The Petrakos Bride

Maddie felt so hot and flustered and furious with herself that she had to splash her face with cold water to cool down. Having actually got to meet Giannis Petrakos, she had contrived to make the worst possible impression on him. Her nerves had made her inexcusably ham-fisted. She winced at the suspicion that he might have seen the involuntary tears of dismay that had briefly filled her eyes when she’d realised the extent of the damage she had caused. How professional was that?

She felt even more uncomfortable about the way she had behaved around him. Being a touch naïve and inexperienced when it came to men now struck her as being a hanging offence. However, she had had little opportunity to be anything else when, from her teenage years right through to her early twenties, she had been restricted by her responsibilities at home. A social life had been impossible, school-friends had fallen away because she had never been free to go out. Though in some ways she had grown up older than her years, because she had spent so much time with her grandparents, when she’d moved to London to find work, after her grandmother had passed away, she had discovered that she was uncomfortably out of step with her peers. Sex as casual as a takeaway meal and heavy drinking ran contrary to the mores she had been taught to respect.

But Maddie was also honest enough to admit that until the moment she had looked across that conference room and seen Giannis Petrakos she had genuinely not known what it was to be strongly attracted to a man. In that instant her brain had turned to mush and her body to an alien entity that reacted with responses she had not known she had. The strength of that physical pull had taken her by surprise, and even in retrospect it shocked her. That disturbing awareness of the more private parts of her body still lingered like a secret taunt, to remind her that she had sexual responses that paid little heed to common sense or self-control. Could he have guessed why she was staring at him? The suspicion made her cringe. While he had to be accustomed to attracting female attention, he was entitled to expect more prudent behaviour from an employee.

‘Miss Conway?’ Annabel Holmes murmured from the doorway. ‘A word, if you please.’

Maddie paled and turned obediently away from the trolley she had been clearing to face the manager.

‘Are you sure you’re all right? That was quite a fall you had,’ the other woman remarked rather stiffly.

‘I’m great—only my dignity dented,’ Maddie asserted awkwardly. ‘Were you able to hold the presentation?’

‘I’m afraid not. There was a delay, and Mr Petrakos had another appointment. He’s never here for long, and when he is his schedule is packed. Mistakes are an inconvenience and an annoyance that he doesn’t forget,’ Annabel breathed tautly. ‘I messed up by asking you to do the refreshments—’

‘No, I’m the one who messed up!’ Maddie protested in dismay.

‘I’m afraid Mr Petrakos has a low tolerance threshold for screw-ups. I’m pretty sure I’ll be forever associated with that ruined presentation in his mind.’

Guilt assailed Maddie in an even more powerful wave. ‘Surely not…I mean, I’m sure he’s a reasonable guy.’

A humourless laugh fell from Annabel’s lips. ‘You’re suffering from the Petrakos effect, aren’t you? All our hearts beat a lot faster the first time or so, but now mine just goes into panic mode when he’s around,’ she confided heavily. ‘He may be drop-dead gorgeous, but he’s cold as ice below the surface and he expects perfection. If you don’t shape up, he ships you out fast.’

Initially ready to argue with that hard assessment of Giannis Petrakos, Maddie bit down on her tongue—because she had already learned for herself that he did not suffer fools in silence. She apologised again, for she could see that the brunette was sincerely worried about her future employment prospects.

Annabel shrugged and told her not to worry about it. ‘That’s the joy of being a temp,’ the other woman added. ‘You’ll be out of here tomorrow and starting a clean sheet someplace else the next day.’

With a heavy heart, Maddie cleared the abandoned cups from the empty conference room. Surely Annabel Holmes was wrong about Giannis Petrakos, and was overreacting to an unfortunate blunder? But some highly successful business magnates were reputed to be total slave-driving tyrants in the office, Maddie acknowledged unhappily. And what did she really know about Giannis Petrakos as an employer? Was the other woman’s career likely to suffer as a result of Maddie’s clumsiness? If that was the case, wasn’t it her duty to speak up on Annabel’s behalf and ensure that she herself took the blame? Grovel in the hope that his memory of the unfortunate incident was forever associated with a very clumsy temp instead?

Tomorrow she would make every possible effort to speak to him. Perhaps when he arrived in the morning—or later—she’d be able to just manage to catch him on his own for a moment. She could always make him a cup of coffee and use that as an excuse to interrupt him. A couple of minutes would be all she needed. It was wonderful how a few well-chosen tactful words could smooth over an awkward episode…

CHAPTER TWO

GIANNIS woke hot and aching from an erotic dream and cursed with rare savagery. Maddie, the graceless little redhead, had hotwired his libido. What was it about her? The lure of forbidden fruit? The prospect of sex at the office? He had never had it, but had often thought about it.

Over the past decade he could have fulfilled that fantasy time and time again. Yet, in spite of the fact that innumerable female staff had made sexual approaches, he had never responded. He had withstood the ones who’d stripped off just as easily as he had rejected the looks, and the verbal and written invitations. In fact all those workplace come-ons had exasperated him, because he was first and foremost a businessman. He was a firm believer in enforcing the rules that kept his staff keen, disciplined, and motivated to deliver only their very best. By no stretch of the imagination could his shagging the temp do anything but damage that streamlined operational efficiency, Giannis told himself grimly.

On the other hand, he mused over breakfast at six, there was no reason why he should not pursue the temp once she had moved on from Petrakos Industries.

In the act of mulling over that fact, and its possibilities, on his chauffeur-driven journey through the London traffic, Giannis got a distinct cold chill down his spine. Why was he thinking about Maddie Conway so much? Why did he even remember her name? It was weird. He was acting weird. Since when had sex been a big deal to him? All his needs in that department were met by two highly sophisticated beauties, one in London and another in Greece. Both understood his requirements to the letter, and met them with the utmost style and discretion.

He set up a meeting over lunch with his English mistress. Obviously he was suffering from sexual frustration.

At noon, Maddie felt a yawn creeping up on her. She had been given a heap of photocopying to do, and it was so tedious that she could have fallen asleep standing up. Stacy’s moans made the chore no more enjoyable.

‘We always get the jobs nobody else wants to do,’ Stacy complained bitterly. ‘Filing or running messages.’

‘I’m not qualified to do much else,’ Maddie responded

‘I honestly think that uppity cow Annabel sat down last night to work out a list of boring stuff to land us with.’ Stacy restocked the photocopier with paper in a series of vicious movements.

Maddie lifted her head as she heard steps on the stairs outside the door. ‘She’s really okay…’ Her voice lost strength and ebbed without her awareness when she focused on the male coming to a halt just outside the door.

Lowering the mobile phone from his ear, Giannis Petrakos glanced casually into the room on his way past, and then came to a momentary halt.

‘Is there anyone you don’t like?’ Stacy was demanding in a tone of irritation, her back turned to the door. ‘It’s not normal to always be saying nice things about everybody.’

Maddie parted her lips to laugh off that response, but no sound came out—because incisive dark, deep-set eyes were surveying her from the doorway. She couldn’t move, couldn’t break that visual connection. A strange sense of exhilaration gripped her. Her heart was racing so fast it seemed to be pounding in her eardrums. Her skin prickled and tightened round her bones. And then he swung away and strode down the corridor, leaving her limp and drained and in shock again. For goodness’ sake, what was wrong with her? He had only looked in her direction for a couple of seconds and she had stared back at him as if she was paralysed! Couldn’t she have at least smiled and acted as if she had more than one brain cell?

She would have liked to tell him that she would never forget how happy he had made her sister, but her grandmother’s gratitude at the time had made him uncomfortable, and not for worlds would she have repeated that mistake. In any case, she acknowledged ruefully, it was most unlikely that after so many years he would even remember her late sister.

‘Hello? ‘Stacy snapped her fingers loudly right in front of Maddie’s face, to recapture her co-worker’s attention. ‘Anybody home?’

In his office, Giannis was engaged in the unfamiliar task of questioning his own actions. His lean, fiercely handsome features were taut with incomprehension. Emerging from the boardroom, he had shaken off his phalanx of support staff and had traversed the entire top floor of Petrakos Industries. He had looked into rooms he had not even known existed. Why? Why had he done that? For the first time in his life he had done something that he did not remember deciding to do, and he had done it for no good reason.

He was exasperated by the suspicion that he might have been prompted by a subconscious desire to see the red-headed temp again. And he was annoyed that her Titian red hair, smooth alabaster skin and full breasts had stood up so well to a second, more critical scrutiny. In fact, dressed in a simple white shirt and a narrow black skirt that could only showcase her dazzling curves, she had looked more ravishing than ever. That acknowledgement seriously rattled him.

He was on the way to his mistress’s apartment when Krista called him.

‘I’ve decided on an Ancient Greek theme for our wedding,’ his fiancée trilled in high excitement. ‘You said you wanted a traditional wedding. What could be more traditional than the ancient gods?’

‘They were pagans,’ Giannis said drily.

‘Who cares about that? Piety is deeply unfashionable. Our wedding will be the society event of the year. You can play Zeus, the king of the gods, and I can be Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty—’

‘According to Homer, Zeus and Aphrodite were father and daughter.’ As Giannis had not the slightest intention of getting tricked out in a tunic and cloak to make a fashion statement out of what he considered to be a private and serious event, he hoped that nobody told her that Adonis had been one of Aphrodite’s many lovers.

Fifteen minutes later, Giannis greeted his English mistress. Sex, he was convinced, would restore him to the cool rationality of his normal self. Over the past twenty-four hours he had become increasingly aware that he was not himself. Not a male given to solemn self-examination, he found himself furiously intolerant of his undisciplined thoughts, disturbed sleep and edgy behaviour.

Unfortunately, the instant he laid eyes on the beautiful blonde model he realised that he no longer found her attractive. All of a sudden, and for no reason that he could understand, she left him stone-cold. What was more, he found himself making an unwelcome comparison between her and Maddie Conway. For a male who functioned on pure logic, such perverse mental ruminations were deeply disturbing. Duly informed that their arrangement had run its course, the blonde accepted the news with good grace, since she was well aware that she would receive a generous financial settlement.

Giannis got back into his limo, having enjoyed neither the release of sexual tension nor the indulgence of an appetising lunch. Even his impatience felt unfamiliar, for his personal life, like his working day, was highly organised and designed to meet his every expectation. He liked the framework of his existence to be predictable. In his choice of Krista as a bride he had left nothing to chance, because he knew that she would never demand more than he was prepared to give. The sole surviving offspring of selfish and irresponsible parents, he took no risks in his private life. He satisfied his high sex drive with the minimum of fuss and emotion and, while he might specialise in the superficial in his relationships, he had never slept around.

In short, lusting after a sexy little red-headed temp at the office was decidedly not his style. She did not share his background or his place in society. She was not even his type—his usual preference was for leggy blondes. Yet her translucent ivory complexion, verdant green eyes and luscious pink mouth had become imprinted on his brain with the efficiency of a rampantly destructive computer virus, Giannis reflected in angry frustration. He was determined to repress such unruly promptings. It would be an act of crass stupidity to seek intimacy with an employee, however temporary. Even if she had looked at him with a wondering air of reverence that, he had to confess, he found stupendously appealing…

By late afternoon, Maddie appreciated that she had little time left in which to seek out Giannis Petrakos and say her piece about the laptop débâcle. In less than an hour she would be leaving the Petrakos building, and tomorrow she would be working someplace else. Having heard Stacy getting her instructions prior to taking over the switchboard, she knew that the Greek tycoon was in his office and that his calls were being diverted. She wasn’t going to get a better chance to speak to him.

Unfortunately, she was stopped during her passage upstairs and sent to pick up some papers from another floor. She had to wait until they were ready, and by the time she delivered them back there were only twenty minutes of her working day left. In the galley kitchen she hastily took out a cup and saucer and made coffee exactly the way Giannis Petrakos liked it.

She moved down the corridor as fast as she dared. She no longer knew if he was even still in the office, and there was no time to find out. Her stomach felt as though it was lodged somewhere near her throat. Balancing the coffee in one hand, she knocked on the door of his office. There was no answer. Afraid that she would be noticed and intercepted before she could see him, she depressed the door handle with a perspiring palm.

‘Can I help you?’ A man the size of a skyscraper had appeared out of nowhere and materialised at her elbow when she’d least expected it. His accent was foreign, his craggy dark face cold. She shot a nervous glance up at him, wondering who he was.

‘I’ve made some coffee for Mr Petrakos. Who are you?’

‘Nemos. I take care of Mr Petrakos’s security.’ The older man rested his attention on her name-tag, and then surprised her by pressing open the door for her entry. ‘Go ahead, Miss Conway.’

The office of the CEO of Petrakos Industries was a vast space, with a strikingly contemporary décor, but it was frustratingly empty. At a loss, Maddie hovered until she heard a slight noise through an open door on the other side of the huge room.