Wed For His Secret Heir
‘I did not realise that girls—I presume only girls—still went to finishing schools,’ Giannis said. ‘What made you decide to go to one?’
‘My father thought it would be a good experience for me.’ Ava felt a familiar tension in her shoulders as she thought of her father. The truth was that she tried not to think about Terry McKay. That part of her life when she had been Ava McKay was over. She had lost touch with the friends she had made at the Institut Maison Cécile in St Moritz when her father had been sent to prison. But the few months that she had spent at the exclusive finishing school, which had numbered two European princesses among its students, had given her the social skills and exquisite manners which allowed her to feel comfortable at high society events.
It was a pity that the finishing school had not given advice on how to behave when a gorgeous Greek god looked at her as if he was imagining her naked, Ava thought as her eyes locked with Giannis’s smouldering gaze. Panic and an inexplicable sense of excitement pumped through her veins. She was here at the charity dinner for her brother’s sake, she reminded herself. Giannis had said he would give her an opportunity to speak to him in private on the condition that she entertained him during dinner. She did not know if he had been serious, but she could not risk losing the chance to plead with him to show leniency to Sam.
‘It’s not fair,’ she murmured. She had to lean towards Giannis so that he could hear her above the hum of chatter in the banqueting hall, and the scent of him—spicy cologne mixed with an elusive scent of male pheromones—made her head spin. ‘I have told you things about me but you haven’t told me anything about yourself.’
‘That’s not true. I’ve told you that I have never visited Scotland. Although I have a feeling that I will take a trip there very soon,’ he drawled. His voice was indulgent like rich cream and the gleam in his eyes was wickedly suggestive.
A sensuous shiver ran down Ava’s spine. Common sense dictated that she should respond to Giannis’s outrageous flirting with cool amusement and make a witty remark to put him in his place and let him know she wasn’t interested in him. Except that he fascinated her, and she felt like a teenager on a first date rather than an experienced woman of twenty-seven.
She wasn’t all that experienced, a little voice in her head reminded her. At university she’d dated a few guys but the relationships had fizzled out fairly quickly. It had been her fault—she’d been wary of allowing anyone too close in case they discovered that she was leading a double life. Two years ago, she had met Craig at a party given by a work colleague. She had been attracted to his open and friendly nature and when they had become lovers she’d believed that they might have a future together. A year into their relationship, she had plucked up the courage and revealed her real identity. But Craig had reacted with horror to the news that she was the daughter of the infamous London gangland boss Terry McKay.
‘How could we have a family when there is a risk that our children might inherit your father’s criminal genes?’ Craig had said, with no trace of warmth in his voice and a look of distaste on his face that had filled Ava with shame.
‘Criminality isn’t an inherited condition,’ she had argued. But she continued to be haunted by Craig’s words. Perhaps there was a ‘criminal gene’ that could be passed down through generations and she would not be able to save Sam from a life of crime.
Ava forced her mind away from the past. She refused to believe that her kind, funny younger brother could become a violent criminal like their father. But the statistics of youths reoffending after being sent to prison were high. She needed to keep her nerve and seize the right moment to throw herself on Giannis’s mercy.
In normal circumstances Ava would have found the bidding process at the charity auction fascinating. The sums of money that some of the items fetched were staggering—and far beyond anything her finances could stretch to. Giannis offered the highest bid of a six-figure sum for a luxury spa break at an exclusive resort in the Maldives for two people. Ava wondered who he planned to take with him. No doubt he had several mistresses to choose from. But if he wanted more variety, she was sure that any one of the women in the banqueting hall who she had noticed sending him covetous glances would jump at the chance to spend four days—and nights—with a gorgeous, wealthy Greek god. Giannis was reputed to have become a billionaire from his successful luxury cruise line company, The Gekas Experience.
‘Congratulations on your winning bid for the spa break. I don’t blame you for deciding that a visit to the Maldives would be more enjoyable than a trip to Scotland,’ she said, unable to prevent the faint waspishness in her voice as she pictured him cavorting in a tropical paradise with a supermodel.
‘I bought the spa break for my mother and sister. My mother has often said that she would like to visit the Maldives, and at least my sister will be pleased.’ There was an odd nuance in Giannis’s tone. ‘Perhaps the trip will make my mother happy, but I doubt it,’ he said heavily.
Ava looked at him curiously, wanting to know more about his family. He had seemed tense when he spoke about his mother, but she was heartened to know that he had a sister and perhaps he would understand why she was so anxious to save her brother from a prison sentence.
The auction continued, but she was barely aware of what was going on around her and her senses were finely attuned to the man seated beside her. While she sipped her coffee and pretended to study the auction catalogue she tried not to stare at Giannis’s strong, tanned hands as he picked up his coffee cup. But her traitorous imagination visualised his hands sliding over her naked body, cupping her breasts in his palms as he bent his head to take each of her nipples into his mouth.
Sweet heaven! What had got into her? Hot-faced, she tensed when he moved his leg beneath the table and she felt his thigh brush against hers. He turned his head towards her, amusement gleaming in his eyes when he saw the hectic flush on her cheeks.
‘It is rather warm in here, isn’t it?’ he murmured.
She was on fire and desperate to escape to the restroom so that she could hold her wrists under the cold tap to try to bring her temperature down. Perhaps spending a few minutes away from Giannis would allow her to regain her composure. ‘Please excuse me,’ she muttered as she shoved her chair back and stood up abruptly.
‘Ow!’ For a few seconds she could not understand why scalding liquid was soaking into the front of her dress. The reason became clear when she saw a waiter hovering close by. He was holding a cafetière, and she guessed that he had leaned over her shoulder in order to refill her coffee cup at the same time that she had jumped up and knocked into him.
‘I am so sorry, madam.’
‘It’s all right—it was my fault,’ Ava choked, wanting to die of embarrassment. She hated being the centre of attention but everyone at the table, everyone in the banqueting room, it seemed, was looking at her. The head waiter hurried over and added his profuse apologies to those of the waiter who had spilled the coffee.
Giannis had risen from his seat. ‘Were you burned by the hot coffee?’ His deep voice was calm in the midst of the chaos.
‘I think I’m all right. My dress took the brunt of it.’ The coffee was cooling as it soaked through the material, but her dress was drenched and her attempts to blot the liquid with her napkin were ineffective. At least it was a black dress and the coffee stain might wash out, Ava thought. But she couldn’t spend the rest of the evening in her wet dress and she would have to go home without having had an opportunity to speak to Giannis about her brother.
The hotel manager had been called and he arrived at the table to add his apologies and reprimand the hapless waiter. ‘Really, it’s my fault,’ Ava tried to explain. She just wanted to get out of the banqueting hall, away from the curious stares of the other diners.
‘Come with me.’ Giannis slipped his hand under her elbow, and she was relieved when he escorted her out of the room. She knew she would have to call for a taxi to take her home, but while she was searching in her bag for her phone she barely noticed that they had stepped into a lift until the doors slid smoothly shut.
‘We will go to my hotel suite so that you can use the bathroom to freshen up, and meanwhile I’ll arrange for your dress to be laundered,’ Giannis answered her unspoken question.
Ava was about to say that there was no need for him to go to all that trouble. But it occurred to her that while she waited for her dress to be cleaned she would have the perfect opportunity to ask him to drop the charges against her brother. Was it sensible to go to a hotel room with a man she had never met before? questioned her common sense. This might be her only chance to save Sam, she reminded herself.
The doors opened and she discovered that the lift had brought them directly to Giannis’s suite. Ignoring the lurch of her heart, she followed him across the vast sitting room. ‘The bathroom is through there,’ he said, pointing towards a door. ‘There is a spare robe that you can use and I’ll call room service and have someone collect your dress. Would you like some more wine, or coffee?’
‘I think I’ve had enough coffee for one night.’ She gave him a rueful smile and her stomach muscles tightened when his eyes focused intently on her mouth.
She had definitely had enough wine, Ava thought as she shot into the opulent marble-tiled bathroom and locked the door, before releasing her breath on a shaky sigh. It must be her out-of-control imagination that made her think she had seen a predatory hunger in Giannis’s gaze. She wondered if he looked at every woman that way, and made them feel as though they were the most beautiful, the most desirable woman he had ever met. Probably. Giannis had a reputation as a playboy and he possessed an effortless charm that was irresistible.
But not to her. She was immune to Giannis’s magnetism, she assured herself. As she stripped off her coffee-soaked dress and reached for the folded towelling robe on a shelf, she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror above the vanity unit. Her face was flushed and her eyes looked huge beneath her fringe. Usually she wore her hair up in a chignon but tonight she had left it loose and it reached halfway down her back. The layers that the hairdresser had cut into it made her hair look thick and lustrous, gleaming like spun gold beneath the bright bathroom light.
Ava stared at herself in the mirror, startled by her transformation from ordinary and unexciting to a sensual Siren. She had bought a seamless black bra to wear beneath her dress and her nipples were visible through the semi-transparent cups. The matching black thong that she had worn for practical reasons—so that she would not have a visible panty-line—was the most daring piece of lingerie she had ever owned.
She ran her hands over her smooth thighs above the lacy bands of her hold-up stockings and felt a delicious ache low in her pelvis. She felt sexy and seductive for the first time since Craig had dumped her as she pictured Giannis’s reaction if he saw her in her revealing underwear.
She shook her head. It must be the effects of the wine that had lowered her inhibitions and filled her mind with erotic images. Cursing her wayward thoughts, she slipped her arms into the robe and tied the belt firmly around her waist. Of course he was not going to see her underwear. She had come to his hotel suite for one purpose only—to ask him to give her brother another chance. Taking a deep breath, Ava opened the bathroom door and prepared to throw herself on Giannis Gekas’s mercy.
CHAPTER TWO
HE WAS SPRAWLED on a sofa, his long legs stretched out in front of him and his arms lying along the back of the cushions. He had removed his jacket and tie and unfastened the top few shirt buttons, to reveal a vee of olive-gold skin and a sprinkling of black chest hairs. Giannis looked indolent and yet Ava sensed that beneath his civilised veneer he was a buccaneer who lived life by his rules and ruthlessly took what he wanted. Plenty of women would want to try to tame him but she was sure that none would succeed. Giannis Gekas answered to no one, and her nerve almost deserted her.
He stood up as she entered the sitting room and walked over to take her dress from her. ‘I rinsed out most of the coffee and wrung out as much water as I could,’ she explained as she handed him the soggy bundle of material.
‘I have been assured that your dress will be laundered and returned to you as quickly as possible,’ he told her as he strode across the room and opened the door of the suite to give the dress to a member of the hotel’s staff who was waiting in the corridor.
Giannis closed the door and came back to Ava. ‘I ordered you some English tea and some petits fours,’ he said, indicating the silver tea service on the low table in front of the sofa. ‘Please, sit down.’
‘Thank you.’ She tore her eyes from him, her attention caught by a large canvas leaning against the wall. ‘That’s the Mark Derring painting from the auction.’
‘I followed your advice and bid for it. You were sitting next to me,’ he reminded her in a sardonic voice that made her think he was remembering how she had swapped the place name cards. ‘Didn’t you realise that I had offered the highest bid for the painting?’
Heat spread across her face. She could hardly admit that she had been so busy trying to hide her fierce awareness of him that she hadn’t taken much notice of the auction. Giannis gave one of his lazy smiles, as if he knew how fast her heart was beating, and Ava forgot to breathe as she was trapped by the gleam in his eyes. She did not remember when he had moved closer to her, but she was conscious of how much taller than her he was when she had to tilt her head to look at his face.
He was utterly gorgeous, but it was not just his impossibly handsome features that made her feel weak and oddly vulnerable. Self-assurance shimmered from him and, combined with his simmering sensuality, it was a potent mix that made her head spin.
‘Congratulations on winning the painting in the auction,’ she murmured, desperate to say something and shatter the spell that his fathomless dark eyes and his far too sexy smile had cast on her. She was stupidly flattered that he had taken her advice about the artwork. Her self-confidence had been knocked by Craig’s attitude when she’d admitted that she was the daughter of one of the UK’s most notorious criminals. Thinking of her father reminded her of her brother, and she sank down onto the sofa while she mentally prepared what she was going to say to Giannis. It did not help her thought process when he sat down next to her.
‘Help yourself to a petit four,’ he said, offering her the plate of irresistible sweet delicacies.
‘I shouldn’t,’ Ava murmured ruefully as she reached for a chocolate truffle. She bit into it and gave a blissful sigh when it melted, creamy and delicious, on her tongue. ‘Chocolate is my weakness, unfortunately.’
He shrugged. ‘Are you one of those women who starve themselves because the fashion industry dictates that the feminine figure should be stick-thin?’
‘I think it’s patently obvious that I don’t starve myself,’ she said drily. The belt of the towelling robe had worked loose and she flushed when she glanced down and saw that the front was gaping open, revealing the upper slopes of her breasts above her bra. She quickly pulled the lapels of the robe together.
‘I am glad to hear it. Women should have curves.’ Giannis looked deeply into her eyes and the heat in his gaze caused her heart to skip a beat. ‘Before the regrettable incident with the coffee you looked stunning in your dress, and you have an exquisite figure, Ava,’ he said softly. ‘I am flattered that you wanted to sit next to me at dinner.’
Clearly, Giannis believed she had swapped the name cards because she was interested in him, but her motive had been completely different. Ava swallowed. ‘I need to...’ She did not finish her sentence and her breath caught in her throat when he lifted his hand and lightly brushed his thumb pad across the corner of her mouth.
‘You had chocolate on your lips,’ he murmured, showing her the smear of chocolate on his thumb that he had removed from her mouth. Her eyes widened when he put his thumb into his own mouth.
How could such an innocuous gesture seem so erotic? She was mesmerised as she watched his tongue flick out to lick his thumb clean. Unconsciously her own tongue darted out to moisten her lips and the feral growl that Giannis gave caused her stomach muscles to clench.
Remember why you are here, Ava ordered herself. But it was impossible to think about her brother when Giannis shifted along the sofa so that he was much too close. Her heart was thumping so hard in her chest that she was surprised it wasn’t audible. It felt unreal to be in a luxurious hotel room with a devastatingly gorgeous man who was looking at her as if she was his ultimate fantasy. Somewhere in a distant recess of her brain she knew she should deliver her rehearsed speech, but her sense of unreality deepened when Giannis lifted his hand and stroked her cheek before he captured her chin between his fingers.
‘What are you doing?’ she gasped. It was imperative that she should seize her chance to talk to him about Sam.
‘I would like to kiss you, beautiful Ava.’ His voice was soft like velvet caressing her senses. ‘And I think that perhaps you would like me to kiss you? Am I right? Do you want me to do this...?’ He brushed his mouth over hers, tantalising her with a promise of sweeter delight to follow.
On one level Ava was appalled that she was allowing a stranger to kiss her, but she did not pull away when Giannis slid his hand beneath her hair to cup her nape and drew her towards him.
Sexual chemistry had fizzed between them from the moment they had set eyes on one another, she acknowledged. Neither of them had eaten much at dinner because they had been sending each other loaded glances. She could not fight her body’s instinctive response to Giannis and with a helpless sigh she parted her lips. A tremor ran through her when he kissed her again and reality disappeared.
It was as though she had been flung to the far reaches of the universe where nothing existed but Giannis’s lips moving over hers, tasting her, enticing her. His warm breath filled her mouth and she felt the intoxicating heat of his body through his white shirt when she placed her hands flat on his chest.
In a minute she would end this madness and push him away, she assured herself. She had been curious to know what it would be like to be kissed by an expert. And Giannis was certainly an expert. Ava did not have much experience of men but she recognised his mastery in the bone-shaking sensuality of his caresses.
He lifted his mouth from hers and trailed his lips over her cheek and up to her ear, exploring its delicate shape with his tongue before he gently nipped her earlobe with his teeth. A quiver ran through her and she arched her neck as he kissed his way down her throat and nuzzled the dip where her collarbone joined. Her skin felt scorched by the heat of his mouth. She wanted more—she wanted to feel his lips everywhere, tasting her and tantalising her with sensual promise.
At last he lifted his head. He was breathing hard. Ava stared at him with wide, unfocused eyes. She had never felt so aroused before, except in her dreams. Perhaps this was a dream, and if so she did not want to wake up.
‘Your skin is marked where that idiot waiter spilled boiling-hot coffee down you,’ Giannis murmured. She followed his gaze and saw that the front of her robe had fallen open again. There was a patch of pink skin on the upper slope of one breast.
‘It’s nothing.’ She tried to close the robe but he brushed her hand away and deftly untied the belt before he stood up and drew her to her feet. It was as if she were trapped in a strange dreamlike state where she could not speak, and she did not protest when he pushed the robe off her shoulders and it fell to the floor.
Giannis rocked back on his heels and subjected her to a slow, intense scrutiny, starting with her stiletto-heeled shoes and moving up her stockings-clad legs and the expanse of creamy skin above her lacy stocking tops. Ava could not move, could hardly breathe as his gaze lingered on her black silk thong before he finally raised his eyes to her breasts with their pointed nipples jutting provocatively beneath the semi-transparent bra cups.
‘Eísai ómorfi,’ he said hoarsely.
Even if she hadn’t understood the Greek words—which translated to English meant you are beautiful—there was no mistaking the heat in his gaze, the hunger that made his eyes glitter like polished jet. Ava knew she wasn’t really beautiful. Passably attractive was a more realistic description. But Giannis had sounded as if he genuinely thought she was beautiful. The desire blazing in his eyes restored some of her pride that had been decimated by Craig’s rejection.
Soon she would end this madness, she assured herself again. But for a few moments she wanted to relish the sense of feminine power that swept through her when Giannis reached for her and she saw that his hand was shaking. Europe’s most sought-after playboy was shaking with desire for her. It was a heady feeling. A wildness came over her, a longing to just once throw off the restraints she had imposed on herself since she was seventeen and had discovered the truth about Terry McKay.
When she was younger she had never told anyone that her father was a criminal, but the strain of keeping her shameful secret had meant that she was always on her guard. Even with Craig, she had never been able to completely relax and enjoy sex. She’d assumed she had a low sex drive, but now the fire in her blood and the thunderous drumbeat of desire in her veins revealed a passionate, sensual woman who ached for fulfilment.
Giannis pulled her into his arms and crushed her against his broad chest, making her aware of how strong he was, how muscular and male compared to her soft female body. But she was strong too, she realised, feeling him shudder when she arched into him so that the hard points of her nipples pressed against his chest. He claimed her mouth, his lips urgent, demanding her response, and with a low moan she melted into his heat and fire. She kissed him back with a fervency that drew a harsh groan from his throat when at last he lifted his head and stared into her eyes.
‘I want you,’ he said in a rough voice that made her tremble deep inside. ‘You drive me insane, lovely Ava. I want to see you naked in my bed. I want to touch your body and discover all your secrets, and then I want to...’ He lowered his head and whispered in her ear in explicit detail all that he wanted to do to her.
Ava’s stomach dipped. Somewhere back in the real world the voice of her common sense urged her to stop, now, before she did something she might regret later. But another voice insisted that if she let this moment, this man slip away she would regret it for ever. She did not understand what had happened to sensible Ava Sheridan, but shockingly she did not care. Only one thing was in her mind, in her blood. Desire, desire—it pulsed through her veins and made her forget everything but the exquisite sensations Giannis was creating when he cupped one of her breasts in his hand and stroked her nipple through the gossamer-fine bra cup.
She gave a low moan as he slipped his hand inside her bra and played with her nipple, rolling the hard peak between his fingers, causing exquisite sensation to shoot down to that other pleasure point between her legs. ‘Oh.’ She would die if he did not touch her there where she ached to feel his hands.
His soft laughter made her blush scarlet when she realised that she had spoken the words out loud. ‘Come with me.’ Giannis caught hold of her hand and something—disappointment? Frustration?—tautened his features when she hesitated. ‘What is it?’