Greek Tycoon, Inexperienced Mistress

‘I’m really busy—’

‘You’re a hive of industry, a very capable woman. I’m impressed, but it’s time you relaxed,’ he intoned, closing a dominant hand over hers and tugging her willy-nilly back to the door where he stood.

Never comfortable in receipt of praise, Lindy frowned. ‘I didn’t do anything that other people didn’t do.’

‘You organised them all. I saw you in action. You’re a remarkably bossy little thing,’ Atreus remarked with unhidden amusement.

Nobody had ever described Lindy as ‘little’. But then he was very tall, and in comparison to him she supposed that she could be considered small. Her fingers trembled in the hold of his. After those unexpected compliments she could hardly catch her breath, never mind speak. They were on the threshold of the living room. Heads turned in their direction and stayed turned at the sight of them poised there together. Her creamy skin flamed. She saw the speculative looks they were attracting and averted her gaze.

‘It doesn’t take much to encourage gossip round here,’ she warned him ruefully.

‘Does that bother you? Conventional women don’t strip and jump into rivers in broad daylight,’ Atreus countered.

Lindy froze. ‘I still haven’t forgiven you for the way you behaved that day.’

Atreus was not accustomed either to seeking forgiveness or indeed absolution. Women invariably made life easy for him by affecting not to notice his mistakes or omissions. Last-minute cancellations and his appearances in the company of other women were always ignored to ensure that he called again. He had learned that when it came to her sex he could get away with just about anything.

‘You were a real seven-letter-word that day at the river!’ Lindy proclaimed without hesitation, when he made no comment.

Atreus tried to recall when he had last heard anyone utilise such care to avoid a swear-word and he was amused.

‘You were rude, thoroughly unpleasant and unreasonable, and you humiliated me!’ Lindy spelt out in a fiery rush to get her point across.

‘I apologised to you,’ Atreus reminded her, with more than a touch of impatience. ‘I rarely apologise.’

It was true that he had apologised, Lindy acknowledged ruefully, wondering if she was being unfair in still holding spite. After all, the man had saved her from serious injury when she’d rescued Dolly. He had also proved that in a crisis he was cool, courageous and protective, all sterling qualities of character which she very much admired. So why couldn’t she escape the suspicion that treating a woman well didn’t come naturally to Atreus Dionides?

‘I don’t know why you’re flirting with me,’ she told him flatly.

‘Don’t you?’

The doubt in his tone provoked her into looking up, and she met smouldering golden eyes below the black sweep of his lashes. Excitement hurtled through her like a wild wake-up call. Thought and breath were suspended. Without any warning at all she wanted his mouth so badly on hers that being denied it hurt. In shock, she tore her gaze from his and retreated into the kitchen.

A split second later all the lights in the house went out. A buzz of dismayed comment was accompanied by the sound of switches being put on and off without success. The kitchen door opened.

‘Your electricity supply must be connected to that of Chantry House, which has been disconnected for safety.’ Atreus’s accented drawl came out of the darkness. ‘It’ll take some time to reorganise that, and it’s unlikely to be today.’

‘Oh, great,’ Lindy muttered ruefully, leaning back against the kitchen cupboards and pushing her dark hair off her damp brow. The shower she had been dreaming about was out of reach now.

The locals began to leave with a chorus of thank-yous for her hospitality.

‘You go as well, Phoebe,’ Lindy urged the Chantry housekeeper, who was hovering at her elbow. ‘It’s been a long night and there’s no need for you to stay on. Most of the cleaning up has already been done.’

‘If you’re sure?’ Phoebe said uncertainly.

‘Of course I am.’

‘Why don’t you come home with me?’ the older woman asked. ‘At least we have electricity.’

‘We’re not that far away from dawn. I’ll be okay,’ Lindy pointed out, reckoning that her companion, who had five children and a husband packed into her tiny terraced house, had quite enough people to contend with when she got home. She groped below the sink to locate her torch, and lit Phoebe’s departure through the back door, locking up in the older woman’s wake.

‘Lindy?’

Lindy flinched in surprise at the sound of the Greek tycoon’s distinctive accented drawl, travelling from the room next door. ‘I thought you’d already gone,’ she admitted, able to distinguish now between different shades of light and dark and picking out his tall, dark silhouette by the living room window.

‘Some thanks that would be for the assistance you gave tonight—abandoning you here without either power or heating,’Atreus derided. ‘I have a suite booked at Headby Hall and I’d like you to come with me.’

‘I couldn’t possibly,’ Lindy breathed, taken aback by that casual invitation to the leading country house hotel for miles around.

‘Don’t be impractical. You must be as eager for a shower and a break as I am,’ he pointed out. ‘In little more than four hours I have to be back at the house to meet the insurance assessors and the conservation team being put together as we speak.’

‘I’ll be fine here,’ she asserted.

‘You would genuinely prefer to sit here unwashed and cold rather than accompany me to a more civilised and comfortable location?’

Her small white teeth set together hard, because he was making her sound peculiar while at the same time his tone somehow contrived to suggest that such standoffish behaviour was only what he had expected from her all along. ‘Give me a couple of minutes to pack a bag,’ she told him, her voice as abrupt as the decision she had reached.

By the light of the torch she flung pyjamas and a change of clothes into an overnight bag. The dogs had food, water and cosy kennels, and although they were accustomed to sleeping indoors with her they would be all right until the morning. Even so, she was belatedly stunned that she could have agreed to go to a hotel with Atreus Dionides, for such bold behaviour didn’t come naturally to her.

Lindy eased into the back of the limousine with as much cool as she could muster. In the act of regretting her agreement, she turned to address Atreus—but his phone was already ringing again and his attention was elsewhere. She listened to him talking in what she assumed to be Greek and asked herself why she should feel so apprehensive. After all, he was only being kind in offering her an escape from a cold, dark house without hot water.

Headby Hall was the ultimate in luxury hotels, and Lindy had never crossed its threshold before. She was horribly conscious of her humble clothing and severely tried by Atreus’s efforts to get her to walk through the foyer ahead of him when what she most wanted was to reach the lift without being noticed by a single living soul.

‘Aren’t you tired?’ she asked him in wonderment when he completed yet another phone call.

‘I’m still operating on adrenaline.’

‘I’m sorry about the house. I know that the work you were having done was almost complete.’

‘I have other houses,’ he asserted.

Without thinking, Lindy rested a light hand on his arm. ‘I noticed the rip in your jacket. Did you get hurt?’ she asked anxiously.

Atreus looked down into her warm, sympathetic gaze and wondered when a woman had last looked at him as if she was restraining a powerful need to offer him comfort and a hug. Never, he acknowledged wryly, not even when he had been a child. In his experience women were usually more gifted at taking, and there was a hefty price ticket attached to anything on offer with any greater depth.

‘It’s only a scratch.’

Meeting his brilliant dark golden eyes, she felt her mouth run dry and her tummy lurched. The lift doors opened and she stiffened and tore her gaze from his. They walked down a private corridor to a door that was already being opened by a member of his staff. Tense with unease, Lindy entered a splendid, sumptuously furnished reception room adorned with fresh flowers. Designer luggage was being carried into one bedroom while her ancient holdall was already comfortingly visible through the doors of a second.

‘I’ve ordered some food for us. You didn’t eat anything while I was around,’ Atreus remarked.

‘I’ll get changed,’ Lindy muttered, heading for the second bedroom with alacrity.

In the en suite bathroom, she stripped where she stood and used the hotel toiletries to wash her hair and freshen up in the shower. It was wonderful to rinse away the smell of smoke that seemed to have impregnated her skin and everything she wore. Clean again, she dried her hair with the dryer provided, using her fingers and then fetched her clothes from the holdall. She donned a long green skirt and a cream T-shirt, and left her legs and feet bare because she couldn’t face struggling into tights or shoes. She grimaced at her reflection in the mirror, for her glossy dark brown hair had fallen into the natural waves she disliked and she was convinced that her face was as pink as a freshly scrubbed lobster.

A trolley of food now stood beside the table and chairs in the reception room next door. Atreus was waiting for her and, like her, he had opted for informality. His black hair was damp and swept back from his lean, darkly handsome features. He was wearing black designer jeans and an open-necked shirt. As she appeared he studied her for a long moment and then slowly smiled.

And that smile on his wide, sensual mouth lit Lindy up inside like the blazing fire that had devoured a good third of Chantry House. It left little room for anything but instant reaction on all fronts. Her face was hot, and she sat down because she felt dizzy. Eyes screened by her lashes, she surveyed him, from his straight brows and dark deepset eyes to his newly shaven jawline, no longer defined by a blue-black shadow of stubble. There was something about the exact arrangement of his arrestingly beautiful features that drew her more than mere good-looks, she acknowledged in a daze. He magnetised her, exuding an irresistible pull of energy that overwhelmed her usual common sense. Sexual attraction had never hit her so hard.