Penniless and Purchased

She felt her lips part. Wow! If you wanted an image of Mr Cool, that was it! Hair as jet-black as his motor, one besuited arm crooked casually over the lowered driver’s window, hands curving around the steering wheel, white cuffs, a glimpse of a dark red silk tie, and a face—oh, gulp—a face that had a chiselled profile and—double gulp—dark glasses to die for…

She just stared as he went by. Transfixed.

Too transfixed to see his head shift, very slightly, to bring her into his line of sight in his rearview mirror, which caught her perfectly, standing, poised, long pale hair streaming, blue gypsy skirt wound about her long legs, her hand cupping almond blossoms, petals drifting down over her, caught in a pool of sunlight.

The car seemed to slow a moment, then picked up speed again, turning the corner. With a little sigh, Sophie set off in the same direction. Five minutes later, she was outside their house, her eyes going to the gleaming back monster parked a couple of bays along. There was no sign of the driver.

A new neighbour?

She felt her insides give a little skip.

But more likely he was just visiting someone.

A woman, probably. Sophie’s imagination fired. She’d be dark and svelte, with figure-hugging clothes and a sultry voice. Instinctively she felt her hackles rise. She hated the entirely fictitious female instantly. Then, with a shake of her head at her own daft imagination, she set her bags down and set to find her keys.

Letting herself in, she dumped her bags on the chest in the hallway and glanced at her reflection in the mirror above. Long hair, somewhat wispy from the breeze and walking, an oval face, grey-blue eyes, wide set, not much make-up, just a touch of mascara and lip gloss, and little gypsy earrings, which she’d chosen to go with her skirt.

Feeling her hands sticky from London buses, she nipped into the downstairs loo to freshen up. Then she went upstairs. She had the attic floor all to herself. Her father had had it converted to a teenager’s dream pad for her thirteenth birthday, and, although it had been redecorated several times since then, she still loved it. Sophie had been going to head straight up to her own rooms, as she knew her father wouldn’t be home yet, but as she passed along the first-floor landing she heard her father’s voice from the drawing room.

Smilingly, she changed tack, opened the double doors, and sailed in.

‘Daddy! How lovely! I didn’t know you were home—’ she began.

Then she stopped dead. Her father wasn’t alone. There was someone else in the large room with him. Sophie heard her breath catch in her throat as her eyes went to the other occupant.

It was the driver of the car that had passed her.

Standing here, he looked even more fantastic than he had in the brief glimpse she’d got of him. He was tall—taller than her and her father. And slim, like a blade, wearing a suit so fantastically cut she knew it screamed Italian designer, just like the pristine white shirt and the dark slash of a tie did, too. But it wasn’t his clothes that made the breath catch in her throat, her pulse quicken suddenly. It was the body inside the suit, and the face—oh, the face—that was every bit as chiselled as it had been in profile, with jawline and cheekbones and nose and above all eyes that were dark and long-lashed, and which were looking at her and making her feel…feel…

‘Sophie, pet, let me introduce you to our guest.’

Her father’s voice made her blink, but her gaze was still on the man standing in the middle of the drawing room. Looking—

Drop-dead gorgeous. That was the phrase, and it suited him totally, utterly. Just—drop-dead gorgeous. She wanted to go on staring—couldn’t do anything but go on staring!

He took her breath away. Literally.

‘This is Nikos Kazandros. This is my daughter, Sophie.’

Nikos Kazandros. She echoed the name in her head, and it seemed to resonate like a fine vibration. So he was Greek, she registered. Nikos Kazandros. Dreamily, she rolled the name around her head as, dimly, she heard her father perform the introductions. Even more dimly she heard herself murmuring something polite. But then Nikos Kazandros was holding out his hand, saying something to her in a low voice which did not register, only the deep timbre and the slight drawl over the words, the foreign accent hardly there beneath the impeccable English. Numbly, she slipped her hand into his.

His palm and fingers were cool and strong, and as she made contact, she felt another of those strange vibrations go through her. Then she was slipping her hand from his, but continuing to stand there, still gazing at him. Eyes locked to his face.

Long lashes swept down suddenly over his dark eyes, and she felt her breath catch again. Then her father was talking once more.

‘My daughter is a student, Mr Kazandros, but I’m fortunate enough that she chooses to live here, not in some student dive.’ He gave a brief social laugh.

The dark eyes were on her once more, and she felt their impact with another whoosh in her lungs.

‘What do you study?’ he asked, addressing her direct.

Again, the deep, slightly accented voice did things to her.

And the eyes, those eyes resting on her, so dark, so very dark…

‘Music,’ she answered, her voice slightly breathless.

‘Indeed? Which instrument do you specialise in?’ It was a polite query, nothing more than the circumstances warranted, mere small talk between a guest and the daughter of his host. But there seemed to her to be something deeply profound about the question. Something that made her pulse flutter.

‘Piano,’ she answered. One-word answers seemed all that she was capable of.

‘I’m sure Sophie will play for us after dinner,’ said Edward Granton. His daughter’s eyes flew to his.

‘Is Mr Kazandros staying for dinner?’

‘Your father has been so kind as to invite me,’ murmured their guest. There was smoothness in his voice now, and the dark lashes were veiling his eyes. ‘I hope that does not inconvenience you?’

‘Oh, no! No—not at all,’ she said, her voice still breathy. Then a smile broke across her face. ‘It would be lovely!’

His eyes stilled, rested on her. She saw, deep in those dark, long-lashed orbs, something that once more seemed to hit that strange, evocative frequency that she’d felt when she’d heard his voice. For one long, incredible moment she could not tear her eyes away. She seemed to be falling into their depths, and she could feel her eyes widening, widening…

Her father’s voice brought her back. ‘Sophie, I’ve let Mrs T know, but it would be good if you popped in to ask if she needs a hand. Now, very tediously for you, I must speak business to Mr Kazandros, so—’

She took her cue. ‘Yes, of course. I’ll…um…I’ll see you later.’ She nodded briefly, courteously, at the man who was taking her breath away, then turned to go to the door, knowing that what she really wanted to do was go on standing there, gazing at him, drinking him in…

He was before her at the door, opening it for her. Then, as she paused, he smiled down at her suddenly.

‘Almond blossom,’ he murmured, and his fingers brushed with absolute lightness at a couple of stray petals still caught in her hair. Her eyes flared again, and she felt quivery. Breathless.

‘Thank you,’ she husked, and suddenly she was too shy to look at him any more.

She all but scurried out of the room. As she gained the landing, she realised her heart was thudding. Forgetting her father’s suggestion to go and see the housekeeper, instead Sophie ran upstairs, panting at little by the time she was up in her attic quarters. She threw herself bouncingly down on the bed, feeling her heart give a little thrill.

Nikos Kazandros. His name flared in her brain, and she said it out loud, just to hear the syllables roll around in all their exotic foreignness. What on earth was he doing here? When her father invited business colleagues and associates they were all middle-aged men and dead boring. But this man—oh, wow! He could be a film star, not a businessman.

She gave an exuberant little laugh. She didn’t care what he was—he was here, in the house, and in just a little while she’d be seeing him again.

She leapt to her feet, horror-struck. What time was it? She and her father usually dined at eight, so how much time did that leave her? She seized her bedside clock and gave an anguished cry. Could she be ready in time?

Not ready for dinner. Ready for Nikos Kazandros.

Nikos Kazandros, Nikos Kazandros…

The syllables went round and round in her head while she dived into the bathroom and the shower, dragging off her clothes. She had some serious, serious ablutions to make!

Nikos was listening to Edward Granton, but his attention was not on what the older man was saying. He knew what it would be about, anyway, and he knew exactly what to expect, and exactly what to do.

But what he had not expected was what had happened ten minutes ago in the drawing room.

Thee mou, the girl was a peach! The clearest, most delicately scented honey possible. Even now, with time to compose himself, he could still feel the resonance of the moment the doors had flung open and she’d sailed in. He’d had a moment’s vision of flying golden locks, a swirl of colour around her hips and legs, and then every last gram of his focus had gone to her face. He’d recognised it instantly—the girl he’d seen in his rearview mirror, framed like a picture.

An exquisite picture. Stopping him in his tracks.

But she was young. Too young. She didn’t look more than eighteen, and Edward Granton had said she was a student. Pity. Pity she was so young. Pity she was his host’s daughter. Pity that he was here on business, not pleasure.

Nikos turned his attention back fully on Edward Granton and the figures the older man was presenting, the argument he was making, the proposal he was constructing. Speaking convincingly, persuasively, fluently—and completely failing, all the same, to conceal the fact that he was hovering on the brink of financial ruin. The complete collapse of Granton plc.

Would Kazandros Corp throw Granton the lifeline he was desperate for? Maybe. There was value in the company, no doubt about that, but it was haemorrhaging cash. Granton had made some rash calls, and then had done what so many men under pressure went on to do—made even rasher ones, trying to claw back safety. But safety was gone. Granton was running out of options, running out of room to manoeuvre. Running out, worst of all, of time. In just under a month he’d have to make a hefty payment due on a loan, and right now his cashflow couldn’t meet it. After that, things were just going to get worse. Edward Granton could start to cash in assets, to try and get back on an even keel, but he would be risking not just failing to make a profit on his original investment but taking a loss, as well.

No, all that could keep Granton plc—and Granton himself—afloat was a white knight.

Was Kazandros Corp going to be that white knight? He would know soon enough, thought Nikos. But it would be on his terms, not Edward Granton’s.

This was his baby. His father had handed it to him, had trusted him to make the right call, the one that would pay off in the long term. If the figures performed on the bottom line it might just be a shrewd investment, giving Kazandros Corp a good foothold in the London commercial property market—but even if the figures stacked, there was still substantial risk.

Definitely time to crunch the numbers. Eyes focussed entirely on the printouts Edward Granton was putting in front of him, Nikos blanked out the rest of the world.

Including the peach of a girl who was Edward Granton’s too-young daughter.

Sophie studied her reflection critically. More critically than she’d done since—oh, she couldn’t remember when! It was probably when she’d started going out with Joel, but that had been over a year ago, and he was long gone. It was funny, she thought now, examining whether her eye make-up was exactly even on both sides, that she’d ever been keen on Joel. Oh, he had obvious charms—blond, good-looking, popular…

But he was just a boy. She stilled a moment, eyes widening unconsciously as she stared at herself.

Nikos Kazandros wasn’t a boy. Yet again his image formed in her head. It seemed to have imprinted itself on her instantly, indelibly, and every time she called it up she felt her pulse give a little flurry. It was a gorgeous feeling. It made her feel a funny mix of excited and shivery, as well. She’d never felt like that about Joel, that was for sure! More a sort of satisfaction that he’d chosen her to go out with instead of another girl, Hayley. Her eyes darkened briefly. Not that he hadn’t gone straight out with Hayley after she and he had split…

She tightened her mouth. Yes, well, Hayley had made it clear she was more than eager to give Joel what he wanted from his girlfriends! What he’d wanted from her, too, but hadn’t got. Hence the split.

Her mouth pressed tighter. No way would she ever have dreamt of wasting the occasion on Joel who, with hindsight, had obviously only gone out with her to try and get her into bed. Nothing special—just one more conquest for him.

Well, it’s not going to be like that! It’s going to be something really, really special—someone really, really special!

Without volition, the imprint of her father’s business guest formed in her head again. Immediately she blinked, telling herself it was to test her mascara was not running. But she knew it was to counter the sudden quiver that ran through her as she put the two thoughts together.

Someone special.

And Nikos Kazandros.

She pulled back from the mirror. No—that was absurd! She’d only just set eyes on the man, spent a bare few minutes in his company. And now here she was thinking—

She felt herself colour, and stood up from her dressing stool. She was being ridiculous. She took a step backwards, moving to inspect her whole appearance, focussing only on that.

She had, she knew, pulled out all the stops.

But for Nikos Kazandros a woman would have to!

With looks like his—not to mention the flash car and his obviously wealthy background!—Nikos Kazandros wouldn’t even have to crook his little finger to get girls flocking around him! They’d all be as breathless as she’d been.

Again she felt her heart-rate quicken, felt her lungs take in a swift, shallow breath. Felt that gorgeous little shivery feeling flutter through her. Excitement caught at her. She took one last look at her reflection. If she couldn’t make Nikos Kazandros look twice at her now, she never would!

What if he does? The voice sounded in her head. Yes, Nikos Kazandros was gorgeous—two hundred percent, twenty-two carat gorgeous—but he was their dinner guest, that was all.

Then you’d better make the most of him, hadn’t you? The voice sounded again, but it was a different one this time. One that made her glance at the slim gold watch around her wrist, and then, flicking her hair back off her shoulders, trot to the door and set off downstairs.

She could hear her father’s voice from the drawing room. The doors were open this time, and yet for a moment, breath catching, she paused in the threshold. She didn’t do it deliberately. It was because she was suddenly breathless.

Nervous.

Maybe he’s not as gorgeous as I thought. Maybe when I see him again I’ll be disappointed. Think his nose too big, his eyes too close-set. See flaws in him. Change my mind over him.

But that wasn’t the only reason she was nervous, she knew. There was another reason—one to do with a sudden deep sense that she was standing on the threshold of something significant.

Deliberately, quite deliberately as she walked into the room, she did not do what every instinct was trying to compel her to do and let her eyes go to the tall, dark figure standing across the room. She could see him at the periphery of her vision, but she wouldn’t let her eyes fly to him.

Her father was greeting her warmly. Almost as if he were relieved at her arrival. The disquieting thought distracted her. She went up and kissed him on the cheek, then turned to their guest.

‘Mr Kazandros.’ She smiled.

For a moment he didn’t answer her smile. For a moment his face was expressionless. Sophie found herself wondering at it. Then, as if a switch had been thrown, he was greeting her in return.

‘Miss Granton.’ He gave a small bow of his head, very foreign. It reminded her of Vienna, where everyone had seemed so formal all the time. She gave a light laugh.

‘Oh, please, do call me Sophie. Miss Granton makes me sound like someone in Jane Austen! Probably a maiden aunt.’

Something moved in his eyes. ‘Unlikely,’ he said, his voice very dry.

But she wasn’t paying a great deal of attention. As she’d let her gaze go to him, to greet him, exhilaration had swept through her. She hadn’t been imagining it! He really was as drop-dead, gulpingly gorgeous as she’d first thought! How could she even have thought there might be any flaws? There were none—absolutely none! He really, really was just shiveringly fantastic!

And he definitely was no boy. This was a man—a man who moved through the world, doing business, driving incredible cars, sophisticated, assured, skilled, experienced.

Experienced.

The word repeated itself in her head. With connotations that made her breath tighter. She found her eyes moving to his mouth.

Sculpted, mobile.

Experienced.

She felt heat beat up in her throat. He’d know how to kiss fantastically…

Her father was saying something, and she forced herself to listen.

‘Your usual orange juice, pet?’

He was crossing over to the drinks cabinet against the other wall. She took a little breath.

‘Oh, I think I’ll have a Bellini tonight, please, Daddy.’ Immediately she wished she hadn’t said ‘Daddy’ like that.

It makes me sound like a little girl.

She didn’t look at Nikos Kazandros in case she saw the thought in his eyes. She didn’t want him to think of her as a little girl.

Her father paused by the cabinet. ‘Sophie, pet, there’s no champagne open. I don’t want to waste a bottle on a single drink. Have something else.’

She was momentarily stymied. Then she recovered. She looked back at Nikos Kazandros. He had that veiled look on his face again.

‘What are you drinking, Mr Kazandros?’ she asked, eyeing his shallow glass, which he was holding with long, squaretipped fingers. Her voice had a breathless touch to it.

She could see the switch being thrown again. The veiled look was gone.

‘Nikos,’ he said softly, as if he were speaking only to her. ‘If I am to call you Sophie.’ A smile, tantalisingly brief, as was the quiver that it engendered in her, hovered at the corner of one mouth. ‘And I am having a martini—very dry. It is an…acquired taste.’

‘Sophie, you’d hate it, believe me,’ said her father from the drinks cabinet.

‘A sweet martini can be very palatable,’ suggested Nikos.

She smiled. ‘Perfect!’ she said. ‘There you go, Daddy. A sweet martini for me, please!’

Oh, damn, she’d said ‘Daddy’ again, and again her gaze flicked to Nikos Kazandros—no, Nikos, she amended, and felt a little thrill, as if of triumph—to see whether he thought her childish. But the veiled look was back on his face. She wondered at it, but at the same time realised she was glad of it, too, because it seemed to give her the opportunity to look at him, as she wanted to, without actually falling headfirst into his gaze, because his eyes were not quite meeting hers.

But they were on her face, though. And more than her face.

They’d flicked downwards, she could see—only for an instant, but it was enough. Enough to tell her, again with a little thrill of triumph, that she had not pulled out all the stops in vain.

The peach-coloured cocktail dress she wore was one of her very favourites. There was something about the colour that just absolutely suited her skin tone and her hair. The material was so light it skimmed her body, but outlined it, as well. It wasn’t at all overtly revealing—but somehow it seemed to indicate an awful lot. The hem was a little way above her knees, yet it lengthened the line of her legs incredibly. The bodice was not tight, but she knew it gave her a very flattering bust, and made her waist look even more slender than it was.

It had been incredibly expensive, even for her budget, but because she loved it so she got good value from it, wearing it over and over again.

But never so gratefully as now.

Now, as Nikos Kazandros’s experienced eyes flicked over her—how many women had he looked over to judge whether they were good enough to interest him?—she knew, with every ingrained feminine instinct, that what he saw he liked.

Liked a lot.

Her lips parted, and her smile was one of mingled gladness—and relief.

I want him to like me.

He was a world away from her. Not just because she was still a student, and he was a man old enough to be doing business with her father, but because, for all her more-than-comfortable existence, it was obvious just from looking at him that Nikos Kazandros’s stalking ground was the kind of glamorous watering holes that littered the Mediterranean and the Caribbean, the Alps and the Indian Ocean islands. Fashionable clubs in fashionable cities, with the kind of exclusive membership that filtered out anyone not sufficiently rich, sufficiently sophisticated. The world of serious money and serious spending. That was the world Nikos Kazandros belonged to.

For a moment she felt dismay fill her, knowing the distance between them was too great.

Then his eyes flicked back up to meet hers again.

The veil was gone. And in its place—

Sophie’s breath stilled in her body. Completely. As if oxygen were no longer necessary to her survival.

Because it wasn’t. The only thing necessary to her survival at this moment was the look that Nikos Kazandros was pouring into her eyes.

She had heard the expression ‘the world stopped turning’—now she and knew what it meant. For one incredible, timeless moment she just gazed back at him. Feeling everything stop.

Then, from a long way away, she heard her father’s voice.

‘Sophie?’

She blinked. The world started again. Her father was there, holding out her sweet martini to her. She took it and dipped her head, wanting only to take a large gulp of the drink.

There was heat in her throat, and not from the alcohol. From a different source of intoxication. Far, far more powerful.

Powerful enough to sweep her away, for ever, into a different world, from which she knew, with a strange, vague sense of fatality, she might never, never return.

And from which she knew she would never want to.

Slowly, she raised the glass to her lips, as if toasting that fate. Her eyes went back to his. They were veiled again, but she knew why now. Didn’t mind. She smiled, lips parting over pearled teeth.

Nikos took a mouthful of his own dry martini. He could do with it. Self-control was slamming down hard over him and he needed to regain it, urgently.

Hell, if he’d thought Sophie Granton a peach when he’d first seen her, with her hair flying and almond blossom drifting on her gypsy clothes, now he couldn’t even begin to find the right description for her.

Except—knockout.

But not in the way the women in his world usually earned that soubriquet. Not from wearing the kind of gown that stunned male libidos a kilometre wide. Sophie Granton’s impact as she’d stood in the doorway a few minutes ago had been quite different. Hitting him in a quite different place. One where he’d never been hit before.