Beauty and the Greek by Kim Lawrence

needed on his desk by the morning.
    But he didn’t. When she glanced his way, Beth saw that he was staring at her, but with a total lack of recognitionand also, she realised with a little flutter of shock, male appreciation.
    Kissed and lusted after—being irresistible turned out to be quite unsettling.
    Could it be this was actually going to work?
    â€˜Theo, you are late.’
    Beth knew from the photo on Andreas’s desk that the woman who reproached Theo was their mother, though, with her trim figure and smooth face, Daria Carides, as she was since her remarriage, looked too young to have grown sons.
    Theo uncoiled his arm from around Beth’s waist but retained her hand as he walked with her over to his mother and kissed the cheek she offered him.
    â€˜Sorry about that, Mother.’ He glanced towards Beth and smiled, saying, ‘We were…held up.’
    The intimate smile suggested the hold-up had not involved a traffic jam but more carnal activities. Beth had no doubt that this had been his intention.
    Theo met her reproachful glare with a grin that carried no regrets.
    Daria watched the interplay, then looked her son up and down critically before pronouncing, ‘You are too thin.’
    Beth was glad of this small respite while the table’s attention was momentarily diverted from her and amused to see Theo Kyriakis, who was spoken of in reverential terms in financial circles, a man feared and admired in equal measure, in the role of chastised meek son, though she couldn’t totally agree with the maternal assessment.
    Theo was, it was true, greyhound lean—the body she had recently been clamped to had not appeared to carry an ounce of excess flesh—but thin implied weak and scrawny; his tall athletic frame, all bone, sinew and muscle, was anything but weak. His every movement suggested a restrained power and strength.
    Realising she was staring at him with what might appear to the casual observer to be longing, Beth lowered her gaze hurriedly.
    Theo had to be used to the stares, though most were probably not as objective or clinical as her own, because even she recognised he did have a sexual charisma that was off the scale—all a bit too obvious and in-your-face for her, but Beth could see why there was never any shortage of candidates, eager to satisfy his healthy libido.
    And his family were all meant to think she was one of them, that she was sleeping with him.
    That was the role she had agreed to play. The important thing, she told herself as she suppressed a childish impulse to announce a denial to the room, was that she knew the truth—did it actually matter that these people looked at her and saw another notch in his bedpost?
    Yes, it did!
    She envied now, more than ever, Theo’s complete indifference to the opinion of others.
    Maybe she was just a prude?
    She might even be frigid? Both were accusations that had been levelled at her by her last boyfriend. Did dinner and a trip to the cinema give the awful Clive boyfriend status? She had been totally taken in by his studious, unthreatening appearance—he had turned out to be a groper.
    Beth knew she wasn’t what people would call highly sexed but she didn’t actually think she was prudish, though she accepted that being brought up by an elderly grandparent with very old-fashioned ideas had always set her apart from her contemporaries.
    â€˜You’re like your father,’ Daria sighed. ‘You just burnit off… You should slow down. And who is this, Theo?’ Daria turned her attention to Beth.
    In response to the question, Theo held out his free hand towards Beth, who reached out without thinking and found herself standing with both hands enfolded in a firm warm grip.
    Tugging her towards him, Theo pulled her into his body and announced, ‘This is Beth.’ He stopped short of banging his chest, but the audible mixture of pride and possessiveness in his voice had much the same