His meaning shocked a gasp from Mia. As if he felt he deserved her reaction Nikos nodded his dark head, then let go of her and turned abruptly to glare at the young man who had approached them without her being aware of it.
‘Get the bags out of the boot and give them to my pilot, then take the car back,’ he instructed, tossing the keys at the other man.
Still much too stunned to take in the bit about his pilot, Mia slung a swift glance at whoever it was Nikos was talking to, saw it was the man from accounts she had lunched with yesterday and also saw that his eyes were standing out in shock.
Heat poured into her face like a scorching flame. It was bright sunny daylight, and Nikos Theakis had just kissed her full on her mouth in front of another member of his staff!
‘You—you did that on purpose!’ she hissed at him shakenly.
Nikos claimed one of her hands and walked her away from the car. ‘He needed showing where he stands with you.’
‘Stands with me?’ Mia gasped out. ‘I don’t understand this stands with me,’ she told him, having to hurry to keep up with his long stride.
‘He was the date that stood you up last night.’
‘He was not my date!’
‘He was your date,’ he insisted. ‘And I have just made my point.’
‘Will you please explain what it is you are talking about?’ Tugging hard on her captured hand she pulled them both to a stubborn standstill in front of a white building with glass entrance doors. Hot, mortified, her kissed lips burning and feeling shockingly pumped up, still she made herself glare up at him.
He looked down at her, as cold and haughty-looking as she had ever seen him. And his lips were not burning! ‘I saw you talking with him in my foyer yesterday at lunch,’ Nikos confessed. ‘By the time he comes out of his shock far enough to read the message I’ve just given him, he will understand that you are out of bounds from now on if he wants to keep his job.’
Sent totally, utterly breathless by the ruthless steel trap his mind must be, Mia could not get another single word out. She twisted her head to look towards the red sports car where, sure enough, the man from accounts was still standing next to as if in shock.
Her insides shuddered. ‘You—you set me up for that kiss in front of him,’ she whispered, finally beginning to catch on as to why that particular employee of his had been roped in to deal with his car.
‘No, Tulio did that. Until Tulio put in an appe
arance I’d decided that merely seeing you going off to spend a weekend with me was going to be enough to put him off thinking he could try coming on to you again. Tulio upped the ante.’
Tugging her into motion again he sent the glass doors swinging open and walked them into the building, then kept her anchored to his side as he spoke to a receptionist standing behind the desk. Fizzing with fury Mia wanted so badly to deny what he’d assumed, but she knew that she could not do that without exposing the real reason why she had gone out last night, and nothing was ever going to make her admit the truth to him now!
So she stood simmering beside him with her eyes on a level with his wide muscular shoulder, and only began to take notice of her surroundings when she happened to focus through a window and saw the helicopter glinting in the bright sunlight on what looked like a concrete jetty jutting out into the Thames.
Her fingernails bit tense crescents into Nikos’s palm. She had never travelled in a helicopter before, and she was not sure she wanted to travel in one now.
Nikos tried not to wince as her fingernails bit into his flesh as he signed the necessary documents and felt alive for the first time in two long miserable weeks. A fire was burning deep down in his abdomen. He didn’t know how she had managed to do this to him, this black-haired, long-legged, curvy fiery witch, but she did do it to him. If he had been standing in the middle of a wilderness he would be howling now like a mating wolf.
He’d warned Oscar. He’d warned Mia. He’d even warned himself. But it had taken a donkey named Tulio to set his natural hunting instinct free from the restraints he had placed around them. Turning back to the glass doors he trailed his captive outside again. His new sports car was nowhere to be seen now. Grimacing at the delight he could imagine its young driver was enjoying—the young fool’s damn consolation prize—Nikos turned them towards the jetty on which his helicopter was awaiting them.
Mia was forced to endure his help as he helped her up the steps into the plush cream leather interior, with the bristling impatience of a man who believed he had the right to hustle her around.
The impression stung like acid through the layers of her skin as she chose a seat on the other side of the cabin and sat down. She refused to look at him as he folded his long frame into the seat farthest away from her. If two people wished to announce they were at war, then their seating choices flagged the battle line.
The door slid shut. Rotor blades began to move. The angry butterflies playing havoc with her insides altered to anxious tingles as she felt the contraption lift off the ground. As her heart dipped alarmingly she watched with wide eyes and, in what felt like only seconds, she found herself staring down at the river which looked like a silver ribbon glinting in the sun.
He did not speak. She did not speak. But she could feel the fierce heat of his mood reaching out towards her across the empty gap.
And her lips were still burning so hotly from the kiss she found she just had to try to cool them with the moist tip of her tongue. Her mouth suddenly came alive with the taste of him. Shocked that a kiss could leave such an intimate residue behind, she slammed her tongue against the back of her teeth and refused to let it move again.
‘Drink—?’
Mia forced herself to look at him, only to feel a strange heavy weight descend across her chest. He looked different again—as in dangerously different. His lounging posture in the corner of the plush leather seat, with his long legs stretched out in front of him, yelled cool, calm arrogance at her, yet his half-narrowed eyes and the glint emitting from them warned of something new lurking around inside him, as if he’d flung on yet another change of mood.
Passion-desire, she named it, without knowing how she recognised either thing. Her eyes dropped to his mouth, his wide sensual mouth. Could he taste her as she could still taste him—?
Mia shook her head and turned to look at the horizon where the built-up city had begun to thin out and the earth below them was slowly turned into a thousand shades of green as they flew over countryside.