Kay Thorpe - The Thirty-Day Seduction

There was no way out, Chelsea acknowledged ruefully; she had dropped them both right in it.

“Nothing,” she said, making the attempt on Dion’s behalf at least. “Just something I sensed, that’s all. Call it feminine intuition.”

“A finely tuned faculty indeed.” The satire withered her where she stood. “And what exactly was it that this intuition of yours suggested?”

“Can’t we just leave it at that?” she pleaded. “I’m probably completely wrong, anyway.”

There was a moment when she thought he was going to insist, then he inclined his head in mocking acknowledgement. “Doubtless. You’d be wise to keep a rein on your imagination.”

He turned to start along the path, leaving her to follow in his wake like some reprimanded schoolgirl. To hell with that! she thought, and caught him up, falling into step at his side.

“My stomach’s beginning to think my throat’s been cut!” she remarked brightly.

Nikos gave her a glance more exasperated than angry. “The only injury sustained thus far is to the spoken word!”

“Sorry.” Chelsea put on a penitent expression. “Old habits die hard. I’ll do my very best to speak like the Queen from now on.” She affected a cut-glass accent. “How now brown cow, and all that.”

His laugh was reluctant, but it was a laugh. “You,” he said, “need to learn respect!”

What she did need, came the thought, was to be kissed again the way he had kissed her back there; she could still feel the imprint of his lips on hers. A dangerous yearning, considering the effect just the one kiss had had on her. Nikos Pandrossos was not a man to trifle within any sphere.

Considering which, the chances of his agreeing to be interviewed once he realised who and what she really was were becoming ever more remote, she had to concede.

“No ready retort?” he taunted.

“Too chastened,” she countered, temporarily shelving the problem. “Wasn’t that the intention?”

This time the laugh held a note of genuine humour. “It takes more than words to subdue you.”

They had reached the foot of the steps leading down from the terrace, viewed with varying expressions by the group gathered there as they mounted into the light. Chelsea could only be thankful that her lipstick was the non-transferable variety-although Nikos couldn’t have known that. If the thought had occurred to him at all, it didn’t appear to be causing him any concern.

“Tell Hestia she can begin serving now,” Selene Pandrossos directed her daughter, with what Chelsea considered admirable constraint. “We were beginning to think you had spirited our guest away, Nikos.”

“I wanted to see the gardens before it went dark,” Chelsea rushed in before he could answer. “Kirios Pandrossos was kind enough to take me round. It’s entirely my fault that we’ve held things up.”

“It’s been dark for the past half an hour,” put in Dion, making no attempt to disguise his scepticism.

“The gardens are very large,” countered his cousin imperturbably.

“And very beautiful,” Chelsea confirmed.

Looking beautiful herself in virginal white, Florina eyed her with open hostility. Chelsea could hardly blame her for feeling that way. Had she been kept dangling on a string for years, only to see the object of her desire usurped by another woman, and a foreigner at that, she would have felt the same. It would be a waste of time telling her that she had no interest in her cousin.

It was hardly true anyway-in any sense.

NEVER a hasty event, and taking the late start into consideration, the meal went on until well gone midnight. All conversation was conducted in English, in deference to the guest, which made Chelsea feel even more of an outsider. Seated between Kiria Pandrossos and Dion at the big round table, with Nikos directly opposite, she was constantly aware of the dark eyes on her. Florina was by no means blind to the fact either, she reckoned.

Fending off questions about her background wasn’t easy. More than once she found herself on the brink of admitting the truth and accepting the consequences. That she didn’t was largely because of Dion, who would be devastated to discover how he’d been used. In all fairness, he had to be put in the picture first-and exonerated from any blame if and when the occasion arose.

It was almost twelve-thirty when Nikos departed. Kiria Pandrossos took her leave too, followed almost immediately by Florina, with a cursory response to Chelsea’s “kalinichta’.

“She’s distressed over Nikos,” explained Dion unnecessarily. “Because he spent so much time alone with you in the gardens.” He eyed her speculatively. “You looked disquieted when you returned.”

Not so much shaken as stirred, thought Chelsea with assumed flippancy.

“Your cousin’s an intimidating man,” she said. “Difficult to relax with.”

“Yet you asked him to accompany you?”

“A spur-of-the-moment idea because I couldn’t think of anything else to say,” she improvised, not about to acknowledge that the suggestion had come from him. “I didn’t expect to find him out here on his own.”

“He wouldn’t have been alone if Florina had known.”

“I’m sure.” Chelsea twirled the stem of her wine glass between finger and thumb for a moment before lifting it to drain the last of the contents, placing it back on the table to add tentatively, “Do you think he will eventually make the move?”

“To marry her?” Dion lifted his shoulders. “With Nikos, who can tell?”

“If he really does know how she feels about him, it’s hardly right of him to let her go on hoping if he has no intention.”

The shrug came again. “You heard me say that to him in the car earlier.”

“I heard you say that she hoped to be married in the not too distant future,” Chelsea conceded. “I didn’t realise at the time that it was aimed at him.”

“Nikos would have known it”

“Then hints obviously aren’t enough. Someone should try telling him straight.”

Dion gave her a bland smile. “If you’re so concerned for my sister’s welfare, perhaps you should do it yourself.”

Already tried, already failed, she could have told him. She laughed and shook her head. “I’ll pass on that one.”

“I thought you might.” He drained his own glass, indicating the still half full bottle of wine. “You’d like some more?”

Chelsea shook her head. “Not for me, thanks. In fact, I think I’ll be off to bed, if you don’t mind?”

“I’m desolated,” he claimed, looking slightly put out. “No other girl ever treated me the way you do. Do I not make your heart beat even a little bit faster?”

“Of course you do,” she soothed, recognising wounded male vanity when she heard it. “I’d have to be blind not to find you outstandingly attractive.”

“But you’ve no desire to share your bed with me?”

“I don’t share a bed with any man,” she said firmly. “I thought we had all that clear.”

The grin was reassuring. “We do, but I’m only flesh and blood. It’s man’s nature to desire a beautiful woman. Nikos was stirred by you himself; that much I could read of his thoughts. Never has he looked at Florina the way he looked at you tonight He demanded to know earlier if the two of us were lovers already.”

Chelsea tried to keep an even tone. “And what did you tell him?”

“That we were just friends. Not that he believed it ‘Between a man and a woman,’ he said, ‘there is no such thing as just friends.’“ Dion paused, eyeing her with the same speculation he had employed before. “Do you find him attractive?”

What Nikos made her feel went far beyond mere attraction, she acknowledged, remembering those tumultuous moments in his arms.