Expectant Bride. Lynne Graham

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      As he reached a long arm past her to open the steel door at the top, a blast of cold spring air blew her hair back from her face and plastered her thin overall to her slight body. She shivered violently. Having already donned his overcoat, Dio Alexiakis side-stepped her to stride towards the silver helicopter and the pilot stationed by its nose.

      ‘Hurry up!’ he shot at her over a broad shoulder.

      ‘I haven’t even got my coat!’ Ellie heard herself shriek at him, losing her temper with a suddenness that shook her.

      He stopped dead and wheeled round. With an air of grim exasperation and quite unnecessary male drama, he began to shrug back out of his coat.

      ‘Don’t waste your time!’ Ellie snapped, temper leaping even higher at that display of grudging gallantry. ‘I wouldn’t wear your stupid coat if I had pneumonia!’

      ‘So freeze in silence!’ Dio Alexiakis launched back at her at full throttle, black eyes flashing like forked lightning.

      Ellie squared her slight shoulders. Only the frank fascination of the watching pilot persuaded her to put a lid on her anger. Quite untouched by a slashing response that would have intimidated ninety per cent of the population, and keeping her wind-stung face stiff as concrete, Ellie stalked past Dio Alexiakis and climbed gracefully into the rear seat of the helicopter.

      ‘I’ll buy you some clothes at the airport,’ the abrasive Greek slung at her as he swung in beside the pilot. He turned his head towards her, putting his hard, classic profile into stark view, adding thinly, ‘We’ll have plenty of time to kill. Waiting for your passport to arrive will probably cost the jet its take-off slot!’

      ‘You are so gracious,’ Ellie framed in an unmistakable tone of sarcasm, and his brows drew together in disconcertion a split second before the deafening whine of the rotor blades shattered the tense silence and she turned away again.

      This is not happening to me. This cannot be happening to me, Ellie told herself all over again as the helicopter first rose in the air and then went into a stomach-churning dip and turn to head out across London. Having employed the equivalent of blackmail, Dio Alexiakis was now set on practically kidnapping her! What choice had he given her? No choice! How could she possibly run the risk of getting Meg fired? The older woman didn’t have the luxury of a second salary to fall back on, and her husband was disabled.

      But was she herself really any more independent? Ellie asked herself tautly. If it had simply been a question of survival, she could have managed without her earnings as a cleaner. After all, she had a day-job as well, and a healthy savings account. In fact, Ellie lived like a church mouse, squirrelling away every penny she could, willing to make just about any sacrifice if it meant she could attain her ultimate goal.

      And that goal was buying the bookshop where she had worked since she was sixteen. However, if the steady flow of savings into her bank account ceased just when she was on the brink of asking for a large business loan, her bank manager would be most unimpressed, and her ambition to own the shop she loved would suffer a serious, indeed potentially fatal setback. Right now, with her elderly boss becoming increasingly eager to sell and retire, time was of the essence.

      Dio Alexiakis was paranoid, absolutely paranoid, she decided helplessly. A spy? Did he read a lot of thrillers? So a cleaner had accidentally entered his precious inner sanctum and overheard him discussing confidential business plans. A cleaner who didn’t have permission to work on the top floor, a little voice reminded her. A cleaner who shouldn’t have been there, shouldn’t even have entered that office, caught sneaking out from behind a door looking guilty as hell…

      OK, Ellie conceded grudgingly, so she must have looked a bit suspicious in those circumstances. But that still didn’t justify his outrageous insistence that he couldn’t trust her out of his sight for the next thirty-six hours. And to demand that she travel abroad with him into the bargain was, in her opinion, proof of sheer insanity!

      That wasn’t his only problem either. The way Dio Alexiakis had looked at her a couple of times had infuriated her. Even in the midst of what he had clearly seen as a very serious situation, Dio had still been eying her up like a piece of female merchandise on offer. Compressing her generous mouth into a most ungenerous line, Ellie ruminated on that fact.

      Ricky Bolton had been hard enough to tolerate, refusing to take no for an answer and convinced that he only had to persist to wear her down. That she had experienced that strange sense of disorientation when Dio Alexiakis had looked down at her didn’t surprise Ellie in the slightest. This arrogant Greek had merely incited a stronger sense of revulsion than even his subordinate did. But then he was one of those very earthy guys, she decided grimly, the sort who couldn’t look at any reasonably attractive woman without wondering what she might be like in bed!

      Quite impervious to Ellie’s growing antipathy, which she expressed in frigid silence, Dio Alexiakis marched her through the airport to a busy shopping area. Striding straight into an exclusive boutique, he headed for a rack of lightweight black skirt suits. Dumping the smallest size available into Ellie’s startled arms, he snatched a hat, purse and long black gloves down from the display shelf above and added them.

      The remainder of the tastefully concocted display fell flat on the stand. Flushing to the roots of her hair beneath the aghast scrutiny of the saleswoman surging forward, Ellie whispered in a mortified undertone, ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’

      ‘Shopping,’ Dio Alexiakis delivered succinctly, quite indifferent to the staff eyes now trained on their every move. Like a steamroller, he headed for another rack, to pull a blue cotton shift dress from a hanger and stuff it with equal unconcern into her dismayed grasp. A long black coat was thrust at her in the same careless fashion. Then he paused by a severely undersized candy-pink shorts outfit on a dummy. With an imperious inclination of his dark head, he hailed the frozen-faced older woman already moving their way. ‘We’ll have this as well.’

      ‘I’m afraid that item is sold out, sir,’ he was told acidly.

      ‘Take it off the dummy, then,’ Dio instructed the woman, whose badge proclaimed her managerial status.

      ‘Mr Alexiakis!’ Ellie hissed, cringing with embarrassment.

      On the clear brink of making a deflating retort, the older woman’s mouth fell open when she heard that name and took a better look at the tall black-haired male towering over Ellie. ‘M-Mr Alexiakis?’ she stammered in incredulously.

      ‘Yes, the owner of this chain of shops,’ Dio confirmed, surveying the unfortunate woman with menacing disapproval. ‘Tell me, do your staff usually stand around chatting when there are customers requiring attention? And since when has a display been more important than making a sale?’

      ‘You’re quite right, sir. Please allow me to assist you,’ the manageress muttered unevenly, her discomfiture unconcealed.

      ‘This lady needs lingerie. Pick some out for us.’ His attention falling on the shoe racks, he dragged Ellie across to them. ‘What size are you?’

      ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been more embarrassed in my life.’ Ellie was trembling with rage and chagrin. ‘Is this the way you normally behave in public?’

      ‘What’s the matter with you?’ he demanded with ringing impatience. ‘We don’t have time to waste. Choose some shoes.’

      In the background the manageress was struggling to strip the shorts СКАЧАТЬ