Mia’s Scandal Read Online Free Page A

electricity that stung through his palm when their hands touched, Nikos reclaimed his hand and took a quick glance at his watch. ‘I have a meeting to attend,’ he informed her briskly, ‘but if you come with me, my secretary will deal with any problems you have.’
    With that he turned and strode back across the foyer, with his thoroughly subdued new charge trailing in his wake. Throughout the whole thing he had not acknowledged the interested throng loitering in his foyer but his razor-sharp instincts were telling him he had successfully killed any juicy speculation as to why Mia Balfour was here.
    Grimly pleased with himself for achieving that, at least, it was the only thing he was pleased about as he strode into the lift, then waited for her to join him.
    ‘I am truly sorry!’ she burst into anxious speech the moment the doors shut them in.
    ‘You are a damn fool.’ Nikos was not in the least bit impressed with her apology. ‘If you’re going to work with me, Miss Balfour, I suggest you learn the art of discretion quickly or you are not going to last a day.’
    ‘I just did not think! Oscar told me to—’
    ‘Let’s leave your father out of this.’ His dark eyes flashed her a look of contempt. ‘When Oscar persuaded me to do this favour for him, I am convinced he would have established your agreement beforehand, which makes you responsible for your own actions, Miss Balfour. So, rule number one…you had better learn fast—don’t ever embarrass me like that again.’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ Mia breathed for a second time, declining to try and add that it was Oscar who’d sent her here with the instruction to ask at reception for the keys to her new apartment. ‘But a courier is due to arrive at your—m-my new address with my things and I n-need to be able to get in.’
    ‘Try using a phone next time.’
    Mia decided right there and then that she disliked Nikos Theakis.
    ‘And to make a point, in case you have not yet realised it,’ he continued with bite, ‘you are here under sufferance. I don’t work with fools. You will rise or fall on your own merits and if you don’t pull your weight you’re out. Got that?’
    Beginning to feel just a bit annoyed now by his icy form of censure, Mia felt an unexpected urge to snap back at him. She had not deliberately set out to embarrass him after all. Why would she want to?
    Tossing her head back, she looked at him standing there tall and erect with his contempt wafting over her in waves. He looked like what he was, a cold hard angry businessman, a thoroughly gorgeous, frighteningly successful arrogant Greek tycoon.
    ‘And let’s get one more thing straight before we leave this lift,’ he went on. ‘I am not into nepotism. I believe that everyone must work as hard as the next person to earn their place in the world.’ One of the reasons Nikos knew he commanded so much respect from his employees was because he encouraged each one of them to explore their own potential no matter where they stood in the employment ranks. ‘So you will pull your weight around here or you’re out, got that?’ he iced out.
    ‘You think I am a useless freeloader,’ Mia realised.
    ‘Is a freeloader one step up from a housekeeper or one step down?’ he threw back quick as a flash.
    An angry flush bloomed in her cheeks. ‘The housekeeper assumption was your mistake, not mine.’
    ‘To which you took offence and flounced off like a fully fledged prima donna,’ he threw back. ‘I find it really curious to discover, three months later, that the day we met you were on your way to throw the whole Balfour family into a flat spin—as if they did not have enough to contend with at the time.’
    Her moment of defiance crushed by that reminder, Mia pulled her guilty eyes away from his. He was referring to Oscar’s poor wife, Lillian, Mia realised, and the way her unexpected arrival had caused so much trouble the after-effects were still rippling throughout the whole family