Seduced into the Greek's World

Something like indecision passed over her face before she brought her gaze around to his. Her expression smoothed to an aloof facade, as though she’d mentally tucked away everything personal and only left the basics.

“There’s not much to say. I grew up outside of Montreal with my mother and brother. I divorced pretty much as soon as I married and worked on contract with Makricosta for two years before I was hired for a permanent position with the Canadian branch. Sometimes I go on-site across the country, but most of what I do is handled over the phone and through screen-share from my home office.”

“Turn it off and turn it on again?” he guessed.

“Exactly. Along with some talking off the ledge when files are corrupted or a job change demands a revision of an email signature and they can’t find where to update it. The excitement in tech support never stops, let me tell you. I couldn’t figure out why my ear felt weird the first few days I was in France and finally realized it’s because I wasn’t wearing my Bluetooth.”

There was more, he suspected, but before he could dig, she turned his inquiry around. “You?”

“Why don’t you tell me what you know? Through your carefully vetted research,” he drawled, and liked the way her full lips pursed in compunction. He wasn’t bothered. Of course the employees gossiped about him. He made about as much effort to be discreet as he did toward curbing misbehavior overall. The whole point was to let his escapades be known in order to reach maximum exasperation factor.

Which was juvenile, he realized, reflecting on it under Natalie’s regard and feeling the first traces of shame, but he had his reasons for making himself the target of attention.

“I don’t actually know that much,” Natalie said. “Your family keeps a low profile. Your brother turning up with a baby with the chambermaid was a hot topic for a while, but since I don’t work directly in the hotels, I don’t have close friendships with anyone at work and only get the odd bits of gossip fed back to me. There are some people I talk to all the time, and when I’m solving a crisis I’m very popular, but mostly I’m regarded as a necessary evil. Right now, making all these changes to the main system? It’s a good thing I have a thick skin because I’m not anyone’s friend. Which sounds like I’m talking about myself again. What a bore I am!”

“I’m interested,” he assured her, surprised by how true the comment was. “How old were you when you married?”

“Not old enough,” she said with a circumspect lift of her lashes. “Nineteen. Have you ever been married?”

“Hell, no.”

“Wish I’d had your sense.” The wry curl at the corner of her mouth and couched bitterness behind her eyes suggested she was being completely forthright.

A woman after my own heart, he thought ironically.

“What happened to cut your marriage short? Infidelity?” Hell, at that age he had broken up his brother’s impending marriage, coldly and deliberately.

Natalie didn’t answer right away. Her lips pursed in old disappointment as she stared out the window. “The short answer is he didn’t come to my mother’s funeral,” she finally allowed.

When she swung her face back to him, it was as if she was saying, There. I did it. As if her telling him without showing too much emotion had been very hard.

A weird, answering pain lurched in his chest.

He was a student of human behavior. People thought he was superficial and lacking in empathy. He was fine with the misconception. Deep thoughts really didn’t interest him, but he was very good at reading people. Years of living in a house where emotions were so deeply hidden you needed a pickax to find them had honed his skills. The side benefit was that it made him good at his job. Good with women.

Natalie didn’t want his sympathy, however. The keep-away vibes rolling off her were obvious and troubling. Especially because, for once, he knew exactly how she felt.

“I couldn’t face my mother’s funeral alone. I brought a date. How twisted is that?” he confided.

“Adara and Theo weren’t there?”

“No, they were.” And Nic, the older brother Demitri hadn’t known about. He averted his mind from how disturbing it had been to have a stranger enter their inner circle, as though a member of the audience had walked on stage and begun acting with the players, throwing off his lines. “We’re not close in a way that would have made something like that easier.” He’d barely spoken to them at all, too stunned and filled with questions he refused to ask.

“But you said you grew up with your mother and brother, so he must have been at the funeral with you?”

She flinched and sat back, distancing herself even more. She straightened her silverware and looked quite pale despite the golden glow of candlelight on her skin.

“He died the year before. Can we not talk about this please?”

“I’m sorry.” When had he ever been so aghast at stepping on someone’s feelings? Or apologized so sincerely to a woman? But his hand was over hers before he knew he was going to reach out to make a connection. “Really. Theo drives me bat-guano-crazy, but I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

She laughed. It was more of a sniff, and she brushed at her cheek, eyes wet and glowing when she lifted them. “Thank you. It was six years ago, but I still miss him and think about him every day.”

The waiter arrived to distract them. By the time they were alone again, Natalie had her bravest smile back in place. “Tell me why your brother drives you crazy.”

He shook his head. “You’ll have me in tears,” he dismissed.

“Your job, then. Will you talk about that?”

“You can’t be interested,” he deflected. Where were questions like “Were you in Cannes for the festival?” “Where do you summer?”

Natalie shrugged. “I’m certainly not interested in myself. This is the most excitement I’ve had in my life. True story,” she assured him with a confirming nod. “You travel, at least. Meet famous people.”

“People who think they’re famous are boring as hell. That is a true story. But come on. You must have at least one deep, dark secret that makes you interesting.”

“One,” she allowed promptly, suppressing a smile. “But it’s not very dark. Dirty blond at best. And I’m not going to tell you.” She had decided that, since this was her one chance to act like a carefree young woman instead of a mom. It was harmless, she told herself. This was only dinner.

“I want to hear it,” he insisted.

She shook her head, firm. “You’ll think differently of me. But what about you? Any dark secrets falling out of your pockets?”

* * *

His guard was so low he almost told her about Nic. The fact his siblings had kept the man’s existence from him had completely unraveled his view of his life and his place in the family. The exclusion had rocked his foundation, and he’d begun mentally separating from them, thinking more seriously about starting his own marketing firm.

Gideon had called a few weeks later to announce Adara’s pregnancy and to inform Demitri that he would be expected to step up and take on extra hours in the family business. Demitri had been needed again. Integral to the business and to his sister. Things had gone back to normal for a while, but then Adara had started trying to get everyone together. She and Theo were as thick as thieves with their parenthood jokes, and he was once again on the outside looking in.

They weren’t even leaning on him at work anymore. Quite the opposite, which was eating at his sense of self. With practiced ease he turned his mind from all of that, distracting Natalie with some of his stock stories that always drew a laugh. He knew loads of celebrities and had made a career of partying with them. His siblings had certainly never loosened up enough to ensure their highest-paying guests had fun.

That was Demitri’s job: creating distraction. Drawing and holding attention.

Natalie was rapt, thoroughly engaged with everything he told her. It wasn’t a strange occurrence for him. Everyone, women especially, responded to him. He’d recognized it early and used it to this day. The difference tonight was how much he enjoyed her attention while at the same time resenting that she wanted him to talk when he wanted to hear more about her.

They lingered over their meal, finishing the bottle of wine and nursing coffee, steering away from personal topics in favor of movies and news scandals and places he’d been that she’d like to visit.

“You’re a single woman. Get on a plane,” he ordered. “What’s holding you back?”

“I did get on a plane,” she argued good-naturedly, shielding her eyes with a downward sweep of her lashes. “I’m here. Dining on the Seine. Thank you for a lovely evening,” she added, flashing her gaze back up to his. “This is what I’d hoped for when I applied for this trip.”

She’d been looking for a man to seduce her. He could see it and a pulse of sexual excitement pumped through him. But seduction required patience, he reminded himself.

“Do you like dancing? We could go to a club.”

“I... It’s a work night,” she argued, but the slant of her gaze told him she was tempted.

He smirked. “I begin to see why you don’t have a life.” He signaled for the check.

“Note to self—boss thinks a work ethic is overrated,” she chirped.