Читать книгу Irresistible Greeks: Defiance and Desire - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 18

‘ARE you expecting someone to join you?’

Gemini had been aware of Drakon the moment he entered her favourite Italian restaurant. Just as she had been aware of the female interest directed towards him as he inexorably made his way across that restaurant to where she sat at a table in one of the more private booths at the back of the happily noisy and crowded room. A table set for two.

Her own heart had skipped a beat at how dark and dangerously attractive Drakon looked this evening, in a casual black silk shirt, unbuttoned at the throat, and black trousers tailored to the long length of his legs. The darkness of his hair was slightly tousled and damp, as if he had recently taken a shower. Which he probably had, she accepted, if he had only flown in from New York a few hours ago.

She put down her glass of Chianti to lean back against the leather bench seat. She looked up and smiled at him. ‘Yes, I’m expecting someone to join me,’ she confirmed lightly.

Drakon looked more than a little irritated. ‘Did my assistant not telephone you earlier to tell you I would be calling at your apartment this evening?’

‘Oh, yes, he telephoned me,’ Gemini said blandly.

‘Then—’

‘Obviously I had plans for this evening other than sitting at home waiting for the great Drakon Lyonedes to grace me with his magnificent presence,’ she continued as though he hadn’t spoken.

He would have to be blind not to notice the way those sea-green eyes flashed with temper. And unfortunately he wasn’t in the least visually impaired where Gemini Bartholomew was concerned! ‘You are annoyed that I asked my assistant to telephone you.’ It was a statement not a question.

‘How astute of you, Drakon!’ she came back with saccharine sweetness.

If anything Gemini looked more beautiful this evening than when Drakon had last seen her: those sparkling eyes were surrounded by long dark lashes, colour highlighted her cheeks, the fullness of her lips was glossed peach, and her hair was a silky white-blonde curtain about her slender shoulders. The fitted cotton sweater she wore was the same sea-green colour as her eyes, and a short black skirt revealed the length of her legs.

Drakon’s mouth thinned as he realised he was not at all pleased to know she had dressed like that for the pleasure of another man. ‘Are you saying you would rather I had telephoned and spoken to you personally before I left New York?’ he queried.

Her eyes once more glowed with temper. ‘I’m saying I would rather you had bothered to return my call two days ago, or at the very least telephoned me yesterday and asked if it was convenient for us to meet this evening, rather than just having your assistant call and tell me that we were!’

Yes, that would have been the more acceptable, the more polite way of doing things, Drakon acknowledged impatiently. Except he had not been feeling in the least polite—either yesterday or any of the other days he had been back in New York. Because of this woman. Because he had not been able to stop thinking about Gemini and the last time the two of them had been together. Or how much he wished to see her and be with her again…

That knowledge alone had been enough to make his temper and mood unpredictable at best these past three days, and volatile at worst. Nor, he acknowledged irritably, had he been in the least sure of how much she would have welcomed the call if he had been the one to telephone today…

Drakon had accepted long ago that he was a man of strong sexual appetites, but also a man who rarely if ever thought of any of the women he made love to when he was not sharing her body and her bed. Gemini Bartholomew, he had learnt these past few days, was the exception to that rule—and he didn’t like it one little bit.

He had found himself thinking of her far too often for comfort since flying back to New York, both at work and during the long evenings spent at his penthouse apartment in Manhattan. Neither did he have to look far to find the reason for his feelings of frustration where she was concerned.

Gemini’s admission of physical innocence…

Drakon had been stunned. It was incredible, unbelievable, that a woman of her beauty and years should still be a virgin. It also put her beyond the reach of his normal casual affairs. Unfortunately that in no way lessened the desire Drakon felt for her…

Just seeing her again, being with her again, was enough to make his body harden with a ferocious desire!

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake sit down and stop making the place look untidy, Drakon,’ she snapped as the waiter arrived at the table and handed her two menus before departing again.

He frowned. ‘I thought you said you were waiting for someone.’

‘I was,’ Gemini said. ‘And now he’s arrived. I was waiting for you, Drakon,’ she admitted as he continued to stare down at her.

His eyes widened. ‘Me?’

‘I was pretty sure one of your watchdogs would be only too happy to tell you exactly where to find me at eight o’clock this evening,’ she told him. ‘And, as you very kindly gave me dinner at your apartment last time, I thought the least I could do was buy you dinner at my favourite Italian restaurant this evening. Would you care for a glass of red wine?’ She lifted up the bottle of Chianti she had ordered when she arrived and held it poised over the empty wine glass at the place setting opposite her own.

‘Thank you,’ Drakon accepted quietly as he slid onto the bench seat opposite, more relieved than he cared to consider at the knowledge that Gemini was not spending the evening with another man after all. That she had, in fact, dressed this way for his pleasure. ‘I apologise if you found my assistant’s telephone call impolite.’

Gemini looked across the table at Drakon from beneath lowered lashes, knowing she was once again slightly overwhelmed by the sheer presence of this man. Even dressed in casual clothes he exuded that aura of power and authority. ‘Your assistant was perfectly polite, Drakon—you’re the one I consider rude and highhanded in asking him to make the call in the first place.’

Drakon returned her gaze quizzically. ‘You don’t intend to let me off the hook lightly, do you?’

‘Should I?’ Gemini deliberately showed none of the inner turmoil she felt at seeing Drakon again as she casually picked up her wine glass and took a sip of the deliciously fruity red wine.

‘Probably not.’ He shrugged those broad shoulders.

‘Definitely not,’ she corrected pointedly.

Drakon sighed. ‘Very well. I apologise unreservedly, Gemini, for not telephoning you myself and requesting a meeting with you.’

‘You’re forgiven.’ She gave a graciously acknowledging inclination of her head.

‘So this is your favourite restaurant…’ Drakon looked about them appreciatively, finding the warm and cosy atmosphere of the restaurant also to his liking.

There were red-and-white-checked cloths on the twenty or so occupied tables, with candles alight in empty wine bottles on each one, lots of greenery trailing down from above, brightly coloured pictures of Italy adorning the terracotta-coloured walls, and the delicious smells of garlic and Italian sauces coming from the kitchen were enough to make his mouth water.

‘Not what you were expecting?’

Drakon’s gaze returned across the table to Gemini as he heard the amusement in her voice. Inwardly he acknowledged that nothing about this young woman was what he would have expected from the only daughter of the wealthy and influential Miles Bartholomew. Which, he knew, was becoming a serious problem for him; Gemini was rapidly throwing all his previous experience with women off-balance. Throwing him off-balance…

He shrugged as he picked up the menu. ‘I’m sure the food here is adequate.’

She gave an indelicate snort. ‘The food here is fantastic!’

Drakon perused the extensive menu. ‘What would you recommend?’

Gemini studied his bent head, noting the way his hair had started to curl slightly as it dried in the warmth of the restaurant. The sharp angles of his face were softened by the warm glow of candlelight, and the silky dark hair visible at the base of his throat where his shirt was unbuttoned instantly made her remember how that soft pelt went all the way down to his—

‘Gemini?’

A blush warmed her cheeks as she raised her startled gaze to meet Drakon’s glittering black one. ‘Anything,’ she answered abruptly. ‘All the food here is good.’

Those dark eyes continued to study her for long, timeless seconds. Tense, still seconds, when even the chatter of the other diners faded into the background and there seemed to be only Gemini and Drakon in the room, and she found herself totally unable to look away from that compelling gaze.

Gemini had hoped that if she ever saw Drakon again she would find she had got over whatever madness had possessed her the last time she had seen him—well, the last two times she had seen him! That she would be able to look at him, speak to him, spend time with him and see him for the arrogant, powerful man that he was. And it was impossible not to see those things in him. Unfortunately she knew he was also dangerously seductive; he only had to touch her, kiss her, to send her over the edge of self-control. Something that had never, ever happened to her before, but seemed to happen constantly with him. As she’d said, he was extremely dangerous…

She straightened, determined to break the sensual spell that once again threatened to engulf and claim her. ‘So, how has your week been?’ she asked with brittle brightness.

‘Busy.’ Drakon put down his menu. ‘Yours?’

She shrugged. ‘The same.’

‘There have been no more visits from your stepmother?’

Gemini gave him a cool look. ‘I’m sure Max has duly reported that there haven’t.’

Drakon’s mouth thinned. ‘Markos informed me that you were less than pleased at Max’s watchfulness.’

‘Did he?’ she mused. ‘Didn’t seem to make much difference to the outcome, did it?’

Drakon sighed heavily. ‘Would you rather I had left you completely at the mercy of that woman’s vindictiveness?’

‘Once again, I would rather you had asked first,’ she said pointedly.

He raised dark brows. ‘And if I had done so?’

‘I would have assured you that it wasn’t necessary.’ She waved an elegant hand. ‘You were the reason Angela went off the deep end in the first place, and with you out of the picture…’

Drakon gave a humourless smile. ‘Unless it has escaped your notice, I have returned.’

As if any woman could be unaware of the presence of Drakon Lyonedes! The man only had to enter a room in order to dominate it. A point that was ably demonstrated only seconds later, when Benito came to take their order and completely deferred to Drakon throughout the entire conversation.

‘What?’ he prompted when he saw Gemini frowning across the width of the table at him once they were alone again.

She shook her head. ‘You totally ruined my usual couple of minutes of flirting outrageously with Benito when he comes to take my order.’

Drakon’s brows rose. ‘You flirt with the waiter?’

‘I flirt outrageously,’ she corrected. ‘And Benito is the owner of the restaurant, not the waiter.’

He glanced across to where the dark-haired, handsome young man was passing their order to a shorter, portly man to take to the kitchen, before resuming his place behind the desk at the entrance to the restaurant. ‘You come to this restaurant because you like to flirt with the owner?’ His gaze was hard and glittering when he turned it back to Gemini.

‘No, I come here because the food is excellent—and I like to flirt with the owner,’ Gemini added with a teasing smile.

Drakon failed to see anything in the least amusing about her obvious attraction to Benito. ‘Your usual male companions must find that very…unflattering.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ she asked.

Drakon scowled. ‘The men you usually bring here on a date.’

She sat back on the seat, her brows mockingly high. ‘I wasn’t aware this was a date.’

It wasn’t. At least it hadn’t been Drakon’s intention that it should become one when he had decided he and Gemini must meet again this evening. And yet the two of them were sitting together in a cosy Italian restaurant. At a secluded table for two. With a lit candle in its centre. And an evening of possibilities stretching before them. Yes, it certainly had all of the ingredients of a date, he recognised heavily.

He shrugged. ‘For the sake of appearances let us say that it is.’

For the sake of Gemini’s sense of self-preservation she would rather say that it wasn’t! Admittedly she had been the one to instigate this evening’s meeting taking place at a restaurant rather than her apartment, as he had stipulated through his assistant.

But that was the whole point, wasn’t it? She had made her own arrangements for the evening because she had resented Drakon’s arrogance in issuing that instruction through a third party!

Except she didn’t seem to have thought it through as thoroughly as she ought to have done. Hadn’t even considered that the two of them sitting here, talking and eating a meal together, would take on all the appearance of a date. Which was a bit late in the day when you considered she’d already allowed him to make love to her. Twice!

‘I do hope you intend to give poor Max a couple of hours off, at least, while we eat dinner?’ she said sweetly.

Drakon instantly recognised her deliberate attempt to remind him exactly why she would never consider their having dinner together as being a date—his arrogant high-handedness in having her watched over by his security team.

‘Poor Max?’ he queried.

She nodded once their first course had been delivered to the table and the waiter had departed. ‘I’m sure you pay him and the rest of your security team well, but even so it must still have been very boring for them to just sit outside my apartment for the past three days and nights.’

Yes, Drakon had read Max’s daily reports with interest, noting that Gemini spent her days in her shop and her evenings and nights alone in her apartment. ‘You are correct. I do pay them very well,’ he said. ‘And I believe you very kindly offered Max some variation in your routine when you closed the shop yesterday afternoon.’

She gave a mischievous grin. ‘He told you about that?’

Even in reading Max’s e-mailed report Drakon had been able to pick up on the older man’s discomfort at having to follow Gemini into a large beauty salon, where she had proceeded to have her hair styled, then a manicure and a pedicure, before disappearing into a private room in order to have various parts of her delectable body waxed.

‘He may never recover from the experience,’ Drakon commented.

Gemini had actually come to like and respect Max Stanford during the past few days—had even invited him into the shop a couple of times for coffee when she’d thought he might be in need of a drink. She just hadn’t been able to resist teasing him a little when it came to the usual relaxing way she spent her Thursday afternoons off. Besides which, she had been fully aware of the fact that, as with everything else she had done the past three days, he would report her movements to his employer.

She eyed Drakon quizzically. ‘And not you?’

He shrugged those broad shoulders. ‘My mother usually spends her Saturday afternoons in the same way, I believe.’

His widowed mother, Gemini knew, had lived alone in Athens since the death of her husband ten years ago. In fact, she knew quite a lot more about Drakon now than she had three days ago; the internet was a marvelous although potentially dangerous thing, offering any amount of information on someone as famous as him.

Such as the extent of his business interests around the world, as well as his extreme wealth. He owned homes in New York, London, Hong Kong, Toronto and Paris, as well as a private island in the Greek Aegean—although how he ever found the time to live in most of those homes was a mystery to her when he obviously worked so hard adding to the Lyonedes millions.

She also knew that he was thirty-six years old. And single. With not so much as a hint of an engagement in his past…

She eyed him curiously now. ‘Are you and your mother close?’

‘Very,’ he said economically.

‘And you and Markos are close too?’

‘Like brothers,’ he confirmed.

‘I noticed that.’

Drakon raised dark brows. ‘You find it strange that I not only feel affection for my family but also engender a return of that affection?’

‘Not in the least,’ she dismissed lightly. ‘Why would I? I’m sure you’re a very attentive son, and the closeness between you and Markos was all too obvious when I saw you together last week.’

The slightly wistful note in Gemini’s voice reminded Drakon that her twin brother had died before she’d even had a chance to know him, and that with the death of both of her parents she now had no family of her own that she might call on for affection. Or protection.

‘Try your ravioli before it goes cold,’ she encouraged, as if she were aware of his thoughts and felt uncomfortable with them. ‘Benito’s father is the chef, and his spinach ravioli is to die for.’

Drakon, guessing that she was deliberately changing the subject, forked up some of the ravioli and found it to be every bit as excellent as she said it was. ‘This is good.’ He nodded his approval, not having realised how hungry he was until he bit into the succulent food.

‘Would I lie to you?’ Gemini grinned her satisfaction at his obvious enjoyment.

Drakon stilled, not quite sure how to answer that comment. Or if he should answer it at all. It had been his experience over the years that most women did indeed lie, and usually for the same reason.

Initially to pique his interest, and afterwards to hold that interest.

Gemini had been honest—brutally so on occasion—from the very beginning of their acquaintance. Something else that made her so different from any other woman he had ever known.

In fact, the whole evening turned out to be something of a surprise to Drakon as they ate more delicious food prepared and cooked by Benito’s father. They discussed such far-ranging subjects as films they had both seen—in his own case privately, because he hated to go to noisy and overcrowded public cinemas—agreed the merits or otherwise of books they had both read, and discovered that they both had a love of opera.

‘When Daddy was alive he and I would attend the opera together once a month,’ Gemini told him wistfully.

‘But not your stepmother?’

‘The only thing Angela liked about the opera was being able to dress up and show off the latest piece of jewellery my father had bought her,’ Gemini said. ‘Luckily even that wore off after the first couple of times, so my father and I were able to go alone together after that. Our monthly visit to the opera was the one thing he flatly refused to give up, even though Angela was so demanding of his attention.’

A stubbornness her father had no doubt paid a high price for, Drakon recognised with a frown, once again wondering what sort of woman Angela was that she had wanted to possess and own Miles to the exclusion of his only child. Certainly she was a woman he knew he wanted nothing more to do with than was absolutely necessary.

‘What is your favourite opera?’ he asked.

‘Any and all of them,’ Gemini answered without hesitation.

Drakon nodded. ‘It’s something that you either love or hate, is it not? Markos and I were lucky enough to be introduced to that love at an early age by our parents. We were both a little wild during our teenage years, and my mother was determined to instil at least some measure of refinement into us before it was too late,’ he told her with a smile.

Gemini somehow couldn’t imagine the controlled and haughty Drakon Lyonedes as ever being wild. She was surprised at how quickly and enjoyably the evening had passed, with Drakon proving to be an interesting as well as an entertaining dinner companion. To the extent, she now realised, that she had become so charmed by his company she had completely forgotten the reason they were having dinner together at all this evening!

‘So.’ She sat back with a smile as they lingered over their coffee. ‘Will you be letting Max off the hook now so that he can go back to his usual duties?’

His long eyelashes lowered over suddenly guarded dark eyes. ‘We won’t complete on the purchase of Bartholomew House for another ten days.’

Gemini gave a sudden pained frown at the reminder that his company was buying her family home with the intention of turning it into a hotel. Something she had certainly forgotten in the last enjoyable three hours or so.

‘So Max stays?’ she said stiffly.

‘For the time being, yes,’ Drakon confirmed.

‘It’s time I asked Benito for the bill.’ She smiled across at the owner of the restaurant. ‘And please don’t even suggest paying,’ she added warningly as she sensed he was about to do exactly that. ‘I prefer to pay my own way, thank you very much.’

Drakon was annoyed at the realisation that by introducing the subject of his purchase of Bartholomew House he had succeeded in bringing about a return of her feelings of resentment towards him.

Had that perhaps been his intention all along in order to keep her at a distance?

Pleasant and enjoyable as this evening had undoubtedly been, it had also confirmed that Gemini was unlike any other woman Drakon had ever met. To the extent he had found himself completely relaxing in her company. He had even talked of his family and his work with her—something he had never done before with any woman. Admittedly she had been just as open with him, but nevertheless he still found the experience slightly disturbing in a way he could not entirely explain.

The sooner this situation between Gemini and her stepmother was resolved, the sooner he could return to his own previously uncomplicated life!