Billie’s gaze flicked up to Alexei’s bold brown profile and froze at the sight of the glisten of moisture highlighting his hard cheekbones.

Silent tears were rolling down his face. She could taste his sadness, his regret for times past never to be regained. Her throat thickened, her own eyes were wet, and she looked hurriedly away, feeling that she could not possibly intrude on so intensely private a moment, in which he believed himself alone and unobserved. But, oh, how she longed for the right to push open that door and hurry to his side to offer him comfort! But, as such, freedom of expression was not part of her role, and she reluctantly walked away while scolding herself for having underestimated the depth of Alexei’s loss and his feelings. His tough self-discipline had fooled even her, persuading her that he was totally in control and that business would pretty much go on as usual…

The Pregnancy Shock

By

Lynne Graham

www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Drakos Baby

An enthralling linked-story duet by top Modern author

LYNNE GRAHAM

A Greek billionaire with amnesia, a secret baby, a convenient marriage…it’s a recipe for rip-roaring passion, revelations and the reunion of a lifetime!

Available this month:

PART ONE

THE PREGNANCY SHOCK

Billie has a job that most women would love—PA to gorgeous Greek billionaire Alexei Drakos. She tries to convince herself she’s immune to his extraordinary charms, but when events throw them inextricably together she finds herself in his bed. However, within hours Alexei has an accident and loses his memory of their special night together, and Billie discovers she’s pregnant—by a man who has no recollection of having slept with her…

Available next month:

PART TWO

A STORMY GREEK MARRIAGE

Billie’s baby has been born, but she hasn’t told Alexei about his son’s existence. Yet when she returns to Greece and he proposes a marriage of convenience she knows she just has to take her chance to be with the man she loves. But Alexei is amazed to find his wife isn’t a virgin on their wedding night—and that’s just the first shocking revelation in this stormy marriage…

Chapter One

ALEXEI DRAKOS broodingly surveyed the crowded Port Vauban marina from the deck of his yacht, Sea Queen. There were paparazzi everywhere. As a man who set a high value on privacy, he was not impressed. He was even less impressed with the topless sunbathers on the vessel moored beside his who were calling out to him and making inviting gestures. As if, Alexei thought with all the disdain of an aristocrat for rotten meat. As a teenager he had sampled many female bodies without the need to make dates or chit-chat, but he had grown up since then.

If Calisto had not begged him to bring her to Cannes, he would have been miles away from the noise, the poseurs and the fuss. Sea Queen was easily the biggest, sleekest and most expensive yacht there but, as he was a fourth generation Drakos, and possessed of fabulous wealth and privilege from birth, such petty comparisons were beneath Alexei’s arrogant notice.

Standing six feet four inches in his bare feet, Alexei was built with the lean muscular power of a trained athlete and surprisingly fit for a noted workaholic. Half Russian and half Greek, he was a dazzlingly handsome man with a formidable reputation as a womaniser. Yet for the past few months there had been only one woman in his life: Calisto, the ex-wife of the Swiss electronics tycoon, Xavier Bethune. Keen to get back to work and aware that his business team awaited him indoors, Alexei strode back into his on-board office, which was as streamlined and technologically advanced as any on shore.

Some minutes later, Calisto stalked into the crowded room without warning. Alexei was surprised, for he had sent her down the coast to tour his magnificent villa in an effort to get some peace. An echoing silence spread even before Calisto burst into staccato speech. ‘You won’t believe what I’ve discovered at your villa!’

‘Nothing short of the Loch Ness monster in the bath tub would excuse this intrusion when I am working,’ Alexei drawled, and he was not entirely joking as he glanced up from his laptop to survey the irate blonde.

‘The place is a disgrace! The swimming pool hasn’t been serviced in months, the garden is overgrown and the house isn’t even stocked for our stay next week,’ Calisto raged, her bright blue eyes full of indignation. ‘And when I asked the housekeeper to explain herself, all she would say was that Billie always dealt with that stuff and that she had received no instructions.’

Calisto Bethune was a six foot tall beauty and former model, quite capable of stopping traffic with her stunning face and shapely body. She was Greek-born, she was gorgeous and, now that she was free of her husband, the woman whom Alexei had loved and lost as a teenager was finally his again.

‘Did you hear anything I just said, Alexei?’ Calisto prompted impatiently. ‘Last month the refit on Sea Queen overran and we couldn’t use her. Who was responsible for that? Every place I go in your life things are going wrong and I discover that this Billie creature is at fault!’

‘Until a couple of months ago, Billie took care of all my properties as well as my social calendar and travel arrangements. Unfortunately, she insisted on taking a career break and her replacement was so inept, I sacked her after a month—’

Calisto studied him wide-eyed, a frown building on her face. ‘This Billie that everybody talks about is a…woman?’

‘Why not?’ Alexei returned to his laptop with renewed energy as he was hotwired to the pursuit of profit and in no mood to hear any more about boring domestic problems. No Drakos male he had ever known had concerned himself with such trivialities. In even listening to Calisto’s tirade, he believed he was being very tolerant, offering the listening ear that all women were supposed to crave.

‘And this Billie, this woman insisted on taking time off? Since when do you allow your employees to insist on anything?’ Calisto demanded.

Alexei frowned and straightened before he rose to his full height and urged the gorgeous blonde across the hallway outside the office into the opulent and spacious salon. ‘I’ve known Billie since she was a child growing up on Speros. She has a little more licence than the rest of my team—’

A frozen look stiffened Calisto’s wide cheekbones. ‘Does she indeed?’

‘Until now Billie has always been available when I want her. Usually she doesn’t take vacations or even days off. Day or night, she has worked extremely hard for me,’ Alexei volunteered, but his tone was flat because in spite of what he was saying he too blamed Billie for the many annoying developments that had taken the edge off his comfort in recent months.

Billie Foster, his most trusted aide and gofer, his right-hand woman, had insisted on taking an eight-month-long career break to look after her recently widowed but pregnant aunt in England. His even white teeth clenched as he mentally shifted through the aggravations he’d had to tolerate during Billie’s prolonged absence. Impersonal and personal matters that he had once taken for granted as being taken care of were suddenly rolling up in front of him undone and causing him considerable inconvenience.

He had never dreamt that Billie might act in so selfish a manner. Even though she knew he disagreed with her taking such a lengthy break, she had gone ahead regardless. He had been too soft with her. He should have told her no. He should have told her that if she left she would have no job to return to. After all, for what did he pay her such a handsome salary? To go running off to England whenever she took the fancy? Alexei had expected a lot more from a young woman whom he had known since childhood and who owed more than she knew to his family’s generosity.

‘A wife would take charge of your properties and your social calendar. It would be no big deal,’ Calisto remarked softly. ‘Then you wouldn’t need a Billie in your life.’

Alexei was too clever and wary of feminine manipulation to respond. He shrugged a broad shoulder and signalled a steward to bring coffee. Calisto might be the first woman to spend more than a few weeks with him, but marriage was another step altogether in his book. He was all too well aware of how expensive a bad marriage could be: his late father had endured three very nasty and costly divorces. No, Alexei was in no hurry to name the day. Although Calisto was the first to even consider that the altar might be within her sights, she might also yet reveal a deal-breaking flaw. In his experience, women were rarely predictable and even more rarely truthful.

Turning her nose up at the coffee that powered Alexei through his long working day, Calisto put on some music and began to dance, twisting and working her hips in movements as suggestive as any lap dancer’s. Recognising that she was trying to use sex to get his attention, Alexei studiously ignored her while wondering why she thought a lap-dancing impression might get her up the aisle. If anything the demonstration repelled him. Outside the bedroom a wife should have a certain dignity, he reflected seriously, adding that quality to the mental list he cherished. Under the influence of a few drinks at a party, Calisto could well become an embarrassment.

A brilliantly coloured print scarf lying on a bar stool caught his attention. Black brows pleating, he lifted it up. It belonged to Billie, who had little sense of colour coordination. A faint old-fashioned peachy scent that was familiar assailed him and his nostrils flared. Just as quickly, his penetrating dark eyes took on a frowning expression of bewilderment. The sense of something erotic skimmed indistinctly through his mind and his body reacted with primal male hunger, hardening with instant lust. Bemused by that powerful reaction and unable to find a logical connection, Alexei registered that he was still holding the scarf. Filled with distaste at the tenor of his thoughts, for there could be no woman more sexually naïve than Billie, he tossed the material down again…

‘You’ll miss all the options here…’ As the two women emerged from the public library Billie waved a hand to encompass the busy London street, full of shops, restaurants and bustling traffic. ‘That you should return to Greece with me seemed such a great idea after John died, but now I feel horribly guilty for getting you involved in all this. The island is very quiet—’

‘You’re just tired and feeling down again,’ Hilary scolded, a tall, slender blonde with gentle brown eyes in her late thirties. She bore little resemblance to her diminutive red-headed niece with her emerald-green gaze, whose heavily pregnant state made her seem almost as wide as she was tall. She urged the younger woman onto the bus and passed the journey with a cheerful monologue about how much she hated the damp English climate and how much she was looking forward to having the peace to write the book she had long been planning.

Billie, who was more tired than she was prepared to admit, remained unconvinced. In an attempt to do the best she could for her own future and her baby’s she had ensnared Hilary in her plans but she felt increasingly guilty about that fact. It was a relief, however, to return to her aunt’s comfortable semi-detached house and sit down with a cup of tea.

‘You just don’t appreciate how desperate I am for a change of scene and direction and I couldn’t afford either without your support,’ the blonde woman declared ruefully. ‘Without your financial assistance during John’s illness, I wouldn’t even still be living in this house. Your generosity made it possible for us to stay here until he had to go into care; being able to be somewhere familiar helped John a good deal because he couldn’t cope with change.’

Hilary’s voice cracked up a little because her husband had only passed away some months earlier. As a result of early-onset dementia, the essence of John’s personality had gone long before he’d died at the age of forty-three in a care home. Towards the end, as his condition had worsened, he had become too difficult for his wife to look after alone. Prior to that, Hilary had supported her husband for several years and had had to give up working as a teacher to do so. The welfare benefits the couple were entitled to had been too meagre to meet their mortgage payments and Billie had come willingly to the rescue to ease their plight.

‘I was glad to help,’ Billie told the woman who had often been the only voice of sanity during her childhood, even though they had lived so far part.

Billie’s mother, Lauren, had moved to the Greek island of Speros when Billie was only eight years old. Lauren had always been an irresponsible parent, who’d put the latest man in her life ahead of her child’s needs. More often than Billie cared to remember, a visit or a phone call from her flighty parent’s sensible sister, Hilary, had persuaded Lauren to behave more like a normal mother.

Hilary groaned, ‘Unfortunately you helped all of us too much for your own good. You bought a house for your mother, you gave John and I an allowance—’

‘And, all on my own, I spent a foolish fortune building my own house on Speros too,’ Billie cut in, uncomfortable with the other woman’s gratitude. ‘If only I had thought ahead to a time when I might not want to work for Alexei any more. If only I had just put all that money in the bank instead…’

‘Nobody has a crystal ball. You may not feel it right now but you are still very young at twenty-six,’ Hilary reasoned soothingly. ‘You had a great job and you were earning a small fortune, so you had no reason to fear the future.’

Billie’s delicate features shadowed. She would not be comforted on that score for she blamed herself bitterly for her extravagance. She had grown up in poverty, had lived through the experience of going hungry at mealtimes and of hiding from view when the landlord called for his rent. With those memories behind her, she believed she should have saved up for the proverbial rainy day.

‘Nor should you have any reason to fear the future now. Your baby’s father is a very rich man,’ Hilary pointed out firmly.

Billie’s hands clenched into the tissue she was holding. ‘I think I’d rather be dead than face Alexei like this. Thank heaven I was out at a hospital appointment the day he called here at the house to see me!’

‘Yes, we weren’t expecting that. Fortunately he wouldn’t come in, so I doubt if he had the time or the presence of mind to notice that I didn’t actually look very pregnant,’ Hilary remarked wryly.

Billie was still engaged in recalling her shock on learning that Alexei, over in London on business, had decided to visit her without so much as a phone call to forewarn her of his plans. How shocked he would have been had she answered the door to him with an obviously pregnant stomach! It was pure luck that the deception she had entered into with Hilary—the planned pretence that her aunt was the one having the baby—had not been exposed on the spot. Afterwards, she had phoned him to ask if there was something he had needed her assistance with and he had laughed and said that his visit had been a last minute idea, taken when he had some time to use up before heading to the airport and his flight home.

‘If you ever feel in need of courage to face Alexei Drakos, I would face him for you.’ Hilary said this softly but the light of battle was in her usually placid gaze.

Billie lifted her chin. ‘It’s not a matter of being too scared—’

‘Oh, I know you’re not scared of Alexei Drakos. But you’re still madly in love with him and determined to protect him from the consequences of his own behaviour.’

Her colour fluctuating, Billie said sharply, ‘It’s not like that. I have my pride and my plans. I don’t need him in any way. If I continue to work for Alexei for at least a year after my baby’s born, I’ll be able to save up enough capital to start up my own business back here.’

Hilary gritted her teeth on a tart retort because she didn’t want to upset Billie. Her niece, after all, had already suffered the considerable trauma of watching the father of her child—and the man she loved—fall for an old flame from his past. Even so, Billie’s reasons for remaining silent were insufficient to satisfy Hilary’s hunger for natural justice. So Alexei Drakos had bedded Billie, an employee, one dark night, had recklessly ignored the need to use protection and had conveniently contrived to forget the entire episode by the next day? Did pigs fly too? Hilary’s only loyalty was to Billie and she was a cynic who would, had the decision been up to her, have happily destroyed Alexei’s latest liaison with a public announcement of Billie’s fecund state.

That same evening Billie went into labour. She was a week early and, in spite of all the prenatal classes she had diligently attended, she almost panicked when she awakened and realised what was happening to her. Her case was packed, everything prepared for the big event. She was thoroughly fed up with hauling round her huge bump and trying to sleep while a very lively baby seemed to be trying to kick its way out during the night. But there was also a great wellspring of hungry tenderness inside her, eager and ready for the birth of her child. Her baby might not be planned but it was already very much loved.

The first few hours she was in hospital Billie was given gas and air to cope with the contractions but nothing seemed to be happening very fast. By noon the next day the contractions were coming closer together and were more painful. Billie was getting exhausted and it was at that point that the doctor realised that the baby was in a posterior position with its head stuck in her pelvis.

‘You’re carrying a big baby for a woman of your size and I don’t think you can deliver without help. I believe the possibility of a C-section was discussed during your antenatal visits?’ the doctor questioned, while the midwife urged Billie not to push any more.

Billie nodded anxious affirmation, too out of breath to speak.

Hilary gripped her hand. ‘You’ll be fine and so will the baby be—’

Everything moved very fast from that point. The procedure had to be explained to Billie and she had to sign consent papers before she was moved out of the labour room to the operating theatre. She was given an epidural and while her lower body went numb a little curtain was erected midway down her body so that she couldn’t see anything. Time became a little blurred and there was a feeling of pressure and then suddenly Hilary was whooping with excitement.

‘It’s a boy, Billie!’

‘A whopping great boy,’ the doctor added.

The cry of a baby intervened and Billie’s heart lurched. She was so eager to see him she could hardly contain herself while the staff took care of measuring him and making him presentable for his first meeting with his mum. He weighed ten pounds and he was very long, exactly what she might have expected with his father’s genes; Alexei’s family was one of tall, well-built men. At last her son was placed in her arms.

Tears stung Billie’s eyes as she looked down into that adorable little face and carefully tracked her gaze over his big dark eyes and the shock of black hair that proclaimed his paternity. ‘He’s…gorgeous,’ she whispered chokily, smoothing a wondering fingertip over his baby-soft cheek.

At that moment everything she had undergone to have him seemed worthwhile. In the early stages of her pregnancy, Hilary had talked her through every option from termination to adoption, yet nobody loved babies more than Hilary, who had never had the opportunity to have one of her own.

‘Any idea what you’ll call him?’ her aunt prompted, stepping back to let the nurse reclaim the baby, for Billie’s eyes were very definitely sliding shut.

‘Nik—’

‘What?’ Hilary queried.

‘Nikolos.’ Billie spelled out the letters through lips that barely moved.

‘Isn’t giving him a Greek name a little revealing?’

‘I’ve lived in Greece since I was eight,’ her niece reminded her, and on that thought she drifted asleep while her mind swept her back seventeen years to her very first meeting with Alexei Nikolos Drakos…

The boys shouted rude words at Bliss when she followed them onto the beach. She knew the words were wrong but she didn’t understand their meaning and refused to let their attitude bother her. At least the boys talked to her in some way, recognising her actual existence. The girls in the village school, on the other hand, shunned her, whispering behind her back and shooting disapproving looks at her while excluding her from their games and conversations. It was very similar to the way her mother was treated by the local women. After a year, Bliss had discovered that life on the Greek island of Speros could be very lonely for a little girl who didn’t fit in.

Bliss hated everything about herself: her lack of height, her fiery red head of hair and skinny body, even her pale skin, which burned horribly in the sun. The fact she had no father meant yet more mortification on an island where single parents were frowned upon. And although Bliss would never have admitted it to anyone in those days, her mother embarrassed her most of all.

As Lauren often reminded her daughter, she was only thirty years old and couldn’t be expected to live as if she were a ‘dried-up old hag’. An artist, Lauren rented a small house in the village and sold watercolours to the well-off tourists who patronised the exclusive resort spa at the other end of the island. None of the local women dressed as her mother did. Lauren was most often to be found clad in skimpy bikini bottoms with her full braless breasts bouncing in a cut-off T-shirt. Bliss believed that her mother, with her lovely long blonde hair, jewelled tummy button and endless tanned legs, was very beautiful, but she was beginning to think that only men liked that fact, for Lauren only ever had male friends.

That particular day, Alexei had come off one of the fishing boats being dragged up the sand so she hadn’t known who he was at first. He was a tall, rangy boy in his early teens, and she initially mistook him for an adult when he frowned in her direction and waded in among the jeering boys and demanded to know what was going on. Silence fell, the same sort of silence that the village priest could command. Shame-faced glances were exchanged and Alexei asked her name. One of the boys supplied it with a suggestive laugh and a gesture that set all the boys off again.

‘Bliss,’ Alexei repeated deadpan, strolling over to her. ‘You’re the little English girl. Bliss is a stupid name. I would call you Billie—’

‘That’s a boy’s name,’ she argued.

‘It suits you better,’ he told her with a shrug, lazy dark golden eyes resting on her with only the most fleeting interest before he turned away to address one of the older boys in the group, Damon Marios, the doctor’s son, and said something to him in Greek too fast for her to follow as she was still learning the language. Damon flushed and kicked the sand.

‘Who is he?’ she asked Damon when Alexei had climbed into the car waiting for him at the harbour and was driven off.

‘Alexei Drakos.’

And that was all he had to say to her even then for her to understand. The Drakos family lived in feudal splendour in a huge villa overlooking a beautiful bay at the quiet end of the island. For more than a hundred years the Drakos family had owned the island and they also owned the resort, the businesses and most of the houses in the village. The family controlled everything that related to Speros from the planning laws to who lived and worked on the island. Speros was the Drakos fiefdom and it was ruled with a rod of iron. The locals, however, were perfectly happy with that state of affairs because there were well-paid jobs at the resort and the village businesses opening up only added to their prosperity. Alexei’s father had also built a new school and a small hospital and, at a time when other islands were losing their young people to the mainland, the population on Speros was steadily increasing.

‘Mum, is the Drakos family very rich?’ she asked when her mother was cooking a meal that evening, a rare event as Billie was often left to fend for herself when it came to food and generally lived on sandwiches and fruit.

‘They’re loaded,’ Lauren volunteered with a grimace. ‘But they don’t impress me at all. They’re not one whit better than we are, for all their cash. The old man, Constantine, was married three times and he never managed to have any children. Then his Russian mistress, Natasha—who’s half his age—fell pregnant with Alexei, his only child. Constantine divorced his third wife and married Natasha two days before she gave birth to Alexei—’

‘What’s a mistress?’ Billie asked her mother.

‘You’d never understand,’ Lauren replied, already tiring of the subject.

School became a little less unbearable for her after that night. Everyone started calling her Billie. The boys stopped teasing her and Damon’s sister, Marika, spoke to her in passing. But nobody was ever allowed to come and play at her house and she was never invited into anyone else’s home. Her mother’s boyfriends came in a continual stream from the resort where Lauren often made extra money working as a waitress. Usually backpackers, some only stayed for a night or two, while others ended up living with Lauren and her daughter for weeks on end. By the time she was eleven years old, Billie, who had abandoned her birth name entirely to avoid the sniggers it invited, understood that it was Lauren’s free and easy lifestyle with her lovers that scandalised the locals and that had led to her own exclusion from island life. Other mothers were afraid that she would grow up to live like Lauren and act as a bad influence on their daughters.

Two days after her eleventh birthday, Billie met Alexei Drakos for the second time. She was out exploring when a sudden thunderstorm sent her running along the harbour road for the shelter of home. Alexei stopped his beach buggy to give her a lift and insisted on going right to the door with her.

‘Where’s your mother?’ he asked, scanning the empty silent little house.

‘In Athens,’ she told him innocently. ‘She got the ferry on Friday—’

‘That’s four days ago,’ Alexei incised harshly. ‘Where is she staying in Athens?’

‘She has friends there.’

‘Do you have their name or phone number?’ Alexei pressed while the thunder boomed out in loud cracks beyond the house walls and made her pale and flinch.

‘No. Why would I need it?’ she asked. ‘There’s nothing wrong. I can manage fine on my own.’

‘When will she be back?’

‘She said this Friday.’

With a bitten-off exclamation, Alexei strode across the room to the refrigerator and flung the door open to study the bare shelves within. ‘What are you eating?’

‘There are tins in the cupboard,’ she answered stiffly, feeling threatened by his mood and his behaviour. ‘Not that it’s any of your business.’

‘You will have to come home with me.’

‘No, of course I won’t—why would I? I’m perfectly happy here in my own home,’ she protested.

And Alexei being Alexei, and having no patience whatsoever, simply lifted her off her feet and dropped her back in the buggy before speeding back to his home. Ignoring her protests, he dragged her inside and explained the situation to his parents in rapid Greek. His father shrugged and went back into his office, complaining at the interruption. His glamorous mother studied Billie as if she were something the cat had brought in and had asked if there were any neighbours prepared to help out. As assured and decisive as any adult, even at the age of sixteen, Alexei handed Billie over to the housekeeper and she spent that night and the two that followed housed in staff accommodation. There she was well fed and well looked after for the first time in more years than she could recall. Lauren had always lacked the maternal gene. Before that day only Billie’s aunt, Hilary, had ever paid that much heed to the little girl’s comfort.

Of course, had she been a more normal girl perhaps she would have formed a crush on Alexei as she grew up. After all, he was the island pin-up, worshipped by every girl between ten and twenty-five on Speros. From his film-star looks to his growing bad-boy reputation and the sexual exploits diligently reported by the gossip magazines, Alexei made headlines almost from the moment he hit puberty and followed faithfully in the lusty footsteps of his father and his grandfather. But after the terrible row Billie had with her mother because she’d admitted to others that she’d been left alone for a week, and a subsequent, very embarrassing visit from the island priest, who had been tasked with the challenge of telling Lauren that leaving her daughter for so long was unacceptable, Billie’s main impression of Alexei was of a frighteningly dominant and interfering personality who did exactly as he liked at all times, regardless of the damage he might do to anyone else.

While Billie boarded in Athens during the week and attended secondary school, it was Damon Marios she fell for while they travelled back and forth on the ferries at weekends, he to his private school, she to her far less fancy state institution. By then she was seventeen years old and, for quite a few weeks, believed her feelings were reciprocated for she and Damon met secretly for coffee, going for walks, talking a mile-a-minute to each other and discovering similar interests.

Of course, she should have known better than to believe that dreams came true or that she could ever be seen as anything other than shameless Lauren’s illegitimate daughter, a murky step below the other girls on the island. She still remembered the cold hard fear that gripped her one evening at the ferry terminal when Damon suddenly dropped her hand and turned away from her. Looking up, she saw Alexei strolling towards them. Already a qualified pilot, Alexei had had to ditch his plane in the sea the previous month and the shock of his son’s near-death experience had traumatised his father, who had grounded him. Now in his last year at university, Alexei was very much an adult. For the rest of the journey, Damon ignored Billie as studiously as if she had been a stranger.

‘I’ll drop you off,’ Alexei declared at the harbour while Damon hurried off homeward with a down-bent head.

‘I don’t need a lift.’ Sixth sense warned her and she didn’t want to get into the sports car but she did anyway.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Alexei said drily. ‘I’m only trying to protect you from making a big mistake. Your mother won’t bother.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about—’

‘Damon, the leading light of the Marios family. He’ll screw you but he’ll never take you seriously or take you home with him. Didn’t you get that message today when he acted like he didn’t know you around me?’

Like a knife cutting through tender flesh, his blunt forecast tore through Billie and she looked back at him, focusing on the lean bronzed beauty of his features with furious condemnation. ‘You don’t know him!’

‘I know Damon very well. His family will never accept you and he hasn’t got the backbone to fight for you. He’s a nice guy but he does as he’s told. Cut your losses and ditch him now before you get in any deeper—’

‘I don’t want your advice!’ she shrieked at him in Greek.

‘Suit yourself,’ Alexei drawled silkily. ‘But whatever you do, keep your knickers on. All Greek men fantasise about having a virgin in the marriage bed.’

‘That is a disgusting thing to say!’ Billie launched back at him in a positive rage. ‘I love Damon—’

‘You’re seventeen. You’re not old enough to love anyone,’ Alexei derided, stopping outside her house and leaning across her to throw open the door as if he couldn’t wait to be rid of her. The male scent of his skin tinged by some expensive cologne wafted across her. She froze, rigid at that first taste of intimacy with a man, a fleeting intimacy that had the miraculous power to make her body prickle all over with uneasy awareness. That response shook her up because she had never reacted that way to Damon.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever disliked anyone quite so much,’ Billie snapped in as cold and controlled a voice as she could manage.

‘I’m always knee deep in women who are crazy about me,’ Alexei countered with amusement. ‘I doubt if I’ll notice the absence of one little girl from my hordes of fans—’

‘You’re so incredibly bigheaded!’ Billie flung, stepping out of the car in one electrified movement of rejection, her cheeks still burning hotly from that crack about keeping her underwear on.

A shockingly charismatic smile slanted across Alexei’s wide sensual mouth and his stunning dark golden eyes gleamed. ‘But still much more of a man than Damon will ever be…’

Chapter Two

A YEAR later, Billie finished school and fought her mother hard for the freedom to go to university to study for a business degree. To survive, she had to work endless hours in a student bar where, mercifully, the low pay was matched with free meals. Aged twenty-one, she took her first job in a small import firm in Piraeus where, no matter how hard she worked, her male colleagues got the recognition and she got all the routine administrative tasks. When she saw Drakos Industries advertising a well-paid PA post on the Internet the following year, she wasted no time in applying.

Alexei Drakos had quickly tired of working for his billionaire father in the family shipping line. Breaking away, he had set up Drakos Industries at the age of twenty four, had made millions and was already well on the way to becoming a formidable tycoon in his own right. ‘The Shark,’ Time magazine had labelled him in an article marvelling at the speed with which he’d shaken off his reputation as a jet set playboy to demonstrate his worth as a shrewd entrepreneur.

As part of the application process for the job, Billie was one of the lucky few allotted a place in a day-long assessment. It was a gruelling experience comprised of working against the clock and handling difficult personalities but, forty-eight hours later, she learned that she had passed this first stage and had won an interview with Alexei. She was surprised he took so active a part in recruitment.

By the time she walked into his big fancy office in Athens clad in her smartest clothes, she was high on nerves. Sleek as a jungle predator in his black designer suit, Alexei surveyed her. ‘I was surprised to see your name on the shortlist.’

Billie looked steadily back at him, noting the toughness that time had added to his lean strong face. ‘I just want someone to give me a chance to do a proper job where I can use my brain—’

‘And you think I might?’ His brilliant dark eyes were nailed to her, his wide sensual mouth cool, discouraging.

‘I don’t think you will mark me down because I was born in England—’

‘A positive panoply of praise from someone who doesn’t like me,’ Alexei mocked lazily. ‘But you’re right. I don’t care where you came from, I’m only interested in who you are now. What could you offer me as an employee?’

‘I’m very discreet and I work fast and hard. I also have good ideas—’

‘Everyone’s got ideas. I don’t always want to hear them…’

‘I’m a great organiser and I can think on my feet.’

Alexei rested his unsettling gaze on her and she shifted uneasily, suddenly alarmingly conscious of her every physical flaw. It was as though his very masculine perfection highlighted her deficiencies. Her vibrant mane of hair was restrained in a French plait, her green eyes bright against her pale skin. Full as she was at breast and hip, she felt she lacked the height to successfully carry off her curves. Her waist was small though and her legs slim. Lauren had always refused to tell her daughter who her father was and Billie had wondered cynically if her mother even knew. Certainly, she had signally failed to inherit any of her mother’s leggy blonde assets.

‘The position on offer would entail working directly for me.’

Belatedly, Billie understood why she was receiving an interview from the boss himself. ‘I’d like to know exactly what the job is.’

‘The successful candidate will take care of everything I don’t have time for. He or she will often travel with me and the hours will be long. The job will cover everything from setting up appointments with my tailor to buying gifts on my behalf and barring women I don’t want to see or hear from any more,’ Alexei spelt out bluntly. ‘It is a post which demands considerable trust on my part. A confidentiality agreement will be included in the contract of employment, making it illegal to share any revelations about me or my lifestyle with the press.’

In truth, Billie was totally taken aback by the extent of what was being offered to her. Even if it didn’t sound like her role would have much of a business angle to it, any position working directly for Alexei would still add kudos to her CV.

‘I want to hire someone willing to turn their hand to anything I ask at any time of day—’

‘A slave?’ Billie quipped and then wished she could bite off her facetious tongue when his superb bone structure tensed and cooled.

‘A very well-paid one. I don’t work by the clock. Neither do I want someone who counts the hours or excludes certain tasks.’

Billie nodded, tantalised by the prospect of travelling and reasoning that she was free as a bird and well able to cope with such a demanding role. The following week, she was informed that she had got the job. The salary took her breath away being, even at a conservative estimate, twice what she had expected. On her first day she arrived neatly attired in her newest suit.

‘You need to smarten up your work wardrobe,’ Alexei informed her at the first glimpse he had of her. Seemingly impervious to the flush of mortification warming her face, he handed her a business card. ‘And this first time, you can do it at my expense—’

Billie stiffened. ‘That’s not necessary—’

‘Look in the mirror. You are a frump,’ Alexei countered bluntly, ‘and I always decide what’s necessary.’

Feeling cut off at the knees, Billie took the card and went that same afternoon to an upmarket store, where she was kitted out with the sort of figure-hugging clothing and high heels that she had always deemed unsuitable in a working environment. On the third day she wore a skirt well above her knees that outlined the curve of her hips and a jacket that nipped in at her waist, accentuating the shape and size of her breasts. She didn’t like her reflection; she thought it was unprofessional.

‘Turn round,’ Alexei instructed casually during his morning coffee break and he studied her with assessing cool, oblivious to her blushing discomfiture. ‘That’s a major improvement.’

‘I prefer a more formal look,’ she told him starchily.

Dark golden eyes alight with amusement as he absorbed her rigid stance and tight mouth, Alexei laughed out loud. ‘You’re young and pretty. Make the most of it while you can.’

As Billie looked at his vibrantly handsome features she felt the sensual buzz of his compelling attraction right down to the centre of her bones and it unnerved her, for she did not want to feel that way around her boss. But even though she fought it, she was flattered by the simple fact that this man, who kept company with some of the world’s most beautiful women, could deem her ‘pretty’. Suddenly the high heels and the short skirt no longer felt like such a bad idea.

Alexei’s business team was all male and she was assiduously ignored until the first time Alexei phoned her in the middle of the night to help him handle a minor crisis and the team then discovered that they had to liaise with Alexei through her. Later that week, with the ice broken, she took the opportunity to ask one of the men why she was excluded to such an extent.

Panos gave her an uneasy glance. ‘Sooner or later the female staff on the team end up in bed with Alexei,’ he told her reluctantly. ‘And that makes us all uncomfortable. After a week or so, Alexei always transfers that person out of the main office to another job. We know the score. Four women have already come and gone in your particular role in a short time.’

Billie managed a calm smile. ‘It’s not going to happen that way with me. I’m here for the long haul.’

But that warning also put her on her guard around Alexei, even though she soon appreciated that the fault was rarely his. A phenomenal number of women, exposed to Alexei’s charismatic good looks and wealth, literally threw themselves at him the first opportunity they got. His sex life frequently shocked her, for the very nature of her job and her need to work closely to him meant that she saw virtually every woman he had in his life. During the second month after employing her, he spent the night on his yacht with twin blonde models, Katia and Kerry, who could barely string an intelligent sentence between them.

‘Take them out shopping,’ Alexei instructed Billie the next morning, tossing her a credit card. ‘And don’t look at the price tags. I’m not on a budget.’

Billie travelled to shore in the launch with the two giggling blondes, who seemed not to have a care in the world. Indeed, acting as Alexei’s entertainment for one night only appeared to have energised their spirits. While she escorted the twins round the exclusive boutiques on shore, she was forced to listen to a great deal of sexual banter about what Alexei was like in bed. Her every attempt to change the subject was turned aside and by the time she thankfully parted from his effervescent lovers she was very angry and determined never to have to repeat the experience. She wasted no time in tackling the subject when she found Alexei out on deck on her return to Sea Queen.

‘Please don’t put me in a position again where I have to escort your lady friends around while they discuss your sexual performance during the night before,’ Billie framed in a tone of tremulous rage, her green eyes as bright as emeralds, her face pink and set in censorious lines.

Alexei dealt her a startled glance and then burst out laughing, astonishing her with his reaction almost as much as she had astonished him with her verbal attack. ‘How did I rate? Did I figure as a hero or a zero?’

‘That is not something I would wish to discuss with my employer,’ Billie assured him thinly, rigidly un-amused by his attitude for he was refusing to take her objection seriously.

‘You’re a real prude.’ Alexei lounged back against the rail, a darkly handsome and graceful presence in a lightweight beige summer suit. ‘I’m surprised. We both have liberal parents in that regard and yet the experience seems to have affected us very differently. A good time was had by all and sex was not a serious subject when I was growing up. I prefer to keep it that way now—’

‘I’m not a prude,’ Billie proclaimed sharply, her voice rising a little because she was deeply embarrassed by his reference to her mother’s promiscuous lifestyle. That was part of the past she had left behind her and she very much resented any reminder of it.

‘Billie…the sight of me having breakfast with two women this morning offended you,’ Alexei countered drily. ‘But you are not required to exercise your moral convictions while you work for me. I’m not interested in what you think. My private life is just that—mine. My sole expectation of you is that you do your job—’

Her slim shoulders straight as a ruler, growing tension bubbling through her small frame, Billie breathed, ‘And I’ve told you that I have limits. This morning, Katia and Kerry crossed them. I was embarrassed to be out in public with them. They dress, behave and talk like hookers—’

‘I don’t sleep with hookers,’ Alexei cut in, his rich dark drawl harsh in reproof. ‘One more suggestion along those lines and you’re fired.’

Outraged by his attitude and white hot with resentment, Billie snapped, ‘Because I’ve got standards? Because I expect to be treated like a professional during my working day?’

‘You don’t have standards, you have a narrow mind. I warned you before I hired you that I would expect you to cope with everything I throw at you—’

Determined not to be intimidated by the anger in his scorching dark golden eyes, Billie lifted her chin. ‘Katia and Kerry were a step too far—’

‘If I can’t count on you to follow orders, you’re no use to me. I will not tolerate any member of my staff telling me what I can and can’t do, or complaining about the responsibilities I give them,’ Alexei delivered coldly. ‘So, if that is how it is, clear your desk and I’ll have you flown back to Athens.’

Billie had gone too far to back down and, her head held high, she went indoors to pack her belongings. How dared Alexei Drakos christen her a prude? Just because he slept around and looked for nothing more than beauty and sex from his partners!

Lauren’s habit of bedding every man she met had made Billie very cautious in her dealings with the opposite sex. How could she not have been influenced by the distaste and contempt that Lauren’s lifestyle had roused in so many people? In every way possible Billie drew a clear boundary line between her life and her mother’s. She never wore revealing clothes. She didn’t flirt with other women’s men. Casual uncommitted sex was anathema to her. She’d only ever had three relationships—Damon, and two at university that had come to nothing after her boyfriends sought easier conquests. A highly sexed and very handsome philanderer like Alexei Drakos was Billie’s worst nightmare in the partnership stakes.

Billie returned via Athens to the island of Speros, where Lauren soon dragged the story of her dismissal out of her daughter.

‘Why didn’t you just laugh at those women? Why do you take everything so seriously?’ Lauren demanded, her incomprehension patent. ‘You’re your own worst enemy—you land the job of a lifetime and straight away you screw it up!’

‘I don’t need this, Mum,’ Billie breathed tautly. ‘But don’t worry. I can still cover your rent for the next couple of months and by then I should have found another job.’

‘You certainly won’t find one as well paid. What got into you?’ Lauren snapped. ‘Alexei Drakos is a young, good-looking single guy and all he is doing is what comes naturally. Of course he doesn’t want to be tied down at his age or with his opportunities. What does it have to do with you?’

‘I just don’t like his lifestyle or his attitudes and I’m with him so much I can’t avoid either.’

Lauren dealt her smaller daughter a scornful look. ‘You’ve got the hots for him and you’re jealous—’

‘No, I haven’t!’ Billie argued, incensed and shaken by that accusation.

‘He’s gorgeous. I wouldn’t say no,’ Lauren replied with a voluptuous pout and a toss of her blonde head.

Billie resisted a shrewish urge to agree that no wasn’t a word that came easily to her mother’s lips. In her forties, Lauren was no longer the siren she had once been and there were fewer men in her life. Eighteen months had passed since Billie had last come home to find that she was sharing her mother’s house with a resident toy boy. But the very suggestion of Alexei and Lauren together made her feel physically sick and this knowledge worked on her that night while she tossed and turned and failed to find restful sleep.

Was she attracted to Alexei more than she was prepared to admit? Had she been mortally offended by Katia and Kerry because they had shared Alexei’s bed? Was that because in some dim dark corner of her mind she was jealous of the carefree and sexually confident twins? She shuddered at the suspicion. Alexei was as bronzed, beautiful and flawless in feature and physique as a Greek god and she was a flesh and blood ordinary woman who could hardly be impervious to that reality. But being aware that he was a very good looking guy did not mean that she was physically attracted to him, did it? And even if it did, what did it matter? Nothing was ever likely to come of the fact. Alexei only went for gorgeous women and she was much too sensible to be tempted even if he should have a weak moment in her radius. Mortified by her growing suspicion that she might not be as unprejudiced or as principled as she had fondly believed, Billie lay awake until dawn.

The following day, she returned to Athens and the apartment she shared with two other women. She needed to be on the spot to job-hunt. She put her short-lived job with Alexei into a mental box and hammered it shut, but she soon discovered that the very brevity of her employment with him had harmed her standing in the eyes of others. A month later, she was less angry with Alexei and angrier with herself for damaging her career prospects. By then her proud and impulsive walkout on a matter of principle was beginning to strike her as more foolish than brave.

That was the mood she was in when the doorbell went one evening and she answered it to find one of Alexei’s security team facing her. ‘Mr Drakos would like to speak to you. I have a car waiting outside for you,’ he volunteered before swinging away and heading downstairs, it not even crossing his mind that she might dare to refuse such an invitation.

Billie stepped back into the apartment, glancing at herself in the hall mirror. Her hair, freshly washed, lay in vibrant waves across her shoulders. She was wearing cropped jeans, a sleeveless cotton top and canvas pumps. She lifted her chin. What did Alexei want? She could just say no to the offer of a meeting and then she would burn with curiosity ever after, she completed ruefully. He could just want to see her about something she had dealt with while she still worked for him. Grabbing her bag, she slammed the door behind her.

Alexei had a ritzy apartment in Athens, just one of the many properties scattered round the world that he owned, since he had already inherited several from his father’s side of the family. She recalled his town house in Venice, a chateau in the south of France, a house in New York, a ski lodge in Switzerland and a ranch in Australia. Taking care of those properties and their staff had been her responsibility and she had been looking forward to visiting each and every one of them at some stage.

Alexei was on the phone chattering in French when she was shown into a massive living area with bold designer furniture and an array of modern art and sculpture. A wide-shouldered, lean-hipped figure clad in linen trousers and an open shirt, Alexei was barefoot and clearly fresh out of the shower. His black hair was still spiky and shiny with moisture, his aggressive jawline rough with the shadow of blue-black stubble that accentuated the wide sensual allure of his masculine mouth.

Just looking at him, she felt his impact like a thud in her ears and a kick in her stomach. He was all rogue male, from his dark-as-midnight eyes heavily fringed by lashes to the slice of torso visible between the unbuttoned edges of his shirt, which revealed a matt of dark curls sprinkled across his bronzed chest and the six-pack stomach that Katia and Kerry had raved about…among other things. Her mouth dry and feeling oddly breathless, Billie squashed those inappropriate thoughts—but not in time to stop her disobedient gaze dropping to the distinctive masculine bulge at his crotch.

Reddening to the roots of her hair as fully as only a woman of her complexion could, Billie yanked her eyes upward and said jerkily, ‘You wanted to see me?’

He shifted a hand, which urged her to wait until he had finished his phone call and, that fast, she wanted to shout at him again. Her spine stiffened, her full soft mouth compressing, for he had summoned her like a minion across the city at seven in the evening and he was still putting his own wishes first. And it would always be like that, she acknowledged tautly. He was poised there, more beautiful than any mortal male had any right to be, and the world was his oyster because he was a blue-blooded filthy-rich Drakos. In his life, people always dropped everything to run and do his bidding. It had been that way for him since he was born.

Constantine Drakos had truly idolised his one and only child. Every cough and sniffle Alexei had suffered had been a major episode for his father. Alexei had had a bodyguard before he could even walk. A weaker child would have been indelibly scarred by such a protected upbringing but Constantine had found that he had a fight on his hands as Alexei had fought his ultra-safe regime every step of the way. He had taken part in dangerous sports at school; he had gone out fishing on the elderly boats of the village fleet; he had learned to sail alone; he had even learned to fly. Full of restive boundless energy, he had always challenged himself and those around him. He’d let nothing and nobody hold him back from what he wanted to be.

‘Sorry about that.’ Alexei sighed, tossing aside the phone. ‘Take a seat.’

Billie sank down onto the sofa behind her, closed her hands together neatly on her lap and sent him an enquiring look.

‘I’ve tried out two personal assistants since you left and rejected both. They couldn’t handle your job—’

‘At the end I couldn’t handle it either,’ she pointed out, and then wondered why she was drawing that failing to his attention again.

‘It is important to me that I don’t have to deal with all the hassle of being a Drakos—the properties, the social invitations, my relatives. I need to concentrate on business,’ he breathed impatiently. ‘When I’m not working, I like a smooth peaceful life. For the six weeks that you were in charge I enjoyed perfect peace. I want you to come back and work for me again.’

Billie was tense: she was flattered and troubled at one and the same time. ‘I’m not sure that would be a good idea—we didn’t gel.’

‘From my point of view, I barely noticed you were around most of the time,’ Alexei volunteered. ‘You’re very quiet.’

Not best pleased to hear that she was just part of the wallpaper as far as he was concerned, Billie met his stunning dark eyes unwarily and her tummy performed a somersault. ‘I assumed that that was what you would want.’

‘Why are you always so tense?’ Alexei demanded with a sudden frown. ‘You were like that around me even when you were a kid. Look at you now—sitting there as frozen as if you’re waiting to be tipped into a pool of hungry sharks!’

In a defensive move, Billie folded her arms. ‘I never know what you’re going to do or say next. It’s…unnerving.’

‘You could learn to live with it. If you start back to work tomorrow, I’ll double your salary,’ Alexei murmured silkily, watching the sunshine play across the gold and copper shades in her auburn hair, which was much longer than he had appreciated and surprisingly attractive. He went for blondes, not for redheads, but for the first time ever he could see the draw of her striking colouring, particularly in the contrast between her hair and her pale, flawless skin.

‘But I haven’t even said I’ll come back yet and offering to double my salary is just crazy and extravagant!’

His expressive mouth took on a humorous quirk. ‘I can afford to be. If having to occasionally deal with the women in my life is a sticking point, you can hire an assistant to deal with them on your behalf. I don’t care.’

It was a compliment to her efficiency that he should be so keen to have her working for him again. As he smiled that lazy smile and remained poised there in the sunshine pouring through the windows she was, for the first time, hugely conscious of his compelling charm. He was offering her an amazing salary to do a job she enjoyed. With that amount of money coming in, she would no longer need to worry about Lauren falling behind with the rent or not being able to buy her own property.

‘All right,’ Billie said gruffly. ‘I’ll start back tomorrow.’

‘You didn’t get another job, did you?’

‘I couldn’t come up with a good enough excuse for leaving your employ after only six weeks!’ Billie responded with spirit.

Alexei laughed. ‘Where were your wits? You should’ve said I made a pass at you. With my reputation everyone would have believed it.’

Billie turned a slow hot pink and evaded his keen gaze. ‘That idea never occurred to me.’

Probably because it would never have occurred to her either that anyone would believe she had actually found his attentions unwelcome and turned him down, Billie acknowledged ruefully…

Chapter Three

‘THAT should wrap it up,’ Alexei pronounced, stabbing a final button on the keyboard before pushing away his laptop in a rare gesture of rejection. Rising up, he stretched like a lion, flexing strong muscles bunched up by the constraint of sitting at a desk before shrugging back his sleeve to check the slender gold Rolex on his wrist. It was after one in the morning. ‘You should have told me how late it was.’

Blinking, Billie stifled a yawn. ‘I did.’

That quiet rejoinder made his handsome mouth quirk. Billie was the only employee who ever answered him back. He studied her with narrowed eyes, taking in the white sleeveless top she wore and the full rounded thrust of her breasts against the fine cotton that was pulling at the pearl buttons. More than a lush handful, he calculated, pressure building at his groin as he instinctively pictured the baring of her firm pink-tipped flesh. He was startled by his reaction. Evidently, it had been too long since he had been with a woman, he reflected in exasperation.

Even as he looked, Billie was reaching for the jacket she had removed. In the past two years during which Billie had been on his staff, she was always covered up, buttoned up, zipped up, just as her hair was always clipped, plaited or tied—everything held in tight restraint. In an age when other women were happy to reveal as much flesh as possible, Billie’s modesty made her stand out from the crowd. Even when she went swimming she donned a modest black swimsuit that would not have shamed a nun. Yet the feminine my stique she was careful to preserve was strangely and powerfully sexy, Alexei acknowledged. Odd, too, how he felt guilty even thinking about her in such a way. But then he was almost certain that, rare as it would be, Billie was still a virgin.

‘You’ll have to stay here tonight. You can’t disturb your mother this late,’ he commented, lifting the house phone to issue instructions to the housekeeper, Anatalya.

‘I’m sure it won’t bother her if I wake her up,’ Billie protested, uneasy at the prospect of spending the night at the Drakos villa where she generally felt like a peasant-born intruder.

‘Don’t make a fuss,’ Alexei groaned in all-male irritation, silencing her.

Behind his back, Billie flushed at the reproof. The door opened, revealing not the maid she had expected, but Alexei’s mother, Natasha.

‘I’ll show you upstairs,’ the tall, still-beautiful brunette said with an artificial smile. Billie was never more conscious of her humble little-island-girl beginnings than she was in the radius of Alexei’s glamorous and patronising mother.

Alexei said something in Russian to the older woman. Dark eyes warming only as they rested on her only child, Natasha left the room to escort Billie up the palatial staircase. ‘Do you often work this late for my son?’

‘Not that often. But I’m very well paid, Mrs Drakos. Occasional long hours go with the territory,’ Billie pointed out.

A door was pressed open. Rather stiff and taut, Billie walked in. She was always aware that Alexei’s mother didn’t approve of her working for Alexei. She had no idea why, only the vague suspicion that Natasha didn’t think Lauren Foster’s daughter was good enough to work in so trusted a position.

Her reluctant hostess was already turning to leave when Billie noticed the man’s shirt lying discarded on the carpet and put two and two together fast. ‘Is this…Alexei’s room?’ she breathed in dismay.

‘Why, yes, I assumed that…’ Natasha Drakos gave a little suggestive shrug of her slim shoulders.

‘You assumed wrong.’ It was Alexei’s assured drawl from behind the older woman that broke the tension and the brief, awkward silence that had fallen.

Billie’s face was drenched with colour and she could barely bring herself to look at him or his parent. ‘I really think I should go home—’

‘I’m sorry,’ Natasha Drakos murmured. ‘I misunderstood.’

Rather than make more of a scene, Billie allowed herself to be shown into the room next door but she felt humiliated. She was well qualified and she performed her job to the highest standards, for no Drakos had yet been born capable of accepting shoddy work. Why did Alexei’s mother have to assume that her role automatically extended to warming her son’s bed? That was a very demeaning supposition. Locked in that thought, she was then nonplussed by the discovery that her hostess had yet to leave her alone.

‘You probably think you’re very clever getting so close to Alexei and worming your way into his confidence,’ the older woman breathed with cold dark eyes, her angry hostility laid bare now that her son was no longer within hearing. ‘But you’re wasting your time. He’s a Drakos and, although he’ll think nothing of sleeping with you when there’s not a more attractive prospect available, he’ll never marry beneath him.’

Billie did momentarily toy with the idea of responding with the simple fact that Alexei’s father had done exactly that when he chose to wed his pregnant mistress, a little-known fashion model from a poverty-stricken home in some obscure industrial town in Russia. But Billie had never been bitchy and she was reluctant to rattle Natasha’s cage when she was an increasingly frequent visitor to the villa.

With that acid condemnation, Natasha mercifully departed and Billie exhaled. At least she now knew why Alexei’s mother didn’t like her. She thought Billie was too close to her son and in spite of Alexei’s denial that he and his PA were intimate, Natasha remained unconvinced. Initially, Billie was vaguely amused to think she could figure as a clever, calculating gold-digger in Natasha’s eyes, but she was not at all amused by the comment that Alexei would only sleep with her if she was the only woman available to slake his high-voltage libido.

How much more hurtful and wounding could one woman be to another? Billie wondered once she had got into the comfortable bed. She was already very much aware that she was not good looking. After all, she had grown up in the shadow of a handsome mother and Alexei’s women were always noted beauties. Billie knew her best points and her worst ones. She was now also wondering if it had been a mistake not to date at least one of the men who had asked her out since she started working for Alexei. Perhaps if, at some stage, she had had a boyfriend Alexei’s mother would not have regarded her with such poisonous suspicion.

Billie lay in the moonlit room and mulled over the awful truth that daily exposure to Alexei had made other men pale by comparison. Alexei had more sex appeal than any man she had ever met. Although she tried not to think about her employer on those terms, he was gorgeous to look at and usually very entertaining to be with, because he was clever, witty and dynamic while also being amazingly attuned to what women liked. Only Alexei would order her a hot chocolate topped with melted marshmallows at the end of a particularly long or difficult day, or send her for a relaxing hot stone massage when she got headaches at that certain time of the month. Times without number he’d picked up on things other men would have failed to notice.

Maybe, Billie began thinking anxiously, it was her own fault that Alexei’s mother had thought it necessary to warn Billie off her son. Maybe her own behaviour was to blame for Natasha’s belief that she shared Alexei’s bed. Just at that moment it suddenly struck Billie that, for a mere employee, she was far too attached to Alexei. Somewhere down the line her protective barriers had crumbled. Alexei was brilliant in business and working for him was exciting. But she admired him too much, she conceded grudgingly. When once she had disapproved of his energetic sex life, now she turned her head away from the evidence of it, reasoning that his lovers were experienced women who knew the score. When had she started making excuses for his lifestyle?

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