Greek Tycoon, Inexperienced Mistress. Lynne Graham

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СКАЧАТЬ derided. ‘I have a suite booked at Headby Hall and I’d like you to come with me.’

      ‘I couldn’t possibly,’ Lindy breathed, taken aback by that casual invitation to the leading country house hotel for miles around.

      ‘Don’t be impractical. You must be as eager for a shower and a break as I am,’ he pointed out. ‘In little more than four hours I have to be back at the house to meet the insurance assessors and the conservation team being put together as we speak.’

      ‘I’ll be fine here,’ she asserted.

      ‘You would genuinely prefer to sit here unwashed and cold rather than accompany me to a more civilised and comfortable location?’

      Her small white teeth set together hard, because he was making her sound peculiar while at the same time his tone somehow contrived to suggest that such standoffish behaviour was only what he had expected from her all along. ‘Give me a couple of minutes to pack a bag,’ she told him, her voice as abrupt as the decision she had reached.

      By the light of the torch she flung pyjamas and a change of clothes into an overnight bag. The dogs had food, water and cosy kennels, and although they were accustomed to sleeping indoors with her they would be all right until the morning. Even so, she was belatedly stunned that she could have agreed to go to a hotel with Atreus Dionides, for such bold behaviour didn’t come naturally to her.

      Lindy eased into the back of the limousine with as much cool as she could muster. In the act of regretting her agreement, she turned to address Atreus—but his phone was already ringing again and his attention was elsewhere. She listened to him talking in what she assumed to be Greek and asked herself why she should feel so apprehensive. After all, he was only being kind in offering her an escape from a cold, dark house without hot water.

      Headby Hall was the ultimate in luxury hotels, and Lindy had never crossed its threshold before. She was horribly conscious of her humble clothing and severely tried by Atreus’s efforts to get her to walk through the foyer ahead of him when what she most wanted was to reach the lift without being noticed by a single living soul.

      ‘Aren’t you tired?’ she asked him in wonderment when he completed yet another phone call.

      ‘I’m still operating on adrenaline.’

      ‘I’m sorry about the house. I know that the work you were having done was almost complete.’

      ‘I have other houses,’ he asserted.

      Without thinking, Lindy rested a light hand on his arm. ‘I noticed the rip in your jacket. Did you get hurt?’ she asked anxiously.

      Atreus looked down into her warm, sympathetic gaze and wondered when a woman had last looked at him as if she was restraining a powerful need to offer him comfort and a hug. Never, he acknowledged wryly, not even when he had been a child. In his experience women were usually more gifted at taking, and there was a hefty price ticket attached to anything on offer with any greater depth.

      ‘It’s only a scratch.’

      Meeting his brilliant dark golden eyes, she felt her mouth run dry and her tummy lurched. The lift doors opened and she stiffened and tore her gaze from his. They walked down a private corridor to a door that was already being opened by a member of his staff. Tense with unease, Lindy entered a splendid, sumptuously furnished reception room adorned with fresh flowers. Designer luggage was being carried into one bedroom while her ancient holdall was already comfortingly visible through the doors of a second.

      ‘I’ve ordered some food for us. You didn’t eat anything while I was around,’ Atreus remarked.

      ‘I’ll get changed,’ Lindy muttered, heading for the second bedroom with alacrity.

      In the en suite bathroom, she stripped where she stood and used the hotel toiletries to wash her hair and freshen up in the shower. It was wonderful to rinse away the smell of smoke that seemed to have impregnated her skin and everything she wore. Clean again, she dried her hair with the dryer provided, using her fingers and then fetched her clothes from the holdall. She donned a long green skirt and a cream T-shirt, and left her legs and feet bare because she couldn’t face struggling into tights or shoes. She grimaced at her reflection in the mirror, for her glossy dark brown hair had fallen into the natural waves she disliked and she was convinced that her face was as pink as a freshly scrubbed lobster.

      A trolley of food now stood beside the table and chairs in the reception room next door. Atreus was waiting for her and, like her, he had opted for informality. His black hair was damp and swept back from his lean, darkly handsome features. He was wearing black designer jeans and an open-necked shirt. As she appeared he studied her for a long moment and then slowly smiled.

      And that smile on his wide, sensual mouth lit Lindy up inside like the blazing fire that had devoured a good third of Chantry House. It left little room for anything but instant reaction on all fronts. Her face was hot, and she sat down because she felt dizzy. Eyes screened by her lashes, she surveyed him, from his straight brows and dark deepset eyes to his newly shaven jawline, no longer defined by a blue-black shadow of stubble. There was something about the exact arrangement of his arrestingly beautiful features that drew her more than mere good-looks, she acknowledged in a daze. He magnetised her, exuding an irresistible pull of energy that overwhelmed her usual common sense. Sexual attraction had never hit her so hard.

      Lindy accepted a couple of snacks and nibbled at them without much appetite while Atreus talked about the meetings he already had lined up for the morning. Even the sound of his voice set up a responsive vibration in her backbone. When she met his eyes she felt as if the ground had vanished and she was in mid-air, in the act of falling from a great height. It was terrifying and exhilarating and, because such excessive sensations were previously unknown to her, she decided that feeling that way around him was wrong and dangerous.

      Indeed, as soon as an opportunity offered itself Lindy rose to her feet and smoothed damp palms down over her skirt. ‘I’m very tired. I think I’ll turn in now. Thanks for supper…and the shower was very welcome,’ she added with a warm smile.

      And just like that she was gone.

      Atreus studied the closed door of her bedroom in amazement and wondered when he had last run into a brick wall put up by a woman flatly refusing to acknowledge or respond to his signals. Never. He was torn between amusement and frustration.

      Lindy leant briefly up against the back of the door and tried to be proud of her self-restraint. She had resisted him, the most beautiful sexually compelling male she had ever met. She was still stunned that he had found her attractive. Or had it simply been a matter of her being the only woman available for a little dalliance after a stressful day? Was that her putting herself down again? Whatever, she had no doubt that he had had every intention of their ending what remained of the night in the same bed.

      That would have been a very foolish move on her part, she told herself ruefully. The idea of a one-night stand with a man she hardly knew filled her with distaste. On the other hand, a little voice she didn’t recognise murmured inside her head, he might well have been a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Or was that wishful thinking? She was ashamed of the way her mind was working. She had never planned to be a virgin at her age; it was just something that had happened when a serious relationship failed to transpire. Atreus was pretty much the first man to seriously attract her since those first heady days in Ben’s radius. Of course she was curious about sex, but that was not an excuse to conduct an experiment. If she had been embarrassed when he’d seen her naked in the river, how would she feel meeting him in future if she had shared СКАЧАТЬ