‘You’ve changed your mind, you say? Well, I’m sorry,’ she bit out, ‘but I’m not available for the position of convenient mistress.’
He stood straighter, his face flushing. ‘It doesn’t have to be like that, Lucy. I’m asking you to be my lover. We were good together. I can’t get you out of my mind…’
She shifted the box. Her arms were starting to ache. But when Ari saw the movement and made as if to take it out of her arms she jerked away. ’No.’
This moment was so important to her—how she acted right now. Because if she followed the craving call of her body to give in she would be going the way of the doomed, of her mother. She would have learnt nothing. Her heart was bound up inextricably with this man, and he would crush it completely.
She felt a deep sadness well within her that she’d fallen for someone who could never love her as she now knew she ached to be loved. She ached to find the fulfilment she’d never seen as a child. To have the security that came from being in a committed, equal and loving relationship. The kind of thing she’d seen in Kallie and Alexandros Kouros.
‘I don’t want that, Ari. I don’t want you…not like that. I’m worth more than a sleazy work affair, and, no matter how you try and pretty it up, that’s all it would be.’
‘There is another option. You don’t have to work here. It could be much easier than that. I could show you the best that this world has to offer, take care of you and your mother—’
Lucy felt bile rise. She shook her head vehemently, her ponytail slipping over one shoulder. ‘I won’t be set up like that. I grew up with that, and it’s something I just won’t settle for. I can look after myself and my mother just fine. We don’t need you or any other man.’
Lucy saw Ari’s fists clench at his sides at her rejection of his offer. His voice had a rough quality that somehow jarred with his autocratic behaviour, but Lucy didn’t have time to dwell on the meaning of that. ‘Well, good luck finding a job, Lucy…I’ll be waiting for your call when you realise you won’t get one. I’ve marked you as exclusive to this company—no one will touch you with a bargepole.’
Lucy felt tears prick the backs of her eyes when she thought of what a precarious position that would put her mother in. ‘Why are you insisting on doing this?’
He said something guttural in Greek, his face unbearably harsh. ‘I told you. I want you. This isn’t over between us. I’ll expect you to be in Theo’s office on Monday morning. I know you can’t move from London without jeopardising your mother’s treatment.’
Right then Lucy hated Ari, and yet even as she thought that her heart clenched—because she knew she didn’t. She couldn’t. She tried to make her voice sound as cool and calm as possible, and prayed that for once her every emotion wasn’t showing on her too-expressive face.
‘I will not be manipulated like this, and I won’t be falling back into your bed. You’d have to knock me out and drag me there like the neanderthal you’re behaving like now.’
His face flushed again, but she didn’t mistake the glint of triumph, despite her petty barb. He thought he had her right where he wanted her, but Lucy vowed not to succumb—no matter what he might try or what he was threatening. She
turned and stalked from the room, realising that she’d never see him again, at least not in person, and the pain that ripped through her nearly made her stumble and fall.
It was only his softly spoken mocking words that came from behind her that helped her to keep going.
‘See you on Monday morning, Lucy.’
Chapter Ten
ON MONDAY morning Ari strode authoritatively through his own building. The gasps and shocked murmurs as he passed people by merely bounced off him. Aristotle Levakis never frequented any office or floor of the building but his own. His blood was humming, anticipation a taut wire of need, and all because he was going to see Lucy any second now—and because seeing her the other day after a week’s absence had shown him that even one day was too long. He vowed there and then to make sure it didn’t happen again.
He was too far gone to try and deny the fact that she had him wound so tight around her little finger that he couldn’t think straight. For the entire weekend his conscience had been pricking him but he’d quashed it down with a strength of will that was matched only by the strength of his desire for this woman. As he walked towards her office he finally had to acknowledge that he felt out of control for the first time in his life. One thought and one thought only had dominated since he’d seen her last: he wanted her, he needed her, and anything was better than her leaving—
He stopped in his tracks when he pushed open the outer door to his legal team’s offices only to see an empty chair where Lucy should have been sitting—where the hell was she?
The immediate hollow ache in his solar plexus stunned him with its force. Just then Theo strolled out of his office, a frown on his face.
‘Ari? What’s up?’
What’s up? Ari felt dizzy for a second. He bit out, ‘Lucy Proctor—where is she?’
He was hardly aware of Theo’s frown and obvious confusion. ‘I thought you knew…? She rang this morning and said she wouldn’t be taking the position—said something about wanting some time off. I won’t lie, I was delighted when you said she was going to be back working for us, but now…’
Ari didn’t hear the rest of whatever Theo said. He left. When he got back up to his office he shut the door on his new PA’s concerned face and found that he was shaking. Actually shaking. Aristotle Levakis—shaking like a leaf.
With a roaring in his ears he went over to his drinks cabinet and poured himself a drink. He downed it in one. For the first time in his life he did not know what to do. He sat down heavily in his chair and stared vacantly into the distance.
She’d gone. She’d not been playing coy. He’d not backed her into a corner with his threats to derail her chances of getting work. And, if anything, to remember what he’d done and said, the lengths he’d gone to to keep her near, made him feel ill. Especially when he thought of her mother and how much it meant to Lucy to have her taken care of. Immediately he went to reach for the phone, to call her and tell her that everything would be fine, that he’d look after her mother. He stopped.
He’d already done that. He’d already offered her his protection, the exalted position of his mistress, and she’d turned him down. Again bile rose as he realised he’d offered her the one thing she’d refuse even if her life depended on it. Ari sat back and closed his eyes, something awful like dread trickling through him, gathering force as it did so.
Lucy felt as brittle as a Chinese Ming vase teetering on the edge of a table. It had been two weeks since she’d not walked back into Levakis Enterprises to take the job that had been so ungraciously offered to her. She still felt sick to her belly to know that despite everything, despite all she’d shared with Ari of her life, he’d turned around and offered to take care of her.