting for her to reply. ‘The Highlands have some spectacular scenery,’ she told him. ‘If you are thinking of making a trip to Scotland I can recommend a few places for you to visit.’

      ‘It would be better if you came with me and gave me a guided tour of the places you think would interest me.’

      Ava’s heart gave a jolt. Was he being serious? She stared into his dark-as-night eyes and saw amusement and something else that evoked a coiling sensation low in her belly. ‘We...we don’t know each other.’

      ‘Not yet, but the night is still young and full of endless possibilities,’ he murmured in his husky Mediterranean accent that made her toes curl. He gave a faint shrug of his shoulders, drawing her attention to his powerful physique beneath the elegant lines of his dinner jacket. ‘I have little leisure time and it makes sense when I visit somewhere new to take a companion who has local knowledge.’

      Ava was saved from having to reply when one of the event organisers arrived at the table to hand out catalogues which listed the items that were being offered in the fundraising auction.

      Giannis flicked through the pages of the catalogue. ‘Is there anything in the listings that you intend to bid for?’

      ‘Unfortunately I can’t afford the kind of money that a platinum watch or a luxury African safari holiday are likely to fetch in the auction,’ she said drily. ‘I imagine that art collectors will be keen to bid for the Mark Derring painting. His work is stunning, and art tends to be a good investment. There are also some interesting wines being auctioned. The Chateau Latour 1962 is bound to create a lot of interest.’

      Giannis gave her a thoughtful look. ‘So, I have already discovered that you are an expert in art and wine. I confess that I am intrigued by you, Ava.’

      She gave a self-conscious laugh. ‘I’m not an expert in either subject, but I went to a finishing school in Switzerland where I learned how to talk confidently about art, recognise fine wines and understand the finer points of international etiquette.’

      ‘I did not realise that girls—I presume only girls—still went to finishing schools,’ Giannis said. ‘What made you decide to go to one?’

      ‘My father thought it would be a good experience for me.’ Ava felt a familiar tension in her shoulders as she thought of her father. The truth was that she tried not to think about Terry McKay. That part of her life when she had been Ava McKay was over. She had lost touch with the friends she had made at the Institut Maison Cécile in St Moritz when her father had been sent to prison. But the few months that she had spent at the exclusive finishing school, which had numbered two European princesses among its students, had given her the social skills and exquisite manners which allowed her to feel comfortable at high society events.

      It was a pity that the finishing school had not given advice on how to behave when a gorgeous Greek god looked at her as if he was imagining her naked, Ava thought as her eyes locked with Giannis’s smouldering gaze. Panic and an inexplicable sense of excitement pumped through her veins. She was here at the charity dinner for her brother’s sake, she reminded herself. Giannis had said he would give her an opportunity to speak to him in private on the condition that she entertained him during dinner. She did not know if he had been serious, but she could not risk losing the chance to plead with him to show leniency to Sam.

      ‘It’s not fair,’ she murmured. She had to lean towards Giannis so that he could hear her above the hum of chatter in the banqueting hall, and the scent of him—spicy cologne mixed with an elusive scent of male pheromones—made her head spin. ‘I have told you things about me but you haven’t told me anything about yourself.’

      ‘That’s not true. I’ve told you that I have never visited Scotland. Although I have a feeling that I will take a trip there very soon,’ he drawled. His voice was indulgent like rich cream and the gleam in his eyes was wickedly suggestive.

      A sensuous shiver ran down Ava’s spine. Common sense dictated that she should respond to Giannis’s outrageous flirting with cool amusement and make a witty remark to put him in his place and let him know she wasn’t interested in him. Except that he fascinated her, and she felt like a teenager on a first date rather than an experienced woman of twenty-seven.

      She wasn’t all that experienced, a little voice in her head reminded her. At university she’d dated a few guys but the relationships had fizzled out fairly quickly. It had been her fault—she’d been wary of allowing anyone too close in case they discovered that she was leading a double life. Two years ago, she had met Craig at a party given by a work colleague. She had been attracted to his open and friendly