Irresistible Greeks: Secrets and Seduction: The Secrets She Carried / Painted the Other Woman / Breaking the Greek's Rules

‘My flatmate tells me you have your own pool.’

‘It’s in the process of being replaced. Rematch?’ he pressed again, pure challenge gleaming in those bronzed eyes. ‘The next time the loser buys dinner. Give me your phone number and we’ll arrange a date for it. I’m about to leave for the US for a week.’

She admired his persistence and had never been able to resist a dare. The third time he beat her, punching the air with uninhibited triumph. And that was also the moment she fell for Cristo, loving the naturally dramatic streak that he kept concealed below the surface in favour of cool assurance and the gloriously wicked grin that could burnish his hard dark features with adorably boyish enthusiasm.

She fed him in an American-style diner down the street in the sort of basic unsophisticated setting that she could tell was unfamiliar to him, but he proved a good sport and an entertaining raconteur, who drew her out about her job and her ambitions. He assumed that she would accompany him back to his apartment after the meal, looked at her in frank surprise when she refused, for he was very much a male accustomed to easy conquests. After that rebuff it took him two whole weeks to phone her again.

‘He’ll hurt you,’ Elaine forecast. ‘He’s too handsome, too rich, too arrogant. You’re very down to earth. What have you got in common with a guy like that?’

And the answer was … nothing. But like a moth drawn to a candle flame she had refused to acknowledge the obvious and eventually she had got burned, badly enough burned to avoid getting involved ever since. From time to time other men had made a play for her but she had resisted, reluctant to entertain such a complication in her life. In any case living under the same roof as her mother was almost as good as wearing a chastity belt, she reflected with sheepish amusement.

Cristo was already seated in the elegant restaurant. He levered upright as she approached, his keen dark gaze welded to her delicate features. She looked like an angel, fragile, pure, amethyst eyes luminous as jewels in her heart-shaped face. He noticed the other men following her progress and the seductive image of her spread across his silk sheets flashed through his head, instantly hardening him. He marvelled at the effect she had on him even though he knew that she was both dishonest and untrustworthy, a thoughtless, foolish little slut below the patina of that perfection. No truly clever woman would have tossed him and what he could buy her away for the cheap thrill of a casual encounter and what he considered to be a paltry sum of money.

Erin felt the heat of his appraisal and flushed, her spine stiffening, her bone structure tightening as she exerted fierce self-discipline. Willing herself not to react, she sat down and immediately lifted the menu to peruse it. She picked a single course, told him that she didn’t want any wine and sat as straight as a child told to sit properly at table.

‘So, tell me what you want and get it over with,’ she suggested, eager to take charge of the conversation rather than sit there quailing like a victim.

His dark golden eyes rested on the hands she had clasped together on the table top and his beautiful mouth took on a sardonic twist. ‘I want you,’ he countered levelly.

Her smooth brow indented. ‘In what way?’

Cristo laughed, raw amusement lightening his stunning eyes to a shade somewhere between amber and honey. ‘In the most obvious way that a man wants a woman.’

But she couldn’t credit that, for hadn’t he ditched her and moved on to marry an exceptionally beautiful Greek woman, a socialite called Lisandra, within weeks of their split? She hadn’t been able to hold him then, hadn’t been important enough to him to retain his interest. He had moved on with his life without her at breathtaking speed. Now he was divorced and it was mean of her to reflect that his marriage had barely lasted long enough for the ink to dry on the licence. Maybe he had got bored with his wife and being married in the same way that he had got bored with Erin. Maybe he didn’t have what it took to really care about any woman.

‘That’s the price of my silence,’ Cristo drawled smooth as silk.

Blackmail? Erin was shocked, so shocked that her teeth settled into the soft underside of her lower lip and she tasted the faint coppery tang of blood in her mouth. ‘The silence relating to this supposed thieving you believe me to be guilty of—’

‘Know you to be guilty of,’ Cristo traded.

‘You can’t possibly be serious,’ Erin breathed tightly.

Lean bronzed face radiating raw assurance, Cristo ran a lean brown forefinger down over the back of her hand and every skin cell in her body leapt into tingling awareness. ‘Why would you think that? We had a very good time between the sheets.’

Assailed by unwelcome memories, Erin went rigid but that fast, still shockingly attuned to a certain dark intimate note in his deep drawl, her body reacted. Inside her bra, her breasts swelled, her nipples tightening into prominent points, and her breath rasped in her tight throat. She blinked, lashes lowering, shutting out the hot dark golden gaze pinned to her. He could still get to her and that shocked her but was it so surprising? She had lived like a nun since her children were born, grateful just to have a job and a roof over her head in the wake of the struggle to survive while she was pregnant and unemployed. A good time. That phrase cheapened her, made light of what she had once believed they had shared. Was a good time all she had been? Or was the very fact that he was back in her life, trying to force her to give him her time and her body again, proof that she had actually meant something more to him? It was a heady suspicion. Not that she still cared about him, she reflected, but like any woman she had her pride.

‘So what are you suggesting?’ Erin queried, resolving to play him along for a while until she better understood her position. ‘Are you asking me to come back to you?’

‘Na pas sto dialo … go to hell!’ Cristo growled, incredulity flashing across his spectacular bone structure at that explosive suggestion. ‘I’m talking about one weekend.’

Her delicate face froze tight. She felt the painful sting of that contempt right down to her marrow bone and inwardly swore that somehow, some way, some day he would pay for insulting her like that. Had the waiter not arrived with their meals she could not have trusted herself not to say something unwise. Forced to hold her tongue, she studied her plate fixedly, her hackles raised, bitterness poisoning her. How dared he? How dared he treat her like some hooker he could rent for an hour or two?

‘A dirty weekend,’ she framed through compressed lips. ‘That does fit your MO.’

Those lustrous amber eyes shimmered below his thick sooty lashes, the leashed power of his strong personality and masculine virility creating an aggressive aura. Another punch of awareness slid through her. It was like poking a tiger through the bars of a cage and shockingly exciting, a welcome respite from the hard little knot of humiliation he had inflicted.

‘One weekend in return for my silence and the twenty grand you stole … cheap at the price,’ Cristo quipped cool as ice.

Erin wanted to thump him for that crack and restraining that natural urge made her slender hands clench into fists where she had placed them on her lap, out of view of his shrewd notice. The only way to play it with Cristo was cool. If she lost her temper she was lost and he would walk all over her.

‘Stop playing the ice goddess. That may be a turn on for Morton but it doesn’t rev my engine at all,’ Cristo informed her drily. ‘One weekend—that’s the deal on the table—’

‘Was this whole thing a set-up? Have you no intention of buying Sam out?’ Erin pressed shakily.

‘That is a question for me and my acquisitions team to decide. If it’s a good investment your presence on the staff will not deter me, although obviously I’d be bringing back the forensic accounting team to run a check on your activities.’

Her chin came up. ‘They’ll find nothing because I have done nothing dishonest. Neither at Sam’s company nor at yours. Furthermore I will not accept blackmail.’

‘I think you’ll end up eating those words,’ Cristo forecast gently, spearing a chunk of succulent steak, primal male to the bone in his unspoilt appetite.

‘You have to show me the evidence you say you have before I can make any kind of a decision.’

‘After we’ve eaten. It’s in my suite,’ he responded equably.

His easy acquiescence on that score shook Erin. Clearly he was confident about the proof he had of her deceit. But, dismayed though she was by that suspicion, she brought her chin up, amethyst eyes glinting with challenge. ‘We’ll see.’

And she ate even though she wasn’t hungry, for to push her food round her plate and leave it virtually untouched would only highlight the reality that she was sick with nerves.

‘I have to go home for a week,’ Cristo told her smoothly. ‘My foster father’s company is in trouble and he needs my advice. You must be aware of the state of the Greek economy.’

Erin nodded grudgingly. ‘Aren’t you suffering from the same effects?’

‘My businesses are primarily here and in North America. I saw the way things were going a couple of years back but Vasos is stubborn. He dislikes change and he wouldn’t listen to me when I tried to warn him.’

‘And you are telling me this … because?’

‘To help you to pen that weekend slot into your no doubt busy social calendar.’

Her teeth gritted behind her closed lips, her aggrieved sense of outrage building higher. He was so confident of winning that it was an affront. For a split second she was tempted to tell him that two young children took a heavy toll on what free time she had, but common sense kept her quiet, not to mention pride. She did not want him to know that a night out for her these days would most likely encompass a trip to the cinema or a modest meal with friends.

‘So what is the state of play with Morton?’ Cristo enquired quietly.

As Cristo was rarely quiet, she glanced up suspiciously. ‘My relationship with Sam is none of your business.’

‘I’m divorced,’ he murmured flatly.

Erin shrugged a slim shoulder as if the information meant nothing to her. ‘I read about it in the papers. Your marriage didn’t last very long.’

He frowned, black brows drawing together. ‘Long enough.’

And as his darkly handsome features shadowed and hardened Erin made a discovery that stung her. His broken marriage was still a source of discomfort to him. She sensed his regret and his reserve and the latter was nothing new. Cristo had always played his cards close to his chest, keeping his feelings under cover, and he had played it that way right to the end of their affair when he had told her it had run its course without drama or remorse. The recollection stiffened her backbone because she had been so shocked and unprepared for that development. This time around, she knew who and what she was dealing with: if he wanted a fight, one way or another, she would give him one!

They travelled up in the lift in a tense silence. She could not credit the situation she found herself in. Was she to be the equivalent of a rebound affair in the wake of his divorce? It occurred to her that a sleazy one-off weekend scarcely qualified for that lofty description and mortified pink highlighted her cheeks. Cristo studied her, picturing her silver gilt hair loose, a party dress to replace the business suit, high heels to show off those shapely legs. His body quickened to the image and was swiftly encouraged by far more X-rated images from the past. When he had her in his bed again, she would disappoint him, of course she would. It would not be as good as he remembered, he told himself urgently. That was the whole point of the game, that and, of course, a well-deserved dose of retribution. She had changed though. Those amethyst eyes no longer telegraphed every reaction making her easily read and she was more controlled than he recalled. Once she saw that he had definitive evidence of her thefts, she would surely study to please …

Erin had not quite bargained on the silent isolation of a hotel suite and she hovered in the centre of the reception room, having refused a drink. She watched him stride into the bedroom to retrieve whatever he was after, that long, lean, powerful body that had once haunted her dreams and ensured that other men could not compare so graceful in movement that she compressed her lips into a tight line, infuriated by the fact that she had noticed. But Cristo was a very noticeable guy. Every female head turned when he walked by and their attention lingered. But, Elaine had been right about him, he was a predator to the backbone and she was now simply a target with an X marked on her back. She wondered what his wife had done to him. Did Cristo have a score to settle against the female sex? And why, after almost three years had passed, was she on the menu again?

Cristo extended a file. ‘Go ahead and take a look.’