Page 2 of Penniless Cinderella for the Greek
‘Just a minute,’ came a female voice from the other side of the door. ‘Matt, did you order...?’ Silence and then Dimitris heard her mutter, ‘I suppose he can’t hear me in the bathroom.’
The door opened, but the woman did not look at him while she fumbled to tie the belt of her scarlet dress. Dimitris wondered if she’d pulled her clothes on in a hurry. The front edges of her dress did not meet properly, affording him an enticing glimpse of the pale mounds of her breasts spilling over the top of her bra.
He took in her blonde hair that fell in messy waves to just above her shoulders, before raking his gaze over her slender figure and finally down to her long legs and scarlet stiletto-heeled shoes. The lady in red was a sexy little number. Her perfume was evocative, floral notes mixed with something deeper and more sensual that stirred a distant memory in Dimitris’s mind, but it remained elusive.
‘I’ll put the champagne on the table, shall I?’ He strode into the room without giving the woman time to reply. Rage burned in his gut. He was glad he’d persuaded Eleni to stay at home. His sister would be devastated when he confirmed that the man she loved did indeed have a mistress, but at least she had been spared the humiliation of coming face to face with the fragrant woman who, from her dishevelled hair and clothes, Dimitris assumed had moments ago been in bed with Eleni’s fiancé.
A door that must lead to the en suite bathroom opened and Matt Collier emerged, wearing a bathrobe. His jaw sagged when he saw Dimitris. ‘What the bloody hell are you doing here?’
Dimitris did not answer. He had realised why the woman’s fragrance was familiar. It had haunted him for years.Shehad haunted him for years. She lifted her head and looked at him, and recognition flared in her hazel-green eyes as they widened with surprise.
‘Dimitris?’
‘Savannah O’Neal.’ Shock ricocheted through him. He narrowed his gaze to hide his reaction as his brain, and more pertinently his body, acknowledged that the pretty teenager he’d dumped ten years ago had grown up to become a stunningly beautiful and very sexy woman. ‘It’s been a long time.’
Dimitris’s effect on Savannah was as shattering as when she had been eighteen. Her heart was pounding and her mouth was dry. She had seen him on TV many times, hosting his hugely popular cooking programmes. His rock star looks and charismatic personality meant that he was regularly invited to be a guest on chat shows. But nothing had prepared Savannah for seeing him for real. His sex appeal was off the scale.
She had often imagined meeting Dimitris again and she’d planned on being cool and sophisticated, unlike the teenager who’d had a massive crush on him. The years fell away and she was the gauche girl on the cusp of womanhood who had daydreamed that the handsome Greek god working in his family’s restaurant would notice her. For eleven magical nights her fantasy had come true. But there had been no fairy tale happy ending, just a cold dose of reality that had forced her to grow up.
At twenty-two, Dimitris’s swarthy good looks had made him seem exotic and gorgeous compared to the few boys of her age Savannah had known. She’d had a sheltered upbringing and been privately educated at an all-girls’ school, and she had been ill-equipped to deal with Dimitris’s potent masculinity. When he’d laughed, the wicked glint in his eyes had been irresistible. But there was no hint of laughter on his chiselled features, and he looked as though he’d been hewn from granite or cold, hard marble.
Now in his early thirties, he was even more devastatingly attractive than she remembered. The scar on his cheek had faded over time. It did not detract from his good looks, rather it gave him a piratical air that added to his intrigue. His square jaw was uncompromising and his cheekbones sharply angular. Eyes a fathomless dark blue were shaded by thick black lashes and his heavy brows met over a strong nose. But it was his mouth that held Savannah’s attention. The full lips that promised heaven and had delivered, she remembered. His kiss was imprinted on her psyche.
She told herself that Dimitris, breaker of a thousand hearts besides her own, would have no memory of their first passionate encounter on a sultry summer’s night a decade ago. But the gleam in his eyes made her wonder if his mind had revisited the pool house on the night of her eighteenth birthday party.
‘It’s not what it looks like.’ Matt’s voice jolted Savannah back to reality.
Matt!
She felt guilty at how easily she had forgotten him. It had been sweet of Matt to order champagne. Perhaps he had planned to celebrate after they’d made love for the first time, she thought guiltily, knowing that she still had to have an awkward conversation with him and tell him she’d changed her mind about sleeping with him.
But why on earth had the famous chef and TV personality Dimitris Kyriakou delivered champagne to the suite? Utterly bemused, Savannah wondered if Matt had arranged to surprise her with a visit from a celebrity—a bit like a stripper-gram, although Dimitris showed no sign of removing his clothes. A memory of his muscular naked body pressed against hers brought a flush of warmth to her face.
She looked at Matt and then back at the impressive Greek who dominated the room with his sheer presence. One of the few things Dimitris had told her about himself years ago was that his mother had been English, and he had inherited his six feet plus height from her side of the family.
At eighteen Savannah had been painfully naïve, and unaware that men like Dimitris were a rarity. Now she knew better. Now she knew that every man faded into insignificance compared to Dimitris. Her confusion grew when she sensed angry vibes from him.
‘What’s going on?’ Savannah asked Matt. But he did not look at her and spoke to Dimitris.
‘I know it must seem suspicious that I’m at a hotel with a woman. But Savannah is a work colleague. She suggested meeting up to discuss a project and I had no idea that she’d booked a room with the intention of trying to persuade me to sleep with her.’
Savannah gasped. ‘That’s not true. You know full well that you asked me to spend the night with you.’ When Matt avoided her gaze she appealed to Dimitris. ‘Will you please tell me why you are here?’
Eyes the unfathomable blue of the deepest ocean swept over her and set every nerve-ending on her body alight. Dimitris’s penetrating gaze gave Savannah the unsettling notion that he could see inside her head.
‘Do you expect me to believe that you did not know your lover is engaged to be married?’ he asked curtly.
‘I expect you to believe it because it’s the truth.’ Her brief spurt of temper fizzled out as she tried to make sense of what Dimitris had said. ‘There must be some kind of mistake. Matt isn’t engaged to anyone. Are you... Matt?’
Matt’s sheepish expression turned sullen and there was no need for him to say anything. Savannah released her breath slowly as her shock and disbelief morphed into anger and mortification.Fool, she castigated herself. Would she never learn that all men were liars? She included her father in that sweeping generalisation, and now she knew it was true of both men in the hotel suite.
She felt sick when she looked at Matt, with his hair damp from the shower he’d taken before he’d planned to have sex with her. She wondered how he would have reacted if they hadn’t been interrupted and she’d admitted that she had changed her mind. Would he have tried to persuade her to sleep with him, knowing that he’d promised to marry someone else?
‘Matt and I are not lovers,’ she told Dimitris. He looked disbelieving and, following his gaze down, she discovered that the tie on her wrap dress had come loose again and the front was gaping open, revealing her bra and an embarrassing amount of cleavage. Blushing furiously, she jerked the edges of her dress together.
‘It’s the truth,’ Matt confirmed quickly. ‘I haven’t slept with Savannah, and she means nothing to me. Meeting her tonight was a stupid mistake.’
‘That’s not the impression you gave me,’ she said sharply. Ironically, she’d had second thoughts about sleeping with Matt because she did not know him well enough. It was bad enough to be humiliated by Matt, but for it to happen in front of Dimitris made her wish she could wake up from what must surely be a nightmare.
