Tempted By Her Greek Tycoon

‘Didn’t Nikos tell you? He recruited me while you were away. It’s only a temporary role, to tide you over until a permanent replacement can be found.’

She gave him a friendly smile, keen to build bridges with her new boss and neighbour, but that only made his scowl deepen further.

For a brief second his gaze moved down over her body. And then he looked away, as though irritated with himself. He shuffled the beaten-up-looking soft tan leather weekend case he was carrying into his opposite hand.

‘Where are my other siblings?’

‘Marios had a scuba-diving appointment and Angeliki has gone to Athens. I think she has a date tonight.’

His long fingers rubbed against his temple, as though he were defeated by her answer. She gave him another small smile, wishing she could think of something to say that would help. That would ease the lines of tension pulling at the corners of his eyes.

‘Nikos owes you an apology. He had no authority to recruit you. Let’s talk in my office.’

Though her heart plummeted to the floor at Loukas’s job-terminating-sounding tone, she had to think of the party, and the staff members who had been so excited for days about the celebration.

‘I’m supposed to be hosting the party. Can we talk tomorrow?’ She paused and then, unable to stop herself, she added, ‘Nikos’s costume is in his office. You could wear it for the party... It’s a Captain Hook costume. I think it would suit you.’

He looked at her incredulously, and then his eyes narrowed as he realised that she was teasing him. His scowl told her that, unlike Nikos, he wasn’t one for playful banter. He really was different...unfortunately.

‘I’ve work to do. I need to wrap this party up. There’s too much that still has to be completed before we open. I will speak to the staff and then we will talk in my office,’ he said, before heading in the direction of the hotel terrace along a path lined with thickly blossoming lavender.

She chased after him but her mermaid tail slowed her progress. Unable to catch him, she shouted out in desperation. ‘Loukas! No!’

He turned around and stared at her, clearly peeved. Under his unimpressed gaze she waddled towards him, feeling less like an elegant mermaid and more like a hung-over duck.

‘The party has only just started. The staff will be so disappointed. They’ve put huge effort into designing their costumes.’

His gaze travelled down over her costume and then he looked back up with a raised eyebrow. As if to ask, And precisely why should I be worried about any of this?

But then his gaze moved back down over her body again, this time lingering at her breasts, at her waist. His eyes darkened.

Pinpricks of awareness flooded her body. This was her boss. Her neighbour. Her friends’ brother. She had no business being so aware of him physically.

She stepped back, overwhelmed by his size, by the heat licking her insides.

At her movement, the dark appreciation in his eyes turned to annoyance. His mouth twisted unhappily.

For long seconds he studied her coolly. ‘I won’t stop the party but you and I still need to talk.’

And then, much to her consternation he held out his arm.

‘Let me help you.’ Those brown eyes stared at her intently. ‘You seem to be floundering out of your natural habitat.’

He was messing with her...wasn’t he?

His expression remained stern as he waited for her to respond. She wanted to say no, that she’d manage, but to do so would somehow feel as if she was giving in to him. That she would be admitting to feeling like a mermaid out of water around him.

She flashed her best sassy smile at him, clasped her hand with intent on his tanned forearm, and gritted her teeth as the nerve-endings on her fingers tingled at the warmth of his skin, the strength of his flexed forearm.

‘Mermaids belong in the sea, Miss Jones. I hope you manage to survive the evening.’

Her eyes shot over to study him. He had to be joking this time... Maybe he was as capable of teasing as his siblings were, but yet again his expression gave nothing away.

At an excruciatingly slow pace and in silence they made their way around the corner to the hotel’s sun terrace.

The terrace—so elegant with its borders of lush shrubs interspersed with olive and citrus trees, the bright pinks and purples of bougainvillea and pelargonium trained along the external walls, and its plush outdoor seating areas—was crowded with all the hotel staff, dressed for the nautical themed party.

They separated and she detoured to speak to The Korinna’s head chef, Jean-Louis, who was dressed as Poseidon, complete with curly wig, beard and golden trident.

As she laughed with Jean-Louis over their respective costumes, and then checked with him that all was okay with the catering for the event, she found herself tracing Loukas’s progress through the crowd as pirates, sharks and surf babes eagerly stopped him to chat. It was clear that he was respected and liked by his staff. Why was his relationship with his three siblings so different, then? All three had variously grumbled about him in the past, describing him as everything from a control freak to a nightmare with zero sense of fun.

Loukas was the consummate host, giving his complete if rather serious attention to those he spoke to. But as she was dragged into having her photograph taken with some of the hotel’s personal trainers Georgie sensed a growing tension, a greater unease in him as he made his way towards the terrace steps where the party DJ was stationed.

Once there, he spoke to the DJ, who immediately ended the song blasting out of the speakers. He waited until the crowd grew silent before he started to speak.

‘The Korinna reopens its doors next week. Thank you for all your hard work and co-operation so far in completing the renovations. We now need to give one final push over the coming days to complete the work so we can deliver the five-star service we always promise our valued guests.’

He moved out to the edge of the steps to get closer to the crowd. His deep voice—which was in keeping with his hulking size and delivered little punches to her stomach every time he spoke—dropped to an even lower grave timbre.

‘As you already know, we have specially invited influencers, journalists and bloggers coming for the first time, but we also have some of our regular clients and their entire families staying with us over the Pascha weekend. We need to balance the needs of both groups, and our focus has to be on guest satisfaction at all times. No request is too big, and I want each of you to be proactive and anticipate the guests’ needs. At no other time has the Christou business motto been more apt: We deliver perfection.’

His shoulders stiffened and his gaze slowly ran across the crowd.

‘The future of The Korinna is reliant on us excelling in everything we do from the moment we open our doors again. And everyone else on Talos needs us to succeed too—we need to lead the way in making Talos a year-round destination, especially during the winter months when so many businesses on the island struggle.’

Loukas stepped back and for a moment stared down at the pale sandstone of the patio. When he looked back up there was a vulnerability in the way his mouth worked, the way he blinked hard.

‘The past few years have been difficult for us all, but it’s now time for The Korinna to shine again.’ He paused, his voice catching. ‘As many of you know, it was my father’s dream that in addition to our hotels here in Greece we would also own some of Europe’s leading five-star hotels. Soon I hope to announce the acquisition of some of those premises. But for now let’s make The Korinna dazzle—make it the gold standard for what we in the Christou Group promise to deliver to our guests, both current and future. Let’s do my parents proud.’

Around her people shuffled and cleared their throats. She rapidly blinked her eyes, sideswiped by Loukas’s emotion. This was the man who had looked as if he wanted to commit murder less than fifteen minutes ago.

She remembered Angeliki’s poorly disguised attempt at bravado when she had described losing both her parents at only ten years of age. The same bravado Georgie had used to adopt herself when having to explain her mum’s absence as a child.

Loukas’s gaze swept across the crowd and settled on her. Her heart dipped and soared at his grave expression.

‘None of us can allow anything to get in the way of The Korinna’s success.’

* * *

Loukas entered his office and threw his weekend bag on the office sofa.

He rolled his neck against the steel rod that seemed to have inserted itself down the centre of his spine.

Why had he felt so damn emotional during his speech to the staff?

He sat down at his desk and scrubbed his face with a hand. Inhaling a weary breath, he fired up his computer. Flicking through his emails, he clicked on one from his legal team. He read it and sighed.

His instinct had been right—there really was no way out of the clause that had been inserted into the lease by the religious order who had sold the Convento San Francesco over a hundred years ago.