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At that moment he wasn’t interested in talking to his senior management team. Nor was he interested in talking to any of the businessmen who clamoured for his attention on an almost hourly basis.
There were urgent matters demanding his attention. But for the first time in his life he didn’t even care.
He should have been thinking about work, but all he could think about was sex.
Sex with Chantal.
Cursing softly in Greek, he paced the length of his office. His entire body was burning and unfulfilled and all he wanted to do was stride back onto the terrace, drag her somewhere extremely private and indulge in a repeat performance—complete with several encores.
Never in his life had he been so hot for a woman, and he didn’t understand it because she possessed none of the qualities that he admired.
True, she was beautiful, but she was also dishonest—and she’d admitted as such. All right, so she wasn’t Isabelle Ducat. She’d hadn’t chosen to make a living out of divorce. But she had taken a ticket that wasn’t hers, and she hadn’t corrected him when he’d assumed her to be the owner of the ticket.
She’d posed as someone else, apparently more than comfortable to perpetrate that particular untruth. That fact alone should have been the sexual equivalent of sitting in a bath of ice cubes, because he hated deception.
He might have felt more kindly towards her had she just admitted that a few weeks in Greece with a billionaire had sounded like fun. Instead of which she’d insisted that she’d agreed to accompany him out of concern for his father.
So why, knowing all that, was his libido raging madly out of control?
Why did he feel like a teenager whose hormones were well and truly in control?
With a humourless laugh he forced himself to accept the obvious.
Because the sex had been nothing short of stupendous. That was why.
Deceitful she might be, but she’d also been a virgin, and the fact that he was her first lover had given him an incredible buzz.
Which meant that clearly he wasn’t as modern in his attitudes as he liked to think.
He narrowed his eyes and ran through the facts logically.
All right, so she hadn’t told him the truth. But she was right that he was the one who had insisted that she come. And, had she told him the truth about her identity, would it have changed anything?
No. He still would have wanted her to come for the sake of his father.
So what difference did any of it make?
She was here now, wasn’t she?
The chemistry between them was amazing.
What was the problem?
She was here for a free holiday with a billionaire, so why not give her that holiday? And if it cost him a few dresses and the odd diamond necklace, so what?
They’d share incredible sex during the night, and during the day he’d arrange for her to spend as much time shopping as she could handle. She was using him for money, so why shouldn’t he use her for sex?
Unable to concentrate, and deciding to abandon all further thoughts of work for the day, he strode into the suite of rooms that his father occupied when he was staying in the villa. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Better by the hour.’ Costas Zouvelekis was already dressed, ready for dinner. ‘What did you do with your afternoon?’
Angelos stilled as erotic images flew into his brain. What had he done with his afternoon? He’d had the most incredible sex of his life.
In a public place.
He ran a hand over the back of his neck, seriously discomforted by the thought of what his father might have seen if he’d woken early from his rest and decided to relax by the pool. ‘I worked.’
‘Did you? Well, I hope you didn’t leave Chantal on her own for too long. She’s a woman worth guarding.’
‘From whom? There is no one else here.’
‘From boredom,’ Costas said dryly, as he adjusted his shirt. ‘When women become bored, they stray.’
Stray?
Angelos reflected silently on the fact that the last time he’d seen Chantal she’d been so shattered after his lovemaking that she hadn’t seemed capable of moving her lips, let alone her legs.
‘She isn’t going to stray.’ Why would she? He was in a position to give her the fantasy, and he had enough experience of her sex to know what she’d want. Jewels, dresses, handbags with strange names that were only available for a price, an unreasonable number of shoes, probably still more shoes—
He gave a faint smile. As long as he didn’t have to be part of the selection process, he was more than happy to fund a seriously extravagant shopping spree.
Clearly she wasn’t used to a life of luxury.
It would be fun to spoil her.
Never, ever become involved with a gorgeous Greek billionaire.
Having made herself sign off on that promise, Chantal snapped the suitcase shut and placed it on the floor. In the spacious, elegant room it looked laughably out of place.
Determined not to brood, she gave a little shrug and told herself that it didn’t matter. The one good thing about having very few belongings was that it didn’t take long to pack.
She was just about to reach for the phone and see if she could arrange for a car to take her to Athens when the bedroom door opened and Angelos strode into the room.
Clearly fresh from the shower, he’d changed into a pair of lightweight linen trousers and a shirt that emphasised his athletic physique. Tall and broad-shouldered, he emanated power and sexuality.
Her body leapt to life and she turned away, mortified that she was so susceptible to him. Well, tough. She was going to do what he was obviously doing and just not think about the sex. ‘I was trying to arrange for a car. Now you’re here, perhaps you could do it for me?’
‘To go where, precisely?’
‘Athens. I’ll arrange a flight home from there.’
There was a tense silence. ‘Home?’
‘Yes.’ Summoning up as much dignity as she could, she reached into her bag and removed the roll of cash she’d counted out carefully a few minutes earlier. ‘This is for you.’ She thrust it into his hand and he stared at it in astonishment.
‘What is this?’
‘Money. You should know, since it obviously plays such an important part in your life.’ It was all the money she had, minus the amount she was going to need for her flight home. ‘You can put that towards what I’ve cost you so far. Whatever you may think, I don’t want a free holiday. I never should have come. I see that now. It’s inevitable that a man like you would think that my reasons for coming here have something to do with money. In the circumstances, I don’t even blame you for thinking that.’ Some of her pride salvaged, she stepped forward and picked up the case, avoiding eye contact. It was terribly, terribly important that she didn’t look at him. If she looked, she was lost.
‘I don’t want your money.’ He dropped the money unceremoniously onto the nearest hard surface and Chantal tried not to flinch as she remembered just how long it had taken her to earn that amount.
‘Well, I want you to have it. In fact, I insist.’
He glanced at the roll of notes and then back at her. ‘Obviously my comments upset you,’ he breathed. ‘But you have to admit that I had cause.’
‘Of course. Why else would someone like me be with someone like you?’
His body tensed. ‘You pretended to be Isabelle Ducat, and she is the queen of gold-diggers.’
‘Maybe. But even when you knew that I wasn’t Isabelle your assumption was that I’d just come along for a free holiday.’ Still suffering from a serious assault on her pride, Chantal clutched her case. ‘It’s obvious that you’ve discovered the sort of person I really am, so there’s no point in me staying. Please arrange for me to leave the island. Is there a water taxi you can call?’
‘I have no intention of calling you a taxi.’ His tone had a raw edge to it. ‘Put the case down.’
‘No.’
He inhaled deeply. ‘I can see that I’ve seriously upset you—’
‘What makes you think that?’ Her tone flippant, she walked towards the door. ‘We gold diggers have very thick skins. It’s part of the job description.’
With incredibly quick reflexes, he crossed the room and grabbed her. ‘Tell me why you accepted my invitation.’ He hauled her hard against him, and she gasped as the contact ignited a flash of excitement deep inside her.
‘You already know why.’ Desperately she tried to shut down her response. ‘It seemed a perfect way to enjoy a free holiday in the sun.’
‘So, if that is the case, then why are you leaving now?’
‘Because what we did makes it impossible for me to stay.’
‘You are saying that because your feelings are hurt.’ His mouth was dangerously close to hers and the heat between them was mounting. ‘I am willing to admit that I owe you an apology.’
‘No, you don’t. I don’t blame you for what you thought. It was a perfectly reasonable assumption in the circumstances.’ Desperate to get away before she made a fool of herself yet again, Chantal tried to wriggle out of his grasp. ‘Why else would someone like me have accompanied you?’
He held her firm. ‘Why did you?’
Swamped by an almost agonising sexual tension, her anger subsided. ‘Because of your father,’ she muttered. ‘You persuaded me that I could make a difference to his recovery. He was so kind to me that night at the ball. No one has ever been that kind to me before. I was feeling really vulnerable and horribly out of place. Which just goes to show that Isabelle was right all along. I didn’t fit in.’
‘Why would you want to?’ He looked genuinely perplexed. ‘Individuality is to be celebrated.’
Spoken like a billionaire who didn’t follow any of life’s rules, she thought weakly, wishing she possessed just a fraction of his self belief. ‘You need masses of confidence to be different. I stood out. I felt as though everyone was staring.’
‘They were staring. Because of your dress.’
‘Yes, the dress was a huge mistake.’
‘The dress was amazing. Where did you find it?’
She concentrated on one of the buttons of his shirt. ‘They were refurbishing one of the hotel rooms and I found some red lining material that they’d thrown away. I thought it would look perfect.’
A stunned silence followed her frank confession. ‘Are you telling me that your red dress started life on the inside of a curtain?’
‘A very expensive curtain.’ She shrugged. ‘Why are you looking so shocked? You just said that individuality is to be celebrated.’
His handsome face was a mask of incredulous disbelief and he released her. ‘That night—’ His voice not quite steady, he rubbed his fingers over the bridge of his nose. ‘You really didn’t have a clue who I was, did you?’
She tried not to feel disappointed that he’d let her go. ‘Of course I didn’t know who you were. Why would I?’
It took him a moment to answer. ‘Women usually do.’
‘The women you mix with do. But I’m not one of those. And I wouldn’t want to be,’ she said firmly. She knew far too much about that type of woman. ‘I only spoke to you because you spoke to me first. I’d been standing there, wishing I’d never decided to go to the ball, and then there you were.’ She swallowed as she remembered the sharp intensity of that moment. ‘And you were—there was—something—’
Their eyes met for a moment and he frowned. ‘If all that is true, and you genuinely came to the villa because of concern for my father’s health, then why are you leaving now?’
Because she had to.
Her fingers tightened on the case and she looked away from him so that she wouldn’t be tempted. ‘Because everything has changed. You know I’m not Isabelle, and our relationship has become—’ She broke off and searched for the right word. ‘Become personal. It goes against my principles.’
‘Our relationship is now exactly the way my father always wanted it to be so to leave now makes no sense. We’ve merely dropped the pretence. It actually makes the situation simpler, not more complicated.’
‘Not to me. We had—’ She broke off again and cleared her throat, trying not to mind that he was quite prepared to pretend that the sex had never happened. ‘What we did changes things.’
‘I don’t see how.’
‘You think I’m just leeching from you.’
He glanced briefly towards the roll of notes he’d so carelessly discarded. ‘Is that why you gave me the money?’
‘I’m giving you the money because I don’t want you to pay for me. I’ve never taken money from a man in my life.’
‘I haven’t offered you money.’
‘You’re paying for me to be here. That amounts to the same thing. You think I’m a gold-digger.’
Amusement flickered in his dark eyes. ‘Gold-diggers generally aren’t innocent virgins, agape mou. You’re obviously not quite as familiar with the job description as you think you are.’
She couldn’t think of a suitable reply, so she stayed silent.
He sighed. ‘You’re not leaving.’
She wished she could put the whole episode behind her as easily as he clearly had. ‘I have to.’ For so many reasons. Preserving her sanity was one, but so was maintaining her self respect.
‘Chantal.’ There was a decisive tone to his voice, like a judge who was summing up. ‘You claim that you came here because of my father—’
‘I did.’
‘Then why would you leave? My father’s needs are as great as they ever were. Greater, in fact. Since you arrived he has talked of nothing else. He is looking forward to joining us at dinner tonight. Nothing has changed.’
Chantal chewed her lip.
For him, nothing had changed. She wished she felt similarly indifferent. ‘Everything has changed.’ Her eyes moved to his and then skidded away. ‘We—’
