What the Greek's Money Can't Buy(36)

                Alarm bells shrieked harder, in tandem with the jet engines powering for take-off. Sharp memories rose, images of drug dens and foul-smelling narcotics bringing nausea she fought to keep down. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

                He leaned forward on his elbows and stared her down. ‘Yes, it does. Answer me.’

                ‘It was a very long time ago, Mr Pantelides.’

                ‘Sakis,’ he commanded in that low, deep tone that sent a shiver through her.

                Again she shook her head. ‘Let’s just say my childhood wasn’t as rosy as the average child’s, but I pulled through.’

                ‘You were an orphan?’ he probed.

                ‘No, I wasn’t, but I might as well have been.’ Because her junkie mother had been no use to herself, never mind the child she’d given birth to. The remembered pain bruised her insides and unshed tears burned the backs of her eyes. She blinked rapidly to stop them falling but a furtive glance showed Sakis had noticed the crack in her composure.

                The plane lifted off the ground and shot into the starlit sky.

                Sakis’s gaze remained on her for long minutes. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ he asked gently.

                Brianna’s heart hammered harder. ‘No.’ She’d already said too much, revealed far more than was wise. Deliberately unclenching her fists, she prayed he would let the matter rest.

                The jet started to level out. Snatching his phone from the table, Sakis nodded and unbuckled his seatbelt. ‘Regardless of your protests, you need to sleep.’ He held out his hand to her. The look on his face told her nothing but her acquiescence would please him.

                Immensely relieved that he wasn’t probing into her past any longer, she thought it wise to stifle further protest. Unbuckling her seatbelt, she placed her hand in his and stood. ‘If I do, then so do you.’

                His smile was unexpected. And breath-stealing. Heat churned within her belly, sending an arrow of need straight between her thighs.

                ‘We’ve dovetailed right back to the very point I was trying to make. I have every intention of getting some sleep. Even super-humans like me deserve some down time.’

                A smile tugged at her lips. ‘That’s a relief. You were beginning to show us mere mortals up.’

                His smile turned into an outright laugh, his face transforming into such a spectacular vision of gorgeousness that her breath caught. Then her whole body threatened to spontaneously combust when his hand settled at her waist. With a firm nudge, he guided her back down the aisle.

                ‘No one in their right mind would call you a mere mortal, Moneypenny. You’ve proved beyond any doubt that you’re the real thing—an exceptionally gifted individual with a core of integrity that most ambitious people lose by the time they reach your age.’

                At the door to her cabin, she turned to face him, her heart hammering hard enough to make her head hurt a little. ‘I think what you’ve done since the tanker crashed shows you’re willing to go above and beyond what most people would do in the same circumstances. That is integrity.’

                His gaze dropped to her lips, lingered there in a way that turned her body furnace hot. ‘Hmm, is this the start of an exclusive mutual admiration society?’

                The breath she’d never quite managed to recapture fractured even further. When his eyes dropped lower, her nipples tightened, stung into life by green fire that lurked in those depths. Reaching behind her, she grasped the doorknob, desperate for something to cling to.