Sold For The Greek's Heir. Lynne Graham
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with a vengeance. The older man indicated the coffee on the trolley and angled his head in his employer’s direction, clearly urging her to get on with her job.
Reddening all the way up to her hairline, Lucy unfroze in an effort to behave normally. Even so she had to fight a huge inner battle to force her legs over to the trolley and pour Jax a coffee when all she really wanted to do was empty the entire contents of the pot over his hateful, arrogant head. Without him looking once at her or indeed acknowledging her in any way, she settled the coffee at his elbow with a hand that trembled slightly. Next she laid out the snacks and topped up the cups, signalling the bar waiter at the door when one of the men requested a shot of ouzo to wash down his coffee.
From below screening lashes and the almost infinitesimal movements of his proud dark head, Jax tracked Lucy’s every move like a predator planning an attack. A blinding flash of memory assailed him: skin as translucent as fine porcelain in the dawn light, his fingers knotted into tumbling golden ringlets spread across a pillow, glorious bright blue eyes holding his, a tiny slender body with surprisingly sexy little curves reaching up to his. A little curvier than she used to be, he estimated abstractedly, remembering for a few seconds and then suddenly emerging again from that uncharacteristic reverie to answer a question, angrier and hotter than he had been in years.
The louse could at least have thanked her for the coffee, Lucy reflected with growing annoyance. Even a nod would have been acceptable but then Jax had always been a law unto himself, ferociously uncompromising and challenging, driven to succeed, survive and flourish as if it was in his genes. And perhaps it was. Only in a fantasy could there ever have been a scenario in which she believed that Jax Antonakos would settle down with a humble waitress... Bitterness gripped her and resentment shot through her like a sheet of lightning flashing off all her exposed nerve endings with painful effect.
Who the hell did Jax Antonakos think he was to treat her with such derisive dismissal?
Jax summoned Zenas, his head security guard, with an almost imperceptible flicker of his gaze and passed him a note. Zenas stood back to read it and confusion gripped his features for an instant before discipline kicked in and he left the room to do his employer’s bidding. Lucy paid little heed to the byplay and only tensed when her own boss appeared in the doorway and silently summoned her out into the hallway.
A frown line bisected the older man’s brow as he studied her. ‘Mr Antonakos wants to speak to you in private when he’s finished. I’m not sure how your father would feel about that request—’
Comprehension gripped Lucy fast. Andreus had no idea that she already knew Jax. He simply thought that Jax was trying to get off with her.
‘Please don’t mention this to Dad,’ she muttered unevenly, for that was not a connection she wanted made. Once a link of any kind was established, secrets could spill out.
Andreus cast open the door of a smaller room across the corridor. ‘Wait in there...but only if you want to,’ he added with deliberate meaning. ‘This is nothing to do with your employment here or with me. I have only passed on his request because I am very reluctant to offend so powerful a man.’
Lucy turned a slow, painful red, rage mushrooming inside her again as she imagined what her employer must be thinking. Jax wouldn’t care about appearances. Jax had never had to care about appearances. For an instant she almost walked away from the opportunity to tell Jax what she thought of him. But she was too nervous, too aware of what had happened the last time her very existence nearby had become objectionable to Jax Antonakos. He had paid her then boss in Spain to sack her and she had lost her job and the accommodation that went with it. That was the kind of power the super wealthy had. Her boss in those days had been outrageously frank with her, admitting that he couldn’t afford to keep her on when so much money to do otherwise was on offer and that he had had a poor summer season.
She paced the floor in the small room that was normally used as an office by the hotel housekeeper, thinking herself lucky that Jax hadn’t had a room in the hotel and called her there, which would have looked even worse. Why on earth after ignoring her would he have demanded a meeting? From his point of view that made no sense, she reasoned with a frown. After all, he had ditched her two years earlier without an explanation or even a text. He hadn’t turned up for their last date, hadn’t phoned, hadn’t done anything and when she had tried to contact him he had blocked her calls. Either he had simply tired of her or she had done or said something that had offended.
It hurt to look back and recall how many weeks she had tormented herself by pathetically wondering what she had done to annoy Jax. But nothing could have justified his subsequent behaviour in having her sacked and forced to leave the area like some vagrant whose very presence was offensive. That more than anything was what she could not forgive.
‘You literally have three minutes or you’ll miss your flight,’ Zenas warned Jax outside the door.
Jax strode into the room, absently wondering if there was actual truth in the idea that human beings needed closure following certain experiences because he could not imagine any other reason why he should still feel driven to confront Lucy. Two years ago, he had never wanted to see or speak to her again. But possibly curiosity provided more motivation than he was willing to admit, he reasoned impatiently, angry tension tightening his lean, darkly handsome features.
‘What the hell are you doing in Athens?’ Jax demanded.
Lucy spun round from the window to face him, inwardly reeling from the shock of Jax in the flesh standing close enough to touch. He was so tall and he radiated restive energy and dominant vibes in waves. Tensing, she lifted her head up but she still had to tip it back to actually see any part of him above chest level. Not for the first time her diminutive height struck her as an embarrassing flaw. Being almost child-sized often meant that people didn’t take her seriously or treat her like an adult. ‘What’s that got to do with you?’ she slung back sharply, her tone similar to his own.
Jax drew himself up to his full six-foot-three-inch height and glowered down at her, green eyes luminescent with rage because it had been two years since anyone but his father had challenged him. ‘Answer me,’ he ground out impatiently.
‘I don’t owe you any answers... I don’t owe you the time of day,’ Lucy traded with the kind of provocation that struck a deep and unwelcome note of familiarity with Jax.
‘You will answer me,’ Jax raked back at her in a raw undertone, watching as she angled her head back and struck an attitude, hand on hip. Strawberry golden curls slid round her shoulders, her hair falling round her heart-shaped face, accentuating the defiant blue of her eyes and the lush fullness of her rosy lips.
And that fast, that urgently, Jax wanted to throw her down on the desk and control her the only way he had ever really controlled her, with the seething passion that was the mainstay of his character. For the briefest of moments he allowed himself to imagine the hot, wet tightness of her and the pulse at his groin reacted with unbridled enthusiasm. He reminded himself that it had been a toxic relationship and that she had played him like a con artist with her stories, her fake innocence and her lies. A dizzy surge of rage ignited inside him like a threatening fireball.
‘If you don’t answer me you will live to regret it,’ Jax threatened in a wrathful undertone, every drop of his merciless Antonakos blood burning through him and hungry for a fight.
An angry spurt of fear made Lucy’s stomach turn over sickly. He was too influential to challenge as even her boss had reminded her. She knew Jax could cause trouble for her, maybe even for her father as well if she wasn’t careful. She might hate Jax but it would be insane to risk such penalties. ‘What am I doing in Athens?’ she repeated flatly. ‘I finally looked up my birth father and he lives here—’
‘But that was all lies,’ Jax breathed in momentary bewilderment. ‘You don’t have a Greek father.’
Her smooth brow furrowed with genuine confusion. ‘Lies? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I believe my birth certificate is as accurate as anyone else’s. At the moment I’m living with my father and his wife.’
‘That’s