Loe raamatut: «Wed For His Secret Heir»

CHAPTER ONE

THE PRE-DINNER DRINKS seemed to be lasting for ever. Giannis Gekas glanced at his watch as his stomach rumbled. He had been in meetings all day and the tired-looking sandwich his PA had brought him at lunchtime had lived up to its appearance.

He sipped his Virgin Mary cocktail and considered eating the celery stalk that garnished the drink. The voices of the other guests in the banqueting hall merged into a jangle of white noise, and he edged behind a pillar to avoid having to make small talk with people he did not know and had no interest in.

It was then that he spotted a woman rearranging the place name cards on one of the circular dining tables. He supposed she might be a member of the events management team responsible for organising the charity fundraising dinner and auction. But she was wearing an evening gown, which suggested that she was a guest, and she cast a furtive glance over her shoulder as she switched the name cards.

When Giannis had taken the private lift from his penthouse suite in the exclusive London hotel, down to the foyer, he had checked the seating plan in the banqueting hall to find out where he would be sitting for the dinner. He wondered why the woman had put herself next to him. It was not the first time such a thing had happened, he acknowledged with weary cynicism. The phenomenal success of his cruise line company had propelled him to the top of the list of Europe’s richest businessmen.

He had been blessed with good looks and even before he had accrued his wealth women had pursued him, since he was a teenager taking tourists on sailing trips around the Greek islands on his family’s boat. At eighteen, he had relished the attention of the countless nubile blondes who had flocked around him, but at thirty-five he was more selective.

The woman was blonde, admittedly, but she was not his type. He thought briefly of his last mistress Lise—a tall, toned Swedish swimwear model. He had dated her for a few months until she had started dropping hints about marriage. The dreaded ‘m’ word spelled the end of Giannis’s interest, and he had ended the affair and arranged for Lise to be sent a diamond bracelet from an exclusive London jewellers, where he had an account.

Dinner would be served at seven-thirty and guests were beginning to take their places at the various tables. Giannis strolled over to where the woman was holding on tightly to the back of a chair as if she expected to be challenged for the seat. Her hair was the colour of honey and fell in silky waves to halfway down her back. As he drew closer to her, he noted that her eyes were the soft grey of rain clouds. She was attractive rather than beautiful, with defined cheekbones and a wide, pretty mouth that captured his attention. The full lips were frankly sensual, and as he watched her bite her lower lip he felt a frisson of desire to soothe the place with his tongue.

Surprised by his body’s response, after he had decided that the woman did not warrant a second look, Giannis roamed his eyes over her. She was average height, with a slim waist and unfashionably curvaceous breasts and hips. Once again he felt a tightening in his groin as he allowed his gaze to linger on the creamy mounds displayed to perfection by the low-cut neckline of her black silk jersey dress.

She wore no jewellery—which was unusual at a high society event. Most of the other female guests were bedecked with gold and diamonds, and her lack of sparkling adornments focused his attention on the lustrous creaminess of her shoulders and décolleté.

He halted beside the table. ‘Allow me,’ he said smoothly as he drew out her chair and waited for her to sit down, before he lowered his tall frame onto the seat next to her. ‘It appears that we will be companions for the evening...’ he paused and glanced down at the table ‘...Miss Ava Sheridan.’

Wary grey eyes flew to his face. ‘How do you know my name?’

‘It is written on the card in front of you,’ he said drily, wondering if she would explain why she had swapped the place cards.

A pink stain swept along her cheekbones but she quickly composed herself and gave him a hesitant smile. ‘Oh, yes. Of course.’ She caught her lower lip between her even white teeth and a flame flickered into life inside him. ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Mr Gekas.’

‘Giannis,’ he said softly. He leaned back in his chair, turning his upper body so that he could focus his full attention on her, and smiled. With a sense of predictability, he watched her eyes darken, the pupils dilating. Charm came effortlessly to him. He had discovered when he was a youth that he had something: charisma, magnetism—whatever it was called, Giannis had it in bucketfuls. People were drawn to him. Men respected him and wanted his friendship—often only discovering after he had beaten them in a business deal that his laid-back air hid a ruthless determination to succeed. Women were fascinated by him and wanted him to take them to bed. Always.

Ava Sheridan was no different. Giannis offered her his hand and after an infinitesimal hesitation she placed her fingers in his. He lifted her hand to his mouth and she caught her breath when he brushed his lips across her knuckles.

Yes, she was attracted to him. What surprised him more was the shaft of white-hot desire that swept through him and made him uncomfortably hard. Thankfully, the lower half of his body was hidden beneath the folds of the tablecloth. He was relieved when more guests took their seats at the table and while introductions were made and waiters arrived to pour the wine and serve the first course Giannis regained control of his libido. He even felt amused by his reaction to Ava Sheridan, who was simply not in the same league as the sophisticated models and socialites he usually dated. He hadn’t had sex for over a month, since he’d broken up with Lise, and celibacy did not suit him, he acknowledged wryly.

He finished his conversation with the hedge fund manager sitting on the other side of him and turned his head towards Ava, hiding a smile when she quickly jerked her gaze away. He had been aware of the numerous glances she had darted at him while he had been chatting to the other guests around the table.

As he studied the curve of her cheek and the elegant line of her neck, he realised that he had been wrong to dismiss her as merely attractive. She was beautiful, but her beauty was understated and entirely natural. Giannis suspected that she used minimal make-up to enhance her English rose complexion, and her round-as-peaches breasts did not owe their firmness to implants or a cosmetic surgeon’s skill. In a room full of primped and pampered women adorned in extravagant jewellery, Ava Sheridan was like a rare and precious pearl found in the deepest depths of the ocean.

She was also as stubbornly resistant as an oyster shell, he thought, frustrated by her refusal to turn her head in his direction even though she must be aware of his scrutiny.

‘Can I pour you some more wine?’ He took his cue when she placed her half-empty glass down on the table. Now she could not avoid looking at him and, as their eyes met, Giannis felt the sizzle, the intangible spark of sexual attraction shoot between them.

‘Just a little, thank you.’ Her voice was low and melodious and made him think of cool water. A tiny frown creased her brow as she watched him top up her glass before he replaced the wine bottle in the ice bucket. ‘Don’t you want any wine?’

‘No.’ He gave her another easy smile and did not explain that he never drank alcohol.

She darted him a glance from beneath the sweep of her lashes. ‘I have heard that you regularly make generous donations to charities... Giannis. And you are especially supportive of organisations which help families affected by alcohol misuse. Is there a particular reason for your interest?’

Giannis tensed and a suspicion slid into his mind as he remembered how she had contrived to sit next to him at dinner. The media were fascinated with him, and it would not be the first time that a member of the press had managed to inveigle their way onto the guest list of a social function in order to meet him. Mostly they wanted the latest gossip about his love life, but a few years ago a reporter had dug up the story from his past that he did not want to be reminded of.

Not that he could ever forget the mistake he’d made when he was nineteen, which had resulted in his father’s death. The memories of that night would haunt Giannis for ever, and guilt cast a long shadow over him.

His expression hardened. ‘Are you a journalist, Miss Sheridan?’

Her eyebrows rose. Either she was an accomplished actress or her surprise was genuine. ‘No. Why do you think I might be?’

‘You changed the seating arrangement so that we could sit together. I watched you switch the place cards.’

Colour blazed on her cheeks and if Giannis had been a different man he might have felt some sympathy for her obvious embarrassment. But he was who he was, and he felt nothing.

‘I...yes, I admit I did swap the name cards,’ she muttered. ‘But I still don’t understand why you think I am a journalist.’

‘I have had experience of reporters, especially those working for the gutter press, using underhand methods to try to gain an interview with me.’

‘I promise you I’m not a journalist.’

‘Then why did you ensure that we would sit together?’

She bit her lip again and Giannis was irritated with himself for staring at her mouth. ‘I... I was hoping to have a chance to talk to you.’

Her pretty face was flushed rose-pink but her intelligent grey eyes were honest—Giannis did not know why he was so convinced of that. The faint desperation in her unguarded expression sparked his curiosity.

‘So, talk,’ he said curtly.

* * *

‘Not here.’ Ava tore her gaze from Giannis Gekas and took a deep breath, hoping to steady the frantic thud of her pulse. She had recognised him instantly when he had walked over to the dining table where Becky, bless her, had allocated her a place. But her seat had been on the other side of the table—too far away from Giannis to be able to have a private conversation with him.

She had taken a gamble that no one would notice her swapping the name cards around. But she had to talk to Giannis about her brother. She’d forked out a fortune for a ticket to the charity dinner and bought an expensive evening dress that she’d probably never have the chance to wear again. The only way she could keep Sam from being sent to a young offender institution was if she could persuade Giannis Gekas to drop the charges against him.

Ava took a sip of her wine. It was important that she kept a clear head and she hadn’t intended to drink any alcohol tonight, but she had not expected Giannis to be so devastatingly attractive. The photos she’d seen of him on the Internet when she’d researched the man dubbed Greece’s most eligible bachelor had not prepared her for the way her heart had crashed into her ribs when he’d smiled. Handsome did not come close to describing his lethal good looks. His face was a work of art—the sculpted cheekbones and chiselled jaw softened by a blatantly sensual mouth that frequently curved into a lazy smile.

Dark, almost black eyes gleamed beneath heavy brows, and he constantly shoved a hand through his thick, dark brown hair that fell forwards onto his brow. But even more enticing than his model-perfect features and tall, muscle-packed body was Giannis’s rampant sexuality. He oozed charisma and he promised danger and excitement—the very things that Ava avoided. She gave herself a mental shake. It did not matter that Giannis was a bronzed Greek god. All she cared about was saving her idiot of a kid brother from prison and the very real possibility that Sam would be drawn into a life of crime like their father.

Sam wasn’t bad; he had just gone off the rails because he lacked guidance. Ava knew that her mother had struggled to cope when Sam had hit puberty and he’d got in with a rough crowd of teenagers who hung around on the streets near the family home in East London. Even worse, Sam had become fascinated with their father and had even reverted to using the name McKay rather than their mother’s maiden name, Sheridan. Ava had been glad to move away from the East End and all its associations with her father, but she felt guilty that she had not been around to keep her brother out of trouble.

She took another sip of wine and her eyes were drawn once more to the man sitting next to her. Sam’s future rested in Giannis Gekas’s hands. A waiter appeared and removed her goat’s cheese salad starter that she had barely touched and replaced it with the Dover sole that she had chosen for the main course. Across the table, one of the other guests was trying to catch Giannis’s attention. The chance to have a meaningful conversation with him during dinner seemed hopeless.

‘I can’t talk to you here.’ She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and a quiver ran through her when his eyes focused on her mouth. She wondered why he suddenly seemed tense. ‘Would it be possible for me to speak to you in private after dinner?’

His dark eyes trapped her gaze but his expression was unreadable. Afraid that he was about to refuse her request, she acted instinctively and placed her hand over his where it rested on the tablecloth. ‘Please.’

The warmth of his olive-gold skin beneath her fingertips sent heat racing up her arm. She attempted to snatch her hand away but Giannis captured her fingers in his.

‘That depends on whether you are an entertaining dinner companion,’ he murmured. He smiled at her confused expression and stroked his thumb lightly over the pulse in her wrist that was going crazy. ‘Relax, glykiá mou. I think there is every possibility that we can have a private discussion later.’

‘Thank you.’ Relief flooded through her. But she could not relax as concern for her brother changed to a different kind of tension that had everything to do with the glitter in Giannis’s eyes. She couldn’t look away from his sensual mouth. His jaw was shadowed with black stubble and she wondered if it would feel abrasive against her cheek if he kissed her. If she kissed him back.

She took another sip of wine before she remembered that she hadn’t had any lunch. Alcohol had a more potent effect on an empty stomach, she reminded herself. Her appetite had disappeared but she forced herself to eat a couple of forkfuls of Dover sole.

‘So tell me, Ava—you have a beautiful name, by the way.’ Giannis’s husky accent felt like rough velvet stroking across Ava’s skin, and the way he said her name in his lazy, sexy drawl, elongating the vowels—Aaavaaa—sent a quiver of reaction through her. ‘You said that you are not a journalist, so what do you do for a living?’

Explaining about her work as a victim care officer might be awkward when Giannis was himself the victim of a crime which had been committed by her brother, Ava thought ruefully. Sam deeply regretted the extensive damage that he and his so-called ‘friends’ had caused to Giannis’s luxurious yacht. She needed to convince Giannis that her brother had made a mistake and deserved another chance.

She reached for her wine glass, but then changed her mind. Her head felt swimmy—although that might be because she had inhaled the spicy, explicitly sensual scent of Giannis’s aftershave.

‘Actually I’m between jobs at the moment.’ She was pleased that her voice was steady, unlike her see-sawing emotions. ‘I recently moved from Scotland back to London to be closer to my mother...and brother.’

Giannis ate some of his beef Wellington before he spoke. ‘I have travelled widely, but Scotland is one place that I have never visited. I’ve heard that it is very beautiful.’

Ava thought of the deprived areas of Glasgow where she had been involved with a victim support charity, first as a volunteer, and after graduating from university she had been offered a job with the victim support team. In the past few years some of the city’s grim, grey tower blocks had been knocked down and replaced with new houses, but high levels of unemployment still remained, as did the incidence of drug-taking, violence and crime.

She had felt that her job as a VCO—helping people who were victims or witnesses of crime—made amends in some small way for the terrible crimes her father had committed. But living far away in Scotland meant she had missed the signs that her brother had been drawn into the gang culture in East London. Her father’s old haunts.

‘Why do you care what I get up to?’ Sam had demanded when she had tried to talk to him about his behaviour. ‘You moved away and you don’t care about me.’ Ava felt a familiar stab of guilt that she hadn’t been around for Sam or her mother when they had both needed her.

She dragged her thoughts back to the present and realised that Giannis was waiting for her to reply. ‘The Highlands have some spectacular scenery,’ she told him. ‘If you are thinking of making a trip to Scotland I can recommend a few places for you to visit.’

‘It would be better if you came with me and gave me a guided tour of the places you think would interest me.’

Ava’s heart gave a jolt. Was he being serious? She stared into his dark-as-night eyes and saw amusement and something else that evoked a coiling sensation low in her belly. ‘We...we don’t know each other.’

‘Not yet, but the night is still young and full of endless possibilities,’ he murmured in his husky Mediterranean accent that made her toes curl. He gave a faint shrug of his shoulders, drawing her attention to his powerful physique beneath the elegant lines of his dinner jacket. ‘I have little leisure time and it makes sense when I visit somewhere new to take a companion who has local knowledge.’

Ava was saved from having to reply when one of the event organisers arrived at the table to hand out catalogues which listed the items that were being offered in the fundraising auction.

Giannis flicked through the pages of the catalogue. ‘Is there anything in the listings that you intend to bid for?’

‘Unfortunately I can’t afford the kind of money that a platinum watch or a luxury African safari holiday are likely to fetch in the auction,’ she said drily. ‘I imagine that art collectors will be keen to bid for the Mark Derring painting. His work is stunning, and art tends to be a good investment. There are also some interesting wines being auctioned. The Chateau Latour 1962 is bound to create a lot of interest.’

Giannis gave her a thoughtful look. ‘So, I have already discovered that you are an expert in art and wine. I confess that I am intrigued by you, Ava.’

She gave a self-conscious laugh. ‘I’m not an expert in either subject, but I went to a finishing school in Switzerland where I learned how to talk confidently about art, recognise fine wines and understand the finer points of international etiquette.’

‘I did not realise that girls—I presume only girls—still went to finishing schools,’ Giannis said. ‘What made you decide to go to one?’

‘My father thought it would be a good experience for me.’ Ava felt a familiar tension in her shoulders as she thought of her father. The truth was that she tried not to think about Terry McKay. That part of her life when she had been Ava McKay was over. She had lost touch with the friends she had made at the Institut Maison Cécile in St Moritz when her father had been sent to prison. But the few months that she had spent at the exclusive finishing school, which had numbered two European princesses among its students, had given her the social skills and exquisite manners which allowed her to feel comfortable at high society events.

It was a pity that the finishing school had not given advice on how to behave when a gorgeous Greek god looked at her as if he was imagining her naked, Ava thought as her eyes locked with Giannis’s smouldering gaze. Panic and an inexplicable sense of excitement pumped through her veins. She was here at the charity dinner for her brother’s sake, she reminded herself. Giannis had said he would give her an opportunity to speak to him in private on the condition that she entertained him during dinner. She did not know if he had been serious, but she could not risk losing the chance to plead with him to show leniency to Sam.

‘It’s not fair,’ she murmured. She had to lean towards Giannis so that he could hear her above the hum of chatter in the banqueting hall, and the scent of him—spicy cologne mixed with an elusive scent of male pheromones—made her head spin. ‘I have told you things about me but you haven’t told me anything about yourself.’

‘That’s not true. I’ve told you that I have never visited Scotland. Although I have a feeling that I will take a trip there very soon,’ he drawled. His voice was indulgent like rich cream and the gleam in his eyes was wickedly suggestive.

A sensuous shiver ran down Ava’s spine. Common sense dictated that she should respond to Giannis’s outrageous flirting with cool amusement and make a witty remark to put him in his place and let him know she wasn’t interested in him. Except that he fascinated her, and she felt like a teenager on a first date rather than an experienced woman of twenty-seven.

She wasn’t all that experienced, a little voice in her head reminded her. At university she’d dated a few guys but the relationships had fizzled out fairly quickly. It had been her fault—she’d been wary of allowing anyone too close in case they discovered that she was leading a double life. Two years ago, she had met Craig at a party given by a work colleague. She had been attracted to his open and friendly nature and when they had become lovers she’d believed that they might have a future together. A year into their relationship, she had plucked up the courage and revealed her real identity. But Craig had reacted with horror to the news that she was the daughter of the infamous London gangland boss Terry McKay.

‘How could we have a family when there is a risk that our children might inherit your father’s criminal genes?’ Craig had said, with no trace of warmth in his voice and a look of distaste on his face that had filled Ava with shame.

‘Criminality isn’t an inherited condition,’ she had argued. But she continued to be haunted by Craig’s words. Perhaps there was a ‘criminal gene’ that could be passed down through generations and she would not be able to save Sam from a life of crime.

Ava forced her mind away from the past. She refused to believe that her kind, funny younger brother could become a violent criminal like their father. But the statistics of youths reoffending after being sent to prison were high. She needed to keep her nerve and seize the right moment to throw herself on Giannis’s mercy.

In normal circumstances Ava would have found the bidding process at the charity auction fascinating. The sums of money that some of the items fetched were staggering—and far beyond anything her finances could stretch to. Giannis offered the highest bid of a six-figure sum for a luxury spa break at an exclusive resort in the Maldives for two people. Ava wondered who he planned to take with him. No doubt he had several mistresses to choose from. But if he wanted more variety, she was sure that any one of the women in the banqueting hall who she had noticed sending him covetous glances would jump at the chance to spend four days—and nights—with a gorgeous, wealthy Greek god. Giannis was reputed to have become a billionaire from his successful luxury cruise line company, The Gekas Experience.

‘Congratulations on your winning bid for the spa break. I don’t blame you for deciding that a visit to the Maldives would be more enjoyable than a trip to Scotland,’ she said, unable to prevent the faint waspishness in her voice as she pictured him cavorting in a tropical paradise with a supermodel.

‘I bought the spa break for my mother and sister. My mother has often said that she would like to visit the Maldives, and at least my sister will be pleased.’ There was an odd nuance in Giannis’s tone. ‘Perhaps the trip will make my mother happy, but I doubt it,’ he said heavily.

Ava looked at him curiously, wanting to know more about his family. He had seemed tense when he spoke about his mother, but she was heartened to know that he had a sister and perhaps he would understand why she was so anxious to save her brother from a prison sentence.

The auction continued, but she was barely aware of what was going on around her and her senses were finely attuned to the man seated beside her. While she sipped her coffee and pretended to study the auction catalogue she tried not to stare at Giannis’s strong, tanned hands as he picked up his coffee cup. But her traitorous imagination visualised his hands sliding over her naked body, cupping her breasts in his palms as he bent his head to take each of her nipples into his mouth.

Sweet heaven! What had got into her? Hot-faced, she tensed when he moved his leg beneath the table and she felt his thigh brush against hers. He turned his head towards her, amusement gleaming in his eyes when he saw the hectic flush on her cheeks.

‘It is rather warm in here, isn’t it?’ he murmured.

She was on fire and desperate to escape to the restroom so that she could hold her wrists under the cold tap to try to bring her temperature down. Perhaps spending a few minutes away from Giannis would allow her to regain her composure. ‘Please excuse me,’ she muttered as she shoved her chair back and stood up abruptly.

‘Ow!’ For a few seconds she could not understand why scalding liquid was soaking into the front of her dress. The reason became clear when she saw a waiter hovering close by. He was holding a cafetière, and she guessed that he had leaned over her shoulder in order to refill her coffee cup at the same time that she had jumped up and knocked into him.