refusing you.’
As Oscar had pointed out, he owed him—big time.
‘Good. Then it’s settled.’ Oscar sounded warm again. ‘And I thought that since you don’t like live-in staff invading your private space, she could use the staff apartment attached to your London penthouse.’
Like a cornered animal Nikos thundered out, ‘You mean you want me to babysit her as well as give her a job?’
‘She will be with you tomorrow—be nice.’
Be nice, Nikos mocked as he tossed his mobile phone down on the top of his desk with more violence than the essential piece of equipment deserved, then turned to sink his lean hips onto the desk’s polished edge.
In the act of honouring a moral debt he owed to Oscar, he had just agreed to compromise his own business values. A growl of bubbling frustration vibrated against his chest at the same moment a knock at his door heralded Fiona’s appearance as she stepped into the room.
‘Sorry to disturb you,’ she murmured quickly, seeing the glowering frown pushing his flat black eyebrows together. ‘But one of the Miss Balfours is down in reception asking to see you…She mentioned something about needing a spare set of keys to your apartment—?’
Nikos froze, as for the first time in his adult life he felt the rising tide of a hot blush try to destroy his legendary cool. What Fiona was really saying was that Oscar’s new, shy, not-coping-very-well cuckoo had just strolled into his reception and made an announcement which effectively placed them in an intimate relationship!
She was not even supposed to arrive here until tomorrow. He had not even met her yet! Now the foolish woman had just set this whole damn building alive with hot and spicy speculation about the two of them!
Miss damn Balfour wasn’t just foolish, she was outright dangerous!
Nikos leapt upright. To hell with being nice, he thought furiously as he strode right past the very curious Fiona and back down the corridor. In his experience you were not nice to a dangerous substance. What you did was treat it with cold hard respect while you carefully disposed of it.
Mia was standing by the reception desk already locked tautly into regret for blurting out what she had said in the way she had said it, when she saw the doors to one of the lifts slide open and a tall, dark, screamingly familiar man stride out.
Surprise closed her brain down for a second. She actually trembled on a moment of pure skin-tingling shock. His height, his colouring, his long hard body locked inside a crushingly elegant designer-cut business suit—it was the man who had almost run her over on the driveway of Balfour Manor on the day she had first arrived. Even the way he was coming towards her like a man on the war path screamed shocked recognition at her and filled her with the cowardly urge to start backing off.
‘Oh, Dio,’ she was unable to stop herself from gasping when he came to a stop an arm’s length from her. ‘It’s you.’
His sentiments exactly, Nikos thought grimly. For he was suffering from the same stark shattering shock of recognition he could see written on her face, though he possessed the self-control to keep his shock under wraps. Still, he did not seem able to prevent his eyes from making a thorough sweep of her tumbling-loose glossy-black hair and her simple white T-shirt with a short pale blue skirt. And she was wearing flat shoes, he noticed without wanting to. A pair of soft gold leather pumps which reduced her in height but did nothing to spoil the length of her fabulously long golden legs.
With barely a flicker of a silky black eyelash to say he’d understood what her shaken gasp represented, he questioned, ‘Miss Balfour?’ with clear cool polite formality. ‘Since we have not met before, I am Nikos Theakis. It is a pleasure to meet you at last.’
He offered up a long-fingered hand for Mia to take. Skin-peelingly aware of the listening receptionist and all the other people in the foyer who were standing curiously about, Mia got the cold message his greeting conveyed to her and wanted to curl up and die where she stood. For someone who shied away from being placed in the spotlight, like a bat needed the cover of darkness just to live, she could not believe that she had made such a stupid error as to speak her reason for being here in a public domain like this.
Be brave had been the last words of encouragement her father had offered her just before his car had swept her away, she remembered. But being brave had absolutely nothing to do with what she was feeling right now as she forced her hand to lift up and settle warily against his.
‘Bon—bon giorno,’ she managed to respond while her eyes anxiously tried to convey an apology to him.
If he saw it he did not acknowledge it. If anything his lean hard-boned expression froze up all the more. ‘I was not expecting you here until tomorrow,’ he announced. ‘However, I believe you have a domestic problem we need to sort out?’
‘I…Yes,’ Mia breathed in response.
Trying to ignore the sudden shot of electricity that stung through his palm when their hands touched, Nikos reclaimed his hand and took a quick glance at his watch. ‘I have a meeting to attend,’ he informed her briskly, ‘but if you come with me, my secretary will deal with any problems you have.’
With that he turned and strode back across the foyer, with his thoroughly subdued new charge trailing in his wake. Throughout the whole thing he had not acknowledged the interested throng loitering in his foyer but his razor-sharp instincts were telling him he had successfully killed any juicy speculation as to why Mia Balfour was here.
Grimly pleased with himself for achieving that, at least, it was the only thing he was pleased about as he strode into the lift, then waited for her to join him.
‘I am truly sorry!’ she burst into anxious speech the moment the doors shut them in.
‘You are a damn fool.’ Nikos was not in the least bit impressed with her apology. ‘If you’re going to work with me, Miss Balfour, I suggest you learn the art of discretion quickly or you are not going to last a day.’
‘I just did not think! Oscar told me to—’
‘Let’s leave your father out of this.’ His dark eyes flashed her a look of contempt. ‘When Oscar persuaded me to do this favour for him, I am convinced he would have established your agreement beforehand, which makes you responsible for your own actions, Miss Balfour. So, rule number one…you had better learn fast—don’t ever embarrass me like that again.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Mia breathed for a second time, declining to try and add that it was Oscar who’d sent her here with the instruction to ask at reception for the keys to her new apartment. ‘But a courier is due to arrive at your—m-my new address with my things and I n-need to be able to get in.’
‘Try using a phone next time.’
Mia decided right there and then that she disliked Nikos Theakis.
‘And to make a point, in case you have not yet realised it,’ he continued with bite, ‘you are here under sufferance. I don’t work with fools. You will rise or fall on your own merits and if you don’t pull your weight you’re out. Got that?’
Beginning to feel just a bit annoyed now by his icy form of censure, Mia felt an unexpected urge to snap back at him. She had not deliberately set out to embarrass him after all. Why would she want to?
