The Passionate Greek (3 page)

On impulse she dived into her handbag and
scrabbled for a pen and a piece of paper. She quickly wrote down
her address and telephone number as well as her email address.

‘I’d love to know how you get on it Greece,’
she said, hoping that maybe Gabby would have some time to perhaps
email her with news of Electra, never knowing how important it
would turn out to be for her. She wished Gabby the best of luck in
her new position and thanking her for the lift she hurried into the
station booking office. Gabby gave a merry toot on the horn as she
drove off.

‘Lucky, lucky Gabby,’ thought Melanie, as
she made her way on to the platform.

As Melanie boarded the London train she was
thankful to see that the carriages were relatively empty. She gazed
unseeing out of the window at the passing countryside her thoughts
tumbling about her. She had been foolish. She knew that now. Not
only had she lost the chance to care for her daughter she was more
than likely going to lose her job. Nicos would surely waste no time
in telephoning the agency and letting them know that their employee
had passed themselves off as one of their highly qualified
nannies.

When the real Stephanie Brooks had called
the agency to tell them she was ill and unable to keep that day’s
appointment with Mr Chalambrous it had been Melanie, halfway
through the first month of her new job at the Premiere Childcare
Agency, who had taken the call. From carefully questioning
Stephanie she had learned that Nicos’s personal assistant had
interviewed several girls selecting three she considered the most
suitable to present themselves for interview with Nicos.

At first Melanie had been stunned to learn
that Nicos was engaging a nanny for their daughter. But why would
he not be, she thought. It was no coincidence that he had chosen
the very agency where Melanie worked. Nicos only ever chose the
best so of course he came to the agency with a worldwide reputation
for its highly qualified, dedicated girls.

On the spur of the moment and without a
thought for the consequences Melanie acted. Telling her colleagues
she had a sick headache and was going home she grabbed Stephanie’s
CV from the file and moments later was in a taxi on her way to the
station. Now she was heading back into town to face the music. She
knew she had been lucky to get the agency job. Not every company
was keen to employ someone with a criminal record.

Melanie could not help a wry smile as she
thought of herself as a criminal. Was lying for someone you loved a
crime? The law decreed it was. She had found that out. And it had
cost her everything; the baby she had longed for, the man she
thought would be her future and the catering business she had been
so very proud of; the company she had built up by her own hard work
and initiative. Funny how that didn’t seem so important now. At one
time it had been the thing she cared about most. But that was
before Nicos Chalambrous entered her life.

It was not their first meeting that Melanie
would never forget. It was the mortifying second encounter that
still made her cringe. She knew who owned Tele-Sky Communications,
of course. Who didn’t? Nicos Chalambrous was a legend in the world
of global communications. Everyone knew him – but nobody knew him.
Not for nothing was he known as the most secretive billionaire on
the planet. At pains to protect his privacy the most that was known
about him was that he liked to spend all his summers on his own
private island or sailing the Aegean on his 200ft yacht.

Sometimes the paparazzi would capture him in
their long tom lenses on the deck of his boat. Occasionally there
would be a mystery girl lounging on the deck, but more often than
not he was alone. Rumours swirled about him. Once he was reported
engaged to a Greek shipping heiress but no marriage was featured in
the glossy magazines. Few people knew what he actually looked
like.

Melanie was elated when her catering
business secured the contract to supply business lunches at the
corporate headquarters of Tele-Sky Communications in the City of
London. Her submission of organic and locally sourced foods where
possible at competitive prices she was told had swung the deal for
her. That and the fact that one of the director’s had attended one
of her lunches at another company and been duly impressed.

Her first booking for Tele-sky was lunch for
ten in the private dining room on the top floor of the company’s
impressive neo classical building. She had inspected the dining
room and the kitchens beforehand with her customary attention to
detail and was pleased and not a little surprised to discover that
in such an ancient building the facilities for food preparation
were ultra modern.

She and her staff had been hard at work all
morning. Everything was going to plan but she was undeniably tense.
She so wanted everything to be perfect. She was putting the
finishing touches to the desert when she glanced up to see a tall
man in jeans lounging in the doorway.

‘You’re very late,’ she snapped. . ‘You
should have been here half an hour ago. I told the temp agency I
wanted somebody reliable. I’ve already had the vegetable boxes
brought up from the van so go downstairs and bring up the cases of
still and sparkling water. Then see Maisie, she’s the head waitress
and ask her what she needs you to do.’ Amused dark brown eyes met
hers and Melanie was put out that he didn’t jump to
immediately.

‘Go on. Get on with it,’ she ordered,
thinking that’s just what she didn’t need, a guy with movie star
looks and attitude.

‘Yes, Madam. Right away, Madam.’ His
response was accompanied by a sardonic grin. Was this man laughing
at her? He’d find out who was in charge around here soon enough,
she thought furiously. Putting him out of her mind she concentrated
on her final preparations. Making her final checks on the table
settings she was thankful to see that the water she had ordered to
be brought up was in its place, although there was no sign of Mr
Attitude. ‘Well, I’ll sort him out later,’ she thought.

The lunch guests were being ushered in and
she retreated to the kitchen for last minute adjustments. Timing
was essential now. A reasonable gap between courses, not too long
but not so short that the guests felt hurried. Melanie always kept
an unobtrusive eye on her neatly uniformed staff as they served.
Usually she found a spot where the guests would not notice her
presence.

She had picked out her observation post by a
serving trolley half way along a wall where she could see the whole
of the dining table. As she made her way quietly to stand beside
the waitresses who were lined up ready to serve the first course
the host was on his feet and making a welcome speech his broad
shouldered back towards Melanie as she entered the room.

In spite of her preoccupations his voice
registered with Melanie. Although he appeared to speak softly with
just a hint that English was not his first language every word was
audible. Melanie felt that each guests could believe his words were
spoken for them alone. Later she was to learn that he always had
that effect.

‘Wow, he’s dead sexy’

The whispered aside from one of the girls
reached Melanie’s ears as she took her place beside the lined up
waitresses. She gave the girl a reproving stare and turned to look
at the man with the voice whose speech was clearly almost over.

Melanie's heart plummeted. Incredulously,
she took in the elegant dark suit and crisp white shirt open at the
neck. Gone were the jeans and causal tee but there was no mistake.
Thick dark hair, warm olive skin, dark amber eyes, which right at
that moment alighted on Melanie with the same amused glint.
Delivery boy. There was no mistaking him. Her first really big job
and she had blown it. She was angry with herself and angry with
him, too.

He was ending his speech with a
light-hearted anecdote that had the assembled guests laughing.
Melanie knew he was looking at her but was too confused and
dismayed to register the sense of what he was saying. But his last
words brought a furious flush to her cheeks.

‘I expect we’ll all
still
have a
sparkling
time,’ he finished

Then he reached for his water glass and with
a small smile in her direction raised it to his lips. Melanie
wanted to die. As soon as she could she escaped to the sanctuary of
the kitchen. None of her staff had seemed to notice anything amiss.
Melanie thanked her stars that they had been setting up in the
dining room when he had made his kitchen appearance. No one had
heard her ordering the billionaire boss of one of the biggest
companies on the planet to fetch his own water. In spite of herself
the thought made her giggle.

Somehow she got through the lunch,
studiously avoiding any visits to the dining room and concentrating
on preparing the food. Whatever went wrong now couldn’t be worse
than what had already happened. There weren’t going to be any more
bookings here or any recommendations. Melanie was sure of that.
Through the kitchen swing doors she could make out the final
speeches and the farewells of the departing guests. Now all that
remained was the clearing up. She and her staff set to and in under
an hour had everything packed up and carted down to the van.
Melanie thanked her staff, paid off the part time waitresses and
wearily shrugged out of her chef’s whites.

‘I have come to say sorry.’

Melanie spun round. He was standing in the
kitchen doorway as he had before. The suit had gone and he was back
in tee shirt and jeans. Melanie was disconcerted to find herself
thinking how good he looked. Annoyed and on the defensive she
snapped ‘Oh, it’s the quick change artist.’ He threw back his head
and laughed delightedly.

‘Is that what you think I am?’

‘You might have told me who you were. What
were you doing in the kitchen anyway?’ she demanded.

‘I was told you were the most beautiful cook
in the whole of London and I wanted to come and see if it was
true.’ Melanie gave a derisive laugh.

‘But they lied to me.’ His dark eyes held a
glint. ‘You are not the most beautiful cook in the whole of London.
I think you are probably the most beautiful girl in the whole of
London.’ He was flirting outrageously with her and Melanie couldn’t
help weakening. He had come to stand in front of her. She folded
her arms, as if to ward him off. Close up he was dangerous, she
thought.

He was looking at her with what seemed
genuine contrition now. ‘It was wrong of me to do that to you in
the dining room,’ he said. ‘I just couldn’t resist teasing you. I
shouldn’t have done it. You might have walked out – and then I
would have had no lunch.’ He made her laugh then.

‘So you forgive me,’ he said. ‘To make it up
to you I will take you to dinner. Let me have your telephone number
and my PA will call you to make arrangements.’ How arrogant is
that, thought Melanie, hastily revising her opinion of him.

‘Thank you, but that will not be necessary,’
she said stiffly. ‘Also I find that I will be very busy over the
next few weeks’

He looked put out but quickly rallied.
‘Apologies again,’ he said. ‘I am not doing this correctly. Let me
start again. Please Miss Stafford, will you do me the honor of
dining with me on some evening at a date mutually convenient.’
Melanie nodded her approval of this new approach.

‘Good, that’s settled then,’ he said.
‘Friday. I will pick you up at 7.30.

Melanie gasped, ‘Whatever happened to
mutually convenient?’ But he was fishing his blackberry out of his
jeans pocket and demanding ‘Address?’ Giving in with a sigh Melanie
told him, adding her telephone number for good measure.

Melanie cast him curious glance as he was
stuffing the blackberry back his jeans pocket and asked, ‘Do you
hate wearing a suit so much that you change out of it as soon as
you can?’

‘Not at all,’ he replied. ‘I wear suits a
lot. I just don’t like to fly in them.’

Melanie looked puzzled. ‘Fly?’

‘Yes,’ he clarified. ‘My helicopter. It’s on
the roof.’

He left her then, no goodbye, no ‘see you
Friday’ and Melanie sighed with exasperation. What had she let
herself in for?

The nearer Friday came the more Melanie wanted to
cancel the date. ‘I don’t think I want to go out with a man who
lands his own helicopter on roofs,’ she told Maisie. Her head
waitress gave her a despairing look.

‘I wish someone would land on my roof in a
helicopter. The only thing that lands on my roof comes from
pigeons.’ Melanie laughed and said, ‘Well, he didn’t actually land
on the roof – he landed on a helipad on the roof.’

‘Oh, big difference, that’ guffawed Maisie.
‘Don’t be daft. Go out with him. I expect he’ll take you to a
really top chef’s restaurant and you might pick up some recipe
ideas.’

Appealing as that was Melanie made a valiant
effort to cancel. First she telephoned his headquarters in the City
of London and asked the telephonist to put her through to his
office. ‘What is your business with Mr Chalambrous?’ she was asked.
‘Personal’, said Melanie briskly.

Back came the reply. ‘I’m afraid Mr
Chalambrous is unavailable.

Two further telephone calls were no more
successful, though on the last call she did succeed in getting past
the switchboard to what she presumed was an outer office, only to
be told the same. Well, if he’s that unavailable maybe he won’t
turn up on Friday, Melanie thought crossly.

But he had, ringing her doorbell on the dot
of 7.30. Grabbing her handbag she opened the door to him and made
to step out but he forestalled her with a light touch. Striding
through into her sitting room his tall broad shouldered presence
seemed to her to fill her small apartmernt.

She loved her home, loved where it was, too.
A vibrant melting pot of a community where the streets and markets
rang with myriad different dialects in a part of London tourists
rarely saw. Melanie hadn’t really given it a thought when she
offered her address. Now she smiled to herself picturing the top of
the range car he was no doubt driving parked in her small side
street. Had he ever even visited such a neighborhood?