and she could see it had most definitely not been an off-the-peg purchase. But the man wearing it did not look off-the-peg either. He looked, she assessed instantly, expensive. His dark hair was expertly cut, feathering very slightly across his wide brow, and the dark glasses he wore did not need to have the discreet designer logo on them for her to know they had not been purchased from a market stall.
His nose was strong, and straight, with deep lines curving from it to the edges of his mouth.
His mouth—
Sculpted. That was the only word for it. With a sensuous lower lip she had to drag her eyes from, forcing herself to gaze into the blankness of his shaded regard.
There was something about this man that was making her heart race—and it was not just because he’d all but woken her out of a sun-beaten slumber. She felt the world shift around her and resettle.
As if something had changed for ever.
Then a different emotion surfaced. She’d been too busy gaping at this fantastic-looking man to take on board that he seemed to know who she was.
‘Who wants to know?’ She countered his enquiry warily. If he wasn’t from the hotel who else knew she was here, except for Stephanos?
She pushed her hair back over her shoulders, feeling it tumbling warm and heavy down her back, and gazed at him, lips parted slightly.
Theos, thought Nikos, absorbing the sensuous gesture, she was perfect. Just perfect. The dream image of a sexy blonde.
But she wasn’t cheap or tarty. Nothing so resistible! She was beautiful—head-turningly so. In an instant Nikos’s expert eye took in the fact that she had one of those faces where every feature complemented every other, from her chestnut eyes, set in a heart-shaped face, to her generous mouth below a delicate nose. A golden tan gilded her flawless skin and her hair hung like pale spun gold down to her slender waist, faintly visible through the gauze of the turquoise sarong.
Desire flashed through him. Instant and insistent.
For a moment he felt consumed by it, overwhelmed. Then, with deliberate control, he subdued his reaction.
It was good that he desired her, it would make his task so much easier, but that was the only reason he should feel desire for her. It was a means to an end, that was all, and the end was the removal—permanently—of this girl from his brother-in-law’s marriage.
And to that end it was also necessary that this girl should be sexually vulnerable to him, Nikos. His eyes flickered over her again.
She was sexually aware of him all right. He knew the signs. Knew them well.
Beneath his regard Janine felt colour stealing out along her cheekbones. Heat flushing into her blood.
She could feel herself reacting to this man. She couldn’t stop herself. There was something about him that was more than his devastating looks, more than that potent aura of wealth, or even the potent frisson of the power that a man like this must surely wield in the world he moved in. There was a raw sexuality beneath that tailored suit, hidden in those veiled eyes. She felt it licking at her.
Making her want him.
The realisation shocked her.
How could she be responding so strongly to a man she’d just set eyes on—whose eyes she couldn’t even see yet? But she was, and she couldn’t stop it. She felt her breasts tighten, her pupils flare, the colour flood to her cheeks.
Nikos watched her responding to him. That was good, very good. He wanted her responsive, wanted her physically aware of him—wanted her vulnerable to him.
There would be no problem seducing her, he knew.
Women came easily to him. They always had. Despite Demetria’s bewailing, in his twenties he had indulged himself to the hilt. Now, in his thirties, he was more selective, preferring to choose women who could move in his world, who were sophisticated and discreet. Who understood what he wanted—and then moved on when he gave them the indication, as he always did.
Such women would neither know nor care that he was about to make a temporary diversion, in a call of duty, to seduce away this female who threatened his sister’s marriage, who was making a fool of a man who, up till now, he had always held in the greatest respect.
Now he let the female he was about to seduce, deliberately and calculatedly, respond to him, heighten her awareness of him, begin to make herself vulnerable to him.
He smiled.
Janine felt a kick go through her, powerful and shocking. The sculpted mouth parted, lines indenting around it, showing strong white teeth. It was an easy smile, yet it sent a frisson through her.
‘We have a mutual—acquaintance,’ he said, pausing minutely over the word. ‘Stephanos Ephandrou.’ He could see her stiffen fractionally as he dropped the name into the space between them.
‘Oh?’ responded Janine. Out of the blue he had mentioned Stephanos—what should she say? She knew Stephanos wanted her to be discreet about their relationship—yet here was a complete stranger who seemed to know there was a connection.
Her concern showed in her eyes. Nikos saw it and felt a stab of anger. Any lingering doubts he might have had that Demetria had somehow imagined her husband was having an affair vanished. The girl was carrying on with Stephanos. No doubt about it. His name had registered with her as loudly as if he’d rung a bell in her ear!
He forced his natural anger down. To display it now would ruin his strategy. Janine Fareham must have no idea of his hostility to her—indeed, she must think quite the opposite.
He bestowed another smile on her, and knew without vanity that it had distracted her attention from wondering why he seemed to know that she was connected to Stephanos Ephandrou.
He had been in two minds as to which approach to take with her. He could, indeed, have simply engineered her acquaintance and set out to seduce her as a complete stranger. That approach had its advantages—it would have been simple and straightforward. But a female who made her living from the protection of rich, besotted older men might well be worldly enough to be wary of quick seductions that would jeopardise her lucrative relationship with her current protector. Instead, Nikos planned to use his acknowledged ‘acquaintance’ with Stephanos as a lever with which to gain the girl’s confidence as swiftly as possible.
‘Perhaps you will take a coffee with me and I can explain?’ he went on, in that same smooth tone. He glanced towards the little poolside bar set back under the shade of some olive trees.
Still wary, but feeling she was being effortlessly manipulated by an expert, Janine let herself be ushered towards the seating area of the bar. It was a breath cooler under the trees, but she still felt her skin was flushed. The heat that was filling it, however, did not come from the sun.
She sat down on one of the canvas-backed chairs and the man did likewise, pausing only to beckon to the barman, who was already hurrying forward. Whatever it was that this man had, thought Janine, he had a lot of it! He wasn’t the type to get ignored by a barman—or anyone else.
And certainly not women. Janine watched as a couple of female guests with small children in tow, seated at a table further off drinking fizzy drinks, immediately turned their heads in their direction.
