Penniless Cinderella for the Greek, page 1
“I had the impression on the beach a week ago that you want us to be work colleagues and nothing more.”
His dark blue eyes were unfathomable, but she noticed a nerve flicker in his cheek. He sipped his wine before he said softly, “Is that what you want, Savannah?”
She was about to assure him that of course it was. Anything other than a strictly work-based relationship with Dimitris would be dangerous. But she was transfixed by his masculine beauty, and when he smiled, she felt more alive than she had in ten years. “I don’t know,” she admitted huskily.
The band had been playing smooth jazz tunes during dinner, but now the guests had finished eating and the tempo of the music increased as people stepped onto the dance floor.
Dimitris pushed back his chair and stood up. He offered his hand to Savannah. “Would you like to dance?”
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 Harlequin 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
Harlequin Presents
Proof of Their Forbidden Night
Her Wedding Night Negotiation
Housekeeper in the Headlines
The Italian’s Bargain for His Bride
A Baby Scandal in Italy
Passionately Ever After...
Her Secret Royal Dilemma
Innocent Summer Brides
The Greek Wedding She Never Had
Nine Months to Tame the Tycoon
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.
Chantelle Shaw
Penniless Cinderella for the Greek
In memory of Julia, my wonderful mother-in-law.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
EXCERPT FROM HER VOW TO BE HIS DESERT QUEEN BY JACKIE ASHENDEN
CHAPTER ONE
‘WHAT CAN I get you, sir?’ The barman dropped the cloth he had been pushing in a lacklustre fashion across the counter and stood straighter when he saw Dimitris. ‘I hope you don’t mind me mentioning that you look a lot like the celebrity chef Dimitris Kyriakou.’
‘I have been told there is a resemblance,’ Dimitris murmured drily. He had learned to live with the public recognition that fame had brought him, but this evening he was preoccupied and not inclined to chat to the barman. ‘Give me a bottle of champagne and a couple of glasses, will you.’
‘Certainly, sir. If you are a hotel guest I can arrange for the champagne to be delivered to your room.’
‘I’ll take it with me.’ Dimitris smiled, but his eyes were hard. ‘I’m planning a little surprise.’ He masked his impatience while the barman placed two flutes on a tray, scooped ice into a bucket and took a bottle of champagne from the fridge.
‘Are you celebrating a special event?’ the young man asked chattily.
‘Something like that.’
If his sister Eleni’s suspicions about her fiancé were proved correct she had vowed to break off her engagement to Matt Collier. In Dimitris’s opinion it would be a cause for celebration. He’d made some discreet enquiries and learned that Collier had a reputation for cheating on his previous girlfriends.
Eleni deserved to marry a man who would be a faithful and loving husband. Dimitris felt a pang when he thought of his parents’ happy marriage before their lives were cut tragically short. He had agreed to help Eleni discover if Collier had a mistress because it was his duty to take care of his younger sister. After all, it was his fault that she had been orphaned when she was ten years old.
Dimitris was fourteen when their parents had been killed and Eleni had sustained life-changing injuries in a car accident. Amazingly he had escaped from the wreckage virtually unscathed. In the mirror behind the bar he could see the faint white line of the scar that ran down his cheek and was partially hidden by the dark stubble on his jaw.
Although his physical scar had faded he was still haunted by his guilt that he had been responsible for the accident. In the past eighteen years Eleni had undergone numerous operations and for a long time she’d had to use a wheelchair or walking stick. Pioneering surgery meant that she would be able to walk down the aisle unaided on her wedding day, in three weeks’ time, unless Dimitris found evidence that Eleni’s slick advertising executive fiancé was a cheat.
‘Matt has been acting strangely lately. I know it was an awful thing to do, but while he was in another room I looked at his phone and discovered that he has been in regular contact with a woman he calls S,’ Eleni had sobbed. ‘Matt told me he is going away at the weekend to play in a golf tournament, but his messages show that he has arranged to meet S at a hotel. I have to know the truth. You will help me, won’t you, Dimitris?’
Earlier, Dimitris had driven to the country house hotel a few miles out of London where Eleni’s fiancé had arranged a secret assignation. Collier’s car was in the car park and his phone messages to the mysterious S had included a room number. Dimitris had endured a mediocre dinner at the hotel, hoping to spot Collier and his companion. But they hadn’t appeared in the dining room so he would have to implement Plan B.
He carried the tray with the champagne out of the bar and stepped into the lift.
* * *
‘I’m going to take a quick shower, baby. Don’t go anywhere!’ Matt winked at Savannah and she forced a smile, but her face clouded over as she watched him saunter into the bathroom.
She couldn’t go through with it. She could not sleep with Matt even though it was their third date, and everyone knew that the third date meant sex. It was one reason why she’d never got further than a second date in years. She’d disliked the pressure to rush into a sexual relationship. The truth was there had always been something missing when she’d dated other men and it hadn’t been a difficult decision not to see them again. With Matt she’d felt a spark of attraction, and his open, friendly nature had allowed her to relax her usual wariness.
She reminded herself that they were both single, consenting adults. So what was the problem? The hotel suite’s impersonal décor added to Savannah’s sense that what they were about to do was sordid rather than romantic. Perhaps she would have felt better if Matt had suggested they could spend their first night together at his flat. He’d told her that he owned an apartment in Canary Wharf, but the decorators were in and the place was a mess.
Matt had arranged for them to have a private dinner in the suite. It was a thoughtful gesture, but Savannah had felt too uptight to eat much. Now she was relieved to be alone, although it was a temporary reprieve. She wandered around the room and raked her fingers through her hair—an unconscious habit when she felt tense.
You are being idiotic, she told her reflection in the mirror.
She tried to reassure herself that it was natural to feel apprehensive about having sex after a long gap. She could list her previous sexual experiences on the back of a postage stamp, but once she got started she would be fine.
Getting undressed would be a start. Her dress was a slinky wraparound style. She never usually wore red, but she’d chosen the seductive scarlet dress to boost her confidence. It hadn’t worked and her fingers were unsteady as she untied the belt and the two sides of the dress fell open to reveal her black lace push-up bra, also new and bought in the hope that the sexy underwear would give her libido the wake-up call it needed.
Savannah cast her mind back to a couple of weeks ago when she’d met Matt Collier through her job as a food photographer. Her assignment had been to take pictures for an advertising campaign Matt had devised to promote a new tapas bar in Soho. She’d been drawn to his laid-back charm, and after the shoot it had seemed natural to stay on for a few drinks in the bar with him. In fact anything had been preferable to going home to face the dire financial situation her father had left behind.
Over dinner on their second date Matt had explained that his last relationship had ended a few months ago. Savannah had enjoyed his company and agreed to his suggestion to meet him at a hotel. Everything else in her life was going spectacularly wrong and she’d welcomed the distraction of a new relationship. Besides, she was twenty-eight and it was time she stopped hiding away from life.
‘No one does old-fashioned courtship any more,’ her agent and friend Bev had stated a few days ago when Savannah had confided that she was considering moving her relationship with Matt up a notch. ‘If you like this guy, go for it. From the sound of it your ex-fiancé was a jerk, and you need to get over him.’
Years ago Savannah had ended her engagement to Hugo when she’d realised that she wasn’t in love with him. Discovering that he had used her for his own nefarious reasons had been humiliating, but Hugo hadn’t broken her heart. That honour went to the man who still invaded her dreams ten years after he had cruelly rejected her. Thinking about him had made her f urious and she’d resolved to take Bev’s advice and give Matt a chance.
But when Matt had ushered her into the suite and she’d seen the king-size bed she’d had an attack of doubts, or nerves, maybe both. It was too soon, and she wasn’t ready to have a sexual relationship with someone she hardly knew. Maybe it was ridiculous to hope she would one day meet a man who made her heart pound and know she would willingly follow him to the ends of the earth. With a flash of clarity Savannah realised that she wasn’t prepared to settle for less.
She heard the sound of the shower and briefly considered making her escape while Matt was in the bathroom. Her conscience pricked that it would be unfair to run out on him. He was a nice guy and deserved to know that the problem was her, not him.
A knock on the door of the suite gave her hope that the hotel was on fire, although presumably the fire alarm would be ringing. With any luck a sinkhole had opened up on the driveway and the guests were being advised to evacuate the hotel. Whatever the reason, the interruption was perfectly timed and would give her a chance to explain to Matt that she had changed her mind about them becoming lovers.
Savannah hurried to open the door and belatedly remembered that the front of her dress was undone.
* * *
The lift stopped at the fourth floor and Dimitris walked down the corridor and knocked on the door of Room 402. ‘Room service.’
‘Just a minute,’ came a female voice from the other side of the door. ‘Matt, did you order...?’ Silence and then Dimitris heard her mutter, ‘I suppose he can’t hear me in the bathroom.’
The door opened, but the woman did not look at him while she fumbled to tie the belt of her scarlet dress. Dimitris wondered if she’d pulled her clothes on in a hurry. The front edges of her dress did not meet properly, affording him an enticing glimpse of the pale mounds of her breasts spilling over the top of her bra.
He took in her blonde hair that fell in messy waves to just above her shoulders, before raking his gaze over her slender figure and finally down to her long legs and scarlet stiletto-heeled shoes. The lady in red was a sexy little number. Her perfume was evocative, floral notes mixed with something deeper and more sensual that stirred a distant memory in Dimitris’s mind, but it remained elusive.
‘I’ll put the champagne on the table, shall I?’ He strode into the room without giving the woman time to reply. Rage burned in his gut. He was glad he’d persuaded Eleni to stay at home. His sister would be devastated when he confirmed that the man she loved did indeed have a mistress, but at least she had been spared the humiliation of coming face to face with the fragrant woman who, from her dishevelled hair and clothes, Dimitris assumed had moments ago been in bed with Eleni’s fiancé.
A door that must lead to the en suite bathroom opened and Matt Collier emerged, wearing a bathrobe. His jaw sagged when he saw Dimitris. ‘What the bloody hell are you doing here?’
Dimitris did not answer. He had realised why the woman’s fragrance was familiar. It had haunted him for years. She had haunted him for years. She lifted her head and looked at him, and recognition flared in her hazel-green eyes as they widened with surprise.
‘Dimitris?’
‘Savannah O’Neal.’ Shock ricocheted through him. He narrowed his gaze to hide his reaction as his brain, and more pertinently his body, acknowledged that the pretty teenager he’d dumped ten years ago had grown up to become a stunningly beautiful and very sexy woman. ‘It’s been a long time.’
* * *
Dimitris’s effect on Savannah was as shattering as when she had been eighteen. Her heart was pounding and her mouth was dry. She had seen him on TV many times, hosting his hugely popular cooking programmes. His rock star looks and charismatic personality meant that he was regularly invited to be a guest on chat shows. But nothing had prepared Savannah for seeing him for real. His sex appeal was off the scale.
She had often imagined meeting Dimitris again and she’d planned on being cool and sophisticated, unlike the teenager who’d had a massive crush on him. The years fell away and she was the gauche girl on the cusp of womanhood who had daydreamed that the handsome Greek god working in his family’s restaurant would notice her. For eleven magical nights her fantasy had come true. But there had been no fairy tale happy ending, just a cold dose of reality that had forced her to grow up.
At twenty-two, Dimitris’s swarthy good looks had made him seem exotic and gorgeous compared to the few boys of her age Savannah had known. She’d had a sheltered upbringing and been privately educated at an all-girls’ school, and she had been ill-equipped to deal with Dimitris’s potent masculinity. When he’d laughed, the wicked glint in his eyes had been irresistible. But there was no hint of laughter on his chiselled features, and he looked as though he’d been hewn from granite or cold, hard marble.
Now in his early thirties, he was even more devastatingly attractive than she remembered. The scar on his cheek had faded over time. It did not detract from his good looks, rather it gave him a piratical air that added to his intrigue. His square jaw was uncompromising and his cheekbones sharply angular. Eyes a fathomless dark blue were shaded by thick black lashes and his heavy brows met over a strong nose. But it was his mouth that held Savannah’s attention. The full lips that promised heaven and had delivered, she remembered. His kiss was imprinted on her psyche.
She told herself that Dimitris, breaker of a thousand hearts besides her own, would have no memory of their first passionate encounter on a sultry summer’s night a decade ago. But the gleam in his eyes made her wonder if his mind had revisited the pool house on the night of her eighteenth birthday party.
‘It’s not what it looks like.’ Matt’s voice jolted Savannah back to reality.
Matt!
She felt guilty at how easily she had forgotten him. It had been sweet of Matt to order champagne. Perhaps he had planned to celebrate after they’d made love for the first time, she thought guiltily, knowing that she still had to have an awkward conversation with him and tell him she’d changed her mind about sleeping with him.
But why on earth had the famous chef and TV personality Dimitris Kyriakou delivered champagne to the suite? Utterly bemused, Savannah wondered if Matt had arranged to surprise her with a visit from a celebrity—a bit like a stripper-gram, although Dimitris showed no sign of removing his clothes. A memory of his muscular naked body pressed against hers brought a flush of warmth to her face.
She looked at Matt and then back at the impressive Greek who dominated the room with his sheer presence. One of the few things Dimitris had told her about himself years ago was that his mother had been English, and he had inherited his six feet plus height from her side of the family.
At eighteen Savannah had been painfully naïve, and unaware that men like Dimitris were a rarity. Now she knew better. Now she knew that every man faded into insignificance compared to Dimitris. Her confusion grew when she sensed angry vibes from him.
‘What’s going on?’ Savannah asked Matt. But he did not look at her and spoke to Dimitris.
‘I know it must seem suspicious that I’m at a hotel with a woman. But Savannah is a work colleague. She suggested meeting up to discuss a project and I had no idea that she’d booked a room with the intention of trying to persuade me to sleep with her.’
Savannah gasped. ‘That’s not true. You know full well that you asked me to spend the night with you.’ When Matt avoided her gaze she appealed to Dimitris. ‘Will you please tell me why you are here?’
Eyes the unfathomable blue of the deepest ocean swept over her and set every nerve-ending on her body alight. Dimitris’s penetrating gaze gave Savannah the unsettling notion that he could see inside her head.
‘Do you expect me to believe that you did not know your lover is engaged to be married?’ he asked curtly.
‘I expect you to believe it because it’s the truth.’ Her brief spurt of temper fizzled out as she tried to make sense of what Dimitris had said. ‘There must be some kind of mistake. Matt isn’t engaged to anyone. Are you... Matt?’
