A mistress to seal the deal...

Greek tycoon Alekos Gionakis thought he knew the value of his secretary, but her newly transformed appearance—and surprising secret parentage—has him reappraising his most precious asset!

Alekos knows that he can offer beautiful Sara Lovejoy the ability to meet her family, under his protection, while also securing a secret deal...providing she agrees to become his mistress!

But his best-laid plans are about to go awry, because her innocence is the one thing this powerful tycoon will realize is priceless.

Alekos was offering Sara what might be her only opportunity to meet her blood relations. Common sense doused her excitement. ‘It would look strange if you took your PA to a private engagement.’

‘Possibly, but you wouldn’t be there as my PA. You would accompany me as my date. My mistress,’ he explained, when she stared at him uncomprehendingly.

For a third time Sara’s heart jolted against her ribs. ‘We agreed to forget about the kiss we shared last night.’ She flushed, hating how she’d sounded breathless when she had intended her voice to be cool and crisp.

His eyes gleamed like hot coals for a second, before the fire in those dark depths was replaced by the faintly cynical expression that Sara was more used to seeing.

‘I don’t remember agreeing to forget about it,’ he drawled. ‘But I’m suggesting that we pretend to be in a relationship. If people believe you are my girlfriend it will seem perfectly reasonable for you to be with me.’

CHANTELLE SHAW lives on the Kent coast and thinks up her stories while walking on the beach. She has been married for over thirty years and has six children. Her love affair with reading and writing Mills & Boon stories began as a teenager, and her first book was published in 2006. She likes strong-willed, slightly unusual characters. Chantelle also loves gardening, walking and wine!

Books by Chantelle Shaw

Mills & Boon Modern Romance

To Wear His Ring Again

A Night in the Prince’s Bed

Captive in His Castle

At Dante’s Service

The Greek’s Acquisition

Behind the Castello Doors

Wedlocked!

Trapped by Vialli’s Vows

Bought by the Brazilian

Mistress of His Revenge

Master of Her Innocence

The Howard Sisters

Sheikh’s Forbidden Conquest

A Bride Worth Millions

The Chatsfield

Billionaire’s Secret

The Bond of Brothers

His Unexpected Legacy

Secrets of a Powerful Man

Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

Acquired by Her Greek Boss

Chantelle Shaw

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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For Pippa Roscoe, Thank you for being a wonderful editor, for giving great advice, for the laughs we’ve shared and your understanding (and occasional tear-mopping) when I’ve struggled with a book! Best wishes always, Chantelle

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘CAN I HELP YOU?’ Alekos Gionakis said curtly, when he strode into his office on Monday morning and found an unknown woman making coffee with his espresso machine.

In the past month he’d had four temporary PAs, all of whom had proved inadequate to the task of organising his hectic schedule. But this morning his super-efficient personal assistant was due back at work after her holiday and Alekos was looking forward to his life running smoothly again. The idea that Sara might have delayed her return for some reason, and he would have to manage for even one more day with yet another temp, cast a dark cloud over his mood.

His rapier glance skimmed over the woman’s hair that fell in loose waves around her shoulders and seemed to encompass every shade of brown from caramel to latte. Her delightfully curvaceous figure was packaged in a dusky pink blouse and a cream pencil skirt that was a good two inches shorter than knee length.

Moving his gaze lower, Alekos felt a jolt of masculine appreciation at her shapely legs, which were enhanced by her high-heeled shoes with cut-out sections at the front that revealed her bare toes. He noticed her toenails were varnished a flirty shade of hot pink that was more suited to a beach than to Gionakis Enterprises’ prestigious offices in Piccadilly.

‘Good morning, Alekos.’

He frowned at the sound of the familiar voice. Low-toned and melodious, for some reason it made him think of a cool, clear mountain stream.

‘Sara?’ Her voice was recognisable, but everything about his PA’s appearance was definitely not. His brain was not playing tricks on him, Alekos realised when she turned her head. Even though she was standing several feet away from him, he was struck by the intense green of her eyes. They were her only remarkable features—or at least that had been true when Sara’s style of workwear for the past two years had been a navy blue skirt and jacket, which she’d teamed with a plain white shirt, buttoned primly all the way up to her throat in the summer, or a black roll-neck sweater in colder weather.

Smart, practical and frankly unnoticeable was how Alekos would have described his PA’s appearance before she had inconveniently decided to take a month’s holiday in Spain. When he’d objected, she had reminded him that she hadn’t used any of her annual leave since she’d started working for him, apart from one day to attend her mother’s funeral. Sara had looked even more washed out than she usually did. Alekos was not renowned for his sensitivity, but he’d acknowledged that caring for her terminally ill mother must have been a strain and he’d reluctantly agreed to her taking an extended holiday.

He had vaguely imagined her on a scenic coach tour of Spain to visit places of historical and architectural interest. He knew she liked history. No doubt the majority of the other people on the tour would be pensioners and she would strike up a friendship with a spinster, or perhaps a widow who was travelling alone and who would be grateful for Sara’s innately kind nature.

Alekos’s rather cosy picture of his PA’s holiday plans had been disrupted when she’d told him that she was going away on a YFS trip—which stood for Young, Free and Single. As their name suggested, the tour operator specialised in holidays for people in the twenty-something age bracket who wanted to spend every night clubbing, or partying on a beach. The media often reported scenes of drunken debauchery by Brits in Benidorm. When he had pointed out that a better name for the holiday company would be AFS—Available For Sex—Sara had laughed and, to Alekos’s astonishment, told him she was looking forward to letting her hair down in Spain.

His eyes were drawn back to her hair. He visualised her as she had looked every weekday for the past two years. She had always worn her nondescript brown hair scraped back from her face and piled on top of her head in a no-nonsense bun that defied gravity with the aid of an arsenal of metal hairpins.

‘You’re wearing your hair in a new style,’ he said abruptly. ‘I was trying to work out why you look different.’

‘Mmm, I had it cut while I was away. It was so long, almost waist length, and I was fed up of having to tie it up all the time.’ She ran her fingers through the silky layers of her new hairstyle. In the sunshine streaming through the window, her hair seemed to shimmer like gold in places and Alekos felt an unexpected tightening sensation in his groin.

‘And I finally ditched my glasses for contact lenses. Although I must admit they’re taking a while to get used to.’ Sara sounded rueful. ‘My new contacts make my eyes water sometimes.’

Alekos was relieved that she wasn’t fluttering her eyelashes at him seductively, but she was blinking presumably because her contact lenses felt strange. Without the thick-rimmed glasses he was used to seeing her wearing, her cheekbones were more noticeable and her face was prettier than his memory served him.

He wondered if she’d had some sort of surgical procedure to her lips. Surely he would have remembered the fullness of her lips—and, Theos, that faint pout of her lower lip that tempted him to test its softness with his own mouth. He forced his mind away from such a ridiculous idea and reminded himself that this was Miss Mouse, the name that one of his legion of leggy blonde mistresses had unkindly christened Sara.

The nickname had suited her plain looks but not her dry wit that frequently amused Alekos, or her sharp mind and even sharper tongue that he had come to respect, because Sara Lovejoy was the only woman he had ever met who wasn’t afraid to state her opinion—even if it was different to his.

‘I’ll put your coffee on your desk, shall I?’ Without waiting for him to reply, Sara walked across the room and placed a cup of coffee on the desk in front of Alekos’s chair. He could not help himself from focusing on the sensual undulation of her hips as she walked, and when she leaned across the desk her skirt pulled tighter across the curves of her buttocks.

Alekos cleared his throat audibly and tightened his fingers on the handle of his briefcase as he moved it in front of him to hide the evidence that he was aroused. What the blazes was the matter with him? For the first time in a month he had woken in a good mood this morning, knowing that Sara would be back and between them they would clear the backlog of work that had built up while she’d been away.

But work was the last thing on his mind when she turned to face him and he noticed how her pink silk shirt lovingly moulded the firm swell of her breasts. The top two buttons on her blouse were undone, not enough to reveal any cleavage but more than enough to quicken his pulse as he visualised himself removing her shirt and her lace-edged bra that he could see outlined beneath the silky material of her top.

He forced his gaze away from her breasts down to her surprisingly slim waist and cleared his throat again. ‘You...er...appear to have lost some weight.’

‘A few pounds, as a matter of fact. I expect it was down to all the exercise I did while I was on holiday.’

What sort of exercise had she done on a young, free and single’s holiday? Alekos was not usually prone to flights of imagination but his mind was bombarded with pictures of his new-look PA discarding her inhibitions and enjoying energetic nights with a Spanish Lothario.

‘Ah, yes, your holiday. I hope you enjoyed yourself?’

‘I certainly did.’

Her grin made him think of a satisfied cat that had drunk a bowlful of cream. ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ he said tersely. ‘But you are not on holiday now, so I’m wondering why you’ve come to work wearing clothes that are more suitable for the beach than the office.’

When Alekos spoke in that coldly disapproving tone, people tended to immediately take notice and respond with the respect he commanded. But Sara simply shrugged and smoothed her hand over her skirt.

‘Oh, I wore a lot less than this on the beach. It’s perfectly acceptable for women to go topless on the beaches in the French Riviera.’

Had Sara gone topless? He tried to banish the vision of his prim PA displaying her bare breasts in public. ‘I thought you went to Spain for your holiday?’

‘I changed my plans at the last minute.’

While Alekos was registering the fact that his ultra-organised PA had apparently changed her holiday destination on a whim, Sara strolled towards him. Why had he never noticed until now that her green eyes sparkled like emeralds when she smiled? He was irritated with himself for thinking such poetic nonsense but he could not stop staring at her.

Along with her new hairstyle and clothes, she was wearing a different perfume: a seductive scent which combined spiky citrus with deeper, exotically floral notes that stirred his senses—and stirred a lot more besides, he acknowledged derisively when he felt himself harden.

‘So, where do you want me?’ she murmured.

‘What?’ He stiffened as a picture leapt into his mind of Sara sprawled on the leather sofa with her skirt rucked up around her waist and her legs spread wide, waiting for him to position himself between her thighs.

Cursing beneath his breath, Alekos fought to control his rampant libido and realised that his PA was giving him an odd look. ‘Shall I sort out the pile of paperwork on my desk that I presume the temp left for me to deal with, or do you want me to stay in here and take notes from you?’ she repeated patiently.

She put her hands on her hips, drawing his attention to the narrowness of her waist that served to emphasise the rounded curves of her breasts. ‘I understand that the temp I arranged to cover my absence only lasted a week, and HR organised three more replacements but you dismissed them after a few days.’

‘They were all useless,’ he snapped. Glancing at his watch, Alekos discovered that he had wasted ten minutes ogling his PA, who normally did not warrant more than a five second glance. He felt unsettled by his awareness of Sara as an attractive woman and was annoyed with himself for his physical response to her. ‘I hope you are prepared for the fact that we have a ton of work to catch up on.’

‘I guessed you’d have me tied to my desk when I came back to work,’ she said airily.

Alekos’s eyes narrowed on her serene expression, and he was thrown by the idea that she knew the effect she was having on him. His mental vision of her tied, face down, across her desk made his blood sizzle. He felt confused by his inability to control his response to her.

This was dull, drab Sara—although, admittedly, he had never found her dull when she’d made it clear, soon after he’d promoted her from a secretary in the accounts department to his PA, that she wasn’t going to worship him like most women did. But her frumpy appearance had been one reason why he had chosen her. His position as chairman of GE demanded his absolute focus and there was no risk of him being distracted by Miss Mouse.

Alekos had become chairman of the company, which specialised in building luxury superyachts, two years ago, following the death of his father, and he had decided that Sara’s unexciting appearance, exemplary secretarial skills and excellent work ethic would make her his ideal PA.

He walked around his desk, lowered his long frame into his chair and took a sip of coffee before he glanced at her. ‘I need to make a few phone calls and no doubt you will have plenty of stuff to catch up on, so come back in half an hour and bring the Viceroy file with you.’

‘Aren’t you forgetting something? The word please,’ Sara reminded him crisply when he raised his brows questioningly. ‘Honestly, Alekos, no wonder you frightened off four temps in as many weeks if you were as surly with them as you’re behaving this morning. I suppose you’ve got woman trouble? That’s the usual reason when you come to work with a face like thunder.’

‘You must know by now that I never allow my relationships to last long enough for women to become troublesome,’ Alekos said smoothly. He leaned back in his chair and gave her a hard stare. ‘Remind me again, Sara, why I tolerate your insolence?’

Across the room he saw her eyes sparkle and her mouth curve into a smile that inexplicably made Alekos feel as if he’d been punched in his gut. ‘Because I’m good at my job and you don’t want to sleep with me. That’s what you told me at my interview and I assume nothing has changed?’

She stepped out of his office and closed the door behind her before he could think of a suitably cutting retort. He glared at the space where she had been standing seconds earlier. Theos, sometimes she overstepped the mark. His nostrils flared with annoyance. He could not explain the odd sensation in the pit of his stomach when he caught the drift of her perfume that still lingered in the room.

He felt rattled by Sara’s startling physical transformation from frump to sexpot. But he reminded himself that her honesty was one of the things he admired about her. He doubted that any of the three hundred employees at Gionakis Enterprises’ London offices, and probably none of the three thousand staff employed by the company worldwide, would dream of speaking to him as bluntly as Sara did. It made a refreshing change to have someone challenge him when most people, especially women, always said yes to him.

He briefly wondered what she would say if he told her that he had changed his mind and wanted to take her to bed. Would she be willing to have sex with him, or would Sara be the only woman to refuse him? Alekos was almost tempted to find out. But practicality outweighed his inconvenient and, he confidently assumed, fleeting attraction to her, when he reminded himself that there were any number of women who would be happy to help him relieve his sexual frustration but a good PA was worth her weight in gold.

The day’s schedule was packed. Alekos opened his laptop but, unusually for him, he could not summon any enthusiasm for work. He swivelled his chair round to the window and stared down at the busy street five floors below, where red London buses, black taxis and kamikaze cyclists competed for road space.

He liked living in England’s capital city, although he much preferred the current June sunshine to the dank drizzle and short days of the winter. After his father’s death it had been expected by the members of the board, and his family, that Alekos would move back to Greece permanently and run the company from GE’s offices in Athens. His father, Kostas Gionakis, and before him Alekos’s grandfather, the founder of the company, had both done so.

His decision to move the company’s headquarters to London had been mainly for business reasons. London was closer to GE’s growing client list in Florida and the Bahamas, and the cosmopolitan capital was ideally suited to entertain a clientele made up exclusively of millionaires and billionaires, who were prepared to spend eye-watering amounts of cash on a superyacht—the ultimate status symbol.

On a personal front, Alekos had been determined to establish himself as the new company chairman away from his father’s power base in Greece. The grand building in Athens which had been GE’s headquarters looked like a palace and Kostas Gionakis had been king. Alekos never forgot that he was the usurper to the throne.

His jaw clenched. Dimitri should have been chairman, not him. But his brother was dead—killed twenty years ago, supposedly in a tragic accident. Alekos’s parents had been devastated and he had never told them of his suspicions about the nature of Dimitri’s death.

Alekos had been fourteen at the time, the youngest in the family, born six years after Dimitri and after their three sisters. He had idolised his brother. Everyone had admired the Gionakis heir. Dimitri was handsome, athletic and clever and had been groomed from boyhood to take over running the family business. Alekos was the spare heir should the unthinkable happen to Dimitri.

But the unthinkable had happened. Dimitri had died and Alekos had suddenly become the future of the company—a fact that his father had never allowed him to forget.

Had Kostas believed that his youngest son would make as good a chairman of GE as his firstborn son? Alekos doubted it. He had felt that he was second best in his father’s eyes. He knew that was still the opinion of some of the board members who disapproved of his playboy lifestyle.

But he would prove those who doubted his abilities wrong. In the two years that he had been chairman the company’s profits had increased and they were expanding into new markets around the globe. Perhaps his father would have been proud of him. Alekos would never know. But what he knew for sure was that he could not allow himself to be distracted by his PA simply because her sexy new look had stirred his desire.

Turning away from the window, he opened a document on his laptop and resolutely focused on work. He had inherited the company by default. He owed it to Dimitri’s memory to ensure that Gionakis Enterprises continued to be as successful as it had been when his father was chairman, and as Alekos was sure it would have been under his brother’s leadership.

* * *

Sara ignored a stab of guilt as she passed her desk, piled with paperwork that required her attention, and hurried into the bathroom. The mirror above the sink confirmed her fears. Her flushed cheeks and dilated pupils betrayed her reaction to Alekos that she had been unable to control.

She felt as though she had been holding her breath the entire time she had been in his office. Why was it that she’d managed to hide her awareness of him for two years but when she had set eyes on him this morning after she hadn’t seen him for a month her pulse-rate had rocketed and her mouth had felt dry?

The sensation of her heart slamming against her ribcage whenever she was in close proximity to Alekos wasn’t new, but she had perfected the art of hiding her emotions behind a cool smile, aware that her job depended on it. When Alekos had elevated her to the role of his PA over several other suitably qualified candidates for the job, he had bluntly told her that he never mixed business with pleasure and there was no chance of a sexual relationship developing between them. His arrogance had irritated Sara and she’d almost told him that she had no intention of copying her mother’s mistake by having an affair with her boss.

During the eighteen months that she had worked in the accounts department before her promotion, she’d heard that the company’s board members disapproved of Alekos’s playboy lifestyle, which attracted the wrong type of press interest, and she understood why he was determined to keep his relationship with his staff on a strictly professional footing. What Alekos wanted from his PA was efficiency, dedication and the ability to blend into the background—and plain, conservatively dressed Sara had fitted the bill perfectly.

In truth she would have worn a nun’s habit to the office if Alekos had required her to because she was so keen to secure the job. Her promotion to personal assistant of the chairman of Gionakis Enterprises had finally won her mother’s praise. For the first time in her life she had felt that she wasn’t a disappointment to Joan Lovejoy. The surname was a misnomer if ever there was one because, as far as Sara could tell, there had been no love or joy in her mother’s life.

She’d wondered if her mother had loved the man who’d abandoned her after he had made her pregnant. But Joan had refused to reveal Sara’s father’s identity and only ever made a few oblique references to him, notably that he had once been an Oxford don and it was a pity that Sara hadn’t inherited his academic brilliance.

Sara had spent most of her life comparing herself to a nameless, faceless man who had helped to create her but she had never met—until six weeks ago. Now she knew that she had inherited her green eyes from her father. He was no longer faceless, or nameless. His name was Lionel Kingsley and he was a well-known politician. She’d been stunned when he had phoned her and revealed that there was a possibility she might be his daughter. She had agreed to a DNA test to see if he was really her father but she had been sure of the result before the test had proved it. When she looked into a mirror she saw her father’s eyes looking back at her.

For the first time in her life she felt she was a whole person, and so many things about herself suddenly made sense, like her love of art and her creativity that she’d always suppressed because her mother had pushed her to concentrate on academic subjects.

Lionel was a widower and had two grown-up children. Her half-siblings! Sara felt excited and nervous at the thought of meeting her half-brother and half-sister. She understood Lionel’s concern that his son and daughter from his marriage might be upset to learn that he had an illegitimate daughter, and she had told herself to be patient and wait until he was ready to acknowledge publicly that he was her father. Finally it was going to happen. Lionel had invited her to his home at the weekend so that he could introduce her to Freddie and Charlotte Kingsley.

Sara had seen pictures of them and discovered that she bore a striking resemblance to her half-siblings. But the physical similarities between her and her half-sister did not apply to their very different dress styles. Photographs of Charlotte wearing stylish, figure-hugging clothes had made Sara realise how frumpy she looked in comparison. The smart suits she wore to the office reflected the importance of her role as PA to the chairman of the company and she had reminded herself that if Alekos had wanted a decorative bimbo to be his PA he wouldn’t have chosen her.

The new clothes she had bought while she had been on holiday did not make her look like a bimbo, Sara reassured herself. The skirt and blouse she was wearing were perfectly respectable for the office. Shopping in the chic boutiques on the French Riviera where her father owned a holiday villa had been a revelation. Remembering the photos she’d seen of her stylish half-sister had prompted Sara to try on colourful summery outfits. She had dropped a dress size from plenty of swimming and playing tennis and she loved being able to fit into skirts and dresses that showed off her more toned figure.

She ran her fingers through her new layered hairstyle. She still wasn’t used to her hair swishing around her shoulders when she turned her head. It made her feel more feminine and, well...sexy. She’d had a few blonde highlights put through the front sections of her hair to complement the natural lighter streaks from where she had spent a month in the French sunshine.

Maybe it was true that blondes did have more fun. But the truth was that meeting her father had given her a new sense of self-confidence. The part of her that had been missing was now complete, and Sara didn’t want to fade into the background any more. Travelling to work on the Tube this morning, she’d wondered if Alekos would notice her changed appearance.

She stared at her flushed face in the mirror and grimaced. All right, she had hoped he would notice her, instead of treating her like a piece of office furniture: functional, necessary but utterly uninteresting.

Well, she had got her wish. Alekos had stopped dead in his tracks when he’d seen her and his shocked expression had changed to a speculative gleam as his eyes had roamed over her. Heat had swept through her body when his gaze lingered on her breasts. She felt embarrassed thinking he might have noticed that her nipples had hardened in a telltale sign that he excited her more than any man had ever done.

Her decision to revamp her appearance suddenly seemed like a bad idea. When she’d dressed in dowdy clothes she hadn’t had to worry that Alekos might catch her glancing at him a dozen times a day, because he rarely seemed to notice that she was a human being and not a robot. Remembering the hot, hard gleam in his eyes when she had been in his office just now sent a tremor through her, and a little part of her wished she could rush back home and change into her safe navy blue suit. But when she’d returned home from her holiday she’d found that all her old clothes were too big, and she’d packed them into black sacks and donated them to a charity shop.

There was no going back. The old Sara Lovejoy was gone for ever and the new Sara was here to stay. Alekos would just have to get used to it.

CHAPTER TWO

AT EXACTLY NINE THIRTY, Sara knocked on Alekos’s door and took a deep breath before she stepped into his office. He was sitting behind his desk, leaning back in his chair that was half turned towards the window, and he was holding his phone to his ear. He spared her a brief glance and then swung his gaze back to the window while he continued his telephone conversation.

She ordered herself not to feel disappointed by his lack of interest. Obviously she must have imagined that earlier he had looked at her with a glint of desire in his eyes. Just because she had a new hairstyle and clothes did not mean that she had become Alekos’s fantasy woman. She knew his type: elegant blondes with legs that went on for ever. In the past two years a steady stream of models and socialites had arrived in his life and exited it a few months later when Alekos had grown bored of his affair with them.

Sara had hoped she would be able to control her reaction to Alekos but her heart leapt wildly in her chest as she studied his profile. Slashing cheekbones, a square jaw shadowed with dark stubble and eyes that gleamed like polished jet all combined to give him a lethal magnetism that women invariably found irresistible. His thick black hair had a habit of falling forwards across his brow and she was tempted to run her fingers through it. As for his mouth... Her eyes were drawn to his beautiful mouth. Full-lipped and sensual when he was relaxed and utterly devastating when he smiled, his mouth could also curve into a cynical expression when he wished to convey his displeasure.

‘Don’t stand there wasting time, Sara.’ Alekos’s voice made her jump, and she flushed as she registered that he had finished his phone call and had caught her out staring at him. ‘We have a lot to get through.’

‘I was waiting for you to finish your call.’ She was thankful that two years of practice at hiding her reaction to his smouldering sensuality allowed her to sound calm and composed even though her heart was racing. The way he growled her name in his sexy accent, drawing out the second syllable...Saraaa...was curiously intimate—as if they were lovers. But of course they were not lovers and were never likely to be.

She forced herself to walk unhurriedly across the room, but with every step that took her closer to Alekos’s desk she was conscious of his unswerving gaze. The unholy gleam in his eyes made her feel as if he were mentally undressing her. Every centimetre of her skin was on fire when she sat down on the chair in front of his desk.

It would be easy to be overwhelmed by him. But when she had been promoted to his PA she’d realised that Alekos was surrounded by people who always agreed with him, and she had decided that she could not allow herself to be intimidated by his powerful personality. She’d noted that he did not have much respect for the flunkeys and hangers-on who were so anxious to keep on the right side of him.

She had very quickly proved that she was good at her job, but the first time she had disagreed with Alekos over a work issue he’d clearly been astounded to discover that his mousy assistant had a backbone. After a tense stand-off, when Sara had refused to back down, he had narrowed his gaze on her determined expression and something like admiration had flickered in his dark eyes.

She valued his respect more than anything because she loved her job. Working for Alekos was like riding a roller coaster at a theme park: exciting, intense and fast-paced, and it was the knowledge that she would never find a job as rewarding as her current one that made Sara take a steadying breath. She could not deny it was flattering that Alekos had finally noticed her, but if she wanted to continue in her role as his PA she must ignore the predatory glint in his eyes.

She held her pencil poised over her notepad and gave him a cool smile. ‘I’m ready to start when you are.’

Her breezy tone seemed to irritate him. ‘I doubt you’ll be so cheerful by the time we’ve finished today. I’ll need you to work late this evening.’

‘Sorry, but I can’t stay late tonight. I’ve made other plans.’

He frowned. ‘Well, change them. Do I need to remind you that a requirement of your job is for you to work whatever hours I dictate, within reason?’

‘I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that I have always worked extra when you’ve asked me to,’ Sara said calmly. ‘And I’ve worked unreasonable hours, such as when we stayed up until one a.m. to put together a sales pitch for a sheikh before he flew back to Dubai. It paid off too, because Sheikh Al Mansoor placed an order for a one-hundred-million-pound yacht from GE.’

Alekos’s scowl did not make him any less gorgeous; in fact it gave him a dangerous, brooding look that turned Sara’s bones to liquid.

‘I can stay late every other night this week if you need me to,’ she went on in an effort to appease him. Alekos’s bad mood threatened to spoil her excitement about meeting her father after work. Lionel Kingsley’s high profile as an MP meant that he did not want to risk being seen in public with Sara. As they couldn’t go to a restaurant, she had invited him to her home and was planning to cook dinner for him before he attended an evening engagement.

‘Oh, I can’t stay late on Friday either,’ she said. ‘And actually I’d like to leave an hour early because I’m going away for the weekend.’ She remembered the plans she’d made to visit her father at his house in Berkshire. ‘I’ll work through my lunch hour to make up the time.’

‘Well, well.’ Alekos’s sardonic drawl put Sara on her guard. ‘You go away for a month and return sporting a new haircut, a new—and much improved, I have to say—wardrobe, and now suddenly you have a busy social life. It makes me wonder if a man is the reason for the new-look Sara Lovejoy.’

‘My personal life is none of your business,’ she said composedly. Technically, she supposed that a man was the reason for the change in her, but she had not met a lover, as Alekos had implied. She had enjoyed getting to know her father when he had invited her to spend her holiday at his villa in the south of France but she had promised Lionel that she wouldn’t tell anyone she was his daughter.

Deep down she felt disappointed that her father wished to keep their relationship secret. It was as if Lionel was ashamed of her. But she reminded herself that he had promised to introduce her to her half-siblings on Friday, and perhaps then he would openly welcome her as his daughter. She pulled her mind back to the present when she realised Alekos was speaking.

‘It will be my business if your work is affected because you’re mooning over some guy.’

Sara still refused to rise to Alekos’s verbal baiting. She tapped the tip of her pencil on her pad and said with heavy emphasis, ‘I’m ready to start work when you are.’

Alekos picked up a client’s folder from the pile on his desk, but he did not open it. Instead he leaned back in his chair, an unreadable expression on his handsome face as he surveyed her for long minutes while her tension grew and she was sure he must see the pulse beating erratically at the base of her throat.

‘Why did you change your holiday plans and go to France rather than Spain?’

‘The holiday company I’d booked with cancelled my trip, but a...friend invited me to stay at his villa in Antibes.’

‘Would this friend be the man whose voice I heard in the background when I phoned you with a query from the Miami office a week ago?’

Sara tensed. Could Alekos possibly have recognised her famous father’s voice?

‘Why are you suddenly fascinated with my private life?’

‘I’m merely concerned for your well-being and offering a timely reminder that holiday romances notoriously don’t last.’

‘For goodness’ sake!’ Sara told herself not to be fooled by Alekos’s ‘concern for her wellbeing’. His real concern was he did not want his PA moping about or unable to concentrate on her work because she’d suffered a broken heart. ‘What makes you think I had a holiday romance?’

He trailed his eyes over her, subjecting her to a thorough appraisal that brought a flush to her cheeks. ‘It’s obvious. Before you went on holiday you wore frumpy clothes that camouflaged your figure. But after spending a month in France you have undergone a transformation into a frankly very attractive young woman. It doesn’t take a detective to work out that a love affair is probably the cause of your new-found sensuality.’

‘Well, of course you would assume that a man is the reason I’ve altered my appearance.’ Sara’s temper simmered. ‘It couldn’t be that I decided to update my wardrobe for me.’ His cynical expression fuelled her anger but she also felt hurt. Had she really looked so awful in her navy blue suit with her hair secured in a neat bun, as Alekos had said? It was pathetic the way her heart had leapt when he’d complimented her new look and told her she was attractive.

‘You are such a male chauvinist,’ she snapped. Ignoring the warning glint in his eyes, she said furiously, ‘I suppose you think I altered the way I dress in the hope of impressing you?’

The landline phone on his desk rang and Sara instinctively reached out to answer it. Simultaneously Alekos did the same and, as his fingers brushed against hers, she felt a sizzle of electricity shoot up her arm. ‘Oh!’ She tried to snatch her hand away, but he snaked his fingers around her wrist and stroked his thumb pad over her thudding pulse.

‘When you dressed to come to work this morning, did you choose your outfit to please me?’ His black eyes burned like hot coals into hers.

Sara flushed guiltily. ‘Of course not.’ She refused to admit to herself, let alone to Alekos, that for the past two years she had fantasised about him desiring her. She stared at his chiselled face and swallowed. ‘Are you going to answer the call?’ she said breathlessly.

To her relief, he let go of her wrist and picked up the phone. She resisted the urge to leap out of her seat and run out of his office. Instead she made herself stroll across the room to the coffee machine. The familiar routine of pouring water into the machine’s reservoir and inserting a coffee capsule into the compartment gave her a few moments’ breathing space to bring herself under control.

Why had she goaded Alekos like that? She had always been careful to hide her attraction to him but he must have noticed how the pulse in her wrist had almost jumped through her skin because it had been beating so hard, echoing the thudding beat of her heart.

She could not put off carrying their coffees over to his desk any longer, and she was thankful that Alekos did not glance at her when he finished his phone call and opened the file in front of him. He waited for her to sit down and pick up her notepad before he began to dictate at breakneck speed, making no allowances for the fact that she hadn’t taken shorthand notes for a month.

It set the tone for the rest of the day as they worked together to clear the backlog that had built up while Sara had been away. At five o’clock she rolled her aching shoulders and went to the bathroom to brush her hair and apply a fresh coat of rose-pink lip gloss that was her new must-have item of make-up.

In Alekos’s office she found him standing by his desk. He was massaging the back of his neck as if he felt as tired from their busy day as she was. She had forgotten how tall he was. He had inherited his six-foot-four height from his maternal grandfather, who had been a Canadian, he’d once explained to Sara. But in every other aspect he was typically Greek, from his dark olive complexion and mass of black hair to his arrogant belief that he only had to click his fingers and women would flock to him. The trouble was that they did, Sara thought ruefully.

Alekos was used to having any woman he wanted. She told herself it was lucky that there had been no repeat of the breathless moments that had occurred earlier in the day, when rampant desire had blazed in his eyes as he’d trapped her wrist and felt the giveaway throb of her sexual awareness of him.

He must have heard his office door open, and turned his head in her direction. They had played out the same scene hundreds of times before, and most days when she came to check if he needed her to do anything else before she went home he did not bother looking up from his computer screen as he bid her goodnight. But he was looking at her now. She watched his hard features tauten and become almost wolf-like as he stared at her with a hungry gleam in his eyes that excited her and filled her with illicit longing.

Something tugged in the pit of her stomach, tugged hard like a knot being pulled tighter and tighter, as if an invisible thread linked her body to Alekos. And then he blinked and the feral glitter in his eyes disappeared. Perhaps it had never been there and she had imagined that he’d stared at her as if he wanted to devour her?

‘I’m just off now.’ She was amazed that her voice sounded normal when her insides were in turmoil. ‘I’ll finish typing up the report for the shareholders first thing tomorrow.’

‘Did you remember that we are attending the annual dinner for the board members on Thursday evening?’

She nodded. ‘I’ll bring the dress I’m going to wear for the dinner to work and get changed here at the office like I did for the Christmas party.’

‘You had better check with the restaurant that they won’t be serving seafood. Orestis Pagnotis is allergic to it and, much as I’d like to have the old man off my back, I’d better not allow him to risk suffering a possibly fatal reaction,’ Alekos said drily.

‘I’ve already given the restaurant a list of the dietary requirements of the guests.’ She smiled sympathetically. ‘Is Orestis still being a problem?’

He shrugged. ‘He’s one of the old school. He joined the board when my grandfather was chairman, and he was a close friend of my father.’ Alekos gave a frustrated sigh. ‘Orestis believes I take too many risks and he has the support of some of the other board members, who fail to understand that the company needs to move with the times rather than remain in the Stone Age. Orestis’s latest gripe is that he thinks the chairman should be married.’

Alekos muttered something in Greek that Sara guessed was not complimentary about the influential board member. ‘According to Orestis, if I take a wife it will prove that I have left my playboy days behind and I will be more focused on running GE.’

Her heart dipped. ‘Are you considering getting married?’

Somehow she managed to inject the right amount of casual interest into her voice. She knew he had ended his affair with a stunning Swedish model called Danika shortly before her holiday, but in the month she had been away it was likely that he had met someone else. Alekos never stayed celibate for long.

Perhaps he had fallen in love with the woman of his dreams. It was possible that Alekos might ask her to organise his wedding. She would have to pin a smile on her face and hide her heartache while she made arrangements for him and his beautiful bride—she was certain to be beautiful—to spend their honeymoon at an exotic location. Sara pulled her mind away from her unwelcome thoughts when she realised Alekos was speaking.

‘I’ll have to marry eventually.’ He sounded unenthusiastic at the prospect. ‘I am the last male Gionakis and my mother and sisters remind me at every opportunity that it is my duty to produce an heir. Obviously I will first have to select a suitable wife.’

‘How do you intend to select a suitable wife?’ She could not hide her shock that he had such a cavalier attitude towards marriage. ‘Will you hold interviews and ask the candidates, who are your potential brides, to fill out a detailed questionnaire about themselves?’ She was aware that her voice had risen and Alekos’s amused smile infuriated her further.

‘Your suggestion is not a bad idea. Why are you so outraged?’ he said smoothly.

‘Because you make marriage sound like a...a cattle market where finding a wife is like choosing a prize heifer to breed from. What about love?’

‘What about it?’ He studied her flushed face speculatively. ‘Statistically, somewhere between forty and fifty per cent of marriages end in divorce, and I bet that most of those marriages were so-called love matches. But with such a high failure rate it seems sensible to take emotion out of the equation and base marriage on social and financial compatibility, mutual respect and the pursuit of shared goals such as bringing up a family.’

Sara shook her head. ‘Your arrogance is unbelievable. You accuse some of GE’s board members of being stuck in the Stone Age, but your views on marriage are Neolithic. Women nowadays don’t sit around twiddling their thumbs and hoping that a rich man will choose them to be his wife.’

‘You’d be surprised,’ Alekos murmured drily. ‘When I decide to marry—in another ten years or so—I don’t envisage I’ll have a problem finding a woman who is willing to marry a multimillionaire.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t marry for money,’ Sara said fiercely. Deep inside her she felt an ache of regret that Alekos had trampled on her silly dream that he would one day fall in love with her. Realistically, she knew it would never happen but hearing him state so emphatically that he did not aspire to a marriage built on love forced her to accept that she must get over her embarrassing crush on him.

‘You would prefer to gamble your future happiness on a fickle emotion that poets try to convince us is love? But of course love is simply a sanitized word for lust.’

‘If you’re asking me whether I believe in love, then the answer is yes, I do. Why are you so sceptical, Alekos? You once told me that your parents had been happily married for forty-five years before your father died.’

‘And therein proves my point. My parents had an arranged marriage which was extremely successful. Love wasn’t necessary, although I believe they grew to be very fond of each other over the course of their marriage.’

Sara gave up. ‘You’re just a cynic.’

‘No, I’m a realist. There is a dark side to love and I have witnessed its destructive power.’

A memory slid into Alekos’s mind of that fateful day twenty years ago when he’d found Dimitri walking along the beach. His brother’s eyes had been red-rimmed and he’d wept as he’d told Alekos he had discovered that his girlfriend had been unfaithful. It was the last time Alekos had seen Dimitri alive.

‘Love is an illusion,’ he told Sara harshly, ‘and you would do well to remember it before you rush to give away your heart to a man you only met a few weeks ago.’

After Sara had gone, Alekos walked over to the window and a few minutes later he saw her emerge from the GE building and walk along the pavement. Even from a distance he noted the sexy wiggle of her hips when she walked and a shaft of white-hot lust ripped through him.

He swore. Lusting after his PA was so unexpected and he assured himself that his reaction to Sara’s transformation from dowdy to a very desirable woman was down to sexual frustration. He hadn’t had sex since he’d split from his last mistress almost two months ago.

‘What are you looking for?’ Danika had asked him when he’d told her their affair was over. ‘You say you don’t want permanence in a relationship, but what do you want?’

Right now he wanted a woman under him, Alekos thought, conscious of his erection pressing uncomfortably against the zip of his trousers. A memory flashed into his mind of Sara leaning across his desk with her skirt pulled tight over her bottom. He imagined her without her skirt, her derrière presented for him to slide her panties down so that he could stroke his hands over her naked body. In his fantasy he had already removed her blouse and bra and he stood behind her and slid his arms round her to cup her firm breasts in his hands...

Theos! Alekos raked his hand through his hair and forced his mind away from his erotic thoughts. Sara was the best PA he’d ever had and he was determined not to damage their excellent working relationship. She was the only woman, apart from his mother and sisters, who he trusted. She was discreet, loyal and she made his life easier in countless ways that he had not fully appreciated until she had taken a month’s holiday.

If he made her his mistress he would not be able to continue to employ her as his PA. Office affairs did not work, especially after the affair ended—and of course it would end after a few months at most. He had a low boredom threshold and there was no reason to think that his surprising attraction to Sara would last long once he’d taken her to bed.

Alekos turned his thoughts to the party he was due to attend that evening. Perhaps he would meet a woman who would hold his attention for more than an hour. He received many more invitations to social functions than he had the time or the inclination to attend, but he had a particular reason for accepting an invitation to a party being given by a wealthy city banker. Alekos knew that a Texan oil baron would be included on the guest list. Warren McCuskey was looking to buy a superyacht to keep his wife, who was twenty years younger than him, happy, and Alekos was determined to persuade the billionaire Texan to buy a yacht from GE.

From his vantage point at the window he continued to watch Sara standing in the street below. She seemed to be waiting for someone. A large black saloon car drew up alongside her, the rear door opened and she climbed into the car before it pulled away from the kerb.

He was intrigued. Why hadn’t Sara’s ‘friend’ got out of the car to greet her? Earlier, she had been oddly secretive about her boyfriend. And what was the real reason for her attractive new look? Alekos couldn’t remember the last time a woman had aroused his curiosity and it was ironic that the woman who had fired his interest had been under his nose for the past two years.

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