Mia’s Scandal (7 page)

‘You—you did that on purpose!’ she hissed at him shakenly.

Nikos claimed one of her hands and walked her away from the car. ‘He needed showing where he stands with you.’

‘Stands with me?’ Mia gasped out. ‘I don’t understand this
stands with me,’
she told him, having to hurry to keep up with his long stride.

‘He was the date that stood you up last night.’

‘He was not my date!’

‘He was your date,’ he insisted. ‘And I have just made my point.’

‘Will you please explain what it is you are talking about?’ Tugging hard on her captured hand she pulled them both to a stubborn standstill in front of a white building with glass entrance doors. Hot, mortified, her kissed lips burning and feeling shockingly pumped up, still she made herself glare up at him.

He looked down at her, as cold and haughty-looking as she had ever seen him. And
his
lips were not burning! ‘I saw you talking with him in my foyer yesterday at lunch,’ Nikos confessed. ‘By the time he comes out of his shock far enough to read the message I’ve just given
him, he will understand that you are out of bounds from now on if he wants to keep his job.’

Sent totally, utterly breathless by the ruthless steel trap his mind must be, Mia could not get another single word out. She twisted her head to look towards the red sports car where, sure enough, the man from accounts was still standing next to as if in shock.

Her insides shuddered. ‘You—you set me up for that kiss in front of him,’ she whispered, finally beginning to catch on as to why that particular employee of his had been roped in to deal with his car.

‘No, Tulio did that. Until Tulio put in an appearance I’d decided that merely seeing you going off to spend a weekend with me was going to be enough to put him off thinking he could try coming on to you again. Tulio upped the ante.’

Tugging her into motion again he sent the glass doors swinging open and walked them into the building, then kept her anchored to his side as he spoke to a receptionist standing behind the desk. Fizzing with fury Mia wanted so badly to deny what he’d assumed, but she knew that she could not do that without exposing the real reason why she had gone out last night, and nothing was
ever
going to make her admit the truth to him now!

So she stood simmering beside him with her eyes on a level with his wide muscular shoulder, and only began to take notice of her surroundings when she happened to focus through a window and saw the helicopter glinting in the bright sunlight on what looked like a concrete jetty jutting out into the Thames.

Her fingernails bit tense crescents into Nikos’s palm. She had never travelled in a helicopter before, and she was not sure she wanted to travel in one now.

Nikos tried not to wince as her fingernails bit into his flesh as he signed the necessary documents and felt alive for the first time in two long miserable weeks. A fire was burning deep down in his abdomen. He didn’t know how she had managed to do this to him, this black-haired, long-legged, curvy fiery witch, but she did do it to him. If he had been standing in the middle of a wilderness he would be howling now like a mating wolf.

He’d warned Oscar. He’d warned Mia. He’d even warned himself. But it had taken a donkey named Tulio to set his natural hunting instinct free from the restraints he had placed around them. Turning back to the glass doors he trailed his captive outside again. His new sports car was nowhere to be seen now. Grimacing at the delight he could imagine its young driver was
enjoying—the young fool’s damn consolation prize—Nikos turned them towards the jetty on which his helicopter was awaiting them.

Mia was forced to endure his help as he helped her up the steps into the plush cream leather interior, with the bristling impatience of a man who believed he had the right to hustle her around.

The impression stung like acid through the layers of her skin as she chose a seat on the other side of the cabin and sat down. She refused to look at him as he folded his long frame into the seat farthest away from her. If two people wished to announce they were at war, then their seating choices flagged the battle line.

The door slid shut. Rotor blades began to move. The angry butterflies playing havoc with her insides altered to anxious tingles as she felt the contraption lift off the ground. As her heart dipped alarmingly she watched with wide eyes and, in what felt like only seconds, she found herself staring down at the river which looked like a silver ribbon glinting in the sun.

He did not speak. She did not speak. But she could feel the fierce heat of his mood reaching out towards her across the empty gap.

And her lips were still burning so hotly from the kiss she found she just had to try to cool
them with the moist tip of her tongue. Her mouth suddenly came alive with the taste of him. Shocked that a kiss could leave such an intimate residue behind, she slammed her tongue against the back of her teeth and refused to let it move again.

‘Drink—?’

Mia forced herself to look at him, only to feel a strange heavy weight descend across her chest. He looked different again—as in
dangerously
different. His lounging posture in the corner of the plush leather seat, with his long legs stretched out in front of him, yelled cool, calm arrogance at her, yet his half-narrowed eyes and the glint emitting from them warned of something new lurking around inside him, as if he’d flung on yet another change of mood.

Passion-desire, she named it, without knowing how she recognised either thing. Her eyes dropped to his mouth, his wide sensual mouth. Could he taste her as she could still taste him—?

Mia shook her head and turned to look at the horizon where the built-up city had begun to thin out and the earth below them was slowly turned into a thousand shades of green as they flew over countryside.

Across the cabin, Nikos was talking on his
mobile phone. In front of her, hidden behind a bulkhead, some invisible person was flying them to—she knew not where because she had forgotten to ask where they were staying.

A short while later they began to sink downwards. Mia saw a series of slated rooftops forming the shape of a large country house standing in the centre of sweeping clipped green lawns sloping down to a tiny lake.

As they settled on the grass a short walk away from the creamy painted walls of the house, she assumed that it must be a hotel. And only realised her mistake when Nikos led the way in through the front door and she heard him greet a smartly dressed man with thick greying hair, before strolling over to a side table to begin sifting through the small pile of letters she could see waiting there.

‘This is a house,’ she murmured, pausing to look around the light and airy hallway.

Nikos threw her a glance. ‘What did you think it was?’

‘A hotel.’

His smile was more of a grimace. ‘This is my home—or the one I use at weekends if I’m in England.’

‘Sophie did not mention it.’

‘Why would she?’

Eyelashes flickering away from the sturdy
staircase built of rich golden oak which took up central position, Mia looked at him, then away again.

‘No reason,’ she said, except that Sophie always seemed to know everything, so the fact that she did not know Nikos had a country house in Hampshire seemed—odd. ‘How many homes do you have?’ she asked curiously.

‘Too many, probably,’ he mocked. ‘I don’t like hotels,’ he explained. ‘I prefer my own space.’

There was something in the way that he’d said that, which made Mia frown as she studied his face. It told her nothing, and he appeared completely relaxed, yet—

Someone came in through the open front door then, making her turn about. It was the man Nikos had greeted as they’d arrived here and he was carrying her holdall and dress bag.

‘This is Lukas.’ Nikos made the introductions. ‘Lukas keeps the house running smoothly. If you need anything while you’re here, Lukas can usually provide it. Miss Balfour, Lukas,’ he said.

‘Good afternoon, Miss Balfour,’ Lukas greeted her politely. ‘I will take your things up to your room, then organise some refreshment.’

He strode off towards the stairs, leaving Mia chewing her bottom lip as she watched him go.
It was all very easy, very polite. Very much as she’d become used to at Balfour Manor, yet it was contrarily nothing like that estate. Balfour Manor was vast in comparison to this house, with masses of heavy panelling, and long galleried walkways steeped in priceless works of art and stunning antiques. This place had soft cream walls and a gentle, more classical feel to it.

She liked it.

‘Take a look around while I finish reading through these,’ Nikos invited, his attention back on his stack of mail.

Wandering off, Mia discovered that all the doors stood open already as if in invitation for her to step into each room. The first one she chose turned out to be a beautiful living room with squashy gold velvet sofas and chairs. A grand piano stood in front of a pair of French windows situated at one end of the room.

‘Do you play?’ she asked Nikos as she walked out of the room again.

‘I used to. I don’t have much time these days.’

Wondering why he sounded so indifferent to possessing such a wonderful gift, she crossed the hall to the other side and discovered a creamy book-lined study with a large desk filling the window and olive-green furnishings.

Stepping out again she saw that Nikos had
finished with his letters and was now studying her. A frisson ran down through her body. Conscious suddenly that they appeared to be alone here apart from Lukas, Mia wasn’t sure if she was comfortable with the arrangement, though she tried not to show it.

‘How—how far are we away from the D’Lassios’ place?’ she asked him.

‘Five minutes by helicopter, twenty minutes by car. Do you want to see the rest of the house or are you ready for something to eat and drink?’

She didn’t know what she wanted to do. Her fingers were restlessly pleating together and unpleating again, and for some reason she felt very unsure of her ground where his mood was concerned right now. He was relaxed, yes. He was being very pleasant. But there was something different about him that made her want to—

What—?

Back off? Run?

He was not offering to show her to her room, which was usually the first thing people did with a guest who was staying overnight. Not that she
wanted
him to show her to her room, Mia told herself quickly. But—

But
what
?

Exasperated with herself, she decided her
best choice while she was feeling so unsettled was, ‘I think I would like to look around some more.’

With a nod of his dark head he led the way towards the back of the house. Half an hour later she’d been shown an all-purpose gym and an indoor swimming pool, a very elegant dining room, two more less formal sitting rooms and a huge rear garden that was a blaze of colour from the early summer flowering bulbs. Not once did Nikos rest so much as a hand on her, yet she quivered inwardly all the time as if he was threatening to do it.

It was the fault of the kiss, she told herself. The knowledge that he had come at her out of nowhere with it and so could easily come at her out of nowhere with something else.

He was volatile—unpredictable. The kind of man who was a law to himself. He fascinated and unnerved her in equal measures, and her awareness of his close proximity played like a bow across the taut string of her nerves, which in turn kept every sense she possessed honed on him.

‘It’s a very big house for just Lukas to look after,’ she remarked eventually. ‘You have no other staff?’ She hadn’t seen a single other person.

‘Plenty, but they know not to be around when I’m here,’ Nikos said.

Because, as he’d already said, he liked his own space—which should not surprise her since she was able to live in the service flat at his London apartment because he usually kept it empty.

His mobile phone rang then and, after taking the call, he murmured, ‘Excuse me, I have to deal with this,’ and strode off towards his study, talking in Greek.

It was like being let off for good behaviour. Mia felt herself almost deflate with relief. Working closely with him was taxing.
Fighting
with him was taxing! But being treated to a whole hour of his graciously polite side had worn her out!

How did he manage to switch his moods on and off like a light switch? How did he go from impatient boss to hot, angry kisser with serious possessive tendencies that made her insides flip over to amiable companion?

Passionate, pre-calculating, domineering and dangerous, she listed, quivering despite not wanting to react at all.

What mood was he going to treat her to next? The urban sophisticate wearing his social mask while a Balfour hung on his arm?

He was tying her emotions in knots with his quick-change mood swings. She needed something to do to take her mind off him.

Fortunately Lukas appeared as if by magic to offer her the promised refreshment. ‘It’s such a beautiful day, perhaps you would enjoy sitting out on the terrace? I’m sure Mr Nikos will not be long.’

Mr Nikos could take as long as he liked, Mia thought as she followed Lukas across one of the rear sitting rooms and outside. The moment she relaxed into a cushioned chair and the warmth of the sun touched her face, she felt homesick for Tuscany and Tia Giulia’s peeling pink farmhouse and the rickety wooden furniture they used like an extension of the old-fashioned kitchen throughout the long summer months.

Lukas unfurled a huge canvas umbrella, suddenly dousing her in shade. She knew he’d meant well but she’d been happier to close her eyes and bake for a little while, something she had not had the opportunity to do since she’d arrived in England.

Just something else she missed about Tuscany.

‘Something cool to drink or would you prefer coffee or tea?’ enquired Lukas.

A sudden imp inside her made her want to demand a large shot of vodka, just to see how Lukas would react. She had never, ever tasted vodka but the house, Lukas and all of this polite care and attention did not fit with the cool,
tough, impersonal if-I-can-do-it-myself-I-will nature of Nikos Theakis.