Mia’s Scandal (8 page)

‘Something cool,’ she said meekly, smiling wryly to herself.

‘Coffee for me, Lukas,’ a third voice instructed.

Nikos strode out of the house and into the sunshine, then paused for second, lifting up his face as if he’d missed the sun too. His sweater had gone and he’d rolled back the sleeves of his checked shirt, revealing strong muscled forearms smattered lightly with fine black hair that made his skin look deeply tanned.

For a timeless moment Mia was held transfixed by his sheer bronzed beauty. A telling little flame flickered into life low down.

Then he tilted his chin down again and she dragged her eyes from him, feeling shaken inside and momentarily defenceless against these surges of attraction she kept on experiencing.

‘They’re going to slap a no-fly zone over the D’Lassio estate for the evening to stop the uninvited press from flying overhead,’ he was telling Lukas, ‘so can you make sure my pilot knows we need to leave to arrive before seven o’clock?’

With a nod Lukas left them alone on the terrace. Mia fixed her eyes on the garden where
an elegant Greek goddess stood gently pouring water from an urn into a circular pond. So tranquil, she thought, when there was nothing tranquil about the man who must have had the pool and the goddess positioned there.

‘So, what do you think?’ He came to take the seat beside her, lazed back and stretched out his long legs.

‘About the house? You must already know that it’s very beautiful.’

‘I purchased it last year from a business acquaintance, who needed some heavy cash fast,’ he imparted casually. ‘The idea was to sell it on but the current housing market made me decide to hang on to it for a while.’

‘That explains it, then,’ Mia murmured.

He turned his head to look at her. ‘Explains what?’

‘Did Lukas come with the house?’ she responded with a question of her own.

‘Yes,’ he confirmed, and she nodded her head.

‘The decor and the furnishings?’

His eyes started to narrow, and Mia felt that needling spark of electricity filter into the air. She had to moisten her lips with the tip of her tongue before she could go on. ‘Your—stamp is not visible here.’

‘Stamp,’ he prompted.

‘This is a—how do you say it…quintessential—?
Sí,
this is a quintessential model of an Englishman’s country home.’

‘What do you know about quintessential Englishmen?’ Nikos laughed. ‘You’re a Tuscan farm girl with a donkey called Tulio for a best friend.’

‘I have half-English blood,’ Mia defended that comment.

‘For all you know I might have half-English blood too,’ Nikos tossed back.

Widening her blue eyes, she asked, ‘Do you—?’

‘No,’ he conceded. ‘But you couldn’t know that. You’re making assumptions about me without being in possession of all the facts. That’s dangerous around me,
cara.’

And Mia knew he was right. Then again, everything felt as if it had a dangerous element to it since she’d woken up this morning.

And when she could not manage to break eye contact with him, Mia knew it was getting worse.

M
IA
turned to look at herself in the full-length mirror and felt the now almost-permanent quiver going on low in her stomach quicken like mad.

The dress had once belonged to Bella. She’d spent half the morning shortening the long flow of its near-sheer iced-blue silk skirt. But it was the rest of the dress that made her senses quicken. The strapless style of the bodice draped lovingly around the thrusting shape of her breasts, then went on to hug each slender curve of her body with band after band of exquisitely intricate pleating all the way down to her thighs before the sheer silk flowed to her feet, elevated by the daintiest pair of crystal-studded high-heeled mules.

‘Oh, my,’ she breathed, stealing the expression Sophie had used on the phone that morning because it suddenly made a whole lot of sense.

Sparkling crystal droplets danced amongst the tight pleating, accentuating the shape of
her body when she moved or even as she breathed. She’d coiled her hair into a loose pleat at her nape and her skin glowed smooth gold against the pale blue of the gown. A fabulous teardrop diamond necklace, given to her by Oscar, rested on its fine gold chain just above the sloping fullness of her breasts, and matching earrings sparkled at her ears. She had hoped to look elegant and sleek and sophisticated but what she’d seemed to have achieved was—alluringly sensual. She even felt sensual, in places she did not dare think about in case she made herself blush.

But she was chewing on her rose-coloured lip gloss and frowning uncertainly because she was just discovering that it was one thing to imagine herself dressing like this to impress a certain man, but it was quite a different sensation to realise she was seriously shocking herself.

Nikos was standing in the hall talking into his mobile phone when Mia appeared at the top of the staircase. As he glanced up and caught sight of her, the deep base tones of his voice stopped midsentence and he froze, his dark eyes flaring momentarily before he hooded them over with his long eyelashes, his gaze running in a slow sweep that allowed him to take in every sleek curvaceous inch.

Theos,
I’m in trouble, was the only thought
he was able to register as a familiar heat flared low in his groin and somehow managed to mess with his breathing at the same time.

Then he became aware that he still held his phone to his ear and he turned his back on her while he finished the call and, at the same time, grabbed a tight mental grip on his rampaging libido.

This weekend is about
work,
he reminded himself.

Yeah, tell that to the kiss you can still taste.

Just watching the way he’d shut down his expression and how his strong jaw had clenched before he turned away was enough to tighten the knot of anxiety toying with Mia’s stomach. He’d done it again, and beaten her up with his silent criticism. She didn’t know whether to get angry or to weep.

She’d reached the last step before he turned around again, wearing his cool urban face. ‘My apologies,’ he said. ‘Something urgent Petros needed to discuss with me before we left.’

He was walking towards her as he spoke, the absolute epitome of gorgeous handsome man about town in a formal dinner suit again.

‘You look fabulous,’ he delivered lightly. ‘Love the dress.’

Mia managed a small tense smile in response.

‘Do you have no coat, a shawl or something?’

Offering a shake of her head, she answered, ‘The evening is quite warm.’

In truth, she had forgotten to bring anything like a shawl with her, but she was not going to admit that to this man who was floating a final glance over her before he gave a curt nod of his sleek dark head.

‘Let’s get going, then.’

Brisk, businesslike, firing on all pistons, Mia described as she walked beside him towards the front door. He did not need to say it out loud to remind her that this was all about work. Networking the social scene while pretending to enjoy themselves. Putting the Theakis name out there where it would be remembered, and remembering people he thought might be useful to him at some future date.

She wanted to ask him if she got paid overtime rates, but decided against setting the evening with a sarcasm that was bound to annoy him.

As they circled down over the D’Lassio estate, Mia was genuinely stunned by its palatial splendour, even with Balfour Manor to use for comparison. Balfour was built on more traditional lines with the patina of age to soften its sturdy grey stone walls, whereas this house
was designed to look more like a Roman villa with a central courtyard and formal gardens fanning out from three sides of the house. The front of the house was mainly rolling green parkland split by a long sweeping drive. A makeshift car park to one side of the drive was already glinting due to the dying sun on the lines of cars.

Mia counted six helicopters parked up on the other side of the driveway and, as they swooped lower, she caught sight of two swimming pools, one outdoors and one contained beneath a dome of glass. Two television crews, and what felt like a thousand photographers, waited to record their arrival. The moment she saw them her heart started beating way too fast.

‘Switch the Balfour smile on,
glikia mou,
’ Nikos instructed softly as he helped her down the helicopter steps.

Obediently Mia switched on her smile. Camera shutters began clicking wildly and flashbulbs lit up the fading light. Nikos maintained his grip on one of her hands as they walked the media gauntlet on a thoughtfully laid carpet of artificial grass. Behind them the helicopter set its rotor blades moving again. A flurry of questions were being called out and a microphone was pushed into her face.

‘Good evening, Miss Balfour, would you tell us which designer made your gown?’

Surprised to find herself staring directly into the lens of a television camera, Mia answered without thinking until it was too late to wonder if the world-famous Italian designer wanted his name given to this particular gown since it was at least twelve months old.

‘Buona sera, signorina.’
The sound of her native tongue calling out to her sent Mia’s head swinging the other way, directly into a second television camera. ‘Signor Valencia knows how to make the most out of a sensational figure, heh?’ The interviewer had already picked up the dress designer’s name. ‘Will you take a moment to tell Italy what it is like for a Tuscan farm girl to discover she is the daughter of such a wealthy Englishman?’

The question came without warning. The camera zoned close on her face. Her fingers tensed, stretched, then pleated tightly in between Nikos’s long fingers, and a warm flush of self-consciousness spread across her face while he just stood there beside her, smiling coolly, waiting for her to give a response.

It was a test, yet another lesson for her that he was letting her learn how to handle. Tutor and pupil at work in the classroom of life.

‘Sì…Grazie…Buona sera, Italia…’
Somehow she managed to keep her smile in place and come up with a reasonably intelligent comment about the differences between her old life and her new life.

‘Love your voice, Mia!’ someone else tossed at her in English. ‘Very sexy. I could listen to you all night! What do you think, Nikos?’

Nikos just smiled and started them moving, thinking
sexy
did not begin to describe those dark throaty earth tones she used whenever she conversed in her natural language.

Dipping his dark head he murmured, ‘You handled that well. Now let’s see if we can get you through the rest of the evening without you making a bolt for the kitchens.’

‘Non capisco,’
Mia responded coolly, refusing to acknowledge the taunt about her well-documented bolt into the bowels of the kitchens the night of the Balfour Charity Ball.

Nikos gave a soft laugh and swapped his grip on her hand for an arm strapped across her back so he could hustle her in front of him into the house.

The next half an hour passed by in a whirl of first-time introductions that more camera crews recorded moment by moment. By the time she was given a chance to draw in a proper breath again, Mia was feeling dazed.

‘You could have warned me,’ she complained to Nikos.

‘Forewarned, there was a chance you might do a runner,’ he said, catching up two glasses of champagne and handing one to her.

‘This place is amazing,’ she changed the subject, glancing up at a high vaulted ceiling around which a cantilevered glass walkway seemed to stay up there by will alone.

‘Santino likes to impress us with his structural engineering skills,’ Nikos murmured dryly.

‘I thought the D’Lassios were media moguls.’ Mia frowned.

‘Been doing your homework?’

Lifting her chin, she said, ‘To improve my education is the reason why I am here with you, is it not?’

The direct challenge. Nikos arched an eyebrow because he had not expected her to make it. Like a fool playing a very dangerous game he held on to her deep blue eyes and piled the pressure on the constant tug of sexual awareness that was always present between them now.

She looked away first.

‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s move on to where the real action is.’

The
work
angle of action, Mia saw the mo
ment they stepped inside a vast reception room already crammed with high-end glittering people. The networking started almost straight away. Nikos kept her at his side as he walked the room, rarely needing to make an effort to gain attention because people were more eager to meet him. It was the quality of the man and his billionaire kudos, his entrepreneurial brilliance, his stunning good looks and his casually presented charm. He handled people with a low-key edginess that made them work all the harder to earn themselves an impressed glance or an approving smile.

Smooth, Mia described as she soaked him in like the rest of them.

Then he ruined it for her when he turned to her and said, ‘OK, this is where I leave you on your own for a while.’

Like a kick in the gut she instantly turned as white as parchment. Nikos released a sigh, catching her by the shoulders and turning her to face him.

‘All you have to do is circulate and listen. If you know what they’re talking about, join in. If you don’t know what they’re talking about, then ask questions,’ he relayed as if it was really that simple. ‘People don’t mind being asked questions. In fact, they like to show off their knowledge. What they don’t like is someone
pretending to know what they’re talking about when they don’t. OK?’

Pressing the tremor out of her lips Mia nodded.

‘And you’re a Balfour,’ he reminded her. ‘The people here know you are a Balfour and they’re going to just love to welcome you into their group on the strength of your name alone. In fact it’s going to be them hoping to impress you so you will remember them to Oscar.’

‘Not to you?’

‘To me too,’ Nikos agreed. ‘If they ask you anything too personal shoot them down the way you like to do to me,’ he went on. ‘You have spirit, Mia, use it to your advantage. Always be polite. Always be aware of how much you’re drinking. I will come and find you in, say, half an hour when we are due to go into dinner.’

Glancing down at the fine silver watch circling her wrist which Tia Giulia had bought her for her last birthday, she said, ‘OK,’ with only a tiny scared tremor showing in her voice.

Nikos heard it though and released a sigh.

‘It’s OK—really,’ she said and straightened her shoulders. ‘This is work—yes? I have to treat it that way.’

Still he hesitated, giving her the impression he wanted to say something else, and for some reason Mia found herself holding her breath.

Then he instructed, ‘Don’t bolt,’ and walked away.

For the next half-hour Mia braved the sharp jaws of socialising. Like Nikos had said, it was easier than she expected because people did recognise her instantly and it tended to be them drawing her into their conversation rather than her needing to butt in.

Nikos wished he’d found it easy to walk away from her but he hadn’t. He felt as if he’d abandoned a puppy on the fast lane of a motorway. But he needed to speak to some people about Lassiter-Brunel. During Mia’s research exercise she had—admittedly unwittingly—exposed some business issues that were bothering him. OK, he reasoned, so he had pulled out of the deal they were trying to broker, but he’d done that for personal reasons. It was only this morning when he had gone back to the office to look through Mia’s file that he had picked up on other things that troubled him.

She was good at ferreting, he acknowledged with an inner smile. But other colleagues in the same business might not have a ferret that looked so beautiful Brunel would let his professional guard slip to the point anyone would question whether he was as reputable as he made out.

Hearing himself using Mia’s choice of word
made Nikos grimace at the same moment that a set of slender long fingers coiled around his arm. ‘So you’ve been landed with Oscar’s little cuckoo,’ a mocking voice purred.

Glancing down Nikos found a smile for the beautiful but dangerous socialite-cum-gossip-columnist Diana Fischer who’d sidled up against him.

‘Who would have believed Oscar could be such a deliciously secretive dark horse,’ she went on. ‘Perhaps it’s as well that the scandal broke after poor Lillian departed to the afterlife. Imagine her horror if she’d been here to discover that the man she had been married to for twenty years had still been busy sowing his wild oats right up to and beyond their marriage.’

She was fishing for knowledge, timing details, that Nikos was not going to reveal. Setting his teeth together behind the relaxed line of his mouth, he drawled, ‘Still enjoying playing the heartless bitch, Diana?’

‘
I’m
heartless?’ Her lovely green eyes opened wide. ‘Tell me, Nikos, how many hearts have you broken since you became sexually active?’

‘I was referring to your lack of respect for the dead.’

‘I adored Lillian,’ Diana declared. ‘Everybody did. I thought I was being sympathetic
towards her.’ She pouted up at him. ‘After all, who
would
want to find out that her husband had been laying into another woman?’