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She wasn’t beautiful. She’d heard those words a million times before. Not directed at her—never at her. But at someone else. Someone who had craved them; someone who had spent her life being defined by men’s opinion of her.
The shock of everything suddenly hit her, and made Lucy jerk back violently, knocking his hand away and pulling her dress together again. She had the mortifying image in her head of wantonly pressing as close as she could, and the shame of her reaction to that made her feel nauseous. Between her legs she throbbed and tingled.
Her voice was shaking and thin, too high. ‘This is completely inappropriate. I’m your assistant.’
Aristotle’s face was uncharacteristically flushed. ‘You’re also the one woman I can’t stop thinking about and wanting. And it’s a bit late to put on the injured virgin act.’
He raked a hand through his hair in frustration, leaving it gorgeously unruly.
Lucy shook her head in rejection of that, trying to ignore the way her mouth felt so full and plump. She felt anything but virginal right now. In a few seconds he’d managed to blast to smithereens the knowledge that she’d comforted herself with ever since she had lost her virginity: she was frigid.
‘No. I’m your assistant. This is not possible.’ More shame rushed through her as she said, ‘If you think I gave you some indication that I might welcome …’ She couldn’t even say it. ‘You’re just … bored or something. You can’t possibly—’
‘Can’t I?’ he interrupted harshly. He stood with hands fisted at his sides and glowered at her. ‘I saw you changing the other morning and I felt like a schoolboy watching a naked woman for the first time. No woman has ever reduced me to that. And you want me too, Lucy. You’ve just shown me that.’
Embarrassment washed through her in a wave of heat. He had seen her. She’d known it … but to hear him confirm it nearly made her mind short-circuit. And along with the embarrassment came another feeling, one of illicit pleasure, when she remembered seeing his face. She shook her head again, even fiercer this time, both hands clutching the dress.
Just at that moment the phone rang shrilly. Lucy jumped. She was starting to shake; reaction was setting in. ‘That’s the taxi. Get out right now.’ When he didn’t move she said, ‘Please.’
Aristotle finally strode over to pick up his coat and, flinging it over one shoulder, he walked to the door. He looked back at her for a long moment, hugely imposing and dark in her plain little apartment. Men like him weren’t meant for scenes like this, she thought.
The phone had stopped, but now started again.
‘I’ll see you on Monday, Lucy. This isn’t over—not by a long shot.’
And then he was gone. Lucy stood stock still and could barely breathe. When the phone impacted upon her consciousness again she went over and picked it up. ‘He’s on his way down,’ she said.
When she was certain he had gone, Lucy undressed and had a steaming hot shower, thinking perhaps it might eradicate the painfully intense feelings Aristotle had aroused in her when he’d touched her and looked at her. She dressed in her oldest and comfiest pyjamas and made herself a hot chocolate, dislodging the bra she’d hurriedly hidden as she did so from the cupboard. Heat rose upwards again, but she resolutely ignored it and went into the sitting room and sank onto the couch, cradling the hot cup in cold hands.
She reached up and took down the photo of her and her mother and tears filled her eyes as emotion surged upwards. She felt incredibly raw after what had just happened.
Her mother had been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s two years ago. It had come on the back of her growing ever more forgetful and irritable, prone to mood swings and dramatics. It had been so unlike her usually sanguine mother that Lucy had insisted she go to be checked out by a doctor. They’d run some tests, and as soon as a diagnosis had been made her mother’s condition had worsened by the day—almost as if naming it had allowed it to take hold completely.
At first Lucy had been able to look after her in their small townhouse near Holland Park, but when she’d come home one day to find her mother wailing inconsolably in a flooded kitchen, with all the gas rings of the cooker on and alight and no idea how or why she’d done it, Lucy had known she couldn’t fight it on her own any more.
She’d started with home help—the cost of which had rapidly eaten up all their savings. Her mother had never worried about money too much beyond making sure Lucy was provided for, and there had invariably been a new rich lover more than happy to provide. However, in recent years Lucy’s mother had been coming to terms with the harsh realities of aging in a world where youth and beauty were a more potent draw to powerful men. The protection of rich lovers had all but disappeared.
Lucy’s mouth compressed as her finger ran over her mother’s image in the picture. She supposed in the nineteenth century her mother might have been considered one of the most famous courtesans of her time. But in this lifetime she’d been a famous and much sought after burlesque dancer—a true artist. Lucy’s mouth tightened even more; her mother had simply got used to the attention of very rich, very powerful men.
She’d craved the control she’d had over them—her ability to reduce them to ardent lovers, desperate to please her in any way they could. Her allure and beauty had been legendary. Her powerful lovers had funded their lives, and unwittingly helped put Lucy through the best schools all over the world. She couldn’t denigrate her mother’s memory now by judging her over where that money had come from. Her mother had simply used all the tools at her disposal to survive.
Her father had been one of those men. When he’d found out Maxine was pregnant and refusing to give up her baby, he’d paid some maintenance but hadn’t wanted anything to do with Lucy. When Lucy was sixteen he’d died, and maintenance had stopped abruptly—because of course he hadn’t told his family about her.
What had upset Lucy more than anything else was the lack of confidence and self-esteem her mother had suffered that only she, as her daughter, had been privy to. While on the one hand her mother had been in control, using those men as they used her, on another, much more vulnerable level she had craved their affection and approval. She’d used her beauty to enthral her lovers, but she’d been broken in two every time they’d walked away, leaving behind nothing but costly gems, clothes—things.
It had been shortly after finding her mother so distraught in the flooded kitchen that Lucy had discovered the house they’d lived in—a generous present from another lover—had never been signed over to her mother, despite assurances at the time. The man was a prominent politician who’d just died. Lucy’s mother’s solicitor had advised that Lucy should not contest ownership of the house when the family had discovered its existence, as obviously they had no idea of their father’s secret affair. The family had debts to clear on the death of their father, and Lucy had had no option but to let the house go. The precariousness of their situation had forged within Lucy a deep desire for order and her own financial independence.
About a year ago they’d moved into her current small apartment. Lucy had still hoped that home help would be enough, but the cost of it had barely left her with enough to buy food at the end of each week. Her job at Levakis Enterprises was the only thing that kept them afloat. And now with her increase in wages, it was the only thing giving her mum the opportunity to have decent care.
Lucy stared unseeingly down at the picture, and suddenly an image broke through—Aristotle standing right here in this room, holding her close, his hand between her legs. She could remember the way she’d throbbed and burned for that hand to go even higher, to where she ached. To where she still ached. Lucy shifted so violently in reaction that the picture fell from her lap to the wooden floor and the glass smashed in the frame. With a cry of dismay she put down her cup and picked it up carefully. As she did so, something hard solidified in her chest.
She knew exactly how to handle this situation, how to handle Aristotle Levakis and make sure everything returned to normal. She couldn’t contemplate how her decision would impact her mother just yet. All she knew was that she had to protect herself—because she’d never felt under such threat in her life. She would make sure her mother was safe and cared for. She would. She just couldn’t do it like this.
On Monday morning, early, Ari stood at the window of his huge office, with its commanding view out over the city of London and all its impressive spires and rooftops. From the moment he’d been placed in charge of Levakis Enterprises at the age of twenty-seven, on the death of his father five years previously, he’d moved the power centre of the business here to London, his adopted home.
He’d told himself it was for strategic reasons, and certainly the business had thrived and grown exponentially since he’d moved it here, but it was also a very distinct gesture from him to his family, to say he was in control, not them. They’d shunned him enough over the years. No way was he going to play happy families back in Athens. And while he had left the original office there, which his half-brother now oversaw, they all knew that it was just a symbolic front for the business. Ari controlled its beating heart, and it lay here, under the grey and rain-soaked skies of London.
But today his main focus was not on business; it was on something much more personal and closer to home. On something so exquisitely feminine and alluring that he didn’t know how he’d managed to control himself for the past weekend and not go back to that small dingy apartment, knock down the door and take Lucy hard and fast, before she could draw up that faux injured virgin response again. He could still feel the imprint of every womanly curve as he’d held her close to his body. She’d been more lusciously voluptuous than any fantasy he could have had.
His hands were clenched to fists deep in his pockets now, and his jaw was gritted hard against the unwelcome surging of desire. His assistant was causing him frustration of the most strategic kind.
She wanted him. And he couldn’t understand where her reticence came from. No woman was reticent with him; he saw, he desired, he took. It was quite simple and always had been. An alien and uncomfortable feeling nagged him as he acknowledged the dominant feeling he’d had the other night. He’d felt ruthless as he’d coaxed and cajoled a response from Lucy. When she’d finally capitulated, even for that brief moment, it had been a sweeter conquest than any victory he could remember. He didn’t usually associate ruthlessness with women—that was reserved for business—and the fact that such a base emotion was spilling over into his personal life was—
Ari heard a noise come from the outer office—Lucy’s office—and his body tensed with a frisson of anticipation, all previous thoughts scattered to the winds.
He wanted Lucy Proctor and she would pay for making him desire her by giving herself up to him, wholly and without reservation, until he was sated and could move back into the circles in which he belonged. He vowed this now, as he heard a sharp knock on his door, and waited for a moment before turning around, schooling his features and saying with quiet, yet forceful emphasis, ‘Come.’
Lucy took a deep breath outside the heavy oak door. As soon as she heard that deeply autocratic ‘Come’ her nerves jangled and her heart started racing. Just before she opened the door, her hand clammy and slippy on the round knob, she prayed that the make-up she’d put on that morning would hide the dark circles under her eyes. She hadn’t slept a wink all weekend.
Steeling herself like never before, she opened the door and stepped in. Aristotle was standing with his hands in his pockets and his back to the huge window. Waves of virile masculinity seemed to radiate from him and Lucy’s throat went dry. For an awful second her mind seemed to go blank and be replaced with nothing but heat … but as her hand clenched on the envelope she gave an inward sigh of relief and reminded herself that she’d soon be out of this man’s disturbing orbit.
She walked further into the office and tried to ignore the way Aristotle’s narrowed gaze on her was making her even more nervous. She came to a halt just a few feet from the desk.
She cleared her throat. ‘Sir, I …’ Heat washed into her face. ‘That is … Aristotle …’ She stopped. She was already a gibbering wreck.
‘I thought I told you there was no need for you to wear your glasses.’
Lucy’s hand went reflexively to touch the sturdy frames. She cursed herself for having told him she didn’t need them, and bristled at his high-handed manner. The sharp edge of the envelope reassured her.
‘Well, I feel more comfortable wearing them. The fact is that—’
‘Well, I don’t.’ He was curt, abrupt. ‘You work for me, and I don’t want to see them again. And you can also stop tying your hair back as if you’re doing some kind of religious penance.’
Lucy gasped. She could feel the colour washing out of her face, only to be swiftly replaced by mortified heat.
Knowing that she had nothing to lose, she didn’t curb her tongue, but her voice when it came was slightly strangled. ‘Is there anything else you’d like to comment on while you’re at it?’
Aristotle leaned back against the window and negligently crossed one ankle over the other, crossed his arms over that formidable chest. His eyes took on a slumberous quality that made Lucy’s breath falter and a tight coil of sensation burn down low in her belly.
‘Have you thrown out that skirt yet?’
Lucy’s hands clenched. She didn’t feel the edges of the envelope any more, or remember what she was here to do. Right now she was being subjected to the lazy appraisal of a man who, she told herself, was just like every other man who had traipsed in and out of her mother’s life. The fact that her predominant emotion wasn’t the anger she’d expected made her feel very vulnerable.
‘It’s none of your business where that blasted skirt is. You can rest assured that you won’t have to be subjected to seeing me wear it again, because I’m here to—’
‘That’s a pity.’
Lucy’s mouth was still open on the unfinished part of her sentence. She blinked as his words sank in. She shook her head. She had to have misheard. Distracted, and hating herself for it, she asked, ‘What did you say?’
He stood then, and even though he didn’t come towards her she took a step back.
‘I said, that’s a pity. You’d be surprised how much of my mental energy that skirt has been taking up. I think I may have been too hasty in my judgement of it.’
Lucy shook her head again and could feel herself trembling inwardly. She felt as if she were in some twilight zone. What about the Augustine Archers of the world, impeccably groomed to within an inch of their skinny designer lives? Surely he couldn’t really mean that he preferred …? Her mind shut down at that, but the words slipped out and she watched herself as if from a distance as she said faintly, ‘But … it was just a high street skirt that shrank in the wash. I didn’t have time to get a new one. You thought it was inappropriate enough to have me taken to task for it.’
‘That was a mistake.’ His eyes flicked down over her body, and Lucy’s flesh tingled as if he’d touched her. Even though she wore perfectly fitting and respectable trousers, a high-necked shirt and a jacket, she felt undressed.
When his eyes rose to meet hers again she registered the dangerous gleam in their depths. The bubble of unreality burst. Self-preservation was back. The envelope. She held it out now, with a none too steady hand.
Aristotle looked from her face down to it and then back up. He arched an enquiring brow.
Lucy stammered, ‘It’s—it’s my letter … of resignation.’
Ari’s hands clenched. Something surged through his body—a primal need not to let this woman go. No way was she walking out of here. That ruthless feeling was back.
He shook his head. ‘No, it’s not.’
‘Yes, it is,’ Lucy replied automatically, a little perplexed.
‘No. It’s not.’
Anger started to lick upwards as it dawned on Lucy that this wasn’t going to be the quick result she’d hoped for.
‘Yes, Mr Levakis, it is. Please accept my resignation with the grace with which it’s tendered.’ She held out the envelope further. ‘I am not available for … extra services outside work, and your behaviour the other night was not acceptable.’
Lucy’s eyes had turned to a dark slate-grey and they were flashing. There was a resolute tilt to her chin. Ari marvelled that he hadn’t noticed it before now, but this woman had passion oozing from every pore of her tightly held body. She had backbone. Far from fading into the background, as he’d so misguidedly believed her to have done from day one, she’d been there under his nose the whole time. He could see now that her appeal had been working on him subliminally, bringing him to the point he had now reached: the point of no return, unless this woman was with him.
Ari moved around the desk and perched on the edge, arms still folded. When he saw Lucy’s eyes flick betrayingly down to his thighs he smiled inwardly, and smiled even more when he saw a flush stain her cheeks. How had he ever though of her as plain or unassuming? He ignored her outstretched hand and the white envelope.
Lucy refused to show how intimidated she was by moving back, but she wanted to—desperately. Her breath was coming in shallow bursts. She felt as if she wanted to reach up and undo the top button of her blouse.
Aristotle cocked his head and asked enquiringly, with a small frown, ‘Now, exactly what part of the other night would you say was not acceptable?’ He answered himself. ‘The part where I escorted you safely to your door? Or perhaps the part where I accepted the coffee you made me?’
Lucy’s other hand balled into a fist and she bit out, ‘You know exactly what I’m talking about.’
His face cleared, the frown disappeared and he said, ‘Ah! You mean the part where I proved just how mutual our attraction is?’
CHAPTER FOUR
LUCY flushed even hotter, mortified heat drenching her in an upward sweep. Much to her utter humiliation she knew it wasn’t all mortification. Some of it was pure … thrill. This man was doing nothing short of creating a nuclear reaction within her, comprehensively threatening everything she’d protected herself with for years.
She dropped her outstretched hand without even realising what she was doing and shook her head, finally taking a step back, pretending she wasn’t as affected as she was as if her life depended on it.
‘You mean the part where you mauled me? That wasn’t mutual attraction.’
Immediately he tensed, and his eyes flashed dangerously. Lucy swallowed. She knew she’d just said the worst thing possible. Most bosses in this situation would sense the potential danger of having a sexual harassment suit landed against them and back off. But Aristotle Levakis was not most bosses, and Lucy guessed belatedly that no woman, ever, had accused him of mauling them. Certainly her dreams over the weekend hadn’t been of someone mauling her—quite the opposite, in fact.
Aristotle stood to his full height, power and pure sexual charisma bouncing off him in affronted waves. He arched a brow, his arms still folded tightly across his chest, the biceps of his arms bunching even through the material of his silk shirt.
‘Mauled?’ he repeated softly, dangerously.
Lucy swallowed again, her throat suddenly as dry as parchment. She nodded, but felt herself curling up inside with humiliation.
Aristotle came and stood very close Lucy had to tip her head back and look up. She clenched her jaw. He was looking down at her with an expressionless face, those light green eyes glittering. Dark slashes of colour highlighted his cheekbones. He was livid, she recognised, and a flutter of fear came low in her belly, along with another flutter of something much more dangerous.
He started to walk around her. Lucy held herself rigid.
From behind her she heard him say, ‘When I put my hands on your waist you didn’t stop me or push me away.’
‘I—’ She began, but stopped as the memory of his hands on her waist speared through her. How his fingers had dug into her soft flesh. How she’d wanted them to dig harder.
‘Then, when I kissed you, you also didn’t pull away.’ His voice was low and sultry. ‘I know when a woman is enjoying being kissed, moro mou, believe me.’
He was still behind her, and Lucy was finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate. His voice was so hypnotic, resonating with something that pulled on her insides and left her weak.
‘I … I … didn’t like it.’
‘Liar.’ It came so softly from close behind her head that she jumped minutely, her skin breaking into goosebumps.
He moved to her side. Lucy fought against closing her eyes and wondered dimly why she just didn’t walk away, but she knew on some level that she was afraid if she moved she might fall down. She stayed rigid.
‘You did like it … when my tongue touched yours … when you let me explore the sweetness of that mouth. Did I tell you that I’m fascinated by the gap in your teeth? Right now all I want to do is kiss you again until you’re so boneless in my arms that all I’d have to do is carry you to the couch over there …’
Lucy’s breath had stopped. Her brain had certainly stopped functioning. The couch was in her peripheral vision, and Aristotle was right in front of her again. For a big man, he moved as silently as a panther.
She closed her eyes in a childish gesture to block him out, but quickly realised what a mistake that was when he continued, ‘I’d lay you down and remove those glasses and let your hair out of its tight confinement …’
At that moment Lucy’s head throbbed unmercifully, as if in league with him.
‘Then I’d start to undo your buttons, one by one, but I probably wouldn’t be able to resist kissing you again, coaxing you to bite down on me too, so you could feel how I might taste.’
The sensation of what it might be like to bite into the sensual curve of his lower lip was shockingly vivid. Lucy was starting to quiver badly now. Her eyes still closed tight, she felt hot and flushed all over, and between her legs … Her mind seized.
‘Stop …’ she said threadily. ‘Please …’
‘But you see you wouldn’t want me to stop, as your shirt fell apart, baring those gorgeous breasts to my gaze … Is the lace of your bra chafing you now, Lucy? Are your nipples tight and tingling? Aching for my touch? Aching for my mouth? I would take those peaks and suck them into my mouth, hard, until they’re aroused to the point of pain. And then I’d cover your body with mine, so that you could feel how turned-on I am. Even right now I’d lift up your leg and let my hand slide over the silk of your stocking, all the way to the soft pale flesh of your thigh. You’d be moaning softly, willing my hand even higher, to that secret place between your legs where you’re aching for me to find the silk of your pants drenched with desire. You’d beg for me to slide them aside so that I could feel for myself—’
‘Stop!’ Lucy’s eyes flew open and in an instant she was jerking away—only realising at the last second that he wasn’t even holding her. He held up his hands to prove the point. Her breath was coming in short, shallow gasps, her breasts felt heavy, their tips tight and tingling, exactly as he’d described, and between her legs seemed to burn a molten pool of something dangerous and unwelcome … It was that that had finally woken her out of this awful, delicious dream.
But it wasn’t delicious—it wasn’t, she told herself desperately as she looked anywhere but at Aristotle. She felt disorientated, dizzy, as if she could almost believe she had been on that couch. Her upper lip felt moist. Her hands clenched and she realised that she no longer held the envelope. In that instant she saw that it was in one of his hands and he was ripping it in two.
She put out a hand. ‘Wait! What are you doing?’
Lucy also realised, along with everything else in that moment, that contrary to her own state of near collapse Aristotle looked cool, calm and collected—a million miles away from the man who had been just whispering in her ear how aroused he was. She was a quivering wreck and he hadn’t even touched her.
His cool voice cut through her like a knife as she watched him turn on his heel and walk back around his desk. ‘I’m putting this letter of resignation where it belongs—in the bin.’ And he promptly did just that.
Lucy was a mess, still reeling from the way his voice and words had affected her, and how utterly unaffected he clearly was. He was sitting behind his desk now, for all the world as if nothing had just happened, and as if he was waiting for her to sit and take notes.
