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as he strode towards her. And Ellie, who knew all too well what it felt like to be irritated or bored by a member of the male sex, discovered for the first time in her life what it felt like to be scared …

CHAPTER TWO
    E YES as dangerous as black ice scanned Ellie’s pale face. ‘The instant I allowed you out of my sight, you rushed to the phone to pass on the information you overheard. You have betrayed my trust!’ Dio Alexiakis condemned with scantily suppressed savagery.
    Even trembling, and with her stomach knotted light with apprehension, Ellie was fascinated by the volatile charge of that explosive Mediterranean temperament and that innate sense of drama. Both were so utterly foreign to her.
    â€˜Mr. Alexiakis—’ she began, keen to disabuse him of his eagerness to assume the worst.
    â€˜You have made your choice. So be it.’ Dio surveyed her with cold, lethal menace. ‘I will destroy you for this.’
    Ellie’s tummy performed an unpleasant somersault. ‘You’ve got it wrong,’ she protested feverishly. ‘I only got as far as dialling the operator!’
    With a look of thunderous derision, Dio swung on his heel and strode away, outrage etched in every line of his lean, tight, powerful body.
    For an instant, disconcertion froze Ellie to the spot. Oh, yeah, just drag me out to the airport on your stupid helicopter and then dump me with no money and a very nasty threat! Only unfreezing as fear for her co-worker Meg’s future job security assailed her, Ellie raced after Dio Alexiakis, hating him like poison.
    â€˜Get out of my way,’ he growled when she got in front of him.
    â€˜That call I was trying to make wasn’t what you thought it was either!’ Ellie argued hotly.
    He simply side-stepped her.
    â€˜You are so stubborn !’ Ellie flung wrathfully in his wake. ‘All I did was try to make a reverse-charge call to my boss at the bookshop…all right?’
    Stilling, Dio swung back with stormy reluctance. ‘What bookshop?’ he ground out.
    Ellie stared at him with a frown, sensing something missing, and then she exclaimed, ‘What the heck have you done with the bags? For goodness’ sake, you just walked off and left them lying on the floor, didn’t you?’
    Ellie went into automatic reverse, spinning round to retrace his steps. Her attention settled on the abandoned carrier bags with relief. Hurrying back, she grabbed them up.
    â€˜What bookshop?’ Dio repeated stonily when she’d made it back to his side, laden like a packhorse.
    â€˜I work in one during the day. I also live above the shop…’ Ellie paused to get her breath back. ‘I have to contact Mr Barry to warn him that I’ll be taking time off. He’ll call the police if I suddenly vanish—’
    â€˜Rubbish! He’ll assume that you’ve taken off with some boyfriend. Staff of your age are often unreliable,’ Dio Alexiakis asserted, unimpressed.
    Affronted by the response, Ellie breathed in very deep to control her temper, but it didn’t work.
    â€˜You know, I’ve had it up to here with you!’ she told him bluntly, tipping back her silvery fair head to survey him with angry resentment. ‘I do not have a boyfriend and I am not unreliable. Don’t underestimate me and don’t talk down to me, Mr Alexiakis. I always turn in for work. I’ve been in the same job for five years, and for the past two I’ve virtually been running the business—’
    â€˜So what are you doing slogging as a cleaner five nights a week?’ he incised drily.
    â€˜I need the money…OK?’ she flared. ‘Is that really any of your business?’
    â€˜Your insolence outrages me.’ Shimmering dark, deep-set eyes raked over her, the lean, bronzed features hard as steel.
    â€˜So I don’t like you…what do you expect? I haven’t done anything wrong. I made a silly