Irresistible Greeks: Dark and Determined: The Kanellis Scandal / The Greek's Acquisition / Along Came Twins…

The dratted man was a disorientating mix of hard and soft, ruthless and sweet. For she did not doubt that he had taken up the task of caring for Toby as an act of penance for the way he’d scared her into a fit of blind, grief-stricken hysterics.

Stretching out across the bed, she rearranged her brother’s clothing into order then lifted him onto her shoulder to coax away the hiccups. ‘So what do we do, Toby?’ she asked him. ‘Give in to Mr Hard And Soft and agree to this trip to Greece to meet dear old grandpa? Or do we take the fight with us into the next generation?’

The baby hiccupped again, which was no help, but at least he rid himself of the problem causing them. She laid him back down on the bed. ‘Since we are almost in Greece, I suppose for now we have to put up and shut up,’ she decided heavily.

Then a sudden thought hit her. Greece … Frowning again, Zoe sat up. To enter Greece they needed passports …

Ten minutes later, freshly washed and tidied, Zoe stepped out of the door into the main cabin. As her blue eyes were about to take in the sheer opulence of her luxurious surroundings she’d been too busy panicking to notice before, she was startled into staring at the half-dozen men who rose in unison to their feet.

Lounging comfortably in his own seat, Anton raised his attention from the laptop he had open on his lap and reviewed this unilateral demonstration of respect from his staff for their passenger. He compared it ruefully to the deep freeze they had been treating him to in silent objection to his driving a grieving young woman to the place into which Zoe had tumbled due to his ruthless method for getting her onto this flight.

Even Kostas wasn’t speaking to him. His head of security did not spare him a glance as he passed by his seat on his way to greet Zoe. Returning his gaze to the computer screen, Anton sat in his splendid isolation and listened to Kostas enquiring of Zoe if she had enjoyed a comfortable rest. Polite to an inch, his tough, bulky security chief then offered to settle the boy in the installed flight-bassinette, while the rest of his staff returned to their seats.

He had glimpsed a new side to Kostas Demitris today, Anton mused ruefully, one which had wobbled years of total loyalty to him. Kostas had cornered him the moment he’d stepped out of the bedroom cabin after leaving Zoe to sleep, and he’d told him to his face that he should feel shame for the way he had behaved.

That he did feel shame was something he chose not the share with Kostas. Nor was he going to share the other forces that had been driving him at the time: sex … desire … a dangerous attraction, unwillingly felt but felt all the same. Theo’s slender young granddaughter with the vivid eyes, flowing golden hair and pale, pinched vulnerability, stoked up his senses in ways which shocked even him.

That she was prepared to take him on in a fight as if she was his equal only fired him up even more. She had Theo’s spunk, though she would be insulted if he told her so. A courageous creature with her life ripped apart, yet valiantly determined to cope. He admired her and lusted after her in equal measures. He’d felt so in tune with her from the moment he’d stepped into her tiny house that he’d failed to question if she would see what he had planned for her and her brother in the same sensible light.

He’d been a man on a mission, focused, driven by the tactical cut and thrust, and so had failed to recognise that she was so fragile the slightest knock to her defences was bound to shatter them. Now he knew he was going to live for a long time with the crucifying sounds of her grief as it poured from her.

His punishment; he deserved it. He even deserved the ‘gold-digger’ tag, when he still had not bothered to offer up a better side of himself.

Her perfume arrived first, that distinct scent of apple shampoo assailing his nostrils, and he looked up. She had changed her clothes, he noticed, the creased grey dress and black jacket had been replaced by a black tunic that made her skin look startling white and her hair, which she’d brushed away from her face then caught loosely back at her nape, was finer than silk.

‘I need to talk to you,’ Zoe said, still warily on the defensive but anxious at the same time.

‘Of course.’ He set the computer aside on the table in front of him. ‘Please,’ he invited. ‘Take a seat.’

He’d removed his jacket again, Zoe noticed, it lay folded on the seat opposite. As he indicated with one of those long brown hands to the chair beside him she bit down into the soft flesh inside her lower lip for a few seconds, not really wanting to sit down so close to him, but too aware of all the other people seemingly dedicated to observing her every move. In the end she sat down on the edge of the chair, so tense her back was ramrod straight.

‘You’ve forgotten something important,’ she told him.

‘I have?’ He frowned as he cast his mind over his meticulous planning.

‘Passports.’ She nodded. ‘Mine is in the box I gave to Kostas to look after, but Toby doesn’t have one. You’re going to have to turn this plane around because he can’t enter Greece without a passport, and I won’t have him taken away from me and stuck in some detention centre while I sort out the problem, so—’

‘All sorted,’ he cut in, feeling curiously pleased with himself that in this one area of concern he had everything covered.

Leaning down to pick something up from the side of his seat, he lifted it onto the table.

Zoe watched in frank bewilderment as he produced a fine leather document-case, set it down then fed back the zip. Sliding out the contents, he sifted through pieces of paper until he came across one bearing the official stamp of a UK government department which he passed across the table to her. Her eyelashes flickered as she looked down at it.

‘Your brother is travelling on an emergency visa,’ he explained. ‘I applied for it on the grounds of your grandfather’s ill health.’

While Zoe sat trying to absorb this information, two more pieces of paper arrived beside the first one.

‘This one is a letter from your general practitioner saying that Toby is fit to travel, and this one is from Social Services giving you permission to take your brother out of the UK. We—’

‘You—you arranged all of this without any of these people applying to me to check if I was OK with it?’ Zoe interrupted.

He nodded. ‘Mainly as a precaution because of the complications due to probate and your pending legal rights over Toby,’ he enlightened her. ‘A full passport for Toby will be couriered to you from the British Embassy in Athens in the next few days.’

Zoe was still staring at the accumulation of formal letters lined up in front of her. ‘You need a photograph for a passport,’ she murmured.

‘I took one on my phone and texted it over to the appropriate government body.’

‘When did you do that?’ she demanded, beginning to simmer inside.

‘While you were upstairs packing your things,’ was the beautifully modulated response she received. ‘With all the press you have been receiving, it needed little explanation for everyone to sympathise with your plight and be eager to fast-track the process. And I know a few useful people.’

He knew a few useful people, Zoe echoed, feeling a nice fresh wave of anger flush up from her chest until it mottled her cheeks. ‘Wealth and power have their uses, then.’

He must have heard something in her voice because he turned his dark head. There was a moment of stillness in which he tapped the tips of his fingers against the table and Zoe glared at them as the pressure inside her built and built.

‘I’m in trouble again,’ he sighed out.

‘Where is my input?’ she responded tautly.

‘I did not need it.’ His tone had turned very dry now. ‘I put myself up as your attorney, you see.’

‘And nobody thought to contact me to check your credibility?’

‘As I said—’ one of those hands made a rolling gesture ‘—everyone was very sympathetic and understood that you already had enough on your plate.’

Zoe released a little choked laugh. ‘And you are so darned charming and clever at manipulating people, aren’t you?’

‘I am told it is one of my most annoying traits.’

At last she turned her head to look at him. He was wearing a hint of a smile on his lips and a hint of a rueful apology in his eyes. Sitting back in her seat, she gave a helpless shake of her head. Charm did not even begin to cover what this man was capable of, she thought as she felt her anger die beneath the weight of her incredulity, then felt her own lips being tugged at the corners, wanting to grin.

Sensing an easing in the threatened resurgence of hostilities, Anton caught the eye of his flight steward and brought him striding down the aisle. ‘Tea for my guest,’ he ordered smoothly. ‘And ask Kostas if he will check on the baby. I heard a sound from that direction.’

Nodding, the steward went back down the aisle again. Zoe went to stand up so she could go and check Toby for herself but he covered her hand with his. ‘Stay and talk to me,’ he said huskily.

She hesitated, which was probably her undoing. It wasn’t that she wanted to stay and talk to him—he was the enemy, after all—but those fingers resting on her fingers were gentle, requesting not insisting. She looked down them, saw the difference in his skin, warm and dark against the cool paleness of her own. A now familiar heat flared in her belly, locking her into an argument with herself. She either hated him or she fancied him, but she was sure she couldn’t feel both things.

‘I am not your enemy, Zoe,’ Anton murmured as if he knew exactly what was going on in her head. ‘I know I have given you little cause to believe me, but if you will give me the chance I will try my best to amend that.’

She could feel herself wanting to give in. Was it a mild version of Stockholm syndrome? Was she being very stupid here by wanting to believe him again?

Kostas strode past them on his way to check Toby. In a lightning-flash decision, she stopped him. ‘I will go,’ she told the security guard, and without allowing herself to glance at Anton she slid her hand out from beneath his, got up and walked away.

They landed as the sun floated low above the glistening sea she’d glimpsed as they’d rushed towards the ground. Kostas, who seemed to have put himself up as her protector, took control of Toby’s disembarkation. Zoe didn’t brother to argue with him over it.

Everyone was standing up and gathering their things together, including Anton Pallis, who stood with his back towards her between the table and his seat. He had the most disturbingly beautiful long, muscular back, Zoe found herself noticing, then blinked and made herself stop looking.

The moment the plane shut down its engines he picked up his mobile phone and clamped it to his ear. Zoe heard him start firing out orders like soft bullets, the low growl of his voice a very good substitute to the engines’ roar, she thought with a dry smile.