Redeemed By Her Innocence / Sheikh's Royal Baby Revelation. Annie West
looked round again at the terrace, the pool, the bushes popping with colour and even the empty hot tub that shimmered in the baking heat. The olive groves behind him on the hillside, the goats roaming free. This was home, and he’d had no idea how much he’d missed it.
‘Come on. If you won’t do it for me, do it for the staff who’re slaving in that kitchen preparing dinner for us tonight. You can’t let them down.’
‘That’s not fair. That’s blackmail,’ she said, but a smile was tugging at her lips.
‘I never said it was fair. But if you want that on your conscience…’
‘OK. I’ll stay. As long as I can get an early night in the guest bedroom…’
‘Of course. That’s a given. So on that basis we have a deal?’ He laughed, and extended his hand.
‘Deal,’ she said, and as she slid her hand into his, and looked up with those cool blue eyes, he knew there was a fire that burned there, and he was even more sure that there was nothing he wanted more on this earth than to light it.
THE BRIGHT AFTERNOON sparkled and finally faded as the lilac clouds of dusk slipped through purples and mauves and came to settle over the low hills. Night wrapped warm arms around the vast lands of the villa, snuffing out everything except the sconces on the walls, the lamps dotted on paths and the fiery glow of the man himself.
Jacquelyn, freshly showered, hair long and loose, slipped into her silk jersey maxi dress and stepped out on the terrace to watch.
Her hands curled round the cool metal barrier and she breathed, deeply. What a day. From the moment the plane had touched down on the soil she’d been swept up in love for this place. The light, the scents and sounds, every fabulous aspect of this fabulous villa. And then spending the last part of the afternoon walking through shady olive groves, visiting the fabled Well of Agamemnon and sitting on Nikos’s private beach.
She could hardly believe she was the same person who had been so dismissive of Nikos Karellis only one day earlier. Now her heart raced and her stomach fluttered at the thought of his face breaking into a smile, as he took her hand to guide her down the worn sandstone steps onto the baking sand.
She’d been right not to strip off and swim though, tempted as she was. But that would have been a step too far. Instead she’d kept her sundress on and her dignity intact, and watched happily from the tiny terrace as he’d emerged from the pool house in a pair of swim shorts and jogged past her into the sea.
He was magnificent. All that she’d denied herself in that flash as he’d opened the door to his suite, she’d then feasted on from the safety of her deck chair. She’d gorged herself on the rippling muscles of his back, his firm calves and thighs as he’d pounded past her to the waves. The sight of his fabled tattoos winding from his neck over his back and his chest, tracing their silky path over strong, hard, perfect muscles.
He’d pounded the waves, swimming out some fifty metres and back, making her feel stupidly, ridiculously nervous when he’d almost seemed to disappear in the foaming white horses.
And then finally he’d emerged and walked towards her, dragging a towel this way and that, mesmerising her, like a magnificent godlike hypnotist. She’d been powerless to stop herself. And that was OK. Because all she’d been doing was looking. And as long as she remembered that, she was in no danger.
But even now as she stood watching him on the terrace below, she knew that every single thing about Nikos Karellis eclipsed every single thing about every other man she’d ever met. Back and forward he paced, like a general pacing in front of his army. In the calm, silent night his voice carried to where she stood, switching from the Greek she barely recognised, to Italian and then back to his deep, drawling Australian English—he was orator, statesman and king all in one.
She knew she should be thinking about her presentation, but she simply couldn’t make her mind focus. Yet. As long as she had an early night, she’d be up at dawn and get back into the zone.
‘Hey up there! Juliet! Coming to join me?’ said Nikos. He had walked to the end of the terrace and was almost underneath her.
‘Yes, Romeo, just coming,’ she laughed. She lifted her fingers to her lips to blow him a kiss, and then stopped—what was she thinking? She drew her hand back as if she had been intending to tuck her hair behind her ear.
But the look in his eyes told her he knew. He knew she was attracted to him. She was useless at hiding it. From the way she’d drooled as he’d dried himself down, to the way she’d been caught, open-mouthed, watching him just now.
Of course she was attracted; who wouldn’t be? The question was, what was she going to do about it?
She slipped silently along the hallway, her feet slipping on the marble, her silver bracelets jangling. She caught sight of herself in the mirrored doors that led out to the terrace.
You’d better be careful, Jacquelyn, she told herself. You’re almost out of your depth. Don’t spoil it all now…
She walked across the lamp-lit terrace. Nikos walked towards her, and her heart leaped in her chest. She breathed, she smiled. She took the cheek he offered, right, then left, and she kissed him quickly, ignoring the swirl of musky male scent and the smooth warmth of his skin.
‘You look very beautiful,’ he said. ‘That coral colour suits you. The cut of the dress—really nice.’
She knew it did. The soft jersey draped over her figure, hugging her curves, the coral pink toned with her skin. She was lucky.
‘Thank you,’ she replied as he showed her to her seat at a round table, tucked in the corner of the trailing rose arbour, lit by candles and strings of little lamps.
‘Are you hungry?’ he asked as he settled himself beside her and speared a bit of melon, watching her carefully.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said, looking at the plates of appetisers. But she wasn’t. She wasn’t hungry in the slightest.
He nodded, still watching, and she lifted some food to her plate.
‘Your room OK?’
‘Oh, yes. Thanks. Very comfortable.’
He nodded. ‘I’ve been busy, but that swim did me the world of good. Unfortunately it was all waiting for me when we got back from the beach.’
‘I guess you’re always on call.’
‘Aren’t you? As head of a business, there never seems to be a moment when someone doesn’t want an instant solution to some problem or other.’
‘I’m not quite in your league. My issues are more around being taken seriously.’
He raised a sharp eyebrow.
‘Not by my staff. But by men. Bank managers usually.’
‘You feel objectified in the business world?’
‘Objectified. Patronised. Demoralised. Take your pick. I’m sorry if I sound bitter, but the number of times I’ve heard “Oh, isn’t your father coming?” Honestly. It would never happen if I were a man.’
‘People make judgements in less than a second. It takes a lot to change a preconceived idea, but I bet you can do it if you want to.’
It was the thing that upset her more than anything else. Taking over from her father, and feeling that sense of disappointment every time it was she alone who walked into meetings. It was fine when she was just there as window dressing, but as soon as she was running the whole show she knew she’d been judged and filed before some of them had even read past the first line of her accounts.
‘I don’t imagine anyone has ever