sunglasses and got to his feet before he dropped her phone into her palm. His fingers only brushed against her hand for a few seconds but the contact of his skin against hers sent a tingling sensation up her arm. Belle jerked her hand back so quickly that she almost dropped her phone. She felt hot all over, every nerve ending quivering with her fierce awareness of him. Get a grip, she told herself impatiently, infuriated that he dominated her senses.
He was so tall. Now that they were both standing once more, Belle was struck anew by his size, his undoubted strength and his sheer, virile masculinity. Maybe it was a good thing she was going home, she thought shakily. She seemed incapable of controlling her body’s response to Loukas—a fact that became shamefully obvious when she glanced down and saw the outline of her nipples jutting beneath the silky material of her jacket.
Face flaming, she crossed her arms defensively over her chest and began to scroll through the contacts in her phone’s memory, searching for the number for Athens airport.
‘Stop messing about and come with me now if you want a lift to Aura.’
She snapped her head up to find that Loukas was already holding the larger of her suitcases, and while she gaped at him he rounded the table, picked up her other case, and walked out of the bar.
‘Wait…’ His long stride had already taken him across the road. Belle teetered after him, cursing her vertiginous heels and the uneven cobbled surface of the quay. ‘I don’t understand.’
She finally caught up with him, and her heart lurched when he glanced down and subjected her to a cool stare. He was so incredibly good-looking, she thought helplessly. She was embarrassed by her reaction to him, but could not tear her eyes from the sculpted perfection of his hard-boned features.
‘Do you mean I can make Larissa’s dress?’ She was confused by his sudden about-face, but why else would he have offered to take her to his island? ‘Aren’t you worried that I’ll dupe your sister out of a fortune—like that Toula woman did—and then disappear, leaving her without a wedding dress?’ she demanded bitterly, still fuming at his treatment of her.
‘No, I’m not worried about that.’ They had reached the edge of the quay and Loukas dropped her cases into his boat before turning to face her. ‘I have every confidence that you will design the wedding gown of Larissa’s dreams and make her very happy. Because if you don’t—’ his hard smile sent a shiver down Belle’s spine ‘—you will answer to me.’
Belle finally lost control of her temper. Loukas Christakis wasn’t just insulting and arrogant, he was a bully who clearly enjoyed bossing people around. But she’d been pushed around by John Townsend all her childhood—sometimes literally, she remembered grimly. She wasn’t going to put up with it again from any man.
‘Are you threatening me, Mr Christakis?’ she demanded, placing her hands on her hips and wishing fervently that she was taller and did not have to tilt her head to meet his gaze.
‘Merely warning you,’ he said silkily. ‘Disappoint me, and more importantly Larissa, and I promise you will find it impossible to gain financial backing for Wedding Belle anywhere in the world.’
She believed him. His wealth and his status as one of the most brilliant and ruthless businessmen of the decade gave him that kind of power. She had no doubt that he could destroy her little company as easily as he could crush an ant beneath his shoe.
‘Well? Are you coming? I haven’t got all day for you to make up your mind.’
She gave a start at the sound of his faintly mocking tone and realised that he had jumped into the boat and was holding out his hand to help her step on board. She would love to tell him to take a running jump, Belle thought viciously, preferably over the edge of a high cliff. But the stark truth was that she needed this job. If she could not start to pay back her business loan to the bank Wedding Belle would collapse without any help from Loukas.
In her high heels and pencil skirt there was no way she could climb into the boat without his help. Reluctantly she leaned forward to take his hand, and gave a startled cry when, having lost patience with her dithering, Loukas gripped her waist and swung her down from the quay.
The few seconds that he held her against him scrambled her brain, and the feel of his muscular torso and rock-hard thighs pressed so intimately close to her body was causing a coiling sensation deep in her pelvis. She snatched a breath when he set her down and gave him a fulminating glare, desperate to hide her awareness of him. ‘Thank you,’ she said icily, ‘but I could have managed perfectly well, Mr Christakis—’
‘Nonsense.’ He cut her off mid-tirade. ‘You’re as wobbly as a newborn foal in those ridiculous shoes. And you’d better make it Loukas. My sister was keen that I should welcome you to Aura, and she’ll expect us to be on first-name terms—Belle.’
Something about the way he said her name sent a little quiver through Belle, and his amused smile stole her breath. Already devastatingly sexy, the sudden upward curve of his sensual mouth caused her knees to sag, and she could feel her heart thundering as if she’d run a marathon.
‘You’d better hold on to this before the wind whips it away.’ Loukas lifted the elegant cream and black hat from Belle’s head, and stiffened when pale gold hair unfurled and fell almost to her waist in a silken stream. He had been right about her being a blonde. In the sunlight her hair was the colour of platinum. It seemed unlikely that the shade was natural, but she was so tiny compared to his six-foot-four frame that her head only came halfway up his chest, and he could see no telltale sign of darker roots on her scalp.
The breeze blew a few fair strands across her face and, unable to stop himself, Loukas reached out and brushed the hair back from her cheek. Time was suspended. Belle’s heart stopped beating as she stared into dark grey eyes that were no longer cold and hard as tensile steel, but glinting with a blatant sexual heat that evoked a shameful longing inside her for him to pull her into his arms and plunder her mouth with the savage passion she sensed he was capable of.
How could she be attracted to him when he was everything she hated? It was just a physical thing, she assured herself frantically—a chemical reaction that she had no control over. But somehow she would have to ignore her sexual attraction to Loukas if she was not going to spend the next week embarrassing herself by ogling him like a teenager with a severe crush.
The throb of the boat’s engine seemed to reverberate through her, and she gripped the edge of her seat as he opened the throttle and sped out of the harbour, heading towards the small island of Aura—a green haven set amid the sparkling blue sea. Her hair whipping across her face, Belle glanced back at Kea, already far behind them. Sudden panic flooded through her and she felt an impending sense of unease that her life would never be the same again once she had set foot on Loukas Christakis’s private domain.
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