her one evening at the ferry terminal when Damon suddenly dropped her hand and turned away from her. Looking up, she saw Alexei strolling towards them. Already a qualified pilot, Alexei had had to ditch his plane in the sea the previous month and the shock of his son’s near-death experience had traumatised his father, who had grounded him. Now in his last year at university, Alexei was very much an adult. For the rest of the journey, Damon ignored Billie as studiously as if she had been a stranger.
‘I’ll drop you off,’ Alexei declared at the harbour while Damon hurried off homeward with a down-bent head.
‘I don’t need a lift.’ Sixth sense warned her and she didn’t want to get into the sports car but she did anyway.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Alexei said drily. ‘I’m only trying to protect you from making a big mistake. Your mother won’t bother.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about—’
‘Damon, the leading light of the Marios family. He’ll screw you but he’ll never take you seriously or take you home with him. Didn’t you get that message today when he acted like he didn’t know you around me?’
Like a knife cutting through tender flesh, his blunt forecast tore through Billie and she looked back at him, focusing on the lean bronzed beauty of his features with furious condemnation. ‘You don’t know him!’
‘I know Damon very well. His family will never accept you and he hasn’t got the backbone to fight for you. He’s a nice guy but he does as he’s told. Cut your losses and ditch him now before you get in any deeper—’
‘I don’t want your advice!’ she shrieked at him in Greek.
‘Suit yourself,’ Alexei drawled silkily. ‘But whatever you do, keep your knickers on. All Greek men fantasise about having a virgin in the marriage bed.’
‘That is a disgusting thing to say!’ Billie launched back at him in a positive rage. ‘I love Damon—’
‘You’re seventeen. You’re not old enough to love anyone,’ Alexei derided, stopping outside her house and leaning across her to throw open the door as if he couldn’t wait to be rid of her. The male scent of his skin tinged by some expensive cologne wafted across her. She froze, rigid at that first taste of intimacy with a man, a fleeting intimacy that had the miraculous power to make her body prickle all over with uneasy awareness. That response shook her up because she had never reacted that way to Damon.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever disliked anyone quite so much,’ Billie snapped in as cold and controlled a voice as she could manage.
‘I’m always knee deep in women who are crazy about me,’ Alexei countered with amusement. ‘I doubt if I’ll notice the absence of one little girl from my hordes of fans—’
‘You’re so incredibly bigheaded!’ Billie flung, stepping out of the car in one electrified movement of rejection, her cheeks still burning hotly from that crack about keeping her underwear on.
A shockingly charismatic smile slanted across Alexei’s wide sensual mouth and his stunning dark golden eyes gleamed. ‘But still much more of a man than Damon will ever be…’
Chapter Two
A YEAR later, Billie finished school and fought her mother hard for the freedom to go to university to study for a business degree. To survive, she had to work endless hours in a student bar where, mercifully, the low pay was matched with free meals. Aged twenty-one, she took her first job in a small import firm in Piraeus where, no matter how hard she worked, her male colleagues got the recognition and she got all the routine administrative tasks. When she saw Drakos Industries advertising a well-paid PA post on the Internet the following year, she wasted no time in applying.
Alexei Drakos had quickly tired of working for his billionaire father in the family shipping line. Breaking away, he had set up Drakos Industries at the age of twenty four, had made millions and was already well on the way to becoming a formidable tycoon in his own right. ‘The Shark,’ Time magazine had labelled him in an article marvelling at the speed with which he’d shaken off his reputation as a jet set playboy to demonstrate his worth as a shrewd entrepreneur.
As part of the application process for the job, Billie was one of the lucky few allotted a place in a day-long assessment. It was a gruelling experience comprised of working against the clock and handling difficult personalities but, forty-eight hours later, she learned that she had passed this first stage and had won an interview with Alexei. She was surprised he took so active a part in recruitment.
By the time she walked into his big fancy office in Athens clad in her smartest clothes, she was high on nerves. Sleek as a jungle predator in his black designer suit, Alexei surveyed her. ‘I was surprised to see your name on the shortlist.’
Billie looked steadily back at him, noting the toughness that time had added to his lean strong face. ‘I just want someone to give me a chance to do a proper job where I can use my brain—’
‘And you think I might?’ His brilliant dark eyes were nailed to her, his wide sensual mouth cool, discouraging.
‘I don’t think you will mark me down because I was born in England—’
‘A positive panoply of praise from someone who doesn’t like me,’ Alexei mocked lazily. ‘But you’re right. I don’t care where you came from, I’m only interested in who you are now. What could you offer me as an employee?’
‘I’m very discreet and I work fast and hard. I also have good ideas—’
‘Everyone’s got ideas. I don’t always want to hear them…’
‘I’m a great organiser and I can think on my feet.’
Alexei rested his unsettling gaze on her and she shifted uneasily, suddenly alarmingly conscious of her every physical flaw. It was as though his very masculine perfection highlighted her deficiencies. Her vibrant mane of hair was restrained in a French plait, her green eyes bright against her pale skin. Full as she was at breast and hip, she felt she lacked the height to successfully carry off her curves. Her waist was small though and her legs slim. Lauren had always refused to tell her daughter who her father was and Billie had wondered cynically if her mother even knew. Certainly, she had signally failed to inherit any of her mother’s leggy blonde assets.
‘The position on offer would entail working directly for me.’
Belatedly, Billie understood why she was receiving an interview from the boss himself. ‘I’d like to know exactly what the job is.’
‘The successful candidate will take care of everything I don’t have time for. He or she will often travel with me and the hours will be long. The job will cover everything from setting up appointments with my tailor to buying gifts on my behalf and barring women I don’t want to see or hear from any more,’ Alexei spelt out bluntly. ‘It is a post which demands considerable trust on my part. A confidentiality agreement will be included in the contract of employment, making it illegal to share any revelations about me or my lifestyle with the press.’
In truth, Billie was totally taken aback by the extent of what was being offered to her. Even if it didn’t sound like her role would have much of a business angle to it, any position working directly for Alexei would still add kudos to her CV.
‘I
