The Greek Tycoon's Lover (2 page)

“Did someone say something to hurt your feelings?” he asked.

How could that man zoom in on the truth so unerringly she wondered? “No. No one said anything that wasn’t true,” she said, then cringed at how much she’d revealed with those words.

His eyes narrowed and she watched in fascination as his lips thinned into a line of extreme annoyance. “What did they say and who were they?” he asked with a dangerously soft voice and Helen blushed at the anger emanating from him. Dimitri Theopolis was not a man to mess with. He was a dangerous man personally, but no one dared to cross him in the board room. When challenged, he was absolutely lethal. She’d seen it too many times and would hate to be on the receiving end of some of his tongue lashings or merciless business tactics. They were all legal, but when someone crossed him, they were destroyed.

Helen shook her head, determined to solve her own problems for once. “No. I’m not telling you anything,” she said firmly but couldn’t hold his gaze. Knowing him, she wouldn’t put it past him to fire the women who had spoken so callously this morning in the file room. It wasn’t that they were excellent employees. All of them were awful gossips who spent half their time slicing their co-workers to shreds. But if they were going to be fired, Helen didn’t want it to be because of something they said about her. Especially since it was true.

Dimitri wasn’t having any of that nonsense. “Why not? If someone hurt you, I want to know about it.”

Taking a deep breath, she laid her pencil down on the pad, her shoulders drooping sadly. “Because what they said was true.”

“It doesn’t matter if it was true or not, I’ll not tolerate people being inconsiderate to you, Helen,” he said, his lips thin and his eyes sparking green flames.

She smiled weakly at his show of support but shook her head. “It’s my problem. And I’ll deal with it in my own way,” she said softly, looking down at the floor. She wished he would move on to business. She could deal with anything he threw at her in that area. But when he was nice to her, it only made her love him more. She wanted to throw her arms around his neck and cry out her embarrassment on his chest, feel his muscular arms wrap around her and know that he would make everything okay. But that wasn’t her reality. She didn’t have the right to lean on him in that way. That was reserved for whoever he chose as his wife. And it definitely wouldn’t be her. “If you don’t have anything for me, I need to get back to that report. You have the meeting in two days and if I don’t pull the numbers together for you, it won’t be good.”

She stood up and rushed out of the office, almost falling into her chair as her legs stopped working. She hid herself under the pile of work at her desk, praying that he wouldn’t see how distressed she was.

Chapter 2

Dimitri let her go, his teeth gritting as he watched her walk out of his office, his body already aching with need from the moment he’d walked out of the elevator and seen her gorgeous smile with her bright, blue eyes that could swallow a man up with their depths. Her sweet, gentle, sexy walk only made him harder and he wished he could look away, but he didn’t, needing her presence too much to stop.

Shoving his hands into his hair, he cursed under his breath and looked out the window. He shouldn’t be here. He should be in Athens resolving the latest labor disputes and overseeing production of the next fleet for the Theopolis ships. But there was just something about Helen that drew him back to London over and over again. Even his mother was starting to ask about it, questioning the time he spent away from home.

He wanted Helen. With an aching, driving passion that he couldn’t ignore any longer. He’d interviewed her six months ago and hired her immediately, thinking at the time that the attraction was only an intellectual connection that would make them work better together. How could he have known at that point what a luscious, incredible body she had hidden under those severe suits and staid shoes? Of course, he’d loved the way her eyes had sparkled while she answered his questions. And more than once, he’d stopped listening as his mind formed fantasies in which her soft, full mouth with her sweet pink lips was a main feature.

At the time, he’d attributed his distractions down to the long working hours he’d been putting in. But as his tiny, adorable, sexy Helen started working that first week, his mind discovered what his body had already known. He wanted Helen in his bed, not in his office. Getting her there would take some work. She was one of the shyest females he’d ever encountered and no more aware of her beauty and femininity than a lobster was aware of the sand on a beach. He’d slowly been working towards getting her to think of him in terms of a man, but it had been a painfully slow battle. Hell, she still called him Mr. Theopolis despite the hundred or so times he’d ordered her to call him by his first name. He, on the other hand, had no problem calling her by her first name. Each time he thought about Helen, it was in personal terms.

Grimacing, he knew that, six months ago, he’d never realized getting her into his bed would take quite so much of his energy. He’d never had this much trouble with a woman before.

He walked around to the other side of his desk and had to smile at the surface. Everything was laid out on his desk in very precise order with yellow sticky notes summarizing each document. In the center was a list. Helen loved lists. He had to chuckle as he read through the list. She had given him a list of people he should talk to and in the order of priority.

Dimitri sighed heavily and picked up the phone, dialing the first number. Helen might be a little dictator, but she was also usually right when it came to organizing business priorities. It was only when she didn’t know what was going on that she was wrong so Dimitri made sure she was included on anything she wanted. He trusted her more than he trusted his executives and she worked harder that most of them. That’s one reason he paid her about the same amount as some of his vice presidents.

By lunch time, he walked out and found her staring at her computer listlessly which only alarmed him further. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen Helen not moving about the office efficiently and they had been times when she was deeply worried about something. “What’s wrong?” he asked softly, bending over her desk, hands propped flat on the surface, to look into her pretty, blue eyes that revealed so much about her inner feelings. Seeing the clouds pass over their crystal blue depths, he knew something was troubling her.

Helen jumped when his face came into view and her cheeks immediately turned a soft shade of red. “Oh, Mr. Theopolis, I’m sorry. I’m afraid I was day dreaming.” She quickly pushed back from the desk and stood up, placing several feet between the two of them. She had trouble breathing when he was so close. Good grief, she forgot to breathe most of the time when he was close.

“What were you day dreaming about?” he asked, standing up as she did.

“Nothing,” she said and started stacking the files on her desk that were already perfectly stacked in some sort of order.

“Of course it was something,” he countered grimly, frustrated that she wouldn’t open up to him this time. The last time she’d been this upset, her landlord had been pressuring her on the rent, wanting to increase it by several hundred dollars. It hadn’t been that Helen couldn’t afford the additional rent. It was only that his little Helen, the penny pinching, coupon cutting darling didn’t think the rent increase had been ethical. His initial reaction had been to buy the damn apartment complex and let her live there for free. But he knew she’d balk at that idea. So he’d done the next best thing. He’d bought a small house he knew she’d like, then sold it back to her anonymously at a price he knew she couldn’t resist. When her mother had been in an accident and couldn’t live alone anymore, he’d made a quick phone call to a private retirement home and ensured a place for Helen’s mother at a price that wouldn’t burden Helen’s cash flow situation. He knew some might call it subsidizing but he thought it was more like ensuring that she wasn’t worried.

So why was she not letting him help her in this instance? What had happened this time that was so personal she couldn’t tell him about it? Did she not trust him for some reason? He immediately dismissed that idea. Helen trusted him more than she trusted herself. “Why don’t you come out to lunch with me and fill me in on what’s going on? I don’t have any plans, do I?”

“Except me,” a sultry, female voice said from the left.

Helen gritted her teeth when the painfully lovely blond sauntered toward Dimitri, draping herself against him as she reached up and kissed him. She resisted the urge to slap the woman’s sexy smile or to scratch her eyes out. She didn’t think Dimitri would appreciate his girlfriend being mauled by his mousy secretary.

Dimitri immediately pulled away but Helen noted that he maintained his hand on her back. “Barbara, what are you doing here?” he asked.

The beautiful, blond Barbara laughed her sexy laugh and winked at him. “You’ve been a naughty boy lately! I told you to let me know when you came back to town but you snuck in. Fortunately, I found out and am here to kidnap you for lunch.”

“I already have plans to take Helen out today,” Dimitri said.

Barbara smiled victoriously. “Don’t be silly dear. She already has her lunch and I’m starving. Besides,” she started off, only to finish with a whisper in Dimitri’s ear.

Dimitri smiled broadly and laughed. “Good enough,” he said to Barbara. Turning to Helen, he said, “Do you mind if I give you a rain check on that lunch?”

Before Helen had a chance to even open her mouth, Barbara spoke up for her. “Of course she doesn’t mind. She’d probably feel uncomfortable in the places you like to eat for lunch.” Without another word, Barbara pulled Dimitri along behind her, talking in a low voice and laughing seductively.

Helen watched them leave, her eyes boring holes into the back of the awful monster parading as a female human being. She was simply beastly! How dare she say that Helen wouldn’t enjoy a gourmet meal?

She wished she’d had the courage to have told Barbara off. Perhaps something assertive or witty, something that would put the awful woman in her place. Unfortunately, nothing had come out of her mouth but surprise.

Helen looked down at her sandwich that had been mashed by a file at some point in the day and cringed. The turkey on rye just didn’t seem very appetizing right at the moment. Sighing, she stuck the sandwich back in her drawer and turned to her computer, finishing up the report she’d been working on before Dimitri had approached her desk.

She worked through lunch, not even remembering to take out her sandwich and eat it. She was picking up the files to be brought to marketing when the two of them came back to the office an hour and a half later.

“Hello again,” Barbara sing-songed as Helen passed by.

“Good afternoon,” Helen said crisply, ducking her head as she left the room, not wanting to be subjected to the inevitable goodbye kiss between the two love birds.

Ten minutes later, she walked back to the office. Thinking ten minutes was more than enough time to say goodbye, she cursed her luck. Barbara was just coming out of the executive suite and smiled victoriously at Helen.

Helen tried to walk politely by the woman to her desk but her luck was really in the gutter today. “You’re out of your league,” Barbara said, standing in front of Helen’s path so she had to stop or walk around the taller woman. Helen chose to simply stand in place, eyebrows rising in polite inquiry but she held the thick file folder in front of her chest defensively.

Helen debated long and hard as to whether to respond but in the end, she couldn’t get rid of the voice inside her head telling her that manners were important. “I’m sorry?” she asked, hugging the file folder to her chest as if it would ward off the other woman’s evil comments.

Barbara sneered and seemed to roll her eyes at Helen’s response but she wasn’t going to lose this confrontation. “Dimitri,” she snapped as if the name clarified everything.

“What about Mr. Theopolis?” Helen asked, wanting to escape the woman’s cloying perfume and irritating manner. She figured the best way was to let Barbara say whatever she needed to say so they could both get on with their day.

Barbara laughed, her blond hair falling against her back in a perfect imitation of an actress. “Goodness! You don’t even call him by his first name! How precious.”

Helen bristled and started to move around the annoying woman. “I don’t see why my professional relationship with my employer is so humorous to you.”

Barbara wouldn’t let her pass. She stepped to the left, effectively blocking Helen once again. “Because it’s not just a professional relationship, is it? You’re in love with your boss!”

Helen gasped. “I am not!” she said.

Her smile was triumphant. “Of course you are,” she said, chuckling maliciously. “But you’ll never catch his interest dressed like a school marm.” Barbara smoothed her black, figure hugging dress down over her hips and wriggled slightly. “Dimitri is a strong man and likes women who know what they’re doing…in bed. Do you have any idea of what you’re doing?” Barbara asked, her brown eyes moving over Helen’s figure, “In or out of bed?”

Helen wanted to spit in the woman’s eye but she ignored that impulse, lifting her chin and pushing past her. “I don’t think that question is appropriate.”

Barbara only laughed out loud. “I figured as much,” she said and grabbed one of Helen’s arms, pulling her back. Barbara bent down and whispered in Helen’s ear. “Poor, virgin secretary,” she mocked. “Don’t let your heart get broken when he keeps moving to a real woman who can satisfy his needs. It wouldn’t look good on your resume,” she said. With a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, she said, “Get some man to show you what to do and you’ll be in a much better position to catch a husband. No man wants to deal with a virgin in his bed. Too awkward and embarrassing,” she explained, chuckling at the idea.