Greek Tycoon, Waitress Wife

A look of horror—and more—convulsed the girl’s face.

‘I’m…I’m sorry—’ It was all she could get out.

A space had cleared around her, and someone was bustling up to her. A short man with an expression on his face that was both irate, and aghast.

‘What’s going on here?’ he demanded.

‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Marissa’s voice was still shrill. ‘This moron has ruined my dress.’

The aghast look on the short man’s face deepened, and he launched into vociferous apology—which Alexeis cut short.

‘Only the bodice is wet, Marissa,’ he said coolly, cutting the man off. ‘If you sponge it down it will dry out. It’s dark; it won’t show.’

Marissa was not consoled. ‘You half-brained little idiot!’ she raged at the girl again.

Alexeis put a restraining hand on her wrist. ‘Go and find the powder room,’ he said. It wasn’t a suggestion.

Throwing him a fulminating glance, Marissa stormed off. Meantime, the short man had summoned two other waiting staff, who’d rushed up with cloths and a dustpan and brush, to clear up the shards and the spilt juice on the polished wood floor. He’d also banished the erring waitress whilst Alexeis had spoken to Marissa. Alexeis could see her scurrying, shoulders hunched, towards the back of the gallery.

Then the short man was turning his fulsomely dismayed apologies on Alexeis. Alexeis wasn’t interested. ‘It was an accident,’ he said curtly, nodding dismissal impatiently.

The moment was too opportune to miss—he strode to the reception desk at the entrance.

‘Tell Ms Harcourt I’ve had to leave,’ he said. Then he walked out of the gallery, extracting his mobile to summon his driver. He’d send Marissa a cheque for a new dress, and a trinket to wear with it. it. That should dispose of her. It also meant he’d be facing a celibate night for certain.

Without volition, he found himself thinking about the waitress Marissa had railed at. He frowned—there had been no call to be so abusive to the girl. It had been an accident, not incompetence. His mind wandered back to his perusal of the girl. She really had been very lovely indeed. And in the black, tight-skirted, white-aproned outfit, with the close-fitting short-sleeved white blouse, she’d looked very—

Beddable—that was the word for it.

Oh, not too obviously, not too flagrantly, but there was no denying that the black and white uniform—together with her soft blondeness and those long-lashed wide-set eyes—did the business.

Involuntarily, he felt himself tightening.

Damn—that was not an appropriate response right now! However lovely she was, the girl was not the type of female he usually consorted with. Anyway, he was not in the habit of picking women up on a casual basis. He selected them carefully, not just on their looks, but on whether they would fit into his lifestyle—and, of course, not seek to outstay their shelf-life.

His car glided up to the pavement and he got in. Tonight he would just have to work, that was all. He was flying to New York in the morning anyway, and he knew a large selection of suitable women there from which to choose a replacement for Marissa.

He sat back in the moulded leather seat, looking indifferently out of the tinted window as the car moved forward, heading back down Bond Street. It took him past the gallery again, and he was relieved to see no sign of Marissa. He felt his conscience twinge at having ended their relationship so ruthlessly, but put it aside. He knew very well that the main attraction for her was his wealth and status—nothing more.

He was about to avert his gaze when a figure caught his eye. Walking along with a rapid, somehow jerky gait, shoulders hunched, blonde head bowed, raincoat wrapped tightly round her, hands in pockets and shoulder bag clutched to her side, was the waitress.

Abruptly, for no reason he could justify, Alexeis pressed the intercom button.

‘Stop the car,’ he ordered his driver.

CHAPTER TWO

CARRIE kept walking forward. If she kept walking, she wouldn’t think. Wouldn’t think she’d just lost her job. Again. Was she doomed to keep losing jobs? she thought woefully. It had been her own fault, obviously, and she couldn’t blame them for sacking her. She’d let herself be distracted, she knew—fatally—by that incredible man. If she hadn’t been gawping at him so stupidly she’d have been more aware of what was going on. But, no, she’d had to just stand there like an idiot.

She hadn’t been able to help herself, though. He had just been so incredible! It really was the only word for him. She’d never seen a man that good-looking, who had that kind of impact. Talk about tall, dark and handsome! In the few moments she’d looked at him she hadn’t really been able to take in any specific details, but the overall impact had been just amazing.

And when he’d met her eyes…

She felt again the whoosh that had knocked her in that breathless moment, when she’d felt the impact of those dark, long-lashed eyes holding hers. There had been something in them as he’d looked at her that had squeezed her lungs tight.

Then his partner had wanted water, and the moment had passed. And then—then the disaster.

Mr Bartlett had raged at her when he’d found her in the back, and sacked her on the spot. She was incredibly lucky, he’d told her, not to have to pay for the woman’s dress she’d ruined, which would easily have cost hundreds of pounds. Even so she’d been sacked without her wages, to cover the cost of the specialist dry cleaning Mr Bartlett had said would be required.

Well, at least now she could get a daytime job and not just the evening work that she’d been restricted to up till now. Her eyes shadowed. She’d only been in London for three months, and had been glad to get away from her home—get away from the grief and the anguished memory of her father’s final days. Glad, too, to get away from everyone’s sympathy, not to mention the kindly meant offers of financial help that she could never accept. Here, in this vast city, she was all but anonymous, and she welcomed it.

Yet London was a bleak place, certainly when finances were as straitened as hers were. Just keeping her head above water was hard, but it had to be done—at least until the summer was over and she could go home again to Marchester and resume the life she knew, painful though it would be without her father. Casual jobs here, at least, were plentiful, but it was relentless and grinding, and in three months she’d had no time off for herself and no money to spare for anything beyond necessities.

There was another aspect to working in London she didn’t like either. The hassle she got. That was what had cost her the first job she’d lost. She’d been working in a tapas bar and a customer had slid his hand up her skirt. Shocked and appalled, she had hit his hand away violently. The man had complained about her and Carrie had been sacked. The woman at the job agency had been unsympathetic.

‘With your looks you should be used to it—and used to handling it,’ she’d said dismissively.

But she wasn’t, thought Carrie miserably. No one behaved like that in the world she was used to, nor had any interest in doing so. Their minds were focussed on other matters. It was hard to be subjected to that kind of treatment, or even just to be looked at the way men did here—so blatantly. So sleazily.

It wasn’t sleazy when that incredible guy looked at you—

Memory flushed through her again hotly. No, sleazy had not been the word. Not in the slightest. The way that man had looked at her had made her feel—

Breathless.

She felt the tightness in her chest again as she recalled the way his eyes had held hers. He really had been amazing! The sort of fantasy man a girl could dream about. He was probably rich, too, because all the guests at the gallery had been—or at least well-heeled. He’d had a very rich look indeed about him. There’d been something about him, something more than just his fantastic dark looks and what had obviously been a hand-made suit and a silk tie—a sort of assurance, arrogance, even, as if he were one of the princes of the world…

She gave a twist of her mouth. Whatever he was, he belonged to the London that she didn’t! The one she only saw from the other side of the bar or the table or through the door, where the likes of her served the likes of him, and remained anonymous and unobtrusive.

Dejection hit her again, and she quickened her pace, unconsciously hunching her shoulders, feeling bleak and lonely. Though she saved money and got exercise by walking, there was still a good long way back to the poky bedsit in Paddington that was all she could afford.

Suddenly she stopped. A car door had just opened in front of her, enough to block her path and require her to veer around it. Then, as she gathered her wits to do just that, a voice spoke.

‘Are you all right?’

Carrie’s head turned. The voice—deep, and with an accent she did not register—came from the interior of the car. As she looked at the speaker her eyes widened involuntarily. It was the incredible-looking man from the gallery, whose girlfriend’s dress she’d soaked. Apprehension stabbed at her. Was he going to demand money for the dress? She didn’t have anywhere near enough on her, even just for cleaning it. And if he told her she had to replace it she would be completely stuck. The prospect was so daunting that she just froze.

The man was getting out of the car, and she stepped back hurriedly. He seemed taller than she remembered—and even more incredible looking. She couldn’t help reacting to it, even though it was the stupidest thing in the world to do.

‘Is—is it about the dress?’ she blurted, gripping her bag by its shoulder strap out of sheer tension.

A frown pleated his brow momentarily. It made him look even more forbidding than the dark, severely tailored bespoke suit and his air of wealth and power did.

‘Your girlfriend’s dress? The one I spilt the juice over?’ Carrie continued.

The man ignored her question. ‘Why are you not still at the gallery?’ he demanded.

Carrie swallowed. It seemed more like an accusation than a question, and she could only say, ‘I got dismissed.’