The Greek Tycoon's Secret Child (6 page)

Mattie watched him, the way he dominated every inch of his surroundings, and felt another shiver of alarm that he had managed to get her this far.

‘Like it?' he asked, fiddling with a high-tech coffee machine, and she licked her lips nervously and then sat
on one of the chrome and wooden high stools at the kitchen counter.

‘Who wouldn't?'

‘Where do you live?' He slid a plain, squat, white china mug over to her and then perched on a similar stool to face her across the counter.

This was what she had dreaded. The intimacy of being somewhere private with him, and it couldn't get more private than this, but his remark about her seeing herself as a passive victim had rankled and had been one of the reasons she had agreed to come up here with him. She could take control.

‘Privileged information, I'm afraid.' They were both leaning on the counter, holding their mugs to their lips, and their eyes met.

She had a face, he thought, looking at her, that he quite simply enjoyed watching. It wasn't just the beauty of the features or the luminosity of her green eyes or the way her silver-blonde hair cascaded down her back. It was the humour and intelligence he could see there which she tried so hard to conceal underneath an aggressive hostility that seemed at odds with the physical look she presented.

She had a mind that he enjoyed tussling with.

And she had thrown him a gauntlet that he couldn't resist taking up.

‘Now, I wonder why I shouldn't have guessed that,' he drawled, sipping his coffee and looking at her over the rim of his cup. ‘What do you do when you're not working?'

‘Why?'

‘Because, generally speaking, these are the sorts of things two people might ask one another in the course of conversation.'

Mattie considered the question and tried to work out why she was finding this man so disconcerting. However, since she wasn't going to be seeing him again after tonight, what was the point in concealing what she had no reason to hide?

‘I try and grab some sleep whenever I can.'

‘How long have you been there?'

‘Oh, about seven or eight months.'

She was still looking at him cautiously with those amazing eyes, as if she expected him to make some sudden move and was braced to defend herself.

She had relaxed enough to take her jacket off, though, and had shoved up the sleeves of her jumper so that her slender arms were exposed, lightly dusted with golden hair. Her watch was a cheap plastic affair with a thick pink strap.

She was right when she said that they came from opposite sides of the tracks. Rosalind, for starters, would never have been seen dead without her delicate gold Rolex.

He caught himself and remembered that this was not intended to be a relationship, but an affair in the making. He was, he reminded himself, through with relationships.

‘And before that?'

Mattie shrugged. ‘Oh, I worked in a restaurant.'

‘So you sleep by day and work by night. A vampire's existence.'

‘I don't just spend all day in bed,' she flared. ‘I…I do other things as well.'

‘Such as?'

‘I wish you'd stop pretending to be interested in what I do and don't do.'

‘And I wish you'd stop thinking that you can read me like a book. A trashy erotic novel with very big type.'
He gave her a crooked smile and she couldn't help herself. She smiled back. ‘Now tell me what you do during the day.'

‘I…well, actually, I'm taking a course at the moment.' Mattie lowered her eyes and wondered what had possessed her to divulge this personal piece of information.

She thought of Frankie, realised with an unpleasant little start that he had not crossed her mind all night.

‘What kind of course?'

‘Marketing,' she said abruptly.

'Marketing?'

‘That's right! Marketing!' She glared at him and in her head she could hear Frankie's scathing criticisms of her desire to better herself, could hear him telling her over and over again that she just wasn't good enough to make the grade, that she had left school before getting any qualifications to speak of.

‘Yes, I left school when I was sixteen! Yes, I'm not exactly what most people might see as ideal marketing material! But I can do this! Because I work nights in a nightclub and dress in skimpy little outfits doesn't mean that I don't have a perfectly good, functioning brain in my head! You might think that I'm a blonde bimbo but you're wrong!'

‘I think it's a brilliant idea.'

‘What…?'

‘I said I think it's a brilliant idea.'

They looked at one another. Mattie's eyes drifted from his fathomless black ones down to his mouth, that sweetly sexy mouth of his, and she quickly looked away.

‘Why did you leave school at sixteen?'

‘I…everyone I knew was doing it…it seemed exciting at the time…getting out of school, becoming an adult, earning money…' She fiddled with the handle of the
mug and stared down into the dregs of coffee at the bottom.

‘And that was…how long ago?'

‘Seven years.' Mattie dared him to share any caustic reflections on her academic non-achievements.

‘And you never thought earlier about resuming your education?'

‘It's not as easy as you make it sound!'

‘Oh, where there's a will there's a way,' Dominic murmured. He watched the way her breasts rested lightly on the counter-top and hot blood surged through him. ‘So, when does this marketing course finish?'

‘I hand in my last project next week.'

‘Then you quit the nightclub and get a job?'

‘Then I hang on to my nightclub job because I still need the money and start the rounds of employment agencies. Sometimes the course supervisor can recommend someone for a job, but they have to be very good.' She stuck out her chin and remembered to scowl. ‘So there's my potted life history. Not very exciting, is it? And now that we've had our little chat, I think it's time I made my way back.'

‘Where does sleep figure in all of this?'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘Sleep? You must be running on adrenaline and nervous energy. Let me make you another coffee.'

‘I try and get at least six hours in the course of twenty-four.'

If Frankie allowed her. Usually, if he was in a particularly foul mood, he would think nothing of waking her up simply to commence an argument of sorts, even though he always backed off before he could push her to the absolute limit. Backed off and usually left the house.

‘Here. Drink this. Then I'll drop you home. Or you could stay the night here. I have three bedrooms.'

‘Stay the night?' Mattie looked at him incredulously. ‘Are you completely mad?' She scrambled off the stool and reached for her jacket, which she had tossed on the counter.

Well, who could blame him?

The last thing she wanted to do was spend the night in this apartment, even if she locked herself in a spare bedroom and then stuck a chair under the door handle for safe measure! Just knowing that he was sleeping not far away would guarantee a restless night. Because…because…

Because he was dangerous, she thought. Things were dangerous between them. He was just too much of everything that was bad for a girl's health. And she had enjoyed talking to him too much for her own good.

She feverishly began walking towards the door and he sprang from his stool and followed her, overtook her, leaned against the door so that she was compelled to halt her frantic escape and look at him.

‘Don't.'

‘Don't what?' Dominic asked softly. And then he couldn't help himself. He reached and stroked some strands of hair away from her face and then left his hand there, tangled in her hair. It felt good. Better than good.

‘Don't do what you're doing,' Mattie whispered unevenly, although she couldn't seem to find the strength to pull away from him.

‘I'm not doing anything. Yet.'

She whimpered and made a half-hearted attempt to draw back, but the light pressure of his hand against the side of her head was clogging up her thought processes.

‘I said I'd talk and I've talked.'

‘Maybe it's not enough.'

‘You promised…'

‘Did I? I don't think so. I never make promises I know I won't be able to keep.'

His hand had moved to cup her face and one finger traced the outline of her trembling mouth.

‘I want to see you again,' he told her huskily. ‘And again. And again.'

‘I've told you, there's no point.'

‘You've told me that we come from different sides of the tracks and that you're not for sale because you happen to work in a nightclub. Well, I'm not interested in buying my women and I don't give a damn about what side of the tracks you do or don't come from.'

He moved around, just an easy, graceful shift of position, so that now she was leaning against the door and he was in front of her. Then he propped himself against the door with the flat of one hand, and with the other he began to do the unthinkable.

He began to trail his fingers along the circular rim of her jumper.

Mattie had her hands pressed against the door, wanting to run but longing to stay just where she was and let her body carry on responding the way it was doing right now.

It had been a long time.

Even before she and Frankie had ceased all form of physical contact, apart from the very occasional hug when they both found themselves helpless victims of nostalgia, regret and awareness of the chasm between them, Mattie had found it impossible to respond to him. His touch had left her cold, made her want to curl up into a ball and hide away. For a long time, she had put it down to sheer exhaustion at the hectic hours she kept
and the demands on her time. Then she had seen it for what it was—she no longer enjoyed being with him and that had simply extended to all areas of her life.

‘Please, Dominic…'

His name left her lips like a breathless caress. She should have called him
Mr Drecos
. That would have established some distance between them.

‘Look, Mattie, I know you think I've pursued you for no better reason than to get you into bed…'

‘And haven't you?'

‘I want to enjoy you.'

‘I told you…' Mattie could hardly recognise her own voice. It was shaky and husky, probably because she felt as if she was gasping for air.

‘And you want to enjoy me too.' His kiss as he lowered his head was as light and as unthreatening as a feather brushing against her mouth, but it still managed to turn her legs to jelly. They matched her brain.

‘Is it a crime to give in to mutual attraction?'

This time his kiss was a little less unthreatening and far, far more shockingly potent, because he was doing things with his tongue, invading her mouth, exploring her until she could barely support herself against the door.

‘Well, is it?' he murmured unsteadily, drawing back from her so that she felt the absence of his touch like a sudden, yawning hole inside her.

‘You're confusing me.'

‘Good. I want to confuse you. Just as you confuse me. I want you to shiver every time I cross your thoughts and I want to send every nerve in your body into disarray whenever I touch you.'

He was virtually making love to her with his words, something she had never experienced in her life before.
But then, her only lover had been Frankie and words had never been his strong point. Looks, yes. The Irish blood in him had given him those all right, but that was as far as it went.

She was up against a different species here and she knew it. And, knowing it, she struggled to get her own thought processes into working order.

She could hardly dredge up Frankie's face under the onslaught of emotion flooding through her like a tidal wave!

His hand, that damned hand of his, slithered to caress her bare skin under the jumper. Just the flat, hard lines of her stomach, not venturing anywhere higher up, but it was sufficient to make her catch her breath. In surprise. And, she thought chaotically, pleasure. No, pleasure was too mediocre a word.
Excitement.

‘So…will you spend the night here? With me? In my bed?'

‘No…please…' Mattie clung on to what coherent common sense was still in play. ‘This is…is ridiculous…' The hand crept fractionally higher.

His own patience astounded him. He could feel her trembling under him, wanting him, but he was still having to rein in his impulse to lift her off her feet and sweep her into his bedroom like a primitive caveman taking possession of his woman.

His hand was only inches away from her breasts. Beautiful, well-shaped breasts that he wanted to touch and suck and worship.

‘We have nothing in common…'

‘I can think of something we have very much in common, actually…'

‘Go and play your games with your own type…'

‘I don't have a type. Only bores have types.'

‘Well, go and play your games with…with someone else…!' The scattered conversation had done what it needed to do. Gave her room to breathe instead of just waving and drowning under her panting senses.

Gave her time to remember the man waiting for her back at the house and the impossibility of her situation.

She wriggled slightly and the hand that had been doing such dangerous things to her stomach found what it had been edging towards.

Mattie literally jumped as his long, expert fingers worked their way over her breast, found the nipple pointing and aching under the lacy bra and rubbed it.

One more minute and she could say goodbye to any kind of self-restraint.

‘No!' She pushed his hand and he removed it immediately but only so that it could join his other hand, still lying palm down against the door.

He looked at her in the trap he had managed to create, with both his hands caging her in.