Читать книгу Modern Romance August 2018 Books 5-8 Collection - Ким Лоренс, Julia James - Страница 14

CHAPTER FOUR

‘YOU’VE GOT A damned nerve.’

Giannis flicked a glance at Ava, sitting stiffly beside him. It was the first time she had uttered a word since he had bundled her into his car and driven away from the hotel. But her simmering silence had spoken volumes.

Tendrils of honey-blonde hair had worked loose from her chignon to curl around her cheeks. She smelled of soap and lemony shampoo and he had no idea why he found her wholesome, natural beauty so incredibly sexy. He cursed beneath his breath. She was an unwelcome distraction but she might be the solution to his problem with Stefanos Markou.

He focused his attention on the traffic crawling around Marble Arch. ‘It was damage limitation,’ he drawled. ‘Thanks to social media, pictures of us leaving the hotel will have gone viral within minutes. I couldn’t risk my reputation. Anyone who saw the photographs of us together would have assumed that you are my latest mistress.’

Ava made a strangled sound. ‘You couldn’t risk your reputation? What about mine? Everyone will believe that I am engaged to the world’s worst womaniser. I can’t believe you told the photographers that I am your fiancée.’ She ran a hand through her hair, evidently forgetting that she had secured it on top of her head. Her chignon started to unravel and she cursed as she pulled out the remaining pins and combed her fingers through her hair.

‘You’re right,’ she muttered, scrolling through her phone. ‘The news of our so-called engagement is all over social media. Thankfully my mother is at a yoga retreat in India where there is no Internet connection. She was seriously stressed about my brother and I persuaded her to go abroad and leave me to deal with the court case. But Sam is bound to see this nonsense and I can’t imagine what he’s going to say.’

‘Presumably he will be grateful to you for helping him to avoid going to prison,’ Giannis said drily. He sensed Ava turn her head to stare at him, and a brief glance in her direction revealed that her eyes were the icy grey of an Arctic sky.

‘You can’t really expect me to go through with the ridiculous charade of pretending to be your fiancée,’ she snapped.

‘Oh, but I can, glykiá mou.’

For some reason her furious snort made him want to smile. Usually he avoided highly emotional women but Ava’s wildly passionate nature fascinated him. She was beautiful when she was angry and even more gorgeous when she was aroused, he brooded. Memories of her straddling him, her golden hair tumbling around her shoulders and her bare breasts, round and firm like ripe peaches, caused Giannis to shift uncomfortably in his seat.

He cleared his throat. ‘I thought you wanted to keep your brother out of jail?’

‘I do. But two minutes before we walked out of the hotel you had refused to help Sam. I don’t understand why you have changed your mind, or why you need me to be your fake fiancée.’

‘Like I said, the reason is business. More specifically, the only chance I have of doing a deal with Stefanos Markou is if I can prove to him that I am a reformed character. He has refused to sell Markou Shipping to me because he disapproves of my lifestyle and he thinks I am a playboy.’

‘You are a playboy,’ Ava interrupted.

‘Not any more.’ Giannis grinned at her. ‘Not since I fell in love with you at first sight and decided to marry you and produce a tribe of children. Markou is an old-fashioned romantic and you, angel-face, are going to persuade him to sell his ships to me.’

Her expression became even more wintry. ‘There’s not a chance in hell that I’d marry you and even less chance I’d agree to have your children.’

Giannis’s fingers tightened involuntarily on the steering wheel as a shaft of pain caught him unawares. He had thought he’d dealt with what had happened five years ago, but sometimes he felt an ache in his heart for the child he might have had. Caroline had told him she’d suffered a miscarriage, but in his darkest hours he wondered if she had decided not to allow her pregnancy to continue because she hadn’t wanted to be associated with him after he’d admitted that he had spent a year in prison.

He forced his mind away from the past. ‘Forgive me for sounding cynical, but I am a very wealthy man and most women I’ve ever met would happily marry for hard cash. However, I have no intention of marrying you. I simply want you to pretend that we are engaged and planning our wedding. I’m gambling that Stefanos would prefer to sell Markou Shipping to me rather than to a rival company because he knows I will have the ships refurbished in Greece and employ the local workforce. All we have to do is convince him that I have turned into a paragon of virtue thanks to the love of a good woman.’

‘How are we going to do that?’ Ava’s tone dripped ice.

‘I will make a formal announcement of our engagement and ensure that our relationship receives as much media coverage as possible. Stefanos has invited all the bidders who are interested in buying his company to meet him on his private Greek island in one month’s time. With you by my side, an engagement ring on your finger, I am confident that he will sell Markou Shipping to me. The deal is as good as done,’ he said with satisfaction.

She frowned. ‘Are you saying that—supposing I was mad enough to agree to the pretence—I would have to be your fake fiancée for a whole month and go to Greece with you?’

‘One month is less than the prison sentence your brother would be likely to receive,’ Giannis reminded her. ‘It will be necessary for you to live at my home in Greece because Stefanos is not stupid and he will only believe our relationship is genuine if we are seen together regularly. From now on, every time we are out in public we must act as if we are madly in love.’

‘It would require better acting skills than I possess,’ Ava muttered.

‘On the contrary, I thought you were very convincing when you kissed me outside the hotel.’

She made a choked sound as if she had swallowed a wasp. ‘I was in a state of shock after hearing you tell the photographers that I was your fiancée.’ After a tense pause, she said, ‘What will happen if Stefanos sells his company to you and then we end our fake engagement and you go back to your bachelor lifestyle that he disapproves of? Won’t he be angry when he realises he was duped?’

Giannis shrugged. ‘There will be nothing he can do once the sale is finalised.’

‘Isn’t that rather unfair?’

‘Life is not always fair.’ Irritation made his voice curt. He really did not need a lecture on morals from Ava. ‘It was not fair that your brother wrecked my boat, but I am offering you a way to help Sam stay out of prison. Face it, angel-face, we both need each other.’

‘I suppose so,’ she muttered. ‘But I can’t give up a month of my life. What am I supposed to do about my job, for instance?’

‘You told me you are between jobs since you moved from Scotland to London. What do you do, anyway? I noticed you avoided talking about your career.’

She grimaced. ‘I am a victim care officer, and I try to help people who have been the victims of crime. I worked for a victim support charity in Glasgow and I have been offered a similar role with an organisation in London.’

‘When will you start the new job?’

Ava seemed reluctant to answer him. ‘The post starts in November.’

‘So there is nothing to stop you posing as my fiancée now.’

‘You are so arrogant. Do you always expect people to jump at your command? How do you know that I don’t have a boyfriend?’

‘If you do, I suggest you dump him because he clearly doesn’t satisfy you in bed.’ Giannis’s lips twitched when Ava muttered something uncomplimentary. She was prickly and defensive and he had no idea why she fascinated him. Well, he had some idea, he acknowledged derisively as he pictured her sprawled on black silk sheets wearing only a pair of sheer stockings. He glanced at her and she quickly turned her head away, but not before he’d seen a flash of awareness in her eyes.

Last night they had been dynamite in bed and sex with her had been the best he’d had in a long, long time. Was that why he had come up with the fake engagement plan? Giannis dismissed the idea. He’d been forced to take drastic action when the paparazzi had snapped him and Ava leaving the hotel, having clearly spent the night together. He could not risk that his playboy reputation might lose him the deal with Stefanos Markou.

His inconvenient desire for Ava would no doubt fade once he had secured Markou’s fleet of ships. The only thing he cared about was fulfilling the promise he had made over his father’s coffin, to provide for his mother and sister. Money and the trappings of wealth were all that he could give them to try to make up for what he had stolen from them. Yet sometimes his single-minded pursuit of success felt soulless, and sometimes he wondered what would happen if he ever opened the Pandora’s Box of his emotions. It was safer to keep the lid closed.

‘Did you choose to work with crime victims because your brother got into trouble with the police?’ Giannis succumbed to his curiosity about Ava. She had made an unusual career choice for someone who had learned etiquette and social graces at a Swiss finishing school. At dinner last night he had noted how comfortable she was with the other wealthy guests, and he was confident she would act the role of his fiancée with grace and charm that would delight Stefanos Markou.

She shook her head. ‘Sam was still in primary school when I went to university to study criminology.’

‘Why criminology?’

For some reason she stiffened, but her voice was non-committal. ‘I found it an interesting subject. But moving away to study and work in Scotland meant I wasn’t around to spot the signs that Sam was having problems, or that my mother didn’t know how to cope with him when he fell in with a rough crowd.’ She sighed. ‘I blame myself.’

‘Why do you blame yourself for your brother’s behaviour? Each of us has to take responsibility for our actions.’

Every day of the past fifteen years, Giannis had regretted that he’d drunk a glass of wine when he and his father had dined together at a taverna. Later, on the journey back to the family home, he had driven too fast along the coastal road from Athens and misjudged a sharp bend. Nothing could excuse his fatal error of judgement. If there was any justice in the world then he would have died that night instead of his father.

Ava insisted that her brother regretted taking a gang of thugs aboard Nerissa and damaging the boat. She clearly loved her brother, and Giannis felt a begrudging admiration for her determination to help Sam. He remembered how scared he had felt at nineteen when he had stood in a courtroom and heard the judge sentence him to a year in prison.

He had deserved his punishment and prison had been nothing compared to the lifetime of self-recrimination and contempt he had sentenced himself to. The car accident had been a terrible mistake, yet not one of his relatives had supported him. His sister had been too young to understand, but his mother would never stop blaming him, Giannis thought heavily.

He looked at Ava and she blushed and quickly turned her head to the front as if she was embarrassed that he had caught her staring at him.

‘What about your father?’ he asked her as he slipped the car into gear and pulled away from the traffic lights. At least the traffic was flowing better as they headed towards Camden. ‘Did he try to give guidance to your brother?’

‘Dad...left when Sam was eight years old.’

‘Did you and your brother have any contact with him after that?’

‘No.’

‘It is my belief that children, especially boys, benefit from having a good relationship with their father. Although I realise my views might be regarded as old-fashioned by feminists,’ Giannis said drily.

* * *

‘I suppose it would depend on how good the father was,’ Ava muttered.

She glanced at Giannis’s hard profile and wondered what he would say if she told him that it had been difficult for her and Sam to have a relationship with their father after he had been sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Her mother had refused to allow Sam to visit Terry McKay at the maximum-security jail which housed some of the UK’s most dangerous criminals. Ava had visited her father once, but she had found the experience traumatic. It had been bad enough having to suffer the indignity of being searched by a warden to make sure she was not smuggling drugs or weapons into the jail.

Seeing her father in prison had been like looking at a stranger. She had found it impossible to accept that the man she had trusted and adored had, unbeknown to his family, been a violent criminal and ruthless gangland boss. The name Terry McKay was still feared by some people in the East End of London. Perhaps if Sam had seen the grim reality of life behind bars he might not hero-worship his father as a modern-day Robin Hood character, Ava thought heavily. She was prepared to do everything in her power to prevent her brother from turning to a life of crime, and keeping him out of a young offender institution was vital. Giannis had offered her a way to give Sam another chance, but could she really be his fake fiancée?

She had assumed after they had spent the night together that she would never see him again. Memories of her wildly passionate response to his lovemaking made her want to squirm with embarrassment, but she remembered too how he had groaned when he had climaxed inside her. Did he intend that they would be lovers for the duration of their fake engagement? The little shiver of anticipation that ran through her made her despair of herself. If she had an ounce of common sense she would refuse to have anything more to do with him.

But there was Sam to consider.

Desperate to stop her thoughts from going round in circles, she searched for something to say to Giannis. ‘Do you have a good relationship with your father?’ If she could build up a picture of him—his family and friends, his values, she might have a better understanding of him.

He was silent for so long that she thought he was not going to answer. ‘I did,’ he said at last in a curt voice. ‘My father is dead.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Evidently she had touched a raw nerve, and his forbidding expression warned her to back off. She sighed. ‘This isn’t going to work. We are two strangers who know nothing about each other. We’ll never convince anyone that we are madly in love and planning to get married.’

To her surprise, Giannis nodded. ‘We will have to spend some time getting to know each other. I can’t afford any slip-ups when we meet Stefanos. Let’s start with some basics. Why do you and your brother have different surnames? Have you ever been married?’

‘No.’ Her voice was sharper than she had intended, and she flushed when he threw her a speculative look before he turned his eyes back to the road. For some reason she found herself explaining. ‘There was someone who I was sure...’ She bit her lip. ‘But I was wrong. He didn’t love me the way I’d hoped.’

‘Did you love him?’

‘I thought I did.’ She did not want to talk about Craig. ‘After my parents divorced I took my mother’s maiden name.’

Ava breathed a sigh of relief when he did not pursue the subject of her brother’s surname. Giannis was Greek and it was possible that he did not associate the name McKay with an East End gangster. If he knew of the crimes her father had committed she was sure he wouldn’t want her to pose as his fake fiancée and he was likely to refuse to drop the charges against Sam.

Giannis slowed the car to allow a bus to pull out. ‘Where did you learn Greek? I did not think the language is routinely taught in English schools.’

‘My family lived in Cyprus when I was a child, although I went to boarding school in France and then spent ten months at a finishing school in Switzerland.’

‘Why did your parents choose not to live in England?’

‘Um...my mother hated the English weather.’ It was partly the truth, but years later Ava had learned that the real reason her father had taken his family to live abroad had been the lack of an extradition agreement between the UK and Cyprus, which had meant that Terry could not be arrested and sent back to England.

Her thoughts were distracted when a cyclist suddenly swerved in front of the car. Only Giannis’s lightning reaction as he slammed on the brakes saved the cyclist from being knocked off his bike.

‘That was a close call.’ She looked over at Giannis and was shocked to see that he was grey beneath his tan. His skin was drawn so tight across his face that his sharp cheekbones were prominent. Beads of sweat glistened on his brow and she noticed that his hand shook when he raked his fingers through his hair.

Ahead there was an empty space by the side of the road and Ava waited until he had parked the car and switched off the engine before she murmured, ‘You didn’t hit the cyclist. He was riding like an idiot and it was fortunate for him that you are a good driver.’

Giannis gave an odd laugh that almost sounded as though he was in pain. ‘You don’t know anything about me, angel-face.’

‘That’s the point I’ve been making,’ she said quietly. ‘We are not going to be able to carry off a fake engagement.’

‘For your brother’s sake you had better hope that we do.’ The stark warning in Giannis’s voice increased Ava’s tension, and when he got out of the car and walked round to open her door she froze when she recognised an area of London that was painfully familiar to her.

‘Why have we come here? I thought you were taking me home.’ It occurred to her that he had not asked where she lived, and she had been so stunned after he’d told the photographers she was his fiancée that she had let him drive her away from the hotel without asking where they were going.

‘Hatton Garden is the best place to buy jewellery.’

‘That doesn’t explain why you have brought me here.’ She was aware that Hatton Garden was known worldwide as London’s jewellery quarter and the centre of the UK’s diamond trade. It was also the place where her father had masterminded and carried out his most audacious robbery.

Ava remembered when she was a little girl, before the family had moved to Cyprus, her father had often taken her for walks to Covent Garden and St Paul’s Cathedral. They had always ended up in Hatton Garden and strolled past the many jewellery shops with their windows full of sparkling precious gems. She had loved those trips with her father, unware that Terry McKay had been assessing which shops would be the easiest to break into.

‘For our engagement to be believable you will need to wear an engagement ring. Preferably a diamond the size of a rock that you can flash in front of the photographers,’ Giannis drawled. He glanced at his watch. ‘Try not to take too long choosing one.’ He took his phone out of his jacket pocket. ‘I need to tell my pilot to have the jet ready for us to leave earlier than I’d originally planned.’

Ava stared at him. ‘You own a jet?’

‘It’s the quickest way to get around. We should be in Paris by lunchtime. I’m going to be busy this afternoon but I’ll arrange for a personal shopper to help you choose some suitable clothes. This evening we will be attending a high-profile function at the Louvre that is bound to attract a lot of media interest. By tomorrow morning half the world will believe that we are in love.’

‘Wait...’ She stiffened when he slid his hand beneath her elbow and tried to lead her towards a jewellery store. Her heart plummeted when she saw the name above the shop front.

Ten years ago her father had carried out an armed robbery at the prestigious Engerfield’s jewellers and stolen jewellery with a value of several million pounds. But Terry McKay’s luck had finally run out and he had been caught trying to flee back to Cyprus on his boat. In court, CCTV footage had shown him threatening a young female shop assistant with a shotgun.

Ava had been devastated to discover that her father was a ruthless gangster. Even worse, several national newspapers had published a photo of her and her mother with the suggestion that they must have been aware of Terry’s criminal activities. If Julie McKay had harboured suspicions about her husband, she had not told her daughter. But Ava knew that her mother had worshipped Terry and been blind to his faults.

She stared at the jewellery shop. ‘I can’t go in there.’

Giannis frowned. ‘Why not? Engerfield’s is arguably the best jewellers in London.’

‘What I mean is that I can’t wear an engagement ring or go to Paris with you until I’ve seen my brother and explained that our relationship is fake.’

‘You cannot tell anyone the truth in case someone leaks information to the press. I mean it,’ Giannis said harshly as Ava opened her mouth to argue. ‘No one must have any idea that our engagement is not real.’

‘But what am I going to say to Sam?’

He shrugged. ‘You’ll have to invent a story that we met a few weeks ago, and after a whirlwind romance I asked you to marry me. That will explain why I dropped the charges against Sam because I did not want to prosecute my future brother-in-law.’

‘I don’t want to lie to my brother,’ she choked. ‘I hate deception.’

‘Do you really want to have to admit to him that you slept with me the night we met? That is the truth, Ava, and I will have no qualms about telling Sam how we got into this situation.’

‘You told the paparazzi that I am your fiancée. The situation is all your fault.’ She winced when Giannis tightened his grip on her arm and escorted her through the door of the jewellers.

‘Smile,’ he instructed her in a low tone when a silver-haired man walked over to meet them.

Somehow Ava managed to force her lips to curve upwards, but inside she was quaking as she recognised Nigel Engerfield. Ten years ago he had been commended for his bravery after he had tried to protect his staff from the gang of armed thieves led by her father. At the time of her father’s trial Ava remembered seeing the shop manager’s photograph in the newspapers. Would he remember her from the photo of Terry McKay’s family that had appeared in the press a decade ago? She was sure she did not imagine that the manager gave her a close look, but to her relief he turned his gaze from her and smiled at Giannis.

‘Mr Gekas, what a pleasure to see you again. How can I help you?’

‘We would like to choose an engagement ring. Wouldn’t we, darling?’ Giannis slid his arm around Ava’s waist and his dark eyes glittered as he met her startled glance. ‘This is my fiancée...’

‘Miss Sheridan,’ Ava said quickly, holding out her hand to Nigel Engerfield. She was scared he might remember that Terry McKay had a daughter called Ava.

‘Please accept my congratulations, Mr Gekas and... Miss Sheridan.’ The manager’s gaze lingered on Ava. ‘If you would like to follow me, I will take you to one of our private sitting rooms so that you can be comfortable while you take your time to peruse our collection of engagement rings. Is there a particular style or gemstone that you are interested in?’

‘What woman doesn’t love diamonds?’ Giannis drawled.

Nigel Engerfield nodded and left the room, returning a few minutes later carrying several trays of rings, and accompanied by an assistant bearing a bottle of champagne and two glasses. The champagne cork popped and the assistant handed Ava a flute of the sparkling drink. She took a cautious sip, aware that she had not eaten breakfast. Maybe Giannis had the same thought because he set his glass down on the table without drinking from it.

‘Please sit down and take as much time as you like choosing your perfect ring,’ the manager invited Ava, placing the trays of rings on the table in front of her.

She looked down at the glittering, sparkling rings and felt sick as she remembered how, when she was a little girl, she had loved trying on her mother’s jewellery. After her father had been arrested, the police had confiscated all the jewels that Terry had stolen—including her mother’s wedding ring. Everything from Ava’s privileged childhood—the luxury villa in Cyprus, the exotic holidays and expensive private education—had been paid for with the proceeds of her father’s criminal activities. There was nothing she could do to erase her sense of guilt, but working as a VCO was at least some sort of reparation for what her father had done.

‘Do you see anything you like, darling?’ Giannis’s voice jolted her from the past. She looked over to where he was standing by the window. Sunlight streamed through the glass, and his dark hair gleamed like raw silk when he ran a careless hand through it. His face was all angles and planes, as beautiful as a sculpted work of art. But he was not made from cold marble. Last night his skin had felt warm beneath her fingertips when she had explored his magnificent body.

Ava could recall every detail of his honed musculature that was now hidden beneath his superbly tailored suit. Oh, yes, she saw something she liked, she silently answered his question. His eyes captured hers, and her heart missed a beat when she glimpsed a predatory gleam in his gaze.

Hastily she looked down at the glittering rings displayed against black velvet cushions. Even though the shop manager had suggested she should take her time to choose a ring, she knew that Giannis wanted her to hurry up.

Inexplicably a wave of sadness swept over her. Choosing an engagement ring was supposed to be a special occasion for couples who were in love. The young assistant who had poured the champagne had looked enviously at Giannis and clearly believed that their romance was genuine. But Ava knew she was an imposter. The web of deceit they were spinning would grow and spread as they sought to convince Stefanos Markou that Giannis had given up his womanising ways because he had fallen in love with her. But of course he never would love her. He needed her so that he could win a business deal and she needed him to save her brother from prison.

What they were doing was wrong, Ava thought miserably. How could she even trust that Giannis would keep his side of their arrangement? He was playing the role of attentive lover faultlessly, but it was just an act—although that did not stop a stupid, idiotic part of her from wishing that his tender smile was real.

‘Sweetheart?’ Giannis walked over to the sofa and sat down beside her. ‘If you don’t like any of the rings, I am sure Mr Engerfield has others that you can look at.’

She swallowed. ‘I can’t do this...’

The rest of her words were smothered by Giannis’s mouth as he swiftly lowered his head and kissed her. ‘I think you are a little overwhelmed by the occasion,’ he murmured, smiling softly at her stunned expression. He looked over at the shop manager. ‘Would you mind leaving us alone?’

As soon as Nigel Engerfield and his assistant had stepped out of the room, Giannis did not try to hide his impatience. ‘What is the matter?’ he growled to Ava. ‘All you have to do is choose a diamond ring, but anyone would think you are about to undergo root canal treatment.’

‘I never wear jewellery and I hate diamonds,’ she muttered.

He swore. ‘I thought we had an agreement, but if you’ve changed your mind I will find another way to persuade Stefanos Markou to sell his ships to me—and your brother will go to prison.’

Ava bit her lip. ‘How do I know that you will drop the charges against my brother?’

‘You have my word.’

‘Your word means nothing.’ She ignored the flash of anger in his eyes. ‘Phone your lawyer now and instruct that you no longer want to press charges against Sam.’

Giannis glared at her. ‘How do I know you won’t immediately go to the press and deny that you are my fiancée?’

‘You’ll have to trust me.’ Ava glared back at him and refused to be cowed by his black stare. In the tense silence that stretched between them she could hear the loud thud of her heart in her ears. Giannis was a man used to being in control, but if he thought she was a pushover he had a nasty surprise coming to him.

Finally he took out his phone and made a call. ‘It’s done,’ he told her moments later. ‘You heard me inform my lawyer that I have decided not to press a charge of criminal damage against Sam McKay. Now it is your turn to keep to your side of the bargain.’

Ava felt light-headed with relief that Sam would not face prosecution and prison. ‘I won’t let you down,’ she assured Giannis huskily. She glanced at the trays and selected an ostentatious diamond solitaire ring. ‘Does this have enough bling to impress the paparazzi?’

He frowned at her choice and studied the other rings. ‘This one is better,’ he said as he picked out a ring and slid it onto her finger.

She stared down at her hand, and her throat felt oddly constricted. ‘Really?’ she tried to ignore the emotions swirling inside her as she said sarcastically, ‘Don’t you think a pink heart is romantic overload?’

‘It’s a pink sapphire. You said you dislike diamonds, although there are a few small diamonds surrounding the heart. But the ring is pretty and elegant and it suits your small hand.’

The ring was a perfect fit on her finger and, despite Ava’s insistence that she did not like jewellery, she instantly fell in love with the pink sapphire’s simplicity and delicate beauty. Once again she felt a tug on her heart. Didn’t every woman secretly yearn for love and marriage, for the man of her dreams to place a beautiful ring on her finger and tell her that he loved her?

Giannis was hardly her fairy tale prince, she reminded herself. If they had not been spotted by the paparazzi leaving the hotel together, she would have been just another of his one-night stands. She stood up abruptly and moved away from him. ‘I don’t care which ring I have. It’s simply to fool people into thinking that we are engaged and I’ll only have to wear it for a month.’

He followed her over to the door but, before she could open it, he caught hold of her shoulder and spun her round to face him. His brows lowered when he saw her mutinous expression. ‘For the next month I will expect you to behave like you are my adoring fiancée, not a stroppy adolescent, which is your current attitude,’ he said tersely.

‘Let go of me.’ Her eyes darkened with temper when he backed her up against the door. He was too close, and her senses leapt as she breathed in his exotic aftershave. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Giving you some acting lessons,’ he growled and, before she had time to react, he covered her mouth with his and kissed the fight out of her.

He kissed her until she was breathless, until she melted against him and slid her arms up the front of his shirt. The scrape of his rough jaw against her skin sent a shudder of longing through Ava. It shamed her to admit it, but Giannis only had to touch her and he decimated her power of logical thought. She pressed herself closer to his big, hard body, a low moan rising in her throat when he flicked his tongue inside her mouth.

And then it was over as, with humiliating ease, he broke the kiss and lifted his hands to unwind her arms from around his neck. Only the slight unsteadiness of his breath indicated that he was not as unaffected by the kiss as he wanted her to think.

His voice was coolly amused as he drawled, ‘You are an A-star student, glykiá mou. You almost had me convinced that you are in love with me.’

‘Hell,’ Ava told him succinctly, ‘will freeze over first.’