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‘I can find my own—’
‘I’ll take you, Célia.’
She shivered, hating the effect of his words on her already overly sensitised thoughts. For a moment, the promise hung on the air between them—as if he, too, realised the double entendre. Purposefully sidestepping that thought, she wondered how shewouldget back to her hotel. Exhausted and not speaking Greek, she decided Loukis’s offer was the easiest and quickest solution.
‘Fine.’
‘Then you are going the wrong way. My car is waiting in a side street. Best to avoid any further press.’
He held out an arm to guide her and although he didn’t touch her, didn’t place it against the white silk of her top, as she passed him she felt the heat of his palm as if he had rested his hand against the lower part of her back.
They made their way through nearly deserted kitchens and out into the alley where, as promised, Loukis’s limousine was waiting for them. The driver leaning against the car hastily jumped to attention, but not quickly enough for Loukis, who opened the door and ushered her inside.
The warm, dark interior was a complete contrast to the shocking white walls and brightly coloured paintings that had decorated Célia’s last six hours and she closed her eyes, taking the first nearly calm breath that evening, desperately seeking that sense of excitement and pleasure at a job well done. Anything other than the awareness of the man sliding in beside her.
‘Champagne?’
‘Non, merci,’she replied.
She hadn’t touched a drop of the bubbly alcohol in years, because the nutty dry taste on her tongue embodied far too much the hurts of the past. To Célia it reminded her of disapproval, of superiority, of desperately waiting for the moment that her father would finally see her. Would finally recognise her. Love her.
She rubbed at the headache forming at her temples. Too much of that evening, too much of Loukis, seemed to remind her of that. Of powerful men who only wanted one thing...one thing that had never beenher.
And she hated that sense of desperation yawning within her. Because of what it had driven her to; the times she had tried, and tried, to be what her father wanted, to choose a profession, a career that would somehow bring her closer to him. Choices that had led her to develop designs that had unwittingly caused such devastation.
And for the first time, she wondered how many charities she would need to help in order to pay off the taint on her soul. To compensate the damage done by her naïve technical designs. Ones she had hoped would help, but instead had been used for destruction. By her father. The man whose name she no longer bore. The man she had not seen in five years.
‘Are you—’
Whatever Loukis had been about to say, as the limousine pulled out into the busy night-time traffic, was cut off by the ringing of his mobile phone.
‘Nai?’
Before he could press on, Célia felt the temperature in the back of the town car drop to below freezing. A stream of urgent Greek poured into the space, causing her to shift and shiver in concern. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.
Loukis leant forward, pounding on the screen to the driver, and seemed to be directing words both to him and down the phone.
Célia wrapped her arms around her waist, sensing that it would be impossible for her to interrupt and ask what was going on. As Loukis continued to bark words into the phone, his free hand went to his hair, shoving it back from his face in desperation. He looked as if he wanted to tear it from his head.
The limo pulled around in a shocking U-turn, sending her sprawling against him, her hand landing against his thigh and her chest pressing against the stiff outline of his shoulder. He reached to settle her, his hand against her forearm, holding her until the car had righted itself, and finally hung up the phone, staring ahead of him as if he had just seen a ghost.
Célia bit down on her lip, stopping the questions running through her mind.
‘We have to... I...’
She had never seen Loukis stuck for words and could not even begin to imagine what had happened to cause him such...panic.
‘We don’t have time—’
‘It’s okay,’ she assured him.
‘I—’
‘Loukis, it’s okay,’ she repeated, pulling herself from his grasp, knowing that they were no longer going to her hotel room, and very much hoping that what she had said to him was the truth.
CHAPTER THREE
LOUKISLAUNCHEDHIMSELFfromthe car before it could even draw to a halt. His blood was pounding so loudly in his ears that he barely heard Célia follow him from the car and up the steps of his Athens estate. The door swung open before he could grab the handle and the terrified face of the usually competent American nanny loomed in the doorway.
