LITMIR.BIZ

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the opportunity to murmur, ‘Do please excuse me,’ and glided off to talk to some of her uncle’s other guests.

      She was equally relieved when the seating arrangements at dinner put her at the other end of the table, away from the man with the devastating looks and the disturbing presence. The Greek woman who had accosted him was seated beside him, Vicky saw, and she was glad of it. Yet for all the woman’s obvious intention to keep the man’s attention turned firmly on herself for the duration, Vicky was sure that every now and then those sloe-dark eyes would turn in her direction.

      She didn’t like it. There was something that disturbed her at the thought of that tall, dark and leanly compelling man looking at her. She could feel it in the tensing of her body.

      Why was she reacting like this? she interrogated herself bracingly. She knew she was physically attractive, had learnt to cope with male attention, so why was this man able to make her feel so self-conscious? As if she were a schoolgirl, not a grown woman of twenty-four.

      And why did she get the uncomfortable feeling that he was assessing her, observing her? It wasn’t, she knew, that he was eying her up—though if he had been she would not have liked that in the slightest. Maybe, she chivvied herself, she was just imagining things. When his dark eyes intercepted hers it was nothing more than a trick of her line of sight, of her being so irritatingly aware of him. An awareness that only increased during the meal, along with her discomfort.

      It was as the guests were finally leaving, late into the night, that the tall man whose name she had not caught came up to her. His dinner jacket, she noted abstractedly, sat across his shoulders to perfection, honing down to lean hips and long legs. Again she felt that irritating flurry of awareness and was annoyed by it. There was something unnerving about the man, and she didn’t like it.

      ‘Good night, Thespinis Fournatos,’ he said, and looked down at her a moment. There was a look in his eyes that this time she could not mistake. It was definitely an assessing look.

      Her back stiffened, even as her pulse gave a sudden little jump.

      ‘Good night,’ she replied, her voice as formal as she could make it. As indifferent as she could get away with. She turned to bid good night to another departing guest.

      Afterwards, when everyone was gone, her uncle loosened his bow tie and top shirt button, poured himself another brandy from the liqueur tray, and said to her, in a very casual voice, ‘What did you think of him?’

      ‘Who?’ said Vicky, automatically starting to pile up the coffee cups, even though she knew a bevy of maids would appear to clear away the mess the moment she and her uncle retired.

      ‘Our handsome guest,’ answered her uncle.

      Vicky did not need to ask who he meant.

      ‘Very handsome indeed,’ she said, as neutrally as possible.

      Her uncle seemed pleased with her reply.

      ‘He’s invited us for lunch at the yacht club tomorrow,’ he informed her. ‘It’s a very popular place—you’ll like it. It’s at Piraeus.’

      I might like it more without Mr Handsome there, she thought. But she did not say it. Still, it was a place she had not seen yet—Piraeus, the port of Athens. But, instead of saying anything more on that, she found herself changing the subject.

      ‘Uncle, is everything all right?’

      The enquiry had come out of nowhere, but it had been triggered by a sudden recognition that, despite the smile on her uncle’s face, there was tension in it, too—a tension that had been masked during the evening but which was now, given the late hour, definitely visible.

      But a hearty smile banished any tension about him.

      ‘All right?’ he riposted, rallying. ‘Of course! Never better! Now, pethi mou, it is time for your bed, or you will have dark circles under your eyes to mar your beauty. And we cannot have that—we cannot have that at all!’ He gave a sorrowing sigh. ‘That Andreas were still alive to see how beautiful his daughter is! But I shall take care of you for him. That I promise you. And now to bed with you!’

      He shooed her out, and she went, though she was still uneasy. Had she just been got rid of to stop her asking another question in that line of enquiry?

      Yet the following day there was no sign of the tension she thought she’d seen in him, and when they arrived at the prestigious yacht club, clearly the preserve of the extremely well-heeled of Athens, her uncle’s spirits were high. Hers were less so, and she found her reserve growing as the tall figure at the table they were being conducted to unfolded his lean frame and stood up.

      Lunch was not a comfortable meal. Though the majority of the conversation was in English, Vicky got the feeling that another conversation was taking place—one that she was not a party to. But that was not the source of her discomfort. It was very much the man they were lunching with, and the way his dark, assessing eyes would flick to her every now and then, with a look in them that did not do her ease any good at all.

      As the meal progressed she realised she was becoming increasingly aware of him—of his sheer physical presence, the way his hands moved, the strength of his fingers as they lifted a wineglass, or curved around the handle of his knife. The way his sable hair feathered very slightly over his forehead, the way the strong column of his throat moved as he talked. And the way he talked, whether in English or Greek, that low, resonant timbre doing strange things to her—things she would prefer not to happen. Such as raising her heart rate slightly, and making her stomach nip every now and then as her eyes, as they must during conversation, went to his face.

      She watched covertly as he lifted his hand in the briefest gesture, to summon the maître d’. He came at once, instantly, and was immediately all attention. And Vicky realised, with a disturbing little frisson down her spine, that there was another reason other than his dark, planed looks that made him attractive.

      It was the air of power that radiated from him. Not obvious, not ostentatious, not deliberate, but just—there.

      This was a man who got what he wanted, and there would never, in his mind, be the slightest reason to think otherwise.

      She gave an inward shiver. It wasn’t right, her rational mind told her, to find that idea of uncompromising power adding to his masculinity. It was wrong for a host of reasons, ethical and moral.

      But it was so, all the same.

      And she resented it. Resented the man who made her think that way. Respond to him that way.

      No! This was ridiculous. She was getting all worked up over someone who was, in the great scheme of things, completely irrelevant to her. He had invited her uncle for lunch, presumably for that singular mix of business and sociality that those in these wealthy circles practised as a matter of course, and she had been included in the invitation for no other reason than common courtesy.

      She forced herself to relax. Her uncle was turning to her, saying something, and she made herself pay attention with a smile.

      ‘You are fond of Mozart, are you not, pethi mou?’

      She blinked. Where had that question come from? Nevertheless, she answered with a smile, ‘Yes—why do you ask?’

      But it was their host who answered.

      ‘The Philharmonia are in Athens at the moment, and tomorrow night they are giving a Mozart concert. Perhaps you would like to attend?’

      Vicky’s eyes went to her uncle. He was smiling at her benignly. She was confused. Did he want to go? If he did, she would be happy—more than happy—to go with him. Aristides liked showing her off, she knew, and as she did indeed like Mozart’s music, she’d be happy to go to a concert.

      ‘That sounds lovely,’ she answered politely.

      Her uncle’s smile widened. ‘Good, good.’ He nodded. He glanced across at their host and said something in Greek that Vicky did not understand, and was answered briefly in the same language. He turned back to

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