Текст книги "The Greek Tycoon's secret child"

Автор книги: Cathy Williams

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„OK,‟ he agreed, his expression changing to one of lazy sensuality. „Would lunch pass your pride test, in that case?‟

Mattie felt herself smile slightly.

„Followed by a housewarming party for two back here?‟

How could she resist? She had been so strong when she had first met him. Had known that he was an alien from a different planet. When had he developed that talent for turning her brain to cotton wool? And how long, she wondered with a stirring of alarm, before she discovered that she had no immune system left when it came to him?

CHAPTER SEVEN

„IT‟S absolutely fantastic. Meeting prospective clients. Working with the advertising people on ways of making the apartments irresistible to professionals who would rather live north of the river. And have I told you about the ideas we were throwing around for renting out one of the rooms off the atrium as a restaurant? Maybe try wooing one of those celebrity chefs to set it up and get it running?‟

No, she hadn‟t. Dominic pushed back his chair and looked at her with an amused and, he knew, proprietorial smile. This new Mattie was eager, self-confident. Only now and again did the defensive, wary creature rear her head. In about two hours she would be doing that because he would, as he always did, suggest that she stay the night with him instead of going back to her apartment even though, after three weeks, she had at least managed to get herself a bed, a functioning, very small fridge and a small pine table for the kitchen along with two chairs.

„You‟re not listening to a word I‟m saying,‟ Mattie grumbled. She stood up and began transferring plates and cutlery from table to sink. They now ate here, at his apartment, more often than not. Which, after a month, was still only three nights a week, but three nights that she now found herself looking forward to and expecting with craven anticipation.

„I thought we might go to the country tomorrow. Spend the weekend there. I need to check up on my house there anyway, make sure everything‟s ticking over.‟ Dominic clasped his hands behind his head and surveyed her through hooded eyes. How he enjoyed watching her!

Watching the way her clothes swung around her, knowing that her body was for his enjoyment only, that with one touch he would feel her tremble for him. He thought about undoing the little pearl buttons of her shirt, softly parting it and then basking in the unsurpassed pleasure of scooping her breasts free of their lacy restraints. He forced himself away from the evocative image to find her staring at him and frowning, perched with her back to the sink.

„There‟s no need to look at me like that,‟ he said irritably. „It‟s a simple enough suggestion. Get out of London for a weekend, have a break in the country. People do it all the time.‟ He pushed himself away from the table and went to where she was still standing in thoughtful silence.

„What‟s there to think about?‟ He leant over her, hands on either side, propping himself up against the counter. Sheer frustration was beginning to set in. „This isn‟t a life or death choice.‟

„It wouldn‟t be a good idea.‟

„Why not?‟ Dominic demanded, frowning darkly. „I happen to think it‟s an exceptional idea. When was the last time you got out of London? Went anywhere?‟

„That‟s not the point, Dominic.‟ Mattie wasn‟t too sure what the point was but she knew that there was one. He was fond of getting his own way and had a variety of methods for doing just that. He could be as persuasive and as tempting as the devil, could argue her into silent acquiescence if she let him.

„Well? When?‟

That, she had learnt to recognise, was another of his tactics. To simply ignore objections and pursue his own line of questioning until he got what he wanted.

„I can‟t remember,‟ Mattie sighed. „Go and sit back down. I can‟t think straight when you‟re looming over me like this.‟

„Good. I don‟t want you thinking straight when you‟re with me.‟

„You‟re acting like a spoiled child.‟

„What…?‟ Dominic gaped at her in real incredulity. A spoiled child? Never before had that accusation been thrown at him. Ever. He clicked his fingers and people snapped to attention.

It had always been that way, or for as long as he could remember anyway. For heaven‟s sake, he hardly ever raised his voice, never mind behaving like a spoiled child!

„Because you want something, doesn‟t mean it‟s automatically going to work that way. I thought you would have realised that by now.‟ Convincing words, but Mattie had to keep her eyes very firmly glued to his. If they so much as wandered a little lower, to his beautiful mouth, there was a very good chance she would be lost, and she had to stand up for herself or end up drowning in this so-called no-strings-attached affair that was not destined to last beyond a few months at the most.

He had made that perfectly clear from the beginning and it didn‟t take a rocket scientist to work out that he would stick to his guns, his conscience clear when things finally and inevitably ended because hadn‟t he warned her from the outset that he wasn‟t interested in commitment on any level?

Never did they project plans that spanned into the future. They saw one another, enjoyed one another, planned something maybe a couple of days down the line, but anything further was out of bounds.

Mattie regularly told herself that his concentration on the present was just what she needed. She had spent years living in some never-never future. First with Frankie and all his dreams about being rich and famous, then with the course, always working hard towards something hovering on the distant horizon.

She knew that it was a breath of fresh air just doing what all other girls her age would be doing. Taking life one day at a time.

„We need to talk about this,‟ Dominic growled, pushing himself away and striding purposefully into the open-plan sitting area, where he took up fulminating residence on the long, low sofa.

Mattie reluctantly followed.

„I have too much to do to go away for a weekend,‟ she opened, sitting towards the end of the sofa, one leg lazily tucked under her, the other hanging over the side.

„What?‟

„I want to go and have a look for a television. Just a portable thing.‟

„You don‟t need to buy a television,‟ Dominic asserted arrogantly. „There are two in this apartment. If you want to watch TV, you can always come here.‟

„Now you‟re being ridiculous.‟

„Or you could just take one of mine. OK, borrow one of mine. Whatever. That can wait for the duration of one weekend.‟ He found the thought of visiting his country house without her by his side strangely unappealing. Far from holding the promise of two days of pleasurable solitude, as it normally did, it offered the prospect of unwelcome isolation.

And he really had to go up and check it out. Sylvia, his old retainer, who shared the upkeep of the place with her husband and lived on the premises, had called him two days previously and, having spent five minutes apologising for interrupting him, informed him that there had been a serious leak in one of the downstairs rooms. The plumber had been but there was the question of insurance to sort out, part of the wooden floor had been ruined and the offending radiator would have to be replaced.

„I thought you liked going up there on your own.‟

„Did I say that?‟

„Yes. You told me that it was the one place in the world where you could escape the mad pace and just relax with a book. In fact, you said that you never even went there with your laptop because it was a complete getaway.‟

Dominic flushed darkly and scowled. „I just wanted to give you a break,‟ he said. He looked down, closing her out for a second, then back at her. „You can‟t accuse me of not thinking of you.‟

Mattie‟s heart seemed to halt in mid-beat, then race forward at frantic speed. This was the closest he had ever got to suggesting that what she thought and said and did affected him in any way, and stupidly she found herself clinging to his passing comment until she told herself to just get control of her badly behaved mind.

„OK. I won‟t.‟

For some reason, Dominic felt unreasonably riled at that quick, placating response and his expression darkened.

„Remind me never to suggest something as complicated as a holiday with you,‟ he intoned tautly. „You might just go into a coma at the thought of it.‟

„A holiday?‟ she couldn‟t help saying a little numbly.

„Something that people occasionally go on, usually when they want to spend some time together.‟ He knew he should retreat while he was ahead but for some reason he wanted to plough on. Yes, so he could turn her on like a light bulb. It was no more than she could achieve with him! Their bodies were made for one another!

But what else? he wondered.

„I know what a holiday is.‟ Mattie laughed, making light of their conversation.

„Had a lot of them, have you?‟

„You know I haven‟t.‟

„Oh, yes. I‟d forgotten you worked while studying to make sure the bills got paid while lover boy lazed around, criticised you and drank whatever money was left.‟

Mattie chose to disregard his remarks about Frankie. She sometimes wondered how someone could be so thoroughly a part of her past and yet still rear his head at the most unlikely moments.

„I used to go to Cornwall when I was a child,‟ she confided a little wistfully. She drew her knees up and looked at him with faraway eyes. „Two weeks over summer to a caravan site.

One of those places where the caravans stay in the same place from year to year. You know?‟

„Not really.‟

„No, I don‟t suppose you do. I can‟t picture you in one anyway.‟ She tried to and failed.

„And I can‟t much picture you in one either,‟ Dominic said wryly. „No, I picture you more on a beach somewhere. White sand, clear warm water, just a whisper of a breeze…an island made for two. And a house with all the trappings. Old wooden floors, mosquito nets over the bed, big windows sprawling open to let the night air waft through…‟

Mattie could see it all in her mind‟s eye and her mouth fell open at the imaginary scenario.

„Holed up with enough food to last the duration, but a little boat moored on the jetty just in case we needed something on the mainland…‟

It was the we that snapped her back to the present and away from the land of fiction he was leading her confidently into.

„And did you take Rosalind there?‟ she asked, dipping her eyes.

„Never even crossed my mind,‟ Dominic said truthfully. What he could have added was that holidaying with women was not something he had ever practised. He had been skiing as a group, in which his current girlfriend might be included, but beyond that his holidays had mostly centred around returning to Greece to see his family. He just worked too damn hard to afford the time off to relax somewhere exotic and remote.

As he had said to her, his weekends in the country were his only real retreats from his working life.

„How come?‟

„To start with, because I couldn‟t take the time off work. And then, later, I wouldn‟t have wanted to anyway.‟ He shrugged. „I don‟t like talking to you when you‟re sitting all the way over there,‟ he said in a husky, coaxing voice. „Come over here.‟ He patted the space right by him and Mattie crawled over and collapsed in front of him, her back to his chest, her head finding the hollow between his neck and shoulder.

There was something possessive and familiar about the way he slung his arm around her, the way she slotted so neatly between his legs. She wanted to purr with feline pleasure.

„A man like you should never plan holidays with women,‟ Mattie said a little ruefully.

„And why would that be?‟

„Because by the time the holiday came round, there‟d be a good chance that you would have gone off the woman in question.‟

„Which brings me back to a weekend in the country. I can guarantee that by tomorrow I won‟t have gone off you.‟ He began undoing the little pearl buttons, taking his time. „Shirts like this should only be worn by confirmed spinsters,‟ he muttered, and her smile somehow managed to transfer itself to him even though he couldn‟t see her face.

„And why would that be?‟

„Because, my darling, no one would be interested in getting into them.‟

Mattie felt a surge of pure, honeyed warmth seep through her and she squirmed against him, tempted to hurry up the whole process of getting undressed by undoing the tricky little buttons herself.

„Say you‟ll come with me tomorrow,‟ he murmured into her ear and Mattie reached up to clasp her hands behind his head, her breasts jutting forward with the movement.

Dominic groaned and fumbled with the last stubborn button, almost ripping it off in frustration in the process. Then he unhooked her bra from behind and shoved it up and over the creamy orbs with their pouting pink nipples.

Mattie didn‟t answer. When he touched her like this, she always found that she couldn‟t think properly. He was massaging her breasts with both his big hands. She looked down and saw them on her body, the tensile strength of his fingers as they played over her. When he shifted his weight so that he could reach further down and undo the button of her black trousers, quickly followed by the zip, Mattie almost gasped.

Her legs parted automatically. With him, she had no inhibitions. She closed her eyes as his fingers slipped beneath her underwear to slide along that throbbing crease that was wetly awaiting his touch.

He stopped and she nearly groaned in frustration. „Mattie, look at me.‟

She swivelled reluctantly around so that she was looking right at him.

„I want you to come with me this weekend and I don‟t understand what you‟re so

reluctant about.‟ He inclined down to deliver a chaste kiss to her lips before straightening back into position.

„We‟ve never slept together.‟

„ Never slept together? Good heavens, woman, what have we been doing with glorious abandon for weeks?‟

„No, I meant we‟ve never spent the night together. You know what I mean. Fallen asleep and woken up the following morning in the same bed, next to one another.‟

„Not for want of me trying.‟

„I just don‟t think it‟s such a good idea.‟

„You can‟t make statements like that without benefit of an explanation.‟ Like a dog with a bone, he wanted her to try and tell him what her reservations were, simply because he knew that he would be able to repudiate them. Naturally this was a relationship based on freedom and mutual attraction, but still, he felt driven to have her do more with him than she seemed willing to do. Why he felt his way, he had no idea. He could only put it down to some hitherto unknown stubborn streak in him that was compelled to gain entry to what appeared out of bounds.

And there were too many out-of-bound areas in this woman for his liking.

Yes, he hated possessiveness in a woman, but did she have to treat him with such relentless, blithe, cheery detachment?

„Are you scared of spending one night with me?‟ he enquired silkily and Mattie flushed.

„Should I be? Do you turn into a werewolf at midnight?‟

„Try me. It‟s a very pleasing country house. Very quiet up there. Nothing like London.

No crowds or tourists. No hailing cabs to get from A to B. Or, in your case, using underground trains, as you enjoy telling me.‟

„Well, I was planning to doing a little work tomorrow morning. Before I went on my television search…‟

„Work?‟ Dominic paused and then inhaled deeply. „Aren‟t you taking this

job-commitment thing a little too far?‟

„ You work all the hours God made, if I‟m not mistaken.‟

„That‟s different,‟ he muttered uncomfortably.

„Why? Because your job is so much more high-powered than mine is? I know I‟m

starting at the bottom of the ladder, but honestly, Dominic, I feel I can really go places.‟ She propped herself up so that she could look at him properly and was touched to see that he had reddened slightly. „Try not to forget that this is all new to me,‟ she persisted gently. „I want to make a mark and it‟s hardly as though I have to travel to the ends of the earth to get to work! It‟s a matter of minutes to walk from my apartment to the conference room they‟re using on the ground floor!‟

„Look,‟ Dominic said gruffly, „there‟s something I feel I ought to tell you…‟

„But I only intend to work for about an hour or so. I told Liz that I could pop in and finish off some of the accounts she was doing for the promotion on the billboards by Charing Cross…‟

Would one weekend away hurt? Walking away from him whenever they spent a night

together was struggle enough. Where was the crime in allowing herself the luxury of some time out? She had had barely any rest to speak of between all the work to get her qualification and yet more work to prove to herself and Liz Harris, who had employed her, that she could do whatever was required of her.

„It‟s about your job…‟

„I know it‟s demanding but I like it, I enjoy the pace. OK,‟ Mattie smiled slowly, „I‟ll come with you. Give me an hour and a half, say, to do what I have to do and then you can come and pick me up.‟

Which still left what he had to tell her unsaid. Dominic smiled back. He‟d spill the beans once the weekend was over. She would be relaxed, they‟d both be relaxed.

„Satisfied?‟ Mattie smiled slowly and seductively at him. She felt expansive all of a sudden and radiantly happy at the prospect of spending a whole lazy weekend with him.

She almost wished, the following morning, that she hadn‟t promised to put in a couple of hours of work. She packed her bag, threw in some underwear, one change of clothes and nightwear, which would probably be redundant.

If the office wasn‟t, as she had told him, literally a short walk across the building, she might even have been tempted to abandon her generous offer made to Liz two days before, but she would get it out of the way as quickly as possible.

After all, this career, which was still sparkling new and full of promise, was the one constant in her life. Dominic would go and she would need her work to fill the void.

She let herself into the room soundlessly, enjoying the silence, made herself a cup of coffee and went into the sectioned room that Liz used.

Dominic Drecos, not a million miles away, couldn‟t concentrate on the figures blinking at him on the computer that was neatly tucked away in the small office he had created from one of the bedrooms in his apartment.

He found his attention drifting from his chief accountant‟s earnest reports about profit margins to the woman who would be waiting for him at her apartment in precisely forty-five minutes‟ time.

Eventually he abandoned his attempts to work and resorted to stalking through his apartment, pausing to peer impatiently out of the windows and consult his watch.

He felt like a kid on his first date. When it came to her, he always felt like a kid on his first date. Naturally, the novelty wouldn‟t last. When did things like that ever last? But he was more than happy to go along for the ride and see how far it took him.

He raked long fingers through his dark hair and looked absently down at the street below, propping himself up on the broad window ledge.

It would have done wonders for his conscience if he hadn‟t known what she was doing right now. Working. Putting in the hard graft that he had instinctively known from the very beginning she would have been capable of. Unfortunately, her putting in hard graft just made him uncomfortably aware that the little talk he had been meaning to have with her for some time now was well behind its due date.

It was a relief to get away from that uncomfortable line of thinking when he glanced at his watch for the eighth time and realised that he could set off to collect her. He would be sure to get held up in traffic and if he didn‟t, well, he would only be a little early.

On the way, he visualised her reaction to his country house when they got there. It really was very charming. Nothing big and ostentatious. She‟d have no reason to round on him in that bull-terrier way of hers, hands on her hips, colour in her cheeks, in full flow about their different backgrounds.

Although… He grinned and the sticky business of talking to her about the job faded into the background. Although lately her pithy little remarks were beginning to seem quite endearing.

Maybe he would show her the outdoor Jacuzzi, which would be guaranteed to really get her going. Then, when she was hot under the collar, he could introduce her to the joys of lazing in bubbling warm water with a bottle of chilled wine between them…

Which meant that he was ever so slightly irritated to arrive promptly at her flat, only to discover after ringing the doorbell repeatedly that she wasn‟t in.

Obviously, the prospect of spending the weekend with him had not filled her with quite the same level of anticipation.

Nor did he know precisely where she was in the building. Nor was there anyone around handy to ask.

His process of elimination took him twenty minutes, during which his irritation levels rose steadily. Head in some damned accounts, he thought impatiently, convevently forgetting how often in the past he had lost track of time to work.

The door to the office was ajar and Dominic pushed it open and strode in in one fluid movement, only to find that she wasn‟t sitting at a desk in front of a computer screen, oblivious to the passage of time and, coincidentally, him.

She was by one of the banks of graceful windows that overlooked the inner courtyard, perching on the window sill, and she looked very much as though she had been waiting for him.

Which didn‟t do much to soothe his temper.

„I told you what time I was going to be here, Mattie. What the hell are you still doing in this damned office?‟ Dominic strode into the room and proceeded to sit, glaring, on one of the polished desks. „Are you being paid for this volunteered overtime, by the way? I know you want to make a good impression, but believe me some employers can be very cunning when it comes to taking advantage of over-enthusiastic staff.‟

„Like you?‟

„What?‟ He had been so caught up in his own irritation that he noticed the expression on her face for the first time, and his dark eyebrows knitted into an impatient frown.

„Like you.‟ Mattie pushed herself away from the window ledge and walked very steadily, admirably steadily in fact, towards her own desk, taking up position on the black swivel chair so that she could face him. „Because if it‟s one thing you are, it‟s cunning. Am I right or wrong?‟

She clasped her fingers together and willed him not to come too close to her. She didn‟t want her body playing its usual pathetic games with her head.

„What are you talking about, Mattie?‟ He raked his fingers through his hair, although caution was setting in. „You certainly plan your attacks with lousy timing. We‟re about to spend a weekend together and neither of us needs to kick off with an argument. So to nip this in the bud, I don’t happen to be the sort of employer who takes advantage of his employees.‟ That didn‟t seem to have nipped anything in the bud. She was still looking at him as if he was something that had crawled out from under a rock.

„Finished here?‟ Dominic tried to sound reasonably jovial, although it was a struggle. „Or still got one or two stray accounts you want to wrap up some time today?‟ That little bit of sarcasm slipped out. It didn‟t meet with the amused smile that usually greeted his frequent bouts of sarcasm, the one he had become accustomed to. In fact, it met with a wall of reinforced steel.

„Actually, I finished the accounts quite a while ago.‟ Then, „And you wouldn‟t believe just how interesting the process was.‟

„What‟s going on here, Mattie? Care to tell me? Or are we going to talk in riddles for the next two hours while I try and get to the bottom of whatever it is you want to say?‟

„Since I‟ve been working here, I really haven‟t got involved in the accounts side of things at all. I‟ve really just been tagging along with the marketing crew, dealing with stuff from prospective clients.‟

„And you sound overjoyed at being given additional responsibility. If that responsibility happens to materialise on a Saturday morning when we‟re planning on driving up to the country, then who am I to complain?‟

„But I made a very interesting discovery this morning while I was innocently rooting through the filing cabinet in Liz‟s office in search of some files I needed.‟ Sitting down put her at a disadvantage for this conversation but she couldn‟t trust her legs if she got up.

„Oh? And what was that?‟ Dominic‟s black eyes narrowed on her face. Her highly

unreadable face, and he felt a sudden, sharp stirring of deep unease.

„Your connection with this particular group of people who have been hired to cover the marketing for the development.‟ Mattie watched his face very carefully and knew she was looking for something, some little sign that would tell her just how off target she was. No such sign. In fact, she saw him flush darkly and knew that the assumptions she had made had been spot-on.

He had manipulated her in the worst way possible. He had manoeuvred for her to get this job and, with it, the flat.

And she knew why he had done it. He had wanted her from the moment he had set eyes on her and, in his usual arrogant way, he had simply taken measures to ensure that he got what he wanted. Frankie was around, and so what better way to make sure that that inconvenience was sorted than by getting her a job in which accommodation was part of the package? He wanted her away from the dangerous divide that she had persisted in creating, and so he had simply found her a job that would elevate her into a career woman capable of stepping over the chip on her shoulder that had been holding her back.

She felt tears threaten and clenched her jaw accordingly.

„I found a letter from you stuck at the bottom of a file congratulating Bob Hodge on acquiring the building, asking him to keep you informed as to what he was going to do with it.‟

She could hear herself pleading with him for a denial that didn‟t come.

„So what did you do, Dominic?‟ she whispered. „Called in a favour? Asked him to make a space in his qualified team so that I could be slotted in? Like an imbecile who wasn‟t capable of finding a job for herself? How could you? How could you have manipulated my life like that?‟

„I wasn‟t manipulating your life, Mattie.‟ Hadn‟t he been?

„Oh, right! You once told me that you always got what you wanted. Were you just making sure that you got what you wanted even if the route was a little underhand?‟ Her voice was trembling with disappointment and anger, and when he made as though to move towards her she turned away in immediate rejection.

„OK, maybe I went around things the wrong way, and maybe I should have told you from the start that I could have got you this job, but would you have listened? Or would you have jumped on your bandwagon and denied yourself the opportunity just to be pigheaded?‟

„That‟s not the point!‟

„You haven‟t answered my question!‟

„I wanted to do things on my own. I didn‟t need any help from you!‟

„You‟re acting as though somehow I‟ve committed a crime against your pride, Mattie.

But how far does pride really get any of us?‟

„Stop trying to twist everything around so that you can emerge in a positive light.‟ It scared her how badly she wanted him to succeed. „You manipulated me. That‟s all there is to it.‟

Dominic smashed his fist down on the desk and a little container of pens and paper clips toppled over and spilled. Mattie looked at it in mute fascination.

„That is not all there is to it, dammit!‟ This time her icy expression wasn‟t enough to deter him and he covered the distance between them in a few furious seconds. „So maybe I wasn‟t as upfront as I should have been—‟

„Understatement of the year!‟ She pressed back into the chair to try and avoid his towering presence from engulfing her totally.

„If I was trying to manipulate you, wouldn‟t I have told you about the job?‟ Dominic demanded, his face so close to hers that she could see straight into the black depths of his eyes.

„Wouldn‟t I have jumped at the first chance to make you feel that you owed me? I damn well didn‟t do that, did I?‟

„Well, maybe you were just saving that as your trump card!‟ Mattie flared back.

„Something you could pull out of your sleeve if the occasion ever arose and you needed to!

Pulling strings! That‟s all you‟re good at, isn‟t it, Dominic? Just as you pulled strings with Harry to get to meet me in the first place! You think that everyone should dance to your tune and it‟s…it‟s hateful!‟

There was a charged silence and abruptly he stood up and walked away, towards the very same window against which she had been standing when he had first entered the room.

„I tried to tell you—‟

„When?‟ Mattie demanded shrilly. She swivelled the chair so that she was looking at him.

„Yesterday. I told you we needed to talk about your job. Then things got carried away and I figured I‟d tell you after the weekend.‟

Yes, she did remember him saying something along those lines. And no, the last thing she wanted to think about was how they had become carried away. Getting carried away had been her big mistake from the word go.

„I don‟t believe you, Dominic,‟ she said quietly. „You wanted me so you took the necessary steps to get me. You never spared a thought for my feelings because you don‟t know the meaning of the word sensitivity.‟ Her voice thickened with bitterness. „That‟s what our whole relationship was about. Lust. Want. Sex. No feelings anywhere in the equation.‟

„It‟s what you wanted as well, or have you decided to conveniently forget that?‟

No, she hadn‟t. She‟d just made the simple mistake of forgetting to hang on to the original deal they had struck. Because now it felt like a deal. Two people, neither wanting involvement, just giving in to their baser instincts with the unspoken agreement that it would never progress from there. It had been a rubbish deal and she could see that now, because somewhere along the way she had made the fatal error of liking him, then falling slowly in love with him.