Beauty and the Greek Read Online Free PDF Page A

watched through her lashes as Theo Kyriakis inclined his closely cropped dark head, whether in acknowledgement of the challenge or the invitation she couldn’t tell, but then her boss’s elder brother was not a man who gave a lot away.
    â€˜I’ll be there.’
    The couple left the office, leaving the echo of their laughing voices and the heavy scent of the fragrance that the future Mrs Kyriakis favoured.
    Did the perfume evoke painful memories for Theo Kyriakis?
    Anyone else and her tender heart would have ached but Beth felt no twinge of empathy at the possibility that Theo Kyriakis found it painful, maybe even heartbreaking, to see the woman he had once planned to marry wearing his brother’s ring.
    The man just didn’t invite sympathy, she decided, studying his dark lean face. Perhaps he was hiding the pain; if so, he was doing pretty well!
    Beth moved an already neat stack of files from one side of the desk to the other and waited for Theo Kyriakis to leave.
    He didn’t.
    She risked a look up at him and was startled to discover that his heavy-lidded dark stare was trained directly on her own face.
    Beth shifted uncomfortably in her seat and pushed herglasses up her nose before venturing a faint vague smile in his general direction and returning her attention to her desk.
    She started a little as he placed an untouched glass of champagne on her desk. ‘There’s more in the bottle if you’d like to join me to toast the happy couple?’
    Beth would have found an invitation to jump into the Thames more alluring but she kept her manner polite. ‘This is the middle of a working day for me, Mr Kyriakis, and I’m just the hired help,’ she reminded him, addressing her response to the middle button of his beautifully tailored grey jacket.
    â€˜But you would like to be more than that?’
    The unexpected question made her stiffen—actually, it was not a question; it was a statement.
    Before she could respond to it, he said abruptly, ‘Why do you dress that way?’
    Her defensive glance swung upwards from his beautifully tailored designer suit to discover that he was studying her own grey flannel suit with an expression of fastidious distaste written on his lean face.
    â€˜What way?’ Beth, who had three identical ones in her wardrobe and a selection of plain blouses to wear with them, asked.
    Gran had always advised her to go for quality when selecting clothes and Beth followed her advice, though she stopped short at the matching gloves and handbag that Prudence Farley considered essential for a well turned out lady.
    In the long-term, Gran had counseled, it was cheaper to choose quality rather than buy trendy junk and she was right, but the junk did look fun, Beth sometimes thought wistfully.
    She lifted her chin defiantly as her hand went to her throat, where her cream blouse was buttoned up to the neck.After three years of not noticing she existed, he was suddenly interested in her clothes?
    â€˜Is there something I can help you with, Mr Kyriakis?’ Had he been drinking?
    The scandal-hungry media had never suggested a weakness for drink, just for tall leggy blondes, but who knew, she thought, curiosity drawing her eyes to his face. The arrogant cast of his strong features did not suggest weakness or lack of control, if you discounted the sensual fullness of his upper lip.
    Conscious of a sinking shivery sensation low in her stomach, Beth tore her strangely reluctant gaze from his mouth and found it wandering straight into the path of his dark eyes and she immediately dumped the drinking idea.
    There was nothing blurry or unfocused about his manner. Drinking implied a human weakness and the elder Kyriakis brother didn’t appear to tolerate those in himself or other people.
    Theo doesn’t tolerate fools gladly , Andreas was fond of observing. In her own mind, Beth translated this as code for the fact that he was impatient and