Rags To Riches: Hired For His Satisfaction: A Ring to Secure His Heir / Nanny for the Millionaire's Twins / The Ties that Bind. SUSAN MEIER
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lowered her eyelashes again, feeling too weak and nauseous to fight him. Even if he was no longer freezing her out, he was domineering and she had never liked men of that ilk. Jason’s ilk, she labelled ruefully. Her one-time flatmate, Mel, had gloried in what she had seen as Jason’s essential masculinity until she saw the downside of his unpredictable moods and rages, not to mention his habit of making passes at other women whenever the notion took him. But it wasn’t fair to compare Alex Kolovos to Jason, Rosie thought guiltily. He was virtually a stranger yet he had risked life and limb to free her from Jason, which astounded her, for strangers usually put their own welfare first.
‘Did Jason hurt you?’ she whispered, wondering what had happened in the struggle that must have taken place after she had gone careening across the pavement.
Alexius rubbed his hard jaw line thoughtfully. ‘He got in one blow before I knocked him down. I was on the boxing team at school. I will have a bruise, nothing more …’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Rosie muttered. ‘I didn’t know he was going to be waiting for me. I wasn’t expecting to ever see him again—’
‘Is he your ex-boyfriend?’
‘My goodness, no! I would never get involved with someone like him. He was dating a friend of mine.’
Alexius watched her succulent pink lips compress on that closing remark, which explained nothing. He wondered what the real story was, whether she had encouraged that Neanderthal, who, unless he was very much mistaken, was pumped up both physically and mentally on steroids. He studied her. Her wealth of pale hair was spilling off the edge of the seat in a silken swathe, the big green eyes that dominated her triangular face dark with anxiety. She was still trembling with shock. She was so tiny and vulnerable that he was tempted to put his arms round her to offer comfort. But the very thought of such an unnatural urge shook Alexius to his very depths. When had he ever offered comfort to a woman? Why would he even want to touch her in that way? Sex was one thing and always acceptable, comfort and its complications, something else altogether. It was fitting that he had saved her from further harm and would now ensure that she received medical attention, but there was no need of any more personal element in their dealings. He had already decided to recommend her to her grandfather. While the way she had addressed him earlier had angered him, she was honest and forthright and a hard worker. The next time he saw her she would be in Greece with Socrates. When he had told her to leave, the strangest bad mood had settled over him at the awareness that the masquerade was at an end: he should be rejoicing that the job was done.
The car came to a halt outside a brightly lit town house in an imposing Georgian square. Rosie frowned while Alexius sprang out and turned to scoop her up into his arms before she had the chance to object. ‘I can walk!’ Rosie protested. ‘Where on earth are we? I thought you were taking me to Casualty.’
‘Where we would wait for hours before receiving attention. Dmitri Vakros is a doctor and a friend. He is just finishing his evening surgery,’ Alex explained.
A nurse greeted Rosie in a small changing room and helped her out of her soiled overalls into a gown. She was ushered into a surgery where a small stocky Greek told her to sit down on the examination couch. He checked her over, frowning at the blackening bruises on her arm from Jason’s fingers while the nurse attended to the abrasions on her knees. It all took very little time and she was relieved when she thought of how long she would have had to wait to receive attention at a busy casualty unit where people with much worse injuries would naturally take precedence. Of course, she reflected wryly while she donned her tunic and trousers again, she wouldn’t have bothered going to a hospital had she been on her own. Rosie was used to picking herself up from life’s more trying events and dusting herself off to go on as normal. Making a fuss or seeking attention had never been encouraged by the social workers who oversaw her childhood. She was secretly amazed that Alex Kolovos had made such a fuss over a minor event, behaving as if she had been badly hurt when she had only suffered the most minor damage at Jason’s hands.
‘You see, I’m fine,’ she told Alex breezily when he sprang upright to greet her in the elegant waiting room. His suit fitted him like a glove, she noted suddenly. It was a dark pinstripe, like something a banker might wear, very conservative, very smart. The close fit accentuated broad shoulders, narrow hips and long, powerful legs. Her cheeks warmed when she realised that she was staring, shaken anew by the obvious dichotomy in their lifestyles.
The doctor emerged from his surgery to talk to Alex and the two men chatted in Greek. It was Greek again, which he had been speaking out on the street when he was using his phone, she registered, recognising several words from the classes she had once attended in an effort to learn the language. Throughout the conversation she was conscious of the doctor’s frowning curiosity about her and she flushed beneath his assessing gaze. Evidently he was wondering what Alex was doing with a woman dressed as she was, clearly a manual worker and not in the same class as his friend.
‘I gather Dr Vakros works in the private sector,’ Rosie remarked on the way down the steps.
‘Yes.’
‘He won’t be sending you a bill for seeing me, will he?’ Rosie checked worriedly.
‘No, our friendship is of long standing.’
‘That’s a relief. I should be getting on now,’ Rosie said rather awkwardly. ‘Thanks for all your help.’
‘I’m not finished yet—I’m taking you home,’ Alex announced, addressing the man already waiting outside the car in Greek and catching the keys that were tossed to him.
‘There’s really no need for that. I’ve taken up enough of your evening.’
Alex Kolovos gazed down at her, high aristocratic cheekbones taut, black lashes low over his unnervingly bright eyes. ‘I want to take you home,’ he informed her levelly.
Colour surged into Rosie’s cheeks in receipt of that forceful statement. She didn’t know what to say, how to react. Why was he putting himself out like this for her benefit? Was he attracted to her or simply a good Samaritan? Why on earth would he be attracted to her? she scolded herself irritably. She was small, flat as a pancake out front where it mattered: men didn’t turn their heads to look when she walked by. Embarrassed by her own thoughts and a growing sense of utterly ridiculous inadequacy, she slid into the passenger seat of the saloon car and did up the belt. He drove off but seemed to have difficulty with the gears and cursed only half under his breath when the engine conked out at the traffic lights.
‘It’s a new car. I haven’t driven it much,’ he commented in his own defence, cursing the fact that he so rarely drove himself anywhere. From childhood he had had a chauffeur and had only enjoyed the freedom of driving his own car while at university.
Rosie tried not to smile at the excuse. Just about everybody she knew got around the city on public transport. She wondered if his was a company car and if so, did that mean that even though he had to share an office, he was a bigger wheel than she had appreciated in STA Industries? Glancing out of the window, she finally realised that they were travelling in entirely the wrong direction.
‘Sorry, I should have given you my address first,’ she said and did so.
He hadn’t a clue how to get there: that was immediately obvious to her, although he tried to hide it. She gave him directions and tried not to wince as he wrenched at the gears like a learner driver every time they had to stop at traffic lights.
‘Will you join me for a meal?’ he asked casually when after several wrong turns—she was lousy at giving directions—they finally were within minutes of her bedsit.
Surprised by the invitation, Rosie glanced at him in dismay. At the same time her empty tummy emitted an embarrassing growl and she coughed in the hope of masking it. ‘A meal?’ she prompted.
‘By the sound of it you’re as hungry as I am,’ Alexius remarked, his amusement unhidden.
So, the cough hadn’t worked. Rosie reddened yet again. She could not remember ever being so self-conscious