Page 7 of Modern Romance September 2026 Books 1-4

It was a quiet, if shabby square. Once elegant town houses were now flats. She put her hand on the door handle and said, ‘Thank you for going out of your way to bring me home, Mr Drakos. I really appreciate it.’

Axel’s driver had stepped out of the car and he came forward now when the car door started to open. As the door opened Axel heard himself saying, ‘My name is Axel.’

She had one leg half out of the car, the tight skirt stretching over her supple thighs. She was so petite, Axel could reach for her right now and lift her onto his lap, pull her skirt up so she could straddle him. He wanted to feel the hot slick centre of her body against his aching cock. He wanted to have her. It was wild and urgent. Unlike anything he’d felt before.

‘I…um, I think I prefer Mr Drakos, if that’s all right.’

Axel watched, slightly dumbfounded, as she got out of the car. His driver shut the door and she was now at the bottom of her steps with her small wheelie suitcase beside her.

Galvanised by a compulsion too strong to ignore, Axel was out of the car and picking up Hope’s case. She looked up at him. ‘Mr Drakos, I can take it from here.’

Axel knew he was behaving totally out of character but he could no more get back into his car and drive away than he could stop breathing. ‘It’s fine, lead the way.’

She hurried up the steps to the front door and had to jiggle the key a few times until it opened. A sensor light came on overhead, harsh and bright, revealing a wide hallway that had seen better days. Paint peeling from the walls. Post strewn on a table. A bashed up pram in one corner. A dubious smell of something like stewed cabbage.

Hope was standing outside a door at the other end of the hallway. Axel noted that she really was extraordinarily pretty.

‘This is me.’

Axel knew that this was the point where he had to leave. He was being weird. And he did not act weirdly. He did not act on compulsions. He did not offer staff lifts home in his car. He did not accompany staff members to their front doors like this.

There was something about this woman that had caught at him the moment he’d seen her. That lack of artifice. The way she looked at him, awed but also not cowed. The way she’d slept in his presence, showing a level of trust that was alien to him.

She was utterly unique and like no one he’d ever been with before. And in that moment he made a split-second decision. He said, ‘There’s something I’d like to discuss with you. A business proposition.’

* * *

Hope looked at her boss. Her big, crazily, outlandishly gorgeous Greek boss. She couldn’t quite believe he was here in her hallway under harsh unforgiving lighting that did absolutely nothing to diminish his appeal. If anything, it made him look even more otherworldly.

She didn’t know this man but she sensed that what was happening was not usual for him. He wasn’t made for standing in run-down hallways in North London. He was made for boardrooms where squillions of dollars or pounds or euros were being discussed. Or glittering ballrooms where people were dressed in beautiful clothes sipping sparkling wine.

Then something struck her and she straighted her spine. ‘I don’t know what kind of impression I might have given you, Mr Drakos—’ no way was she calling him Axel ‘—but I am not available for after-hours services.’

He looked at her for a long moment and then he blinked. And then he seemed to rear back and he said, ‘Do you really think that I’m here to seduce you?’

Hope felt her whole body flush with the heat of mortification. Of course he hadn’t followed her in here to take advantage. There was probably some slinky supermodel waiting for him in a penthouse apartment somewhere. Pride emanated from every rigid line of his body.

She swallowed. ‘Sorry, um, I’m just a bit confused as to what on earth I could possibly do for you.’

There was a sound of a door opening and closing upstairs. Footsteps. He said, ‘Can we talk privately, please? It’ll only take a few minutes.’

Hope nodded and opened her front door and went inside. It was dark; her flatmate must still be at work. She flicked on some lights and the usual sense of pride she felt at her very modest but homely and welcoming flat was diminished somewhat by the great hulking shape of her boss in the doorway.

She stood back. ‘Please, come in.’

He stepped inside, immediately making the flat look tiny around him. He put her small suitcase down. She noted that he pushed the door to but didn’t close it completely and something about that little consideration for her sense of safety made her feel even more embarrassed at misreading the situation. And then she remembered her manners. ‘Can I get you anything? Water? Coffee?’

He had been looking around the room and now he looked back at her. ‘No, thank you, I have a dinner to get to.’

He probably didn’t want to risk her ruining another set of clothes. ‘Of course. What is it you’d like to discuss?’

‘The fact is that I need a woman by my side for the next few weeks who can pretend to be my…girlfriend.’

The way he’d said girlfriend would have Hope believe he’d never actually uttered the word before. He said nothing more. Just looked at her. Waiting. And then she seemed to break out of her stasis. ‘Oh my God, you’re serious.’

* * *

Of course, he was serious. Axel Drakos was never anything but serious. That struck him now as something not necessarily to be proud of but he pushed it aside.