’Tis the Season for a Diamond - Chapter 2

Giorgios

Everything has been prepared to my exact specifications: the dining table, the tree, the candles. Even the snow has come on schedule and just as well. I’m a meticulous man, and I need to get this right.

All that was missing was the angel at the top of my tree, and here she is, standing in front of the fireplace with her hands out, warming herself.

She’s in her catering uniform, black skirt and crisp white button-down shirt. Her glossy chestnut hair is gathered on top of her head in a tidy bun.

My Sylvie.

I’ve lied to her this whole time after meeting her by chance at an event in London. She was carrying a tray of glasses and someone bumped her, and she dropped the whole thing. Everyone stared and not one person lifted a finger to help her, so I did. One of my staff had called in sick, and since I like to work at the coalface every now and then, I’d stepped in to do the shift myself.

She had no idea who I was, but when I crouched down beside her to help and stared into her pretty hazel eyes, I felt something strong and powerful move through me. Physical chemistry, instant and intense, yet also…something more. No one has ever looked at me the way she did, as if I were her saviour, her one hope of rescue, a lifeline.

I didn’t tell her who I was, that I owned Atlas Security, one of the largest security firms in Europe. Most people are either afraid of me or want something from me, and for that one shining moment, it was good to be an ordinary man. She was warm and open, and I found myself telling her things I wouldn’t have told anyone, even in that brief half an hour.

I told myself it was nothing, yet afterwards I found I’d begun looking at her company’s schedule and making sure Atlas did security for the same event, and that I would do another bodyguard shift so I could ‘run into’ her. I could have got her number, I didn’t have to engineer things the way I did, but those brief, snatched hours were a bubble I didn’t want to burst with either the truth or real life.

But real life is hitting me now as her head comes up at the sound of my voice, and her hazel eyes go wide with shock, and all my muscles tighten. I anticipated her response, especially after the way we left things in Singapore, so I need to go carefully. I told her then that our affair was at an end, that it was never meant to last, that I’d only ever wanted those brief hours of respite from the real world, never anything more. The real truth, though, was the deep cynicism that had taken root inside me, about the world and the future that had stuck with me since my soldiering days.

Except that cynicism was wrong. I was wrong.

It hasn’t been until the last couple of months without her that I realised what I threw away: an intelligent, warm, bright woman, who made me feel like a normal man instead of the CEO. Instead of the ex-soldier who’d seen horrors beyond imagining in some of the wars he fought in distant parts of the globe. A woman who, for the first time, gave me hope.

A woman that I fell hopelessly and utterly in love with.

So here I am, armed with only the truth about myself and no guarantee that it will make any sort of difference to her, and the love that found me whether I wanted it to or not.

Naturally, I did weight the dice in my favour, since I am, after all, powerful and I get what I want, and I want her. So I organized a fake party at my Swiss chalet and I hired her company to cater an elite dinner. But the only guests will be her and I.

She will be mine if it’s the last thing I do.

‘Giorgios,’ she breathes, her face gone white. ‘What…what on earth are you doing here?’

‘I have a confession to make,’ I tell her. ‘And an apology to deliver.’

She glances behind me, then around the room as if she’s afraid of being caught. ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘But the guests are arriving any minute.’ Her gaze comes back to mine. ‘Why are you here? Do you have a job or—’

‘No,’ I interrupt gently. ‘The guests have already arrived.’

‘What? What do you mean they’ve already arrived?’

Slowly, I come over to the fireplace where she’s standing, holding her gaze. ‘Well, you’re here, aren’t you?’

She frowns in confusion. ‘I don’t understand.’

I hadn’t planned on touching her, since our physical chemistry is out of control, and I didn’t want to influence her in any way, but I can’t help but reach out to take her hands in mine. Her fingers are warm, and she doesn’t pull away, and all I can think about is laying her down on the sheepskins before the fire, undressing her before kissing every inch of her glorious body.

‘My presence here is part of my confession,’ I say. ‘I own this chalet, and I hired your company to cater a special Christmas party. But there are only two guests. You and me.’

She blinks, her fingers lax in mine. ‘This is your chalet? But…how? Do bodyguards make that much money?’

I steel myself. The moment of truth has arrived. ‘Not quite,’ I say. ‘But I’m not really a bodyguard. Atlas Security is my company.’

More shock moves over her lovely face and abruptly she pulls her fingers away. ‘You own Atlas Security?’ Her voice is full of disbelief.

All I can give her is the truth. ‘Yes,’ I say.

‘But…I thought you were just a bodyguard?’

‘The night we met, I stepped in to cover one of my employees who was ill. I do so on occasion to keep a personal eye on things.’

She draws away, staring at me as if I’m a stranger, and I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. But that was the risk I took when I arranged this, the risk I took when I decided to tell her the truth.

‘You…never said anything,’ she says, her voice faint. ‘Why didn’t you say anything? I thought you lived in Athens with your mother, and you sent your pay back to her every month.’

‘That wasn’t an actual lie. I do live in Athens, though my mother lives with me. And I support her.’

She takes another step back, and my heart tightens. I don’t want her to put this distance between us, but I’m not going to force her. I want this to be her choice.

‘You followed me,’ she says, sharp as a tack. ‘Didn’t you? You followed me from event to event.’

‘Yes.’ I hold her gaze, letting her know that I’m telling nothing less than the truth. ‘But it hasn’t been until these last couple of months that I realised it was because I was falling in love with you.’