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He found himself smiling at her. Giving her the reassurance she was silently seeking.

‘It will be all right,’ he said. ‘I promise you. ’

The flicker was in her eyes again. ‘It’s just that…’

‘It’s just that I’m a complete stranger and I picked you up off the street. ’

The blunt way he said it made her cheeks colour. But he had done it deliberately, spelling out her fears, her apprehension and unease.

‘Over dinner, I trust we will get to know each other more. But nothing will happen that you do not want to happen. You have my word on this. ’

His eyes held hers, and then, out of the solemnity, a smile slanted suddenly across his face. Carrie felt that dazzle glitter inside her, as it had done when she’d first seen that incredible smile in the car.

Slowly she nodded, swallowing. She wasn’t being stupid—she wasn’t! She was simply being—

Carried away. Swept away. But why not? Why not? What was the harm in it? And how could she walk away now? She didn’t have the strength of mind to do so. And she didn’t have the will. Why should she? He wasn’t some seedy, creepy bloke—he was… gorgeous. Fantastic. Devastating.

Irresistible. And someone like that would never, never appear twice in her life.

The elevator doors opened, and she stepped out. The champagne still seemed to be fizzing in her veins.

Julia James lives in England with her family. Mills & Boon^® novels were Julia’s first ‘grown-up’ books, read as a teenager—‘Alongside Georgette Heyer and Daphne du Maurier’—and she’s been reading them ever since.

Julia adores the English countryside—‘And the Celtic countryside!’—in all its seasons, and is fascinated by all things historical, from castles to cottages. She also has a special love for the Mediterranean—‘The most perfect landscape after England!’—and she considers both are ideal settings for romance stories! Since becoming a romance writer she has, she says, had the great good fortune to start discovering the Caribbean as well, and is happy to report that those magical, beautiful islands are also ideal settings for romance stories!

‘One of the best things about writing romance is that it gives you a great excuse to take holidays in fabulous places!’ says Julia. ‘All in the name of research, of course!’

Her first stab at novel-writing was Regency Romances—‘But, alas, no one wanted to publish them!’ she says. She put her writing aside until her family commitments were clear, and then renewed her love-affair with contemporary romances. ‘My writing partner and I made a pact not to give up until we were published—and we both succeeded! Natasha Oakley writes for Mills & Boon^® Romance, and we faithfully read each other’s works-in-progress and give each other a lot of free advice and encouragement!’

In between writing Julia enjoys walking, gardening, needlework, and baking ‘extremely gooey chocolate cakes’—and trying to stay fit!

GREEK TYCOON, WAITRESS WIFE

BY

JULIA JAMES

GREEK TYCOON, WAITRESS WIFE

CHAPTER ONE

ALEXEIS NICOLAIDES glanced around him with displeasure. It had been a mistake to come here. A mistake to indulge Marissa. He was only in London for a twenty-four-hour stopover, and when he’d got out of the day-long meeting in the City and returned to his hotel suite he’d simply wanted to find her waiting for him. Then, once the bare niceties had been dispensed with, and they had made polite and completely empty enquiries about each other’s well-being, he would have done what his fundamental interest in Marissa was: taken her to bed. Instead, however, he had ended up in this overcrowded art gallery, bored rigid and surrounded by yapping idiots—among whom Marissa was the key offender. At this moment she was giving full throat to her knowledge of the art market and the financial worth of the artist on display. Alexeis couldn’t have cared less about either.