“Is that the situation between you and Demetrios?”
Now the silence was on Samantha’s end of the line. After what seemed a very long time, she sighed. “I don’t go for men like him. For one thing, he’s far too sure of himself.”
“Authoritarian,” Amanda said. “I know the type.”
“Exactly. Authoritarian, demanding, and used to taking charge. And I do not want to be taken charge of, Mandy. That’s not my style at all.”
“But there’s this—this appeal…”
“Maybe. In some, uh, some very basic way.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“You asked how it was with Nick and me when we met. Well, it was like that. The initial antipathy. The fast sizzle.” Amanda’s voice held a smile. “And then we fell in love and got married.”
Sam shut her eyes and rubbed her forehead. Her sister had marriage on the brain.
“Mandy,” she said gently, “believe me, this has nothing to do with love and marriage. I am not the least bit interested in love and marriage. Neither is Demetrios. This has to do with sex.”
“Sex is part of love.”
“For you,” Sam said gently. She stood up, walked back into her bedroom and looked at the open suitcase still lying on her bed. “It isn’t, for me. I don’t sleep around. You know that. But I don’t think going to bed with a guy has to lead to the altar, either. There have been men in my life, Amanda. Nice men. Great guys, some of them. But I’m never foolish enough to equate lust with love. I think it’s terrific that it works for you and for Carin, but that doesn’t mean it’s what I’m looking for.”
“In that case, you’ve answered your own question. Why worry about going to Greece with Demetrios? If you end up having an affair with him, you’ll enjoy it. And if you don’t, well, then you’ve lost nothing. Right?”
Sam thought it over. It was such a logical equation. Why hadn’t she come to it on her own?
“Right,” she said, after a few seconds. “Definitely right. But you have to promise me, no more meddling ever again. I don’t want you fixing me up. Or trying to fix me up.”
“Okay,” Amanda said, far too quickly.
“I’m serious. Don’t say ‘okay’ when what you really mean is that you’ll wait a couple of months and do the same thing all over again. You understand me?”
“Samantha—”
“Swear! Like when we were little.”
A sigh came over the phone. “‘Cross my heart, hope to die, honest and true, it’s not a lie.’ Are you satisfied? Look, if you don’t want to settle down, if you don’t see falling in love, getting married and starting a family as something you—”
Sam groaned. “You’re never going to stop, are you?”
“Oh, come on! I just said I would. And, you know, now that I think about it, I already did. Stop, I mean. If I were playing matchmaker, why would I have thought it was a terrific idea for Nick to tell Demetrios what a great translator you were?”
“So you could get the two of us together, any way possible,” Sam said sweetly.
Amanda chuckled. “Okay. Maybe. But,” she said, turning serious, “this is a real job. Nick says it’s going to need skill. He says that Demetrios made it very clear he wouldn’t hire you just because you’re my sister.”
“That was before he knew I wasn’t just your sister, I was the woman he’d almost—” Sam caught her lip between her teeth. “It was before he knew who I was.”
“That’s my point. He didn’t know who you were, just that you were a great translator. That was why he wanted to meet you.”
Sam sighed. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
“Honestly, you’re making this more complicated than it has to…Jason? Jason, stop that right now! Give back your sister’s teething ring. Jason, you are four years old, you’re a big boy, and…Sam. Honey, your nephew just stole the baby’s toy. I’ll have to cut this short. I can call you later. Well, no. I can’t do that. We’re going out to dinner. Look, I’ll call you in the morning. First thing.”
“I won’t be here. I’ll be on a plane, to Greece. That is, I’m supposed to be on a plane, to Greece.”
“You sure about this?”
“No. Oh, not because of what might happen between Demetrios and me. I mean, what you said is right. If something did happen, if we got involved…But we won’t. In fact, after this afternoon, I can’t even figure out why I thought I was interested in him at all. He’s everything I dislike in a man. Controlling. Overbearing, self-centered, disgustingly macho and too damned good-looking to be let loose.”
“Yum, yum.”
Sam couldn’t help it; she laughed. Amanda laughed, too, then cleared her throat.
“Sis?”
“Yeah?”
“I know what you just said. I know what I said…but do me a favor and watch yourself, okay? I guess I’m ready to admit that you’re not looking for Mr. Right, but that doesn’t mean your heart can’t be broken.”
“My heart isn’t the part of my anatomy the Greek God wants,” Sam said dryly. “And all I want from him is the money he’s promised for my services. It’s going to be business, nothing else.”
“That’s what they all say.”
“Yes, and some of them—me, for example—actually mean it.” Sam winced as a baby’s sobs and a little boy’s shrieks rose to a deafening pitch. “Kiss the kids for me,” she shouted, “and don’t worry. I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”
“You sure? Because if you’re not—”
“I’m positive. I’ll call you from Greece.”
She would, Sam thought, as she put down the phone, unless she changed her mind about going. That was still her privilege.
By ten, she’d finished packing. She scrubbed her face, brushed her teeth and got into bed wearing cotton panties and an oversize T-shirt she’d bought at a flea market in Paris for no better reason than that she liked the parade of poodles high-kicking across its front. It was late and she was tired, and if she woke up with doubts, she thought as she set her alarm clock, she could always meet the irritating Mr. Karas in the lobby and tell him what he could do with his job.
Satisfied, Sam punched her pillow into submission and fell asleep.
* * *
By ten, Demetrios was still pacing the floor of the bedroom in his New York penthouse, high above Fifth Avenue.
He was not in a good mood, a fact he’d made abundantly clear hours earlier to his cook when she’d asked if he was ready for dinner, and to his houseman, who’d committed the unpardonable sin of smiling when he greeted him.
Demetrios had snarled at the both of them. Once inside his bedroom, he’d shed his jacket, undone his tie, opened the top buttons of his shirt and rolled up his sleeves. Then he’d caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror, sighed, picked up the intercom and made apologies, however brief, first to the cook and then to the houseman.
Why let his anger out on them, when the person who’d caused it was Samantha Brewster?
But his temper didn’t cool down, not even when he tried diverting it by dictating some notes into a small digital recorder.
“Memo to my broker,” he said, as he paced the bedroom. “If the market share on Invixa slips again, you are to contact me immediately, before…”
Before what? How could he concentrate on business when he was still trying to figure out why in hell he’d hired Samantha Brewster for a job she probably couldn’t do, despite all Nick’s hype? A woman could be beautiful and still be intelligent. He was not foolish enough to think the combination impossible. But this woman went beyond beautiful. She was like a cat: sleek, soft and elegant, purring and stretching under a man’s hand as if she desired his touch before suddenly turning into a spitting demon that was all teeth and claws.
She was a tigress, and he had just arranged to spend four months with her at his side
Demetrios groaned, tossed the recorder on the bed and stalked to the window. What in hell had possessed him to employ her? I
t was a ridiculous question. He knew the answer. Lust. Lust had possessed him, and at his age, with his experience of women, admitting to such a thing was disgraceful.
He’d listened to his hormones instead of his head and hired a woman who could not, would not be able to do the kind of subtle translations he needed. And even if, by some miracle, it turned out that she could, did he really want her around as a temptation?
“No,” he growled.
Hell, no. He did not. He had not come this far in life by acting on impulse, by doing things that were rash. He studied companies before he invested in them, ideas before he let himself believe in them. He hired only the best people, and never before seeing their references.
Until now.
All he’d done was mention his need for a highly competent linguist to Nick. And Nick said, well, as it happened, he knew just such a person. She was his sister-in-law. Yes, one of Amanda’s sisters.