Читать книгу Modern Romance August 2018 Books 5-8 Collection - Ким Лоренс, Julia James - Страница 15

CHAPTER FIVE

PARIS IN EARLY autumn was made for lovers. The September sky was a crisp, bright blue and the leaves on the trees were beginning to change colour and drifted to the ground like red and gold confetti.

Staring out of the window of a chauffeur-driven limousine on his way back to his hotel from a business meeting, Giannis watched couples holding hands or strolling arm in arm next to the Seine. What it was to be in love, he thought cynically. Five years ago he had fallen hard for Caroline when he’d met her during a business trip to her home state of California. Theos, he had believed that she loved him. But the truth was she had loved his money and had hoped he would pay for her father’s political campaign to become the next US President.

Caroline’s pregnancy had been a mistake but, as long as they were married, a baby, especially if it was a boy, might help her father’s campaign, she’d told Giannis. Images of widower Brice Herbert cuddling his grandchild would appeal to the electorate.

However, having a son-in-law who had served a prison sentence would have been a disaster for Brice Herbert’s political ambition. Caroline had reacted with horror when Giannis had revealed the dark secret of his past. He’d sensed that she had been relieved when she’d lost the baby. Motherhood had not been on her agenda when there was a chance she could be America’s First Lady. It was probably a blessing in disguise, she’d said, and it meant that there was no reason for them to marry. But he could never believe that the loss of his child was a blessing. It had felt as if his heart had been ripped out, and confirmed his belief that he did not deserve to be happy.

The limousine swept past the Arc de Triomphe while Giannis adeptly blocked out thoughts of his past and focused on the present. Specifically on the woman who was going to help him prove to Stefanos Markou that he had given up his playboy lifestyle. He should have predicted that Ava would argue when he had given her his credit card and sent her shopping, he brooded.

‘I packed some things when you drove me home to collect my passport. There is nothing wrong with my clothes,’ she’d told him in a stiff voice that made him want to shake her.

‘I am a wealthy man and when we are out together in public, people will expect my fiancée to be dressed in haute couture,’ he had explained patiently. ‘Fleur Laurent is a personal shopper and she will take you to the designer boutiques on the Champs-Élysées.’

Most women in Giannis’s experience would have been delighted at the chance to spend his money, but not Ava. She was irritating, incomprehensible and—he searched for another suitable adjective that best summed up his feelings for her. Ungrateful. She did not seem to appreciate that he was doing her a huge favour by dropping the criminal damage charge against her brother.

Giannis frowned as he remembered meeting Sam McKay briefly when he’d driven Ava home before they had flown to Paris. He had been surprised when she’d directed him to pull up outside a shabby terraced house. It was odd that her family had moved from Cyprus to a run-down area of East London. Perhaps there had been a change in her parents’ financial circumstances, he’d mused.

He had insisted on accompanying Ava into the house to maintain the pretence of their romance. He wasn’t going to risk her brother selling a story to the press that their engagement was fake. But, instead of a swaggering teenager, he’d discovered that Sam was a lanky, nervous-looking youth who had stammered his thanks to Giannis for dropping the criminal charges against him. Sam had admitted that he’d been stupid and regretted the mistakes he had made.

Giannis understood what it was like to regret past actions and, to his surprise, he’d found himself feeling glad that he had given Ava’s brother a chance to turn his life around. While Ava had gone upstairs to look for her passport, Sam had shyly congratulated him on becoming engaged to his sister and had voiced his opinion that Ava deserved to be happy after her previous boyfriend had broken her heart.

The limousine drew up outside the hotel and Giannis glanced at his watch. His meeting had overrun but there was just enough time for him to shower and change before the evening’s function at the Louvre started. He hoped Ava would be ready on time. Theos, he hoped she hadn’t run out on him.

He was aware of a sinking sensation in his stomach as the possibility occurred to him. He acknowledged that he had struggled to concentrate during his business meeting because he had been anticipating spending the evening with Ava. If he hadn’t known himself better he might have been concerned by his fascination with her. But experience had taught him that desire was a transitory emotion.

‘I wouldn’t have thought that you would be interested in a fashion show,’ she had remarked when he’d told her about the evening’s event.

‘The show is for new designers to demonstrate their talent. I sponsor a young Greek designer called Kris Antoniadis. You may not have heard of him, but I predict that in a few years he will be highly regarded in the fashion world. At least I certainly hope so because I am Kris’s main financial sponsor and I have invested a lot of money in him.’

‘Is money the only thing you are interested in?’ she’d asked him in a snippy tone which gave the impression she thought that making money was immoral.

He had looked her up and down and allowed his eyes linger on the firm swell of her breasts beneath her cashmere sweater. ‘It’s not the only thing that interests me,’ he’d murmured, and she’d blushed.

There was no sign of her in their hotel suite, but Giannis heard the sound of a hairdryer from the en suite bathroom. Stripping off his jacket and tie as he went, he strode into the separate shower room and then headed to the dressing room to change into a tuxedo.

He returned to the sitting room just as Ava emerged from the bedroom, and Giannis felt a sudden tightness in his chest. His brain acknowledged that the personal shopper had fulfilled the brief he’d given her to find an evening gown that was both elegant and sexy. But as he stared at Ava he was conscious of the way another area of his anatomy reacted as his blood rushed to his groin.

‘You look stunning,’ he told her, and to his own ears his voice sounded huskier than usual as his customary sangfroid deserted him.

‘Thank you. So do you.’ Soft colour stained her cheeks. Giannis was surprised by how easily she blushed. It gave her an air of vulnerability that he chose to ignore.

‘The personal shopper said I should wear a statement dress tonight—whatever a statement dress is. But I don’t think you will approve when I tell you how many noughts were on the price tag,’ she said ruefully.

‘Whatever it cost it was worth it.’ Giannis could not tear his eyes off her. The dress was made of midnight-blue velvet, strapless and fitting tightly to her hips before the skirt flared out in a mermaid style down to the floor. Around her neck she wore a matching blue velvet choker with a diamanté decoration. Her hair was caught up at the sides with silver clasps and rippled down her back in silky waves.

He had a mental image of her lying on the bed wearing only the velvet choker, her creamy skin and luscious curves displayed for his delectation. Desire ran hot and urgent through his veins and he was tempted to turn his vision into reality.

Perhaps Ava could read his mind. ‘I don’t know why you booked a hotel suite with only one bedroom. The deal was for me to be your fake fiancée.’ She walked past him and picked up the phone. ‘I’m going to call reception and ask for a room of my own.’

Giannis crossed the room in two strides and snatched the receiver out of her hand. ‘If you do that, how long do you think it will take for a member of the hotel’s staff to reveal on social media that we don’t share a bed? We are supposed to be madly in love,’ he reminded her.

‘Did you assume I would be your convenient mistress for the next month? You’ve got a damned nerve,’ she snapped.

He considered proving to her that it had been a reasonable assumption to make. Sexual chemistry simmered between them and all it would take was one kiss, one touch, to cause a nuclear explosion. He watched her tongue dart out to moisten her lower lip and the beast inside him roared.

Somehow Giannis brought his raging hormones under control. What was important was that their ‘romance’ gained as much public exposure as possible so that Stefanos Markou believed he was a reformed character preparing to devote himself to marriage and family—the ideals that Stefanos believed in.

Throughout the day Giannis had asked himself why he was going to the lengths of pretending to be engaged, simply to tip a business opportunity in his favour. But the truth was that he needed Markou Shipping’s fleet of ships to enable him to expand his cruise line company into the river-cruising market. The ships could be refitted during the winter and be ready to take passengers early next summer, which would put TGE ahead of its main competitors.

‘We can sort out sleeping arrangements later,’ he told Ava. ‘The car is waiting to take us to the Louvre. Are you ready for our first performance, agápi mou?’

‘I am not your love.’

‘You are when we are out in public.’ He took hold of her arm and frowned when she flinched away from him. ‘You’ll have to do better than that if we are going to convince anyone that our relationship is genuine.’ Impatience flared in him at her mutinous expression. ‘We made a deal and I have carried out my side of it,’ he reminded her. ‘You told me that I would have to trust you, and I did. But perhaps I was a fool to believe your word?’

‘I am completely trustworthy,’ she said in a fierce voice. ‘I will pretend to be your fiancée. But why would anyone believe that you—a handsome billionaire playboy who has dated some of the world’s most beautiful women—have fallen in love with an ordinary, nothing special woman like me?’ She worried her bottom lip with her teeth. ‘What are we going to say if anyone asks how we met?’

He shrugged. ‘We’ll tell them the truth. We met at a dinner party and there was an immediate attraction between us. And, by the way, there is nothing ordinary about the way you look in that dress,’ he growled, his eyes fixed on her pert derrière encased in tight blue velvet when she turned around to check her appearance in the mirror.

‘Sexual attraction is not the same thing as falling in love,’ she muttered.

She was nervous, Giannis realised with a jolt of surprise. If he had been asked to describe Ava he would have said that she was determined and strong—he guessed she’d have to be in her job working with crime victims. But the faint tremor of her mouth revealed an unexpected vulnerability that he could not simply dismiss. For their fake engagement to be successful, he realised that he would have to win her confidence and earn her trust.

He lifted his hand to brush a stray tendril of hair off her face. ‘But mutual attraction is how all relationships begin, isn’t it?’ he said softly. ‘You meet someone and wham. At first there is a purely physical response, an alchemy which sparks desire. From those roots love might begin to grow and flourish.’ His jaw hardened as he thought of Caroline. ‘But it is just as likely to wither and die.’

‘Are you speaking from experience?’ Ava’s gentle tone pulled Giannis’s mind from the past and he stiffened when he saw something that looked worryingly like compassion in her grey eyes. If she knew the truth about him he was sure that her sympathy would fade as quickly as Caroline had fallen out of love with him.

For a fraction of a second he felt a crazy impulse to admit to Ava that sometimes when he saw a child of about four years old he felt an ache in his heart for the child he might have had. If Caroline hadn’t... No. He would not think of what she might have done. There was no point in torturing himself with the idea that Caroline had ended her inconvenient pregnancy after he had told her he’d been to prison. The possibility that his crass irresponsibility when he was nineteen had ultimately resulted in the loss of two lives was unbearable.

Ignoring Ava’s question, he walked across the room and opened the door. ‘We need to go,’ he told her curtly, and to his relief she preceded him out of the suite without saying another word.

* * *

Ava applauded the models as they sashayed down the runway in the magnificent Sculpture Hall of the Musée du Louvre. The venue of the fashion show was breathtaking, and the clothes worn by the impossibly slender models ranged from exquisite to frankly extraordinary. The collection by the Greek designer Kris Antoniadis brought delighted murmurs from the audience, and the fashion journalist sitting in the front row next to Ava endorsed Giannis’s prediction that Kris, as he was simply known, was the next big thing in the fashion world.

‘Of course Kris could not have got this far in his career without a wealthy sponsor,’ Diane Duberry, fashion editor of a women’s magazine, explained to Ava. ‘Giannis Gekas is regarded as a great philanthropist for his support of the Greek people during the country’s recent problems. He set up a charity which awards bursaries to young entrepreneurs trying to establish businesses in Greece. But I don’t know why I am telling you about Giannis when you must know everything about him.’

Diane looked at Giannis’s hand resting possessively on Ava’s knee, and then at the pink sapphire ring on Ava’s finger, and speculation gleamed in her eyes. ‘You succeeded where legions of other women have failed and tamed the tiger. Where did the two of you meet?’

‘Um...we were seated next to each other at a dinner party.’ Ava felt herself flush guiltily even though technically it was the truth.

‘Lucky you.’ Diane winked at her. ‘Who needs a dessert from the sweet trolley when a gorgeous Greek hunk is on the menu?’

Ava was saved from having to think of a reply when the compère of the fashion show came onto the stage and announced that the Young Designer award had been won by the Greek designer, Kris Antoniadis. Kris then appeared on the runway accompanied by models wearing dresses from his bridal collection.

Giannis stood up and drew Ava to her feet. ‘Showtime,’ he murmured in her ear. ‘Just smile and follow my lead.’

Without giving her a chance to protest, he slid his arm around her waist and whisked her up the steps and onto the runway, just as Kris was explaining to the audience how grateful he was to Giannis Gekas for supporting his career. There was more applause and brilliant flashes of light from camera flashes when Giannis stepped forwards, tugging Ava with him.

‘I cannot think of a better place to announce my engagement to my beautiful fiancée than in Paris, the world’s most romantic city,’ he told the audience. With a flourish he lifted Ava’s hand up to his mouth and pressed his lips to the pink sapphire heart on her finger.

He was a brilliant actor, she thought caustically. Her skin burned where his lips had brushed and she wanted to snatch her hand back and denounce their engagement as a lie. The idea of deceiving people went against her personal moral code of honesty and integrity. But she must abide by her promise to be Giannis’s fake fiancée because he had honoured his word and halted criminal proceedings against her brother.

And so she obediently showed her engagement ring to the press photographers and looked adoringly into Giannis’s eyes for the cameras.

At the after-show party she remained by his side, smiling up at him as if she was besotted with him. For his part he kept his arm around her while they strolled around the room, stopping frequently so that he could introduce her to people he knew.

Waiters threaded through the crowded room carrying trays of canapés and drinks. Ava sipped champagne and felt the bubbles explode on her tongue. Her senses seemed sharper, and she was intensely aware of Giannis’s hand resting on her waist and the brush of his thigh against hers. He was holding a flute of champagne but she noted that he never drank from it.

‘Do you ever drink alcohol?’ she asked him curiously. ‘You didn’t have any wine at the fundraising dinner, and I noticed that you are not drinking tonight.’

‘How very perceptive of you, glykiá mou.’ He spoke lightly, but Ava felt him stiffen. ‘I avoid drinking alcohol because I like to keep a clear head.’

Something told her there was more to him being teetotal than he had admitted. But, before she could pursue the subject, he took her glass out of her fingers and gave it and his own glass to a passing waiter. Catching hold of her hand, he led her onto the dance floor and swept her into his arms.

Her head swam, not from the effects of the few sips of champagne she’d had, but from the intoxicating heat of Giannis’s body pressed up against hers and the divine fragrance of his aftershave mixed with his own unique male scent. He was a good dancer and moved with a natural rhythm as he steered them around the dance floor, hip to hip, her breasts crushed against the hard wall of his chest. He slid one hand down to the base of her spine and spread his fingers over her bottom. Her breath caught in her throat when she felt the solid ridge of his arousal through their clothes.

Ava closed her eyes and reminded herself that Giannis’s attentiveness was an act to promote the deception that they were engaged. But there was nothing pretend about the sexual chemistry that sizzled between them. She had never been more aware of a man, or of her own femininity, in her life. Her traitorous mind pictured the big bed in the hotel suite they were sharing. Of course she had no intention of also sharing the bed with him, she assured herself. She had agreed to be his fake fiancée in public only.

But, to keep up the pretence, when the disco music changed to a romantic ballad and Giannis pulled her closer, she slid her hands up to his shoulders. And when he bent his head and brushed his mouth over hers, she parted her lips and kissed him with a fervour that drew a low groan from him.

‘We have to get out of here,’ he said hoarsely.

Her legs felt unsteady when he abruptly dropped his arms away from her. ‘Come,’ he growled, clamping his arm around her waist and practically lifting her off her feet as he hurried them out of the museum. The car was waiting for them and, once he had bundled her onto the back seat and closed the privacy screen between them and the driver, he lifted her onto his lap, thrust one hand into her hair and dragged her mouth beneath his.

His kiss was hot and urgent, a ravishment of her senses, as passion exploded between them. Ava sensed a wildness in Giannis that made her shake with need. She remembered Diane Duberry, the fashion journalist at the show, had congratulated her for having tamed the tiger. But the truth was that Giannis would never allow any woman to control him.

Her head was spinning when he finally tore his mouth from hers to allow them to drag oxygen into their lungs. His chest heaved, and when she placed her hand over his heart she felt its thudding, erratic beat. The car sped smoothly through the dark Paris streets and Ava succumbed to the master sorcerer’s magic. Giannis trailed his lips down her throat and over one naked shoulder. She did not realise he had unzipped her dress until he tugged the bodice down and cradled her breasts in his big hands.

Her sensible head reminded her that it was shockingly decadent to be half naked in the back of a car and her wanton behaviour was not what she expected of herself. But her thoughts scattered when Giannis bent his head and his warm breath teased one nipple before he closed his mouth around the rosy peak and sucked, hard. Ava could not repress a moan of pleasure, and when he transferred his attention to her other nipple she ran her fingers through his silky dark hair and prayed that he would never stop what he was doing to her.

‘I have no intention of stopping, glykiá mou,’ he said in an amused voice. Colour flared on her face as she realised that she had spoken her plea aloud. But when he returned his mouth to her breasts she tipped her head back and gasped as lightning bolts of sensation shot down to her molten core between her thighs.

Giannis yanked up her long flared skirt and skimmed his hand over one stocking-clad leg, but the dress was designed to fit tightly over her hips and he could not go any further. He swore. ‘I hope the other clothes you bought are more accessible.’

Ava shared his frustration but while she was wondering if she could possibly wriggle out of her dress the car came to a halt and Giannis shifted her off his knees. ‘We’ve arrived at the hotel,’ he said coolly, straightening his tie and running a hand through his hair. ‘You had better tidy yourself up.’

His words catapulted her back to reality and she frantically pulled the top of her dress into place. ‘Will you zip me up?’

He refastened her dress seconds before the driver opened the rear door. Giannis stepped onto the pavement and offered Ava his hand. She blinked in the glare of camera flashes going off around them. Photographers were gathered outside the entrance to the hotel and she felt mortified as she imagined how dishevelled she must look as she emerged from the car.

‘Here, have this.’ Giannis slipped off his jacket and draped it around her shoulders. Glancing down, Ava saw that she had failed to pull the top of her dress up high enough, and her breasts were in danger of spilling out. Hot-faced, she huddled into his jacket as he escorted her into the hotel.

They entered the lift and Ava’s reflection in the mirrored walls confirmed the worst. ‘I look like a harlot,’ she choked, running her finger over her swollen mouth. ‘The photographers must have guessed we were making out on the back seat of the car. If the pictures they took just now appear in tomorrow’s newspapers, everyone will think that we can’t keep our hands off each other.’

Giannis was leaning against the lift wall, one ankle crossed over the other and his hands shoved into his trouser pockets. His bow tie was dangling loose and Ava flushed as she remembered how she had frenziedly torn off his tie and undone several of his shirt buttons. He looked calm and unruffled, the exact opposite of how she felt.

‘The point of tonight was to advertise the news of our engagement to the press.’ He dropped his gaze to where her breasts were partially exposed above the top of her dress. ‘Thanks to your wardrobe malfunction we certainly got maximum exposure,’ he drawled.

He sounded amused, and Ava felt sick as she realised what a fool she was. ‘I suppose you knew that the paparazzi would be at our hotel,’ she said stiffly. ‘Is that why you made love to me in the car?’

‘Actually I didn’t know. But I should have guessed that they would find out which hotel we are staying at.’ His eyes narrowed on her flushed face. ‘I’m sorry if the photographers upset you.’

‘I’m sorry that I ever agreed to be your fake fiancée.’ The lift stopped at the top floor and she preceded Giannis along the corridor, despising herself for her fierce awareness of him even now, after he had humiliated her.

‘But you are not sorry that your brother has avoided a prison sentence,’ he said drily as he opened the door of their suite and ushered her inside. He caught hold of her arm and spun her round to face him. ‘I kissed you because you have driven me insane all evening and I couldn’t help myself. I have never wanted any woman as badly as I want you.’

With an effort Ava resisted the lure of his husky, accented voice that almost fooled her into believing he meant it. ‘You can stop acting now that there is no audience to deceive. We’re alone, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

His dark eyes gleamed. ‘I am very aware of that fact, glykiá mou.’