Acquired By Her Greek Boss

‘And therein proves my point. My parents had an arranged marriage which was extremely successful. Love wasn’t necessary, although I believe they grew to be very fond of each other over the course of their marriage.’

Sara gave up. ‘You’re just a cynic.’

‘No, I’m a realist. There is a dark side to love and I have witnessed its destructive power.’

A memory slid into Alekos’s mind of that fateful day twenty years ago when he’d found Dimitri walking along the beach. His brother’s eyes had been red-rimmed and he’d wept as he’d told Alekos he had discovered that his girlfriend had been unfaithful. It was the last time Alekos had seen Dimitri alive.

‘Love is an illusion,’ he told Sara harshly, ‘and you would do well to remember it before you rush to give away your heart to a man you only met a few weeks ago.’

After Sara had gone, Alekos walked over to the window and a few minutes later he saw her emerge from the GE building and walk along the pavement. Even from a distance he noted the sexy wiggle of her hips when she walked and a shaft of white-hot lust ripped through him.

He swore. Lusting after his PA was so unexpected and he assured himself that his reaction to Sara’s transformation from dowdy to a very desirable woman was down to sexual frustration. He hadn’t had sex since he’d split from his last mistress almost two months ago.

‘What are you looking for?’ Danika had asked him when he’d told her their affair was over. ‘You say you don’t want permanence in a relationship, but what do you want?’

Right now he wanted a woman under him, Alekos thought, conscious of his erection pressing uncomfortably against the zip of his trousers. A memory flashed into his mind of Sara leaning across his desk with her skirt pulled tight over her bottom. He imagined her without her skirt, her derrière presented for him to slide her panties down so that he could stroke his hands over her naked body. In his fantasy he had already removed her blouse and bra and he stood behind her and slid his arms round her to cup her firm breasts in his hands...

Theos! Alekos raked his hand through his hair and forced his mind away from his erotic thoughts. Sara was the best PA he’d ever had and he was determined not to damage their excellent working relationship. She was the only woman, apart from his mother and sisters, who he trusted. She was discreet, loyal and she made his life easier in countless ways that he had not fully appreciated until she had taken a month’s holiday.

If he made her his mistress he would not be able to continue to employ her as his PA. Office affairs did not work, especially after the affair ended—and of course it would end after a few months at most. He had a low boredom threshold and there was no reason to think that his surprising attraction to Sara would last long once he’d taken her to bed.

Alekos turned his thoughts to the party he was due to attend that evening. Perhaps he would meet a woman who would hold his attention for more than an hour. He received many more invitations to social functions than he had the time or the inclination to attend, but he had a particular reason for accepting an invitation to a party being given by a wealthy city banker. Alekos knew that a Texan oil baron would be included on the guest list. Warren McCuskey was looking to buy a superyacht to keep his wife, who was twenty years younger than him, happy, and Alekos was determined to persuade the billionaire Texan to buy a yacht from GE.

From his vantage point at the window he continued to watch Sara standing in the street below. She seemed to be waiting for someone. A large black saloon car drew up alongside her, the rear door opened and she climbed into the car before it pulled away from the kerb.

He was intrigued. Why hadn’t Sara’s ‘friend’ got out of the car to greet her? Earlier, she had been oddly secretive about her boyfriend. And what was the real reason for her attractive new look? Alekos couldn’t remember the last time a woman had aroused his curiosity and it was ironic that the woman who had fired his interest had been under his nose for the past two years.

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_a8c209c2-2f1a-5fa5-8c88-1a58f2c2a386)

ON THURSDAY EVENING, Alekos checked the gold watch on his wrist and frowned when he saw that he and Sara needed to leave for the board members’ dinner in the next five minutes. Usually when she accompanied him to work functions she was ready in plenty of time. He was annoyed that she had not been waiting for him when he’d walked out of the private bathroom next to his office, where he had showered and changed.

He wondered what she would wear to the dinner. He remembered that a few months ago it had been a particularly busy time at work and Sara had stayed at the office until late, only dashing off to change for the staff Christmas party ten minutes before it was due to start. She had emerged from the cloakroom wearing what he had supposed was a ball gown, but the long black dress had resembled a shroud and had the effect of draining all the colour from her face.

He had been tempted to order her to go and buy something more cheerful. The shop windows were full of mannequins displaying party dresses for the festive season. But then he’d remembered that Sara was grieving for her mother, who had recently died. For once he had studied her closely, and her pinched face and the shadows beneath her eyes had evoked a faint tug of sympathy for his PA, who reminded him of a drab sparrow.

Alekos turned his thoughts to the present. The board members’ dinner was a prestigious event that called for him to wear a tuxedo, but he refused to be clean shaven. He glanced in the mirror and grimaced as he ran his hand over the trimmed black stubble on his jaw. No doubt his nemesis Orestis Pagnotis would accuse him of looking more like a pirate than the chairman of a billion-pound company.

Behind him the office door opened and Sara stepped into the room. His jaw dropped as he stared at her reflection in the mirror, and he was thankful he had his back to her so that she couldn’t see the betraying bulge of his erection beneath his trousers.

The drab sparrow had metamorphosed into a peacock. Somewhere in Alekos’s stunned brain he registered that the description was all the more apt because her dress was peacock-blue silk and the long skirt gave an iridescent shimmer when she walked. The top of the dress was high-necked and sleeveless, leaving her shoulders bare. A sparkling diamanté belt showed off her slender waist.

From the front, the dress was elegant and Alekos had no problem with it. But when Sara turned around to check that the espresso machine was switched off, he saw that her dress was backless to the base of her spine. A hot haze of desire made his blood pound through his veins.

‘You can’t wear that,’ he rasped, shock and lust strangling his vocal cords. ‘Half the board members are over sixty and I know for a fact that a couple of them have weak hearts. If they see you in that dress they’re likely to suffer a cardiac arrest.’

She looked genuinely confused. ‘What’s wrong with my dress?’

‘Half of it is missing.’

‘Well, technically I suppose that’s true. But I don’t suppose the sight of my shoulder blades will evoke wild lust in anyone.’

Don’t bet on it, Alekos thought grimly. He would not have believed that a woman’s bare back could be so erotic. The expanse of Sara’s skin revealed by the backless dress invited him to trace his fingertips down her spine and then spread his hand over her tempting nakedness.

Theos, what he actually wanted to do was stride over to her, sweep her into his arms and ravish her thoroughly and to their mutual satisfaction on top of his desk. That particular fantasy had been a common theme for the past four days, which had frankly been torturous. Sara had turned up for work each morning wearing outfits that had sent his blood pressure soaring. Her stylish skirts and blouses had hugged her curvy figure without being too revealing, and somehow the hint of her sexy figure beneath her clothes was much more exciting than if she had worn a miniskirt and boob tube.

He checked the time again and realised they would have to leave immediately or risk being late for the dinner. ‘God knows what the board members will make of you dressed like a glamour model in a men-only magazine,’ he growled as he held the door open and then followed Sara into the corridor. ‘You know how conservative some of them are.’ He shoved his hands into his pockets out of harm’s way, but he could not control the hard thud of his heart, or the hard throb of another part of his anatomy, he acknowledged derisively.

‘Nonsense, they’ll think I’m wearing a perfectly nice dress,’ she said serenely. ‘The board members like me. They know I work hard and I would never do anything that might harm the company’s image.’

Alekos had to admit she was right. Even his main critic Orestis Pagnotis approved of Sara and had remarked to Alekos that he should consider marrying someone as sensible and down-to-earth as his PA.

The trouble was that Sara no longer looked like his sensible PA. She looked gorgeous and unbelievably sexy, and while Alekos certainly had no thoughts of marrying her he couldn’t deny that he wanted her—badly. He was not used to denying himself. But the rules he had made about not getting personally involved with any member of his staff meant that she was forbidden. To a born rebel like himself the word forbidden acted like a red rag to a bull. It was a fact of life that you wanted most what you couldn’t have, Alekos brooded when they were in the car on the way to the dinner. It was also true that rules were made to be broken.

The restaurant was at a five-star hotel on Park Lane and a private dining room had been booked for the board members’ dinner.

‘Alekos!’ A high-pitched voice assaulted Alekos’s ears as he walked into the private function suite, and he swore silently when a young woman ran over to him and greeted him enthusiastically by kissing him on both his cheeks.

‘Zelda,’ he murmured as he politely but firmly unwound her arms from around his neck. Orestis Pagnotis’s granddaughter was as exuberant as a young child but there was nothing childlike about the eighteen-year-old’s physical attributes. Alekos was surprised that Orestis had allowed his granddaughter to wear a gold clingy dress with a plunging neckline. But he knew that Zelda was her grandfather’s favourite grandchild—a fact she used shamelessly to get her own way.

Zelda had developed a crush on Alekos the previous year when he had spent a few days meeting with some of GE’s senior board members aboard the company’s flagship yacht, Artemis. One night, Alekos had found the teenager waiting for him in his bed. He had managed to persuade her to return to her own cabin and had done his best to avoid her since then.

But the gods were ganging up against him tonight, he decided as Zelda linked her arm possessively though his and he had no choice but to escort her into the salon, where champagne cocktails and canapés were being served. He looked around for Sara and his temper did not improve when he saw her chatting with the new whiz-kid CFO. Paul Eddis was in his early thirties, and Alekos supposed that women might consider his blond hair and rather delicate facial features attractive. Sara certainly looked happy in his company, and Eddis was staring at her with a stunned expression on his face as if he couldn’t believe his luck that the most beautiful woman in the room was giving him all her attention.

The evening went from bad to worse when they were called to take their places for dinner and Alekos discovered he was seated next to Zelda. Sara had arranged the seating plan and he’d specifically asked her to put him on a different table from Zelda. Had Sara decided to have a joke at his expense? Alekos glared across the room to where she was sitting at another table. But she was facing away from him and white-hot fury swept through him when he noticed the waiter ogling her bare back.

He forced himself to eat a little of his cheese soufflé, which was as light as air but tasted like cardboard in his mouth. ‘Shouldn’t you be at school, studying for exams?’ he muttered to Zelda as he firmly removed her hand from his thigh.

‘I’ve left school.’ She giggled. ‘Well, the headmistress insisted I leave because she said I was a bad influence on the other girls. But I don’t need to pass exams because I’m going to be a model. Pappoús is paying for me to have my portfolio done with a top photographer.’

‘If you don’t behave yourself, perhaps your grandfather will refuse to fund your modelling career.’

‘Oh, Pappoús will give me anything I ask for.’ Zelda leaned closer to Alekos. ‘If I don’t behave, will you punish me?’ she said artfully.

He would like to punish his PA for putting him through an uncomfortable evening. Alekos’s furious black gaze bored into Sara’s shoulder blades. And yes, they could send a man wild with desire, he discovered. The hellish meal ended eventually but as the band started up and he strode away from the table—ignoring Zelda’s plea to dance with her—he was waylaid by Orestis Pagnotis.

The older man glared at Alekos with his gimlet gaze. ‘Keep away from my granddaughter. Zelda is an innocent young woman and I will not allow you to corrupt her, Alekos. I’ve always been concerned that your womanising ways would bring the company into disrepute. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that you need the support of every member of the board to implement the changes you want to make within GE.’

Alekos struggled to keep his temper under control. ‘Are you threatening me?’

‘I suggest you think hard about what I’ve said,’ Orestis warned.

Sara stood up as Alekos approached her table. ‘What’s wrong? You don’t look like you’re enjoying the party.’

‘I wonder why that is?’ he snapped. ‘Do you think it could be because you placed me next to Zelda Pagnotis at dinner, after I’d expressly asked you to seat her away from me? Or perhaps it’s because Orestis believes that I have designs on his granddaughter, who he thinks is as innocent as a lamb, incidentally.’

‘I didn’t seat you next to her.’ Sara looked puzzled. ‘When we arrived I even popped into the dining room to check that the seating plan had been set out as I had organised it... Zelda must have switched the name cards around.’

Alekos’s frustration with Orestis’s manipulative granddaughter, and his anger with Orestis for threatening to withhold his support at the next board meeting, turned to a different kind of frustration as he stared into Sara’s guileless green eyes. Across the room he saw Zelda heading purposefully in his direction. He caught hold of Sara’s hand.