Heiress's Defiance

Her isolation and loneliness spoke to him because he so often felt the same things. By choice, yes, but still. He’d had to isolate himself to survive the hell of his childhood. It was a skill he’d perfected by the time he was fourteen. A necessary skill to keep from going insane in the juvenile-detention facility he’d been sent to.

Christos excused himself from the conversation and moved toward the woman. He wanted to know who she was and what was in the picture that affected her so much. She turned then, and he stopped, stunned. Lucilla Chatsfield’s brows were pulled together, her face creased with sadness and pain. And she was utterly beautiful standing alone in that beam of light.

The light picked out her bone structure, highlighted the luminous quality of her skin and transformed the darkness of her hair into a chestnut cloud flowing down her back. She was still Lucilla, but Lucilla as he’d never seen her before. The beauty of her hit him like a lightning bolt, stole the air from his lungs, sent blood rushing into his groin.

He wanted to possess her. He wanted to erase that sadness from her eyes, and he wanted to strip that red dress from her body and expose the creamy skin underneath. The need to do so rocked him. And angered him.

He had no time for this. Lucilla was an obstacle in his path, not a dalliance on the side. She hated him. Despised him for sending her brothers and sister away on errands, and for thwarting her ambition.

Christos plucked two glasses of champagne from a passing tray and moved toward her. She’d turned to look at the painting again, and he found himself focusing on the swell of her hips, the curve of her back and the lush beauty of her hair as it tumbled over her shoulders in rich, reddish-brown waves. She never wore her hair down. He was suddenly thankful that she did not because the urge to plunge his fingers into it and feel the silky mass gliding over his hand was almost overwhelming.

“See something you want?”

She whirled to face him, clutching a hand over her heart. “Oh, my God, you scared me.”

He held out the champagne. “Then I apologize.”

She took the glass. Then she turned to look at the painting again. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

Christos stared at the small portrait of a woman. It wasn’t an old painting, though it wasn’t recent, either. The woman was wearing a long gown, pearls and a mink, and she was laughing. It was not a staid portrait at all. Christos frowned as he scanned the portrait. This woman looked familiar in a way. He turned to look at Lucilla’s profile, saw the same lines as in the painting, and a new feeling took root in his soul: anger and even a modicum of pity. Gene Chatsfield had put a portrait of his missing ex-wife into the auction, and Lucilla seemed sad about it.

No one knew where Liliana Chatsfield had gone, but one day she’d walked out on her family and never came home again. He knew the history, as so many did, but for the first time he could see how it must have affected at least one Chatsfield child.

It made him feel almost tender toward her. A complication he did not need. “She is indeed. Your mother, I presume?”

She took a sip of her champagne and he saw that her fingers trembled. “Yes.”

“And does it bother you this picture is in the auction?”

She sniffed. She did not look at him. “Of course not. It’s for a good cause, and my father is right to get rid of it. Graham Laurent painted it before he was quite so famous, so it will fetch a high price simply because of that. Obviously, my father knows this.”

And Gene Chatsfield was marrying again, so his new wife-to-be probably didn’t want a portrait of the old wife still in his possession. Though why he didn’t gift it to one of his children, Christos couldn’t say. It seemed the logical thing to do.

“You could buy it.”

She turned to look up at him again, and he felt the power of that gaze down to his toes. The gold flecks in her eyes sparkled in the light from above. “Oh, no, I couldn’t. It wouldn’t be seemly.”

He didn’t quite understand that logic, but it was not his concern really. If she didn’t want to buy it, what did he care?

“As you wish, Lucilla mou.” He didn’t know why he called her my Lucilla, but the first time he’d done it, she’d seemed annoyed—so he’d kept doing so because it amused him to irritate her. He had not meant to irritate her now, but of course she could not know that. Her eyes narrowed.

“Don’t you have some souls to collect elsewhere in the room?”

Christos couldn’t help the laugh that burst from him then. Lucilla tried to frown but ended up smiling, though she kept biting her lip to stop. He wished she would let it out because he was certain a smile would transform her face.

“I have met my quota of souls for the day, unfortunately.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Tomorrow is a new day. I’m sure you’ll find some lives to wreck before the morning runs out.”

He took a sip of champagne, uncharacteristically amused. She was acerbic and tart, not at all what he was accustomed to in a woman. It was a novelty, and he enjoyed it more than he should. He never cared if he was liked. Companies hired him to do the tough jobs, to make the decisions no one else would.

He didn’t care if this woman liked him, either—but he found himself hoping she wouldn’t go away just yet.

“It is on my schedule,” he said.

“Of course it is.” She pulled in a deep breath and turned away from the painting as if she had made a final decision to slice herself off from the allure of it. “Tell me about you, Christos. Where did you grow up? What did you like to do as a child?”

Her questions punched him in the gut. He never talked about his childhood. It was too painful. Too dark and disgusting. Compared to hers, even with an absent mother, his was hell on earth.

“I grew up in Greece. I had a happy life, I got an education and I went to work. What else is there to know?” The lies flowed easily from his tongue these days. He’d had years to practice them, after all.

She was staring at him. “Where in Greece? Near the sea? Inland?”

Ice formed in his veins. He did not like it when people pried. “Everywhere in Greece is near the sea.”

“That’s a very vague answer.”

He shrugged as if it were nothing to him. “We are not friends, Lucilla. There is no point in engaging in idle chitchat. You do not care about my childhood, nor I yours. You care about what I am doing to your precious company, and I care about returning the Chatsfield name and all it stands for to its former glory. We are not on opposite sides, no matter how you wish to view it. And we don’t need to engage in polite banter in order to pretend we like each other.”

Her eyes had narrowed considerably. And her color was high. The flush over her breasts was intriguing. He wanted to slip her gown off her shoulder and press his mouth just above her heart.

“With an attitude like that, no wonder you don’t have any friends. You refuse to let anyone get close enough to be a friend.”

He snorted. “And do you really want to be my friend, Lucilla? Or is there something more to this query?”

She tilted her chin up. “No, I don’t want to be your friend. But I was trying to be polite. I thought maybe life would be easier if we at least pretended to like each other.”

He took a step closer to her, watched the thrum of her pulse kick up in her neck. He had to admire that she did not back away. She stood her ground, though she had to tilt her head back to look up at him since he towered over her.

“I am quite willing to pretend, Lucilla mou. I find myself utterly intrigued by the cut of that gown and the mystery of what lies beneath. If you wish, we can leave together and pretend to like each other in my bed.”

Her eyes grew as wide as saucers. The color in her cheeks bloomed redder than before. And then she looked completely furious, as if he’d tricked her somehow. He didn’t have time to figure it out because she poked him in the chest with a manicured finger.

“You are not serious, Christos, and this isn’t funny.”

“I was not trying to be funny.”

She poked him again, harder this time. “I saw you come in and I know who you’re with. Don’t insult me by pretending you find me more appealing than you do your supermodel girlfriend.” She dropped her finger and straightened her shoulders. “I am not that desperate or that stupid and I resent you thinking I am.”

CHAPTER TWO

LUCILLA’S HEART BEAT hard and fast as she met Christos’s icy blue gaze. She knew her color was high, and she knew the hue of her gown didn’t help matters in the least. Why had she chosen red for tonight?

Because she knew he would be here.

No, that was not it at all.

She’d chosen the sexiest, boldest dress she owned because she liked to look and feel pretty, not because Christos Giatrakos would be here with yet another model on his arm. Since he’d arrived at the Chatsfield, he’d often been seen at their various events with beautiful women—a different one every time, in fact.

And now he was making fun of her. Taunting her with the idea of them being together, of tangled limbs and heated skin, when she knew it was the furthest thing from his mind. It was his aim to fluster her. It infuriated her that she could even be flustered—damn her stupid hormones—but she refused to let him know it was working.

She tilted her chin up and gave him her best glare. It had often worked on her siblings when they were growing up and she needed to get them in line.

Christos smirked. And then his gaze slid from hers, down over her neck, her collarbone, her chest …

Her skin burned everywhere he looked, as if it were his hands gliding over her body rather than his eyes. “I assure you I am most serious, Lucilla mou. If you care to test me, take my hand and follow me.”

She curled her free hand into a fist to prevent her from doing just that. Not that she seriously wanted to get naked with Christos, but she was damn tempted to call his bluff. Because he was baiting her. He wasn’t serious, and they both knew it. And she would love nothing more than to make him admit it.

“Is this your famous seduction technique? I find it lacking in subtlety and quite amateurish indeed.”

His gaze glittered. “You prove my point with your refusal. You are a coward, Lucilla. This is why you cannot run the Chatsfield Hotels. You are not willing to take chances.”

A fresh wave of anger buffeted her. “Goading me will not get you anywhere. I can see through you, Christos. You want to prod me into doing something stupid. It would give you no greater pleasure than to make me look like an idiot.”

“You do that quite well on your own.”

She nearly choked on her own tongue. “How dare you.”

He arched an eyebrow, mocking her. “I dare because you will not. Because you are frightened, Lucilla. A spoiled little girl who cannot make the hard choices in life. I can, and I will, best you every time.”

“I hate you,” she whispered, her heart hammering hard.

“I am aware of this. And I am certain it can only make this flame between us burn hotter.”

“There is no flame. You’re deluded.” And yet her body was being eaten alive by excitement and anger and the very powerful urge to kiss this man, to see if she would incinerate with that single touch.

How had this … this weakness happened? One minute she was staring at her mother’s portrait and the next he was there and she was burning up inside. She told herself it was because she’d been feeling sad and vulnerable and she hadn’t yet gotten her defenses back up. That was the only way Christos could get to her like this.

He took a step closer to her, until there was hardly a breath separating them. “It is time to stop lying to yourself. You feel it the same as I do. You have felt it from the first moment, the same as I have. Let us burn together, Lucilla, and get this inconvenient attraction out of the way. We’ll work together much better once it’s done.”

She couldn’t breathe. He was taking up all the air, all the space, and she ached with his nearness. It was the final straw for her. She took a step backward, out of his orbit, and sucked in a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Christos, but I think you’ve got it all wrong. There is no attraction, at least not on my part. I can’t stand you and I certainly don’t want you. Now if you will excuse me, I have an event to supervise.”

“You can tell yourself that, but we both know it’s not true.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” she said tightly.

“Run away, Lucilla. But this isn’t over.”

She sucked in an angry breath. “I am certain it is. Good night, Christos.”

Lucilla pivoted on her heel and strode away, merging into the crowd. She was shaking inside, and that infuriated her. Why did she let him get to her? For weeks now, she’d been cool and businesslike, ignoring him, looking down her nose at him even though he was taller than she. She’d treated him like the bug under the dark rock that he was, and she’d gotten away with it.

But today she’d lost her cool. She’d finally snapped and all the boiling emotions she’d been trying so hard to hide had spilled over the walls of the dam she’d built to contain them. They were currently ravaging everything in their path despite her best attempts to rein them in again.

But she would get herself under control. She had a plan, and that plan required her to keep doing as she always did. Christos would be gone before the summer was out when she was finished. She just had to stay strong and focused.

Lucilla slipped into the ladies’ room where she smoothed her long hair and refreshed her lipstick. She stepped back and studied herself in the mirror on one wall. She was not unattractive. But she wasn’t tall or leggy, or so thin she could wear anything and look fabulous in it. She had curves and little bulges—thank heavens for proper foundation garments—and her cheeks were too plump. She was also short, though four-inch heels made her seem tall.

She had brown eyes and brown hair and her smile was too wide. She did, however, have fabulous breasts. She slipped her hands under their curves, admiring them in the mirror. Yes, men definitely wanted these. Perhaps Christos did, too, though it seemed far more likely he was simply toying with her. Wanting her to admit she wanted him so he could reject her and thus prove his superiority while laughing at her.

Not happening.

With a last primp of her hair, she returned to the ballroom. As the evening wore on, she smiled and chatted with the guests and tried to push Christos from her mind. It wasn’t easy since she could feel his presence in the room. She knew he was watching and waiting and perhaps hoping she would make a mistake tonight.

She glimpsed him from time to time, holding court at the center of a gathering, the tall, leggy blonde in the skintight dress plastered to his side. He caught her gaze once and she forced herself not to look away. They stared at each other for several moments before the woman at his side seemed to realize his attention wasn’t on her anymore. She leaned in close and said something in his ear, and then he was turning his perfect smile on her.

Lucilla felt almost bereft when he wasn’t looking at her anymore, as if he’d somehow rejected her when he’d turned away. Utterly ridiculous.

She hadn’t brought a date tonight. She hadn’t dated anyone in months now because she’d been so focused on the hotel empire and had no time, but she decided that first thing tomorrow, she was getting back out there in the dating pool. It was ridiculous to throw herself so hard into work that she neglected having a personal life.

She told herself that if she hadn’t been lonely and aching for companionship, Christos would not have been able to affect her.

And he had affected her. She would admit that much. He was tall, sinfully sexy, and he made her blood hum. She really hated that about herself, that she could be attracted to a jerk like him, but her body didn’t seem to know he was poison.

When the auction began, Lucilla stayed around at first to make sure things were going smoothly, but then she retreated to her office with instructions to Jessie to come and get her if anything was amiss. She didn’t want to be there for the auctioning of her mother’s portrait.

She didn’t know why it bothered her—Liliana Chatsfield had thought nothing of abandoning her children and husband and leaving the raising of her family to her two eldest, so why on earth should Lucilla care about her portrait?

It was nostalgia, plain and simple, and she refused to let it bother her a moment longer. She sat at her desk—not the easiest thing to do in a tight gown—and scrolled through the bookings and reports for the upcoming week. The hotel had many things going on, and it was her duty to make sure it all went smoothly.

When her door opened, she glanced up, expecting to see Jessie. Instead, her stomach dropped into her toes and her pulse kicked up at the sight of Christos standing there, coolly handsome in his tuxedo and crisp white shirt.

“Yes?” she said as blandly as possible.

He walked in and closed the door and her heart ticked up another notch. “You left rather abruptly. Is everything all right?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“You tell me.”

She sighed and pushed her hair back over her shoulder. “It’s been a long day, Christos. I’m tired and I have a lot of work to do. I don’t stay for every event. Jessie knows where to find me if I’m needed.”

“You are upset with me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Not everything is about you, difficult as that may be to believe. No, I don’t like you, but I don’t spend every waking moment thinking about you.” Well, she did, but much of it was about how to get rid of him. She waved a hand airily. “I forgot about it as soon as I started talking to the auction director.”

Not quite true, but he didn’t need to know that.

He sprawled in the chair in front of her desk, gloriously loose-limbed and casual when she had the impression he was anything but. “This is good, Lucilla mou. Because we have things to talk about.”

She tried not to let the way he said her name slip down her spine and start drumming a beat in her deepest core, but it was damn near impossible. Plague the man for making her think of sex, anyway!

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that. I have no idea what it means, but it irritates me.”

His grin was too sexy for comfort. “I know this. It’s why I do it. And it means ‘my Lucilla.’”

Her stomach clenched. “I am most certainly not your Lucilla. I’m not anyone’s Lucilla.”

She could have bitten her tongue for admitting that last part. It was as if she’d just come out and said she couldn’t interest a man to save her life.

“This is a shame. You should be someone’s Lucilla. You should be taken to bed often and made to scream your lover’s name many times a night.”

Her throat was tight. “You really shouldn’t talk to me like this. It’s inappropriate.”

He ran his fingers along the edge of the chair’s arm. “Is it? You have informed me more than once that you don’t work for me, that you are a Chatsfield and these hotels are yours by birthright. How am I being inappropriate?”

She gritted her teeth and tried to ignore the pulsing of her blood in her veins. “My father hired you and gave you control over the Chatsfield Family Trust. I’d say that’s incentive enough for me to need to do what you say. And that makes this conversation inappropriate.”

“And here I thought we were finally being truthful with each other.” He made it sound as if he was disappointed in her, and that only irritated her further.

“What did you wish to talk to me about, Christos? If it’s not business, then please go away.”

He laughed. “It is definitely business, Lucilla mou. But I cannot help but rib you now that I know you are not immune to my charm.”

“Oh, for God’s sake—you have no charm! This is not about you or your nonexistent charm. It’s about business and what’s best for the hotels, so stop irritating me and get on with it.”

He leaned forward then and put his elbows on her desk. “After the shareholders’ meeting in August, I plan to make a tour of several Chatsfield locations. You will accompany me.”

Lucilla blinked. “Me? Why? Don’t you have an assistant for that?”

He rubbed a finger over his bottom lip and she found herself following the motion of that finger. “If you wish to run this company someday, I suggest you do what I tell you.”

She felt herself growling. “Sometimes it’s easier to get flies with honey, you know.” She tapped a key on her computer, purposely ignoring him. “And maybe I’ve decided I don’t want the company, after all. Maybe I’ll start my own business.”

“You can try. Or you can come with me and help fix what is wrong.”

She blinked. His tone hadn’t changed at all, but he was now looking at her expectantly. As if he just knew what her answer would be. And, damn him, he did. But she wasn’t going to make it easy on him.

“You cannot possibly mean for me to really help you. I’m spoiled and useless, remember?”

“You are indeed. And yet I am pleased with tonight’s event, and pleased with how things have gone in your office in general. It’s time to step up, Lucilla. Prove your mettle or get out of my way.”

She gripped the pen she’d picked up just a little tighter. He was so damn smug. “I can handle anything you throw at me, baby.”

He blinked. “Baby?”

“Annoying, right?” She shrugged, though her heart raced with adrenaline. “I’ve decided to start giving as good as I get. If I’m your Lucilla, you can be my baby.”

He lifted an eyebrow, and she had the impression she’d just wakened a sleeping tiger. Perhaps she shouldn’t bait him, but God, he deserved it. It made her feel reckless, which was certainly not how she usually behaved. But she rather liked it.

“I look forward to the inevitable clash of wills, Lucilla. You have no idea how much.”

She dropped the pen. “Because you like discord in your work environment? Well, I don’t. But I won’t be bullied, either. So get ready, baby, because I will not back down.”

He stood then and looked down at her from a great height. Because she didn’t like him towering over her, she stood, too. They faced each other across her desk. Her body felt rubbery, liquid, as their gazes held. There was no denying that Christos Giatrakos was powerfully, sinfully attractive.

If only he wasn’t such an arrogant jerk.

“I feel as if we must seal this deal somehow,” he murmured, and her stomach fluttered.

She came around her desk and thrust her hand out. She would not cower from him like a mouse. “I believe a handshake is how it’s usually done.”

His gaze dropped to her outstretched hand. “Indeed.” His hand slipped into hers, engulfing it. They were palm to palm and it somehow felt like the most intimate touch imaginable. She tried not to gasp, tried not to shiver or make any response that let him know how intense this feeling was.

But she didn’t need to. He tugged her hand softly and she moved forward until their bodies pressed together. His arm slipped behind her, his fingers spreading over the small of her back, burning her through the fabric of her dress.

His other hand tilted her chin up. His eyes, those beautiful, icy eyes, searched hers. She could not, for the life of her, imagine what she was supposed to say.

“I think this requires something a bit more personal,” he murmured. And then his mouth came down on hers—softly, sweetly, his lips gliding over hers, teasing and tantalizing. Her heart was a reckless runaway in her chest, and her body had lost the ability to hold itself upright moments ago.

She clutched his lapels, her eyes fluttering closed as he tormented her with that glorious mouth. His tongue slipped over her lips, and she gasped. Then he was inside and she was there to meet him. Their tongues tangled, and Lucilla made a noise in her throat as her body simply melted.