usually wore sensible flat shoes and faded old jeans or one of the couple of dresses she had for the hot Tuscan summers. For the first time in her life she was wearing something new, not handmade out of a cheap bit of fabric she’d bought from a market stall. And that horrid man in his elegant silver car and his elegant silver suit and his elegant grooming which put him right at home here on the Balfour estate shattered her hard-worked-for self-confidence with just a few words.
Nikos narrowed his eyes as he watched her walk off down the driveway—hogging the middle of it like a defiance aimed exclusively at him. His lips gave a wry twitch. Instead of getting in his car and driving off, he stood and watched her for a few more seconds, drawn to do so by the graceful movement of her long curving figure, and her spark of spirit and the lingering echo of her throaty accent—Italian by the fire in it, he mused.
And young, he tagged on.
As in too young to be anyone’s housekeeper?
The first seeds of doubt began to scratch at his conscience. Had he got it wrong and just insulted one of Oscar’s daughter’s friends?
Then it hit him what he was doing, and his frown came back as he climbed into his car and drove off down the drive. Whoever she was, he hoped she knew what she was walking into at Balfour Manor or she was in for one hell of a shock when she arrived.
Mia was already in shock because she’d just caught her first glimpse of Balfour Manor.
Nothing she’d read or seen on the Internet had prepared her for the sheer beauty of what she was looking at. Nestling in its own shallow valley, the stone-built house was at least ten times bigger than she had envisioned it to be, with row upon row of long casement windows glinting in the pale sunlight.
Trepidation began to fizz through the fine layers of her skin as she followed the driveway down into the valley and around the side of a pretty lake sheened like frosted glass. The closer she came to the house, the more intimidated she felt by it. It was huge. A grand stately home with tall palladium columns supporting a circular-shaped entrance, which dwarfed her courage along with her height as she walked between them and set her suitcase aside by a wall by the door.
Well, it was now or never, she told herself, and felt real trepidation clutch at her chest as she stepped in front of the heavy oak door.
Was she really certain she wanted to do this?
No, she wasn’t any longer, but to turn away now, she knew she would regret it for the rest of her life because she would never find the courage to do this a second time.
On that stark piece of counselling, Mia reached out and gripped the old-fashioned bell pull and gave it a wary tug, her fingers lowering to her side again where they curled into her palms as she waited for someone to answer the door.
Nothing in her entire life had ever felt as frightening as this did.
Nothing had ever been as important to her as this.
Tense, trembling, eyes wide and wary as she watched the door start to open, the very last person she expected to see appear in its aperture was Oscar Balfour himself.
Taller and so much more dauntingly striking than she had envisaged him with his snow-white hair and neat goatee beard. When he frowned down he looked so terribly grim and austere she almost turned and ran. If he asked her if she was the new housekeeper she would run—she would, she decided.
But he didn’t say it. He said, ‘Hello, young lady,’ and offered her a smile.
It was a nice smile, a kind smile which reached deep into the blue of his eyes.
Eyes the same colour blue as her own.
Eyes to which Mia clung. ‘Bon…bon giorno, s-signor…’ Too nervous to stop herself from greeting him in Italian, she gulped and switched to stammering English. ‘I don’t know if y-you know about m-me but my name is Mia Bianchi? I have been told that you are my father…’
Chapter One
FOR the first time in three long hard-travelled months, Nikos Theakis strode in through the doors belonging to his London offices and instantly claimed the full attention of every person present in the slick modern granite-and-glass foyer.
Tall and dark, blessed with the kind of lean, hard, powerful body of a peak trained athlete, the air around him positively vibrated with excess energy as he moved, bringing forth a flurry of, ‘Good morning, Nikos,’ that sounded breathless and charged.
That he had the same effect everywhere he went said a lot about the man’s personality. He was sharp, smooth, determined and driven. Working for him was like catching a ride on a rocket ship to the stars. Exciting, breathtaking, teeth-chatteringly scary sometimes because he took major risks others shied right away from. He was committed and focused and famously never, ever wrong.
Today he was frowning, the two straight black bars of his eyebrows drawn together across the bridge of his arrogantly straight nose. The lean golden cut of his classical Greek features locked in concentration on the conversation he was involved in via his mobile telephone. His acknowledgement to the greetings therefore consisted of a series of distracted nods of his glossy dark head as his long stride took him across the foyer and into one of the waiting lifts.
‘In the name of Theos, Oscar,’ he swore softly, ‘What kind of game are you trying to set me up with here?’
‘No game,’ Oscar Balfour insisted. ‘I’ve thought this through carefully, now I am asking you for your support.’
‘Asking?’ Nikos pounced on the word with lethal satire.
‘Unless you’re too big and important now to help out an old friend…’
Stabbing a long finger at the top-floor button, Nikos shrugged back the brilliant white shirt cuff so he could check the time on his wafer-thin multifunction platinum watch, then bit back the desire to curse. He had been back in the country for less than an hour after spending weeks flying around the world like a damn satellite, putting together a rescue package for a crisis-embattled multiconglomerate which did not deserve to go under because its international investors had turned chicken and pulled the plug on their loans. He was tired, hungry and seriously jet-lagged but upstairs in his boardroom awaited a group of anxious people desperate to hear the final results of his toils.
‘Stop trying to pull my strings,’he flicked out impatiently.
‘I’m flattered that you think I still can,’ Oscar drawled.
‘And stick to the point,’ he added, well aware that Oscar was the ruthless, cunning cut-throat king of manipulation so using that kind of invert flattery on him was wasted. ‘Instead, tell me what in hell’s name you expect me to do with one of your spoiled-to-death daughters?’
‘Not bed her anyway.’
About to stride out of the lift into the hushed luxury of the top-floor corridor, that short cool evenly delivered statement froze Nikos to the spot for a second, the acid-bite affront hoisting up his proud dark head.
‘That was not even remotely funny,’ he denounced with icy cold dignity. ‘I have never rested so much as a suggestive finger on any one of your daughters. It would be—’
‘Disrespectful
