Page 44 of Secrets of Cinderella's Awakening

‘Show me you’re the right heir to Drakonisos or I’ll make other arrangements.’

Costas Drakakis had forced his hand, and Christos had implemented a plan that’d proceeded smoothly for ten whole months.

Until an uncharacteristically pleasant dinner with clients and a nightcap with his assistant had lowered his inhibitions, blurring the stark professional lines he’d sworn never to cross.

‘I did,’ Alexis replied in that nuanced voice he’d spent far too long analysing over the past few weeks. Sometimes crisp

, sometimes sharp. Always intelligent. And always with that huskiness that lately triggered a need to hear it wrapped in lust, moaning his name. Again. ‘But I still think you should have a drink. You haven’t had your shot of caffeine since this morning, and the whisky will mellow you out. After that, I’ll give you exactly five minutes to lose your cool. Then we’ll get back to business.’

Christos took another half step, his teeth clenching hard enough to make his jaw hurt. As much as he appreciated her no-nonsense approach, she was verging on insubordination. ‘Who do you think you’re talking to?’

She lifted her head, met his gaze with unflinching chocolate-brown eyes shot through with threads of gold that always made him think they were gathering momentum to flash pure fire at him. She didn’t answer immediately, giving him an unwanted few moments to notice the silken mass of her chestnut hair, the glistening gloss of her lip balm, the pulse beating at her throat, the thin leather belt cinching her narrow waist and the floral undertones of her favourite scent.

He’d held that trim waist in his hands, knew he could span it, easily...as he had when he’d pulled her close that night...

‘I’m talking to the great Christos Drakakis, lawyer extraordinaire, the man who leaves opponents and judges alike quaking in their shoes.’

‘Then you’ll know that I’m in no mood to be messed around right now.’

‘Yes, I know you want someone to pay for what’s happened, hence the request for the list. And you’re in the mood for another one of your let’s-test-Alexis games today. Well, I’m not playing. So...now that we’ve exhausted all areas of concern, which is it to be?’ She raised the coffee cup and the tumbler of whisky higher until the smell of roasted beans and aged single malt trailed into his nostrils. ‘One is getting cold and the ice is melting in the other.’

Her little speech triggered equal parts vexation and calming reassurance inside him. Not everything had gone to hell. ‘I want neither. The list, if you please.’

Her arms lowered. She regarded him for a resigned moment. ‘I sent it to your phone before I came up. I also have several files to put together for you downstairs. Just let me know which ones you want to work on next and I’ll have them ready.’ She swivelled on expensive heels and started walking away, her navy pencil skirt twitching in the prim little way he’d have once laid hefty bets on fully complimenting her character.

Until he’d had a taste of the gorge-deep passion that lurked beneath the deceptively cool exterior. Christos hadn’t quite made up his mind whether he resented her for that unconscious subterfuge yet.

She’d mastered the art of walking away from him before he was done with her. Increasingly in the last several weeks. Today, it was especially aggravating.

‘Alexis.’ The warning in his voice was enough to make her falter.

Christos was almost sure her shoulders stiffened momentarily before she relaxed them. An instant later she was walking away again, her curvy hips swaying as she headed for the coffee table in the middle of his living room. He waited until she reached it and started to bend down to place the whisky and coffee on it.

‘Stop.’

She straightened, still holding the drinks. Their gazes locked. Held. After a moment he saw the merest flicker of apprehension, which absurdly pleased him. He enjoyed not being the only one unsettled before noon on what should’ve been a routine Monday morning.

He took his time approaching her, each step a small battle to rein in his fraying control. The unnerving sensation he’d experienced in the pit of his stomach after his phone call with his grandfather last night.

‘Your cousin is now in the running...’

‘I’m going to give it to you straight,’ Alexis said, her voice a crisp scythe through his moody thoughts. ‘If you were any other man, I’d have thought that you’d come up here to wallow in your defeat. But you’re not any other man. You’re Christos Drakakis.’

‘Yes, I am. And you also know how much I hate sycophants.’ He reached her in time to see her lips pinch for a second before, like him, she shook off her annoyance.

Christos skirted her once, then faced her. He relieved her of the tiny, expensive bone-china cup and downed the hot beverage in one swallow. Then he repeated the process with the amber liquid swirling in the crystal-cut glass.

The kick of caffeine before the calm of alcohol threw a veil of equilibrium over his senses. He released the single button to his bespoke suit and loosened his tie.

Jerking it free, he flung it on the sofa. With his gaze still on her, Christos tugged open the top three buttons of his shirt. He wasn’t in the least bit ashamed of enjoying the reaction that flitted across her face.

Despite the brick wall she’d thrown up after that night in his penthouse, she wasn’t immune to him. Selfishly, since his day had gone to hell so very unexpectedly, he revelled in the quickening of her breath, the flair of gold in her brown eyes, the smallest step she took away from him under the guise of straightening the coffee-table book on medieval architecture. They were the same tics she’d exhibited soon after accepting the position as his executive assistant, that he’d dreaded her acting upon, only to discover that she had no intention of doing so after three years in her role.

At first, Christos had resigned himself to waiting for the inevitable moment when Alexis, like his three prior seemingly superefficient and professional assistants, would drop the not-so-subtle hint that she would love their boss/assistant relationship to become something more.

That moment had never arrived, but he’d remained sceptical, then increasingly on edge because Alexis was his most proficient assistant, anticipating his needs and executing them sometimes even before he recognised they existed. But Christos wasn’t a man who took things at face value—the harrowing events of his childhood had eroded his trust. So like the sword of Damocles hanging over his head, each interaction with her had become a watchful exercise, until it had grown into a peculiar kind of anticipation.

It had been well into the first year before he’d spotted a single sign that she was aware of him. But even that had been ruthlessly snuffed out, his assistant seemingly as capable of clamping down her responses as he was.

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