Greek Bachelors: Paying The Price: What the Greek's Money Can't Buy / What the Greek Can't Resist / What The Greek Wants Most

The consequences of giving lust any room was much too great to contemplate. Because giving in to her emotions, trusting it would turn to more—perhaps even the love she’d been blindingly desperate for—was what had landed her in prison.

Being in prison had nearly killed her.

Brianna had no intention of failing. No intention of sinking again.

CHAPTER FOUR (#u92907484-af35-5d5e-9473-9686b63013ed)

SHE WOKE TO the smell of strong coffee and an empty room. Relief punched through her as she tossed the light sheet aside and rose from the sofa bed. A quick glance at the ruffled bed showed evidence of Sakis’s presence but, apart from that, every last trace of him had been wiped from the room, including his bag.

Before she could investigate further, her tablet pinged with an incoming message.

Grasping it, she tried to get into the zone—business as usual. Just the way she wanted her life to run. Turning the tablet on, she went through the messages as she poured her coffee.

Two of them were from Sakis, who’d taken up residence in the conference room downstairs. Several of them were from people interested in joining the salvage process or blogging about it. But there was still no word about the missing crew.

After answering Sakis’s message to join him downstairs as soon as she was ready, she tackled the most important emails, took a quick shower and dressed in a clean pair of khaki combat trousers and a cream T-shirt.

By the time she’d tied her hair into its usual French knot, the events of last night had been consigned a ‘temporary aberration’ status. Thankfully, she’d been asleep by the time he emerged from the bathroom and, even though she’d woken once and heard his light, even breathing, she’d managed to go back to sleep with no trouble.

Which meant she really didn’t have to fear that the rhythm of their relationship had changed.

It hadn’t. After this crisis was over, they would return to London and everything would go back to machine-smooth efficiency.

She shrugged on her dark-green jacket, grabbed her case and went downstairs to find Sakis on the phone in the conference room.

He indicated the extensive breakfast tray; she’d just bitten into a piece of honeyed toast when he hung up.

‘The salvage crew have contained the leak in the last compartment and the transport tanker for the undamaged oil will arrive in the next few hours.’

‘So the damaged tanker can be moved in the next few days?’

He nodded. ‘After the International Maritime Investigation Board has completed its investigation it will be tugged back to the ship-building facility in Piraeus. And, now we have a full salvage team in place, there’s no need for any remaining crew to stay. They can go home.’

Brianna nodded and brushed crumbs off her fingers. ‘I’ll arrange it.’

Even though she powered up her tablet ready to action his request, she felt the heat of his gaze on her face.

‘You do my bidding without question when it comes to matters of the boardroom. And yet you blatantly disobeyed me last night,’ he said in a low voice.

She paused mid-swallow and looked up. Arresting green eyes caught and locked onto hers. ‘I’m sorry?’

He twirled a pen in his hand. ‘I asked you to take the bed last night. You didn’t.’

She forced herself to swallow and tried to look away. She really tried. But it seemed as if he’d charged the very air with a magnetic field that held her captive. ‘I didn’t think your jump-when-I-say edict extended beyond the boardroom to the bedroom, Mr Pantelides.’

Too late, she realised the indelicacy of her words. His eyes gleamed with lazy green fire. But she wasn’t fooled for a second that it was harmless.

‘It doesn’t. When it comes to the bedroom, I like control, but I’m not averse to relinquishing it...on occasion.’

Noting that she was in serious danger of going up in flames at the torrid images that cascaded through her mind, she tried to move on. ‘Logic dictated that since I’m smaller in stature the sofa would be more suited to me. I didn’t see the need for chivalry to get in the way of a good night’s sleep for either of us.’

One brow shot up. ‘Chivalry? You think I did it out of chivalry?’ His amusement was unmistakeable.

A damning tide of heat swept up her face. But she couldn’t look away from those mesmerising eyes. ‘Well, I’m sure you had your own reasons... But I thought...’ She huffed. ‘It doesn’t really matter now, does it?’

‘I suggested it because it wouldn’t have been a hardship for me.’

‘I’m sure it wouldn’t, but you don’t have a monopoly on pain and discomfort, Mr Pantelides.’

He stiffened. ‘Excuse me?’

‘I just meant...whatever the circumstances of your past, at least you had a mother who loved you, so it couldn’t have been all bad.’ She couldn’t stem the vein of bitterness from bleeding into her voice, nor could she fail to realise she’d strayed dangerously far from an innocuous subject. But short of blurting out her own past this was the only way she could stop the slippery slope towards believing Sakis cared about her wellbeing.

She’d suffered a childhood hopelessly devoid of love and comfort, and the threat of a life of drugs had been an ever-present reality. Sleeping on a sofa bed was heaven in comparison.

His narrowed eyes speared into her. ‘Don’t mistake guilt for love, Moneypenny. I’ve learned over the years that this so-called love is a convenient blanket that’s thrown over most feelings.’

She sucked in a breath. ‘You don’t think that your mother loves you?’

His jaw tightened. ‘A weak love is worse than no love. When it crumbles under the weight of adversity it might as well not be present.’

Brianna’s fingers tightened around her tablet as shock roiled through her. For the second time in two days, she was glimpsing a whole new facet of Sakis Pantelides.

This was a man who had hidden, painful depths that she’d barely glimpsed in all the time she’d worked for him.

‘What adversity?’

He shrugged. ‘My mother believed the man she loved could do no wrong. When the reality hit her, she chose to give up and leave her children to fend for themselves.’ Casually, he flipped his pen in his hand. ‘I’ve been taking care of myself for a very long time, Moneypenny.’

She believed him. She’d always known he possessed a hardened core of steel beneath that urbane façade, but now she knew how it’d been honed, she felt that wave of sympathy and connection again.

Ruthlessly, she tried to reel back the unravelling happening inside her.

‘Thanks for sharing that with me. But the sofa was really no hardship for me either and, as long as we’re both rested, that should be the end of the subject, surely?’

His eyes remained inscrutable. ‘Indeed. I know when to pick my battles, Moneypenny, and I will let this one go.’

The notion that there would be other heated battles between them disturbed her in an altogether too excited way. Before she could respond, he carried on.

‘You’ll also be happy to know there won’t be any need for me to crowd your personal space any longer. Another room has become available. I’ve taken it.’

Expecting strong relief, she floundered when all she felt was a hard bite of disappointment.

‘Great. That’s good to know.’

Her tablet pinged a message. Grateful beyond words, she jumped on it.

* * *