Expectant Bride (9 page)

At that admission, Dio's jawline took on an aggressive slant. ‘I was even denied the pleasure of sacking him. He resigned from his job the next day. He exchanged the information he had picked up for a more senior position in the other company—not that he'll be there for long.'

‘Why not?'

A grim smile curved Dio's wide, sensual mouth. ‘He has
no company loyalty. How can he be trusted? The first excuse they get, he'll be fired.'

‘Oh…' Her shadowed gaze clung to that lean strong face, her mouth running dry, her breath feathering in her throat. ‘You don't seem as angry as I thought you'd still be.'

‘I put my plans for a buy-out on hold. And before word got out I made a healthy profit selling the stock I held in company A…' His brilliant dark eyes held hers as he utilised the same terminology he had employed to explain his tactics as they had lain in bed together at the beach house.

Ellie flushed, but she still couldn't break that enervating visual link.

‘As for company B, my competitors mistakenly assumed that if
I
was interested, company B must have some wonderful new technology under wraps. They bought a massive amount of their stock,' Dio continued with a sardonic edge to his deep-pitched drawl. ‘Having now discovered otherwise, when they unload that stock, they are likely to make a loss.'

‘So in the end you'll probably pick up that company for a song…'

Silence fell and lingered. Dio studied her with dark, deep, intent eyes. Ellie tensed like a mouse sensing a cat. She was unbearably aware of his potent masculinity. Indeed, beneath that slumbrous appraisal her breasts stirred and ached, their sensitive peaks straining to wanton tautness. Hot pink embellished her cheekbones.

In one fluid movement, Dio closed the distance between them. ‘I won't hurt you like that again, Ellie.'

The colour in her face receded. ‘I think you should leave now, Dio.'

His winged ebony brows pleated, his surprise unconcealed. ‘Why?'

And with that one word, which revealed just how easily Dio had expected to win her forgiveness, Ellie was armoured
against him. All weakness put back under safe lock and key. ‘Surely that's obvious?' she murmured drily. ‘What happened on the island isn't ever going to happen again. We've got nothing more to say to each other.'

‘I won't let you go,' Dio declared in a silken tone of steel.

Her green eyes flared bright with resentment. ‘Who the heck do you think you are to say that to me?'

‘Your lover,' Dio responded softly.

Ellie paled at that retaliation.

‘I told you I wasn't into one-night stands,' he reminded her steadily. ‘You're still angry with me, Ellie. I understand that, but it's hardly an insurmountable problem.'

‘Whether I'm angry or not is irrelevant,' Ellie protested tautly. ‘On the island…
us
…well, it was more like a fantasy, a dream.'

Dio dealt her a sizzling smile. ‘Thanks.'

Ellie stiffened, annoyed that he wasn't taking her seriously. ‘But now we're back in the real world, Dio.'

‘Even on Chindos, I was not aware that we had left it—'

‘Well, I
certainly
had,' Ellie countered vehemently. ‘It was my natural environment. Idyllic moonlit beach, handsome foreigner saying all the right things…and pow, suddenly we're in bed!'

Dio frowned. ‘What are you trying to say?'

‘We let ourselves forget who we both are,' Ellie stated curtly.

‘And what are we but two people who desire each other?' Dio demanded forcefully.

‘I'm an ordinary working girl and you're a super-rich Greek tycoon! Stop trying to duck the issue,' Ellie told him in exasperation. ‘I could have been the cleaner on the top floor all my life and you'd never have noticed that I was even alive!'

‘I would have noticed you—'

‘No, you
wouldn't
have!' Ellie was determined to drive
her point home. ‘Because someone like you doesn't really ever look at someone like me—'

‘But now that I have looked, I'm not backing off,' Dio interrupted with stubborn assurance. ‘As for you being an ordinary working girl, that's a problem I would be happy to deal with.'

‘A problem?' Ellie gave him a bemused look. ‘What are you talking about?'

‘I want to keep the fantasy going. Fantasy I understand,' Dio confessed as he calmly linked his arms round her small but taut figure. ‘I think you're adorable,
yineka mou
.'

‘A-adorable…' Ellie echoed weakly, feeling like a woman trying to stem a damburst with a piece of paper.

‘There's no need for you to work,' Dio murmured with a husky intimacy that sent a flick of fire dancing over her entire skin surface. ‘I'll buy you an apartment—'

‘An a-apartment?' Ellie stammered in total bewilderment.

Dio ran a long brown forefinger in a silken caress along her sensitive jawbone and tipped up her chin to gaze hungrily down into her widening eyes. ‘I'm Greek. I want to take care of you in every way. You look stunned. Why? I told you on Chindos that I had plans for you.'

In serious shock, Ellie parted her lips, but no sound came out the first time. Her vocal cords had seized up. The second time, a thready version of her usual brisk voice emerged. ‘Let me get this straight…
you
are asking
me
to be your mistress?'

‘I am asking you to be my woman,' Dio countered with megawatt cool.

‘Your little toy…' Ellie squeezed out, since her lungs felt as if they were on the brink of collapse. Oh, what a bitter irony that he should make such a suggestion! She didn't know whether to laugh or scream.

Dio studied her with a reproachful light in his dark gaze. ‘That is not how it would be between us.'

‘Would you ask a woman from your own background to be your mistress?' Ellie could not resist demanding.

Dio flung back his arrogant dark head, black eyes glittering with stars. ‘You are the only woman I have ever asked.'

‘Sorry, I'm not available,' Ellie told him without a single shade of regret.

Dio slid lean brown fingers into the fall of her silvery hair, holding her imprisoned. Scorching eyes roamed over her flushed and angry face. ‘You're hooked. You just won't admit it yet. You want me as much as I want you—'

‘Right now, I could give you freezer burn!' Ellie warned him.

‘Let's see…shall we?'

‘Dio,
no
—'

But Dio crushed her soft mouth under his. And then he sent his tongue delving with carnal expertise into the tender interior of her mouth. Plunging and withdrawing, he set fire to her every skin cell in a charged and erotic reminder of how he had once invaded her quivering and eager body. Her thighs trembled. Helpless in the grip of that excitement, she pushed into the lean, hard heat and muscularity of his powerful frame. Recognising the bold thrust of his erection against her, she melted into hot liquid honey inside herself.

With a shuddering groan, Dio cupped two big hands round her face and stared down at her with raw sexual hunger. ‘Why shouldn't I offer you financial support? It would be as much for my own convenience as yours. I want you to travel with me. I want you to
be
there for me…'

The fevered heat in Ellie's bloodstream drained away, axed by his physical withdrawal of passion but even more by his candour. ‘What you want is a sex slave on tap…'

‘I'd be bored rigid with a sex slave,' Dio retorted with unblemished cool.

A ragged and involuntary laugh escaped Ellie. But, raising her hands, she firmly detached herself from him and stepped
back. ‘You are
so
smooth, Dio. And this ridiculous conversation is totally pointless. You're wasting your time.'

His dark, deep-set eyes rested on her, his strong bone structure clenching. ‘You belong with me—'

‘No, I definitely don't.' Ellie tossed back her head as she challenged that contention. ‘Nor do I have the slightest desire to be kept by anyone. The hours I work, I haven't even got room for a man in my life. I should be furious with you for asking me to be your mistress. But you
did
remind me that you are Greek. I suppose I have to make allowances for cultural differences…'

A dark rise of blood now marked Dio's spectacular cheekbones. ‘I think you want me to chase you—'

‘That's your ego talking. What I
want
is to forget we ever met,' Ellie contradicted with fierce conviction, her fingernails biting into her palms. ‘But you're so used to being top of every woman's wish list that when I say no you can't accept that I
mean
no!'

Black eyes burned into hers in ferocious challenge. ‘If I walk away now, it's over.'

At that warning, and in spite of all she had said, Ellie's breath snarled up in her throat. She felt hollow in the taut, waiting silence which followed.

Without another word, Dio strode to the door. And then he was gone.

Ellie waited for a few minutes, and then went downstairs to lock up after him. When she came back up, the room felt empty and cold. It was as if Dio had taken all the light and energy with him. She dismissed that fanciful impression and strove without success to appreciate the irony of the proposition he had laid before her. After all, no persuasion known to mankind would have persuaded Ellie to even
consider
such a lifestyle…

Her mother had been her father's mistress for sixteen years, a covert relationship full of lies and endless pretences.
From the day she was old enough to finally understand why her mother had no friends in the small coastal town where they had lived, Ellie had been bitterly ashamed of her parentage. Leigh Morgan had decided that she could not live without the married father of her child, and in so doing, she had wrecked her own life.

Ellie suppressed her memories of her less than idyllic childhood and grimaced. No, she would never be guilty of repeating her mother's mistakes. In a couple of weeks Dio probably wouldn't even remember her name. Unfortunately, she suspected that she was going to be remembering him for a very long time…

Slicing through her defences, Dio had sent her flying high into the realms of romantic fantasy. He had taken her to paradise in bed. But within hours he had mercifully brought her back down to earth with a jarring crash. He had hurt her more than she had known she could be hurt. She had learnt that she was far more naive than she would ever have been prepared to admit.

Not a bad lesson to learn, Ellie told herself, striving to feel more upbeat. The excitement was over now. She had resisted Dio Alexiakis. She had done the right thing. But why hadn't she appreciated how dreadful doing the right thing might make her feel?

M
IDWAY
through the following week, Ellie told Mr Barry that she had finally made an appointment at the bank.

‘Why?'

Ellie smiled, thinking that her elderly employer was becoming very absent-minded. ‘So that I can apply for a loan to buy this business,' she reminded him gently.

Horace Barry looked dismayed. ‘Leave that for a while yet, Ellie,' he urged.

Bewildered by that reaction, Ellie murmured reluctantly, ‘I suppose I
could
cancel the appointment—'

‘Yes…yes, much the best thing for now,' he cut in to agree with a pronounced air of relief.

With a muttered reference to some books that required sorting, the older man then took himself off without offering any further explanation. Ellie frowned. Wasn't he quite as eager to retire as he had always said he was? What else could it be? Keen to save on estate agency fees, Horace Barry had given her to understand that if she was able to offer a fair price by the end of the year, the shop was hers. Ellie told herself not to make mountains out of molehills. It wouldn't hurt her to wait, but she was disappointed. Just then, the challenge of taking on her own business would have been very welcome.

Another two weeks passed by on leaden feet for Ellie. Mr Barry was a quiet man, but he had become exceptionally quiet. Almost evasive with her. Troubled and distracted by that suspicion, Ellie had to glance at the calendar in her room one evening before she belatedly noticed the absence of a
certain telling pen-mark. All of a sudden Ellie saw that she had something far more immediate to worry about.

Stress and sleepless nights had probably disrupted her monthly cycle, she told herself in dismay. She was only about a week late. But the more she worried about the possibility of being pregnant, the more likely a development it seemed. She might well have conceived. She was young and healthy and, according to her calculations, the timing of that contraceptive failure could not have been worse.

As Ellie entered the Alexiakis International building for work that same evening, she saw Dio for the first time in almost three weeks. Tall, blue-black hair gleaming under the lights, his bold, bronzed profile commanding, he was striding towards the executive lift, three other men in his wake. Shock made Ellie's stomach flip right over. She came to an involuntary halt on legs that felt distinctly wobbly. Her head swam and she gulped in oxygen, feeling perspiration break out on her skin.

‘How are you, Ellie?' a deep, dark drawl enquired with leaden casualness.

Blinking furiously, Ellie focused on a pair of polished hand-stitched leather shoes and slowly lifted her head. Her wide, incredulous gaze centred on Dio and stayed there, locked onto him like a guided missile, her heart pounding like crazy. Black fathomless eyes stared down into hers.

‘You look like a ghost facing an exorcist,' Dio murmured in flat continuation, looking her over with unashamed and even more inappropriate thoroughness.

Noticing his three former companions holding the lift for his benefit while watching the encounter with the equivalent of dropped jaws, Ellie forced her brain to spring back into gear. ‘Go away, for goodness' sake!' she urged, her colour high. ‘You're not supposed to know me!'

‘Damned if I do and damned if I don't,' Dio rhymed with sardonic amusement. ‘Why are women so irrational?'

‘Why are men so unbelievably thick?' Ellie breathed, sidestepping him to hurry on past with a downbent head. Before she had completed that escape, however, she noticed a couple of the other cleaners nearby. Their attention was welded to her with speculative heat. Ellie's heart sank.

When she went down for her break later, she was intensely uncomfortable. If one of her co-workers had challenged her openly about her encounter with Dio, she would have known that nothing suspicious had been detected. But the sudden silence which greeted her appearance, the covert glances and the buzz that broke out when she left again told her otherwise. And what other reaction could she have expected? she asked herself sickly.

Dio hadn't just given her a fleeting nod or a passing word. In the act of stepping into the lift, Dio had come all the way back across the foyer to acknowledge her and embark on a conversation. What on earth had possessed him? Didn't he appreciate how much he had exposed her to adverse comment?

Meg Bucknall followed her into the service lift. ‘I thought I'd better wait and have a word with you in private,' she admitted frankly.

Ellie tried not to stiffen and nodded.

‘Ellie, the girls were adding two and two and making four before you even started your shift,' Meg shared ruefully. ‘Everyone knows you switched with me that night and then just vanished for most of that week.'

‘I didn't think anyone would be that interested.'

‘In the normal way of it, they wouldn't have been. But a few of them had already joked about how much you looked like that blonde with Mr Alexiakis in Greece. None of them were suspicious…but him going out of his way to speak to you tonight was strange enough to confirm the wildest rumours.'

Ellie had too much respect for the older woman to embark
on frantic denials. On her first night back to work she had known that Meg was disconcerted by her failure to offer an explanation of her disappearance. ‘I'll ride out the gossip,' she muttered tautly.

The older woman sighed. ‘A couple of weeks ago, Mr Alexiakis walked past me and said, “Goodnight, Mrs Bucknall,” for the
first
time ever. I couldn't help but know that something had changed somewhere. I would have sworn he didn't even
know
my name, never mind take note of me being around!'

Ellie coloured as she recalled accusing Dio of not even noticing his more humble employees.

‘I've no time for gossip.' Meg's eyes were troubled. ‘It's
you
I'm worrying about—'

‘I'm fine…sadder but wiser,' Ellie confided tightly as the lift reached her floor.

Meg grimaced. ‘I wish I could give that young man a piece of my mind—'

‘I'm not a child, Meg.'

‘No,' Meg conceded grudgingly as Ellie stepped out. ‘But you needn't try to kid me that you're in
his
league either!'

It was no comfort to be reminded of that salient fact. Ellie was already far too well aware of it. One reckless night which could well change the whole course of her life, she reflected with a feeling shiver. Her mother had been a single parent. Ellie knew better than most just how difficult it was to raise a child alone. She was probably being foolishly pessimistic, she told herself. Even so, she decided to buy a kit and do a pregnancy test for herself the following day. It would be a lot quicker than waiting to get an appointment with her doctor.

She was emerging from one of the offices on level eight when the lift next to the reception area pinged. She turned her head, expecting to see the security guard on his round,
and froze when she saw Dio Alexiakis striding down the corridor towards her.

This time she noticed every tiny detail of his appearance. He was wearing a superb silver-grey suit, cut to enhance every powerful line of his magnificent physique. Her heartbeat thudded preternaturally slow in her eardrums. His lean, dark features had a slightly keener edge then she recalled; his sensational cheekbones were more defined, the hollows below a little deeper. But even the faint shadows now etched beneath his stunning eyes added an exotic tinge of drama to his spectacular good-looks, she reflected in a sudden surge of bitter anger. She hated the way he made her feel. Breathless and excited, and then foolish and unbearably sad…

Ellie spun away and plugged in the floor-polisher, determined just to get on with her job. The polisher fired into noisy motion but almost as suddenly lost power.

Ellie whirled round. Having switched off the electric current, Dio straightened, surveying her disconcerted face with brilliant black eyes of challenge. ‘Stop running away,' he derided.

Unprepared for that angle of attack, Ellie said tautly, ‘I don't know what you're talking about—'

‘Yes, you do. You're trying to hide behind the fact that you work for me. But it's too late for that,' Dio told her with sardonic cool.

‘I just want you to leave me alone.'

Dio gazed steadily back at her. ‘Every time you look at me, you tell me the exact opposite.' He reached down for her hand before she could guess his intention. ‘Your pulse is racing. You're trembling—'

‘With annoyance!' Ellie tugged her wrist free and spun away again. ‘I know what I want out of life and, believe me, you're not part of the package!'

‘What features in the package?'

‘You really want to know?'

‘I really want to know,' Dio confirmed levelly.

‘All right. I'm hoping to buy the bookshop. That's why I run two jobs. I've been saving up for a long time and I'll be applying for a loan soon,' she admitted flatly.

‘I'll offer you a loan now, on a straight business basis,' Dio informed her lazily.

Ellie groaned out loud in frustration, marched into the next office down the corridor and snatched up the wastepaper bin. ‘You just don't get it, do you?' she condemned when she emerged again. ‘I don't want any favours. I don't
need
any help.'

‘But you're making your employment here a barrier between us.'

‘Dio…you wouldn't recognise a solid brick wall as a barrier!' Ellie snapped.

‘I shouldn't have asked you to be my mistress,' he murmured sibilantly.

Ellie was tempted into looking at him again, the hard knot of anger inside her loosening ever so slightly. ‘No—'

‘It was too soon,' Dio completed.

‘You are a
really
slow learner!' Ellie delivered with waspish bite.

Vibrant amusement shimmered in his stunning dark eyes. ‘I've missed having you around,
pethi mou
.'

That smile warmed her like summer sunshine. She dragged her eyes from him, as if that sudden heat burned her. ‘So you're bored with sycophancy and in need of novelty. Have you ever thought of a dating agency?'

‘You finish work soon. Let me take you out to eat somewhere.'

Ellie studied him where he lounged up against the door like a sleek, dark predator at rest. He aroused the most terrifyingly powerful hunger in her. She thought of all the nights she had tossed and turned, unable to get him out of her mind and hating herself for being so weak she couldn't control her
own thoughts. But there it was, this aching, hurting craving that went way beyond physical desire…

‘Ellie…' Dio prompted gently.

‘I finish work and go to
bed
, Dio,' she stressed curtly, bending down to plug in the polisher again.

‘So we skip the food.'

Anger lancing through her in response to that provocative suggestion, Ellie came upright again very fast. But that sudden movement engulfed her in a wave of dizziness. Her view of Dio and the well-lit corridor lurched, and then blurred out of focus. With a muffled gasp of fright she went down and down into the beckoning darkness, her legs crumpling beneath her.

When Ellie began to recover consciousness, she felt nauseous and dazed. Her lashes lifted slowly. Dio was so close she could see the tiny golden lights in his eyes and every inky individual spike of his lush lashes. They were in a lift and he was carrying her, she finally registered, twin discoveries which confused her even more. ‘Dio…'

‘What?' he demanded with unconcealed aggression, powerful arms tightening round her to keep her firmly wedged against his hard, muscular chest.

‘What happened?' she mumbled heavily.

‘You fainted.'

A frown indented her damp brow as she fought to regain her wits. ‘I don't faint…'

‘I've had it with this cleaning lark,' Dio ground out, his jawline squaring. ‘It's obvious that you're not fit for it.'

‘Dio…put me down!'

‘If I put you down, you'll fall over again! You look terrible, but then that's not very surprising, is it?' Dio continued in the same accusing tone. ‘You work six days a week in that bookshop, and more than half the time you're left to cope on your own there.'

‘How do you
know
that?' Ellie gasped, taken aback by his knowledge.

‘I made it my business to know.' Black eyes gleamed down into hers. ‘Your other employer has got it made. He wanders in around lunchtime and heads home again mid-afternoon. How can you expect to work all day and then put in five nights here in a physically demanding job?'

‘I'm young, and healthy as a horse,' Ellie protested as the lift doors sprang open, belatedly prompting her to demand to know where on earth he was taking her.

‘I'm taking you home.' With long, forceful strides, Dio headed out across the ground-floor foyer towards the line of exit doors.

With difficulty, Ellie dragged her attention from him and took in the presence of the security guards at the main reception area. One of them was rushing to get a door open. The other two were gazing rigidly into space with the fixed expressions of men who had had a really good look at them coming out of the lift but were determined not to betray any reaction that might cause offence.

Belatedly appreciating the spectacle Dio was making of them both, Ellie groaned out loud. ‘How am I ever going to work here again after this?'

‘Goodnight, Mr Alexiakis,' the guard swinging open the door said stiltedly.

‘
Ne
…yes, it
is
a good night,' Dio drawled with a truly staggering lack of self-consciousness.

Ellie just closed her eyes tight, feeling the cool air of outdoors chill her burning cheeks. ‘If I didn't still feel so awful, I'd strangle you for this, Dio!'

Unrepentant, Dio stowed her in the back seat of the waiting limousine and swung in beside her. ‘We have to wait,' he advanced. ‘Demitrios is clearing your locker out.'