“It can wait.”
With that oblique comment, he turned and strode toward his suite. Alex shut the door, then leaned upon it. She couldn’t understand what had come over him. Maybe it had to do with this house that once upon a time contained the family he’d lost. He always seemed happier away from it.
Last night when he’d held out his hands for her to dance, he’d been a totally different person. Alex had never known such ecstasy as those moments in his powerful arms with the wine and the music feeding the flame of her desire.
Again she was struck by the fact that he’d always accepted her just the way she was. She loved him for it. But right now he sounded so upset. What had she said?
A shiver passed through her body. There’d only been a few times at the office when she’d seen him truly angry. The last thing she’d ever want was to be his target, even if it were deserved.
Once again Alex found herself wishing she dared to be her real self for tonight. If it weren’t for the likelihood of Giorgio being at the party, Alex was tempted to end the charade for good.
A knock on the door made her jump. She thought it was Dimitrios, that he’d changed his mind and had come back to ask a favor of her. When she opened it, she discovered Nicholas standing there with her suitcase. He placed it inside the room.
Though she needed it to get ready, she felt a bitter disappointment that it wasn’t Dimitrios. She quickly thanked the other man, then shut the door after him.
Almost to the bathroom, tears streamed down her face. Too much had transpired in the last twenty-four hours to contain her emotions any longer. She needed a release.
Half an hour later, she padded over to the suitcase with a towel wrapped around her and pulled out the only dressy outfit she’d brought from New York.
When Michael had planned her wardrobe, they’d laughed over the choices he’d come up with. But Alex wasn’t laughing now. She lifted the boxy, drab, gray three-piece suit to her gaze. The wrinkle-proof affair felt like stiff taffeta. Her eyes studied the beading on the collar and cuffs.
It was hideous. She could hardly bare to put it on, but she had no choice.
One glance in the mirror and she was equally repulsed by her dyed brown hair, which she wore in an eternal twist pulled back from an unimaginative center part. Alex’s mother wasn’t the only person who didn’t know what she looked like these days.
It astounded her that Dimitrios didn’t appear to mind being seen with her.
“Alexandra?” His peremptory voice was followed by a rap on the door.
“I’m ready.”
She slipped into her black matron shoes once more, then reached for the door handle. If he said one word about how nice she looked…
But at her first glimpse of the tall, virile male dressed in a long-sleeved black silk shirt teamed with black trousers, she forgot all about the ghastly picture she presented.
“Leon and his mother are waiting for us in the car. They’re both under the impression that I’m still too unsteady to mount a horse, so play along with me while I hang onto you for support. Shall we go?”
Once again he ushered her down the hall with his arm around her shoulders. The familiar smell of the soap he’d used in the shower assailed her again. He was clean-shaven tonight. Dimitrios had to be the most gorgeous man alive. How comical she must look standing next to him!
The strange glance Ananke flashed her when they got in the back of the limousine verified Alex’s opinion of herself. But Leon’s eyes were kind as they rested on her.
“Good evening, Ms. Hamilton.”
“I’m so glad to see you again, Leon. Since the other day I’ve wanted to apologize to you for anything I said that upset you.”
He shook his head. “No, no. I was the idiot. We don’t need to talk about it again.” Just then he sounded and acted very much like Dimitrios.
His mother chose that moment to say something to her brother-in-law.
“Speak English, Ananke.”
“It’s my opinion you should stay home from the party, Dimitrios. You should never have left your bed yesterday.”
“I agree with you, Mrs. Pandakis,” Alex inserted. “Considering the fact that we still have work to do this evening after dinner, I don’t think he should stay long. Not when he’s still feeling light-headed.”
“Then it’s settled,” his nephew declared with surprising finality. “We will eat quickly and leave.”
“Thank you all for deciding for me.”
Dimitrios’s wry comment prompted Alex to mutter, “Someone has to.”
“I’ll make it a short night on one condition.”
“What’s that?” Ananke asked the question foremost on Alex’s mind.
“After Ms. Hamilton went to all the trouble of having a costume made for me, I want the family to see Leon model it before he wears it in the parade tomorrow.”
“I’d be happy to do that, Uncle, but it’s too late now. We’ll be at the villa in a moment.”
Alex darted her host a sideward glance and caught a gleam in his eye. “As it happens, I asked Nicholas to put it in the trunk.”
Leon wouldn’t be able to wiggle out of it now.
Pleased to see Dimitrios’s tactics working where his nephew was concerned, Alex turned her head and looked out the window.
They’d been passing through another beautiful residential area of the city. As they turned into a private drive lined with cars, she caught sight of a pastel villa built along neoclassical lines. It looked even larger and more imposing than the one they’d just come from.
Mrs. Landau had once confided to Alex that even if Spiros headed the Pandakis family and had four sons to help run the company, his brother’s son, Dimitrios, was the driving force.
True to her prediction, after Spiros’s death there really wasn’t a transfer of power because Dimitrios was already the natural leader to whom the entire family and business magnates deferred.
It would be interesting to see if, after all Dimitrios had done to let Leon make his own decisions about life, his nephew ended up showing the same spark of business genius as his illustrious uncle. Stranger things had happened.
For Ananke’s sake, Alex hoped her son would marry and have children. The other woman was suffering. Her husband had been dead too many years for her to be actively grieving. Alex surmised that her pain stemmed from another source. She also had the impression Leon wasn’t the sole cause of it.
“We’ve arrived,” Dimitrios whispered against her ear. She knew it was accidental, but his lips grazed her lobe. His touch sent tiny ripples of delight through her system.
“Leon?” he called to his nephew. “I’ll help your mother inside
