can leave this here. It’ll be perfectly safe.” He took her little beaded bag and secreted it behind the window drapery. Then, after trading significant glances with Theo Keramidis, a plainclothes security guard stationed a few meters away, he slid his arm around her waist, whisked her onto the dance floor and quickly maneuvered her into the middle of the crowd.
The music pounded, its message one of throbbing, primitive urgency calculated to stir a man’s blood. The heat and press of the bodies surrounding them enforced an intimacy she’d probably have found offensive under any other circumstances. As it was, there was no avoiding physical contact—a fleeting touch here, a dangerously erotic brush there. Not that he minded. With business taken care of, he was more than ready to enjoy the moment for however long it might last, and honest enough to admit that, if he had any say in the matter, it would not end anytime soon.
Plainly put, the second their eyes had met, a very elemental, male-female recognition had arced between him and her. He’d had his share of women. Was well acquainted with the mild exhilaration of a brief affair. But his visceral response to this particular woman was different and spoke of a deeper connection that went beyond the ordinary. Gina Hudson was different, too. So different that, in acknowledging her allure, he knew he ran the risk of compromising his professional integrity.
Since that was something he never permitted himself, no matter how tempting the distraction, the smart thing would be to pass her off to a more impartial member of his team, and let them keep her occupied. Yet when the orchestra swung into a slower, more sultry tempo, he pulled her into his arms and held her close.
She was so petite that his splayed fingers spanned an area from the slight swell of her hip, and past the indent of her waist to the upper edge of her gown. Spread them a centimeter farther apart, and his thumb could test the soft skin between her shoulder blades. Slide his arm more snugly around her, and he’d graze the outer curve of her right breast. The realization shot a surge of heat to his groin and cast a death blow to the caution that was his usual trademark.
Blithely unaware of her effect on him, she glanced up from beneath long, silky eyelashes. “Are you from Athens, Mr. Christopoulos?”
“No,” he said, making a valiant effort to rein in his overactive libido. “I was born in a village in the northwest corner of the country. And I wish you’d call me Mikos.”
“Is that Greek for Michael?”
“A regional variation of the same. My full name is Mikolas.” To avoid collision with a large elderly couple bent on cutting a wide swath through the crowd, he swung her into a sudden reverse turn. From the unhesitating way she followed his lead, they might have been dancing together for years. But the satin whisper of her gown flirting with his trousered thighs, the soft resilience of her breasts against his starched dress shirt, left him fighting to control his breathing.
The music came to an end. “So what else should I know about, Ms. Gina Hudson?” he inquired, forcing himself to concentrate on his prime objective. “How do you spend your time when you’re not covering high society events for your magazine?”
A fleeting uneasiness crossed her face before she was able to camouflage it with another breathless little laugh. “Nothing very exciting, I’m afraid.”
But you are, he thought. Exciting…and more than a little evasive.
Keeping his hand in the small of her back, he led her to where her bag lay exactly as he’d left it. She slipped the silver chain over her shoulder again and deftly steered the conversation away from herself. “So how long have you lived in Athens?”
“Ever since my teens, when I came here to work.” He smiled bleakly at the memory of those grueling years. “In other words, a very long, and different, lifetime ago.”
She looked out the window at the traffic streaming along Vassillissis Sofias, and grimaced. “You don’t mind the frantic pace? The noise and pollution?”
“Not as long as I can escape it once in a while. Am I right in thinking you’re not much for city life yourself?”
“I was, once. Now, I live at my family’s home in the Gulf Islands.”
She surprised him with that. He judged her to be in her early to mid-twenties. A tad old, he’d have thought, still to be living at home, but definitely too young to shut herself away on an island. “I have a small place a few kilometers offshore, too,” he remarked conversationally, sparing Theo an inquiring glance and receiving a barely discernible nod in reply, “as well as an apartment here, on Lycabettus Hill.”
To reply, she had to raise her voice over the sudden eruption of laughter from a nearby table. “I’m afraid that doesn’t mean anything to me. I’m not at all familiar with the layout of the city.”
He hadn’t expected she would be. Bringing his mouth close enough to her ear to catch a faint whiff of her perfume, he said, “Then what do you say to my ordering us something cold and refreshing to drink, and I’ll take you up to the hotel roof garden for a bird’s-eye tour of the area? Quite apart from anything else, it’ll be much quieter up there and we can talk without having to shout.”
“Well…” She tilted her head and pursed her lips thoughtfully. “This ballroom is rather noisy.”
“Wait here, then, and I’ll be right back.”
Theo joined him at the bar a few seconds later. “So, what did you find in the bag?” Mikos asked.
“Nothing untoward,” the security guard replied. “A valid Press pass, a little cash and the usual girly stuff—comb, lipstick, mirror, breath mints, that sort of thing.” He patted his jacket pocket. “Oh, and the key to her hotel room. The old-fashioned kind, with the room number engraved on it.”
“Press pass, hmm? She did say she was here on assignment for a magazine.”
“Looks as if she told the truth then, doesn’t it?”
“Certainly does.” His rush of elation was premature, to say the least, but telling himself so didn’t quell it one iota. “Nice work, Theo. Think you can manage without me for a while?”
Theo made no attempt to hide his smirk. “For as long as it takes, and whatever it takes, to find out which hotel she’s staying at.”
The view from the roof of the Grande Bretagne was no doubt impressive. The elegant old hotel, she quickly learned, occupied the most prestigious block in the city center, overlooked Syntagma Square, the House of Parliament and National Gardens, and lay within easy walking distance of such popular tourist spots as the Agora, Plaka, Monastiraki flea market, Acropolis and Presidential Palace.
All very interesting, she was sure, and normally she’d have soaked up the information but, in this instance, she found it difficult to concentrate. Even the ancient, floodlit columns of the Parthenon failed to hold her attention for more than a second or two. And all because, much closer—and far too close for comfort—the sleeve of Mikos Christopoulos’s immaculate dinner jacket repeatedly brushed against her bare arm. His warm breath ruffled her hair. His voice, darker than midnight and more seductive than chocolate, mesmerized her with its foreign intonation. Most disturbing of all, his exceedingly masculine aura enveloped her in a web of sexual awareness that left her trapped like a hapless butterfly pinned to a collector’s mounting board.
Oblivious to his effect on her, he directed her attention to a block of real
