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Keeping on her favourite of the dresses—and the green suede shoes—she returned to the outer sanctum, where Theo was tapping out a message on his phone.
‘Could you have the car drop me off after you go to the office?’ she asked him.
‘Or I could delay going into the office.’ He slid the phone in his pocket and glanced at his watch. ‘And we could have some lunch. There’s a very good restaurant on the sixth floor.’
‘Is this all part of the PR campaign?’ she suggested wryly as they took the elevator up to the top floor. ‘Showing off your “wife” in all her new finery?’
‘Or could it possibly be because I thought you might be hungry?’
She tilted her head to one side. ‘You associate me with appetite, do you, Theo?’
‘I do,’ he concurred, dark eyes glinting. ‘All the appetites.’
‘Oh. Are you flirting with me, by any chance?’
‘I am,’ he answered throatily.
But even as Theo acknowledged her quick smile of pleasure, loud warning bells were beginning to sound in his head. Because nothing was turning out as he had anticipated. He had long forgotten any ideas about punishing her for her desertion, but in place of revenge had come a relationship which confounded him. They were angry with each other for a lot of the time, yet she had given her virginity to him and blown his mind in the process.
Were they enemies with benefits? Was that an accurate description?
He gave a ghost of a smile as they were shown to a prime table in the window of the restaurant, where he ordered for both of them, at Mia’s behest. While they waited for their meals to arrive, two glasses of pink champagne were delivered to the table and Theo stared at the fizzing flutes in bemusement. ‘I didn’t order these.’
‘No, sir,’ said the beautiful young waitress. ‘But Kyrios Pavlidis has just telephoned. He heard you were here and wanted to extend his congratulations to you and your wife.’
‘Efharisto,’said Theo, and the waitress smiled back before turning to deal with another customer.
‘Who is she talking about?’ questioned Mia, running her finger along the twisted stem of the glass.
‘Vangelis Pavlidis. He owns the store and many more like it.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Word certainly gets around quickly that I’m out on the town with my wife.’
‘I thought that was the whole point,’ she observed crisply. ‘New clothes and a very public lunch will give credence to our fake marriage, which will ultimately make my grandfather happy. It’s a win-win. Isn’t that so, Theo?’ But her voice grew softer as she clinked her glass against his and took a sip of champagne, miming startlement as some bubbles dissolved against her nose. ‘What time are we planning to see him?’
There was a pause as a click of warning shuttered into Theo’s mind. He thought about the woman who had reared him and used him as a meal ticket. When he hadn’t been foraging on her behalf, he had been instructed to stay out of the way as much as possible while she entertained her increasingly rowdy and casual boyfriends. He never remembered her cuddling him, or being kind to him, and it took a long time for him to stop hoping she would instead of accepting the grim reality. But that had been his life and he needed to accept it—not behave like a cuckoo in the nest, trying to muscle in on Mia’s life. ‘Wearen’t planning anything,’ he said suddenly.
‘But you said—’
‘That we’d both go,neh. But I’ve changed my mind. I’ll go later, on my own. It’s better that way.’ He steeled himself against the confusion in her eyes. ‘It’s you he wants to see,’ he said roughly. ‘Not me.’
She put her glass down with a bump, so that more pink bubbles fizzed to the top of the glass. ‘But he’ll want to see you, too! You’re like family, Theo. You know you are.’
‘No,’ he negated harshly. ‘That’s where you are wrong. I have a particular relationship with him, that’s all. I’m more like an employee.’
‘No—’
‘Yes,’he interrupted firmly. ‘He enjoys my success and I have served as his conduit into the world of business, particularly after he retired. But it hasn’t all been plain sailing. As you know, he can be an extremely difficult man, with traits I am prepared to tolerate because I have grown fond of him over the years and because his generosity is a debt which can never properly be repaid.’ Theo felt the sudden race of his heart. ‘But he is not my family, Mia—and he never will be. I don’tdofamily. Don’t you understand what I’m saying to you? I don’t know how to do family. And neither do I want to.’
Mia bit her lip for the vitriol of his words was hard to hear—not just because of the anger but because of the underlying pain which had distorted his voice. She wanted to reach across the table and lay her hand over his but his body language was so forbidding that she didn’t dare. And wasn’t it weird how tension could kill off your appetite?
Their salads arrived and she stared uninterestedly at the glistening red tomato, white feta and gleaming black olives, before raising her eyes to his.
‘Are you hungry?’ she said.
There was a pause before his dark gaze was briefly directed towards the plate. ‘Not for this, no.’
His words were razor-edged silk and his black eyes were glinting with something raw and hot, which Mia recognised instantly. Desire. It was pulsating through the air between them like honey and making her achingly aware of her body beneath the filmy dress. Suddenly Mia started teasing him. Encouraging him. Wanting him. She wanted him so much. ‘What are you hungry for, then?’ she murmured.
He didn’t answer. He was calling for the bill. And besides, Mia didn’t need an answer. Not a verbal one, anyway. Everything she wanted to know she could read in his tense, hard features. They got into the car but he didn’t talk to her, or hug her or kiss her. Instead he slid his fingertips beneath the filmy layers of her brand-new dress and played with her aching bud until she was closing her eyes and murmuring a plea which sounded like his name, as he continued with his light and teasing rhythm. She gasped, her fingernails digging into the soft leather of the car seat, but just as she was about to come, he withdrew his hand, and her eyes snapped open to gaze in dazed disbelief as he shook his head.
