Greek Affairs: In the Boss's Arms. Barbara McMahon
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herself in her head, and cursing the fact that her skirt was too tight when it resisted her movement. She’d put it in the wrong wash and it had shrunk about two sizes; with no time to shop for a replacement it had had to do, but now she was terrified it might split at the seams. The thought of that made her go hot all over.
If Aristotle Levakis so much as guessed for a second that he had any effect on her she’d be out on her ear and replaced so fast her head would be spinning. She didn’t have to remind herself that was exactly what had happened to his last two unfortunate assistants.
Speed had been of the essence as his in-house head-hunters had scrambled to find the next best person. Lucy had since discovered that Levakis Enterprises was involved in a top secret series of merger meetings, and the luxury of extending the search to outside the company hadn’t been an option.
As luck would have had it, Lucy’s boss, Levakis’ senior legal counsel, had retired the very day of the last unfortunate PA’s demise. Lucy had been vetted and promoted within twenty-four hours to the most terrifying and yet exciting position of her career so far: Levakis’ personal secretary, heading up a team of five junior administrative assistants, not to mention staff in Athens and New York.
When she straightened up, taking care to breathe in, all this raced through her brain and she felt thoroughly flustered. She pushed her glasses higher on her nose and felt her cheeks grow even hotter. Aristotle moved back to let her precede him into his office, and she caught the look of exasperation that crossed his face as he articulated her own thoughts out loud with narrowed eyes, ‘What is wrong with you today?’
She burned inside with humiliation at her lack of control. She was no better than the swooning legions of girls who gathered in the kitchens on each floor of this impressive London headquarters to eulogise over his mythical sexual prowess and inestimable wealth.
‘Nothing,’ Lucy muttered, and called on every bit of training she had to regain her composure. When she heard him shut his door behind them and follow her in she closed her eyes for a split second and took deep breaths. She chastised herself roundly. This job was so important; the sharp increase in wages meant that she was finally able to take care of her mother properly.
She couldn’t jeopardise all that now by turning into a bumbling, stumbling, mooning idiot—no matter how gorgeous her boss happened to be. A voice mocked her inwardly. It wasn’t as if she even wanted a man like him to notice her. She had to control these wayward thoughts. They disturbed her more than she cared to admit, making her think of long-buried memories of her childhood.
It should be easy enough to do after witnessing that last little scene. Evidently Aristotle Levakis went for quivering, highly strung thoroughbreds, all lean and sleek with good bloodlines. Lucy Proctor was more along the lines of a … a placid cart horse, and her bloodline was considerably less blue than he was used to. More of a murky brown.
She watched as Levakis came back around the other side of his desk and gestured impatiently for her to sit down and take notes, not even glancing her way. Lucy willed her heartbeat to slow down and sat, legs tucked under the chair demurely, pen poised over a blank sheet of paper, and prayed that her skirt wouldn’t split open.
Aristotle Levakis stood behind his desk, hands deep in the pockets of his trousers, and looked at the demurely bent head of his new assistant. It was most irritating to be faced with the fact that Augustine Archer had forced him to reject her by demanding more of a commitment than he was prepared to give right now. To any woman.
His assistant shifted in her seat minutely, making Ari’s eyes narrow on her. That ripple of awareness ran through him again. It was faint, elusive, yet irritatingly insistent, and had been ever since she’d walked into his office two months before in a primly structured suit.
An uncomfortable suspicion made him tense inwardly; was it this awareness that had had an effect on the lessening and ultimate annihilation of his desire for Augustine Archer? Her shrieked words still vibrated in the air, but at that moment Aristotle would be hard pushed to bring her image to mind. Immediately as he realised the import of what he was thinking he rejected the notion as utterly absurd.
Lucy Proctor, his relatively new assistant, was as far removed from his habitual choice of lover as could be humanly possible. He couldn’t believe he was even giving a second of his time to this subject, or putting those two words Lucy and lover in the same sentence, but almost against his will his eyes flicked down from shiny, albeit non-descript dark brown hair to where her knees were tight together, legs tucked under the chair.
His almost contemptuous regard stopped for a moment to take in what could only be described as wantonly voluptuous thighs encased far too snugly in the confines of a pencil skirt. Irritation prickled stronger. He would have to have a word with the head of Human Resources and tell her to pass on a discreet message about the code of dress he expected from his assistant. And yet his expert eye hadn’t missed the surprisingly small waist, cinched in by a belt. That realisation stung him.
He tried to reassert his self-control. She was big … all over … His eyes flicked back up to the line of more than generous breasts under her silk shirt. And yet, prompted a little rogue voice, she looked as firm as a succulent peach. And her face … that was something he realised now he hadn’t really given much time to study, seeing her only as someone employed to do his bidding, but now, much to his chagrin, his gaze wanted to stop and linger. Look properly. Take in the surprisingly graceful curve of a well-defined cheekbone. Aristotle’s blood was starting to heat up; with a kind of desperation he noted that she wore glasses, as if that might have the effect of a cold douche on his suddenly raging hormones.
It didn’t. He battled with his libido but it seemed determined to confound him, and he wondered what on earth was precipitating this reaction when Lucy had worked for his company for two years already. He’d only met her intermittently in that time, as she’d worked for his legal counsel, and she certainly hadn’t had any discernible effect on him then. But now she was his assistant, and a welcome relief after dealing with a succession of simpering, moon-eyed idiots.
With that in mind, he called on all his powers of logic to explain the bizarre anomaly of his physical reaction, and finally felt some equanimity return: he was a red-blooded male, he was bound to respond arbitrarily to some women, even only passably attractive ones.
Except this wasn’t the first time: he uncomfortably recalled one morning when he’d stepped into the staff elevator, because his own private one had been closed for repairs. Someone had run to stop the doors closing and launched themselves into the lift with such force that they’d careened into him. He’d felt every contour and curve of a very lush female body plastered against his for a second. It had been Lucy.
The memory seared him now. She’d been as curvaceous as something brought to life from a painting by Rubens, and the minute she’d walked into his office to interview for this job he’d remembered that moment in annoyingly vivid detail. Right now all he could think about was how she’d felt pressed against him. Especially when compared to the more sparingly built Augustine Archers of this world.
Lucy Proctor had shown no hint of remembering the moment in the lift, though, and Aristotle certainly wasn’t going to admit to such a chink in his own legendary control. But when she sat in front of him now, the vision of her thighs straining against that too-tight skirt on the periphery of his vision, he could feel his body responding to her with a strength that disturbed him—a strength almost beyond his control …
The object of his uncharacteristic pondering looked up then quizzically, clearly wondering why he wasn’t saying anything. Irrational rage rushed through him. He wasn’t used to being rendered speechless like this. But in that moment, as if to compound every other revelation, he noticed she had the most unusually coloured eyes: a dark slaty grey that was almost blue, framed with the longest blackest lashes. Her mouth opened, as if to speak, and entirely against his will his eyes moved down. He’d not noticed until now that she had a sizeable gap between her front teeth. It was all at once innocent and unbelievably erotic.
Shocking and out of nowhere Aristotle had a sudden vision of those lips wrapped around a part