worries.’
The fact that the intruder in his bathtub seemed more concerned at offending her boss than saving her own skin made Lukas soften towards her. Perhaps she was just young and silly, and desperate rather than dishonest.
‘Then I suggest you pack your bags—’
‘I only have a backpack,’ she interrupted.
‘Pack your backpack and get out of my house,’ he said.
She caught her lower lip with her teeth. Lukas could not help noticing the lush fullness of her mouth, her perfect teeth. ‘Now?’ she said, her voice quivering a little on the word.
He tapped his foot on the floor. ‘Now.’
‘But...’ Her voice trailed away and she hugged her arms closer to her chest.
Some dark part of him wanted to make her get out of the bath and watch as she fumbled for a towel. See for himself if her body was as slender and shapely as it appeared through the protective coating of bubbles. But he did not give in to base impulses. Not after having grown up with the consequences of his father’s lack of self-control and indulgence in whatever appetites overcame him. Not when he’d been put at risk himself from the unbridled decadence of his family’s lifestyle.
Lukas took a step towards the heated towel rail. Picked up a thick, pale grey towel and tossed it towards her. She went to catch it, her movement revealing the curve of the top of her breasts. Then, rather than risk further exposure, she stilled and let the towel slide to the marble tiles next to the tub. For a long moment she looked at him, her eyes wide, her mouth trembling. Lukas recognised the second a shadow of fear darkened her eyes as she realised the vulnerability of her position.
He stepped back to put a greater distance between them. He wanted her out of his house. But he would never want a woman to cringe from him in fear. Not that Ashleigh Murphy seemed to be the cringing type.
‘Get yourself dressed and see me in my study on your way out,’ he said curtly, turning on his heel. The sooner this opportunistic backpacker was out of his house the better.
* * *
Ashleigh towelled herself dry with trembling hands. Her encounter with Lukas Christophedes had left her shaking. Not just because she’d been caught trespassing by the owner of this multi-million-pound house but because of him. For that split second before she’d screamed, her senses had registered that the dark stranger in the bathroom was gorgeous.
As an Aussie girl from a country town, she had had no experience of Greek billionaires. If anything, she would assume they would be old, grey-haired and possibly paunchy—and there were no personal photos on display anywhere in this house to indicate Mr Christophedes was anything different.
The reality was that thirty-something Lukas Christophedes looked as if he’d stepped off the pages of an upmarket men’s magazine—tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired with a lean, handsome face. But his dark eyes had smouldered with fury, his mouth set tight when he’d discovered her in his bathtub. Gorgeous had suddenly seemed grim.
Thank heaven she didn’t encounter him as she made her way to the bedroom she’d purloined, wrapped only in the towel he had tossed at her. Of course she’d been completely in the wrong to have abused her position of trust with Maids in Chelsea to squat at a client’s house. She’d been desperate but, in hindsight, she realised she must have been crazy to do such a thing.
As she dressed, then shoved her few belongings into her backpack, her mind roiled with thoughts of what she could say to him. If, as he’d threatened, he got the police involved, she could end up with a criminal record. Even get deported. And all because her friend Sophie had mysteriously disappeared on the night Ashleigh had intended to ask her if she could crash on her sofa until she found somewhere to live.
They’d been waitressing at a posh party and Ashleigh had been dealing with some obnoxious guests who’d downed rather too much champagne. By the time Ashleigh had sorted them, Sophie was nowhere to be seen—and hadn’t reappeared until the next day with an enigmatic smile and a refusal to explain where she’d been.
In the meantime, Ashleigh had had nowhere to sleep. In desperation, she’d thought of the house in Chelsea where she’d just accepted a two-month house-care job. The luxury residence was empty and, apparently, rarely used.
It had been after midnight by the time Ashleigh had let herself into the Christophedes townhouse and the smallest of the guest rooms. With an en suite shower, it might actually be earmarked for a housekeeper or nanny she’d told herself to quieten her conscience. That first night she’d slept fitfully, fully clothed on top of the bedcover, jumping in panic at any slight sound in the house. By now, the third night, she’d convinced herself she wasn’t hurting anyone and no one need know. Wasn’t it a waste to leave a house like this empty? And she had made herself useful by doing chores beyond the scope of a daily maid’s duties.
But, however much she’d tried to convince herself otherwise, she’d known staying there was wrong. What an idiot she’d been not to have just left it at one night. If she had, she might have got away with it. She dreaded facing Sophie, her friend she’d known since they were teenagers, who had recommended her for the position at Maids in Chelsea. Not to mention Clio. The charismatic owner of the agency had taken a risk on employing her—an unknown Australian with little prior experience of hospitality or housekeeping work.
Ashleigh slung her backpack over her shoulder. It was light. When she’d run away from her wedding, she’d only intended staying in London for a two-week vacation and had packed the minimum required. But she’d loved being in London so much she’d decided to quit her job back home and stay longer. Maids in Chelsea was hard work but fun and she’d made friends with two other maids as well as Sophie: posh Emma and shy Grace. She planned on staying in the UK for as long as it took to make it very clear to both Dan, her aggrieved former fiancé, and her family that she had no intention of returning home to get married. In her mind the ceremony was permanently cancelled. In their minds they seemed to think it had been merely postponed.
Sometimes it seemed her family sided more with Dan than with her. ‘Dan is like a son to us, we’re so fond of him,’ her mother was always saying of the guy who had been Ashleigh’s off and on boyfriend for years. Huh. That was the trouble. She’d realised she was fond of Dan too. Just fond. Not the head-over-heels in love she needed to commit to marriage.
She’d explained that to her parents when she’d confessed she wanted to call off the wedding a month before she was due to walk down the aisle. In frustrated reaction to their shocked disbelief, she’d even gone so far as to call Dan the world’s most boring man.
Instead of listening to her, instead of believing her, her mother had tut-tutted that she’d get over this little blip and that the stress of the wedding plans was messing with her mind. Her father had gone so far as to actually pat her on her head—as if she were seven instead of twenty-seven—and tell her there was nothing wrong with a bit of boring in a man. Boring meant steady and reliable. Ashleigh had gritted her teeth. Boring meant boring.
What did it take to get it into the heads of the folk back home that the engagement was over? She’d had every intention of going home to Bundaberg for Christmas. Her family celebrated Christmas in a big way and she’d never been away from them at this special time of year. But when the other day she’d video-chatted with her mother to talk about dates and flights, there was Dan, sitting beside her mum on the sofa. He’d blown her a kiss as if she still wore the engagement ring she’d consigned to the bottom drawer of her dressing table when he’d refused to take it back. ‘You’ll
