Irresistible Greeks: Secrets and Seduction: The Secrets She Carried / Painted the Other Woman / Breaking the Greek's Rules

‘We had an affair. I got pregnant. It’s not that unusual—’

‘Trust me,’ Cristo breathed. ‘You’ll be accused of having been a married man’s mistress and that is not a possibility I want to appear in print.’

A flash of temper and distaste at that prospect rippled through Erin because that was also a humiliating label that she did not want to be lumbered with. ‘OK. Where are you planning to send us … assuming I agree, which I haven’t yet,’ she reminded him.

‘Greece … specifically, my island.’

Erin rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, so you now have an island all your own?’

‘I inherited Thesos from my father when I was twenty-one.’

‘Well, you never mentioned it before,’ Erin remarked curtly, wondering how much else she didn’t know about him while trying to think frantically fast. ‘Look, I’ll consider going to Greece for a few days if you really think it’s necessary—’

‘I do.’

‘But before I leave I want the chance to speak to Sally Jennings. She does still work for you, doesn’t she?’

There was a moment of silence before Cristo responded expressionlessly, ‘She does. She’s now the deputy manager at the spa. Why?’

‘And I’m sure she’s very efficient. She was when I was working there,’ Erin commented stiffly. ‘I’ll call in on the way to the airport. I don’t want her to know I’m coming. I’ll drop the twins off with you at your office.’

‘There’s no need. I’ll meet you in the hotel foyer. But I don’t think this is a good idea, Erin. Very few people know about the money that went missing. I handled it very discreetly. I don’t think it’s wise to start making enquiries again this long after the event.’

‘This is the price of me going to Greece,’ Erin countered flatly. ‘I see Sally in London before I go or I don’t go at all.’

‘But that’s bl—’ Cristo retorted in a seething undertone.

‘Blackmail?’ Erin slotted in with saccharine sweetness. ‘You’re preaching to the converted, Cristo. Guess who taught me the skill?’

‘If I facilitate this meeting at the spa, you’ll come to Greece with me?’

‘Of course I will. I keep my promises.’ Erin came off the phone a minute later, feeling re-energised, and swept the twins out of bed to get dressed. It was past time she began calling some of the shots. Cristo became unbearable when he got his own way too much. But she was rather touched that he was willing to go to so much trouble to whisk them away from the perils of too much press interest. Honestly, Erin thought ruefully, sometimes Cristo could be naïve. Did he really think she couldn’t cope with journalists on the doorstep or some nasty article that tried to make her sound more exciting and wicked than she was? She was not that vulnerable. Life had taught her to roll with the punches. In any case the idea of travelling to Cristo’s private island intrigued her. He was finally going to take her to his real home and naturally she was curious.

Her mother got up while the twins were eating their breakfast and, when she realised that her daughter was to leave the house in little more than an hour to travel abroad, she urged Erin to go and start packing. Before she did so, Erin rang work and requested a week’s leave.

‘Do you think you’ll meet Cristo’s parents?’ Deidre asked hopefully.

Erin grimaced, in no hurry to meet Appollonia Denes, who had cut her off on the phone while making it very clear that she did not think Erin was good enough for the little boy she had raised to adulthood. Cristo had been born into a substantial fortune, the only child of two young, rich and beautiful Greeks, both from socially prominent families. Vasos and Appollonia had become Cristo’s guardians when he was orphaned at the age of five, after his birth parents died in a speedboat accident. Vasos had been a trusted employee in the Donakis empire and Cristo’s godfather. The older couple had had no children of their own. Erin recalled that Cristo had mentioned Appollonia having a nervous breakdown and during that phone call she had decided that the older woman was more than a little off the wall. So, she hoped she wouldn’t be meeting the older couple. Things would be challenging enough without having to deal with people who had disliked and disapproved of her even before they had met her. No doubt Vasos and Appollonia would find the news that she was the mother of Cristo’s twins a source of severe embarrassment and dissatisfaction.

The twins fell asleep in the limo that carried them to London, waking up with renewed energy to bounce up the steps of the Mobila hotel. Garbed in a grey pinstripe dress and jacket, her pale hair curving round her cheekbones, Erin was apprehensive as she walked into the opulent foyer.

‘Daddy!’ Lorcan cried, tearing his hand free of his mother’s to pelt across the open space.

‘Kisto!’ Nuala exclaimed, for she would not call her father Daddy, even though he had asked her to do so.

Erin focused on Cristo, seeing the manager of the renowned hotel anchored to his side and reckoning that so public a greeting from his secret children could scarcely be welcome to him. But Cristo was grinning, that wide wonderful smile she had almost forgotten flashing across his lean bronzed features in a transformation that took her breath away as he swung Lorcan up into his arms and smoothed a comforting hand over Nuala’s curly head as she clung to his trouser leg with toddler tenacity.

As Erin looked at the drop-dead gorgeous father of her children a tingle of heat pinched the peaks of her breasts to tightness and arrowed down into her pelvis to spread a sensation of melting warmth. All her hormones, she registered in dismay, were in top working order and threatening to go into overdrive.

‘Miss Turner.’ The hotel manager shook hands with every appearance of warmth. ‘What beautiful children.’

‘Erin, I’ve arranged for Jenny to look after the twins in the crèche while we’re visiting the spa,’ Cristo explained, and a young woman stepped forward with a smile and proceeded to chat to Nuala.

‘So, you’ve opened a crèche here now,’ Erin remarked, her professional interest caught by that idea because she had first floated it to Cristo.

‘It’s very popular with our clients,’ the manger advanced with enthusiasm. ‘Many of them have young children.’

‘The facility pays for itself,’ Cristo explained, a lean hand resting to Erin’s taut spine to lead her in the direction of the spa. She was filled with dismay at the realisation that he intended to accompany her, for she had not thought that far ahead and she was convinced that his intimidating presence could only injure her chances of success.

Momentarily. Erin glanced back anxiously at the twins. Lorcan was making a phenomenal noise with the toy trumpet the wily Jenny had produced while Nuala was trying her hardest to get her hands on the same toy.

‘Are you certain you want to go ahead with talking to Sally?’ Cristo pressed in a discouraging undertone. ‘I don’t agree with it. What the hell can you expect to gain but embarrassment from such a meeting?’

‘Sally is the only person who knows the whole story. I don’t have a choice,’ Erin replied tightly, her nervous tension rising as Cristo bent down to her level and the rich evocative smell of his cologne and him ensnared her on every level.

‘Don’t do this for me, koukla mou,’ Cristo urged suddenly, staring down at her as they came to a halt outside the door that now bore Sally’s nameplate. ‘It doesn’t matter to me now. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then. You were young. You made a mistake and I’m sure you learned from it—’

‘Don’t you dare patronise me, you … you … you toad!’ Erin finally selected in her spirited retort. ‘And don’t interfere.’

‘Toad?’ Cristo repeated blankly.

‘I’d have called you something a good deal more blunt if I hadn’t trained myself not to use bad words around the children!’ she told him curtly, hastily depressing the door handle of the office before she could lose what little remained of her momentum.

Sally, a tall middle-aged woman with red hair and light blue eyes, was standing behind her desk talking on the phone. When she saw Erin, she froze, her previous animated expression ironed flat as she visibly lost colour.

‘Erin, my goodness,’ she breathed in astonishment, dropping the phone back on its cradle in haste and bustling round the desk. ‘And Mr Donakis …’

‘I would like your assurance that anything that is said in this room remains between these four walls,’ Cristo said quietly.

Sally looked bewildered and then she smiled. ‘Of course, Mr Donakis. Take a seat and tell me what I can help you with.’

Erin was so nervous that she could feel her knees trembling and she linked her hands tightly together as she sat down. ‘I’m sure that you’re aware that the audit two and a half years ago threw up certain anomalies in the spa accounts …’

If possible, Sally went paler than ever and she dropped rather heavily back down behind her desk. ‘Mr Donakis did ask me to keep that problem confidential.’

‘Sally,’ Erin muttered, suddenly filled with a sense of utter hopelessness. What craziness had brought her here to this pointless encounter? There was no way Sally was going to offer up a belated confession of fraud with her employer present. ‘Perhaps you could leave us alone, Cristo.’

‘No, I have news to share first. I’m planning to have the account irregularities looked at again.’

The older woman’s face went all tight. ‘But, Mr Donakis, I thought that matter was done and dusted. You said you were satisfied.’

‘I’m afraid I wasn’t. And bearing in mind how helpful you were during the first investigation, I thought you should be informed before the experts arrive to go over the books again,’ Cristo completed.

Sally had turned an unhealthy colour, her dazed eyes flickering between the two of them, and suddenly she spoke. ‘You’re a couple again, aren’t you?’ she exclaimed, her attention lodging almost accusingly on Erin. ‘And you’ve told him about me, haven’t you?’

‘Told me what?’ Cristo enquired lazily.

Taking on board the reality that Cristo was piling the pressure on Sally to admit that she had lied and offering Erin a level of support she had not expected to receive from him, Erin squared her shoulders in frustration. She had always fought her own battles.

Sally compressed her lips in mutinous silence as if daring Erin to answer that question.

‘While I was working here I discovered that Sally had been taking products from the store and selling them on online auctions.’ Erin turned her attention back to the older woman, who had once been a trusted colleague. ‘I know I promised that that was our secret but sometimes promises have to be broken.’

‘You were stealing?’ Cristo prompted Sally forbiddingly.

Tears spilled from Sally’s eyes and she knocked them away with her hand and fumbled for a tissue, which she clenched tightly in one hand.

‘I guarantee that whatever you tell me there will be no prosecution now or in the future.’ Lean, strong face taut, Cristo stood up, a lithe powerful figure of considerable command. ‘I very much regret that you felt unable to be honest with me when this business was first discovered but I’m hoping that for Erin’s sake you will now tell me the truth.’

‘No prosecution?’ Sally queried uncertainly.

‘No prosecution. I only want the truth,’ Cristo confirmed.

‘One lunchtime shortly before Erin resigned a man came to see me,’ Sally related in a flat voice. ‘He said he was a private detective and he offered me a substantial amount of money if I could give him information that would damage Erin’s reputation.’

‘What?’ Cristo positively erupted into speech, his disbelief unhidden.

‘His name was Will Grimes. He worked at an agency in Camden. That’s all I know about him. At first I said no to him. After all there wasn’t any information to give!’ Sally pointed out with a wry grimace. ‘You hadn’t done anything but work hard here, Erin, but then you suddenly resigned from your job and just like that I realised how I could get myself out of the trouble that I was in.’

‘Will Grimes,’ Cristo was repeating heavily.

‘I was in a great deal more financial trouble than I admitted when you found me helping myself to that stuff from the store,’ Sally told Erin tautly. ‘I had set up a couple of other scams in the books—’

‘The payments to therapists that didn’t exist, the altered invoices?’ Cristo specified.

‘Yes, and then you organised the audit and I started to panic,’ Sally confided tearfully. ‘Erin had left the spa by then.’

‘And you decided to let me take the blame for it?’ Erin prompted while she wondered how on earth she had ever attracted the attention of a private detective.

‘I wanted to stop taking the money,’ the older woman stressed in open desperation.’ I knew it was wrong but I had got in too deep. Once the fraud was uncovered and I set up things so that you got the blame I could go back to a normal life again and, of course, I still had my job. I knew you would be safe from prosecution with Mr Donakis—he wasn’t likely to trail his own girlfriend into court!’

‘You got me right on that score,’ Cristo derided.

‘Will you prosecute me now?’ Sally asked him shakily.

‘No. I gave you my word and I thank you for finally telling me what really happened,’ Cristo responded.

Clearly limp with relief, Sally braced her hands on the desk to stand up. ‘I’ll clear my desk immediately and leave—’

‘No, work out your notice here as normal,’ Cristo urged, resting a hand on Erin’s taut shoulder to ease her slowly upright.

‘Erin?’ Sally breathed stiltedly. ‘I’m sorry. When you were so kind to me, you deserved better from me.’

Erin nodded, even tried to force her lips into a forgiving smile, but couldn’t manage it for she was all too well aware how the false belief that she was a thief had affected Cristo’s opinion of her. In any case, she was deeply shaken by what Sally had confessed and she couldn’t hide the fact. She had been fond of the older woman, had only lost contact with her because she had fallen pregnant and on hard times. Pride had ensured that she did not pursue ongoing contact with anyone at her former workplace. She stole a veiled glance at Cristo’s profile. He was pale, his facial muscles taut below his dark complexion.

Cristo paused at the door on his way out. ‘Did you collect the reward money from the private detective and give him the supposed evidence of Erin’s dishonesty?’

Sally winced and nodded slowly. ‘It got me out of debt and gave me a fresh start.’

Erin gritted her teeth, disgusted by Sally’s selfishness.

Cristo felt as if the walls of his tough shell were crumbling around him. Astonishingly, Erin’s seemingly paranoid suspicion that she was being set up for a fall by persons unknown had been proven correct. He, who rarely got anything wrong, had been wrong. He had made an appalling error of judgement. But more than anything at that moment he wanted to know who could possibly have hired a detective to discredit Erin in his eyes by fair means or foul.

CHAPTER NINE

ERIN picked at the perfectly cooked lunch served on board Cristo’s private jet without much appetite. She was still angry at Sally and bitter that the older woman had got away with destroying Erin’s reputation rather than her own. How many other people were suffering from the mistaken assumption that she was a con woman, who had escaped her just deserts solely because she was the owner’s ex-girlfriend? As someone who had always worked hard with scrupulous honesty and pride in her performance of her duties, she deeply resented the false impression that Sally had created to hide her own wrongdoing.

‘We have to talk,’ Cristo remarked flatly.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard that phrase from you before,’ she parried waspishly, recalling that once upon a time Cristo had been the first out of he door when such a suggestion was laid before him. That had certainly been his all-too-masculine reaction on every occasion when she’d tried to corner him for a serious conversation.

From the cabin next door she could hear the sounds of the children playing and talking. Jenny, the charming young brunette nanny, had turned out not to work for the spa crèche after all. No, indeed, Jenny had been specifically hired by Cristo to take care of the twins while they were in Greece.

‘That’s so unnecessary and extravagant,’ Erin had criticised when she found out about the arrangement at the airport.

‘You can’t look after them 24-7,’ Cristo had informed her authoritatively.

‘Why can’t I?’ she had asked.

‘Why shouldn’t you have a break?’ he had responded arrogantly.

‘If Jenny is your concept of responsible parenting you need to buy another handbook,’ she had retorted curtly, annoyed that he had taken such a decision over her head. He was Lorcan and Nuala’s father: all right, she accepted that, however that didn’t mean that she would accept his interference in matters about which he was scarcely qualified to have an opinion. She was no more in need of a break than any other working mother, she thought thinly, which she supposed meant that, rail as she had at him, the prospect of the occasional hour in which she could relax and think of herself again was disturbingly appealing and made her feel quite appallingly guilty.

Returning to the present and the tense atmosphere currently stretching between them, Erin shot Cristo a glance from cool amethyst eyes. ‘You think we should talk? I’ll be frank—only if you crawled naked over broken glass would I think you had redeemed yourself.’

A wicked grin very briefly slashed Cristo’s lean bronzed features, his dark eyes shot with golden amusement below his thick sooty lashes, making him spectacularly handsome. ‘Not much chance of that,’ he admitted.

‘So, where’s my apology?’ Erin demanded truculently to mask the effect of her dry mouth and quickened heartbeat because, no matter how furious he made her, she could still not remain impervious to his stunning good looks, a reality that mortified her. ‘It’s taking you long enough!’

‘I was trying to come up with the right words.’

‘Even if you swallowed a dictionary, it wouldn’t help you!’

Lean strong face taut, Cristo sprang out of his seat. ‘I am sincerely sorry that I ever entertained the suspicion that you had stolen from me, koukla mou

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