Mia’s Scandal by Michelle Reid Page A

to get over him, and if that meant not looking at him, then she was not going to look at him.
    ‘Something wrong?’ his deep voice drawled.
    ‘Nothing,’ she responded.
    ‘If you’re worrying about tonight, then—’
    ‘I am not worrying about anything.’ She walked out of the lift before he could say anything else.
    It was only as he forged ahead of her to open the door that she noticed he carried no weekend bag for himself. Presuming he must have already put it in his car, Mia walked past him and out into the bright sunlight…only to go still when she saw a brand-new shiny red sports car—that only a total hermit would not recognise for what it was—waiting in the place of his silver Mattea.
    Her icy cool started to falter. ‘Y-you’ve changed your car.’
    ‘I prefer not to put my passengers through mental torture,’ he relayed drily.
    As Mia walked up to the door he was holding open for her she caught a gleam in his eyes which told her he was waiting for her to make some kind of positive response because he had gone to this much trouble exclusively for her.
    When she said nothing, he grimaced. ‘You can thank me later,’ he murmured, ‘once you’ve recovered from your sulk because I spoiled your plans for today.’
    It took Mia a minute to grasp that he was referring to her plans to meet with Sophie. They’d planned to go shopping and take in a movie but Nikos had not given her a chance to tell him that during his phone call this morning. Opening her mouth to tell him, she snapped it shut again. Let him think what the heck he liked. What she did with her free time was none of his business—as his was not any of hers.
    ‘Seat belt,’ he issued as he climbed in next to her, and the pleasant tone had disappeared from his voice, Mia noticed.
    A few minutes later they were driving across the river towards Battersea. Mia tried not to watch the way he controlled his new car as if he had been driving it for years. It must be in his blood to know instinctively what to do in any given situation. She’d seen him at work too often not to be impressed with the way he could control most things with an ease that was sobreathtakingly natural even those he was controlling did not notice he was doing it.
    It was no wonder he was arrogant sometimes, a bit of a bully when he felt he needed to be. Incisive, decisive, he was used to being right so why not expect other people to just fall in line to his bidding?
    After attempting to kick-start several conversation subjects to which she replied in crushing monotones, he issued a driven sigh. ‘Quit the chilly sulk, Mia,’ he told her, ‘or I will turn this car around and take you back home again.’
    Mia straightened in her seat. ‘I am not sulking.’
    ‘No?’ Stopping at a set of traffic lights he turned to look at her—deep brown eyes, feathered with flashes of glinting gold, spun nerve ends alive across her taut profile. ‘You remind me of a feral cat I once tried to befriend as a kid. One minute she was soft and coquettish and brushing her sleek body up against me, the next minute she had her claws in my neck and was spitting at me.’
    ‘I have never brushed up against you!’ she denied, then felt her cheeks flame when she recalled the way she’d moved towards him last night. ‘Nor have I drawn my claws,’ she added as a quick cover-up. ‘And if I remind you ofyour friend the feral cat, then you remind me of our donkey,’ she threw back, sparked into defending herself.
    ‘Your—what?’ he raked out.
    ‘Tulio, our donkey,’ she supplied. ‘One minute he is beautifully relaxed and amenable, the next he acts as if he does not occupy the same planet as everyone else.’
    ‘You’re accusing me of being moody?’ Nikos delivered across the gap separating them.
    Mia fixed her gaze on the traffic lights. ‘I cannot predict how you are going to speak to me from one minute to another. Tulio is the same. Only he does not speak—he just gives me the