Page 7 of Penniless Cinderella for the Greek
If he spoke to Tara Brown the PR manager would contact Bev to ask if a replacement photographer had been assigned to the shoot. Savannah knew that her visit to Dimitris’s home would be highly embarrassing for her agent. Bev should not have broken the client’s confidentiality and revealed that Dimitris was Philpot’s new brand ambassador.
‘I’m not here for the photoshoot. If you would let me explain...’
‘I have nothing to say to you.’
His dismissive tone was the last straw. Anger rolled in a red mist through her. The hunger pangs in her stomach were vying with the ache in her heart. Dimitris’s riverside studio in the grounds of his beautiful house emphasised how different their lives had become. Savannah did not resent his success, but she was scared of what losing Pond House would do to her mum’s physical and emotional health.
Her job as a photographer gave her a vital source of income and some much-needed personal pride, but with one phone call Dimitris could ruin everything she cared about. His phone was on the counter. As he stretched his hand towards it Savannah shot past him and grabbed the phone.
‘I don’t want you tosayanything,’ she told him fiercely. ‘I want you tolisten.’
His eyes darkened to the blue-black of obsidian as he glowered down at her from his superior height. She inhaled the spicy scent of his aftershave, and something visceral twisted in her stomach that in turn made her furious for being so weak. She could not allow him to affect her the way he had when she’d been an impressionable teenager.
‘I am not Matt Collier’s mistress. I went on a couple of dates with him after he’d told me he was single. At the risk of repeating myself, I had no idea he was Eleni’s fiancé. I don’t know why I’m surprised that Matt lied,’ Savannah said bitterly. ‘I’ve never met a man yet who was capable of telling the truth.’
Dimitris’s scowl deepened, but Savannah refused to be cowed. She had been lied to all her life—by her father, her ex-fiancé Hugo, Matt Collier, who had dented her pride but not her heart, she acknowledged honestly, and Dimitris, who she’d put on a pedestal years ago.
‘It’s none of your business, but I have never been married.’
Dimitris’s expression was inscrutable. Savannah remembered that even when he’d been younger he had kept a tight control over his emotions. It had made his fierce passion all the more exciting, knowing she had broken through his barricades. ‘I never lied to you,’ he said brusquely.
She rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, please. When you ended our relationship you said it was so that you could concentrate on your career. But I know my father gave you money to dump me. He told me that he had been suspicious of your motives and as a test he offered you two hundred and fifty thousand pounds to break up with me.’
Savannah’s satisfaction that she’d finally had a chance to confront Dimitris about what he had done was mixed with gut-wrenching disappointment when a startled look flickered on his handsome features. His guilty expression confirmed what her father had told her. Ten years ago Dimitris had chosen money over her.
‘I’m not sure what I found more insulting. The fact that you used me for sex, or that you accepted a bribe to dump me,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Either way, you are no better than Matt Collier. I’m not defending him,’ she insisted when Dimitris’s jaw hardened. ‘Matt lied to Eleni and to me. But you acted no better when you deceived me.’
‘I never used you for sex. But, in hindsight, I realise I should not have got involved with you.’ He frowned. ‘You were young and ridiculously innocent, and not only because you were a virgin. You wanted a fairy tale that I couldn’t give you.’
She felt her cheeks burn. ‘When we made love it was amazing for both of us. You let me think we had a future.’
He shook his head. ‘You wove a fantasy of happy ever after. But you were about to go to university and had your whole future in front of you. I had a failing restaurant to manage, and elderly grandparents and a disabled sister to take care of. I had nothing to offer you.’ Dimitris hesitated. ‘Did your father tell you anything else?’
‘What do you mean?’ Savannah grimaced as she thought of everything her fatherhadn’ttold her about his business empire that had been built on corruption and lies.
On the surface her family had appeared to be perfect, with her a spoiled only child whose father doted on her. But from a young age she had been aware that Richard O’Neal did not love her, despite all her attempts to please him and win his approval. She had wondered, and still did, if there was something wrong with her for her own father not to have cared about her. Dimitris’s rejection had reinforced the feeling that she was somehow unlovable.
At his trial her father had been exposed as a serial fraudster. Savannah was angry that she had allowed him to dominate her life while she’d striven to be the perfect daughter. Now she was furious that another powerful man could influence her life, her career and, most importantly, her income that she badly needed so that she could look after her mum.
The tense silence in the studio shattered when Dimitris’s phone rang. His expression was sardonic as he held out his hand for her to return his phone. She noticed the name Tara Brown on the screen. It had been a waste of time throwing herself on Dimitris’s mercy, Savannah thought bitterly.
On the counter was a mixing bowl containing a thick, pale liquid that looked like pancake batter. Frustration bubbled up inside her, and without pausing to consider the consequences she dropped Dimitris’s phone into the batter.
He swore. ‘Why the hell did you do that?’
‘I didn’t want you to complain about me to Tara Brown,’ Savannah muttered. ‘I really needed the Philpot’s assignment.’ She had burned her bridges now. The awfulness of what she had done was sinking in faster than Dimitris’s phone had sunk to the bottom of the bowl of gloop.
His jaw hardened and she sensed that he was containing his anger with an effort. His steely self-control made Savannah feel even more idiotic. She wanted to provoke a reaction from him, and if that reaction was blazing fury that matched her own, so much the better.
She gasped as Dimitris’s arm shot out with the deadly speed of a cobra, and he captured her hand in his firm grip. A sensation like an electrical current shot from her fingertips, all the way up her arm and spread through her body. She prayed he did not notice that her nipples had hardened and were jutting through her tee shirt.
He pushed her hand down into the bowl of batter mixture. She curled her fingers around his phone and when she lifted it out of the bowl, blobs of batter dripped onto the worktop.
‘I will expect you to reimburse me for the cost of a new phone.’
That was a joke. His phone was an exclusive and very expensive brand, but her savings were almost depleted and she could not afford to pay for a replacement device. The most sensible thing to do would be to apologise profusely to Dimitris and claim temporary insanity if he decided to prosecute her for wilfully damaging his property. But the word sorry stuck in Savannah’s throat.
Anger burned inside her. She had been her father’s dutiful daughter and Dimitris’s devoted lover, but both men had betrayed her and rejected her love. All her life she had suppressed her emotions, mindful that her father would disapprove of any bad behaviour. She had wanted his approval, hislove, so badly, just as she had longed for Dimitris to love her years ago. Now she discovered that rebelliousness was empowering.
