Loe raamatut: «Greek Tycoon's Mistletoe Proposal»

CHAPTER ONE

LUKAS CHRISTOPHEDES HEARD the singing the moment he let himself into his Chelsea townhouse. The infernal sound of yet another Christmas carol. This time, infiltrating the sanctuary of one of his favourite homes. How many times had he heard a rendition of Jingle Bells already today? With only days until Christmas, canned festive music had followed him from the airport in Athens all the way to his disconcerting business meeting in east London. After the day he’d endured, he did not need Jingle Bells here.

The cleaner must have left a radio on. He had an ongoing arrangement with the upmarket Maids in Chelsea agency to ensure his house was cleaned and aired daily so it would always be ready should he have to spend time in the UK. Perhaps they’d purposely left the radio on as a burglar deterrent? That could make sense—Chelsea was one of the most affluent areas of London. But the sooner it was switched off the better.

As he strode through the marble-floored entranceway the singing got louder—and more off-key. He winced. No radio would give airtime to this appalling rendition of Jingle Bells in that tuneless female voice. This was a live performance. He cursed in a fluent mix of Greek and English. A maid must still be here working—a particularly tone-deaf maid. At six p.m. he expected his house to be free of any domestic help. It was his escape and his refuge and he demanded privacy. Strong words would be spoken to Maids in Chelsea for this breach of protocol.

Lukas flung his cashmere coat and scarf onto the antique chair in the marble-tiled hallway and headed towards the staircase that led to the next two floors. He wanted this maid out of his house, pronto.

The tuneless singing was coming from the next floor so he took the stairs two at a time. He wanted to plug his ears with his fingers as he neared the master bathroom that adjoined his bedroom. It couldn’t be much fun getting down on hands and knees to scrub out someone’s bathroom but that was no excuse for this tuneless wailing. The sooner this woman packed up her brushes and mops and got out, the better.

The door to the luxurious bathroom, all marble and glass, remodelled by one of the most in-demand interior designers in London, was half open. He pushed it fully open. Then stood, stupefied. There was a naked woman in his bathtub.

She reclined in the freestanding rolltop tub. Although a heavy froth of bubbles protected her modesty he could make out the shape of high, round breasts, slender shoulders, a long pale neck. A mass of bright auburn hair was piled on top of her head and fell in tendrils around a flushed heart-shaped face. One slim leg pointed to the ceiling as she used a long-handled wooden brush—his new brush—to soap between toes tipped with a delicate pink polish.

‘Oh, what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh-ay,’ she caterwauled, her voice cracking on the last word as she didn’t achieve the high, extended note required.

Lukas stared in disbelief for a moment longer before he exploded. ‘Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my bathroom?’

The woman turned. Her eyes widened and he saw they were an extraordinary shade of blue. Then she screamed—an ear-splitting scream even more excruciating to his ears than her singing. ‘Get out!’ she shrieked.

Lukas glared at her. ‘You can get out of my bathtub first.’

She waved the bath brush at him in what was obviously intended to be a menacing manner. ‘Not until you get out of here.’

The movement of wielding the brush brought her breasts dangerously close to being bared. With a quick downward glance and a little gasp, she seemed to realise it and stilled. Then slid deeper down into the water, all bravado wilting like the foam bubbles on her shoulders.

‘I...I guess you’re Mr Christophedes. Even though I was told you weren’t going to be in London until after Christmas.’

‘And you are?’

The flush deepened on her cheeks. ‘Ashleigh Murphy. Your daily maid. From Maids in Chelsea.’

‘So, Ashleigh Murphy, what are you doing in my bathtub?’

She raised the brush again. ‘I’m...uh...scrubbing it.’

Her audacity almost made him smile. Almost. He realised she was young, mid-twenties at most. And quite lovely. But she had taken an unheard of liberty for a maid.

‘I think not,’ he said. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, crossed his arms in front of his chest. ‘Try again.’

‘This is such a luxurious bathroom. As I cleaned it, I wished I could try out the tub—it’s magnificent, isn’t it?’ The hand that wasn’t holding the bath brush reverently stroked the side of the tub without, Lukas thought, her realising she was doing it. ‘The slum of a hotel where I’ve been staying has the world’s most disgusting shared bathroom. I had to disinfect it before I could even think about dipping a toe in the tub. And then the water was just a lukewarm trickle...’ Her voice died away. She swallowed hard. She didn’t meet his eyes but seemed to concentrate on the work-of-art tap.

‘So the bathroom is no better in the place you’re staying now?’

She crinkled up her nose in a look that expressed guilt better than any words could. ‘Actually it is. Because, well, I’m staying here. In...in your house.’

‘You what?’ The words exploded from him and she cringed back into the water.

‘You’re getting a live-in maid at no extra cost?’ she offered, in an obvious effort to placate him.

‘Not good enough, Ashleigh Murphy,’ he thundered.

She crossed her arms over her chest and sat up higher in the bathtub. The water fell away to reveal more of her slim, pale body. Lukas knew he should avert his eyes but it wasn’t easy. In his thirty-four years, he had never encountered such a situation. Even though he’d grown up in a multi-servant household and kept a full-time staff in his Athens mansion.

‘I had nowhere else to stay. My time ran out at the hotel; I was planning to couch surf with a friend but it didn’t work out. London at this time of year is so expensive I couldn’t find anywhere I could afford. I’d been hired as your daily maid so I—’

‘Took advantage and moved in.’

‘Took advantage? I suppose that’s how it might look. But I was desperate. It was either bunk down in one of your guest rooms or...or go home.’ Her voice trailed away.

‘And home is?’

‘Australia.’

He’d detected an accent but it wasn’t strong and he hadn’t been able to place it. Lukas frowned. ‘Surely Australia is a good place to call home, especially at this time of year when it’s summer there.’

Her eyes cast downward. ‘Not...not when I ran away from my wedding. And if I go home again the family will think I’ve come back to...to marry a man I realised I don’t love.’

She was a runaway bride? Lukas wasn’t sure what to say about something so messy and totally out of his experience. But it was hardly an excuse to trespass. He cleared his throat. ‘You’ll be lucky if I don’t call the police.’

Her eyes widened in alarm. ‘Please. Don’t do that. I assure you I haven’t stolen anything. I’ve been doing extra cleaning in lieu of rent. And...and please don’t tell Clio Caldwell at the agency,’ she said. ‘She knows nothing about me staying here. She’s been so good to me and I don’t want to let her down. And...and...well, she’s having a personal crisis right now and doesn’t need any extra 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 be wanting to wear it again,’ he’d said with pompous certainty.

Seeing him there, so complacent and cosy, had made her see red. It felt like a betrayal by her family. Then her mother had gushed that Dan would be with them for Christmas Day as both his mother and his father would be away. Without really thinking about the consequences, Ashleigh had informed her parents she was not coming home for Christmas and didn’t know when she’d ever go back to Australia.

So here she was on a dark, freezing December evening, about to be booted out into the vastness of London without anywhere to stay. Except perhaps a police cell if she wasn’t able to convince Lukas Christophedes to let her go.

She made her way up the stairs to the next level of the townhouse. There was an elevator, but she never took it, too frightened it might stall between floors and she’d be trapped in a house where she was staying illicitly. She sent up a prayer that the billionaire client would accept her grovelling apologies and let her go without punishment. Staying here had been a bad, bad idea.

She’d dusted and vacuumed around his already perfectly clean office so she knew where it was. Like all the rooms in this beautiful, luxurious house, it had been decorated with the most expensive of furnishings and fittings, yet still retained the cosiness of a traditional English library—the walls lined with books and Persian rugs on the floor.

The door was open. Lukas Christophedes sat at his desk, his back towards her. He’d taken off the jacket of his dark, superbly tailored business suit. The finely woven fabric of his shirt showed broad shoulders and a leanly muscled back. She knocked quietly and he immediately swivelled on his chair to face her.

She caught her breath, her trepidation momentarily overcome by heart-stopping awareness of his dark, Mediterranean good looks. He’d discarded his necktie and opened the top buttons of his shirt to reveal a vee of tanned olive skin pointing to an impressive chest. Rolled up sleeves showed strong, tanned forearms. His dark hair was rumpled as if he’d run it through with his fingers. For a moment, Ashleigh thought he seemed less intimidating. Until he turned his gaze to her, assessing her with narrowed eyes, his expression inscrutable.

A shiver travelled up her spine. This man had her in his power—and she had made herself vulnerable to him by her foolish behaviour. Talking her way out of this might not be easy.