The Millionaires' Cinderellas: Playing the Greek's Game / The Forbidden Innocent / Too Proud to be Bought

Swallowing down the unbearable combination of guilt and frustration, he forced himself to smile at the new arrival, even though smiling was the last thing he felt like doing. ‘No, Cindy—you’re not interrupting anything. This is Emma Geary, the interior designer from the Granchester we’ve been expecting. Emma and I were just establishing something fundamental, weren’t we, Emma?’ And that something was that his brother had fallen for a woman who it seemed would put out for just about anyone with a Y chromosome and a bulging wallet!

Emma heard the unmistakable edge of contempt in his voice and thought how unjust it was. He made her feel cheap. As if she’d done something wrong. Yet the sizzling attraction which had flowed between them had happened because he’d been flirting with her, boasting about his success with women. She hadn’t provoked it—so why the hell should she be blamed for it? Realising that Cindy was still looking bemused, she reached out to shake the girl’s hand, aware of the faint tremble of her own fingers.

‘Yes, we were just establishing what an exacting man Mr Constantinides can be to work for, but no doubt I’ll learn to cope with all his idiosyncrasies! Any tips on how best to deal with him will be gratefully received.’ She smiled. ‘In the meantime, I’m very pleased to meet you, Cindy. We’re going to make this the most sought-after place in the city for marriages—and I’m relying on you to introduce me to New York’s best-kept design secrets.’

‘Happy to do that,’ beamed Cindy.

‘I’ll leave you in Cindy’s capable hands,’ said Zak, his cool voice completely at odds with the frustration eating him up inside. How dared she slant him that supercilious and dismissive look? ‘I’ll look in from time to time for an update. Anything you want, or need—just speak to one of my assistants.’

Emma should have been glad that he was leaving. Relieved that her body would be free of the tantalising distraction he represented. So why the sudden heart-sink? Aware of Cindy’s curious eyes on her, she nodded and tried to match his careless tone. ‘Right. I’ll see you around.’

‘I can hardly wait,’ he murmured.

His sarcastic aside was so soft that Emma realised it had floated right over Cindy’s head—but then, Cindy hadn’t seen the unsettling look which was glittering from his cold grey eyes.

CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_d5f6236a-475d-5f27-b0ea-0d03774d421a)

‘SO have you decided which one you’re going with, Emma?’

Emma blinked, aware from the expression on her assistant’s face that Cindy must have just asked her a question, but not quite sure what that question had been. ‘Sorry?’ she questioned, hating her current butterfly grip on reality. ‘I was … I was miles away.’

‘So I can see!’ Cindy gestured towards the huge windows. ‘I was asking whether you’d decided on the silk or the voile drapes?’

Emma forced herself to concentrate on the medley of fabrics which were lying on the table in front of her. ‘Oh, definitely the off-white Belgian linen. It’ll let the light in and it’s suitably …’ she gave Cindy a weak smile ‘… bridal.’

She bent her head to consult her long to-do list, wondering what the hell was happening to her. Losing herself in her current project had been one of the things she most loved about her job. She liked the aspect of designing a room which took you out of yourself and into another world, one you’d created all on your own.

She’d seen her mother do it time and time again, transforming the windows of yet another grim rental property with filmy material she’d bought cheap at the market. It had been one of her more admirable traits—her refusal to be beaten down by poverty. Her mother had shown that you didn’t need to spend a fortune to improve your environment, and that sense of wonder and transformation had never left Emma. Immersing herself completely in her work was usually enough to make the minor problems of life seem fairly unimportant.

But not this time.

This time she felt like someone who’d suffered a bee-sting and been left with an allergic reaction which wouldn’t go away. She couldn’t stop thinking about Zak. About the physical aching he’d awoken in her—with nothing more than a fleeting touch accompanied by a dark and brooding stare. Was she really so lacking in judgment and experience that an innocuous touch like that would waken all kinds of longing?

She’d told him about Louis, too—more than she usually told anyone. Why had she done that? Because he’d asked all the right questions, or because—as her boss—he’d been holding most of the power? Either way, it had worked.

At least Cindy was sparky and energetic enough not to notice her occasional lapse into silence—which usually followed one of Zak’s rare visits to see how work on the wedding room was progressing.

In truth, it was progressing very well—but then, Emma was discovering that New York was a very efficient city and that this time around she was seeing a completely different side to it. The darkened hotel rooms from which Louis wouldn’t emerge until midday were firmly in the past. Waking up to the spill and smell of half-eaten food was a memory she was happy to leave behind.

Instead, she found herself up bright and early, traipsing around the sidewalks with Cindy, wrapped up warmly against the crisp autumn breeze. Together, they went scouting for antiques on Broadway and 10th and 11th, while for more contemporary pieces they ventured down to Soho and Chelsea. She learned to love the buzz of the city and the clean, wide streets, which were so easy to negotiate.

To her surprise, she’d heard nothing from Nat—apart from a couple of text messages soon after she’d first arrived. His phone went straight through to voicemail and he hadn’t answered her email. She wondered if that meant he’d met someone new …

One morning, she was sitting on the terrace making notes on table settings when a soft footfall disturbed her, and she looked up to see Zak standing there.

Be professional, she urged herself, hating the hammering of her heart as she curved her mouth into a polite smile.

‘Zak, this is a—’

‘Pleasant surprise?’ he finished sardonically.

She shrugged. Was she going to carry on pretending she hadn’t noticed he’d been avoiding her—or was she going to do the adult thing and try to clear the air? ‘Well, that’s up to you, surely? You can carry on playing the big boss-man who can’t bear to be in the same room as me—or you could try getting along with me.’

He stepped out onto the terrace to join her, where the breeze held in it the first faint chill of winter—despite the brightness of the sun. He looked down at her. She was sitting bundled up in jeans and a jacket, her hair piled high on her head—her face completely bare of make-up. He noticed that today her fingernails were painted pale lemon, which matched the filmy scarf she wore looped around her neck. He’d never seen a woman with yellow nails before.

Pulling out a chair, he sat down next to her. ‘Maybe you’re right.’

‘He said grudgingly.’ The glance she shot him was enough to establish that his shirt was fine—silk probably—and that she could see the faint outline of his torso through it. ‘You’ll get cold out here without a jacket.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘It might come as a surprise for you to learn that somehow, despite the lack of your intervention, I’ve managed to survive a whole thirty-six years without ever getting pneumonia.’

She rested her pen on her notepad. ‘Are you always this defensive?’

Zak turned his head to look at the park. Not always, no. But then, his relationships with women were usually clearly demarcated. There were women he did business with and women who worked for him. There were women he had relationships with—admittedly rare. And then there were the women he slept with—which had always happened whenever he had wanted it to happen.

There had never been a woman he’d wanted that he couldn’t have.

Until now.

Behind the indifference of his smile, his teeth clamped together in frustration. Because wasn’t the truth that he wanted Emma Geary with a hunger which was eating away at him? That thoughts of her kept him awake at night—awake and hard and bathed in a sweat which cold showers seemed only momentarily to subdue. It didn’t seem to matter that her background appalled the fiercely proud side of his Greek nature—or that she was involved with his brother. His betraying body still jerked into instant life whenever he thought of that waterfall of pale hair and those strange green eyes. When he imagined her painted fingernails tiptoeing over the heated arousal of his flesh.

‘You seem to bring out the worst in me, Emma.’

‘And why’s that, I wonder? Because I’m not docile enough to accept everything you say as law?’

He turned his head to look at her and gave a reluctant shrug. ‘There’s definitely an element of that. Your defiance is a little … unusual,’ he conceded.

‘You mean women don’t usually answer you back?’

‘They don’t usually feel a need to, no.’

‘Because you’re always “right”, I suppose?’

‘It’s a little more complex than that.’ His eyes gleamed. ‘Don’t you know that, deep down, all women crave a masterful man?’

She shook her head, glad that the wind was chilly enough to cool the sudden heat in her cheeks. When he looked at her that way, it was difficult not to agree with him even when he was spouting out such ridiculously old-fashioned sentiments. ‘You must mix in some very strange circles to think that way, Zak.’

‘Possibly.’ Leaning back in the chair, he saw that the trees in the park were almost bare. Soon it would be winter, and holiday time. The big Christmas tree would go up at the Rockefeller Center and tourists and New Yorkers would ice-skate side by side in the dazzle of its lights. Emma would complete her assignment here and she would go back to London—and to Nat. Zak’s mouth hardened as he forced himself to confront a scenario he had managed to suppress until now. Because what if his plan failed? What if, despite his intervention, she went back and married his brother. What then?

He had always looked out for Nat. Been there for him when nobody else was and his love for his brother burned fiercely in his heart. But sometimes events had a habit of running away with themselves. Didn’t matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t always determine the outcome. He remembered his mother lying sobbing on the marble floor and the sound of the door slamming as his father walked out of their lives. He hadn’t been able to prevent that, had he?

Suddenly, and with disturbing clarity, he could picture Emma as Nat’s new bride—her long blond hair blowing in the breeze. The image intensified and he could even imagine her dress—one of those long, filmy things which foreign girls always wore when they went to Greece, her feet bare with the blue of the Mediterranean dancing behind her. Maybe she would give Nat hordes of children who would, along with her, become part of his family and therefore linked to him for life. And if that happened, he would have to kill his desire for her stone-dead—or risk severing his relationship with his only brother.

And wouldn’t the way to do that be by engaging with her, no matter how uncomfortable he might initially find it? Couldn’t they form an uneasy truce in case the worst did happen? At the moment she symbolised the tantalising and the forbidden—and that only increased her desirability. Shouldn’t he give her the opportunity to spend the evening chattering idly about nothing, as women so often did? Wouldn’t the subsequent tedium of such an encounter assure him that she was nothing special after all?

Unexpectedly, he found himself asking, ‘Have you seen much of the city?’

Surprised by his question, Emma nodded. ‘Actually, I have.’ She’d decided that she wasn’t going to sit around moping—but to explore a place she’d seen remarkably little of last time around. So she’d taken a tour-bus and giggled at the native New Yorker’s rumbustious commentary as they passed all the iconic buildings. She’d worked her way through all the art galleries and walked daily in Central Park. And she’d taken the ferry to Staten Island, where she’d eaten a hot dog nearly as long as her arm. ‘I’ve done all the must-see touristy things.’