Page 6 of Promoted to the Greek's Wife

Ari elevated a brow, deciding that yanking Cleo out of her shell could take more effort than he was capable of awarding her. For all her bubbly friendliness on Reception and her surprising backbone and defiance in adversity, she was amazingly shy. Clearly, only fear of losing her employment had turned her into a chittering chatterbox in his office the day they had first met.

‘I do. I’m trying to get to know you. Did your mother have a problem with alcohol?’ Ari prompted with deliberate boldness.

Cleo paled, shrugged. ‘Only for a while, when I was younger and I didn’t really understand what had happened. She had broken up with my father and obviously she was upset for a time because she knew she wouldn’t see him again.’

Ari angled suddenly intent eyes on her troubled face. ‘You grew up without your father?’

‘Yes. He had a relationship with my mother, but not with me.’ Cleo winced.

‘And how did that work?’ Ari Stefanos asked her with apparent interest, his entire focus on her, which was a rather unnerving experience.

Indeed, the sudden intensity of those black-lashed burnished bronze eyes of his was mesmerising and her skin broke out in goosebumps of awareness. She shifted uneasily in her seat, mortified by her reaction to him.

‘I can’t see how you would be interested in that,’ Cleo commented edgily, not knowing a polite way of telling him that the subject was too personal since he seemed to be clueless in the empathy stakes.

‘I have very good reasons for asking such questions,’ Ari declared. ‘There is a situation in my life at present which appears to bear some resemblance toyourchildhood experiences.’

‘Oh...’ Cleo drained her wine and set the empty glass down on the coffee table with a snap, demurring when he offered her a refill. Her brain was concentrated on striving to work out what situation in his life could possibly lead to such questions.

In the dragging silence the doorbell rang.

‘That will be the food.’ Ari strode off to answer it.

I’m dining with a billionaire, Cleo reminded herself, pinching a slender denim-clad thigh to reassure herself that she was not dreaming while the buzz of voices, the sound of a trolley and the chink of china and glass sounded in the background.

‘Cleo!’ Ari called, and he sounded just like a boss and she grinned then, her discomfiture vanquished bythattone.

She crossed the hall into the dining room and sank down at the table, her chair pulled out by a hovering waiter.

‘If you answer my questions, I would be very grateful,’ Ari informed her once the front door thudded closed again on the waiter.

Cleo had to swallow hard on her mouth-watering steak because she was unable to imagine any situation in which her input could possibly be helpful to Ari Stefanos. ‘What relevance could my very ordinary life have to do with anything in yours?’ she asked quietly.

Ari studied her. ‘Is it possible for me to trust you not to run to the nearest tabloid newspaper to sell a story?’

Cleo stared back at him in wonderment. ‘You’ve had someone do that to you?’

Ari gave her a brusque nod of confirmation.

‘I wouldn’t sink that low!’ she declared with convincing sincerity. ‘IswearI wouldn’t!’

Ari reached a decision and set down his cutlery. ‘Okay. Recently I learned to my astonishment that, through my father, I have half-siblings...’

‘My goodness...’ Cleo almost whispered. ‘So have I, although I’ve known about them since I was a teenager...’

Ari dealt her an amused look. ‘Which in your case is not exactly a hundred years ago. Tell me about what it was like growing up without a father, which I assume is what happened?’

‘Yes. Mum worked with my father and had a long affair with him. It ended when I was about three. I’m afraid I have very few memories of him. He wasn’t married but he did live with another woman with whom he had already had two children. When I was fifteen she admitted that in her late thirties she decided to get pregnant before she missed out altogether on having a family of her own.’

‘Then you weren’t an accident...’

‘No, but shemayhave told my father I was,’ she confided with a wrinkled nose. ‘I didn’t like to ask too many painful questions because she was a brilliant mum, apart from that period after she and my father broke up and I think she was depressed and that’s why she was drinking then.’

‘Probably. Did your father take any interest in you?’

‘He paid maintenance but there was no visitation. He wasn’t interested obviously in having a relationship with me and I can accept that—’

‘But do youreallyaccept it? And how does it make you feel that you were rejected?’

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