Moments later she’d been lifting the house phone...making a lengthy—a very lengthy—booking in the spa, to be cleansed and pampered to within an inch of her life! Wraps, facials, manicure, pedicure, haircut, massage...the lot!
Now, hours later, with all the fatigue and the aches and pains of her overworked body vanished, her skin like satin and her hair like silk, she was propped up against the pillows on her huge bed, idly surfing her way through the vast array of channels on the TV. She was replete from the gourmet meal delivered by Room Service, picking at delicious chocolates and polishing off a half-bottle of white wine from the minibar.
Heaven—just heaven!
To think that this morning I woke and had no idea at all I’d be ending the day like this!
And she’d be flying off tomorrow to meet the father she had never known...
Wonder and joy flooded through her—and then a twist of grief.
Oh, Mum—if only you could have lived to enjoy this, too! To know that the man you fell for so many years ago finally discovered us again...
She lifted her glass, emotions full within her. As she set it back on the bedside table a rap on the door sounded. She started, then realised it must be Room Service, back to collect the dinner trolley.
Levering herself off the bed, she padded to the door in her complimentary bathrobe and slippers, opening it without thinking.
It wasn’t Room Service. It was Alexandros Lakaris.
Xandros had been in two minds as to whether to check on Stavros’s daughter on his return from his dinner or just leave her be. A reluctantly acknowledged sense of responsibility had led him to do the former. However much the girl was nothing to do with him, he’d plucked her out of her familiar surroundings and deposited her here, in what was obviously a totally alien environment for her. He’d better just make sure she was okay, and not doing anything stupid.
Like opening her hotel room door to anyone who knocked.
‘You should have checked who it was before opening the door,’ he reprimanded her.
For a second he thought he saw her eyes widen at seeing him. Then it was gone.
‘I thought you were Room Service,’ came the unconcerned answer. ‘Anyway, what do you want?’
She sounded offhand, as if she couldn’t care less.
‘I wanted to make sure you were all right,’ he replied evenly, keeping a tight rein on his annoyance at this indifference to his concern for her.
‘I’m fine,’ she answered. ‘In fact—blissful!’
Her offhand manner vanished as she said the word, her face lighting in a smile for which there was only one word.
Radiant.
Xandros’s breath caught. His eyes focussed sharply as he realised it was not just her smile that was making his breath catch. She had quite definitely undergone a whole bunch of beauty treatments...
The formerly pallid, blotchy skin was now clear and glowing, the lines of ingrained fatigue vanished, and there were no dark hollows underneath her distinctive grey-green eyes any more—eyes that were wide-set and luminous under finely arched brows. Her hair had obviously been washed, cut and styled, and was pinned up loosely, with delicate tendrils framing her face. She’d had a manicure, too. He could see the now smooth, long-fingered hand holding together the edges of her towelling robe, which was doing nothing to conceal the deep vee of smooth, pale flesh and the long line of her slender throat...
Without the slightest effort on his part, Xandros felt the start of a low, purring reaction stirring in him that came out of pure, unadulterated, raw masculine instinct.
Because there was something about talking at this late hour of the night to a woman standing in a hotel doorway wearing only a towelling robe and looking the way she was looking now. He had spent the evening dining well and drinking some very tolerable wines, with vintage port to follow, and something about the moment was really very...
Tempting.
Tempting, indeed...
The low purr intensified and he almost—almost—reached out his hand to draw a slow, exploring finger down that deep vee of her robe...almost let his other hand lift to her face, cup the delicate line of her jaw, tilt up her chin so that he could close in on her and lower his mouth to hers...to touch and taste those silken parted lips...
Thee mou! Am I insane?
He hauled his wayward thoughts away.
It’s out of the question—totally out of the question!
Having anything to do with Stavros’s English daughter other than the barest minimum was unthinkable.
‘Good,’ he said briskly, and continued in the same manner. ‘I stopped by to tell you that we’ll need to head for the airport after lunch. So you can have the morning for shopping. The concierge will book a personal shopper for you at one of the department stores to speed things up. Don’t worry about how to pay. I’ll cover it with the store directly for now and sort it with your father later.’
He would take a particular pleasure in sending a hefty bill to Stavros—and not just because the man owed his shamefully neglected daughter big-time. He was pretty damn sure that Stavros had known he’d be dismayed to see how unlike Ariadne his older daughter was. Ariadne—cultured and couture-clad—had been eminently suitable as a Lakaris bride...unlike her ill-dressed, downtrodden, impoverished London-born half-sister.
It would have amused Stavros, Xandros strongly suspected, envisaging Xandros’s predicted discomfiture at the prospect of taking so unlikely a bride in order to achieve the merger he wanted.
His mouth tightened. Yes, well, not only had he no intention whatsoever of matrimony now—with either sister!—but he could also play games of his own. It would amuse him to deliver Rosalie Jones to Stavros looking the way the daughter of one of Greece’s richest men should look. Deliver her—and walk away.
Because Stavros Coustakis was not going to game-play with him one single time more. He was done with it. Done.
He snapped his mind back to the present moment, keeping his voice and manner businesslike. ‘When you’ve finished shopping I’ll meet you in the hotel lobby and we’ll head to the airport.’ He gave her another brisk nod, keeping everything neutrally impersonal. ‘So, until tomorrow, goodnight.’
He turned away, heading back to his own room.
Best not to think of Stavros Coustakis’s English daughter.
However radiant her smile...
CHAPTER THREE
ROSALIE SANK INTO the hotel car that had been sent to collect her—and her treasure trove of purchases—from the very upmarket department store in Knightsbridge where she had just spent three fabulous hours in the hands of a personal shopper.
It had been heaven—a fantasy come to life!—to try on garment after garment, each and every one of them so incredibly beyond her normal clothes budget, which had been focussed all her life on the cheapest of chain stores and charity shops.