‘Or I will.’
Sparking up like a firework she gasped out, ‘No you will not!’
‘And he’s not only unforgivably late he’s unfit to date a Balfour.’
Half unwilling to believe they were even having this conversation, Mia stared up at him. ‘And you believe you have the right to make that judgement?’
‘In your father’s place—yes.’
In other words she was a duty he felt compelled to oversee! ‘Well, you are not my father—or my idea of what a father figure should be! And in case you have forgotten,’ she added stiffly. ‘You went out of your way to tell me to back off from irritating you, so now I am telling you to do the same thing for me, Nikos, and just go away!’
With that she turned to walk off down the high street. His long fingers curling around one of her shoulders held her still.
‘Mia, this is stupid,’ he sighed out heavily.
Or irritating and juvenile… Why was that cutting remark still stinging her as badly as this? Mia asked herself.
She did not know. She did not understand what she was feeling or even what she was doing any more.
‘Please let go of me…’ She tried to move away from him.
His fingers tightened gently. ‘No,’ he refused. ‘Look…’ he said, ‘I’m—sorry if I sounded…insensitive to your feelings but—’
‘Sounded it?’ she threw out.
‘Was insensitive, then,’ he altered, the chiselled line of his jaw clenching. ‘But it does not change the fact that your so-called date has either stood you up or is only too happy to leave you to stand around here like a fool!’
‘And that is your sensitive side talking?’ So close to tears now, she had to push a hand up between them so she could cover her trembling mouth.
A soft curse rattled from him. ‘I will take you to dinner,’ he offered, sounding so driven to say it that Mia almost snapped the hand up higher to slap his face!
But she didn’t because it would be irritating and juvenile of her to do it! ‘I can provide my own dinner,’ she told him stiffly. ‘And you already have a date.’
‘I did have a date until—’ Nikos stopped, compressing his lips, then dealt her a glinting glimmer of a look ‘—until I was stood up too,’ he finished dryly.
‘You—?’ It was like discovering he had a chink in his impenetrable armour. Mia was so intrigued by the phenomenon she stopped fighting his grip to stare up at him instead.
‘It happens to the best of us,’ Nikos compounded on his quick-thinking masterpiece of deception. ‘So shall we find somewhere quieter than this to—commiserate with each other while we eat?’
Like a lamb to the slaughter, he mocked, feeling his conscience pinch him when his beautiful PA dealt him a sympathetic look.
But at least the deal was done.
CHAPTER FOUR
TWENTY minutes later they were being shown to a table in a very exclusive restaurant and the waiter was taking away her jacket while Mia glanced around.
If this was the kind of place Nikos tended to frequent, then she was willing to be impressed by its softly lit ambience.
‘Have I been here before?’ she asked.
‘Not to my knowledge.’
Surprising him with a sudden grin she told him, ‘If you have not brought me here for one of your business lunches, Nikos, then I have not been here. These kinds of places all have a similar look to them, don’t they?’
‘Do they?’ He glanced around their plush, hushed award-winning surroundings. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’
Mia nodded. ‘They probably look different in the daylight when they are filled with sharp-suited men and women looking serious and intelligent instead of…’ Her voice trailed off, even white teeth pressing down into her lower lip to halt the potentially provocative word she had been going to use.