Savage Seduction
Savage Seduction
Sharon Kendrik
When enemies marry…Constantine Sioulas was a man of primitive passions… . Jade knew that. But she couldn't believe it when, after a whirlwind courtship, he insisted that she marry him! Things like that simply didn't happen to girls like her… did they? And Constantine soon made it clear that, far from loving Jade, he despised her for her apparent betrayal.But, locked into this marriage of convenience, Jade was determined to enjoy her husband's special brand of savage seduction!"New author Sharon Kendrick makes a good first mark in the romance genre… " - Romantic Times on No Escaping Love
“I’m afraid that you have sealed your fate.”
Jade felt a shiver of apprehension trickle its way slowly down her spine. “What in heaven’s name are you talking about?”
Constantine made an impatient gesture with his hand. “You will marry me, and as quickly as possible.”
There was shocked, stunned silence as Jade stared at Constantine in disbelief. “You must be mad,” she whispered, “to think that I’d ever ever marry you.”
Dear Reader (#uee196dd0-4a45-5882-940d-0244023c67ad),
One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you - which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.
There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.
I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia to escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100
story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”
So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him… Wouldn’t you know it?
I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers.
Love,
Sharon xxx
Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing and awesome 100th book! Sharon is known worldwide for her likeable, spirited heroines and her gorgeous, utterly masculine heroes.
SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…
Savage Seduction
Sharon Kendrick
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Tommy “The Tiger” Crone—the amazing libel lawyer. Thanks for your advice, Tom! And for Patti “Pet” Crone, great wit and great lover of “sparkling”!
Table of Contents
Cover (#uaf6c4ce7-3d4e-5da0-9b16-dafd102ad9a0)
Extract (#u26f75370-7b9f-5ec0-b8c4-e6ddc3c2af8f)
Dear Reader (#ud8f33fc4-343c-588e-8c71-46a66594dbee)
About the Author (#u52c1b200-7667-53f2-81fb-e9441fb5f590)
Title Page (#u72a34d10-bd35-597b-be41-d3e248b13290)
Dedication (#u99d34103-014d-5339-b4f1-4eb68eebbb54)
CHAPTER ONE (#u32fc894d-7c5c-57d7-807e-1b09c7292fb5)
CHAPTER TWO (#ucb5e590c-b7fa-5567-b2ca-6e7f9026d53c)
CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_1e425c40-f1b6-5a5f-aee0-b99ebc732282)
‘OH, HELL!’
Jade made the husky imprecation as she emerged from the gin-clear water, to see that the two would- be Romeos from her home city of London had none too subtly moved themselves even closer to her towel. She shook the droplets of water from her long hair, feeling decidedly disgruntled at the prospect of having to tell them politely to go away. Again.
The droplets of water had already begun to dry on her skin. The sea had been the temperature of warm milk and as soon as she’d left it the relentless heat of the sun had started beating down on her without mercy. But that was Greece for you.
The most exquisite place she’d ever visited—with sky which was bluer than a denim shirt and sand the colour of cream and the texture of caster sugar. Add to that the heady scents of lemon mingled with pine, the wine-dark sea and the drowse-inducing mass chorus of the cicadas, and you could under- stand why when people discovered Greece they felt they’d stumbled on Paradise.
If only it weren’t so darned hot!
She picked her way over the burning sand, and one of the Romeos sprang to his feet, the sun glinting off his fair hair.
‘Hi, there, beautiful,’ he said, somewhat unorig- inally. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
‘No, thanks,’ answered Jade coolly, wondering what it was about some men which made them so dense in picking up the distinctly negative vibes she was sending out.
‘How about—’ He raised his eyebrows sugges- tively, as his glance strayed to her sopping bosom, and Jade felt a sudden stirring of apprehension as she picked up her sarong to cover the tiny yellow bikini she wore.
His leer increased. ‘—if I rub some sun-cream into your back—?’
‘How about,’ came a deep and softly menacing voice from behind Jade’s back, ‘if you left this beach and never returned?’
And Jade whirled round to see the man from the restaurant, her throat immediately drying with the powerful impact of his darkly rugged good looks.
The Londoner was foolishly attempting resist- ance. ‘What’s it to do with you?’ he demanded belligerently.
‘Move away from here,’ came the flat and delib- erate statement, ‘before I am forced to remove you myself.’
There was something in his dark eyes which brooked no argument, and the two men blanched beneath their tans. Jade watched while they gathered their few possessions up into their arms and crept away like chastened dogs.
She stayed watching them go, unaccountably ex- cited by the man’s presence, yet oddly unsure of what to do next, and it was a moment or two before she could bring herself to look up at her rescuer, who stood silently surveying her, as though it was his every right to do so. He was a stranger, yes, and yet she recognised him instantly. A man once seen, never forgotten—with the kind of fiercely dominant presence which would imprint itself on any woman’s psyche, as it had on Jade’s. And yet they hadn’t even exchanged a word when she had seen him at the taverna yesterday…
Jade had walked into the local village to buy her provisions, and as usual it had been baking hot, absolutely baking. She had scooped her hand back through her thick fair hair as she’d looked over longingly at the shady canopy of lemon trees in the taverna. Through the air she could scent the lamb smouldering on the barbeque with its big bunches of thyme strewn all over it. She saw the tentacles of the octopuses dangling over a line, awaiting their ritual dousing in lemon juice before cooking. She wasn’t fond of eating alone in the restaurants where tourists abounded, but this one looked full of fam- ilies, and, more interestingly, full of Greeks. It must be good, she’d thought as she made her way to a shaded table.
She had ordered Greek salad, a beer and a plate of olives and was sitting enjoying them until when a small child, all dark curls and heart-shaped face, waddled over to her table. The mother called the child back in Greek, but Jade turned and shook her head, smiling, and starting to play ‘peep-bo’ with the toddler, who eventually climbed on to her lap and began to pick up a strand of her blonde hair in wonder. Jade pulled a funny face at the little girl who immediately giggled back as she continued to play with the blonde hair. The feeling of having the child in her arms was a new and rather enjoyable experience, and Jade couldn’t help hugging her, delighted when the little girl nestled back quite happily.
Jade had sensed, rather than seen, that someone was watching her. Well, in fact, most of the res- taurant were. They were enjoying the little inter- play between the child and the young tourist.
But this sensation was different… Little hairs at the back of her neck began to prickle with some nebulous excitement.
She narrowed her eyes, looking into the dim air- conditioned interior of the restaurant, and through the gloom she saw a table, where a man sat sur- rounded by three or four others. A man in a white shirt and white jeans. A man to whom the others listened. A man with eyes as black as olives and as hard as jet. Eyes which gleamed and narrowed, frozen in a stare as they captured her gaze over the head of the child. For a stunned moment Jade stared back, unable to look away—her mouth sud- denly dry, her heart pounding erratically and an unfamiliar excitement stealing over her as she gazed at the man, some unfamiliar and primitive longing sweeping over her as their eyes locked.
The man whose quietly menacing authority had driven away the two tourists, and who now stood on the beach in front of her.
The stranger was Greek; he could be nothing else. He had the proud bearing and the superbly shaped head of his ancestors. But he was tall for a Greek: a couple of inches over six feet, she hazarded. His skin was coloured a luminously soft olive, the kind of colour which made the sales of fake tan rocket, and it gleamed very slightly, the slight sheen em- phasising the ripple of muscle. His hair was as black as tar, rich and thick—a mass of unruly waves worn just slightly too long. Today he was wearing nothing but a pair of sawn-off denims; very faded and very scruffy. Those and a pair of beaten-up sandals. She swallowed at the sight of so much naked flesh on show. She should have been frightened, and yet fear was the last thing on her mind as she returned his gaze. She stared into eyes as cold and forbidding and harsh as jet. Narrow eyes that glittered; eyes which studied her with a detached and yet strangely intense appraisal which was almost intoxicating in itself.
And all of a sudden, it happened again: a replay of the sensations she had experienced the last time she had seen him. She felt her senses clamour into life, felt her heart accelerate painfully, accepted the flood of colour to her cheeks and the almost debili- tating dryness of her mouth as she battled to compose herself.
‘Why are you here on your own?’ came his terse interrogation.
The question floored her; she was so outraged at its implicit chauvinism. ‘Because I like my own company,’ she answered coolly.
He didn’t respond to the inference. ‘Well, do not do so again.’
Jade’s eyes narrowed in disbelief. ‘Don’t do what?’
Jet eyes glittered dangerously. ‘Do not put yourself at risk. This beach is too isolated; a woman is too vulnerable.’
He spoke, she thought suddenly, like a man used to giving orders, and having them obeyed.
‘Who—are you?’ she asked suddenly, in a voice which seemed to have deepened by at least an octave.
He stilled, his ebony eyes narrowed with sus- picion. ‘You don’t know?’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! If I knew then I wouldn’t be asking, surely?’
‘No.’ He was examining her face intently, like a man newly given sight, and that slow inspection stirred some answering response deep within her. He looked, she thought dizzily, like a king—there was something stately and proud in his bearing. And yet how could he when, to judge by his ap- pearance, he was obviously a beach bum? She had been reading far too many romantic novels on this holiday—let that be a lesson to her!
‘My name is Constantine Sioulas,’ he replied, in a gloriously deep voice, with only the faintest trace of an accent, and again the black eyes pierced her with their intense scrutiny.
Constantine. She tested the name in her mind; found it the most beautiful name in the whole world, which was really rather appropriate, as the man in front of her was the most beautiful man she had ever laid eyes on.
‘And you?’ He lifted an enquiring eyebrow. ’What is your name?’
‘It’s Jade,’ she said rather breathlessly, as though she’d just stopped running. ‘Jade Meredith.’
‘Jade.’ He nodded his head, thoughtfully. ‘Yes. It suits you,’ he pronounced. ‘Your eyes are the colour of jade.’
And her cheeks were now the colour of rubies, she thought ruefully as she blushed beneath the slow scrutiny of his gaze, revelling in the approbation on his face, and yet despising herself for the way she was behaving. Why not just fall down in rever- ence at his knees and kiss his feet, Jade!
‘No, they’re not,’ she lifted her chin in a defiant little gesture. ‘My eyes are pale green. Jade is darker.’
He shook his head. ‘Sometimes,’ he contra- dicted. ‘The Chinese say that the colour deepens and intensifies as the wearer acquires wisdom. It would be an interesting experiment—to see whether that is true.’ He gave a small almost reluctant smile, like the smile of a man not used to smiling. ‘Shall I buy you jade, Jade Meredith?’ he said softly. ’Jewels of jade for you to wear next to that pale, pale skin? Together we could watch it growing darker day by day.’
His words were so inappropriate considering that they’d only just met. And yet he spoke them with a coolly assured confidence which only renewed the throbbing of blood to her pulse points.
‘My skin isn’t pale,’ she protested. After nearly three weeks in the sun, it had turned a pale golden colour—she was quite proud of it!
‘Most certainly it is,’ he contradicted, in the rich, glowing voice overlaid with its barely discernible yet totally seductive accent. ‘Pale as milk—at least when you compare it with mine.’
And at his words she found her eyes drawn irre- sistibly to the dark olive of his bare chest and shoulders, the strong forearms, and the equally strong thighs. Her mind responded to his suggestion with frightening clarity as she pictured her lying on a bed with him, his dark limbs tangled with hers, strong brown thigh against a thigh as pale as milk… Jade had to close her eyes briefly to blot out the tantalising image, but it didn’t work.
‘Shall we?’ he whispered silkily.
‘Shall we what?’ she echoed huskily, lost in some misty erotic world of her own.
He smiled, and it was a suddenly ruthless smile. The smile, she recognised with an unquestionable certainty, of a man who was used to getting whatever it was he wanted.
‘I was referring to buying the jade,’ he said softly. ’But we should have to go to the mainland to do that, and I don’t want to waste precious hours doing that, not when there are so many more attractive alternatives.’ He smiled. ‘Come, I shall walk you back to your house.’
It was most definitely an order. Jade bristled. ‘That won’t be necessary.’
‘On the contrary,’ he answered smoothly, but there was a steely quality to his voice now. ‘I insist.’
Most annoyingly, she found the arrogant protec- tiveness in his assertion extremely attractive, but a lifetime of paying lip-service to feminism couldn’t be banished overnight! She met his gaze steadily. ’I said no, thank you.’
‘I heard what you said, but it doesn’t change a thing.’
Jade shook her head from side to side in a mixture of amusement and exasperation. ‘Do you always insist on getting your own way?’ she demanded.
He grinned then, the most heartbreakingly gorgeous grin imaginable, and that was her un- doing. ‘I always get my own way,’ he murmured. ’Though not always by insisting. I don’t usually have to,’ he added arrogantly.
That she could imagine! Jade had to try very hard to suppress a smile as she watched while he bent down to retrieve her bag and her towel and tucked them under his arm with an old-fashioned courtesy—which she certainly wasn’t used to. She knew she was fighting a losing battle here, and what was more, she was quickly discovering that it was a battle she didn’t particularly want to fight anyway. ’Then I’ll take you up on your offer of walking me home,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’ And she saw from the slight elevation of his eyebrows that he hadn’t missed the sarcastic emphasis.
‘My pleasure.’ His eyes were mocking. Then. ’Those tourists—do not worry about them. They shall not bother you again.’
There was something about the grim, gravelly undertone to his voice which made it sound vaguely threatening. Jade swallowed; she hadn’t thought that men like this existed outside films! ‘Er—you wouldn’t hurt them?’ asked Jade anxiously. ‘They weren’t really doing anything.’
‘Because I arrived.’ His eyes glittered like coals from hell. ‘I saw the way he was looking at you.’ He made a terse exclamation in Greek.
Jade swallowed. Had she been blase about the danger? She saw the hard, formidable lines in the handsome face, saw the ruthless glitter in the black eyes, and she knew a fleeting feeling of sympathy for the two hapless tourists. ‘You won’t—hurt them?’ she whispered again, and was relieved to see a half-smile lift the corner of his mouth.
‘What did you imagine I would do—beat them into pulp?’ he queried softly, and then he gave an amused smile. ‘Do not be concerned, little one. I shall merely speak to them—that will serve as suf- ficient deterrent.’
Feeling as though she’d been caught up in a sudden time warp, Jade stared curiously up at him. ’Do you always over-react like this?’ she quizzed him, forcing her voice to be light.
He shook his head. ‘It is not over-reacting at all.’ Some feral light sparked at the depths of the coal- dark eyes. ‘In Greece, you see,’ he told her, ‘we are protective of our women.’
He made her feel very small and very fragile, not a bit like her rather lanky five feet nine, and Jade couldn’t repress a shiver of excitement. Put like that it sounded so darkly atavistic, so—well, so thrilling, the idea of someone like this black-eyed and powerfully built man actually protecting her. Be- cause hadn’t protection been in very short supply in her life up until now?
The sun beat down on their bare heads as they walked up from the beach to the narrow track which was masquerading as a road. Jade could see the heat shimmering hazily upwards into the endless blue of the sky.
‘Put your hat on,’ he said.
She obediently crammed the battered straw down on her head. ‘Shouldn’t you?’
He gave a little shake of his head. ‘I am used to the sun.’
And hair that thick, that black, thought Jade, would surely protect him from its fierce rays?
Lizards ran swiftly along the sun-baked road, and he named them for her, pointing out tiny scrubby and fragrant plants that she’d never noticed before. His accent was entrancing; it lulled her into a dreamy sense of well-being, and when they arrived at last at the small house she was renting she stared up at him, aware of the disappointment thudding through her. I don’t want this day to end, she thought suddenly.
‘You want to know what we should do next?’
Could he guess so easily what she was thinking? she wondered dimly. Did her reluctance to see him go show on her face? ‘I…’ Her voice tailed off in hopeless confusion—she who everyone always said could talk her way into the record books!
‘We have a number of choices,’ he mused, as though this were the kind of bizarre conversation he was used to conducting every day. Was he? ‘You could offer me some of your water and we could sit together and drink. Or we could walk down to the village and take some refreshment there. Alternatively, I could initiate what we both most want to do?’
And only the biggest fool in the world would have replied, ‘Which is?’
‘Why, to kiss, of course,’ he replied, his voice a velvet caress which would have melted ice. ‘That’s what you want me to do, isn’t it?’
Now she could feel her cheeks blanch—heaven only knew what harm this man was doing to her nervous system! He was virtually making love to her with his eyes. Jade Meredith the fearless re- porter took stock of the potentially dicey situation she was in, and astonishingly still felt no fear. She used the gritty voice with which she’d fired ques- tions at soap stars and the unsuspecting wives of footballers.
‘Just who are you?’ she demanded. She’d met confident men in her life before, yes, men who were arrogantly sure of their effect on women, yes—but never one who was this confident!
At the question, his eyes narrowed and he stilled, watching her intently from beneath dark, luxuriant brows. ‘I told you.’ His voice was a slumberous caress. ‘My name is Constantine.’
‘Yes—but…’ Her voice trailed off helplessly. What could she say? Yes, you’re right, you delec- table man—I do want you to kiss me? More than I’ve ever wanted anything in my whole life? She was breaking every rule in the book by even standing here listening to him. What about all that assertiveness training she’d undergone? Did women allow men to change their minds for them? No, they most certainly did not! She gave him a conven- tional and dismissive nod. It was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do in her life. ‘It was very kind of you to accompany me—but I think you’d better leave now.’
He smiled again. ‘In time.’
He had moved closer now, and when he moved it was like poetry in motion. You could see the muscles moving in perfect symmetry beneath the olive perfection of his skin.
He really wasn’t that tall, she reminded herself; plenty of men were taller than six feet, and she was only a few inches shorter herself. Yet there was something about the width of his shoulders and the magnificent breadth of a chest with its dark, dark whorls of hair. Something, too, about the powerful thrust of his thighs—as solidly carved as the trunk of an oak tree. All these things combined to make him seem the biggest man she had ever seen. She suppressed another little shiver of excitement.
He was smiling now as he let her give him the once over, again with that curiously cold smile- as though laughter was a stranger to his life. ‘You aren’t afraid of me.’ It was a statement of fact; he sounded amused.
‘No.’ Perhaps that was the wrong thing to say. She knew that Greek men were notoriously old- fashioned. Would he have preferred it if she’d started backing away from him, white-faced and trembling? Oh, come on, Jade, she chided—why should you care what he’d prefer?
‘Not even a little afraid?’ he quizzed her softly. ’And yet you terrify me.’
Jade swallowed. Now he was talking in riddles. ’No, I’m not afraid of you,’ she said firmly, and held her chin up stubbornly. ‘But I happen to have a black belt in judo, just in case you’re getting any ideas.’
This provoked a laugh, a low, rich chuckle, and Jade stupidly felt as though she’d just won the first prize in a raffle. ‘Very commendable,’ he re- marked. ‘But you know that your—black belt—in judo wouldn’t do you any good at all?’
Such arrogance! Such amazing arrogance! ‘Let me enlighten you,’ she said quite calmly, which was astonishing considering how fast her heart was hammering away in her chest. ‘Size has nothing to do with it.’
‘Oh, really?’ he teased softly, and her comment became something else completely. The black eyes glittered with mischief, and Jade coloured to the roots of her hair. Now what had she said?
‘I mean comparative size,’ she said firmly, re- fusing to back down or be intimidated. ‘You are taller and obviously stronger than I am, but judo isn’t about brute strength—it’s all to do with control and balance, of observing your opponent and waiting for the right opportunity.’
‘I know. And that isn’t what I meant.’
‘Oh? And just what did you mean? You implied that I’d be unable to defeat you.’
‘Absolutely,’ he said softly. ‘And do you know why? Because I think that once we made contact…whoosh!’ He lifted the palms of his hands in front of that magnificent bare chest in a flam- boyant gesture that an Englishman could never have got away with.
Jade’s heart had renewed its hammering. She shouldn’t be letting him talk to her like this; didn’t Greek men notoriously think that Englishwomen were easy? Well, he was about to discover that Jade Meredith was not among that merry band of women who fell swooning into the arms of handsome islanders for two weeks of holiday bliss before being put firmly on the plane with a load of lies about writing. ‘Is this your normal chat-up line?’ she asked cuttingly. ‘Because it if is I’d give you nought out of ten for subtlety!’
The dark brows knitted together. ‘Chat-up line,’ he mused. ‘Considering that English is one of the most perfect and complex of languages, that phrase is rather—inelegant, wouldn’t you say?’
It was rather shaming that someone to whom English was not a first language could express himself so eloquently, Jade thought with a touch of irritation. She had expected that to put him in his place, not to start some highbrow discussion about semantics!
The ebony brows remained knitted together. ‘And if we’re going to continue this—fascinating dis- cussion—might I suggest that we do it in a little more comfort?’ He looked pointedly at the table where the empty water jug sat. ‘Shall we sit down?’
Excitement vyed with prudence. ‘Why should we? I don’t know you,’ she said stubbornly.
‘But you know enough to know that I won’t hurt you?’
Jade stared at him. Enough, yes, to know that he would never physically hurt her, but… as she looked into those glittering black eyes, observed the slash of jaw and the high cheekbones, she suddenly felt some terrifying fear icing her skin. A knowledge that, yes, this magnificent creature with the cold smile and the eyes of jet could hurt her. That through him she could learn the real meaning of pain; indescribable, unbearable pain… She started to shake uncontrollably, a violent tremor which ran through her body like wildfire.
He saw her tremble. A warm hand was placed on her chilled forearm and she felt his strength like a warm embrace.
‘Fear not—I will not hurt you,’ he said quietly.
You will, she thought suddenly. Oh, this was rid- iculous! Had three weeks in Greece had turned her into a clairvoyant? She shook him away inel- egantly, but he captured her hand in his, raising it to his mouth where it stayed just centimetres away from the proud curve of his lips.
‘Do you not know that in Greece it is customary to offer the traveller refreshment?’
Her breathing was inhibited, shallow, painful. She awaited the brush of his mouth on her hand.
In vain.
His eyes gleamed and he let her hand go, but somehow he had regained supremacy, and Jade was angry. Angry with herself for wanting him to press his lips on to her hand, and angry that he had not chosen to! And she wasn’t sending him away with him thinking that she was some kind of desperado! She straightened her shoulders and gave her most English smile, spoke in her most chillingly polite tone.
‘Then you must sit down and have a drink.’
‘Thank you.’ In response, he deepened his accent, his eyes sparking with mischief, and Jade found herself wanting to giggle. So much for icy polite- ness!
‘I’ll fill the jug and fetch another glass,’ she said hastily.
And she scrambled inside as he pulled out one of the wooden chairs, which now looked hopelessly insubstantial if expected to accommodate that large, muscular frame.
Jade filled the jug with water and ice and found the glass with fingers which were still trembling, her eyes lifting reluctantly to the small spotted mirror which hung on the whitewashed walls. A wild-eyed, fey stranger stared back at her. Her pale green eyes were almost unrecognisable as her own, the colour almost completely obscured by the deep ebony of two dilated and glittering pupils. Her mouth looked swollen and throbbing and redder than usual—had she been chewing it while talking to him? she wondered. Even her hair—baby-fine but masses of it—which she hadn’t had a chance to brush since he’d disturbed her; it had dried into a thick, pale cloud—shimmered like an uncontrol- lable halo around her head. The sun had bleached it almost blonde. Did Constantine, she thought suddenly, like women with blonde hair?
She took the jug and glass back outside, half afraid that he might have disappeared, but he hadn’t. He had spread those long olive legs beneath the table and was watching her return.
Walking suddenly seemed a skill she hadn’t yet acquired, and she would have stumbled if a strong hand hadn’t shot out and caught her. She managed to get the jug down on the table, but the tumbler slipped from her grasp; the sound of the glass shat- tering on the grey stone of the courtyard sounding piercingly loud to her ears.
‘Oh, hell! Now look what you’ve made me do,’ said Jade unreasonably, and, crouching down, she began gingerly to pick up the larger fragments.
He was beside her in an instant. ‘Be careful,’ he told her, but it was too late, a shard had pierced her forefinger, and crimson blood began to well and to drop in dark starry splashes on to the grey stone.
Her finger went up to her mouth, but he deliber- ately took it before it reached its destination, the black eyes fixed on hers as he put it into his mouth and sucked the blood away.
If there hadn’t been glass all around them, Jade thought that she would have keeled over. She felt the blood drain from her face as she stared into the night-dark eyes.
‘You—shouldn’t have done that,’ she said shakily.
He relieved the pressure, but her finger stayed firmly in the hot, moist cavern of his mouth. ‘Why not?’
‘It’s dangerous,’ she managed. ‘Blood…’
He shook his head, as if he understood her meaning perfectly. ‘I think not.’
‘How can you know?’ she demanded breath- lessly. ‘We’ve only just met.’
His eyes met hers. ‘I know,’ he said softly.
Another slow and deliberate suck; it was the most erotic thing that had ever happened to her in her life—and then he took the finger from his mouth, examined it and held it up for her inspection. ‘The flow is stemmed,’ he pronounced, and something in the formality of this statement, spoken with all the solemnity of a Victorian surgeon, instead of the more modern ‘it’s stopped bleeding’, made Jade’s lips twitch in amusement.
He saw the movement, and raised his eyebrows. ’What?’
‘You have a very formal way of speaking,’ she said honestly. ‘But your English is absolutely superb.’
He inclined his head. ‘And so it should be. I grew up with it as my second language.’
She shook her head, as if bemused by what was happening. ‘Are you always like this— Constantine?’ She said his name experimentally for the first time. Her tongue had to protrude a little in order to pronounce it properly, in the slightly lisping Greek manner. She liked saying it, liked the way his eyes flared as he watched her tongue snake out and then back in again.
‘Like-what?’
Jade stared back into the glittering black eyes, realising that she actually felt as though she were high on something—if this feeling was ever mar- keted, the world would go into total chaos! ‘So darned assertive!’ she answered crisply.
He looked surprised. ‘But naturally. Are not all men supposed to be assertive? The dominant ones?’
She smiled. ‘That’s not what the feminists would say.’
‘Ah! The feminists! You are one of these?’ He ran his eyes lazily over the bright and filmy covering of her sarong, at the cloud of blonde hair. ‘I don’t think so,’ he observed.
Jade could not let that pass. ‘You think that I couldn’t possibly be a feminist because I haven’t got cropped hair and am not wearing dungarees?’
A light flared in his eyes. ‘But those are your words, Jade,’ he said softly. ‘Not mine. No, I made the comment because I could imagine you soft, and pliant, loving and giving. Very feminine, but not a feminist. There is a subtle difference, you know.’
Jade realised that she was letting him get away with statements she would have emphatically dis- agreed with if she’d been back at home in England. Persuasive kind of guy. She tried again. ‘But men being so dominant and assertive,’ she said, ‘it isn’t really the modern way.’
‘But I,’ he answered proudly, ‘am not a modern man. At heart all Greeks are ruled by the very same passions which have existed since the beginning of time.’
This was totally new, uncharted and terribly ex- citing territory, men talking quite openly of passion. Jade shivered.
‘But perhaps,’ he said deliberately, ‘you are not used to assertive men?’
Oh, but she was—she most certainly was! But there was a world of difference between the way all the men at her office behaved, and the way that Constantine was behaving. Her editor rode roughshod over all the staff. However, perhaps that was less like assertion, and more like bullying! Cer- tainly there was none of this man’s cool assurance in her boss’s behaviour.
‘Well, are you?’ he persisted.
She wasn’t used to men at all, not in the sense that he meant. Which was probably why she was responding in such a pathetic way towards this par- ticular man. Men had been deliberately put on ice until the career which had meant so much to her had had a chance to develop properly—the career which she was now thinking of chucking in because she was so disillusioned with it. A cynic already— and at the tender age of twenty!
She stared into the black eyes, blinked, then looked down at the thick fragments of glass which glittered by their feet. Mostly from a desire to steer the conversation away from her shameful lack of experience with the opposite sex, she began to turn away. ‘I’d better go and fetch a dustpan and brush’
‘No.’
There he went again, dishing out the orders! Jade stared up at him, half in anger, half in admiration, marvelling that it actually felt extraordinarily good to be around such a masterful man. Shame on her!
‘You put some covering on your finger. Go! I will deal with the glass.’
She found herself obeying him without question. In the tiny bedroom she found the box of Elastoplast she had brought with her from England, and, after removing the wrapping, she shakily ap- plied one to her thumb. She could hear him moving around in the kitchen, presumably looking for the dustpan and brush. She didn’t doubt for a moment that he’d find it!
She wondered fleetingly whether she had a touch of sunstroke. Surely normal women of her age didn’t allow half-clothed perfect strangers the run of their house? And yet, given the outstanding at- traction of the man, she didn’t feel in the least bit threatened. She examined her finger carefully. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She felt a threat, all right, but it had absolutely nothing to do with thinking that he might be some mad axeman. It was more an interested kind of wondering just what would happen if she caught him in a judo stranglehold. That expressive little ‘whoosh’ sound he’d made… implying… mmmm…
She went outside to find him disposing of the last of the glass. It was strange to see such a self- proclaimed non-modern man doing it so com- petently, and yet to see Constantine brushing up the fragments of glass… it almost emphasised his masculinity, rather than detracting from it. Con- fusing, she thought fleetingly. He’d talked about the man assuming the dominant role, and had teased her about feminists, and yet he didn’t seem to mind lending a hand. Interesting.
As she appeared, he straightened up.
‘I will wrap it up tightly in newspaper,’ he in- structed. ‘So no more cut fingers.’
Jade nodded, acknowledging the perverse sinking of her heart. There was something of the farewell in the way he spoke. Surely he wasn’t going?
She ventured a smile. ‘You didn’t have your drink.’
‘No matter. It is time I was going.’
She had been right. ‘Yes.’ Disappointment crept through her veins like a debilitating drug.
‘I shall collect you at seven.’
‘Collect me?’ squeaked Jade, only keeping the excitement from her voice with the most monu- mental of efforts. ‘What for?’
The mouth moved again in its curious smile. ’Why, for dinner, of course.’
‘I’m having dinner with you?’
‘Of course. Don’t you want to?’
Which he asked with all the casual arrogance of a man who knew damned well that of course she wanted to have dinner with him! Who wouldn’t? Jade had never experienced this overwhelming at- traction before; it made you weak and it made you powerless. And she wasn’t really sure whether she liked the feeling or not. Besides which—wouldn’t it be totally foolhardy to go tripping off with him? Why should he presume that she’d just drop every- thing and have dinner with him? And what hap- pened after dinner? What did he expect? Did he assume that because she was English she was going to fall into bed with him?
‘What makes you think I’ll say yes?’
He gave a slow smile, then raised that olive- skinned hand to her face. ‘These,’ he said softly, as he indicated her eyes. ‘They give me one answer and one answer only. Then this—’ And a finger brushed negligently over the bow of her mouth. ‘It trembles with anticipation. And—’ and here the eyes changed, the spark in their ebony depths be- coming a feverish flame ‘—there are other outward signs of how much you want to see me again, but we will not go into those. Not now.’
She was innocent, but she knew exactly what he meant. She had been unsuccessfully trying to ignore the hot tingling as her tiny breasts thrust against the still damp material of her bikini top. The tips were as painfully hard as metal and yet the pain was bearable, pleasurable even, and her eyelids dropped to hide her confusion. She knew what she wanted, what she clamoured for. She clamoured for his touch. And, oh, heavens—wasn’t it desperately shameful to want a complete stranger to touch her intimately? To run those strong brown fingers all over her pale breasts and to linger on the soft swell of her belly? Her cheeks burned.
He moved his hand beneath her chin, so that their eyes were locked on a collision course. In his eyes she could see reflected the febrile glitter in hers. ’I’ll pick you up at seven,’ he said huskily.
It wasn’t fair, thought Jade. For a man to wield so much power over women—all women, she rec- ognised with a violently jealous flare. I’ll bet he never has to ask twice, she thought, with a sudden inexplicable anger, and was determined that in this, at least—she would be different. ‘No, I can’t,’ she said stubbornly and immediately saw a momentary flare of irritation before it was replaced by a ques- tioning look.
‘You’re busy?’
‘That’s right.’
‘No, you’re not,’ he said quietly.
‘Why, of all the—’
But he cut her off with an arrogant shake of his black head. ‘Listen to me, Jade,’ he said quietly. ’You return to England shortly, yes?’
‘In three days,’ something compelled her to tell him.
‘So.’ The hand was still holding her face with gentle strength. ‘We can either play foolish little games with each other. Or…’
‘Or?’
His eyes narrowed; his expression was rueful— as though he was reluctant to complete the sentence.
‘Or we can follow our hearts,’ he said simply.
If anyone else had said it, she would have told them that they were being ridiculously corny, that no one said things like that and meant them, and yet it was the most romantic thing she’d ever en- countered, and Jade felt a warm glow suffuse every pore of her body.
She stared up at him, a lost cause for assertive womanhood. ‘OK,’ she said, giving him a faltering smile as she looked into his eyes. ‘I’ll see you at seven.’
‘Until seven,’ he said, his hand falling from her face as he strode swiftly from the courtyard.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_f92d94f5-33de-5c40-b85d-5682ae94a652)
IN THE five hours until Constantine collected her, Jade experienced just about every mood-swing in the book. What the hell was she playing at? He could be anyone—anyone at all!
What did she know about him?
Absolutely nothing.
Well, that wasn’t quite true. She knew his name and his nationality. Knew instinctively that he had a million times more experience than she had. And she also knew that he was the most devastating man she’d ever set eyes on.
But what was he thinking about her? Was he down in the village even now, boasting to his friends that the English girl had agreed with insulting speed to go out with a man she scarcely knew? Did men respect women who capitulated quite so easily?
Jade sighed. Suddenly, it became very important that he did respect her. I don’t want him thinking I’m like this with everyone, she thought gloomily. But if she tried to tell him that—then wouldn’t it bolster his already appallingly healthy ego?
She sighed again.
She didn’t really have any option but to go. She didn’t know where he lived, so there was no way she could duck out now. She supposed that she could always tell him that she’d changed her mind when he arrived at seven to collect her.
And yet…
Somehow she didn’t see that as a realistic scenario at all. For a start, she wanted to see him, so her words would have the hollow ring of insincerity. And secondly, she couldn’t really see him letting her get away with fobbing him off. She imagined him taking her ruthlessly into his arms, black eyes glimmering like a pirate, to kiss away every single objection she could think of.
Jade shivered as she walked into her bedroom. She would go, but her choice of garment would be crucial. Something demure, something which would definitely not give him the wrong idea…
The only trouble was that the clothes chosen for holidays in baking hot destinations tended to be all the things which weren’t demure. Light, filmy fab- rics. Lots of bare flesh on show. Oh, heck. Jade surveyed the six or so dresses she’d brought with her. She tried them all on, and each one in a differ- ent way made her achingly aware of her own body, unless… she stared at her naked reflec- tion… unless Constantine had done that. Because never before had she been so conscious of the soft swell of her breasts above the slender line of her waist. Breasts which tightened just at the very thought of him. She remembered his comment about pale, pale skin when compared to his, and once again, with a lucidity which was shocking, given her inexperience, Jade closed her eyes and pictured her breasts laid bare. With a dark head bending to take each one in turn, to suckle with delectable sweetness as the dark waves of his hair teased and tickled her flesh…
Jade stared in the spotted mirror in horror, to see her nipples rucking into tight twin peaks, and she drew her hands over them to cover the shock- ingly sensual image with her palms, but even that didn’t help, because she found herself wanting them to be his hands touching her, and she turned away from the mirror, sick with disgust.
But, after she had finally chosen an outfit, she managed to calm down. If she hadn’t trusted him, then she’d never have accepted a date with him. And though he might look all strong and compel- ling charm, she also knew that the Greeks were courteous and charming to visitors. There would never need to be attentions forced… Frankly, she doubted whether he’d had to use an ounce of per- suasion in his life. Which left it up to her to modify the pace.
He was bang on time.
Jade was sitting in the courtyard, reading, when his shadow fell over the pages of her book, and she looked up, unable to keep the smile off her face as she registered his narrow-eyed appreciation of her appearance.
‘Hi,’ she said softly.
‘Hello,’ he echoed. His voice was equally soft, and there was another brief flash of appraisal in his eyes as his gaze swept over her.
She wore a white sleeveless silk T-shirt, together with an ankle-length skirt in layers of white, swirling voile. The starkness of the colour empha- sised the pale golden glow of her skin. At her waist was a soft leather belt of dark green, with an intricately scrolled silver clasp. On her feet were strappy leather sandals in the same green. She had left her hair loose, to fall down her back in a pale waterfall, and at her ears and throat and wrist she wore heavy and intricate silver jewellery.
‘You look wonderful,’ he said quietly.’
She took in the snowy white of his shirt, tucked into dark, tapered trousers. His hair was still damp from the shower, falling into tendrils around his beautifully shaped head. ‘So do you,’ she said honestly.
He looked slightly bemused for a moment, and then he laughed, a deep and rich and glorious sound. ‘Do you know,’ he mused, ‘that’s the first time a woman’s ever said that to me?’
Her cheeks hot, she stared down at her pink- painted toenails, wondering what in the world had made her come out with something like that. His women usually played it cool, obviously, she thought, and a spear of jealousy shot through her. ’I don’t know what came into me—I don’t usually say things like that either,’ she said, her tone more defensive than she’d intended.
But his voice was warm, caressing, forcing her to meet his eyes. ‘Don’t apologise. That’s the magic of the island,’ he said softly. ‘Working her spell on young lovers.’
Oh, lord. He had got the wrong idea. Well, it was about time she put him on the right track. Jade took a deep breath. ‘I think you’re assuming rather a lot, Constantine,’ she said stiffly. ‘I’ve agreed to have dinner with you—that’s all, and I have absol- utely no intention of becoming your lover. And if that’s what you had in mind for the end of the evening, then perhaps you’d better leave right now.’
His eyes darkened, glistened like two fragments of hell’s coal. She saw a muscle begin to work with ominous regularity in the side of the olive cheek, saw his mouth tighten into a hard slash, and then shedid know the meaning of fear, saw suddenly the face of a ruthless man behind the shatteringly handsome mask. All power and strength.
‘Is that what you think?’ he gritted in a low, furious voice. ‘That I am one of these men who expects sex as a form of payment for buying a woman dinner?’
He looked more than angry, she thought, he looked furious, as if she’d deeply offended his code of honour.
‘Of course I don’t!’ she said hurriedly. ‘It’s just—’
‘Just?’
She lifted her shoulders in bewilderment. ‘I didn’t mean to insult you. I don’t know what I meant. When you made that remark about lovers…I didn’t want you to think…’
‘I didn’t,’ he said simply. ‘And as for your con- fusion—do you think I don’t feel it too? Do you think this happens to me every day of the week?’
‘What?’
But he shook his head. ‘Enough. All this talk on an empty stomach. Come. Let’s go and eat.’
She fell into step beside him, giving him her hand when he held his out, walking down the dusty path towards the village, safe within the warmth of his grasp. Sinking into the distance, the giant dinnerplate of a sun flooded them with a rich, crimson light and it felt like being at the centre of some glowing and infernal jewel.
They walked into the village, past the restaurant where she’d seen him yesterday.
He saw the inquisitive rise of her eyebrows. ‘There is little enough privacy in the village,’ he explained. ‘But even less there.’
‘Oh? And why’s that?’
He smiled down at her. ‘My family owns it.’
So—he was in the restaurant business with his family. And he didn’t want her to meet them! Some little English girl he was ashamed to be seen with. She began to pull her hand away, but he wouldn’t let her, instead stopped still on the dusty track and turned her to face him.
‘What’s wrong?’
Peculiarly, it was too important to her to lie about. ‘Of course, if you don’t want me to meet your family—’
‘Agape mou,’ he laughed softly, ‘there is a way that a man can behave with a woman which in Greece would have his family drawing up a wedding list.’
Her heart sounded very loud in her ears. ‘And what way’s that?’
‘Never taking his eyes off her. Not wanting to eat. Not wanting to do anything other than kiss her and make love to her. I’ve seen it happen to other men before; but never to me. The way I intend to behave with you tonight, Jade,’ he finished with quiet emphasis. ‘And I would prefer not to have an audience.’
The darkness was falling and it camouflaged her soft rise in colour, the sharp little intake of breath. It had sounded as if… As if what? As if he was falling in love with her? As she was with him? Oh, stop it, stop it, she thought shakily. ‘But surely,’ she questioned, ‘all the restaurants will be crowded tonight—it’s the height of the season.’
‘Wait and see,’ he promised.
In a dream she walked with him to the outside of the village, to a white building which looked out over the blue and green fragrant hills, the stars be- ginning to glimmer in the indigo velvet of the sky.
A waiter led them to a terrace, where rose- coloured candles burned incandescently on each table against the ever-darkening night. This res- taurant was obviously much more upmarket than the others in the village, thought Jade as Constantine held her chair out for her, because crisp white tablecloths matched the beautifully pleated damask napkins.
There was wine already chilling in the ice-bucket, and Jade accepted a glass, together with the leather- bound menu, her eyes wide with confusion.
‘Where is everyone?’ she whispered. ‘Why are we the only customers?’
He smiled, his teeth showing very white in the olive darkness of his face. ‘Because, as I told you, I wanted privacy.’
‘But how—?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘The proprietor owes me a favour,’ he said implacably, and Jade once again got an overwhelming feeling of a toughness ema- nating from the man who sat opposite her.
She sipped at her drink nervously. ‘You mean- that we’ve got the whole restaurant to ourselves? As a favour to you?’
He gave a little nod. ‘I do.
‘It must have been a very big favour.’ In Jade’s world, people just didn’t do things like that. But this was, after all, Greece. Many parts of it a still very fundamental world, with values light-years away from the superficial mores of life in the highly developed west, or even from life in its capital, Athens. Without knowing why, goosebumps chilled her arms, even though the night air was warm and soft on her skin.
‘Some day I’ll tell you,’ he smiled, and handed her one of the menus.
‘Some day’…?
Did his words imply that they had some sort of future together?
Jade tried very hard to concentrate on the choice of food—grilled fish and meat mainly—and to stop reading things into what he was saying.
Constantine spoke in rapid Greek to the waiter, of which she understood not one word—bar his name, Kris, and moments later they were brought a dish containing the tiny hors-d’oeuvres known as mezes.
‘So—’ He popped a green olive into his mouth
and chewed it. ‘Tell me what such a beautiful woman is doing holidaying on her own?’
Jade looked at him suspiciously, scared that he was making fun of her. ‘Very funny,’ she said.
He raised his eyebrows. ‘What?’
‘I’m not beautiful,’ she told him, her green eyes glittering with a challenge that dared him to lie to her.
He drew his brows together. ‘On the contrary. I’m being deadly serious. You are tall enough to model and you are extremely slender, almost too slender—I can see that I may need to feed you up. But truly, you are beautiful,’ he stated. ‘Quite as- tonishingly so.’
Beautiful? Her? Jade was sensible enough to know her good points and her bad points, but no one had ever called her beautiful before, and in common with others who had had a fragmented childhood her body image was poor. True, she was tall, but she’d always considered herself a bit of a beanpole, and yes, she found it almost impossible to put on weight—which was beneficial in a society so obsessed by thinness. But her mouth was much too wide for conventional beauty, and her narrow slanting eyes did not have the classic wide-eyed appeal which men were said to find attractive. Plus, in England—given the nature of the sexist men she worked with—she tended to sublimate her feminin- ity with her hair scraped back into a sensible plait, and clothes which were designed to be functional but nothing more than that. She supposed that on this holiday she had allowed herself to relax the normal severity with which she dressed. But beautiful? Did he say that to all the girls? she wondered.
However, even this sobering thought couldn’t abate her delight, and Jade found herself smiling at Constantine like an idiot. This was ridiculous- one compliment and she was like putty in his hands!
‘So,’ he continued. ‘Tell me why you’re here on your own?’
‘I needed a break,’ she said honestly.
‘A break from what?’
Jade twirled the stem of her glass round and round between her fingers, watching the conden- sation trickle slowly down the side.
Tricky. She wondered just how much to tell him.
True, Constantine was a Greek, whose family owned a tiny taverna on a small Greek island—he might not even have heard of the Daily View. But what if he had?
After she’d won the Young Journalist compe- tition launched by the Daily View, they had offered her a job as reporter—a job she had accepted with eager gratitude, given the cut-throat world of jour- nalism. Then she’d been proud to tell people that she worked on Britain’s best-selling tabloid news- paper. But that was before she’d discovered what most people actually thought of the Daily View.
They despised it.
Time and time again, when she had explained who she worked for, she had seen an expression of scorn come into the faces of people who viewed tabloid writers as total drunks with no morals. So, in the end, she had stopped telling them. It made for an easier life.
She stared into Constantine’s dark eyes and made her decision. This was one evening out of her lifetime, she reasoned; an evening scented with magic which would soon become nothing more than a distant memory. This was total fantasy, so why taint it with the bitter taste of reality?
She saw that he was waiting for her answer and gave a little shrug. ‘I just wanted a break,’ she said carefully.
‘A break from something in particular?’ he probed. ‘A man perhaps?’
Now he really had got the wrong end of the stick! ’Heavens, no!’ she exclaimed fervently, unaware of the small smile he gave to this. ‘Nothing like that! I meant a break from city life.’
He sipped at his drink and surveyed her curi- ously. ‘You’re very young?’
‘I’m twenty,’ she answered, and then, more ten- tatively, because it suddenly seemed terribly im- portant, ‘And you?’
‘Thirty.’ There was a glimmer of a smile. Had he guessed what she’d been thinking? ‘That is a good gap, yes? Ten years?’ He stared across the table at her moonwashed hair, raising his glass to his lips. ’So tell me—what do you think of my island?’
‘You don’t actually happen to own it, do you?’ she joked.
‘You must forgive me yet another possessive Greek statement,’ he said implacably.
‘I love your island,’ she said simply. ‘I’ve never relaxed so much in my life. I’ve spent my whole time being thoroughly lazy, swimming every day’
‘I know.’
She looked into his eyes. ‘How can you know?’
‘Because I’ve watched you. Looking like a mermaid with that yellow hair, those mysterious green eyes, that secretive smile.’
‘You were—watching me?’ she asked, appalled at the way her heart galloped into action.
He nodded. ‘I was your guardian angel. Like today. Didn’t you know?’
Jade shook her head. ‘No.’ Thank heavens she hadn’t gone topless!
‘And do you mind?’
‘I don’t know really. Isn’t it a loss of the privacy you were so keen to preserve this evening?’
He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps. But I couldn’t stay away,’ he said simply, as though this excused everything, then popped another olive into his mouth and smiled. ‘Let’s order.’
Jade was relieved to have something relatively ordinary to do to keep her attention from the lunatic thoughts which were buzzing around her head. For Constantine seemed to possess some powerful quality she’d never encountered in a man before. Something which touched and matched some deep, dark longing inside her, offering her a glimpse of a passionate side to her nature she hadn’t dreamed existed.
And she already suspected—no, she knew, that this—relationship, if you could call it that, threat- ened to get out of control very quickly. And she knew what out of control meant. Shocking though it was, she wanted this arrogant and handsome man she’d only just met to make love to her. She wanted to taste the pleasures that she instinctively knew that only he could offer her. But no one in their right mind would allow such a wish to become reality. After all, what possible future could a London- based journalist have with a restaurant proprietor who lived on a distant Greek island?
None.
Jade forced herself to apply her attention towards the food, which was surprisingly good and simple. They ate Greek salad, scarlet with tomatoes and white with feta cheese and black with olives, with strong olive oil drizzled all over it. ‘And what do you do in England?’ he pursued.
‘Oh, it’s just a boring old typing job,’ she said vaguely. True, although she knew she was being economical with the truth—but what if he had the rest of the world’s prejudices about tabloid journalists? The evening would be ruined before it had even got started. She dipped some bread into the olive oil, then ate it. ‘And how about you? Are you a waiter at your family’s restaurant?’
He paused with the fork halfway to his mouth, and the corners of his mouth twitched before he laid it down on his plate. ‘Sometimes,’ he said. ‘And I help them—balance the books—as the English say.’
She looked around her and breathed in the scented air. ‘It must be a heavenly place to live,’ she told him.
‘Oh, it is,’ he agreed gravely. ‘Indeed, it is.’
And after that the evening seemed to get better and better.
‘You have brothers and sisters?’ he asked.
Jade took a large swallow of wine. ‘No. And you?’
Something indefinable came into his eyes as he shook his head. ‘Just a brother. And a—’ He hesitated, momentarily. ‘Step-sister. But I like big families. And you?’
It was something she had never, ever considered until this moment. Children were somewhere off in a hazy, rosy future which she’d somehow never im- agined happening, not to her. She had never given much thought to children, but tonight she was, and she had the strongest suspicion that he was, too. She remembered their eyes meeting over the head of the tousle-haired toddler, of that spark which had flown between the two of them; a spark born out of mutual need and understanding. But what on earth was she admitting to? That she wanted to stay here and have his children? To live on a Greek island with one of its inhabitants? She, who had always been so ambitious, so determined to succeed?
Yes, yes, yes!
‘What’s the matter?’ He interrupted her silence. ’You don’t approve of big families?’
As the truth dawned on her, it felt like coming home. ‘Oh, no—I absolutely love them!’
He smiled, his eyes gently sweeping over her shining eyes, her dazzling smile. ‘I’m glad,’ he said softly.
Never had a meal seemed to take so long; Jade had no appetite for it. She remembered having odd dates where the meal had assumed the greatest im- portance because the man she was out with had seemed so dull. And yet tonight—delicious as the barbouni smelt, and however sweet and succulent its flesh, she couldn’t wait to be away from here, to be some place alone with Constantine, to taste the delights of his lips, discover the safety of his arms.
At last they were away and walking back down the dusty road, until they reached her cottage. He hadn’t tried to kiss her, not once, and when they stood outside her door Jade turned to him in confusion.
He nodded as he read her eyes. ‘Not tonight, agape mou.’ And then he said something in Greek softly beneath his breath.
‘What did you just say?’
He gave a soft laugh. ‘Epikindhinos. It means dangerous. Just like you. There is danger in the witchy slant of your eyes, in the pale waterfall of your hair. And the dangers that lie within those dark red lips, and all the secret places of your body—ah! They are too manifold even to dare to imagine!’
Jade found herself laughing at his extravagance; somehow he had turned the tension into humour, and she found herself admiring him for it. The first man who hadn’t tried to leap on her on a first date. Typical that it should be the only one she’d ever wanted to!
He picked up her hand and carried it to his lips, placed a fleeting kiss there. ‘We shall spend the day together tomorrow.’
‘Doing what?’
There was a fleetingly ruthless smile. ‘Doing our best not to make love. Being—circumspect. That is what we must do. And now, my golden-haired angel—go and sleep. Dream of me until I arrive tomorrow morning.’
Not surprisingly, she did dream of him, and wonderful dreams they were, too—but the reality of the real man who arrived the following morning at eight o’clock far outshone the dream version.
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Sharon Kendrik
When enemies marry…Constantine Sioulas was a man of primitive passions… . Jade knew that. But she couldn't believe it when, after a whirlwind courtship, he insisted that she marry him! Things like that simply didn't happen to girls like her… did they? And Constantine soon made it clear that, far from loving Jade, he despised her for her apparent betrayal.But, locked into this marriage of convenience, Jade was determined to enjoy her husband's special brand of savage seduction!"New author Sharon Kendrick makes a good first mark in the romance genre… " - Romantic Times on No Escaping Love
“I’m afraid that you have sealed your fate.”
Jade felt a shiver of apprehension trickle its way slowly down her spine. “What in heaven’s name are you talking about?”
Constantine made an impatient gesture with his hand. “You will marry me, and as quickly as possible.”
There was shocked, stunned silence as Jade stared at Constantine in disbelief. “You must be mad,” she whispered, “to think that I’d ever ever marry you.”
Dear Reader (#uee196dd0-4a45-5882-940d-0244023c67ad),
One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you - which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.
There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.
I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia to escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100
story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”
So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him… Wouldn’t you know it?
I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers.
Love,
Sharon xxx
Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing and awesome 100th book! Sharon is known worldwide for her likeable, spirited heroines and her gorgeous, utterly masculine heroes.
SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…
Savage Seduction
Sharon Kendrick
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Tommy “The Tiger” Crone—the amazing libel lawyer. Thanks for your advice, Tom! And for Patti “Pet” Crone, great wit and great lover of “sparkling”!
Table of Contents
Cover (#uaf6c4ce7-3d4e-5da0-9b16-dafd102ad9a0)
Extract (#u26f75370-7b9f-5ec0-b8c4-e6ddc3c2af8f)
Dear Reader (#ud8f33fc4-343c-588e-8c71-46a66594dbee)
About the Author (#u52c1b200-7667-53f2-81fb-e9441fb5f590)
Title Page (#u72a34d10-bd35-597b-be41-d3e248b13290)
Dedication (#u99d34103-014d-5339-b4f1-4eb68eebbb54)
CHAPTER ONE (#u32fc894d-7c5c-57d7-807e-1b09c7292fb5)
CHAPTER TWO (#ucb5e590c-b7fa-5567-b2ca-6e7f9026d53c)
CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_1e425c40-f1b6-5a5f-aee0-b99ebc732282)
‘OH, HELL!’
Jade made the husky imprecation as she emerged from the gin-clear water, to see that the two would- be Romeos from her home city of London had none too subtly moved themselves even closer to her towel. She shook the droplets of water from her long hair, feeling decidedly disgruntled at the prospect of having to tell them politely to go away. Again.
The droplets of water had already begun to dry on her skin. The sea had been the temperature of warm milk and as soon as she’d left it the relentless heat of the sun had started beating down on her without mercy. But that was Greece for you.
The most exquisite place she’d ever visited—with sky which was bluer than a denim shirt and sand the colour of cream and the texture of caster sugar. Add to that the heady scents of lemon mingled with pine, the wine-dark sea and the drowse-inducing mass chorus of the cicadas, and you could under- stand why when people discovered Greece they felt they’d stumbled on Paradise.
If only it weren’t so darned hot!
She picked her way over the burning sand, and one of the Romeos sprang to his feet, the sun glinting off his fair hair.
‘Hi, there, beautiful,’ he said, somewhat unorig- inally. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
‘No, thanks,’ answered Jade coolly, wondering what it was about some men which made them so dense in picking up the distinctly negative vibes she was sending out.
‘How about—’ He raised his eyebrows sugges- tively, as his glance strayed to her sopping bosom, and Jade felt a sudden stirring of apprehension as she picked up her sarong to cover the tiny yellow bikini she wore.
His leer increased. ‘—if I rub some sun-cream into your back—?’
‘How about,’ came a deep and softly menacing voice from behind Jade’s back, ‘if you left this beach and never returned?’
And Jade whirled round to see the man from the restaurant, her throat immediately drying with the powerful impact of his darkly rugged good looks.
The Londoner was foolishly attempting resist- ance. ‘What’s it to do with you?’ he demanded belligerently.
‘Move away from here,’ came the flat and delib- erate statement, ‘before I am forced to remove you myself.’
There was something in his dark eyes which brooked no argument, and the two men blanched beneath their tans. Jade watched while they gathered their few possessions up into their arms and crept away like chastened dogs.
She stayed watching them go, unaccountably ex- cited by the man’s presence, yet oddly unsure of what to do next, and it was a moment or two before she could bring herself to look up at her rescuer, who stood silently surveying her, as though it was his every right to do so. He was a stranger, yes, and yet she recognised him instantly. A man once seen, never forgotten—with the kind of fiercely dominant presence which would imprint itself on any woman’s psyche, as it had on Jade’s. And yet they hadn’t even exchanged a word when she had seen him at the taverna yesterday…
Jade had walked into the local village to buy her provisions, and as usual it had been baking hot, absolutely baking. She had scooped her hand back through her thick fair hair as she’d looked over longingly at the shady canopy of lemon trees in the taverna. Through the air she could scent the lamb smouldering on the barbeque with its big bunches of thyme strewn all over it. She saw the tentacles of the octopuses dangling over a line, awaiting their ritual dousing in lemon juice before cooking. She wasn’t fond of eating alone in the restaurants where tourists abounded, but this one looked full of fam- ilies, and, more interestingly, full of Greeks. It must be good, she’d thought as she made her way to a shaded table.
She had ordered Greek salad, a beer and a plate of olives and was sitting enjoying them until when a small child, all dark curls and heart-shaped face, waddled over to her table. The mother called the child back in Greek, but Jade turned and shook her head, smiling, and starting to play ‘peep-bo’ with the toddler, who eventually climbed on to her lap and began to pick up a strand of her blonde hair in wonder. Jade pulled a funny face at the little girl who immediately giggled back as she continued to play with the blonde hair. The feeling of having the child in her arms was a new and rather enjoyable experience, and Jade couldn’t help hugging her, delighted when the little girl nestled back quite happily.
Jade had sensed, rather than seen, that someone was watching her. Well, in fact, most of the res- taurant were. They were enjoying the little inter- play between the child and the young tourist.
But this sensation was different… Little hairs at the back of her neck began to prickle with some nebulous excitement.
She narrowed her eyes, looking into the dim air- conditioned interior of the restaurant, and through the gloom she saw a table, where a man sat sur- rounded by three or four others. A man in a white shirt and white jeans. A man to whom the others listened. A man with eyes as black as olives and as hard as jet. Eyes which gleamed and narrowed, frozen in a stare as they captured her gaze over the head of the child. For a stunned moment Jade stared back, unable to look away—her mouth sud- denly dry, her heart pounding erratically and an unfamiliar excitement stealing over her as she gazed at the man, some unfamiliar and primitive longing sweeping over her as their eyes locked.
The man whose quietly menacing authority had driven away the two tourists, and who now stood on the beach in front of her.
The stranger was Greek; he could be nothing else. He had the proud bearing and the superbly shaped head of his ancestors. But he was tall for a Greek: a couple of inches over six feet, she hazarded. His skin was coloured a luminously soft olive, the kind of colour which made the sales of fake tan rocket, and it gleamed very slightly, the slight sheen em- phasising the ripple of muscle. His hair was as black as tar, rich and thick—a mass of unruly waves worn just slightly too long. Today he was wearing nothing but a pair of sawn-off denims; very faded and very scruffy. Those and a pair of beaten-up sandals. She swallowed at the sight of so much naked flesh on show. She should have been frightened, and yet fear was the last thing on her mind as she returned his gaze. She stared into eyes as cold and forbidding and harsh as jet. Narrow eyes that glittered; eyes which studied her with a detached and yet strangely intense appraisal which was almost intoxicating in itself.
And all of a sudden, it happened again: a replay of the sensations she had experienced the last time she had seen him. She felt her senses clamour into life, felt her heart accelerate painfully, accepted the flood of colour to her cheeks and the almost debili- tating dryness of her mouth as she battled to compose herself.
‘Why are you here on your own?’ came his terse interrogation.
The question floored her; she was so outraged at its implicit chauvinism. ‘Because I like my own company,’ she answered coolly.
He didn’t respond to the inference. ‘Well, do not do so again.’
Jade’s eyes narrowed in disbelief. ‘Don’t do what?’
Jet eyes glittered dangerously. ‘Do not put yourself at risk. This beach is too isolated; a woman is too vulnerable.’
He spoke, she thought suddenly, like a man used to giving orders, and having them obeyed.
‘Who—are you?’ she asked suddenly, in a voice which seemed to have deepened by at least an octave.
He stilled, his ebony eyes narrowed with sus- picion. ‘You don’t know?’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! If I knew then I wouldn’t be asking, surely?’
‘No.’ He was examining her face intently, like a man newly given sight, and that slow inspection stirred some answering response deep within her. He looked, she thought dizzily, like a king—there was something stately and proud in his bearing. And yet how could he when, to judge by his ap- pearance, he was obviously a beach bum? She had been reading far too many romantic novels on this holiday—let that be a lesson to her!
‘My name is Constantine Sioulas,’ he replied, in a gloriously deep voice, with only the faintest trace of an accent, and again the black eyes pierced her with their intense scrutiny.
Constantine. She tested the name in her mind; found it the most beautiful name in the whole world, which was really rather appropriate, as the man in front of her was the most beautiful man she had ever laid eyes on.
‘And you?’ He lifted an enquiring eyebrow. ’What is your name?’
‘It’s Jade,’ she said rather breathlessly, as though she’d just stopped running. ‘Jade Meredith.’
‘Jade.’ He nodded his head, thoughtfully. ‘Yes. It suits you,’ he pronounced. ‘Your eyes are the colour of jade.’
And her cheeks were now the colour of rubies, she thought ruefully as she blushed beneath the slow scrutiny of his gaze, revelling in the approbation on his face, and yet despising herself for the way she was behaving. Why not just fall down in rever- ence at his knees and kiss his feet, Jade!
‘No, they’re not,’ she lifted her chin in a defiant little gesture. ‘My eyes are pale green. Jade is darker.’
He shook his head. ‘Sometimes,’ he contra- dicted. ‘The Chinese say that the colour deepens and intensifies as the wearer acquires wisdom. It would be an interesting experiment—to see whether that is true.’ He gave a small almost reluctant smile, like the smile of a man not used to smiling. ‘Shall I buy you jade, Jade Meredith?’ he said softly. ’Jewels of jade for you to wear next to that pale, pale skin? Together we could watch it growing darker day by day.’
His words were so inappropriate considering that they’d only just met. And yet he spoke them with a coolly assured confidence which only renewed the throbbing of blood to her pulse points.
‘My skin isn’t pale,’ she protested. After nearly three weeks in the sun, it had turned a pale golden colour—she was quite proud of it!
‘Most certainly it is,’ he contradicted, in the rich, glowing voice overlaid with its barely discernible yet totally seductive accent. ‘Pale as milk—at least when you compare it with mine.’
And at his words she found her eyes drawn irre- sistibly to the dark olive of his bare chest and shoulders, the strong forearms, and the equally strong thighs. Her mind responded to his suggestion with frightening clarity as she pictured her lying on a bed with him, his dark limbs tangled with hers, strong brown thigh against a thigh as pale as milk… Jade had to close her eyes briefly to blot out the tantalising image, but it didn’t work.
‘Shall we?’ he whispered silkily.
‘Shall we what?’ she echoed huskily, lost in some misty erotic world of her own.
He smiled, and it was a suddenly ruthless smile. The smile, she recognised with an unquestionable certainty, of a man who was used to getting whatever it was he wanted.
‘I was referring to buying the jade,’ he said softly. ’But we should have to go to the mainland to do that, and I don’t want to waste precious hours doing that, not when there are so many more attractive alternatives.’ He smiled. ‘Come, I shall walk you back to your house.’
It was most definitely an order. Jade bristled. ‘That won’t be necessary.’
‘On the contrary,’ he answered smoothly, but there was a steely quality to his voice now. ‘I insist.’
Most annoyingly, she found the arrogant protec- tiveness in his assertion extremely attractive, but a lifetime of paying lip-service to feminism couldn’t be banished overnight! She met his gaze steadily. ’I said no, thank you.’
‘I heard what you said, but it doesn’t change a thing.’
Jade shook her head from side to side in a mixture of amusement and exasperation. ‘Do you always insist on getting your own way?’ she demanded.
He grinned then, the most heartbreakingly gorgeous grin imaginable, and that was her un- doing. ‘I always get my own way,’ he murmured. ’Though not always by insisting. I don’t usually have to,’ he added arrogantly.
That she could imagine! Jade had to try very hard to suppress a smile as she watched while he bent down to retrieve her bag and her towel and tucked them under his arm with an old-fashioned courtesy—which she certainly wasn’t used to. She knew she was fighting a losing battle here, and what was more, she was quickly discovering that it was a battle she didn’t particularly want to fight anyway. ’Then I’ll take you up on your offer of walking me home,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’ And she saw from the slight elevation of his eyebrows that he hadn’t missed the sarcastic emphasis.
‘My pleasure.’ His eyes were mocking. Then. ’Those tourists—do not worry about them. They shall not bother you again.’
There was something about the grim, gravelly undertone to his voice which made it sound vaguely threatening. Jade swallowed; she hadn’t thought that men like this existed outside films! ‘Er—you wouldn’t hurt them?’ asked Jade anxiously. ‘They weren’t really doing anything.’
‘Because I arrived.’ His eyes glittered like coals from hell. ‘I saw the way he was looking at you.’ He made a terse exclamation in Greek.
Jade swallowed. Had she been blase about the danger? She saw the hard, formidable lines in the handsome face, saw the ruthless glitter in the black eyes, and she knew a fleeting feeling of sympathy for the two hapless tourists. ‘You won’t—hurt them?’ she whispered again, and was relieved to see a half-smile lift the corner of his mouth.
‘What did you imagine I would do—beat them into pulp?’ he queried softly, and then he gave an amused smile. ‘Do not be concerned, little one. I shall merely speak to them—that will serve as suf- ficient deterrent.’
Feeling as though she’d been caught up in a sudden time warp, Jade stared curiously up at him. ’Do you always over-react like this?’ she quizzed him, forcing her voice to be light.
He shook his head. ‘It is not over-reacting at all.’ Some feral light sparked at the depths of the coal- dark eyes. ‘In Greece, you see,’ he told her, ‘we are protective of our women.’
He made her feel very small and very fragile, not a bit like her rather lanky five feet nine, and Jade couldn’t repress a shiver of excitement. Put like that it sounded so darkly atavistic, so—well, so thrilling, the idea of someone like this black-eyed and powerfully built man actually protecting her. Be- cause hadn’t protection been in very short supply in her life up until now?
The sun beat down on their bare heads as they walked up from the beach to the narrow track which was masquerading as a road. Jade could see the heat shimmering hazily upwards into the endless blue of the sky.
‘Put your hat on,’ he said.
She obediently crammed the battered straw down on her head. ‘Shouldn’t you?’
He gave a little shake of his head. ‘I am used to the sun.’
And hair that thick, that black, thought Jade, would surely protect him from its fierce rays?
Lizards ran swiftly along the sun-baked road, and he named them for her, pointing out tiny scrubby and fragrant plants that she’d never noticed before. His accent was entrancing; it lulled her into a dreamy sense of well-being, and when they arrived at last at the small house she was renting she stared up at him, aware of the disappointment thudding through her. I don’t want this day to end, she thought suddenly.
‘You want to know what we should do next?’
Could he guess so easily what she was thinking? she wondered dimly. Did her reluctance to see him go show on her face? ‘I…’ Her voice tailed off in hopeless confusion—she who everyone always said could talk her way into the record books!
‘We have a number of choices,’ he mused, as though this were the kind of bizarre conversation he was used to conducting every day. Was he? ‘You could offer me some of your water and we could sit together and drink. Or we could walk down to the village and take some refreshment there. Alternatively, I could initiate what we both most want to do?’
And only the biggest fool in the world would have replied, ‘Which is?’
‘Why, to kiss, of course,’ he replied, his voice a velvet caress which would have melted ice. ‘That’s what you want me to do, isn’t it?’
Now she could feel her cheeks blanch—heaven only knew what harm this man was doing to her nervous system! He was virtually making love to her with his eyes. Jade Meredith the fearless re- porter took stock of the potentially dicey situation she was in, and astonishingly still felt no fear. She used the gritty voice with which she’d fired ques- tions at soap stars and the unsuspecting wives of footballers.
‘Just who are you?’ she demanded. She’d met confident men in her life before, yes, men who were arrogantly sure of their effect on women, yes—but never one who was this confident!
At the question, his eyes narrowed and he stilled, watching her intently from beneath dark, luxuriant brows. ‘I told you.’ His voice was a slumberous caress. ‘My name is Constantine.’
‘Yes—but…’ Her voice trailed off helplessly. What could she say? Yes, you’re right, you delec- table man—I do want you to kiss me? More than I’ve ever wanted anything in my whole life? She was breaking every rule in the book by even standing here listening to him. What about all that assertiveness training she’d undergone? Did women allow men to change their minds for them? No, they most certainly did not! She gave him a conven- tional and dismissive nod. It was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do in her life. ‘It was very kind of you to accompany me—but I think you’d better leave now.’
He smiled again. ‘In time.’
He had moved closer now, and when he moved it was like poetry in motion. You could see the muscles moving in perfect symmetry beneath the olive perfection of his skin.
He really wasn’t that tall, she reminded herself; plenty of men were taller than six feet, and she was only a few inches shorter herself. Yet there was something about the width of his shoulders and the magnificent breadth of a chest with its dark, dark whorls of hair. Something, too, about the powerful thrust of his thighs—as solidly carved as the trunk of an oak tree. All these things combined to make him seem the biggest man she had ever seen. She suppressed another little shiver of excitement.
He was smiling now as he let her give him the once over, again with that curiously cold smile- as though laughter was a stranger to his life. ‘You aren’t afraid of me.’ It was a statement of fact; he sounded amused.
‘No.’ Perhaps that was the wrong thing to say. She knew that Greek men were notoriously old- fashioned. Would he have preferred it if she’d started backing away from him, white-faced and trembling? Oh, come on, Jade, she chided—why should you care what he’d prefer?
‘Not even a little afraid?’ he quizzed her softly. ’And yet you terrify me.’
Jade swallowed. Now he was talking in riddles. ’No, I’m not afraid of you,’ she said firmly, and held her chin up stubbornly. ‘But I happen to have a black belt in judo, just in case you’re getting any ideas.’
This provoked a laugh, a low, rich chuckle, and Jade stupidly felt as though she’d just won the first prize in a raffle. ‘Very commendable,’ he re- marked. ‘But you know that your—black belt—in judo wouldn’t do you any good at all?’
Such arrogance! Such amazing arrogance! ‘Let me enlighten you,’ she said quite calmly, which was astonishing considering how fast her heart was hammering away in her chest. ‘Size has nothing to do with it.’
‘Oh, really?’ he teased softly, and her comment became something else completely. The black eyes glittered with mischief, and Jade coloured to the roots of her hair. Now what had she said?
‘I mean comparative size,’ she said firmly, re- fusing to back down or be intimidated. ‘You are taller and obviously stronger than I am, but judo isn’t about brute strength—it’s all to do with control and balance, of observing your opponent and waiting for the right opportunity.’
‘I know. And that isn’t what I meant.’
‘Oh? And just what did you mean? You implied that I’d be unable to defeat you.’
‘Absolutely,’ he said softly. ‘And do you know why? Because I think that once we made contact…whoosh!’ He lifted the palms of his hands in front of that magnificent bare chest in a flam- boyant gesture that an Englishman could never have got away with.
Jade’s heart had renewed its hammering. She shouldn’t be letting him talk to her like this; didn’t Greek men notoriously think that Englishwomen were easy? Well, he was about to discover that Jade Meredith was not among that merry band of women who fell swooning into the arms of handsome islanders for two weeks of holiday bliss before being put firmly on the plane with a load of lies about writing. ‘Is this your normal chat-up line?’ she asked cuttingly. ‘Because it if is I’d give you nought out of ten for subtlety!’
The dark brows knitted together. ‘Chat-up line,’ he mused. ‘Considering that English is one of the most perfect and complex of languages, that phrase is rather—inelegant, wouldn’t you say?’
It was rather shaming that someone to whom English was not a first language could express himself so eloquently, Jade thought with a touch of irritation. She had expected that to put him in his place, not to start some highbrow discussion about semantics!
The ebony brows remained knitted together. ‘And if we’re going to continue this—fascinating dis- cussion—might I suggest that we do it in a little more comfort?’ He looked pointedly at the table where the empty water jug sat. ‘Shall we sit down?’
Excitement vyed with prudence. ‘Why should we? I don’t know you,’ she said stubbornly.
‘But you know enough to know that I won’t hurt you?’
Jade stared at him. Enough, yes, to know that he would never physically hurt her, but… as she looked into those glittering black eyes, observed the slash of jaw and the high cheekbones, she suddenly felt some terrifying fear icing her skin. A knowledge that, yes, this magnificent creature with the cold smile and the eyes of jet could hurt her. That through him she could learn the real meaning of pain; indescribable, unbearable pain… She started to shake uncontrollably, a violent tremor which ran through her body like wildfire.
He saw her tremble. A warm hand was placed on her chilled forearm and she felt his strength like a warm embrace.
‘Fear not—I will not hurt you,’ he said quietly.
You will, she thought suddenly. Oh, this was rid- iculous! Had three weeks in Greece had turned her into a clairvoyant? She shook him away inel- egantly, but he captured her hand in his, raising it to his mouth where it stayed just centimetres away from the proud curve of his lips.
‘Do you not know that in Greece it is customary to offer the traveller refreshment?’
Her breathing was inhibited, shallow, painful. She awaited the brush of his mouth on her hand.
In vain.
His eyes gleamed and he let her hand go, but somehow he had regained supremacy, and Jade was angry. Angry with herself for wanting him to press his lips on to her hand, and angry that he had not chosen to! And she wasn’t sending him away with him thinking that she was some kind of desperado! She straightened her shoulders and gave her most English smile, spoke in her most chillingly polite tone.
‘Then you must sit down and have a drink.’
‘Thank you.’ In response, he deepened his accent, his eyes sparking with mischief, and Jade found herself wanting to giggle. So much for icy polite- ness!
‘I’ll fill the jug and fetch another glass,’ she said hastily.
And she scrambled inside as he pulled out one of the wooden chairs, which now looked hopelessly insubstantial if expected to accommodate that large, muscular frame.
Jade filled the jug with water and ice and found the glass with fingers which were still trembling, her eyes lifting reluctantly to the small spotted mirror which hung on the whitewashed walls. A wild-eyed, fey stranger stared back at her. Her pale green eyes were almost unrecognisable as her own, the colour almost completely obscured by the deep ebony of two dilated and glittering pupils. Her mouth looked swollen and throbbing and redder than usual—had she been chewing it while talking to him? she wondered. Even her hair—baby-fine but masses of it—which she hadn’t had a chance to brush since he’d disturbed her; it had dried into a thick, pale cloud—shimmered like an uncontrol- lable halo around her head. The sun had bleached it almost blonde. Did Constantine, she thought suddenly, like women with blonde hair?
She took the jug and glass back outside, half afraid that he might have disappeared, but he hadn’t. He had spread those long olive legs beneath the table and was watching her return.
Walking suddenly seemed a skill she hadn’t yet acquired, and she would have stumbled if a strong hand hadn’t shot out and caught her. She managed to get the jug down on the table, but the tumbler slipped from her grasp; the sound of the glass shat- tering on the grey stone of the courtyard sounding piercingly loud to her ears.
‘Oh, hell! Now look what you’ve made me do,’ said Jade unreasonably, and, crouching down, she began gingerly to pick up the larger fragments.
He was beside her in an instant. ‘Be careful,’ he told her, but it was too late, a shard had pierced her forefinger, and crimson blood began to well and to drop in dark starry splashes on to the grey stone.
Her finger went up to her mouth, but he deliber- ately took it before it reached its destination, the black eyes fixed on hers as he put it into his mouth and sucked the blood away.
If there hadn’t been glass all around them, Jade thought that she would have keeled over. She felt the blood drain from her face as she stared into the night-dark eyes.
‘You—shouldn’t have done that,’ she said shakily.
He relieved the pressure, but her finger stayed firmly in the hot, moist cavern of his mouth. ‘Why not?’
‘It’s dangerous,’ she managed. ‘Blood…’
He shook his head, as if he understood her meaning perfectly. ‘I think not.’
‘How can you know?’ she demanded breath- lessly. ‘We’ve only just met.’
His eyes met hers. ‘I know,’ he said softly.
Another slow and deliberate suck; it was the most erotic thing that had ever happened to her in her life—and then he took the finger from his mouth, examined it and held it up for her inspection. ‘The flow is stemmed,’ he pronounced, and something in the formality of this statement, spoken with all the solemnity of a Victorian surgeon, instead of the more modern ‘it’s stopped bleeding’, made Jade’s lips twitch in amusement.
He saw the movement, and raised his eyebrows. ’What?’
‘You have a very formal way of speaking,’ she said honestly. ‘But your English is absolutely superb.’
He inclined his head. ‘And so it should be. I grew up with it as my second language.’
She shook her head, as if bemused by what was happening. ‘Are you always like this— Constantine?’ She said his name experimentally for the first time. Her tongue had to protrude a little in order to pronounce it properly, in the slightly lisping Greek manner. She liked saying it, liked the way his eyes flared as he watched her tongue snake out and then back in again.
‘Like-what?’
Jade stared back into the glittering black eyes, realising that she actually felt as though she were high on something—if this feeling was ever mar- keted, the world would go into total chaos! ‘So darned assertive!’ she answered crisply.
He looked surprised. ‘But naturally. Are not all men supposed to be assertive? The dominant ones?’
She smiled. ‘That’s not what the feminists would say.’
‘Ah! The feminists! You are one of these?’ He ran his eyes lazily over the bright and filmy covering of her sarong, at the cloud of blonde hair. ‘I don’t think so,’ he observed.
Jade could not let that pass. ‘You think that I couldn’t possibly be a feminist because I haven’t got cropped hair and am not wearing dungarees?’
A light flared in his eyes. ‘But those are your words, Jade,’ he said softly. ‘Not mine. No, I made the comment because I could imagine you soft, and pliant, loving and giving. Very feminine, but not a feminist. There is a subtle difference, you know.’
Jade realised that she was letting him get away with statements she would have emphatically dis- agreed with if she’d been back at home in England. Persuasive kind of guy. She tried again. ‘But men being so dominant and assertive,’ she said, ‘it isn’t really the modern way.’
‘But I,’ he answered proudly, ‘am not a modern man. At heart all Greeks are ruled by the very same passions which have existed since the beginning of time.’
This was totally new, uncharted and terribly ex- citing territory, men talking quite openly of passion. Jade shivered.
‘But perhaps,’ he said deliberately, ‘you are not used to assertive men?’
Oh, but she was—she most certainly was! But there was a world of difference between the way all the men at her office behaved, and the way that Constantine was behaving. Her editor rode roughshod over all the staff. However, perhaps that was less like assertion, and more like bullying! Cer- tainly there was none of this man’s cool assurance in her boss’s behaviour.
‘Well, are you?’ he persisted.
She wasn’t used to men at all, not in the sense that he meant. Which was probably why she was responding in such a pathetic way towards this par- ticular man. Men had been deliberately put on ice until the career which had meant so much to her had had a chance to develop properly—the career which she was now thinking of chucking in because she was so disillusioned with it. A cynic already— and at the tender age of twenty!
She stared into the black eyes, blinked, then looked down at the thick fragments of glass which glittered by their feet. Mostly from a desire to steer the conversation away from her shameful lack of experience with the opposite sex, she began to turn away. ‘I’d better go and fetch a dustpan and brush’
‘No.’
There he went again, dishing out the orders! Jade stared up at him, half in anger, half in admiration, marvelling that it actually felt extraordinarily good to be around such a masterful man. Shame on her!
‘You put some covering on your finger. Go! I will deal with the glass.’
She found herself obeying him without question. In the tiny bedroom she found the box of Elastoplast she had brought with her from England, and, after removing the wrapping, she shakily ap- plied one to her thumb. She could hear him moving around in the kitchen, presumably looking for the dustpan and brush. She didn’t doubt for a moment that he’d find it!
She wondered fleetingly whether she had a touch of sunstroke. Surely normal women of her age didn’t allow half-clothed perfect strangers the run of their house? And yet, given the outstanding at- traction of the man, she didn’t feel in the least bit threatened. She examined her finger carefully. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She felt a threat, all right, but it had absolutely nothing to do with thinking that he might be some mad axeman. It was more an interested kind of wondering just what would happen if she caught him in a judo stranglehold. That expressive little ‘whoosh’ sound he’d made… implying… mmmm…
She went outside to find him disposing of the last of the glass. It was strange to see such a self- proclaimed non-modern man doing it so com- petently, and yet to see Constantine brushing up the fragments of glass… it almost emphasised his masculinity, rather than detracting from it. Con- fusing, she thought fleetingly. He’d talked about the man assuming the dominant role, and had teased her about feminists, and yet he didn’t seem to mind lending a hand. Interesting.
As she appeared, he straightened up.
‘I will wrap it up tightly in newspaper,’ he in- structed. ‘So no more cut fingers.’
Jade nodded, acknowledging the perverse sinking of her heart. There was something of the farewell in the way he spoke. Surely he wasn’t going?
She ventured a smile. ‘You didn’t have your drink.’
‘No matter. It is time I was going.’
She had been right. ‘Yes.’ Disappointment crept through her veins like a debilitating drug.
‘I shall collect you at seven.’
‘Collect me?’ squeaked Jade, only keeping the excitement from her voice with the most monu- mental of efforts. ‘What for?’
The mouth moved again in its curious smile. ’Why, for dinner, of course.’
‘I’m having dinner with you?’
‘Of course. Don’t you want to?’
Which he asked with all the casual arrogance of a man who knew damned well that of course she wanted to have dinner with him! Who wouldn’t? Jade had never experienced this overwhelming at- traction before; it made you weak and it made you powerless. And she wasn’t really sure whether she liked the feeling or not. Besides which—wouldn’t it be totally foolhardy to go tripping off with him? Why should he presume that she’d just drop every- thing and have dinner with him? And what hap- pened after dinner? What did he expect? Did he assume that because she was English she was going to fall into bed with him?
‘What makes you think I’ll say yes?’
He gave a slow smile, then raised that olive- skinned hand to her face. ‘These,’ he said softly, as he indicated her eyes. ‘They give me one answer and one answer only. Then this—’ And a finger brushed negligently over the bow of her mouth. ‘It trembles with anticipation. And—’ and here the eyes changed, the spark in their ebony depths be- coming a feverish flame ‘—there are other outward signs of how much you want to see me again, but we will not go into those. Not now.’
She was innocent, but she knew exactly what he meant. She had been unsuccessfully trying to ignore the hot tingling as her tiny breasts thrust against the still damp material of her bikini top. The tips were as painfully hard as metal and yet the pain was bearable, pleasurable even, and her eyelids dropped to hide her confusion. She knew what she wanted, what she clamoured for. She clamoured for his touch. And, oh, heavens—wasn’t it desperately shameful to want a complete stranger to touch her intimately? To run those strong brown fingers all over her pale breasts and to linger on the soft swell of her belly? Her cheeks burned.
He moved his hand beneath her chin, so that their eyes were locked on a collision course. In his eyes she could see reflected the febrile glitter in hers. ’I’ll pick you up at seven,’ he said huskily.
It wasn’t fair, thought Jade. For a man to wield so much power over women—all women, she rec- ognised with a violently jealous flare. I’ll bet he never has to ask twice, she thought, with a sudden inexplicable anger, and was determined that in this, at least—she would be different. ‘No, I can’t,’ she said stubbornly and immediately saw a momentary flare of irritation before it was replaced by a ques- tioning look.
‘You’re busy?’
‘That’s right.’
‘No, you’re not,’ he said quietly.
‘Why, of all the—’
But he cut her off with an arrogant shake of his black head. ‘Listen to me, Jade,’ he said quietly. ’You return to England shortly, yes?’
‘In three days,’ something compelled her to tell him.
‘So.’ The hand was still holding her face with gentle strength. ‘We can either play foolish little games with each other. Or…’
‘Or?’
His eyes narrowed; his expression was rueful— as though he was reluctant to complete the sentence.
‘Or we can follow our hearts,’ he said simply.
If anyone else had said it, she would have told them that they were being ridiculously corny, that no one said things like that and meant them, and yet it was the most romantic thing she’d ever en- countered, and Jade felt a warm glow suffuse every pore of her body.
She stared up at him, a lost cause for assertive womanhood. ‘OK,’ she said, giving him a faltering smile as she looked into his eyes. ‘I’ll see you at seven.’
‘Until seven,’ he said, his hand falling from her face as he strode swiftly from the courtyard.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_f92d94f5-33de-5c40-b85d-5682ae94a652)
IN THE five hours until Constantine collected her, Jade experienced just about every mood-swing in the book. What the hell was she playing at? He could be anyone—anyone at all!
What did she know about him?
Absolutely nothing.
Well, that wasn’t quite true. She knew his name and his nationality. Knew instinctively that he had a million times more experience than she had. And she also knew that he was the most devastating man she’d ever set eyes on.
But what was he thinking about her? Was he down in the village even now, boasting to his friends that the English girl had agreed with insulting speed to go out with a man she scarcely knew? Did men respect women who capitulated quite so easily?
Jade sighed. Suddenly, it became very important that he did respect her. I don’t want him thinking I’m like this with everyone, she thought gloomily. But if she tried to tell him that—then wouldn’t it bolster his already appallingly healthy ego?
She sighed again.
She didn’t really have any option but to go. She didn’t know where he lived, so there was no way she could duck out now. She supposed that she could always tell him that she’d changed her mind when he arrived at seven to collect her.
And yet…
Somehow she didn’t see that as a realistic scenario at all. For a start, she wanted to see him, so her words would have the hollow ring of insincerity. And secondly, she couldn’t really see him letting her get away with fobbing him off. She imagined him taking her ruthlessly into his arms, black eyes glimmering like a pirate, to kiss away every single objection she could think of.
Jade shivered as she walked into her bedroom. She would go, but her choice of garment would be crucial. Something demure, something which would definitely not give him the wrong idea…
The only trouble was that the clothes chosen for holidays in baking hot destinations tended to be all the things which weren’t demure. Light, filmy fab- rics. Lots of bare flesh on show. Oh, heck. Jade surveyed the six or so dresses she’d brought with her. She tried them all on, and each one in a differ- ent way made her achingly aware of her own body, unless… she stared at her naked reflec- tion… unless Constantine had done that. Because never before had she been so conscious of the soft swell of her breasts above the slender line of her waist. Breasts which tightened just at the very thought of him. She remembered his comment about pale, pale skin when compared to his, and once again, with a lucidity which was shocking, given her inexperience, Jade closed her eyes and pictured her breasts laid bare. With a dark head bending to take each one in turn, to suckle with delectable sweetness as the dark waves of his hair teased and tickled her flesh…
Jade stared in the spotted mirror in horror, to see her nipples rucking into tight twin peaks, and she drew her hands over them to cover the shock- ingly sensual image with her palms, but even that didn’t help, because she found herself wanting them to be his hands touching her, and she turned away from the mirror, sick with disgust.
But, after she had finally chosen an outfit, she managed to calm down. If she hadn’t trusted him, then she’d never have accepted a date with him. And though he might look all strong and compel- ling charm, she also knew that the Greeks were courteous and charming to visitors. There would never need to be attentions forced… Frankly, she doubted whether he’d had to use an ounce of per- suasion in his life. Which left it up to her to modify the pace.
He was bang on time.
Jade was sitting in the courtyard, reading, when his shadow fell over the pages of her book, and she looked up, unable to keep the smile off her face as she registered his narrow-eyed appreciation of her appearance.
‘Hi,’ she said softly.
‘Hello,’ he echoed. His voice was equally soft, and there was another brief flash of appraisal in his eyes as his gaze swept over her.
She wore a white sleeveless silk T-shirt, together with an ankle-length skirt in layers of white, swirling voile. The starkness of the colour empha- sised the pale golden glow of her skin. At her waist was a soft leather belt of dark green, with an intricately scrolled silver clasp. On her feet were strappy leather sandals in the same green. She had left her hair loose, to fall down her back in a pale waterfall, and at her ears and throat and wrist she wore heavy and intricate silver jewellery.
‘You look wonderful,’ he said quietly.’
She took in the snowy white of his shirt, tucked into dark, tapered trousers. His hair was still damp from the shower, falling into tendrils around his beautifully shaped head. ‘So do you,’ she said honestly.
He looked slightly bemused for a moment, and then he laughed, a deep and rich and glorious sound. ‘Do you know,’ he mused, ‘that’s the first time a woman’s ever said that to me?’
Her cheeks hot, she stared down at her pink- painted toenails, wondering what in the world had made her come out with something like that. His women usually played it cool, obviously, she thought, and a spear of jealousy shot through her. ’I don’t know what came into me—I don’t usually say things like that either,’ she said, her tone more defensive than she’d intended.
But his voice was warm, caressing, forcing her to meet his eyes. ‘Don’t apologise. That’s the magic of the island,’ he said softly. ‘Working her spell on young lovers.’
Oh, lord. He had got the wrong idea. Well, it was about time she put him on the right track. Jade took a deep breath. ‘I think you’re assuming rather a lot, Constantine,’ she said stiffly. ‘I’ve agreed to have dinner with you—that’s all, and I have absol- utely no intention of becoming your lover. And if that’s what you had in mind for the end of the evening, then perhaps you’d better leave right now.’
His eyes darkened, glistened like two fragments of hell’s coal. She saw a muscle begin to work with ominous regularity in the side of the olive cheek, saw his mouth tighten into a hard slash, and then shedid know the meaning of fear, saw suddenly the face of a ruthless man behind the shatteringly handsome mask. All power and strength.
‘Is that what you think?’ he gritted in a low, furious voice. ‘That I am one of these men who expects sex as a form of payment for buying a woman dinner?’
He looked more than angry, she thought, he looked furious, as if she’d deeply offended his code of honour.
‘Of course I don’t!’ she said hurriedly. ‘It’s just—’
‘Just?’
She lifted her shoulders in bewilderment. ‘I didn’t mean to insult you. I don’t know what I meant. When you made that remark about lovers…I didn’t want you to think…’
‘I didn’t,’ he said simply. ‘And as for your con- fusion—do you think I don’t feel it too? Do you think this happens to me every day of the week?’
‘What?’
But he shook his head. ‘Enough. All this talk on an empty stomach. Come. Let’s go and eat.’
She fell into step beside him, giving him her hand when he held his out, walking down the dusty path towards the village, safe within the warmth of his grasp. Sinking into the distance, the giant dinnerplate of a sun flooded them with a rich, crimson light and it felt like being at the centre of some glowing and infernal jewel.
They walked into the village, past the restaurant where she’d seen him yesterday.
He saw the inquisitive rise of her eyebrows. ‘There is little enough privacy in the village,’ he explained. ‘But even less there.’
‘Oh? And why’s that?’
He smiled down at her. ‘My family owns it.’
So—he was in the restaurant business with his family. And he didn’t want her to meet them! Some little English girl he was ashamed to be seen with. She began to pull her hand away, but he wouldn’t let her, instead stopped still on the dusty track and turned her to face him.
‘What’s wrong?’
Peculiarly, it was too important to her to lie about. ‘Of course, if you don’t want me to meet your family—’
‘Agape mou,’ he laughed softly, ‘there is a way that a man can behave with a woman which in Greece would have his family drawing up a wedding list.’
Her heart sounded very loud in her ears. ‘And what way’s that?’
‘Never taking his eyes off her. Not wanting to eat. Not wanting to do anything other than kiss her and make love to her. I’ve seen it happen to other men before; but never to me. The way I intend to behave with you tonight, Jade,’ he finished with quiet emphasis. ‘And I would prefer not to have an audience.’
The darkness was falling and it camouflaged her soft rise in colour, the sharp little intake of breath. It had sounded as if… As if what? As if he was falling in love with her? As she was with him? Oh, stop it, stop it, she thought shakily. ‘But surely,’ she questioned, ‘all the restaurants will be crowded tonight—it’s the height of the season.’
‘Wait and see,’ he promised.
In a dream she walked with him to the outside of the village, to a white building which looked out over the blue and green fragrant hills, the stars be- ginning to glimmer in the indigo velvet of the sky.
A waiter led them to a terrace, where rose- coloured candles burned incandescently on each table against the ever-darkening night. This res- taurant was obviously much more upmarket than the others in the village, thought Jade as Constantine held her chair out for her, because crisp white tablecloths matched the beautifully pleated damask napkins.
There was wine already chilling in the ice-bucket, and Jade accepted a glass, together with the leather- bound menu, her eyes wide with confusion.
‘Where is everyone?’ she whispered. ‘Why are we the only customers?’
He smiled, his teeth showing very white in the olive darkness of his face. ‘Because, as I told you, I wanted privacy.’
‘But how—?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘The proprietor owes me a favour,’ he said implacably, and Jade once again got an overwhelming feeling of a toughness ema- nating from the man who sat opposite her.
She sipped at her drink nervously. ‘You mean- that we’ve got the whole restaurant to ourselves? As a favour to you?’
He gave a little nod. ‘I do.
‘It must have been a very big favour.’ In Jade’s world, people just didn’t do things like that. But this was, after all, Greece. Many parts of it a still very fundamental world, with values light-years away from the superficial mores of life in the highly developed west, or even from life in its capital, Athens. Without knowing why, goosebumps chilled her arms, even though the night air was warm and soft on her skin.
‘Some day I’ll tell you,’ he smiled, and handed her one of the menus.
‘Some day’…?
Did his words imply that they had some sort of future together?
Jade tried very hard to concentrate on the choice of food—grilled fish and meat mainly—and to stop reading things into what he was saying.
Constantine spoke in rapid Greek to the waiter, of which she understood not one word—bar his name, Kris, and moments later they were brought a dish containing the tiny hors-d’oeuvres known as mezes.
‘So—’ He popped a green olive into his mouth
and chewed it. ‘Tell me what such a beautiful woman is doing holidaying on her own?’
Jade looked at him suspiciously, scared that he was making fun of her. ‘Very funny,’ she said.
He raised his eyebrows. ‘What?’
‘I’m not beautiful,’ she told him, her green eyes glittering with a challenge that dared him to lie to her.
He drew his brows together. ‘On the contrary. I’m being deadly serious. You are tall enough to model and you are extremely slender, almost too slender—I can see that I may need to feed you up. But truly, you are beautiful,’ he stated. ‘Quite as- tonishingly so.’
Beautiful? Her? Jade was sensible enough to know her good points and her bad points, but no one had ever called her beautiful before, and in common with others who had had a fragmented childhood her body image was poor. True, she was tall, but she’d always considered herself a bit of a beanpole, and yes, she found it almost impossible to put on weight—which was beneficial in a society so obsessed by thinness. But her mouth was much too wide for conventional beauty, and her narrow slanting eyes did not have the classic wide-eyed appeal which men were said to find attractive. Plus, in England—given the nature of the sexist men she worked with—she tended to sublimate her feminin- ity with her hair scraped back into a sensible plait, and clothes which were designed to be functional but nothing more than that. She supposed that on this holiday she had allowed herself to relax the normal severity with which she dressed. But beautiful? Did he say that to all the girls? she wondered.
However, even this sobering thought couldn’t abate her delight, and Jade found herself smiling at Constantine like an idiot. This was ridiculous- one compliment and she was like putty in his hands!
‘So,’ he continued. ‘Tell me why you’re here on your own?’
‘I needed a break,’ she said honestly.
‘A break from what?’
Jade twirled the stem of her glass round and round between her fingers, watching the conden- sation trickle slowly down the side.
Tricky. She wondered just how much to tell him.
True, Constantine was a Greek, whose family owned a tiny taverna on a small Greek island—he might not even have heard of the Daily View. But what if he had?
After she’d won the Young Journalist compe- tition launched by the Daily View, they had offered her a job as reporter—a job she had accepted with eager gratitude, given the cut-throat world of jour- nalism. Then she’d been proud to tell people that she worked on Britain’s best-selling tabloid news- paper. But that was before she’d discovered what most people actually thought of the Daily View.
They despised it.
Time and time again, when she had explained who she worked for, she had seen an expression of scorn come into the faces of people who viewed tabloid writers as total drunks with no morals. So, in the end, she had stopped telling them. It made for an easier life.
She stared into Constantine’s dark eyes and made her decision. This was one evening out of her lifetime, she reasoned; an evening scented with magic which would soon become nothing more than a distant memory. This was total fantasy, so why taint it with the bitter taste of reality?
She saw that he was waiting for her answer and gave a little shrug. ‘I just wanted a break,’ she said carefully.
‘A break from something in particular?’ he probed. ‘A man perhaps?’
Now he really had got the wrong end of the stick! ’Heavens, no!’ she exclaimed fervently, unaware of the small smile he gave to this. ‘Nothing like that! I meant a break from city life.’
He sipped at his drink and surveyed her curi- ously. ‘You’re very young?’
‘I’m twenty,’ she answered, and then, more ten- tatively, because it suddenly seemed terribly im- portant, ‘And you?’
‘Thirty.’ There was a glimmer of a smile. Had he guessed what she’d been thinking? ‘That is a good gap, yes? Ten years?’ He stared across the table at her moonwashed hair, raising his glass to his lips. ’So tell me—what do you think of my island?’
‘You don’t actually happen to own it, do you?’ she joked.
‘You must forgive me yet another possessive Greek statement,’ he said implacably.
‘I love your island,’ she said simply. ‘I’ve never relaxed so much in my life. I’ve spent my whole time being thoroughly lazy, swimming every day’
‘I know.’
She looked into his eyes. ‘How can you know?’
‘Because I’ve watched you. Looking like a mermaid with that yellow hair, those mysterious green eyes, that secretive smile.’
‘You were—watching me?’ she asked, appalled at the way her heart galloped into action.
He nodded. ‘I was your guardian angel. Like today. Didn’t you know?’
Jade shook her head. ‘No.’ Thank heavens she hadn’t gone topless!
‘And do you mind?’
‘I don’t know really. Isn’t it a loss of the privacy you were so keen to preserve this evening?’
He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps. But I couldn’t stay away,’ he said simply, as though this excused everything, then popped another olive into his mouth and smiled. ‘Let’s order.’
Jade was relieved to have something relatively ordinary to do to keep her attention from the lunatic thoughts which were buzzing around her head. For Constantine seemed to possess some powerful quality she’d never encountered in a man before. Something which touched and matched some deep, dark longing inside her, offering her a glimpse of a passionate side to her nature she hadn’t dreamed existed.
And she already suspected—no, she knew, that this—relationship, if you could call it that, threat- ened to get out of control very quickly. And she knew what out of control meant. Shocking though it was, she wanted this arrogant and handsome man she’d only just met to make love to her. She wanted to taste the pleasures that she instinctively knew that only he could offer her. But no one in their right mind would allow such a wish to become reality. After all, what possible future could a London- based journalist have with a restaurant proprietor who lived on a distant Greek island?
None.
Jade forced herself to apply her attention towards the food, which was surprisingly good and simple. They ate Greek salad, scarlet with tomatoes and white with feta cheese and black with olives, with strong olive oil drizzled all over it. ‘And what do you do in England?’ he pursued.
‘Oh, it’s just a boring old typing job,’ she said vaguely. True, although she knew she was being economical with the truth—but what if he had the rest of the world’s prejudices about tabloid journalists? The evening would be ruined before it had even got started. She dipped some bread into the olive oil, then ate it. ‘And how about you? Are you a waiter at your family’s restaurant?’
He paused with the fork halfway to his mouth, and the corners of his mouth twitched before he laid it down on his plate. ‘Sometimes,’ he said. ‘And I help them—balance the books—as the English say.’
She looked around her and breathed in the scented air. ‘It must be a heavenly place to live,’ she told him.
‘Oh, it is,’ he agreed gravely. ‘Indeed, it is.’
And after that the evening seemed to get better and better.
‘You have brothers and sisters?’ he asked.
Jade took a large swallow of wine. ‘No. And you?’
Something indefinable came into his eyes as he shook his head. ‘Just a brother. And a—’ He hesitated, momentarily. ‘Step-sister. But I like big families. And you?’
It was something she had never, ever considered until this moment. Children were somewhere off in a hazy, rosy future which she’d somehow never im- agined happening, not to her. She had never given much thought to children, but tonight she was, and she had the strongest suspicion that he was, too. She remembered their eyes meeting over the head of the tousle-haired toddler, of that spark which had flown between the two of them; a spark born out of mutual need and understanding. But what on earth was she admitting to? That she wanted to stay here and have his children? To live on a Greek island with one of its inhabitants? She, who had always been so ambitious, so determined to succeed?
Yes, yes, yes!
‘What’s the matter?’ He interrupted her silence. ’You don’t approve of big families?’
As the truth dawned on her, it felt like coming home. ‘Oh, no—I absolutely love them!’
He smiled, his eyes gently sweeping over her shining eyes, her dazzling smile. ‘I’m glad,’ he said softly.
Never had a meal seemed to take so long; Jade had no appetite for it. She remembered having odd dates where the meal had assumed the greatest im- portance because the man she was out with had seemed so dull. And yet tonight—delicious as the barbouni smelt, and however sweet and succulent its flesh, she couldn’t wait to be away from here, to be some place alone with Constantine, to taste the delights of his lips, discover the safety of his arms.
At last they were away and walking back down the dusty road, until they reached her cottage. He hadn’t tried to kiss her, not once, and when they stood outside her door Jade turned to him in confusion.
He nodded as he read her eyes. ‘Not tonight, agape mou.’ And then he said something in Greek softly beneath his breath.
‘What did you just say?’
He gave a soft laugh. ‘Epikindhinos. It means dangerous. Just like you. There is danger in the witchy slant of your eyes, in the pale waterfall of your hair. And the dangers that lie within those dark red lips, and all the secret places of your body—ah! They are too manifold even to dare to imagine!’
Jade found herself laughing at his extravagance; somehow he had turned the tension into humour, and she found herself admiring him for it. The first man who hadn’t tried to leap on her on a first date. Typical that it should be the only one she’d ever wanted to!
He picked up her hand and carried it to his lips, placed a fleeting kiss there. ‘We shall spend the day together tomorrow.’
‘Doing what?’
There was a fleetingly ruthless smile. ‘Doing our best not to make love. Being—circumspect. That is what we must do. And now, my golden-haired angel—go and sleep. Dream of me until I arrive tomorrow morning.’
Not surprisingly, she did dream of him, and wonderful dreams they were, too—but the reality of the real man who arrived the following morning at eight o’clock far outshone the dream version.
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Шэрон Кендрик
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: When enemies marry…Constantine Sioulas was a man of primitive passions… . Jade knew that. But she couldn′t believe it when, after a whirlwind courtship, he insisted that she marry him! Things like that simply didn′t happen to girls like her… did they? And Constantine soon made it clear that, far from loving Jade, he despised her for her apparent betrayal.But, locked into this marriage of convenience, Jade was determined to enjoy her husband′s special brand of savage seduction!"New author Sharon Kendrick makes a good first mark in the romance genre… " – Romantic Times on No Escaping Love