It had been beyond her wildest dreams. And it was all thanks to her father! The father she had never known—who had never known about her!
And now they were to meet—this very evening!
Excitement and happiness filled her to the core.
Back at the hotel, the myriad bags full of her purchases were whisked away to be packed into the new suitcases she’d also bought. Her battered old case, full of her battered old clothes, would be held in storage for the time being. It was all being taken care of.
Now all she had to do was have lunch in the hotel restaurant and be ready, as instructed, for departure for the airport at two thirty.
Her expression changed. Alexandros Lakaris had made it crystal clear that she was nothing more than a chore to him. It was just as well she’d resolved to treat him as nothing more than her father’s messenger boy. Even if last night, when he’d turned up at her room door in that tailored tux of his, looking even more incredibly drop-dead fantastic than he had in a zillion-dollar business suit, she’d had to physically stop herself gawping at him and remember that he was nothing and nobody to her...
Well, it was obvious, wasn’t it? She was equally nothing and nobody to him. So she would match his manner with hers—brisk and impersonal.
An hour later, with another heavenly gourmet meal inside her, she was enjoying to the hilt the knowledge that today, in one of her umpteen fabulous new outfits, unlike on her arrival yesterday, she looked exactly the part for a swish hotel like this.
She sailed out of the restaurant into the lobby.
Xandros glanced towards the entrance to the hotel restaurant where, so the reception clerk had informed him, Stavros’s daughter was lunching. He had had a business lunch in the City, and now he wanted to head for the airport.
A woman was emerging from the restaurant, sashaying forward on high heels, her tall, elegant, long-legged figure cinched by a royal-blue waist-hugging fitted jacket with bracelet sleeves, and a narrow knee-length skirt. A pale blue silk chiffon scarf flowed behind her as she walked and her slender throat was adorned with a double rope of pale blue crystal beads. Long, lush blonde tresses waved back from her face...her perfectly made-up, beautiful face.
Stavros’s daughter.
Rosalie Jones.
Shock jarred Xandros—the same level of shock he’d felt yesterday, when she’d announced her name to him, but for the totally opposite reason now.
Because now, as she sailed up to him, there was only one word to describe her.
Stunning. Just...stunning.
Unbelievably so.
His eyes raked over her, taking in every detail of her amazingly displayed beauty. Oh, he’d got hints of it last night, but now...in all her new finery, with her face perfectly made up, her hair fabulous, her figure fully revealed in that close-fitting outfit and her legs lengthened with those four-inch heels...now she was a revelation.
A stunning revelation.
Deep inside, he felt that same low, insistent purr that had come from nowhere last night when he’d seen her in her towelling robe. It was starting up in him again. Much more strongly... But this time, in the face of that incredible full-on beauty of hers, there was no chance of silencing it. Nor, he realised, did he want to. What he wanted was to enjoy the sheer, raw masculine pleasure of watching this totally stunning female walk up to him. Around her, he could see other male heads turning, and a primeval satisfaction filled him. Of all the men present in the hotel lobby, whether guest or staff, it was him whom she was heading towards...
It felt good. And he didn’t care why.
She stopped in front of him. ‘So, are we off?’ she enquired briskly.
He gave a start, realising that he must stop just gazing fixedly at her.
‘To the airport?’ she prompted. She glanced towards the reception desk. ‘I checked out before lunch,’ she went on. ‘The concierge has taken my old suitcase into storage. I’d better get the new ones,’ she said.
She sashayed off to the concierge’s desk, and Xandros paused for a moment to revel in the sight of her rear view. Her perfectly formed rear view...
He kept it in sight as they left the hotel and she got into the waiting car. Inside, as he took his place beside her, he let his gaze go to her face.
‘So, you went shopping, I see?’ he said, his voice dry. It would be sensible, he told himself, to stay low-key about this.
She turned towards him, and a waft of expensive perfume came his way as she did so. ‘Oh, yes! It was fabulous!’
Just as it had the previous night, a showstopping smile lit up her face. And, just as it had last night, Xandros’s breath caught.
‘The personal shopper was brilliant—she knew exactly what would suit me and saved me a ton of time!’ Rosalie Jones was enthusing.
Xandros allowed his glance to wash over her. It was enjoyable to let it do so. ‘You look,’ he said, ‘very good.’
He felt a wash of pleasure go through him at the fact that he had ensured she had at least been able to indulge her a little after what had been, till now, a punishingly deprived life.
‘I want to look my best for my father,’ she was saying now, in answer to his compliment.
Her expression wavered for a moment, and there was a show of anxiety in it.
‘I want him to be proud of me,’ she said. ‘To be pleased he’s discovered I exist after all these years of not knowing. I only wish my poor mother had lived to see this day. How thrilled she’d have been!’
With an effort, dragging his attention away from her, taking in what she’d just said, Xandros kept his expression neutral. It was hard to hear her getting it so pitifully wrong about the callous and neglectful man who had fathered her. Hard to hear just how tough her life had been.
‘Poor Mum!’ she went on now, sadness in her voice. ‘She only knew my father for such a short while and then he was gone. She couldn’t trace him, so he never knew about me.’
She bit her lip again, her hands twisting over her brand-new elegant leather handbag.
‘Knowing now that he’s been successful in his life, it seems so dreadful that he didn’t know about us before now. My mother’s health was never good, and we had to survive on state benefits because she wasn’t well enough to work, and I had to look after her... It was always a struggle. Always—’
She broke off, glancing at him.
‘It meant I couldn’t get a job either, or even any college education.’ She gave a half-defiant shrug, ‘That’s why I have to do the work I’m doing. I’m living as cheaply as I can, saving as much money as I can. I’ve started evening classes...an online course—’
She broke off again, her expression changing.