‘We got off to a bad start—I admit that freely. I was hungry and short-tempered, and you gave me a hard time and I resented it.’
‘You spoke to me like I was beneath you,’ she shot at him. ‘And you looked down your nose at Joe—wouldn’t give him a penny even though you’re obviously rolling in it!’ She cast a pointed look at him. ‘Your wallet was stuffed with fifties!’
‘Did you expect me to hand a fifty over to him?’ he protested. ‘And for your information I gave him a handful of all those pound coins you dumped on me.’
Mel’s expression changed. ‘What? Oh, God, he’ll have just gone off and spent it on booze.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Did you really give him money?’
‘Ask him next time he comes in for a free sandwich,’ said Nikos drily. ‘So...’ his voice changed ‘...are you going to take pity on me and accept my invitation?’
She was wavering—he could tell that with every male instinct. She wants to accept, but her pride is holding her back.
‘You know,’ he said temperately as her internal conflict played out in her betraying gaze, ‘I really am quite safe. And very respectable, too. As is the Viscari St James Hotel and the charity gala.’
‘You’re a complete stranger.’
‘No, I’m not. You know who I am—you addressed me by name just now,’ Nikos countered.
‘Only because you put your name on the card with those flowers—and they were an insult anyway.’
‘How so?’ Nikos’s astonishment was open.
The sapphire flash that made her beauty even more outstanding came again. ‘You can’t even see it, can you?’ she returned. ‘Sending me a ludicrously over-the-top bouquet and then having the gall to tell me to improve my mood—like you hadn’t caused my bad mood in the first place. It was just so...so patronising!’
‘Patronising? I don’t see why.’
Mel’s screwed her face up. Emotion was running like a flash flood through her. She was trying to cope with seeing him right in front of her again, just when she’d been starting to put the whole encounter of the previous day behind her, and trying urgently to suppress her reaction to seeing him again. Trying not to betray just what an impact he was having on her—how her eyes wanted to gaze at him, take in that sable hair, the incredible planes and contours of his face—and trying not to let herself fall head first into those dark eyes of his...
She was trying to use anger to keep him at bay—but he kept challenging it, eroding it. Throwing at her that ludicrous invitation which had stopped her dead in her tracks—an invitation which was as over-the-top as that vast bouquet had been.
‘Yes,’ she insisted, ‘patronising. Mr Rich and Lordly sending flowers to Poor Little Shop Girl!’
There was a moment’s silence. Then Nikos spoke. ‘I did not mean it that way.’ He took a breath. ‘I told you—I sent them with the intention of making amends once I realised I had been rude to you—in more ways than one.’
He avoided spelling out what he was referring to, but he knew she was thinking about it for he could see a streak of colour heading out across her cheekbones again.
‘But if you want me to apologise for sending the flowers as well, then—’
She cut across him. ‘No, it’s all right,’ she said. She tried not to sound truculent. OK, so he hadn’t meant to come across as patronising. Fine. She could be OK with that. She could be OK with him apologising to her. And she could be fine with him giving money to Joe, even if he would just go and spend it all on alcohol.
But what she couldn’t be fine with was what he was asking her.
To go out with him. Go out with a man who set her pulse racing, who seemed to be able to slam right past every defence she put up against him—a man she wanted to gaze at as shamelessly, blatantly, as he had looked at her.
What’s he doing to me? And how? And why am I being like this? Why can’t I just tell him to go so I can shut the shop and never see him again and just get on with my life?
And why don’t I want to do that?
But she knew why—and it was in every atom of Nikos Parakis, standing there across the counter, asking her why she didn’t want to go out with him.
‘Look, Mr Parakis, I don’t know what this is about—I really don’t. You set eyes on me for the second time in your life and suddenly you’re asking me out for the evening? It’s weird—bizarre.’
‘Let me be totally upfront with you about why I’m asking you, in particular, to come with me on Friday evening,’ he answered.
His eyes were resting on her, but not with any expression in them that made her either angry, suspicious or, worst of all, vulnerable to his overwhelming sexual allure.
‘I’m in an awkward situation,’ he said bluntly. ‘Whilst in London I find myself committed to this charity gala tomorrow night, at the Viscari St James. Unfortunately, also present will be a woman whom I know through business and who is, alas, harbouring possessive intentions towards me which I cannot reciprocate.’
Was there an edge in his voice? Mel wondered. But he was continuing.
‘I do not wish to spend the evening fending her off, let alone giving her cause to think that her hopes might be fulfilled. But I don’t wish to wound or offend her either, and nor do I wish to sour any future business dealings. I need a...graceful but persuasive way to deflect her. Arriving with my own “plus one” would, I hope, achieve that. However, the lady in hot pursuit of me knows perfectly well that I am currently unattached—hence my need to discover a sufficiently convincing partner for the evening to thwart her hopes.’
His expression changed again.
‘All of which accounts for my notion that inviting a fantastically beautiful complete stranger as my “plus one” would be the ideal answer to my predicament,’ he finished, keeping his gaze steady on Mel’s face.
He paused. His eyes rested on her with an unreadable expression that Mel could not match.
‘You fit the bill perfectly,’ he said. And now, suddenly, his expression was not unreadable at all...
As she felt the unveiled impact of his gaze Mel heard her breath catch, felt emotion swing into her as if it had been blown in on the wind from an opened door. He was offering her an experience she’d never had in her life—a glittering evening out with the most breathtakingly attractive man she’d ever seen.
So why not? What are you waiting for? Why hesitate for a moment?
She thought of all the reasons she shouldn’t go—he might be the most ridiculously good-looking and most ludicrously attractive man she’d ever seen, but he was also the most infuriating and arrogant and self-satisfied man she’d ever met.
But he’s apologised, and his self-satisfaction comes with a sense of humour about it, and he’s given me a cogent reason for his out-of-the-blue invitation...
