Sophie Weston - Avoiding Mr Right

The man’s eyes, however, contemplated the departing Christina with amused appreciation. Both men had witnessed the end of her altercation with the clerk.

‘Monsieur!’ exclaimed the official. He was clearly anxious to defuse the honoured customer’s justified indignation.

But the honoured customer was not paying attention. He was still looking after the slim figure storming through the crowd. His expression was a curious mixture of appreciation and regret. The official, who had known him a long time, felt a twinge of sympathy. He wiped all expression from his face, however, and bowed his customer through the door.

Christina was oblivious as she steamed out into the diamond-hard light of an Athenian morning. She was furious.

The money was hers, not the bank’s. It represented hours of hard work, sometimes backbreaking work. She was proud of that. And now the bank would not let her get at it! She went to the edge of the pavement and stared across the gleaming, steaming, evil-smelling ribbon of metal and fumes that was Athens’s morning traffic jam. The fine temper which had sustained her so far drained away abruptly. If she admitted it, Christina thought wryly, she was as much worried as angry.

The honoured customer, strolling out of the bank, caught sight of Christina hesitating on the pavement. On the point of summoning a car, his hand fell. He looked at her tense figure quizzically.

Christina remained unaware. She pushed the soft, straight hair back from her brow with fingers which shook a little. The man saw that tell-tale tremor. His eyes sharpened.

He hesitated for a moment. Then, with a shrug, he strolled across to her.

‘Are you all right?’

Christina jumped at the voice. The words were pleasant enough but the tone was impatient. She turned, her brown hair swinging.

She found that she was being addressed by a tall man in an immaculate biscuit-coloured suit. She did not know anyone who wore suits of that faultless cut. Or who spoke to her with that abrupt harshness, as if in spite of himself.

‘What?’ she asked blankly.

The man raised an eyebrow, unsmiling. ‘You seem a little agitated.’

He was definitely a stranger. From his quick, impatient tones, he seemed as if he could hardly wait to get away from her. And yet... Christina took off her sunglasses the better to see him in the dense shadow of the building behind them. She scanned him candidly.

It was a powerful face rather than a handsome one. He was taller than Christina, who counted herself a tall woman. He was so dark that his skin was almost swarthy. His hair was equally dark. In the brilliant morning it looked black, springing back from a wide, proud brow. Added to that was a strong, imperious nose, a firm jaw, a sculpted mouth in which discipline warred with sensuality, and steeply lidded, sleepy eyes.

He was a seriously sexy man, Christina thought. The attraction blasted out at her like heat from the open door of a furnace. For a moment it took her breath away.

Christina was startled. She did not normally think in those terms. In fact, though she had been good friends with a number of men in the last six years, she could not remember her first reaction to one ever being that little jump of the pulses that acknowledged his masculinity. It immediately made her feel feminine and, somehow, vulnerable.

Her cornflower-blue eyes widened. The thought was not a welcome one. Vulnerability meant weakness, and Christina was not weak. She had worked very hard to win strength and independence and, as she was of her bank balance, she was proud of it.

‘Agitated?’ she echoed faintly.

He smiled suddenly. It was a dazzling smile.

‘Well, you nearly ruined my Roman profile with the revolving door back there,’ he told her. He indicated the fashionable offices of the bank they had both just left.

Christina jumped. She even blushed faintly. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. I mean, I didn’t see you.’

She was floundering under his gaze. Now she came to look at him, she saw that he did not look impatient at all. He looked sleepy—and appreciative. She pulled herself together.

‘I was a bit preoccupied,’ she admitted, trying to sound cool and unmoved. “They said I couldn’t have my own money. I’m afraid I lost my temper.’

The man gave a soft laugh. ‘I saw. Or, at least, I caught the end of it. You seem to have justification.’

Christina was rueful. ‘Justification possibly, but I am sure I would have done better to keep my temper. After I started banging the counter that man lost any faint interest he might have had in helping me.’

The man’s mouth twitched. ‘Understandable,’ he murmured.

Christina raised her shoulders in an impatient shrug. ‘Yes, I suppose so. Doesn’t help me, though. The bank will make damn sure that the whole beastly, bureaucratic process takes as long as possible now. I could see it in that clerk’s eyes.’

The man smiled again. It packed a charge, that smile, Christina thought, startled. She blinked.

‘Maybe he just wanted to make sure you keep coming back,’ he suggested. ‘You certainly brighten the place up.’

Christina shook her head. She was feeling a little dazed.

She said in some confusion. ‘Oh, I don’t think so. He just thought I was being unreasonable.’

‘You were,’ he told her with brutal frankness. ‘The clerk behind the counter doesn’t make the rules, you know.’

Christina sniffed. ‘He didn’t have to gloat over hitting me with them.’

The stranger looked amused. ‘How do you know he was gloating? Perhaps he was just embarrassed.’

‘He didn’t look embarrassed.’

He raised his brows. ‘No, maybe not. He has his dignity to consider. But, believe me—’ his voice was full of irony ‘—the last thing a man wants to do is to say no to a beautiful woman. It goes against nature.’

Christina blinked. Beautiful? The compliment was faintly challenging. She met his eyes, bewildered, and saw that they were dancing.

Hurriedly she said, ‘I needn’t have shouted, I suppose. Anyway I’ve paid for my bad temper. It means I now have twenty dollars to last me the week.’

This time the man’s brows hit his hairline. ‘Good grief.’

Christina gave a sudden laugh. It was a warm, bubbly laugh and it was infectious. A woman passing with a small child sent her a harassed smile in response. But the stranger did not smile. Instead his eyes narrowed. For a moment the handsome face was completely blank.

‘Can you survive on that?’ he asked, shooting the question at her like an accusation.

Christina shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ she said frankly.

He seemed to take a decision.

‘I want to know more about this. I will buy you a coffee while we discuss it.’

Christina did hesitate at that. She looked at him assessingly. In spite of his invitation, in spite of the blazing charm of his smile, she had the sense that he was behaving out of character, and that he was, at some level, almost angry with himself.

It was oddly reassuring. Not that the stranger looked like a cruising Romeo. If he had, thought Christina, she would not have wasted a minute on him. Even if appearances proved deceptive, she could handle it. She was a modern girl and she could keep the masculine desire for flirtation well under control. Still, desire for coffee warred with her habitual dislike of doing what someone else ordered her to do. Coffee won, but only just.

‘Thank you,’ she said. She could not disguise her faint annoyance.

He had observed her debate.

‘Although you don’t usually take coffee with perfect strangers?’ His lips twitched suddenly. ‘I feel I should thank you,’ he remarked. ‘A salutary experience, believe me. This way, I think.’