He didn't make a fuss. He didn't agonise over decisions and he didn't moan and whinge about the necessity either, he just did the job. She had definitely picked a winner to get stranded with in the snow. She studied him, admiring the trendy cut of his luxuriant black hair, the sleek, smooth and undoubtedly very expensive tailoring of the charcoal-grey suit he wore teamed with a dark shirt and a silk tie. He looked like a high-flying business executive, a real urban sophisticate, the sort of guy she would have been too afraid even to speak to in normal circumstances.

'One small problem… I don't smoke,' he murmured.

'Oh… I can help there,' Hope recalled, hurriedly digging into her handbag and producing a cheap plastic lighter. 'I don't smoke either but I thought my future employer might and I didn't want to seem disapproving. '

As he waited for her to complete that rather intriguing explanation Andreas glanced up and registered in surprise that she was very far from being the least attractive woman he had ever met. In the dim interior, her pale blonde hair, now loose and falling almost to her shoulders, glowed like silver against the black upraised collar of his coat. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright. She was smiling at him and when she smiled, her whole face lit up. Lost in the depths of his coat, she looked startlingly appealing.

'Here.’ Hope extended the lighter.

'Efharisto… ' Andreas thanked her gravely, mentally querying her unexpected pull for him. She was blonde and rather short and he went for tall, leggy brunettes.

'Parakalo… you're welcome,' Hope responded with a weak grin, striving to move her feet to instil a little feeling back into her toes. 'So, you're Greek?'

'Yes.' Protecting the minuscule blaze of wood shavings from the wind whistling through the cracks in the wall, Andreas fed the fire. She was virtually naked below his coat. It was that knowledge that was making her appear appealing to him, he told himself in exasperation. He resisted a foolish urge to look at her again. Why would he even want to look at her again?