strolled into the dressing room and rolled back the doors. ‘Come here…I want to show you something.’
Maddie lifted his discarded shirt and held it against her in an effort to cover the expanse of her own bare skin. Wondering what the heck he could want to show her, she came to an awkward halt in the doorway.
‘All the clothes in here are yours.’
Her delicate brows pleated in confusion. ‘How can they be mine?’
Giannis shrugged. ‘This is my gift to you. Staff will be standing by tomorrow, to alter anything that doesn’t fit.’
Stunned by what he was telling her, Maddie tugged open a drawer and skated a doubtful fingertip over silk and lace lingerie. How dared he buy her underwear? Her small white teeth gritted. She stared at the garments hanging in the closet, noting a very famous designer label and sliding the items along the rail to examine another couple, before drawing back her hands as though she had been stung by a wasp. Mortified colour had washed into her cheeks.
‘I can’t believe that you think it’s okay to do something like this,’ she told him tightly, threading her arms into the sleeves of his shirt, because she now felt foolish naked. ‘I may not own any fancy clothes, but that doesn’t mean I want you to buy them for me!’
‘My only motivation was to please you.’
‘Did you pick them out personally?’ she asked abruptly.
In the act of pulling out a pair of jeans from the other side of the dressing room, Giannis tensed, recalling another débâcle when he had sent Nemos to her door to organise lunch. ‘No.’
‘Did you describe what you wanted?’
‘I may have mentioned a favourite colour or two.’
‘Mine or yours?’
‘I don’t know yours,’ he was forced to admit, his handsome mouth taut with impatience. He zipped the jeans. What was her problem? Why couldn’t she be grateful, as so many other women had been before her? Why was she so outrageously difficult to please?
‘Which really says it all, doesn’t it?’ Maddie snapped. ‘You don’t know my favourite colours and you don’t really care either. You want to dress me up like a fashion doll for your benefit, not mine.’
His dark golden eyes simmered. ‘That is untrue.’
‘If you don’t like me as I am, tough!’ Maddie flung at him, her generous mouth curling with pained defiance. ‘And at least have the sensitivity to appreciate that spending thousands and thousands of pounds on someone like me, just because you’ve slept with them, gives a very insulting message!’
That concluding crack made Giannis furious. Slashing his hands through the air in a striking gesture of exasperation, he strode back into the bedroom. ‘So we’re back to the missing sensitivity gene?’
‘I do not need to be reminded that you’re richer than sin.’
‘Stop talking as though my wealth is a serious flaw,’ Giannis sliced back with sardonic bite.
‘But it is…can’t you see that? It’s a barrier between us. I’m not a hooker you need to pay—but that’s how you’re making me feel! ‘
‘Theos mou… You’re such a diva!’ Giannis condemned, colder than ice. ‘A gift is not an insult, and it should be accepted with grace. I’m a generous man and your attitude is offensive. You have no idea of how to behave. And, by the way, no hooker would make as little effort to please as you do!’
His censure cut deep. Tears prickled and stung the backs of her eyes, for she was not in the habit of staging violent arguments—nor had she ever been told before that she lacked manners. She shrank inside his shirt. But she still felt it would be wrong to accept that vast collection of shockingly expensive clothes. She wasn’t a hired entertainer. Wearing garments purchased by him would only serve to increase her sense of inequality. But maybe if she wore his gifts to mask that big financial difference he would feel more comfortable with her? a little inner voice suggested. So who was right…and who was wrong?
Her head buzzing with conflicting thoughts, she walked out on to the roof terrace. Chilled by the night air, she curled up in a heap on a couch. A few minutes later a maid came out, to offer her an opulent cashmere rug.
Giannis watched from the bedroom while Maddie wrapped herself up in the rug he’d had sent out to her. His strong jawline clenched. Nobody else argued with him—and never, ever a woman. What made her so feisty? So critical of him? She was annoying the hell out of him.
In one of the lightning-fast decisions that made him so formidable an opponent in the business world, Giannis rammed the French windows back from his path and went outside. In the light from the coloured glass lanterns her green eyes shone with the clarity of jewels. Without hesitation—for he was determined to overcome any objections—Giannis bent down, scooped her up, complete with rug, and went back indoors with her again.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ Maddie squealed in disconcertion.
Settling her back on the bed, Giannis followed her down in one lithe movement. Bare-chested, long powerful legs clad only in well-worn faded jeans, he stared down at her in mocking challenge. ‘What do you think?’
‘You said I’d no manners—’
Long brown fingers shaped her high cheekbones. Fierce dark golden eyes assailed hers. ‘I thought you’d be thrilled with a new wardrobe.’
Her soft mouth down-curved; her long brown lashes dipped. ‘I’m sorry…I didn’t think of it from your point of view.’
‘Or I from yours. You’re different from other women. But that’s why I want you so much. ‘ Giannis let his wide sensual mouth drift down on hers like a caress.
As the kiss deepened the hot, hungry taste of his urgency intoxicated her. The feverish thoughts tugging her in different directions subsided. Liquid warmth uncoiled in her belly. His long, powerful body came down on hers, acquainting her with the deliciously aggressive thrust of his erection. A helpless frisson of response rippled through her and centred on the ache stirring in her pelvis. Suddenly she wanted him again, with the most shocking ferocity…
The following day, Maddie stirred drowsily and sent a seeking hand across the bed for Giannis. Finding only empty space, she opened her eyes. The bathroom door wasn’t quite closed, and she could hear the thump of water on tiles: he was in the shower. She peered at her watch with a softened smile. It was four in the afternoon.
Earlier that day Giannis had flown her to Marrakech, for breakfast in a fabulous old hotel, before taking her for a visit to the souks. Momentarily her face clouded. She’d had to struggle to hide the fact that the strong, aromatic scents of the spice market had made her feel nauseous. She suppressed the lingering stab of concern, since she could not help but be influenced by Giannis’s sublime conviction that their contraceptive mishap would have no consequences. They had returned to his mountain hideaway for lunch on the almond terrace, where they had sat beneath trees weighed down with exquisite clouds of spring blossom. Long before the final course arrived they had left the table to make love again.
His mobile phone buzzed on the bedside cabinet. She had noticed that he never missed a call.
