Chapter Three
PANOS CLOSED HIS hand around her arm. It was a sign of his perturbation that the feel of silk over her warm flesh made unwanted sensation rush through his body. As if he’d touched an electric current.
He wanted to yank his hand back and release her but that wasn’t an option. She’d only march straight in to Chiara and he wasn’t going to allow her to make a scene.
His jaw clenched so hard pain rayed through his skull and down his neck.
Because he knew it wasn’t merely annoyance making him react this way. It was her, Dido Jones. The one woman in the world who’d ever—
‘Release me at once,’ she hissed. Instead of answering, Panos strode towards the atrium, propelling her forward. ‘What do you think you’re doing? You can’t just make me disappear.’
Watch me.
Over the top of her head he caught the eye of the receptionist on the far side of the room.
Without breaking his stride, Panos said, ‘If Ms Beverly is looking for me, please tell her to start breakfast without me. Our guest,’ his fingers tightened around the slim arm that tried to tug free, ‘is unwell. I’m taking her to her accommodation. ’
The receptionist started forward. ‘Do you need medical attention, Ms Jones?’
‘That won’t be necessary.’ Panos spoke over his captive’s protest. ‘I know exactly what’s wrong and what she needs.’
He looked down into stormy green eyes and let her see his implacable determination. He even loosened his hold a little. If she were stupid enough to want to have this out in public, she’d be the one to suffer, not he.
Her eyes widened as she read his expression. Even so her mouth opened as if ready to protest or accuse. Then something unexpected happened. She dropped her gaze, a flush climbing cheeks that mere moments ago had been too pale.
The receptionist spoke again. ‘Ms Jones?’
‘Thanks, I’ll be okay. I just need to rest for a little.’
‘Of course. Please call if you need anything. Anything at all.’ Then the man nodded and turned towards the restaurant.
Panos found himself gathering a deep breath as they exited the building. ‘Which way?’
She lifted her free arm and gestured. As he’d thought, it was the direction where he’d seen that figure disappear yesterday.
The figure with the lithe, curvy body and wild curls that had sent his subconscious circling back to the woman he’d known three years before.
The woman who’d been on his mind all through last night’s dinner with Chiara.
Panos drew her away from the building. This woman had upset his plans yesterday, putting paid to any thought of cementing his engagement with a night in Chiara’s bed.
Instead he’d pleaded tiredness and retired to his own accommodation, only to have his dreams tormented by memories he’d told himself he’d forgotten.
He ignored the fact that just before he’d been mulling over reservations about Chiara as a wife. Wondering if he should slow things down rather than speed towards marriage.
That wasn’t the point. The point was that Dido Jones had once again thrown things into chaos.
‘You don’t have to frog-march me.’
Her voice was low and breathless, drawing his thoughts inexorably back to a time when he’d heard a similar cadence in that husky-edged voice. In bed.
His fingers tightened reflexively as heat pulsed through his groin. He ignored it and kept his eyes on the path.
‘You can let me go now.’ She tried again. When he said nothing he saw her swing her face around towards him. ‘Unless you want me to think you like touching me.’
Instantly his fingers loosened, his hand dropping from her arm.
Because, he realised, there was something about touching her that…
Impossible! He didn’t enjoy it. That would be crazy. He was no masochist. Yet, if he were brutally honest, there was something about holding her that satisfied him.
He’d spent a lifetime surrounded by sycophants and people pretending to like him in hopes some of his fortune would rub off on them. The only person he trusted to tell the truth was himself.
His inner voice proclaimed that though he despised Dido Jones, though he didn’t like touching her, something made him want to maintain the physical connection. Something akin to need.
Panos filed the unpalatable idea away for later consideration. Right now he had more urgent issues to address.
But they’d keep until they were alone. The island was deserted, except for the staff here to see to their needs over the weekend. But he had no intention of discussing his personal business where some gardener or other employee might catch their conversation.
They passed out of the sunshine onto a shaded path where the trees seemed to enclose them.
Some trick of the senses made him register her perfume as if they still stood toe-to-toe.
A warm vanilla scent with a hint of sweet honey.
Deeper and richer than the scent of baking, for it blended with pheromones unique to her.
Panos had always found it intoxicating He remembered falling asleep with his face buried in her hair as she lay spooned before him. Waking to her scent in his nostrils, the tang of feminine arousal sharpening his senses, telling him she’d woken ready for him.
He slanted her a look. Her eyes were fixed ahead and she strolled down the path as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Yet her jaw was tight, her skin flushed and tension radiated off her.
She was dressed for work, coolly sophisticated. Then he noticed a tendril of dark hair had unwound from her tight bun to fall in a lustrous corkscrew down the back of her neck.
His fingers tingled with the urge to touch. He knew her hair was silky soft as well as deliciously wild. Once it had intrigued him.
‘This is it.’ She stopped before a glass pavilion that blended perfectly with its surrounds. ‘What now? Are you going to try bullying me into silence?’
Her chin was up and her hands locked on her hips, but her eyes said she was more than a little nervous. Good. She deserved to be, coming here, making trouble. Acting as if he’d done anything wrong when she was the culprit.
‘We’ll speak inside, where it’s private.’
For a second he thought she was going to refuse, then she spun away, marched to the door and led the way inside.
It was only after he’d settled, leaning a shoulder against a slender column near the vast wall of glass, that he realised his mistake. He’d watched her cross the room, pacing as if unable to settle, then turned his head and glimpsed her bedroom through an open door.
Tossed across the vast bed was a lacy bra in the distinctive grey-green that exactly matched her eyes. Beside it was a miniscule sliver of matching lace, a thong.
Panos’ heart thudded into his ribs. Carnal thoughts pierced his righteous fury.
He could picture her in the provocative underwear too well. He could even picture her deciding that for some reason that combination wouldn’t work with her outfit and dragging it off, with that enticing little shimmy of her hips as she thrust the thong down her legs.
Heat stirred low in his body as he snapped his attention back to her, telling himself his mouth hadn’t dried. He was just angry.
She was pacing, turning away from him, and his gaze settled on the lush curve of her buttocks.
If she’d ditched the green bra and thong, what did she wear under those pale trousers?
Then he realised where his thoughts had strayed. How dangerously off course they’d gone.
It wasn’t only his thoughts. He was off course. He felt like he’d stepped off the dock onto his yacht only to discover the vessel had already pulled out to sea and he was falling into thin air.
Ten minutes in her company and his libido was leading his brain. Panos couldn’t allow that. He’d learned his lesson too well.
Even more disturbing was the realisation his instantaneous physical reaction to this woman was more intense than anything Chiara had ever stirred in him.
That made him furious.
Dido Jones made him furious with her sham distress and her conniving. There was no way he’d believe her presence was mere coincidence. Oh, no, she’d planned this fiasco.
‘How could you do this?’
Accusing eyes met his across the room. She stood braced, shoulders back and head up. But with her arms wrapped around her middle, drawing her shoulders defensively forward, she looked more like a victim than the source of this catastrophe.
Panos knew better than to be taken in by her performance. She’d engineered this. She must have.
‘I haven’t done anything.’
He paced towards her, watching with interest as her eyes widened and her shoulders pushed back. But she didn’t retreat. No, she’d come here to do battle. But why? That was what he had to discover.
‘Not done anything? You—’
‘Why are you here, Dido? What do you want?’
Even as he said it he knew the answer. It had to be what everyone else wanted. Money. He knew how venal she was. She’d proved that years ago. No doubt she thought she was entitled to something from him because he’d foiled her earlier ambitions.
It had been a lucky escape for him when her brother Charles let slip that she’d hooked up with Panos for his money. That she’d lied to him from the first, carefully planning their ‘accidental’ meeting and all that followed. She’d even expected Panos to fund her family’s failing company.
He looked away to the pristine white shore with its aquamarine shallows. Life was terribly predictable.
‘I’m here to do a job, of course. Your… fiancée…’ He didn’t miss the sour note as she said the word. Envy? After all, she’d never got her hands on his money as she’d hoped. ‘Chiara wants Weddings by Gilette to organise her wedding.’
‘So you’ve changed your name to Gilette now, have you?’
‘Cut the sarcasm, Panos. I’m not in the mood.’
She wasn’t in the mood!
He wasn’t in the mood for her games. He wasn’t happy to see the manifestation of his greatest error of judgement standing in front of him. And he particularly wasn’t happy when she called him by his first name.