‘Tell me,’ he went on, and now there was a quizzical enquiry in his voice, ‘have you succeeded in getting your coffee machine to obey you yet?’
Marisa swallowed. She knew exactly what she should do. She should say, No, and it doesn’t matter, thank you very much. Thank you for the flowers, but they really were quite unnecessary, I promise you. And then, politely but firmly, she should wish him good evening and close the door.
That was definitely what she should do. Anything else was madness. Asking for trouble. For complications. For something that she could do without and what was more to the point should do without.
I don’t need a tall, dark, handsome stranger in my life! And certainly not this one!
A little chill went through her. Besides, he could be anyone. Just because he wore a cashmere overcoat and a bespoke suit and Italian shoes, and lived in a luxury apartment, it didn’t mean that he wasn’t a serial killer …
Yet even as she entertained the possibility she knew it must surely be impossible. Whatever serial killers looked like, it was not someone who quite obviously spent most of his day ordering minions around and doubtless cutting deals with a string of zeroes in them.
Had he read the disquiet in her eyes? Interpreted her momentary hesitation as understandable reluctance to engage in conversation on her doorstep with a man she didn’t know? He must have, because before she could answer him he started speaking again.
‘I apologise,’ he said. ‘I’m being intrusive, and presuming on far too slight an acquaintance.’
If he hadn’t apologised she might well have made the answer to him that as she’d intended—she really might, she thought distractedly. But there was something about the open apology, the air of quizzical ruefulness, the slight backing off and withdrawal she sensed in his body language, that stopped her. Or was it, she thought with a kind of hollowing inside her stomach, the way those gold-flecked eyes were resting on her? As if they could reach deep inside her, hold her mesmerised until she gazed back at him.
‘No, not at all,’ she said awkwardly. She sounded very English, very stilted, she knew. ‘It was kind of you to offer to help with the coffee machine. But instant coffee is absolutely fine, and anyway I drink tea mostly.’
Oh, Lord, she thought, why on earth had she said that? Why had she spoken at all? Why hadn’t she just smiled and shut the door. Why—?
‘Quite right. Just what an English rose should drink,’ he replied.
And now, completely openly, there was amusement in his voice. It did even more to her than his accent did.
‘We Greeks, however,’ he went on, ‘drink our coffee like mud. A legacy from our Turkish overlords.’
‘So you are Greek!’
The words fell from her lips before she could stop them.
The glint came again. ‘Is that good or bad?’ he said, humour clear in his voice.
‘I don’t know,’ she said candidly. ‘I don’t know anyone who is Greek, and I’ve never been to Greece.’
His eyes glinted again. ‘Well, I hope I will put you off neither my compatriots, nor my country,’ he responded, with humour still in his voice, that smile in his eyes.
Marisa swallowed. No, whoever this guy was, he definitely did not put her off either Greeks or Greece …
He was speaking again, she realised with a start, and made herself pay attention.
‘Having asked one favour of you already,’ he was saying, and his eyes were washing over her again, to the same devastating effect, ‘I am going to push my luck and ask another.’ He paused and looked down at her, a look of speculative questioning in his expression. ‘Are you at all interested in the theatre? I’ve come into possession of two tickets for a preview performance tonight of the Chekov that’s opening next week. Can I persuade you to keep me company?’
He was taking a gamble here. Athan knew that. Chekov might be the last thing to persuade her. But his surveillance records indicated that she had spent numerous evenings at the theatre, and that included any number of high brow plays. Tickets for the upcoming Chekov were like gold dust, and might be sufficient temptation for her.
Marisa could only stand there. Her heart rate seemed to have quickened, and thoughts were racing through her head.
He’s trying to pick me up—he’s definitely trying to pick me up. Asking me to the theatre is a pick-up—no question about it! No ambiguity or misunderstanding like it was about the coffee machine—just a plain straightforward date to go to the theatre together …
A strange kind of thrill went through her, but there was a tremor in it too. Thanks to the remoteness of her childhood home, the difficulties of her upbringing with her lonely, isolated mother, she had little experience of men. She knew she had the kind of looks they liked, but her mother had considered her beauty more of a danger than a blessing—just as her mother’s looks had proved a danger to her when she’d been young, Marisa thought sadly. It had taken Ian’s open admiration for her to let her blossom finally. His insistence that she indulge herself in beautiful clothes and lavish beauty treatments had finally convinced her that it was OK for men to find her attractive.
Even, she accepted, with another little thrill, this devastatingly gorgeous man, standing here inviting her out for the evening.
Of course it was unquestionably out of the question. It had to be. She couldn’t go on a date with a strange man just because he happened to live—very temporarily—next door to her. Good grief, she didn’t even know his name. Only that he was rich. And Greek.
And irresistibly good-looking …
And that combination makes a male that assumes he’s going to get his own way, my girl! So you know perfectly well what you’re going to say, don’t you? You’re going to smile, a small, tight little smile and step backwards, to convey the right body language, then say, politely but adamantly, No, thank you. And you are going to close the door and not have anything more to do with him. That’s what you’re going to do.
She opened her mouth to do just that. Which meant that it was incredibly, unbelievably annoying when what she heard her voice saying was, ‘Is that that new production of Three Sisters that I’ve read about in the papers?’
‘That’s the one. Would you be interested?’
Marisa swallowed. Yes, she would be interested. Anyone who loved the theatre would be. She’d seen it advertised and it had a stellar cast, including a Hollywood star keen to make her mark as a classical actress.
But was that any reason to accept what this complete stranger had just offered?
She must have made her hesitation apparent, because before she could say anything more, he spoke again.
‘Perhaps,’ he said, and his voice had changed slightly, as had the expression in his eyes, though she wasn’t entirely sure how, ‘it might be timely at this juncture to reassure you that I am not, as you may possibly be currently wondering, either a murderer, a burglar, a spy or wanted for questioning by Interpol. I am, for my pains, merely a businessman, and tediously respectable … ‘
There
