can’t do that!’ Susie had gasped. ‘I wangled a special guest-pass for you, so you can’t let me down. Ari Xenakis and his friends will be there.’
Susie, with her determination only to mix with the most fashionable crowd, and her strenuous efforts to ensure that her name appeared regularly in the gossip columns, was the apple of their stepfather’s eye. Theo Sardelos expected women to be ornamental and frivolous. Ella’s serious nature, her championship of her mother and dislike of pretension were all traits that made him feel uncomfortable.
For the sake of peace that evening, Ella accompanied Susie. The club was noisy and very crowded. Surrounded by Susie and her pals, who had nothing more on their minds but the hottest party or man on offer, Ella was bored. She listened dutifully to tales of how outrageous Ari Xenakis was. He had dumped his last girlfriend by text and her parents had had to pack her off abroad to stop her stalking him. As the stories of his wildness, fabled riches and volatility were traded round the table, Ella registered in amazement that there still wasn’t a girl present who wouldn’t give her right arm to date him—in spite of his evident obnoxiousness. When he was pointed out to her across the dance floor, she registered another reason why he was so disproportionately popular: he was breathtakingly good-looking with black hair, brooding golden-brown eyes and the fit body of an athlete.
If one of their party hadn’t collapsed, Ella was convinced that Aristandros would never have noticed her. Lethia, the teenaged friend of one of Susie’s mates, suffered a seizure. Ella was shocked by the way everyone abandoned the girl as she lay twitching and jerking at the side of the dance floor. When Ella went to her assistance, Susie was furious. ‘Don’t get involved!’ she hissed, trying to drag her sibling back to their table. ‘We hardly know her!’
Ignoring Susie’s frantic instructions that she keep her distance, Ella placed Lethia in the recovery position and made her as comfortable as possible while the seizure ran its course. The other girls disclaimed any knowledge of Lethia’s health. Ella had to turn out the girl’s handbag to learn that Lethia appeared to be an epileptic and to be taking prescribed medication.
‘Do you need some help with her?’ someone asked her in English. Turning her head, she found Aristandros hunkered down by her side, his lean, handsome face surprisingly serious.
‘She’s an epileptic, and she needs to go to hospital because she’s been unconscious more than five minutes,’ Ella told him.
Aristandros organised an ambulance, his cool in a crisis welcome in the overexcited atmosphere surrounding them. He also contacted Lethia’s family, who confirmed that she was a recently diagnosed epileptic.
‘Why wouldn’t anyone else help?’ Ella sighed while they waited for the ambulance.
‘I suspect that most people assumed that her collapse was drug-related and they didn’t want to be associated with her,’ Aristandros explained.
‘Nobody seemed to know that she suffers from epilepsy. I suppose she didn’t want people to find out,’ Ella guessed, her blue eyes compassionate. ‘You spoke to me in English. How did you know I was English?’
Dark eyes glinting with amusement, Aristandros gave her a sardonic smile that made it extraordinarily hard for her to breath. ‘I had already asked who you were before Lethia collapsed.’
Ella flushed, self-consciousness assailing her, because she was convinced he could only have noticed her because she didn’t fit in. The other girls were like exotic birds in their skimpy designer outfits, while she was wearing a simple black skirt with a turquoise top. ‘Why did you come over?’
‘I couldn’t take my eyes off you,’ Aristandros confided. ‘Lethia was just an excuse.’
‘You dump women by text and then call them stalkers. I’m not interested,’ Ella told him drily, switching to Greek, which she spoke fluently.
‘There’s nothing hotter than a challenge, glikia mou,’ Aristandros husked, black lashes as long as fly-swats lowering on his dark, golden gaze …
CHAPTER THREE
AT NINE the following morning, Ella slid into a silver limousine and watched her cases being loaded. Her hair anchored in a knot at the nape of her neck, she was dressed with care in a narrow grey skirt and a pinstripe shirt. She was well aware that she didn’t look like mistress material, but was proud of that fact. If Aristandros wanted to waste his time trying to turn a level-headed unfashionable woman into a seductive bedroom hottie who dressed to impress, then he’d one of those challenges that he so professed to love on his hands.
Ella closed restive hands round the handbag on her lap. Sex was just sex, and of course she could handle it. Technically she knew a lot about men. Most probably she wasn’t the sexiest woman around—after all, she had lived for years as if sex as an activity didn’t exist. Celibacy had only bothered her once, and that was while she’d been seeing Aristandros. She could feel her cheeks warming as she recalled that burning kiss on his yacht. He was so slick, so practiced, that he knew all the right moves to make. And she had always hated that sense of being out of control. Aristandros, on the other hand, would love getting her in that condition as it would crown his conviction that he was a hell of a guy both in and out of bed.
When the limo drew up by the kerb, Ella climbed out and surveyed the building before her in surprise. The sleek logo of a city lawyers’ office greeted her frowning gaze. She walked into Reception, where she was immediately greeted and shown into a room. Aristandros swung round from the window to study her.
‘What am I doing here?’ Ella questioned before he could even part his chiselled lips. As always he looked amazing, the broodingly handsome image of bronzed good looks and highly expensive tailoring, a sophisticated business-tycoon to his fingertips. But even at first glance he was a great deal more than that, for he exuded a potent aura of power and self-assurance.
Dark-golden eyes narrowed and rested on her, roving from the full curve of her mouth to the swell of her breasts with a sensual appreciation that was as bold as it was blatantly male. Maddeningly aware of his appraisal, and conscious of the wanton awareness tingling between her thighs, Ella flushed a fierce pink.
‘I have had a legal agreement drawn up by my lawyers here,’ Aristandros informed her. ‘I want you to sign it so that there are no misunderstandings between us in the future.’
As he gave her that explanation, Ella went very still and lost some of her colour. ‘Why am I only being told about this now? For goodness’ sake, I’ve already resigned from my job and agreed to sell my apartment!’
‘Yes,’ Aristandros agreed softly, not an ounce of apology in his reply.
Ella worked his agenda out for herself. ‘You planned it that way? Now that I’ve burned my boats, I’m less likely to argue the terms?’
‘What I love about you is your lack of illusion about me, glikia mou.’ Aristandros drawled with sardonic amusement. ‘You expect me to be a devious bastard and I am.’
Ella struggled to master her rocketing fury at the manner in which he had closed off any potential escape-hatches and destroyed any bargaining chips in advance. Aristandros was famed for his astute manipulative skills in business and his ability to spring a surprise on his opponents. No doubt it had been naïve of her not being better prepared for such tactics to be used against her. In fact it had not occurred to her that Aristandros might think it necessary to tie her up in some legal agreement, particularly as their arrangement was of
