Beauty and the Greek (3 page)

The man just didn't invite sympathy, she decided, studying his dark lean face. Perhaps he was hiding the pain; if so, he was doing pretty well!

Beth moved an already neat stack of files from one side of the desk to the other and waited for Theo Kyriakis to leave.

He didn't.

She risked a look up at him and was startled to discover that his heavy-lidded dark stare was trained directly on her own face.

Beth shifted uncomfortably in her seat and pushed her
glasses up her nose before venturing a faint vague smile in his general direction and returning her attention to her desk.

She started a little as he placed an untouched glass of champagne on her desk. ‘There's more in the bottle if you'd like to join me to toast the happy couple?'

Beth would have found an invitation to jump into the Thames more alluring but she kept her manner polite. ‘This is the middle of a working day for me, Mr Kyriakis, and I'm just the hired help,' she reminded him, addressing her response to the middle button of his beautifully tailored grey jacket.

‘But you would like to be more than that?'

The unexpected question made her stiffen—actually, it was not a question; it was a statement.

Before she could respond to it, he said abruptly, ‘Why do you dress that way?'

Her defensive glance swung upwards from his beautifully tailored designer suit to discover that he was studying her own grey flannel suit with an expression of fastidious distaste written on his lean face.

‘What way?' Beth, who had three identical ones in her wardrobe and a selection of plain blouses to wear with them, asked.

Gran had always advised her to go for quality when selecting clothes and Beth followed her advice, though she stopped short at the matching gloves and handbag that Prudence Farley considered essential for a well turned out lady.

In the long-term, Gran had counseled, it was cheaper to choose quality rather than buy trendy junk and she was right, but the
junk
did look fun, Beth sometimes thought wistfully.

She lifted her chin defiantly as her hand went to her throat, where her cream blouse was buttoned up to the neck.
After three years of not noticing she existed, he was suddenly interested in her clothes?

‘Is there something I can help you with, Mr Kyriakis?' Had he been drinking?

The scandal-hungry media had never suggested a weakness for drink, just for tall leggy blondes, but who knew, she thought, curiosity drawing her eyes to his face. The arrogant cast of his strong features did not suggest weakness or lack of control, if you discounted the sensual fullness of his upper lip.

Conscious of a sinking shivery sensation low in her stomach, Beth tore her strangely reluctant gaze from his mouth and found it wandering straight into the path of his dark eyes and she immediately dumped the drinking idea.

There was nothing blurry or unfocused about his manner. Drinking implied a human weakness and the elder Kyriakis brother didn't appear to tolerate those in himself or other people.

Theo doesn't tolerate fools gladly
, Andreas was fond of observing. In her own mind, Beth translated this as code for the fact that he was impatient and intolerant.

‘Quite possibly.'

Beth's polite smile grew wary as she watched his wide, sensually sculpted lips curve into a smile that did not reach his dark eyes; the speculative light in their obsidian depths was making her feel deeply uneasy.

‘But of course you didn't mean that, did you? Do I make you feel uncomfortable?'

‘No, of course not,' Beth lied. ‘I didn't intend to be rude, but I have a lot of work to do.' She would be lucky, Beth reflected, to make it home before seven—actually, eight—she corrected, recalling the meeting she had scheduled with the manager at the nursing home.

The request to see her had worried Beth, especially as
the manager had been reluctant to elaborate further on the phone, but he had reassured her that there was no problem with her grandmother.

She had a horrid feeling that the news might involve a fresh hike in the fees.

The move to the nursing home had been Gran's idea; she had not even informed Beth that she had booked herself in until the arrangements were made. Beth had been horrified by the idea but her doubts had been soothed when Prudence Farley had said she only intended staying a few weeks.

That had been six months ago and Gran showed no inclination to move back home. The place, she confided to Beth, was like a five-star hotel. At home, she could go a week without seeing anyone but Beth and the vicar's wife; here, there was never a dull moment and she had made so many new friends.

Beth loved her new zest for life but she was worried; the place was not only run like a five-star hotel but they charged similar rates. Her gran remained cheerfully oblivious to the fact that her savings had run out in the first three months and, when the subject came up, Beth, concerned about worrying her grandmother, was deliberately vague.

It was a constant battle to meet the costs and keep the house going. Beth was only living in three rooms of the big sprawling Victorian mansion that her grandmother had come to as a new bride, but the upkeep was a financial drain that gave her nightmares.

She called it a nightmare; the bank manager called it her get out of jail card.

When she had pointed out that she wasn't in jail, he had said darkly, ‘Not yet.'

Beth wasn't sure if he was joking or not but none of his dire predictions had made her change her mind. She was
not selling up to a developer; the house would be there when Gran decided to come home.

The bank manager had been visibly frustrated by her intransigent attitude.

‘Miss Farley, your attitude does you credit but it is hardly practical. Let me be blunt. Your grandmother is a very old lady; it seems unlikely she will ever come home. And these figures—' he sighed as he flicked through the papers laid out in front of him ‘—I'm afraid they suggest you cannot pay for your grandmother's care and eat.'

Beth, in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere, had joked, ‘I need to lose weight.'

He had not seen the joke. ‘I would suggest there is no choice. When your grandmother gave you Power of Attorney it was a situation like this that she had in mind.'

Beth had thanked him for his advice because she knew he meant well but she had remained adamant she would not sell up or contemplate the possibility of her gran not coming home.

She knew that Gran loved the place as much as she did. The sprawling Victorian house had, in estate agent speak, a wealth of original features but very little in the way of modern conveniences. Beth had lived there since her parents' death in a train crash when she was seven.

‘You want me to leave so that you can weep in privacy?'

The casual question made her stiffen and brought her eyes back to his lean face. How did a man who had not given her the same degree of attention he afforded the office furniture on his visits come to know about the knot of misery lodged like a lead weight in her aching throat?

‘I don't know what you mean…'

He cut her off with an impatient gesture. ‘You're in love with my brother.'

B
ETH
felt the blood drain from her face as she stared at him in horror. ‘That's totally ridiculous!'

He raised his brows in mock surprise. ‘I did not realise it was meant to be a secret. My apologies.'

It took a massive amount of willpower not to drop her gaze. Tired of pushing her glasses back up her nose, she took them off and placed them on the desk before fixing him with a glare of thinly disguised loathing.

‘You know what you can do with your apologies and your sick sense of humour!'

The transformation was nothing short of incredible. She still wasn't a raving beauty but if his brother saw her with her cheeks flushed, her small bosom heaving and her eyes glittering with anger he would have noticed her.

‘Andreas has just got engaged to a beautiful woman. You wish to wallow in self-pity and perhaps look at the photo you keep in your wallet.' The cynicism in his smile deepened as he watched her eyes fly to her handbag. ‘No, it was a lucky guess—I have not been going through your bag.'

‘Is that some sort of joke?' The joke, she realized, feeling sick, was herself. Did everyone know…? The idea of being the butt of gossip, maybe even
pity
, made her feel physically sick.

She gathered her dignity around her and lifted her chin, inadvertently winning Theo's admiration for her gutsy effort, and said coldly, ‘I work for your brother. We do not have a personal relationship…unlike you and…' She broke off guiltily, her eyes widening in dismay.

She had never kicked anyone when they were down—not that he looked down—but, under his nasty cold exterior, Theo Kyriakis had to have his normal share of emotional vulnerability…Their eyes connected, his glittered with a combination of amused contempt and challenge that made her rapidly rethink her vulnerability theory as antagonism traced a path down her spine—all this man had was an overreaching ego and stone as dark and cold as his eyes where his heart should be!

‘Unlike me and…?'

She shook her head and straightened a pile of already straight papers. ‘I really am very busy.' She aimed her smile at some point over his left shoulder.

‘You possibly refer to my relationship with the delightful Ariana…?' He arched a questioning brow.

The dratted man. Why wouldn't he just let it drop? Beth thought. ‘That was a long time ago.' Had it been a lucky guess or was she really that obvious? And, if he had guessed, did that mean that Andreas knew as well?

A film of hot mortification washed over her pale skin at the thought. Hot, she slipped the top button of her blouse and then the second because her chest felt tight.

Theo felt his eyes drawn to the bare few inches of flesh at her throat; he could actually see the blue-veined pulse spot on her neck vibrating. ‘The past is frequently relevant to the present.'

Having delivered this seemingly unrelated philosophical observation, he pulled a chair from the wall, dragged it to
her desk and straddled it, placing his hands along the back of it before he returned his attention to Beth.

Beth, who no longer wanted an explanation for this conversation, lowered her gaze as far as his hands, curved lightly over the back of the designer chair. He actually had good hands—elegant but strong, with long tapering fingers—and sent up a silent prayer for him to leave.

She needed to think—not a possibility while he was enjoying his cat-and-mouse game with her—the man clearly got some twisted pleasure from seeing her squirm.

‘I suspect that part of Ariana's attraction for my little brother is our previous relationship; he's very competitive.'

Beth's shaking hand knocked down the neat stack of files on the desk as her head came up with a jerk. ‘
He's
competitive!' She scanned the dark features of the man seated opposite with open incredulity. It obviously didn't even occur to him that she just preferred Andreas to him. My God, this man's ego was simply unbelievable.

After a slight pause Theo conceded her comment with an amused quirk of his lips, the action drawing Beth's attention to the overtly sensual curve. The shivery sensation in her tummy intensified.

‘All right,
we
—it's a brother thing,' he revealed casually.

Beth dragged her oddly reluctant eyes from his mouth. Even when he had ignored her totally she had felt uncomfortable being in the same room as Theo Kyriakis; now he wasn't ignoring her, now he was having what in his twisted mind probably passed for a conversation the feeling had intensified to a point where all she wanted to do was run from the room.

Get a grip, Beth. ‘It may be your thing but it's not Andreas's.'

Frustrated by her inability to place the shadow of an emotion that moved at the back of his eyes, Beth found herself unfavourably comparing his cold, sardonic temperament with Andreas's open, approachable, sunny character.

It was a struggle to believe they were even related. Andreas was a sunny day and this vile man was night, dark, impenetrable and full of hidden dangers.

‘I bow to your superior knowledge of my brother.' He dipped his dark head towards her and continued in the same sarcastic manner that had a nail scraping on blackboard effect on Beth's nerve endings. ‘You are clearly an expert on the subject.' Perhaps his brother had dropped a casual kiss on her cheek once and she had been fantasising about it ever since—or had they gone further?

Irritated by the returning theme, Theo rejected the idea before his mind supplied the accompanying images which, for some irrational reason, he found more disturbing than the very real image of his brother kissing his own ex-lover.

Elizabeth Farley might look a lot better minus the awful clothes but Andreas was not the type to look beyond the surface or even be curious.

Yet Ariana did have the insight he lacked. She clearly felt this pale, spiky girl was a potential threat so maybe his brother was attracted and didn't even realise it?

Beth gritted her teeth and felt the colour flame in her cheeks; she had never wanted to wipe the smug smirk off a blackboard!

‘No…no, I didn't mean that I…you get to know someone when you work for them; we're close.' Her cheeks flamed at the belated realisation of the sordid interpretation this hateful man might put on this comment and she added quickly, ‘Not obviously close like—'

He halted her mumbling, embarrassed retraction with a
languid motion of one hand. ‘You think that my brother is above such petty things as sibling rivalry, you think he is noble and—'

His sarcasm brought a flush to her cheeks. ‘I think he is in love.' Being selfless, she decided, was not all it was cracked up to be.

‘And you think you know all about love?'

She stared at him, sitting there looking what nine out of ten women—and these odds were granting her own sex more sense than they probably had—would call perfect and she felt the leaden lump of misery that had lain in her throat all day melt as a wave of incandescent rage swept over her.

He didn't have a clue what it was like to be her! She jumped to her feet, sending her chair hurtling into the wall behind her. ‘I know a damn sight more about it than you do!' she yelled, recoiling slightly as the volume of her own voice hit her.

He did not look offended by her accusation.

‘So you accept the situation and walk away. Don't you want to fight for him?'

‘And how do you suggest I do that?' Her response made him realise just how far past sensible she had allowed the conversation to go. ‘Look, you might have nothing to do but I think this joke has gone far enough…' Silently willing him to take the hint, Beth thought her prayers had been answered when Theo rose to his feet.

Her relief was short-lived. He made no move to leave. Instead, he dragged a hand through his hair and allowed his gaze to travel from the soles of her sensible shoes to the top of her glossy head. ‘One obvious suggestion springs to mind. You could dress like a woman and not like a middle-aged librarian.'

An angry flush of mortification mounted her cheeks. ‘I'm not about to pretend I'm someone I'm not.'

‘An admirable sentiment, but do you suppose that Ariana gets to look the way she does without a hell of a lot of effort? And I'm not talking about the Botox. Ever heard the comment
no pain, no gain?
Well, in Ariana's case it's
no food, no gain
.'

‘She's naturally slim!' Beth protested.

He let out a deep growl of laughter. ‘You really are naive.'

Beth clenched her teeth. ‘If I was in love with your brother—which I am not—I'd be happy he has found someone to make him happy,' she retorted piously.

‘Which makes you either incredibly virtuous and totally boring or a liar.' He watched a fresh wave of warm colour wash over her skin and realised that she wore no make-up at all, but then he conceded that a woman with skin that smooth and flawless did not need to. ‘You do realise,' he drawled, ‘that most men find the doormat mentality a real turn-off?'

Beth levelled a glare of seething dislike at his lean sardonic face. ‘I don't claim to be selfless, though that would be preferable to being totally
selfish
,' she flung back, too angry to reconsider the wisdom of insulting this man.

He had a well earned reputation for being utterly ruthless, and she knew he would not lose any sleep about sacking a humble secretary. Andreas might try to prevent it, but she had seen him cave in under pressure from Theo far too often to have any illusions that he would stand up to his brother and save her.

He arched a brow and observed, with an amused look, ‘The saint has claws.' And, now that he thought about it, Theo realized, rather spectacular eyes he was able to see properly now that she had removed the glasses.

On anyone else, he would have suspected that the colour—deep green shot with flecks of amber—of those almond-shaped eyes had been achieved with the assistance of contact lenses, but with this woman, who appeared to go out of her way to blend into the background, he seriously doubted it!

Finding herself the focus of the prolonged scrutiny of his heavy-lidded stare made her want to crawl out of her skin. Resisting the temptation to retreat behind the heavy curtain of hair that hung around her small face, she slid her fingers into the thick skein and tucked it behind her ears. Gran always said she had beautiful hair, but Beth would have happily exchanged her impossibly thick mop of mousey-brown wayward waves for smooth blonde or exciting red hair.

‘He does not see you as a woman; he sees you as a piece of office furniture.'

Beth's breath caught as though someone had just landed a blow, which in a way they had; Theo used the truth with the ruthless surgical precision of a blade. Was he born this vicious? she wondered.

She opened her mouth to automatically refute his cruel assertion and then her innate honesty kicked in; he was probably right, she thought dully.

Theo hadn't finished. ‘Do you think he even knows the colour of your eyes? You are useful to him; he knows that you will go the extra mile for him.' He stopped, satisfied he had made his point.

Make it any more clearly and she'd be stretched out in a dead faint at his feet; she was looking at him like a child who had just been told there was no Santa Claus.

Aware that he was breathing too hard, Theo made a conscious effort to slow his inhalations. It was a long time since he had allowed anyone to get under his skin enough
to make him feel guilty about his actions in any way. And why should he feel guilty?

It was totally irrational. All he'd done was tell her the truth, though possibly, he conceded, he might have done so less brutally.

It was just the way she idolised Andreas which made him want to shake some sense into her head; the woman was wasting her life mooning like some heroine in a romantic novel over a man who did not know she was alive.

‘You're right.'

The sudden admission drew his alert gaze to her face. She looked pale but composed as she elaborated, ‘I am in love with Andreas and, yes, he doesn't know I'm alive, not in that way, but I'm leaving.' Her slender shoulders lifted in a shrug. ‘So the problem goes away.'

The admission had clearly cost her. Theo felt a fresh stirring of admiration—whatever else she was, the woman had guts.

‘Excellent—now we are on the same page.'

Beth sank back down into her chair, her wary gaze trained on his lean face. Once again, Theo had surprised her. She had fully expected he would be unable to resist the opportunity to rub her nose in it but, instead, he had allowed her admission to pass, almost without comment, and had turned all enigmatic.

She didn't want to ask but she couldn't help herself. ‘What page would that be?' That they would share anything, even a page, seemed extremely unlikely to Beth.

‘We each, for our own reasons, think it would be a mistake for Andreas to marry Ariana.' He dipped his head and waited for her response.

‘That really has nothing to do…' The sardonic expression in his expressive eyes stopped her mid-sentence. ‘All right,' she conceded crankily. ‘I don't think that Ariana is good
enough for Andreas.' Now, she thought, this was where he pointed out that she was hardly what anyone would call objective.

‘She is poison.'

Beth was unable to display a similar restraint in her response. ‘You didn't always think that.' She encountered his wry stare and blushed. ‘Well, you were going to marry her yourself,' she added defensively. Everyone knew that name-calling was a classic response of the dumped lover.

‘Any woman I find attractive is immediately of interest to Andreas. If we were lovers, he would find you irresistible.'

An image of his sleek, bronzed, powerful male body appeared in her head—an uneducated guess, but enough to send embarrassed colour flying to her cheeks. So it wasn't the first time she had wondered what he looked like naked, and where was the harm in that?