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Elvi got out of bed, as inappropriately dressed as any woman Xan had ever seen and she exhibited zero embarrassment over that reality. The pyjamas were downright ugly, baggy and shapeless on her small form as she breezed past him into the bathroom. Having Elvi for the night hadn’t proved much different from having one of his five-year-old nieces sleeping over. It was clean and innocent, not something that had much appeal for him. Belatedly he reminded himself that her stay and the trip were supposed to be all about her and not about him. He needed to ease his conscience and rise above the guilt and regret she had roused in him the day before. But there was no pressure on him to enjoy the process...
Having established that it was barely six in the morning—no, Xan had not been joking about that early start—Elvi dressed in haste and joined him for breakfast in the elegant dining room. She was unsettled by the realisation that she was excited about travelling abroad for the very first time. Xan, however, seemed rather downbeat and prone to wincing when she spoke, necessarily dragging his attention from the newspaper he was reading. ‘Aren’t you pleased that you’re going to see your family today?’ she pressed.
His high cheekbones pulled taut below his stunning amber eyes, his beautifully moulded mouth compressing. ‘I’m not particularly close to my siblings.’
‘But you’re the eldest,’ she said in surprise, adding a third spoon of sugar to her coffee beneath Xan’s frowning gaze. ‘Don’t they turn to you for advice? I
know Daniel does with me—’
‘They do,’ Xan confirmed. ‘I look after them. That’s my duty but that doesn’t mean they’re my best friends. I help them with problems—’
‘How many siblings do you have?’
‘Six,’ Xan said succinctly. ‘Four half-sisters, two half-brothers.’
‘So...’ Elvi rested inquisitive eyes on his lean, darkly handsome visage, momentarily reminding him of a baby bird seeking a titbit ‘...that means either your mother or your father had more than one marriage—’
‘My father was a five times loser at the altar,’ Xan supplied drily. ‘Two models and two beauty queens followed my mother and all four wives were greedy to feather their own nests.’
‘Oh...’ Elvi said nothing more, understanding a little more about his background than she had previously because a multi-married father, a possibly betrayed mother and a bunch of half-siblings implied a fairly dysfunctional family history, compared with her own. But she was reluctantly impressed by Xan’s assurance that he looked after his younger siblings, even though he didn’t consider himself close to them. ‘So, whose wedding are we attending?’
‘Delphina, the youngest one. She’s twenty. At an age when she ought to be out forging a career and a lively social life, she’s tying herself down,’ Xan declared with cynical disapproval. ‘She and Takis will be in the divorce court within five years.’
Elvi winced. ‘If they truly love each other they’ll make it through,’ she argued.
Xan rolled his eyes, unimpressed, and rustled his newspaper before dropping his head to give the printed word his full attention again. A shard of sunlight shone across the glossy blue-black strands of his hair, which he wore longer on top, shorn short at the sides. His wickedly long black lashes shielded his gaze from her, drawing her eyes down the straight blade of his nose to the faint dark shadow of stubble that shaded his golden skin even soon after shaving. Blinking in confusion, Elvi looked away, questioning her fascination, denying the licking little curl of heat uncoiling between her thighs, pressing them together to stop that betrayal in its tracks.
She had to be his mistress but that didn’t mean she had to like it or blindly accept that she was attracted to him. She wasn’t going to play that game to his rules, wasn’t going to let sex seduce her into being disloyal to her own ideals. She didn’t want sex without feelings involved and wasn’t about to let her body mislead her. She was stronger than that...wasn’t she? If she let herself sink without trace into that sexual chemistry, it would only encourage him to hang on to her longer. And she didn’t want that, of course she didn’t, she told herself firmly.
As Elvi drifted away from the table with all the precise direction of a dandelion seed blowing in the breeze, Xan watched her pause to look out of the window, almost trip over a chair and only then head towards the door. She lived inside her head more than she lived in the real world, he thought impatiently. Her nature was utterly alien to his and he couldn’t understand why he had the most ridiculous urge to smooth her passage through every obstacle.
Returning to the bedroom, intending to make a start on that packing to be ready for their departure in an hour’s time, Elvi was perplexed to find Sylvia already there with suitcases and an assistant.
‘Tell me what you want to bring with you to Greece,’ Sylvia urged helpfully, as if it was no big deal to be standing in someone else’s bedroom working before seven in the morning.
Being rushed through the VIP channel at the airport only heightened Elvi’s sense of anticipation, no matter how hard she tried to suppress it, and, stepping onto Xan’s sleek private jet, she was unable to silence a small gasp of awe at the space in the cabin furnished with ivory leather seating and the kind of luxuries that even she, who had never flown before, knew were extravagances available only to the very wealthy. The svelte stewardess offered her an array of different coffees, a library of films, all the latest glossy magazines and even the option of a lie-down in the stateroom.
‘Take a seat,’ Xan instructed her tersely, wondering why she was still hovering in the middle of the aisle.
‘It’s my first flight,’ she whispered, not wanting any of the smartly uniformed cabin crew around them to hear. ‘I can’t help staring—’
Xan closed a hand over hers and settled her down in the seat opposite his. ‘Life’s just full of firsts for you right now.’
Elvi dealt him a stonily unamused glance and lifted her chin.
‘I’m not making fun of you... I’m not,’ Xan insisted, working hard not to laugh at that look she had given him, which had washed off him like a feather trying to beat up a rock. ‘But why haven’t you flown before? For most people it’s like catching a bus these days.’
‘You really don’t have a clue what my life has been like.’
‘Then educate me.’
‘You’d be bored,’ Elvi told him repressively, having caught the gleam of amusement in his gaze at her earlier naïve admission.
His expectant silence nagged at her. ‘Obviously we never had the money to go on holidays,’ she admitted unwillingly.
‘Then why have a passport?’
‘Equally obviously people still like to live in hope.’
