Changing Constantinou's Game

Been there, done that. She squeezed her eyes shut. She was not that Izzie anymore—the terrified, unsure eighteen-year-old who’d walked into that audition and blown the biggest opportunity of her life. She would not go back there. Ever. Particularly not when today, facing her mortality, she’d suddenly had a crystal-clear vision of how short life could be.

A shaky sigh escaped her as she leaned back into the smooth leather. What was she doing, anyway? If those emergency brakes hadn’t deployed, she and Alex would have been smashed to smithereens. Worrying about a job was just nuts! But to be fair, she’d spent her whole life worrying. On a low, chronic level that couldn’t be good for a person. About keeping her job. About how she looked. About what the future held. And right now, that seemed like a very, very stupid way to live.

Alex dropped down in the chair beside her. “You okay?”

She nodded, her brain settling into an oddly lucid state. “Actually,” she said slowly, “I am.”

He gave her a long look as if he was trying to decide if she’d lost it. Then handed her ticket back with some scribbles on it. “The best Grace could do was an eleven-thirty tomorrow morning.”

She did the calculation in her head. If she left here at eleven-thirty, she’d land in New York around one-thirty. Maybe, just maybe, James could get the execs to stay later.

“Thank you,” she murmured, sliding the ticket into her purse.

“No problem.” His gaze sharpened on her face. “What did the paramedic say?”

“He says I’m fine...just to keep an eye on my head.”

“You mean have someone keep an eye on you,” he corrected. “For at least twenty-four hours probably. Any of those girlfriends of yours live in London?”

She shook her head. “I’m sure I’m fine. I’ll just book a hotel, get a good night’s sleep and it’ll all be good.”

His dark brows slanted together. “You don’t fool around with a head injury, Isabel. It’s serious stuff.”

“I don’t have a head injury. I have a bump on my head.”

He gave her a dark look and raked his hand through his hair. “Give me a second. I’m going to see if I can find a nurse or someone who can keep an eye on you.”

“No way I—dammit—” she cursed as he turned on his heel and strode off, already talking into his phone. She didn’t need a nurse. She needed to get back to New York.

He came back five minutes later, his frown deeper. “My assistant couldn’t find someone on such short notice.”

“Well, that’s it, then,” she said, trying not to look relieved. “I’ll make sure I keep an eye on myself and if I feel the slightest bit strange, I’ll go to the hospital.”

“No, you won’t.” His eyes darkened to a forbidding cobalt-blue. “I have plenty of space at my place in Canary Wharf. You can stay with me.”

Her jaw dropped open. Her stay with him at his place? Umm...no. “That’s very nice of you,” she said, “but I can’t impose like that.”

“You need to be watched.” He reached down and picked up her bag. “I don’t know about you but I need a hot shower and something to eat. Let’s go.”

She shook her head. “Alex, I—”

“Isabel. I had a friend suffer a massive hemorrhage after he hit his head. We all thought he was fine. He died that night, at home alone.”

“Oh.” She stared at him, scared silly.

“Exactly. You’ve had a brutally traumatic day, you look like you’re going to pass out, and I’m the one responsible for you whacking your head. So do me a favor and stay at my place so I don’t have to spend the night worrying about you expiring in a hotel room.”

And what was she supposed to say to that? Suddenly, staying alone in a hotel room seemed the height of stupidity. The thing was...despite how she knew instinctively she could trust him, despite how he’d taken care of her in that elevator, she didn’t know him. He could be an ax murderer for all she knew. On the other hand, she knew that was ridiculous. As a reporter she lived by her instincts, and her instincts told her she could trust Alex.

“Just say yes,” he muttered. “I’m out of patience.”

She chewed on her lip. “All right. If you’re sure it’s not too much trouble...”

A rueful smile curved his mouth. “I have a feeling you are trouble, Isabel Peters. Having you stay with me is not.”

But Izzie wasn’t at all sure that was the truth. Seated in the low, sleek sports car Alex had parked in the underground lot, her pulse raced as fast as the high-performance engine rippling beneath her. It might have been the way she couldn’t look at his muscular thighs on the low bucket seat beside her without remembering how that hard, male muscle had felt under her hands. Or the fact that despite his abrupt dismissal in the lobby earlier, there had been a spark between them in that elevator. Unless she was totally deluded...which had been known to happen when it came to her and men.

Tired of watching Izzie sit on the sidelines in Italy, her girlfriend Jo had finally staged an intervention. “You have to engage with men to catch them,” she’d advised caustically. “We aren’t participating in immaculate conception here.”

Izzie was clear on that. She just happened to be very, very bad at engaging.

She darted a sideways glance at the hard profile of the drop-dead-gorgeous man beside her. Could he actually be attracted to her? Or was she just kidding herself about that chemistry in the elevator? A man like that could have any woman he wanted. Why would he want vanilla when he could undoubtedly savor crème brûlée any day of the week?

The left and right sides of her brain warred with each other. Suddenly she was very, very tired of being Izzie the responsible. The girl who never took a risk. And it occurred to her that until she did, she might never know who she really was.

A flock of butterflies swooped through her stomach on a wild roller-coaster ride. Did she have the courage to find out tonight whether vanilla cut it? And if so, would it go down as the single most stupid thing she’d ever done? Or the best?

CHAPTER THREE

LEANDROS ALEXIOS CONSTANTINOU, Alex to all who knew him, stood on the terrace of his Canary Wharf penthouse at sunset, drinking in the spectacular light that blazed a golden path across the Thames. It never failed to take his breath away, this 270-degree panoramic vista of the city skyline and the river. Especially on a night like this, one of those warm, sultry summer evenings in London that made you think you’d be nuts to live anywhere else.

Worth every penny of the £2.5 million he’d paid for it, the peace and relaxation it brought him at the end of a fourteen-hour workday was usually foolproof. But not tonight. Not when all hell was breaking loose with his company back in New York, he was 3,500 miles away and his partner was an engineering genius, not a business brain. Not when a woman he was undoubtedly attracted to was showering in his guest room. The type of woman he’d vowed he wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole after Jess had walked out on him.

He stared at the sky as its deep burnt-gold hue darkened into an exotic orange, then pink, streaks of color floating across the darkening horizon. He was more thrown by that free fall that could have plunged him and Izzie into oblivion than he’d care to admit. He supposed he wouldn’t be human if he wasn’t. But he didn’t like where it was sending his mind. The uncharacteristic, impulsive things it was making him do. Like bringing a chaotic bundle of nerves named Isabel Peters home with him.

Truthfully, though, he hadn’t had much choice. It was his fault she’d hit her head. He couldn’t let her stay alone in a hotel room—not after losing his former teammate Cash as he had. And without a nurse to look after her, responsibility fell squarely in his lap.

Speaking of which... He turned and cocked his head toward the open windows. Izzie had been in that shower forever. All he needed was for her to collapse and drown. She’d certainly been pale enough.

Hell. He strode inside, stopped outside the bedroom he’d put her in and opened the door. “Are you okay in there?” he yelled.

“I’m good,” she called back over the sound of running water. “Getting out now.”

He shut the door, firmly, as his head went directly to an image of her naked and slippery under his hands, foam highlighting those curves.

He went back outside and switched on the lights. A whisper-soft breeze picked up as he walked to the edge of the terrace and rested his forearms on the top of the concrete wall. At least she was keeping his mind off Taylor Bayne, who’d taken his European expansion plans and dismantled them with a flick of his Rolex-clad wrist this morning.

Christós. His gut twisted in a discomforting reminder of that disaster of a boardroom this morning at Blue Light Interactive. He’d known something was up the minute he’d shaken the normally gregarious CEO’s hand and the other man had studiously avoided his gaze. Waved him to the massive dark-stained table, where the fractures in the deal had started to appear, one by one. All of a sudden things that hadn’t been issues before became major sticking points and Bayne was backpedaling faster than a quarterback who’d run out of room.

He let out a string of curses. What had made Bayne do a complete 180 like that? And how had he misread him so badly? For a man whose life had been a series of carefully orchestrated steps to take him where he was going, it was disconcerting to say the least. For Alex, there were no missteps. No deviations. No distractions. Only the master plan.

When he was six, growing up in sports-obsessed New York City, he’d decided he was going to be a famous football player. Never mind his father’s plans for him to take over C-Star Shipping as the family’s only male heir. For Alex it had only ever been about football. From the first time he’d held that piece of rawhide in his hands playing in the backyard with the neighborhood boys, he’d known it was the only thing he ever wanted to do.

A successful high school career and a brilliant Hail Mary pass to win his college team a national championship made his dream of playing professional football a reality. He got an offer from a New York team. Had been touted as the next big thing. That was when his father had hit the roof...this “hobby” of Alex’s had to stop. It was time for him to be a man and join the ranks of tough, brilliant Constantinou businessmen.

His hands tightened around the railing, the dusky, early-evening sky transforming into the dark Boston bar where his father had sat him down with a bottle of whiskey and hell in his eyes. Tonight they were going to hash this out, he’d told Alex. Didn’t he realize the shame he was bringing on the Constantinou name by abandoning his birthright for a frivolous career like American football?

Thud. Thud. Thud. The sound of the bottle hitting the worn wooden table was indelibly imprinted in his head. The bitter taste of the whiskey he’d never liked lingered in his mouth even now. His father’s harsh, nicotine-stained voice as he brushed aside Alex’s quietly issued plea. You’ve achieved your dream. Let me go after mine. Hristo’s reply, sharp as a knife. Sign that contract, Alexios, and you are no longer a part of this family.

His heart contracted, his knuckles shining white against the concrete barrier. He’d been so hurt, so angry, he’d signed the three-year contract the next day. And true to his word, his father had disowned him—had never come to another game.

He’d played incredibly well—become a superstar. He’d made an insane amount of money. But he’d never earned his father’s respect. And then, on one fateful evening, in the third year of his career, it had all been taken away from him. He’d had to learn what it was like to be a survivor. To hit rock bottom, claw his way out and start all over again.

Sophoros had been the result of that single-minded determination. Alongside his best buddy from college, brilliant software programmer Mark Isaacs, he’d built America’s most successful computer gaming company.

His mouth tightened, his fingers flexing around the concrete. It would be over his dead body that he’d watch Sophoros fail because of a greedy, lazy, half-talented former employee out for a free ride.

He stared up at the night sky, Venus making her first sparkling appearance. Calling to him like a signpost. No deviations. No distractions. He should be thinking about the mess that was waiting for him back in New York. Figuring out his game plan. Not worrying about what the hell Isabel Peters was still doing in the shower when she’d said ten minutes ago she was getting out.

“Alex—this is unbelievable!”

He turned around to find Isabel standing barefoot behind him, wearing the dress of his sister’s he’d found in the spare bedroom.

His first reaction was that his sister didn’t look like that in that dress. His second was that he was a dead man.

Still far too pale, her dark hair and eyes shone in the early evening light, set off by the cappuccino-colored dress. She’d put her hair up in a ponytail, her face bare of makeup except for a berry-colored gloss on her lips. Innocent. Harmless enough. The dress that hugged every inch of her curvy figure, emphasizing high breasts, a narrow waist and gently rounded hips, was not. She had the kind of body that made a man want to put his hands all over her, he thought distractedly. In no particular order.

Her blush as he raised his gaze to hers wasn’t something he’d seen on a woman in a long time. “I think I might be a size bigger than your sister.”

Deciding there was no appropriate response to that question he could verbalize, he cleared his throat and kept his eyes firmly focused on her face. “You’re white as a ghost.”

She pressed her hands to her cheeks. “I feel much better after the shower.”

“You need a stiff drink.” Theos, he needed a stiff drink.

She followed him inside, perching herself on a stool at the solid mahogany bar while he searched for and found a bottle of brandy.

“Wow. This place is fabulous.”

He turned around and studied her. It was an observation. An appreciation of the luxury they were standing in rather than the typical “I want this place to be mine” expression he’d seen on the faces of the few women he’d brought up here.

“Thanks,” he nodded, uncorking the bottle and pouring an inch in one glass and double in the other. He handed her the smaller one. “It was a good investment given the London real estate market.”

She wrapped her fingers around the crystal tumbler, their slim grace and perfectly manicured nails drawing his eye. “Alex— I—” She stopped, looking hesitant. “I don’t know how to say thank you for everything you’ve done for me today.”

“Don’t.” He screwed the lid back on the bottle and returned it to the shelf. “It was nothing.”

“It was,” she insisted, those big brown eyes of hers sweeping hesitantly over him as he turned back to her. “I think I would have completely lost it if it wasn’t for you.”

He shrugged. “Phobias are powerful things.”

“Still,” she said, lifting her chin and holding his gaze. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He nodded toward her glass. “Drink up. The brandy will help.”

She took a sip. Made a face. “Must be an acquired taste.”

He shot her an amused look. “Are you calling me old, Isabel?”

Twin dots of pink stained her cheeks. “Hardly. You’re what...thirty?”

“Thirty-two. And you?”

“Twenty-five.” She lifted her shoulders in an attempt at a sophisticated shrug. “Seven years...that’s not so much of a difference.”

“You’d be surprised what you can pack into those seven years,” he said drily. He sat his drink on the bar and walked to the shelf of CDs in the living room. “I’ve ordered some dinner from the restaurant downstairs. I thought we could have it on the terrace.”

“I’d love that. The view’s amazing.”

“Then I’m putting you to bed.” Unfortunately not his.

“I’m so wired I’m not sure I can sleep.”

He turned to face her. She seemed incredibly vulnerable sitting there, a restless energy emanating from her he found mirrored in himself. It had been one hell of a day. “The brandy and a good meal will solve that. You’re probably running on adrenaline now.”

“I think I am.”

He turned back to the CDs and scanned the titles. “Any preference in music?”

“I listen to everything.”

“Classical?”

“Yes.” She smiled as he looked over at her. “My dad’s a music professor at Stanford. I was brought up listening to that stuff.”

“Did he make you play every instrument known to man?”

“Yes, until he discovered I had absolutely no artistic talent whatsoever.”

His lips curved. “He must have been crushed.”

“I hated it,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m all thumbs when it comes to anything creative.”

Did that include the bedroom? he wondered. He wasn’t so caught up with creativity. But natural passion was a must.

Christós He forced his gaze back to the music in front of him. He really had to get his mind out of the gutter. Away from the fact that every time she swung those slim legs on that stool, he wondered what they would feel like wrapped around him. Whether she’d dig her heels into his back while he took her slow and deep and—

Whoa. He slapped the CD he was looking at back on the shelf and raked a hand through his hair. Had it been too long since he’d had a woman? Was that what this was all about? What had it been? Two, three months? He’d been so buried in the Blue Light Interactive deal he hadn’t had two seconds to even think about a woman, let alone bed one.

Or maybe it had just been three hours stuck in an elevator fighting an attraction that seemed to be growing by the minute?

He stared at the CDs. Spanish...he was going with Spanish. He grabbed a compilation of adagios and slid it into the player. The haunting strains of a lone guitar filled the room.

“I wouldn’t have pegged you as the classical guitar type,” she said as he walked back over to join her at the bar.

He aimed a reproving glance at her. “Stereotyping me, Isabel? You were questioning my reading taste earlier...”

Her mouth twisted. “You’re right. My mistake. You’re just a bit of a closed book, unlike me and my big mouth.”

He shrugged and picked up his drink. “You know the basics. I’m a native New Yorker, run my own company...”

“The details are overwhelming,” she said drily. “The accent is Greek?”

He nodded. “I was born in the US to Greek parents. But I spent my summers in the islands.”

“Where’d you go to school?”

“Boston College.”

“Why Boston when you had all those schools in New York?”

“Sports and their business program.” She didn’t need to know he’d gone on full scholarship. That as far as the university brass had been concerned, he’d been the closest thing to a savior their football program had ever seen.

“Ah, a typical male,” she teased. “The sports bug.”

“The natural order of things,” he agreed with a lazy smile, tilting his glass toward her. “Where did you go to school?”

“Columbia.”

“But you aren’t from New York.” He lifted a brow. “I can hear the faint traces of a Southern drawl.”

She shook her head. “California. Palo Alto. I moved to New York to go to school.”

“Are your family still out West?”

“Just my dad. My parents are separated. My mom lives in New York and my sister—” her lips curved “—well, she’s a nomad. She models all over the world. I never know what city I’m calling her in.”

He took a sip of his drink, feeling the smooth brandy burn its way down his throat. “How old were you when your parents separated?”

A rueful glint lit her eyes. “It’s kind of like the divorce that never happened.”

Sounded like hell to him. At least his mother had made up her mind and gotten out. He folded his arms and tucked his drink against his chest, resting his gaze on her face. “How so?”

She shrugged. “My mother’s an actress. Used to the bright lights and the big city. She was always leaving for shoots, for extended appearances in London in the theater...and eventually she just stopped coming home. I think she decided one day that we and Palo Alto just weren’t exciting enough for her.”

He frowned. “Would I know her?”

She hesitated, looked as if this was the last thing she wanted to talk about. “Her name is Dayla St. James.”

A vague recollection of a dark-haired bombshell floated into his head. “Was she in a wartime movie? Played a woman whose husband never came back from the front?”

She nodded. “That’s her. Kind of ironic, isn’t it?”

“Kind of.” He studied her face. “You don’t look much like her.”

“So she likes to tell me.”

He drew his brows together. “I didn’t mean you aren’t beautiful, Isabel. Surely many men have told you that you are.”

Her gaze dropped to her brandy. She swirled it around the glass. “You don’t need to humor me. My mother is a gorgeous movie star...my sister is a glamorous international model. I get it. I’ve been living with it my whole life.”

He held his tongue and counted to five. Anything he said here could and would be used against him. He had three sisters. He knew how their minds worked. “You should have more confidence in yourself,” he said flatly. “You’re a beautiful girl.”

She pressed her lips shut. Stared at him.

His phone rang. Thank the Lord for small favors.

“Can you set the table while I take this?” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Plates are in the cupboard beside the sink.”

His partner Mark’s cheerful voice boomed over the line. “Grace told me what happened. You okay, man? That must have been one hell of a ride.”

“This whole day’s been one hell of a ride.” Alex elbowed his way through the door to his study. “But yes, I’m fine.”

“Blue Light wasn’t good?”

He sank down on the corner of his desk. “Something happened between our last meeting and today. Bayne was backing off left, right and center.”

“I think I have the explanation for you,” Mark drawled. “And you aren’t going to like it.”

An uneasy feeling snaked its way up his spine. “What?”

“Taylor Bayne met with Frank Messer last week in London.”

Alex uttered a low curse. “How do you know?”

“Do you really want me to answer that?”

He grimaced. “No.” His partner, who had seen him through the darkest of times when his career ended and was still his only close confidant, was a programming genius. Which, translated, meant he was a hacker who could crack anything. “So what were they talking about?”

“Don’t know.” He heard his partner take a sip of something, which was undoubtedly coffee. He was addicted to it. “But you can be damn sure it had something to do with today.”

“He’s laying the groundwork for the court case.” It was all starting to fall into place. Having watched Sophoros’s stock value skyrocket, his ex-director of software, Frank Messer, was getting greedy, figuring he’d let them off far too lightly when they’d parted ways seven years ago. So now he was taking them to court claiming he should have been given a much bigger settlement the first time around. And apparently was trying to alienate the people Sophoros did business with.

He slammed his fist against the desk. “Christós, Mark, we should have buried him while we had the chance.”

“Truer words have never been said. The lawyers think we have a hell of a fight on our hands.”

Great. Just what he needed to hear after this fiasco of a day. “I need the jet, Mark. I’ve got to get out of here.”

“Way ahead of you, buddy. Grace has them working on it tonight. She’ll give you a call in the morning with an update.”

“Good.” His twenty-three-year-old PA was a formidable force way beyond her years. She’d have that jet in the air tomorrow morning if it was humanly possible.

“Alex...” Isabel’s voice rang out, a panicked, shrill sound that made him stiffen.

“Is that a woman’s voice?” His partner’s tone deepened to one of incredulity. “Seriously, Alex, I don’t know how you do it. You’re grounded in London for a few hours and you have a woman there already?”