Xan had never wanted to touch a woman as badly as he did at that moment. Thee mou...she excited him to the most extraordinary degree. Her amazing chest was heaving, her blue eyes were huge with anxiety and her opulent pink pouty mouth was yet another temptation that tugged at him as he pictured her lying in his bed. It was lust of the lowest possible order, he acknowledged grimly, but somehow, even though lust had never driven him to such a degree and he thoroughly distrusted the urge, he couldn’t shake free of it. The harder she argued with him, the more he wanted to persuade her because, whatever else Elvi Cartwright was, she was neither boring nor insipid. A sex slave though, he savoured with unholy amusement, even while he wondered if that could possibly be a fantasy of hers...how did he know? But he very badly wanted to know about her fantasies. Yet he could not recall ever being so curious about any other woman and his innate caution cut in.

She was saying no, shrieking no, in fact, and possibly that was for the best, he reasoned flatly even as all the potential colour and enjoyment drained straight back out of his immediate future again. Was he so bored with his life that he had proposed such an innovative exchange of favours? It was out of character for him. He picked up women and dropped them again as easily as he worked seven days a week. He didn’t normally picture them in that apartment bed, he merely joined them there to satisfy a natural desire for physical satisfaction.

‘You have my phone number if you change your mind,’ Xan Ziakis intoned, as if he could not quite credit that she had turned him down.

Elvi tossed her head, platinum-blonde hair spilling across her shoulders. She would have made a terrific Lady Godiva, Xan reflected abstractedly, wondering why he was even thinking that. He stalked across to the door and opened it for her, now determined to bring the unsettling meeting to a quick conclusion.

‘Good luck,’ he murmured graciously, feeling inordinately proud of himself for his restraint.

Blue eyes collided with his. ‘You are the most hateful man I have ever met!’ she hissed at him like a cat flexing her sharp claws and, turning on her heel, she sped off down the corridor.

Xan noted that she had left her jacket behind, lifted it and strode out of his office again.

‘Elvi!’ he called when he saw her standing at the lift, hugging her handbag as if it were a comforter.

Eyes flying wide, she spun and he handed her the jacket.

‘Oh...thanks,’ she mumbled in disconcertion, suddenly uncomfortably aware that every employee in the area had stilled to watch them.

That was the instant when Xan saw the tears glimmering in her eyes and wished he hadn’t followed her. It made him feel like an ogre who kicked puppies, a complete bastard. But he was what he was and he had never been soft in heart or deed, he reasoned harshly. She needed to toughen up because the world was a thoroughly nasty place.

* * *

Still shell-shocked by that encounter with Xan, Elvi went home and found her mother in tears at the kitchen table. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to get work anywhere without a reference from my last job,’ she confided chokily. ‘And I can’t tell the truth either. Nobody wants a light-fingered employee!’

Elvi paled. ‘We’ll think up something,’ she said soothingly. ‘Is Daniel at the restaurant?’

‘Yes. Thank goodness he got that bar job. At least it gets him out of his room,’ his mother remarked unhappily. ‘He’s so depressed, Elvi. He feels so guilty—’

Elvi nodded, trying not to think that, had she been of a different persuasion, she might have been able to make the whole nightmare go away. It would be indecent, though, for her to have sex with Xan Ziakis in return for him dropping the theft charge. Totally disgustingly indecent, she told herself squarely. Surely she didn’t have to sink that low to help her family?

She lay awake half the night thinking about it. The irony was that before she had met Xan Ziakis he was the only man she had ever thought of having sex with. Well, in her dreams, her imagination, that was, because he was the first man she had ever been strongly attracted to. Of course, she had met very few men. Few men went into craft shops; customers who liked to knit, crochet and embroider were mostly of the female persuasion, although not exclusively. Throughout most of her teen years, while other young girls were flirting and dating, Elvi had been looking after her little brother and tucking her comatose mother into bed at night. She had missed out on a large chunk of her supposedly carefree youth, having to be responsible, having to be the adult for as long as Sally had been incapable of meeting that challenge.

By the way, I’m still a virgin, she tried to picture herself telling Xan Ziakis. Unexpectedly, her body shook with sudden laughter at the image. No doubt Xan had assumed that she was experienced when he’d made that crack about women enjoying sex as well. No doubt he also believed she would be mistress material with the sort of sexy tricks a more practised lover would provide. But she had no tricks, no clue, nothing to give in that department, and she was quite sure that that would have disillusioned him, maybe even put him off.

Although, how would that have helped them? He had only made that ridiculous offer because he found her attractive. For a split second, she cherished the knowledge of that startling truth. Xan Ziakis found her attractive as well. It was a fact that bolstered her ego even though she knew it shouldn’t. Probably the boobs again, she thought wryly. As an adolescent, who had been tormented at school by the boys once she began developing way beyond what she had deemed an acceptable size, she had always loathed her large breasts and ample hips. Joel, her best mate since primary school, told her she looked lush and feminine, but then that was exactly the sort of comforting comment a friend was supposed to make, so she hadn’t paid any heed to it.

The following morning, Joel sent her a text asking her to meet him at lunchtime. She smiled at the prospect, knowing she could tell her friend the truth about her mother and her brother, although she had no intention of mentioning Xan’s proposition.

‘How could a boy as smart as Daniel be that dumb?’ Joel demanded, smoking while they sat outside a bar close to where she worked.

‘Clever people don’t always have common sense,’ Elvi pointed out, leaning across the table to add, ‘You’re getting eyed up by that beautiful blonde over there. I think it’s time I went back to work—’

‘No!’ Joel protested, closing an imprisoning hand over the one she had braced on the tabletop to rise. ‘I’m not interested—’

‘You haven’t even looked yet,’ Elvi rebuked as she met his brown eyes and wondered how his could be so different from Xan’s, because they did not make her melt or heat up to even the smallest degree. Yet, Joel was tall and attractive with tousled dark curls. He was also an up-and-coming successful painter, already being singled out for his talent with portraits. But then Joel’s life had gone much more smoothly than her own, she reflected ruefully, and sometimes she marvelled that he still stayed in touch with her because they now led such divergent lives.

‘All I want to do right now is give you some cash to help out,’ Joel told her ruefully. ‘You earn a pittance and with Sally out of work—’

‘No, thanks,’ Elvi cut in hastily. ‘Thanks for offering but no, thanks—’

‘Don’t you ever just want to walk away from the two of them and their problems?’ her friend enquired ruefully. ‘You could’ve been so much more without them holding you back—’

‘You’re talking about my mother and my brother,’ Elvi reminded him tartly. ‘I love them and they love me and you don’t turn your back on that kind of love and support—’