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In the Greek's Bed: The Greek Tycoon's Wife / The Greek Millionaire's Marriage / The Greek Surgeon
Margaret Barker
SARA WOOD
KIM LAWRENCE
Back by popular demand! These great value titles feature stories from Mills & Boon fans' favourite authors. The Greek Tycoon’s Wife by Kim Lawrence Nikos Lakis is cool, controlled and infinitely sexy – and he’s also married to a woman who has never been his lover. Katerina hasn’t seen her husband since their wedding day…until their accidental reunion ignites an uncontrollable passion.The Greek Millionaire’s Marriage by Sara Wood Olivia has asked for a divorce from headstrong tycoon Dimitri Angelaki, but he has a surprise counterproposal: fake a temporary reconciliation and he will set her free. But they cannot deny the desire that still simmers between them…The Greek Surgeon by Margaret BarkerDemelza Tregarron came to Greece to escape her life, and found herself in the arms of delectable Dr Nick Capodistrias. Nick and his young son, Ianni, seem to be the family she’s longed for. Can their new bond survive a shocking surprise from Nick’s past?


In the Greek’s Bed
THE GREEK TYCOON’S WIFE
by
Kim Lawrence
THE GREEK MILLIONAIRE’S MARRIAGE
by
Sara Wood
THE GREEK SURGEON
by
Margaret Barker

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

THE GREEK TYCOON’S WIFE
by
Kim Lawrence
Kim Lawrence lives on a farm in rural Anglesey. She runs two miles daily and finds this an excellent opportunity to unwind and seek inspiration for her writing! It also helps her keep up with her husband, two active sons, and the various stray animals which have adopted them. Always a fanatical consumer of fiction, she is now equally enthusiastic about writing. She loves a happy ending!!
Don’t miss Kim Lawrence’s exciting new novel, Desert Prince, Defiant Virgin, available this month from Mills & Boon®Modern™.
CHAPTER ONE
ONLY the privileged few ever got to see the top floor of the towering glass edifice that was the Lakis Building, and entry to the boardroom was even more exclusive. It therefore came as something of a shock to the élite few gathered there when the big double doors crashed open in the middle of a board meeting.
Nikos Lakis, silver shards of annoyance filtering into his dark almond-shaped eyes, opened his mouth to deliver a devastating reprimand, then closed it again as the identity of the intruder was revealed.
The attractive redhead strode into the room and planted her hands on her curvy hips just as Nikos’s breathless PA appeared behind her. The younger woman rolled her eyes and shrugged apologetically towards her boss before retreating post-haste.
‘Well!’ There was a long dramatic pause, timed to perfection, before Caitlin Lakis delivered her punchline.
It was worth the build-up.
‘Is it true, Nik? Are you actually planning to marry that woman? Have you lost your mind…?’
Caitlin didn’t actually expect her stepson to defend his actions or lack of them to her. In her experience Greek men in general were not prone to explaining themselves and the Lakis men in particular.
The individual these scathing accusations were aimed at appeared to be the only person around the long table who was not excruciatingly embarrassed by the attack. During the pulsating pause that followed his stepmother’s heated harangue Nikos sat there calmly rotating the pen he held between his long brown fingers.
‘If nobody has any objections…?’
The suited figures he addressed showed no inclination to object, most would sooner have leapt from the twentieth-
floor plate-glass window that revealed the city below than disagree with him. Two years earlier they had been reluctantly prepared to accept his presence just because of who his father was, most had not thought he would last long.
Now the respect they gave him was based on the fact they knew he delivered the goods. The playboy had turned out to have a brain like a steel trap and nerves to match. He gave his all and expected those around him to do no less.
‘Then I think that’s it for today. Thank you, gentlemen.’
The board members got to their feet with alacrity.
‘How is Father?’
‘Your father is fine. Don’t change the subject,’ Caitlin retorted. ‘I’m waiting.’
Nikos appeared more amused than dismayed by this stern pronouncement as, one dark brow raised, his glance slid significantly towards the men who were hurriedly gathering their belongings.
Though she looked irritated, Caitlin managed to restrain herself until the door closed behind the last of the board members; she even responded politely to several stilted enquiries after her health.
A flicker of amusement slid into Nikos’s silver-shot eyes as he watched her efforts to contain her frustration. The woman who had married his father some eighteen years earlier had many virtues, but patience wasn’t one of them. Though he conceded Caitlin had been patient enough when it had come to gaining the trust of her suspicious stepsons.
He could recall the exact moment she had won him over. He still couldn’t decide if her display of ignorance and panic when faced with a table groaning with antique silver and priceless porcelain had been genuine or just for his benefit.
‘It doesn’t really matter what fork you use,’ he’d explained. ‘Just act like you know what you’re doing and people will think they’ve got it wrong.’
For a full sixty seconds Caitlin had stared at the twelve-year-old before shaking her head and exclaiming, ‘That could have been your father talking.’
Nikos had felt a warm glow at her words.
‘You must be thinking of Dimitri.’ Dimitri the favoured eldest, was being groomed to take over from his father.
‘Dimitri looks like Spyros,’ Caitlin conceded. ‘But you…’ she tapped her head ‘…think like him…’
Now the owner of her own successful fashion business, Caitlin, an extremely attractive forty-five, didn’t look so very much different as she had done back then.
‘Right, they’ve gone,’ she said briskly the moment the big double doors closed. ‘Though I think it’s a bit late for discretion. Since I got to Athens that’s all I’ve been hearing…when is the wedding?’ She gave a snort. ‘You can’t tell me you’re in love with Livia Nikolaidis.’
‘What’s love?’
Caitlin rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue at this blatant piece of provocation. ‘So you’ve had a couple of bad experiences…who hasn’t?’ she snapped unsympathetically. ‘So kindly spare me the weary cynicism and stop avoiding the issue, Nik.’
Nikos accepted the reprimand with a rueful grin.
Caitlin might be his stepmother, but she was female and her stern expression briefly softened perceptively.
Even as she tartly observed, ‘You should smile more,’ she privately conceded he maybe didn’t have that much time or reason to smile since the responsibilities of the entire Lakis empire had fallen on his shoulders. No matter how broad those shoulders might be—in Nikos’s case, enough for two average men.
‘I’m not in love with Livia,’ he admitted calmly.
Being in love with Livia might have been an obstacle to their successful union, because if he’d been in love he wouldn’t have been able to see that though Livia was beautiful and accomplished she was also extremely selfish and terminally vain. This way he had no unreasonable expectations of her that might later disappoint him. And Livia, being a product of a background very similar to his own, would not make unreasonable demands on him and his time.
Caitlin gave a deep sigh of relief. ‘Then it’s not true, you haven’t been seeing her…’
‘Did I say that? Many women fantasise about marrying a rich man…’
‘My, you do have a high opinion of my sex.’
Nikos acknowledged his stepmother’s dig with a shrug. ‘I can only speak from my own experience.’
‘Which is wide and varied…’ Despite the disapproval in her tone Caitlin didn’t find it particularly surprising that her stepson had gained this jaundiced perspective of women. From the moment he hit puberty girls and women had been drawn to him like a magnet and he was selling himself short if he thought his wealth was the only thing they were after.
‘The reality of marriage to the man who is responsible for the day to day running of the Lakis business is something which many women couldn’t handle.’
‘I did,’ Caitlin reminded him. The severity of her expression softened. ‘With a little help from my friends.’
‘You are an exceptional woman. Livia is not exceptional, but she is born to the life. I think Livia and I might suit very well.’
Caitlin stared at him, horrified; it seemed there was nothing more humourless or stupid than a reformed playboy. ‘Oh, my God…!’
‘I take it you don’t like Livia,’ Nikos observed, smiling in an indulgent manner his stepmother found extremely provocative.
‘My liking her has nothing whatever to do with it.’
Nikos raised one eloquent winged brow.
‘Well, maybe a bit,’ his stepmother conceded, thinking of the perfectly groomed brunette with the calculating smile and the hard eyes. As she worriedly scanned her handsome stepson’s face her antagonism slipped away, leaving an expression of deep concern. ‘Nik, darling, she’s all wrong for you. You can’t marry her.’
‘That’s true, I can’t—not while I’m already married.’
His stepmother fell gracefully off her chair.
‘Wow, what a rock!’ Sadie breathed, catching hold of her friend’s small hand before she could hide it beneath the table. She blinked as the diamond, which seemed almost too heavy for the younger girl’s finger, caught the light. ‘It’s gorgeous,’ she said enviously. ‘Though I have to admit,’ she mused, lifting her eyes to Katie’s slightly flushed face, ‘I’d have thought you’d have gone for something a little less…’
‘Flashy…?’ Katie responded without thinking. She frowned to hear the wistful edge in her voice. There was just no pleasing some people, she chided herself irritably.
‘Less…conventional,’ Sadie contradicted tactfully. ‘Something to go with your charity-shop bargains. It’s so unfair, I spend more on clothes in a week than you do in a year and look at me!’ she invited gloomily. ‘Maybe if I didn’t eat for a month clothes would look like that on me…’ With an envious sigh she examined her friend’s tall, effortlessly slender figure. ‘No, that wouldn’t work—I’d end up with even smaller boobs than I already have!’
She eyed the younger girl’s well-defined bosom with good-natured resentment and then philosophically bit into the last cream cake on the plate.
Katie’s thoughts drifted as she sat looking at her finger, thinking a little wistfully of the ruby ring set with seed pearls she’d seen in the window of a small antique shop. The one Tom had seemed to quite like until he had got a look at the modest price tag; then he had dismissed it as a pretty trifle not worthy of consideration.
‘You pay for quality,’ he explained patiently as they left the shop empty-handed. ‘What a peculiar girl you are,’ he added with a perplexed expression on his open, good-looking face. ‘Tell most girls price is no object and they’d head for the most expensive jewellers in town. I’m not a mean man, sweetheart.’
‘I know that. In fact you’re too generous, Tom.’ A frown pleated Katie’s broad, smooth forehead. Tom just wasn’t able to accept the fact that she would have been just as happy with an inexpensive token as the extravagant gifts he showered her with.
‘Well, once we’re married you’ll have to get used to it,’ Tom announced. ‘You’re a beautiful woman, you deserve beautiful things, and I,’ he told her firmly, ‘am going to make sure you get them. Whether you like it or not,’ he added with a determined grin.
‘But all I want is you, Tom,’ she told him earnestly.
Tom looked startled and then pleased as he drew her to his side. ‘Really…?’
‘Of course really.’ Katie was uneasily aware that she sounded like someone trying to convince herself. ‘I guess I’m just not a very…demonstrative person,’ she admitted regretfully.
‘I’ve told you I don’t mind waiting,’ he told her quietly. ‘I admire your principles, darling.’
Principles or just a low sex drive…?
Katie ignored the vexatious voice in her head and reminded herself how incredibly lucky she was to have discovered such a sensitive, understanding man who loved her to distraction.
But not so much distraction that he can’t keep his hands off you… Katie muttered to herself.
With extra warmth she pressed a soft kiss to Tom’s lips.
After all, why would you want to be with a man who would be unable to restrain his base animal urges…? The sarcastic voice in her head just had to have the last word.
‘Tom really liked this one,’ she told her friend.
‘That figures.’ Sadie bit her lip and looked apologetic. ‘Sorry, love, but you have to admit he does operate on a strict “if you’ve got it, flaunt it” policy.’
Katie sighed. ‘I know, but he means well, Sadie, and he really is the kindest man I’ve ever met,’ she told the older girl earnestly.
And dull as ditch water! ‘So it’s official now.’
For six months Tom Percival had pursued Katie with single-minded determination.
Sadie balanced her chin on her steepled fingers. ‘So how did he take it when you told him?’
Katie took a sip of her tea; her grimace wasn’t because the liquid was hot. ‘Well, actually…’ she began, avoiding eye contact.
Sadie gasped. ‘You did tell him…?’
Katie’s shoulders hunched defensively as Sadie’s shocked response reinforced her guilt. ‘He was so happy and I was waiting for the right moment.’ It sounded a pathetically lame excuse even to her own ears.
Sadie groaned so loudly that half the people in the tea shop turned around to look at them. ‘When would be a better time—at the altar?’ she croaked, gazing at the younger woman incredulously. ‘Listen, I’d be the first to agree that what happened before he came along is none of his business, a girl’s skeletons are her affair, but you’re still married, love. That does sort of make it relevant.’
‘I know…I know!’ Katie closed her eyes and twisted her fingers. ‘I just don’t feel married. I was going to tell him…I will tell him, but I might as well wait now until I hear back from Harvey.’
‘Harvey’s the lawyer who brokered the marriage deal?’
Katie nodded.
‘He sounds a bit shady to me.’
Hearing the very proper and fairly prim Harvey Reynolds, QC described this way made Katie smile; she felt she had to defend his good name.
‘Well, he isn’t, he’s one of the top criminal lawyers in the country. I’ve known him since I was a little girl.’ She caught her full lower lip between her teeth and gnawed gently on the soft pink flesh. ‘I can’t see that there will be any problem getting a quickie divorce…?’
Sadie’s eyebrows lifted to a satirical angle. ‘I’m probably not the best person to be asking about amicable divorces,’ she responded drily.
‘It’s not like it was a real marriage or anything.’ Surely that made a difference.
‘Have you really not seen him since the ceremony?’
Katie shook her head, she wasn’t surprised at the incredulity in her friend’s voice. Who wouldn’t be shocked about someone marrying a total stranger? Heck, she was herself. Sometimes it seemed to her as if it had happened to someone else.
‘No, not for seven years. My only link is Harvey. It always was.’ The assistance of her mother’s patient, but ultimately unsuccessful admirer had only been forthcoming when Katie had convinced him that she would go ahead with her plan with or without his help.
‘If you’re thinking about recruiting someone whose visa is running out and wants to stay in the country, forget it,’ Harvey had told her in the plush surrounding of his City chambers. ‘Unless, that is, you want to expose yourself to criminal prosecution.’ He pushed his metal-framed half-moon glasses up his thin nose and looked at her severely.
‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ Katie admitted with wide-eyed dismay.
‘Seems to me you haven’t thought much at all.’
‘If you’re going to try and stop me…’
‘If I thought I had any chance of succeeding I would,’ the legal brain admitted with engaging candour. ‘For your mother’s sake I want to make sure you think this thing through properly—if such a thing is possible?’
‘She was very fond of you too.’
Poor Harvey; there had only ever been one man for her mother and she had given up everything to be with him. Katie had wondered whether she’d ever find a love like that—one that didn’t think of consequences, one that lasted for ever. She wasn’t actually sure she wanted to. The idea of falling victim to such a blind, relentless passion was actually rather scary.
‘You do appreciate that it’s very unlikely that the sort of man who would marry you for a one-off payment would be satisfied with that?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I mean there’s a strong possibility that a man like that would have questionable scruples. He’d be back for more,’ Harvey explained bluntly. ‘And then there’s the question of making yourself vulnerable to blackmail.’
‘But there won’t be any money, I’m giving the rest away.’ Katie couldn’t help but think that dealing with hardened criminals had made Harvey a little overly suspicious.
‘That’s another thing—is it really wise to give up your entire inheritance too?’
‘Non-negotiable,’ Kate interrupted abruptly.
‘In that case—’ the lawyer sighed ‘—how do you feel about raising the amount you’d pay the groom?’
‘By how much?’
Harvey told her and she gasped. ‘You’ve got to be kidding…?’
‘It might seem a lot, well, actually it is a lot,’ he conceded. ‘But in the long run I really think this is your safest bet. As it happens I know of a person who needs an injection of cash and for reasons I can’t go into he prefers not to approach the usual sources…’
‘Five hundred thousand pounds is quite a big injection,’ she began doubtfully.
‘True, but the capital left over would still be more than enough to provide a very generous income for the Grahams, and there would be no question of this man ever demanding anything else of you or troubling you in any way. I’d personally guarantee that.’
‘Why does this man need so much money?’ she asked bluntly.
‘I’m really not at liberty to discuss that, the choice is yours. All I can say is that I will personally guarantee this person’s integrity.’
Even if this man was shady, what were her alternatives? She could advertise in a personal column but, Harvey was right, what sort of weirdos would respond to an ad for a husband?
‘All right, then.’
‘Excellent. All I have to do now is persuade N…him…’
‘Persuade him…?’
‘Don’t worry, dear, I’m sure he’ll come around,’ Harvey soothed.
He had come around and up until now Katie had had no reason to regret her decision.
‘So this man you married, he could be anywhere, doing anything…he might even be dead. Oh, that would be convenient.’
Her friend’s joking words jolted Katie back to the present. ‘Sadie!’
Sadie grinned sheepishly. ‘Well, it would. I’m just being practical.’
‘I want to divorce the man, not put out a contract on him!’
Sadie normally respected the younger girl’s reserve but at that moment her curiosity got the better of her. ‘So all you know about this man is his name?’
Katie had never elaborated beyond saying that marriage had been the only way she’d been able to inherit the money from her Greek grandfather’s estate. Which begged the question why was Katie flat broke these days?
Katie nodded. ‘Nikos Lakis.’ She found herself strangely reluctant to say the name.
‘Is he Greek?’
‘I assumed so.’
‘Nikos Lakis…mmm. Did he look as sexy as he sounds?’ Sadie giggled huskily. ‘Or was he short, fat and balding?’
‘I can’t remember,’ Kate replied shortly. She wasn’t quite sure why she lied. Many of her memories of that day were hazy, but not the face of the man she had stood beside and exchanged solemn vows with.
She didn’t know what she’d been expecting but it hadn’t been Nikos Lakis.
Harvey, watching her face anxiously as the tall Greek had arrived, must have seen the spasm of shock that had passed over her features.
‘I suppose there is a little resemblance to your brother,’ he murmured, intuitively sensing the source of her distress. ‘I should have said…’
Katie shook her head. ‘He’s not really like him.’
She wasn’t just saying this to make Harvey feel better. Peter’s face had been extremely attractive, but stood next to this man he would have been invisible. Her twin hadn’t possessed the sheer physical presence that this stranger had in abundance.
As the stranger she was about to marry inclined his dark head in acknowledgement of Harvey and turned his attention briefly to her, Katie saw there was none of Peter’s petulance in this austerely beautiful face, nor any of the warmth. In fact, she saw as he came closer that he wasn’t anything like her twin at all.
This man was ice.
Seven years later she was helpless to control the little shudder that slipped down her spine or the nervous flutter in her tummy as she visualised those silver-shot midnight-dark eyes fringed by decadently dark lashes set in an otherwise starkly uncompromising bronzed face.
Even if he hadn’t been an attention-grabbing six feet five of solid bone and muscle and moved with the natural grace of a top-class athlete, who could forget those eyes…? She hadn’t. They’d even featured in some disturbingly erotic dreams that had disrupted her sleep over the years.
‘He’s alive.’
Sadie raised her eyebrows at her friend’s emphatic tone.
‘Actually I’ve never seen anybody quite so alive.’ His vitality had been like an electric current. His brief touch had made her skin tingle and she’d been relieved he hadn’t prolonged the contact more than absolutely necessary.
‘I thought you couldn’t remember what he looked like.’ Sadie watched the distant, almost dreamy expression cross the younger woman’s face.
‘I can’t, it was just an impression,’ Katie replied a little quickly, too stubborn to admit even to herself the impact her bought bridegroom had made on her.
‘Quite a coincidence you both being Greek.’
Katie’s soft lips firmed and her eyes filled with scorn. ‘I’m half Greek.’
It was a half that showed in the contours of her oval face with its proud, high forehead, straight classical nose, delicately sculpted lips and long, swan-like neck. It was also a half she was always ready to deny. The half that had heartlessly cast off the daughter who had offended their precious family honour.
Not even after her husband had died and she’d been left to bring up two young children on the small salary she’d earned working part-time as a legal secretary had Katie’s mother tried to contact her family who had rejected her on her wedding day.
Katie and her twin had been brought up with very little knowledge of their mother’s culture, which suited Katie fine. She had no time for people who could punish a woman for falling in love outside her class and culture. No, as far as she was concerned she was all British.
CHAPTER TWO
KEPT late by an unexpected emergency at work, Katie rang Tom to arrange to go directly to the hotel where they were having dinner. She dashed home, fed the cat, a particularly evil-tempered ginger tom called Alexander, and got changed in record time. As she emerged from the taxi nothing about her demeanour hinted at the breathless haste with which she’d got ready.
High heels crunching on the gravel, Katie hurried across the forecourt unable to dismiss the nagging feeling she had forgotten something. Walking into the brightly lit foyer, she smoothed down her freshly washed hair, which she hadn’t had the time to blow-dry properly; it fell river-straight almost to her waist, gleaming like the finest spun silk under the bright lights, which picked out the rich chestnut highlights in the deep glossy brown strands.
Tom was waiting. His face lit up as she appeared and his obvious pleasure made Katie glad she had decided to wear the dress Sadie had given her with a plea for her to make use of it.
Tom kissed her hard on the mouth, which was surprising; he was normally quite undemonstrative in public. ‘You look beautiful!’ he said huskily as they drew apart.
‘You sound surprised…’ Her teasing hid a secret worry. Was it entirely normal to be thinking about whether you’d remembered to unlock the cat flap while you were being passionately kissed by the man you were going to marry? ‘It must be the dress.’ Though he never openly criticised the way she dressed, Katie knew he would have liked her to dress up more.
‘I didn’t even notice the dress,’ Tom replied huskily.
‘Well, there’s not a lot to notice, is there?’ she responded, glancing uncertainly down at the midnight-blue slip dress that clung to the soft curves of her body a little too lovingly for her comfort. ‘You don’t think it’s a bit…obvious?’
The appeal made Tom throw back his head and laugh. ‘You couldn’t look anything but cool and classy if you tried, and I’m the luckiest man in the world.’
He might not think so soon.
Katie took a deep breath. There was never going to be a good time to tell him this, so now, she reasoned, was as good a time as any other.
‘Tom, there’s something I need to tell you,’ she told him urgently.
A flicker of impatience crossed her fiancé’s boyishly handsome features. ‘We’ll talk about it later, sweetheart,’ he said, grabbing her hand. ‘We’re late as it is, and Nikos isn’t used to people keeping him waiting.’
The name was so unexpected it hit her like a blow, snatching the air from her lungs and the thoughts from her head. There was a loud whooshing noise in her ears and it took several heart-thudding seconds before the room stopped spinning.
‘Nikos…?’ she faltered. ‘That’s a pretty unusual name.’
‘Not in Greece.’
No way could fate be that cruel. ‘He’s Greek…?’ she asked with extreme casualness.
Tom nodded. ‘That’s right. We were at Oxford University at the same time, though Nik dropped out before he graduated.’
‘That doesn’t sound like someone you’d know…’ Katie gulped hoarsely. Dropping out equated with someone being reckless, someone who might at a push get into debt, someone who might resolve the problem by… Stop this, she told herself sternly, you’re getting paranoid.
‘You mean I’m a boring old stick.’ Tom pouted, exploiting his boyish charm for all it was worth.
‘You’re not old…’ Katie protested, subduing a flicker of irritation. ‘Or boring,’ she added hastily. ‘You’re solid and responsible.’
‘That makes me feel a hell of a lot better,’ Tom responded, his charm fading abruptly.
Conscious she had hurt his feelings, Katie tried to soothe his injured pride.
‘Women don’t actually want to marry exciting men,’ Katie told him, believing it. ‘They’re too unreliable.’ She stopped, unhappily aware that she was only making matters worse.
To her relief Tom recovered his humour and laughed loudly.
‘No, they just want to make mad passionate love to them,’ he suggested, thinking she looked especially adorable flushed and confused.
‘Some women might, but not me,’ Katie insisted firmly. ‘Men like that are vain and shallow and only interested in looking cool,’ she sneered.
Tom winced. ‘You’ll not share that with Nikos will you, sweetheart?’
‘I shall hang on his every word like it’s inscribed in stone,’ she promised dutifully, willing to flatter his friend if it made Tom happy.
‘You’ll like him.’
Katie couldn’t hide her scepticism.
‘Women do,’ Tom assured her authoritatively. ‘Actually you’re right, Nik wasn’t in my circles of friends; in fact he was a bit of a loner. He used to ride around on this dirty great motor bike…’
Katie nodded. She was beginning to get the picture, and she didn’t find it comforting. Someone reckless, who liked danger…her imagination had no problem at all picturing Nikos Lakis in motor-bike leathers looking brooding and dangerous.
‘I was there when he swerved to avoid a kid that ran out into the road. I didn’t do much, but he got it into his head that I’d saved his life.’
Katie listened to his modest pronouncement with a tender smile. ‘Which means you probably did.’
‘I only did what anyone else would,’ Tom insisted with a self-deprecating shrug. ‘To be honest I was surprised when he kept in touch after he left. Apparently it caused some almighty family row when he dropped out, but everything’s cosy now. His old man had a heart attack and major bypass surgery a couple of years ago and Nik took over the family firm…they’re a Greek shipping family, though since the seventies they’ve diversified dramatically…They’re billionaires… Are you all right?’ he added, examining her waxily pale face with concern.
Katie took a deep breath and refocused on his anxious face. Relief made her feel quite light-headed. A Greek billionaire’s son! She felt like laughing at her irrational fears. Let him be the biggest bore of the century; it no longer mattered.
‘Fine.’ She lifted her hand briefly to her forehead and felt a light sheen of moisture on her skin. ‘Minor blood-sugar dip, I didn’t have time for lunch today,’ she admitted, making a silent vow to tell Tom the truth before the evening was out.
Tom frowned disapprovingly. ‘They take advantage of you at that place.’ He squeezed her shoulder. ‘Never mind, not long now and you’ll be able to hand in your notice.’
‘Hand in my notice?’ Katie echoed blankly.
Tom laughed. ‘You’ll be far too busy to work when you’re my wife. Of course, if you want to continue with a little charity work…’
Katie could hardly believe what she was hearing—Tom expected her to quit work when they were married! There was no way!
‘You’ve got a bit more colour in your cheeks now,’ he observed, blissfully unaware that it was hostility to her impending retirement that had produced the delicate tinge of creamy rose to her pale honey complexion. ‘Come on, love, the sooner we feed you the better.’
‘And your friend doesn’t like being kept waiting,’ Katie couldn’t prevent herself from adding drily.
His friend called Nikos.
How stupid she’d been to be spooked by a name. There were most probably hundreds—no, thousands of men called Nikos in the world, she told herself as she followed Tom into the dining room.
This isn’t happening!
‘Here she is, Nikos.’ Tom, oblivious to the frozen state of the young woman beside him, proudly pushed her forward. Like a marionette she responded stiffly. ‘This is Katie. Didn’t I tell you she was totally gorgeous and clever too? Come on, sweetheart, don’t be shy…’
Shy? More like paralysed with shock and horror, not to mention being scared witless into the bargain! Oh, God, this meal looked like one she wasn’t likely to forget in a hurry!
If the floor had opened up at her feet Katie would have jumped into the black hole rather than live this moment. Even at the best of times she hated it when Tom introduced her to his friends with this sort of fanfare. Maybe there were women out there who could live up to the sort of lavish build-up he gave her, but Katie knew she wasn’t one of them.
The dark-suited, long-limbed figure rose with languid, almost feral grace to his feet. ‘You did indeed, Tom.’
All thoughts of hallucination vanished. Katie hadn’t heard it for seven years, but the deep, cultured voice was exactly as she recalled it. The bitter-chocolate tone with the merest hint of an accent made goose-bumps break out like a rash over her skin and had, she suspected, some worrying connection with her tingly feelings.
Despite her scornful dismissal, the tingly feelings continued to make their presence felt.
‘Tom’s told me so much about you I feel as though we already know each other.’
Unlike her, Tom didn’t seem to notice the sinister, sardonic edge in the soft words or see the cold hostility in the other man’s remarkable eyes as they roamed casually over her body, lingering longer than was polite on the exposed slopes of her breasts.
Despite the fact disbelief was ricocheting wildly around inside her head, Katie could almost admire his nerve, her own was very near to breaking-point. It wasn’t just not knowing how or why he was here—and that was bad enough!—it was the not knowing what he was going to do or say next that really terrified her.
Their glances locked, the expression on those finely chiselled features revealed little, but as their eyes briefly touched Katie was left with the definite impression that he was enjoying every second of her discomfiture. It was that discovery that enabled her to hold it together.
Katie welcomed the fortifying flicker of anger; it was something solid and real for her to cling to. The malicious pleasure she’d seen in those dark, unfathomable depths was inexplicable to her. Admittedly buying a husband might make her deserving of the odd sneer and snigger in some ungenerous quarters, but if she’d been doing the buying he’d been bought, which hardly made his position one of superiority…not that you’d know, he looked so damned pleased with himself.
Though that smugness and self-satisfaction might have something to do with the billions he no doubt had in his bank account. And I gave him money… When her mind started working again she might be able to figure that one out, but right now she had to swallow a bubble of hysterical laughter; the situation was positively surreal.
‘Katie, darling, this is Nikos Lakis.’
Like Tom, he was wearing a dark grey suit; unlike Tom’s, it was not cut to disguise a spreading waistline. It was hard to imagine the man standing there indulging himself in the necessary excesses to result in a thickening waistline…everything about him was hard and he exuded an aura that said, ‘I’m in control’. She’d not come across many men like that but those she had she hadn’t warmed to. They thought the world revolved around them.
Her mind drifted back to the small, stuffy little ante-room of the register office. She recalled the tall, commanding figure so much younger than she’d been expecting who’d strode in displaying an unnerving presence and none of the humility she’d expected of a man desperate enough to marry for money. Knowing he’d been born with a solid gold spoon in his distressingly sexy mouth explained the arrogance, but not why a billionaire’s son had married for money.
My God, I’ve been married to a Greek million…no, billionaire for seven years and I didn’t even know it. Even the most soapy of daytime soaps wouldn’t dare come up with a storyline that far-fetched.
Katie was forced to revise her opinion about control slightly as her wide, shock-glazed eyes slid to the passionate curve of his wide, sensual lips…the light, quivering sensation in her belly intensified. If he did lose control he’d probably do it in a spectacular way. A totally inappropriate mental image of those predatory lips crashing down on her own flashed across her vision…
Katie was just getting on top of her wayward imagination when her nightmare smiled—it wasn’t helpful. The smile exuded a sensual menace totally in keeping with her wild imaginings. Her bemused brain sought refuge in irrelevant details like the sculpted curve of his lips and the slashing angle of his high, angular cheekbones. Over the years she’d decided that her imagination had exaggerated the raw sexuality Nikos Lakis exuded—she now knew differently! The man oozed sex appeal from every pore; it was hardly decent.
Katie’s obedient lips did the necessary social smiling, but her eyes were another matter; they continued to broadcast horror, confusion and bewilderment.
Tom, cheerfully oblivious to the screaming tension or her reluctance, pulled her farther forward with pride.
‘Pleased to meet you, Katherine.’ One dark brow quirked. ‘It is Katherine…?’
She glared…he knew full well it wasn’t. Like herself, he had a copy of the marriage certificate that Harvey had locked safely away…Harvey! The trusted family friend must have known his identity and he hadn’t told her—the duplicity of men was staggering, she thought, wisely skimming over her own forays in that direction of late.
‘No, actually it’s Katerina.’ Do you, Katerina, take…She gave her head a little shake to chase away the intrusive memory. ‘Only nobody calls me that any more,’ she added, anxiety and escalating antipathy making her soft voice terse and sharp.
‘That’s a pity, it’s a beautiful name.’
It was the way he said it, but then a bus timetable would sound dreamy when spoken by that silver tongue. No, not silver—if that deep, velvet-textured drawl had a colour it would be a deep, decadent purple. She gave her head a tiny shake, irritated by the whimsical nature of her thoughts. Purple or puce, a voice like that constituted a very dangerous ability in a male, especially one who looked like this.
If he was as shocked as she had been to discover the identity of his dinner companion he was hiding it well, which meant what? Had he known? Maybe he didn’t recognise her? She ditched that possibility before it was even fully formed. Was he here because Harvey had contacted him about the divorce? Or was this one horrible, horrifying coincidence?
Questions she had aplenty, but no obvious answers surfaced in her spinning head.
Oh goodness, why didn’t I tell Tom when I had the chance…? She groaned at herself. Now it was too late…he’d hate her, and who could blame him? The fact that this was only happening because she hadn’t come clean made it seem as though she was being punished for her cowardice. Perhaps it was appropriate that her retribution had come in the form of a man who possessed the sinful, dangerous beauty of a dark fallen angel.
Lips compressed to keep them from trembling, she shot the tall, dark figure a covert look from under the sweep of her long lashes. What she saw in his lean face was not comforting. Please, please don’t let him say anything until I’ve had a chance to tell Tom myself.
That was it! If she could explain to Tom herself…sudden hope surged through her. Maybe it wasn’t too late. If she could get this Nikos creature alone and explain how things stood, she could appeal for his temporary silence until she’d had a chance. Their eyes collided; it was a fleeting collision but enough to make her forget about appealing to his better nature. She repressed a shudder—nobody with eyes like that had one!
Of all the men in the world why had she ended up married to this one?
If Nikos Lakis kept quiet about their marriage deal it would be for his own reasons, not out of consideration for her or Tom. Maybe it didn’t fit in with his macho image to admit he had married for money, she speculated. Although it seemed to her that Greek men were quite pragmatic about such things. She gritted her teeth; the best she could hope for was that he’d keep silent for his own reasons.
Katie didn’t know how her trembling knees managed to support her weight as her hand was enfolded in a firm grip. Her tummy muscles cramped violently as long, lean brown fingers folded over her own. The contrast of small and large, dark and pale…once again her beleaguered brain was distracted from coping with much more urgent matters like should she beat him to the punchline and tell Tom now herself?
How would she do that exactly…? Actually, Tom, I’ve met Nikos before…yes, isn’t that a coincidence? I don’t know him exactly, we just got married…
The men were talking, though the words were just a discordant buzz in her ears. Katie found she was sitting but couldn’t recall taking her seat. Neither could she recall how the glass found its way into her hand, but it seemed an extremely good idea to make use of it.
With a sigh she replaced the drained glass on the table and as she shook back her hair discovered both men were looking at her.
‘Is that such a good idea on an empty stomach, darling?’ Tom spoke lightly but his eyes were shooting furious warning messages.
Tom was desperately anxious for her to make a good impression on this man he admired. If only all Tom had to worry about was me having one too many drinks! The irony struck her forcibly, and she struggled to control the bubble of hysteria lodged dangerously in her dry throat. Laughing like a hyena might just draw unwanted attention…
‘Katie’s had a tough day at work.’
Katie’s smooth brow wrinkled…again the anxiety to please in Tom’s manner. Maybe this wasn’t so surprising. Two things impressed Tom, money and power, and this man had both in abundance, and it showed. Tom had money, Tom had power, what he didn’t have was the tall Greek’s quiet, understated confidence. Confidence that came when you didn’t feel the need to prove yourself to anyone.
‘You work, Katerina?’ The dark winged brows knitted as Nikos Lakis managed to imbue the casual enquiry with amused incredulity.
Katie’s eyes narrowed as those black eyes broadcast useless ornament. It seemed as if the antipathy she felt was fully reciprocated.
‘When it doesn’t interfere with shopping or polishing my nails.’
Tom, who had never heard that particular tone in her soft, pleasing voice before, laughed uncomfortably as though she’d made a joke he didn’t quite understand. Nikos didn’t laugh; his merciless eyes continued to rake her angry face and then, much to her dismay, his long fingers curled over her left hand, which lay clenched on the table-top.
Without haste he unfurled her tapering fingers one by one. The tip of his thumb grazed the blue-veined inner aspect of her wrist as he turned her hand over, exposing the short, unpolished condition of her nails; his touch also exposed her nerve endings, which came to tingling life.
Katie would have liked to crawl out of her skin.
‘Not today,’ he remarked softly.
His soft voice did things almost as uncomfortable to her as the light touch. Dabbing her tongue to the tiny beads of sweat across her upper lip, she snatched her hand away.
Breathing hard through her flared nostrils, she lifted her chin. ‘I’m an events organiser.’ And a flipping good one too, she felt like adding to the patronising prat.
‘Impressive,’ he drawled, sounding anything but impressed. ‘And what does an events organiser do exactly?’ he added, making it sound as though as far as he was concerned it couldn’t be much.
Tom, sensing the atmosphere for the first time, looked slightly uneasy. ‘Katie works for a charity, but she’ll be giving up work after the wedding.’
‘Ah…the wedding—and when will that be?’
‘I can’t get Katie to set a date.’
Nikos’s lazy glance turned to Katie. ‘Really? You do surprise me.’
He reminded her of some sleek cat playing with a mouse, not because he was particularly hungry, just because it was in his nature to be cruel. The more she saw of this man, the more she saw to dislike. Kate’s nostrils flared as her teeth came together in a smile that was as brittle as it was brilliant.
Two could play at this, she thought grimly. If he was going to drop her in it there didn’t seem any point prolonging the agony or his pleasure.
It was a dangerous tactic, but Katie felt uncharacteristically reckless, and at least this way she’d know one way or the other.
‘And you, Mr Lakis—is there a Mrs Lakis?’ she enquired sweetly. ‘Or any little Lakises?’
Katie held her breath; the silence that followed her question seemed to last for ever. When her lowered gaze lifted she was surprised to see something that might have been admiration in Nikos Lakis’s dark, glittering eyes.
‘There is only one Mrs Lakis in my life, and she’s my stepmother, who’s very much an active force in my life.’ He smiled, not in a snide, snooty, I’ve-just-stepped-on-something-nasty way—anything but. Katie’s jaw dropped as she watched the stern lines of his proudly sculpted face soften as he produced a real, honest-to-goodness grin.
The transformation was nothing short of devastating. Katie only just stopped herself grinning fatuously back.
‘So you’re not married, then?’ she persisted doggedly.
‘If Nik had married, Katie, I think we’d have read about it.’ Tom laughed. ‘The media would have had a field day.’
You don’t know the half of it, Katie thought, feeling a tide of guilty colour seep up her neck. She pressed a hand to her hot cheek.
She was disgusted with herself that in her desire to score points against the detestable Nikos Lakis she’d lost track of what was most important. The public humiliation and scandal of having his fiancée revealed as being secretly married to Nikos Lakis would be devastating for Tom and her primary concern had to be protecting him from any fallout.
‘Marriage is inevitable if only for the procreation of…how did you put it?…little Lakises. We Greeks are a little old-fashioned about such things.’
‘I’d have said cold-blooded.’
Tom began to look seriously disturbed as he laid a warning hand on her shoulder; the pressure made Katie wince. Nikos’s eyes followed the other man’s gesture, and the permanent line over the bridge of his masterful nose deepened fractionally.
‘Shall we order?’ Tom said, patting her arm before his hand fell away.
‘I’m not hungry.’ Katie doubted she could have eaten a scrap even if her future had depended on it, which was no more an absurd scenario than the real one—having her future and Tom’s dependent upon the discretion of a man who seemed as capricious as he was overbearing.
‘Greeks are not renowned for their cold-bloodedness, Katerina.’
‘Oops, was that your ego I stepped on? Oh, but I’m sure they’re spectacular lovers.’ She turned the voltage of her insincere smile up by several watts before allowing it to fade away to grim contempt. ‘But pardon me if I happen to think that picking out some poor girl with good childbearing hips and the right blood lines to produce an heir is extremely cold-blooded.’
‘Katie!’
Nikos, a smile fixed on his sensual lips, lifted his hand in a soothing gesture to still the other man’s appalled protest. ‘You are marrying a romantic, my friend,’ he drawled. ‘Someone to whom arranged marriages are anathema.’ He scanned her face with derisive eyes. ‘Am I right, Katerina? You would never marry for anything but love? Certainly not for anything as base as…security.’ His long forefinger seemingly accidentally brushed the diamond nestling on her finger.
His mockery, as corrosive as battery acid, made her long to wipe the smirk off his face. Her hands curled into fists on the table-top.
‘In a perfect world everyone would marry for love,’ she told him stiffly.
Nikos’s mobile lips curled contemptuously. ‘So you are a pragmatist after all, which is of course infinitely preferable to a hypocrite.’
At his soft, sibilant words the last remnants of Katie’s trepidation were washed away on a violent tide of anger. It was one sneer too many. She lifted her furious sparkling eyes to his lean, dark face—just where did he get off looking down his superior nose at her?
Buying a husband might be a pretty pathetic thing to do, but at least she’d had a damned good excuse, whereas what excuse had Nikos Lakis had? A quick way to get money to fuel his extravagant lifestyle when he’d fallen out of favour with his rich daddy seemed the safest bet. If anyone is the hypocrite here, it isn’t me, Katie thought scornfully.
Tom, who had the suspicion he was missing something in this rapid exchange, seized on the mention of something he felt he was an expert on. ‘Oh, Katie is very practical.’
Nikos looked from the ring on her finger to the diamonds encircling her narrow wrist and smiled. ‘That I never doubted. Ah, I hope you don’t mind, I ordered champagne,’ he said as a wine waiter approached the table.
‘Much appreciated, Nik. Isn’t it, darling?’
Katie nodded. It pained her deeply to see Tom’s unsuspicious pleasure at the empty gesture. Normally an astute man, he couldn’t seem to see what was under his nose where Nikos Lakis was concerned. Maybe it was the glamour of his wealth that made Tom blind. As far as she was concerned, the man was a prize creep!
Nikos took the bottle from its bed of ice and personally popped the cork with an expert twist of his long brown fingers and a flick of his strong, supple wrist, but then he would be an expert at drinking champagne and making love to beautiful women, Katie thought sourly, for wasn’t that what playboys like him spent their time doing? The irony was that she had probably financed some of that champagne and those women! The realisation only made his attitude all the more hypocritically sanctimonious.
Her chin firmed in determination; they’d had a deal and he’d got his money’s worth for precious little effort on his part. She was damned if she was going to let him ruin her life just when it was going where she wanted it with his silent threats, and the first moment she got him alone she was going to tell him so.
The thought of being alone with him made her stomach flip. Katie was surprised to discover that excitement and disgust could sometimes feel much the same thing. Naturally, given the choice she’d never want to be alone with the hateful man, but under the circumstances there wasn’t an option.
‘To the happy couple.’
Katie, her eyes shining with belligerence, obediently sipped the expensive bubbles, not tasting a thing.
The meal was torture; Nikos’s cryptic remarks were so numerous that Katie was sure Tom would catch on. It took all her will-power not to react to his wind-ups. The intrusive chime of Tom’s mobile just as they reached the main course was for once something of a welcome break.
He apologised but took the call and spoke for several minutes to someone on the other end. From the way his expression darkened it wasn’t hard to tell it was bad news he was hearing.
‘I’ll be there in about thirty minutes,’ he said, before sliding his phone back into his pocket. ‘I’m really sorry, folks.’ His apologetic glance slid from Katie to Nikos and back again. ‘But I really have to go. That out-of-town development I’m working on has been nothing but trouble from the start. I’d heard there was going to be some sort of demonstration so I arranged for the bulldozers to move in tonight, but it seems the damned eco-warriors beat us to it.
‘And,’ he added gloomily, ‘they’re not alone. A local TV station has picked up on it.’ Looking grim, he folded his napkin and got to his feet. ‘Can you believe it? All this over a scrubby bit of bog land nobody has ever heard of. Now they’ve come up with rare weed…I ask you, a weed!’
Katie, who found she had some sympathy with the local businesses and residents who didn’t want the out-of-town development, kept a tactful silence.
‘Some people,’ he complained darkly, ‘can’t stand progress.’
‘The future, my friend, is green,’ Nikos observed.
Tom’s laughter suggested he considered his friend’s remark a joke. Katie, who wasn’t so sure, began to get to her feet.
Tom motioned her to sit down. ‘No, sweetheart, you finish your meal—no need for everyone to suffer. Nik will see you home?’ He looked enquiringly at the other man, who responded smooth as silk.
‘My pleasure.’
Katie’s stomach gave a horrid lurch. Only a determination not to give him the satisfaction enabled her to conceal her dismay.
‘Thanks, mate.’ Tom gave Nikos a thumbs-up signal. ‘You two enjoy your meal,’ he encouraged, bending down to kiss the top of Katie’s head.
‘Perhaps I could help,’ she said, speaking quickly. ‘I know Mark Rogers’s mother.’ Tom gave a growl at the mention of the leader of the local opposition to his project. ‘She’s a lovely woman, Tom, and she was saying that it’s the scale of the development and the lack of local consultation that has upset Mark and the others. Perhaps if—’
‘I appreciate the offer, Katie,’ Tom said, unable to hide his impatience. ‘But this is business. I’m sure Rogers’s mother is a nice woman, but you can’t reason with troublemakers like him—they just see it as weakness. I’ll ring you in the morning.’
Katie had told herself that that was just the way Tom was and it wasn’t something she could do anything about, but on this occasion as she watched his departure part of her wanted to call him back and confront him. Why are you acting like a prehistoric jerk? Why are you treating me like a brainless ornament? she wanted to demand.
She’d seen him work perfectly amicably with high-powered female executives. He’d come across as an enlightened new man on the occasions she’d heard him express admiration for females in top jobs. So why, when it came to his own fiancée, did he assume that anything remotely connected with his business was over her head?
Maybe it was his upbringing, she reflected, or maybe I just look dumb?
She gave a sigh as he reached the door and, turning back to the table, discovered that Nikos Lakis was watching her.
CHAPTER THREE
‘WHAT,’ Katie snapped testily, ‘are you looking at?’ There was entirely too much understanding in those disturbing eyes of Nikos’s for her comfort.
‘The dynamics of a loving relationship.’
The reply didn’t soothe her; she didn’t want those cold, clever eyes dissecting her relationship with Tom.
Maybe you’re afraid he’ll make you see something you don’t want to?
Katie turned her attention back to the food on her plate; it was hard to simulate interest in the beautifully prepared meal.
‘He’s going to ring you…so you’ve not moved in together…’ Nikos regarded her down-bent head speculatively from over the rim of his glass.
‘No, we haven’t.’
‘Shrewd and beautiful?’ he drawled admiringly. ‘No doubt your tactics have a lot to do with a confirmed bachelor like Tom popping the question. Living together inevitably makes a man less eager to commit to marriage.’
With unwarranted viciousness Katie speared an innocent butter-coated new potato with her fork; it made a poor substitute for what she longed to stab.
‘Seeing their beloved first thing in the morning rarely matches up to a man’s romantic fantasy,’ he observed in a superior, amused tone.
‘Like you’d know such a lot about romantic fantasy!’
Nikos didn’t seem offended by her gibe. ‘Oh, I wasn’t referring to myself; you’re right, I’m no romantic. I don’t expect or particularly want perfection in a woman and I was seventeen the last time I put one on a pedestal. Tom on the other hand…’ His arched brows rose.
Katie lifted her head from her prolonged contemplation of her food. ‘Tom does not put me on a pedestal!’ she retorted uneasily. ‘That’s a disgusting thing to say!’ Her nose wrinkled with distaste at the idea.
‘Disgusting…?’ His broad shoulders lifted. ‘An interesting choice of adjective.’ His upper lip curled in a cynical sneer. ‘I’d have thought that being worshipped was most women’s dream.’
‘Being loved is most women’s dream.’ Oh, God, I sound like a starry-eyed teenager… Her resolve stiffened as she stuck her chin out fully expecting his scorn—why should she be embarrassed by something that she believed? She wasn’t going to let some dyed-in-the-wool cynic make her feel self-conscious. After all, you couldn’t expect someone like Nikos Lakis to appreciate the difference between being loved for what you were and being loved for what someone wanted you to be.
Their eyes touched; hers were defiant, his were… Katie swallowed; then again maybe Nikos understood more than she thought. Uneasily she observed the subtle shift in his expression as he registered her loaded riposte.
Without saying anything he made her feel she’d just made some remarkably revealing comment.
‘Tom loves me,’ she gritted. ‘And he doesn’t care how I look in the morning. I suppose you look marvellous after a late night,’ she snarled.
The instant the words were off her tongue Katie knew they’d been a bad idea. It was like opening the floodgates of her imagination. Unwelcome images of tousled dark hair, slumberous, sexy eyes and hard, olive-toned flesh minus any form of clothing—Nikos Lakis definitely slept naked—flashed through her undisciplined mind. She sucked in air through her flared nostrils and then exhaled hard through her parted lips.
Thoughtfully Nikos watched the soft colour mount the smooth contours of her cheeks. ‘Actually I’ve not had any complaints as yet,’ he revealed softly.
The colour in her cheeks deepened. ‘Amazing what some women will put up with if they think they stand the chance of snagging a rich man,’ she grunted contemptuously.
‘I bow to your superior experience in such matters.’
It was the closest he’d come yet to an outright accusation of gold-digging. Katie’s fork fell from her grasp; she barely registered the noisy clatter of the metal on porcelain.
‘I wouldn’t kiss a man before he’s cleaned his teeth in the morning for any amount of money!’ she declared loudly enough to draw the amused attention of several diners close by who heard her forthright words.
For the first time she had the impression her response had perplexed Nikos. His glance slid to the undulations of her heaving bosom before returning to her angry face.
‘If you really mean that, I think you’ve been spending your nights with the wrong sort of man.’
Katie, her attention hopelessly held in thrall by the low, husky throb of his voice, watched as the heavy lids of his exotically slanted eyes dropped lower over his dark glittering gaze.
Elbows planted on the table, he leaned towards her, it seemed to Katie’s feverish mind that his closeness had cut them off from the rest of the room. Her senses were teased by the elusive male fragrance he used and the even more elusive but naturally occurring faintly musky male scent rising off his warm skin.
‘There is a special sort of pleasure in kissing someone and tasting the scent of your body on their lips…’ With each successive syllable his voice dropped lower until it was just a husky purr. The mesmeric drawl sent tiny shivers trickling through her body. ‘The intimacy awakens memories of the pleasures of the night before,’ he rasped.
The images that filled her brain sent a scalding hot flash of heat washing over Katie’s body, sending her core temperature off the scale. Katie tore her eyes from the dark ones of her tormentor. It would have been a lot less humiliating to pretend that it hadn’t happened…that Nikos Lakis hadn’t turned her into a mindless bundle of lustful longing with a bit of coarse sexual innuendo, but he had.
Forewarned is forearmed, she told herself without any particular conviction—there were some things even she, the eternal optimist, found hard to put a positive slant on.
‘Give me fluoride any day,’ she gritted stubbornly.
For a moment Nikos looked nonplussed by her response. Then a slow grin spread across his lean face. Katie found her eyes drawn to the brown flesh of his throat as, head back, he laughed. Presumably his skin would be that firm and golden elsewhere?
‘And you, Katerina…’
‘Me…?’ she squeaked, lifting a hand to cover the mortified colour in her cheeks. To be caught drooling was bad enough, but to be caught drooling over Nikos Lakis made her certifiably stupid!
‘Am I wrong to think that you feel some sympathy for these little flowers that Tom is going to cover with concrete?’ He leaned back in his seat and replaced his almost full wineglass on the table.
She was unable to match his mental agility; the abrupt change of subject escalated Katie’s growing mental confusion.
‘What?’ she asked, playing for time. It was unthinkably disloyal to voice her doubts on the subject to anyone, let alone this man. ‘I’m totally behind Tom.’
‘Even when you think he’s wrong. How loyal.’
‘Tom would never do anything illegal.’
‘Legally, I’m sure he wouldn’t do anything wrong.’
All thoughts of confronting Nikos and reminding him he had to honour his side of their bargain had long since vanished from her head. Katie just knew she’d explode or do something equally socially unacceptable if she spent another moment in this detestable man’s company!
‘How dare you? I’m not going to sit here and debate my fiancé’s morals with someone like you,’ she spat in a shaking voice as she rose to her feet. The abrupt but graceful motion sent the soft fabric of her dress hissing softly around her shapely ankles.
‘Not a pudding girl, then?’ The lazily mocking observation was addressed to her rigid slender back. Nikos spent the next few moments until she disappeared from view admiring the elegant line of her stiff spine and the gentle sway of her softly curved behind. The image, though quite delectable, brought a brooding frown to his face.
It wasn’t easy when every cell in her body was agonisingly aware of him, but Katie stubbornly refused to acknowledge the tall figure at her side as she stood in the foyer—nobody else felt similarly inhibited. She had never felt so conspicuous as she did standing next to someone that everyone seemed inclined to goggle at—so much for good old British reserve! For his part Nikos seemed genuinely oblivious to the intense interest he created.
It was only when he cancelled the request for a taxi she’d made to the uniformed figure who arrived all effusive apologies for his absence at the reception desk that Katie could no longer pretend he wasn’t there.
‘Go away,’ she spat. ‘Or I’ll call Security.’ Her fury was fed by the fact the receptionist was automatically obeying him despite her loud protest.
‘I’m taking you home; it is what Tom would expect.’
This struck Katie as the height of hypocrisy. ‘The same way he’d expect you to insult me every chance you get.’ If he thought she was getting in his car with him he was off his head—or I would be if I did, she thought, recalling uneasily the strange things that happened to her when she was in close physical proximity to him…
Her delicate feathery brows drew together. Something as shallow and superficial as sexual attraction ought in theory to be easy to control or at least ignore…
‘Is that what I’ve been doing?’
Katie lifted confused eyes to his. ‘I don’t know what you’ve been doing,’ she revealed shakily. She bit her lower lip and added in a hard, contemptuous voice, ‘I should have known you’d be the sort of man who’d drink and drive.’
Katie watched in reluctant fascination as the handsome face above her grew taut and forbidding… My Lord, he really is formidable, she thought, unable to tear her gaze free.
‘If you were half as observant as you like to think yourself you’d have noticed that, unlike you, I barely had a mouthful of wine,’ he announced austerely.
‘Are you calling me drunk?’ she demanded spikily.
Nikos muttered something inaudible but definitely not English or polite under his breath. ‘That at least would be some excuse,’ he gritted. ‘But I think your unreasonable behaviour is a result of an intractable, obstinate and shrewish disposition, not inebriation.’
‘I hate to disillusion you but not agreeing with you is not actually the accepted litmus test for pigheadedness. Just because women fall in with your wishes doesn’t mean they actually agree with you, or even think that pearls of wisdom fall from your tongue.’ Pausing to catch her breath, she delivered a breathless, snide laugh. ‘It just means you’ve got more money than they have. Privately they probably think you’re just as much of a pain as I do.’
Incredulity—maybe people didn’t speak to him that way?—metamorphosed into sizzled anger in his dramatic eyes and Katie wondered with a strange sense of objectivity if she might not have gone too far. It was almost as if she had a compulsion to push him, test him to his limits.
‘I can only assume,’ he replied in a voice with a chill factor straight from Siberia, ‘that Tom has been kept in ignorance of this charming aspect of your personality—he never struck me as a stupid man, but then I suppose a beautiful face will make the wisest man foolish,’ he concluded cynically.
It wasn’t the attack alone that made her eyes open wide in amazement, it was the inference that he thought she had a beautiful face… Her preoccupation with this discovery struck her as unhealthy. She’d never counted vanity as one of her sins…now pride and obstinacy were quite another matter!
‘Now be a good girl and let me take you home.’
His patronising drawl fanned the embers of her temper into hot flame. ‘Go jump in the lake!’ she bawled childishly up at him. As she was tall, Katie wasn’t accustomed to being forced to tilt her head back to look a man in the face. She silently seethed with discontent. It wasn’t fair, she reflected resentfully, that simply because the gene pool had made him so damned tall he immediately had an unfair advantage in any argument…
‘If you are still concerned that I have been drinking, don’t be,’ he continued sombrely. ‘I am very conscious that cars can be a lethal weapon—my elder brother was killed by a drunk driver.’
His frosty manner was not one that invited sympathy; despite this, Katie’s attitude tumbled abruptly from extreme hostility to aching pity. Notwithstanding his terse tone, she was convinced that behind that stony façade he was hurting.
She knew of course it was probable that the Peter factor had something to do with her response—up to this point they’d had nothing in common, but now she knew that they’d both lost their brothers in motor accidents. Though the circumstances were very different, she felt, quite illogically, that some tenuous link had sprung up between them—not enough to make them inseparable friends, but maybe it just made him seem a little more human, more fragile. Fragile…? She glanced up at his tough profile and shook her head; maybe that was taking it too far.
It was ironic, considering that she’d been trying to discover a weak spot in his defences all evening, that now she had actually found one all she wanted to do was kiss him better. Kiss…don’t go there, Katie. But of course she did.
Her active imagination had rapidly progressed beyond the kissing scene; by now things had got a lot further! Katie stopped herself; she was sure Nikos Lakis was the person in the universe least likely to need to be kissed better.
‘I’m sorry about your brother.’ I suppose I just don’t have the killer instinct.
Nikos’s dark, well-defined brows drew together as he watched those extraordinary sapphire-blue eyes fill until they glistened luminously with unshed tears. It struck him as bizarre that someone so hard-nosed and single-minded should have tears to spare for someone she had never even met.
This unexpected display of empathy was totally incompatible with the character of the woman that he had in his mental file marked ‘Katerina Forsythe’. Nikos scowled; he didn’t want her to be more complex than the two-dimensional character he had imagined. Mostly he considered himself pretty flexible and open to new ideas, but in this instance he was extremely resistant to revision.
‘And I’m sure you’re an excellent driver,’ she added generously. ‘But I’ve no intention—’
His deep, strangely abstracted voice cut softly across her rambling rejection. ‘I thought that day I first saw you that you were wearing tinted contact lenses, the colour of your eyes was so…extreme. But the colour is real, isn’t it?’ His expression took on an almost accusing cast as he gazed down into the clear blue of her widely spaced, darkly fringed eyes.
The total unexpectedness of his comment made her blink, or maybe the intensity of his regard had something to do with her need to break the contact? It surprised her that he’d even noticed what colour her eyes were, let alone given the shade any thought.
‘Of course it’s real.’ For some inexplicable reason her heart began to act as if she’d decided to sprint across the lobby.
Nikos cleared his throat and ran a long-fingered hand through his dark glossy hair. ‘It is a very unusual colour—almost violet. Did you inherit your colouring from your mother?’
The tight feeling in her chest made her voice sound unusually breathy when she replied. ‘No, my mother was very dark. It was Peter who inherited her colouring.’ Her expression softened as she thought of Eleri’s glossy jet-black hair and golden skin. ‘Dad was a blue-eyed, redheaded Scot.’
‘Was? Is he dead?’
‘They both are.’
‘So there is just you and…Peter? Or do you have other siblings?’
Katie shook her head. ‘No, it was just us two—and Peter, he died.’
‘Long ago?’
‘Seven years.’
He nodded, but did not comment further on what she’d told him.
Katie wasn’t quite sure why she had told him. Peter wasn’t a subject she discussed with anyone, though sometimes the weight of her secret made her long to share the burden with someone.
‘I know my presence disturbs you, Katerina…’
And then some! ‘Are you surprised? I wasn’t expecting Tom’s billionaire friend to turn out to be the penniless man I married seven years ago?’
If Nikos heard the unspoken question in her resentful observation he chose to ignore it. Katie was starting to get the idea he did that a lot.
‘If you put aside your animosity…’
Katie was unable to restrain her incredulous laughter; as if he were the soul of impartial reason! ‘I don’t think I’m the only person with an animosity issue here, mate.’
‘If you stop spitting and snarling for a minute you might recognise that we have things to talk about.’ His brows lifted to a quizzical angle. ‘Don’t you agree?’
Katie opened her mouth and then closed it again; she could hardly deny it. You couldn’t really meet up with a man you’d just requested a divorce from and not talk.
‘Now seems an excellent opportunity,’ he continued, his eyes observing the inner struggle very clearly revealed on her expressive face.
Katie swallowed and, without looking directly at him, nodded her consent.
CHAPTER FOUR
FOR someone who’d wanted to talk, Nikos showed precious little inclination to do so once they were in his car—predictably a low-slung luxurious sports car. In Katie’s present mood she’d have criticised his driving had the opportunity arisen, but it didn’t. He proved to be competent but not dangerously erratic as many men were when placed behind the wheel of a powerful car.
Other than ask directions as they’d left the hotel he had said nothing at all.
She cleared her dry throat, and swallowed; it seemed it was up to her to break the ice. She wondered what to say.
‘Why are you here?’
It wasn’t exactly slick, but you had to start somewhere.
‘When we spoke on the phone Tom could not stop talking about the woman of his dreams. I was naturally curious to see this paragon.’
Sarcastic beast. She eyed him with dislike. ‘And that was it?’ She gave a sceptical snort. ‘I don’t believe in coincidences.’
‘Neither did I until I opened my mail immediately after speaking to Tom. When I read Harvey’s letter relaying your request for a speedy dissolution of our union I realised why the name Katie Forsythe seemed so familiar. Katie…Katerina…I thought I’d check it out. I dropped in on Harvey on my way here and tried to get your address. Being an exemplary example of the legal profession and impervious to bribery, he refused…’
‘You didn’t try and bribe Harvey!’ Katie exclaimed in a scandalised tone.
Nikos spared her a fleeting glance that made her feel ridiculously gauche before he returned his attention to the narrow, ill-lit road. ‘It was much simpler and more rewarding to take a look at his laptop when he was called from the office.’
This offhand attitude to such sneaky actions confirmed Katie’s first impressions of his character—the man was totally without scruples. Something she would do well to keep in mind in her dealings with him.
‘It might interest you to know that Harvey told me he’d personally guarantee your integrity,’ she choked, regarding his perfect profile with disgust mingled with unwilling appreciation. There was a lot to appreciate: his jaw was firm without being chunky and, even though it was probably due to generations of inbreeding amongst the ruling classes, a lot of men might have sacrificed a sense of humour—you couldn’t count warped—for strong features of such staggeringly perfect dimensions.
If that doesn’t shame him, nothing will.
It seemed he was shameless.
‘That would explain why he didn’t take the most elementary security measures.’ Katie looked at him blankly. ‘He left the thing turned on when he left the room.’
‘God knows where Harvey got the idea that you were some sort of paragon of virtue.’
‘I think he received his information on my exemplary character from a prejudiced source.’
‘And that would be?’
Nikos’s mobile lips twitched at the corners. ‘Caitlin.’
A woman, that figured, Katie thought darkly. ‘What exactly did you find out when you illegally accessed Harvey’s computer?’ she interrupted uneasily.
The idea of Nikos Lakis knowing chapter and verse the intimate details of her history was not a comfortable thought.
Harvey was the only one other than herself who knew the entire story of Peter’s death; the rest of the world thought, as she had until the letter written in that familiar hand had dropped on her doormat the day after his funeral, that her twin’s death had been a tragic accident—a young man fond of speed who took a bend too fast on his motor cycle.
For a long time she’d just held the letter, afraid to open it and read words that seemed to come from the grave.
‘Sorry, Katie,’ she’d read, ‘but I just can’t bear the guilt.’
Katie had read on in denial, unable to think of her brother so young, so filled with life, being in such despair that he had taken his own life. It’s not possible…I would have known…I should have known…!
‘I thought I’d killed the guy, I should have stopped but I panicked and rode away. The guy lived but he’s going to be paralysed for life.’
Katie had cried; she’d cried for a long time. She’d cried for her brother and she’d cried for the man whose life his recklessness had ruined.
‘Why didn’t you come to me?’ she’d yelled at the happy, laughing face beside her own in the framed photo. ‘You always come to me!’ It was true the twins had always turned to one another for support in times of crisis; they’d always presented a united front against the world.
Very much later Katie had discreetly gone about finding out what she could about the man Peter had left for dead at the roadside. She’d discovered Ian Graham had been a thirty-year-old electrician. He had married his childhood sweetheart and they’d had a ten-month-old baby.
Listening in to conversations at the corner shop in the village where they’d lived had told her he had not come to terms with his disability and his young wife had been at her wits’ end. Financially, the gossips had said, they’d been in a bad way; rumours had abounded that they wouldn’t be able to keep up with mortgage repayments for much longer.
Katie had vowed that she’d do something to help them, even if it took her the rest of her life, which sounded very grand but the Grahams needed help now, not in twenty years’ time.
It was only when she’d remembered the legacies she and Peter had been left by their Greek grandfather on condition they marry that she’d seen a way out. The shocked twins had concluded that this generosity from a grandfather they’d never even received a Christmas card from was the old man’s way of controlling the grandchildren he didn’t know. She and Peter had joked that they would never marry just to spite the man who through their childhood had always featured as the current villain in their games.
It was amazing really that such a strange series of circumstances had led her to exchange solemn vows with the man beside her.
‘Relax, your secrets are safe, there was just your address, which revealed you shared a postcode with Tom. It therefore seemed safe to assume that my wife and Tom’s angel were one and the same person.’
Katie released a gusty sigh of relief; he might be scarily perceptive but he wasn’t clairvoyant. Fortunately his ability to read her thoughts—or was it her body language?—had its limitations.
‘But it didn’t occur to you to let me know you were coming.’
‘Only momentarily,’ he admitted frankly. ‘But I quickly realised that your reactions might be less guarded if you had no warning.’
In other words he wanted to see me squirm and I obliged. ‘Tell me,’ she choked, ‘did you deprive many flies of their wings when you were a little boy?’
He seemed unmoved by her withering contempt. ‘Tom is my friend; I would not like to see him make an unwise marriage.’
‘And marriage to me would be unwise?’ Her voice rose a couple of outraged octaves, which made Nikos wince. ‘You didn’t seem to think so once!’
‘I arrived here with an open mind.’
Katie let out a mocking howl. ‘Like hell you did! What is it with you? Can’t you stand to see people happy?’
‘It’s only natural that you would be concerned, I am going to be uncooperative about the divorce.’
Katie’s eyes widened in alarm as she took an abrupt tumble from her moral high ground. ‘You’re not, are you?’
He didn’t reply to her dismayed whisper, but his enigmatic smile seemed calculated to keep her worried. There was no point demanding a straight answer, she decided; the man seemed determined to make her squirm. He had a sadistic streak a mile wide!
‘Actually when I read Harvey’s letter it seemed fortuitous timing. I’ve been thinking of marriage myself.’
Relief flooded through Katie, who slumped back in her seat. ‘That’s marvellous,’ she breathed happily. She supposed with his looks and money there must be any number of women out there willing and eager to overlook his overbearing and egotistical character. ‘Who’s the lucky girl?’
‘You wouldn’t know her.’
In other words, we don’t move in the same circles…what a prize snob he is, she thought contemptuously.
‘Why didn’t you tell Tom that you were married?’
Now that was something Katie had asked herself quite a lot recently. None of the answers she’d come up with showed her in a very favourable light. ‘It slipped my mind,’ she responded flippantly.
He threw her a wry look.
She sighed and lifted her slender shoulders in a gesture of defeat. ‘Well, I didn’t feel married,’ she told him crossly. ‘And if you must know it’s not an incident in my life I feel particularly proud of.’
And if she had told him, she’d have had to tell him why she’d done it, and would do again, and that wasn’t an option. Nobody but Harvey knew the truth and she intended for Peter’s sake it would stay that way. Her brother had paid the ultimate price for his mistake—with his life.
‘I needed that money. It was a means to an end, no more, no less,’ she told him coldly. ‘And I had hoped that Harvey could organise things so that Tom would never have to know.’
‘So your marriage is to be based on lies…excellent foundation.’
Katie flushed angrily at his sarcasm. ‘I never lied to Tom. If he had asked me if I was married I would have told him.’
‘So, a marriage based on half truths…I congratulate you, a massive improvement!’
Katie inhaled sharply. ‘God, you’re so sharp I’m amazed you don’t cut yourself.’ I should be so lucky, she thought viciously. ‘I take it your girlfriend knows you’re already married?’ she added innocently.
Katie had the pleasure of seeing what appeared in the subdued light to be a faint flush highlight his high cheekbones as his jaw tightened with annoyance.
She folded her arms and smiled. ‘I’ll take that as a no, shall I?’
‘It isn’t the same thing at all.’
‘Gosh!’ she gasped, widening her eyes. ‘That’s so spooky. I must be psychic—I had the strangest feeling you were going to say that.’
His long, lean fingers tightened on the steering wheel. ‘Theos!’ he thundered…the flush of anger was no longer in doubt. ‘You will not speak to me in this fashion.’
‘Do people always do as you say?’ Katie wondered, crossing one ankle elegantly over the other.
‘Yes!’ he bit back.
‘That must be boring.’
‘Why are you marrying Tom?’
‘For the usual reasons people get married.’
‘You mean you’re pregnant?’ He shrugged as Katie gave an outraged gasp. ‘So you’re not pregnant.’
‘Even if I was there is no shame in having a baby outside marriage.’
‘My father might not agree with you there,’ Nikos inserted drily as he imagined the uproar that would occur if he produced an heir but no wife. ‘And,’ he continued, his brows drawing together over the bridge of his nose, ‘you’re not in love with him. That leaves—’
‘Who says I’m not in love with Tom?’
His low-pitched, mocking laugh made her prickle with antagonism.
‘I can only conclude,’ he added, with the air of someone who had cut through the crap and was adding two and two, ‘that your nest egg has run out? Mind you, if you have many designer outfits like that one, it’s hardly surprising,’ he observed, allowing his eyes to briefly skim the silky blue dress and the pleasing contours it covered. ‘It is a CJ Malone, isn’t it?’ Caitlin, he reflected, would have appreciated seeing one of her creations worn by someone who possessed the sort of unlikely proportions designers had in mind when they created outfits.
‘Probably.’ Katie, who wouldn’t have recognised a CJ Malone if she fell over it, replied vaguely. She wasn’t about to admit to him that she was wearing a hand-me-down.
‘I know a lot of women with expensive tastes, but none of them who wouldn’t know if they were wearing a CJ Malone.’
She shrugged. ‘I’m bad on names.’
‘But good at signing cheques. I suppose once you’ve married for money once it’s easier the second time?’ he mused, slowing at an unsigned crossroads.
‘Left,’ she replied tersely. ‘You’re pretty handy with the lofty disdain for someone who married for money himself, but then I suppose arranged marriages are in your blood.’
Katie was pleased to see his taut jaw tighten, presumably with anger—she hoped with anger. She wasn’t quite sure why she wanted to make him angry and, anyway, it was hard to be sure from this angle if she’d succeeded, because his eyes were screened by the sweep of his luxuriant lashes, which cast a shadow across the high plane of his cheekbones. He had the sort of face that was aesthetically pleasing from any angle.
She arranged her own features in an expression of mock sympathy. ‘What’s wrong, Nikos? Did the idea of getting your hands dirty like the rest of us seem too sordid when Daddy withdrew his support?’
He slid her a look of smouldering dislike before taking the road she had indicated. ‘I’m not about to explain myself to you.’
‘Ditto,’ she added nastily. Of all the men in the world for Harvey to produce for her to marry, why, oh, why had it been this one? Sometimes fate had a very poor sense of humour.
‘Theos!’ he ejaculated raggedly. ‘You are the most poisonous female I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter!’ he gritted. ‘It will be well worth the inconvenience to myself to prevent you ruining my friend’s life.’
Katie stiffened as an icy shiver slid up her spine. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I think you know exactly what I mean.’
‘Pretend just for a moment that I’m not a mind-reader.’ She was unable to conceal the fearful quiver in her voice.
‘If I thought for one moment you would make Tom happy I would give you this divorce.’
‘I will make Tom happy. I love him…’ she declared loudly.
A scornful sound vibrated in Nikos’s brown throat. ‘I watched you together; you do not love Tom,’ he announced calmly.
‘And you’d know, I suppose?’
‘I know how a woman in love acts, and you were not that woman. There was no passion in your eyes when they touched his; you act as if he’s your brother,’ he sneered scornfully.
‘We don’t all wear our hearts on our sleeves and there is a lot more to marriage than sex!’
‘Both these things are true and I agree that many successful marriages are based on more pragmatic reasons; I have no problem with that, so long as both parties enter into the arrangement with their eyes open.’
‘Like us.’
‘Unless you are planning on not sharing Tom’s bed there are some very obvious differences, but, yes, on your part there are very obviously similarities. However, unlike Tom, I was not madly in love with you,’ he ground out sarcastically. ‘It is your hypocrisy in pretending you are marrying for some pure and elevated reasons that I despise. The thing you love is the idea of being married to someone who can buy you diamonds and keep you in your expensive clothes.’
‘How dare you act as if you know me? You may have married me, but you don’t know me at all!’
‘But we are married and, while we are, Tom is safe from making the worst mistake of his life…’
‘And you can’t marry your girlfriend.’ Surely that consideration had to carry weight with him.
‘She will wait.’ His faintly startled tone suggested no other possibility had even occurred to him.
For a brief moment Katie allowed herself the indulgence of imagining Nikos Lakis left at the altar, a shattered man. The bride leaving him in this happy vision bore a startling resemblance to herself. As pleasant as this fantasy was, Katie had to think of some way of dealing with Nikos in the real world, and denying him her favours was hardly going to do it…what would?
It was so obvious she didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of it earlier.
‘So maybe you’ve got a girlfriend who will let you walk over her and wait for you until doomsday, but the press are a different kettle of fish—they don’t have so much tolerance for rich playboys.’
Katie sensed his big body tense behind the wheel. ‘Meaning…?’
Katie refused to be put off by the menace in his silky voice. ‘Meaning that some sections of the press would have a field day if they found out a member of the Lakis family had gone through a fake wedding ceremony so he could get the money to maintain his lavish lifestyle.’
Greek billionaire, young and more beautiful than any man had a right to be… Katie didn’t know much about such things, but she was betting the press would have files several feet thick on Nikos Lakis and more than a passing interest in his wedding plans past, present or future! Of course she would never actually go to the press, but he didn’t have to know that. On this occasion, him thinking she were some avaricious cow definitely worked in her favour. She flickered a cautious glance at his profile…and swallowed; she had definitely made her point.
‘I can just see the headlines now…’ she breathed airily. Even though she was staring fixedly out the window she was aware of the explosive tension in the tall figure beside her. The silence between them lengthened until Katie could no longer bear it; she swivelled in her seat and shot a look at him.
If Nikos’s expression was any indication, he was seeing those headlines she’d spoken of too. Katie salved her troubled conscience by reminding herself she would not have had to resort to these sort of tactics if he hadn’t played dirty first.
‘You are threatening me?’ he finally asked incredulously.
Kate found his silky shark’s smile and soft voice a million times more menacing than a lot of shouting and swearing.
In fact it was so unnerving that had she had any alternative or been any less stubborn she might have retracted there and then.
‘Think very carefully before you do that, yineka mou.’
Now who was threatening…? ‘I am not your yineka mou,’ she gritted automatically, before adding, ‘it’s the third house on the left after the telephone kiosk.’ She took some comfort from the fact that the street lights in this tree-lined avenue of solid Edwardian houses were fairly bright, and even in subdued light the car Nikos drove was likely to be noticed. He struck her as the practical type of man who would wait until there weren’t any witnesses before he strangled her.
The fact that he wanted to strangle her was not in doubt!
‘You speak Greek?’ Nikos sounded startled.
Katie froze; her response to his sarcastic endearment had been unconscious. ‘Just a few words,’ she mumbled, thinking of the lullaby her mother had sung to her when she’d been unable to sleep. That and a few endearments were the limit of her vocabulary, though she wished right now that she had a better grasp of her mother tongue.
‘When I visit a country,’ she told him blandly, ‘I make it a rule to know how to ask directions to the loo, order a drink and understand what a man is saying when he makes love to me.’
That’s me, the sophisticated woman of the world, well travelled and even more well versed in other things. My God, would he laugh if he knew how far from the truth this was; the only time her passport had come out of mothballs was on a day trip to Calais and as for the other! There could be few twenty-five-year-olds less experienced!
All regretful thoughts of bilingualism and the blank page that was her sex life left her head as they rounded the next tight corner.
‘Oh, my goodness…! Stop the car!’ she suddenly shrieked urgently.
‘There is no need for theatrics, or threats. Be reasonable. I would be a bad enemy to make and a resourceful woman like you will no doubt find another gullible man with a fat bank balance. But I cannot permit you to marry Tom.’
Katie wasn’t listening to these powerful words as she literally bounced in her seat in frustration. ‘I said stop the car!’ she bellowed, grabbing the steering wheel.
There was a short-lived tussle during which the car slewed violently to the left, barely missing a large beech tree before Nikos, white-faced and cursing, brought the vehicle safely to standstill.
‘Are you mad?’ he thundered, raking her face with silver-shot blazing eyes. ‘You could have killed us.’
Katie, who had been thrown against the door, shook her head to clear the ringing in her ears. ‘Well, if you’d done what I said instead of ignoring me…’ she retorted, reaching for the door handle.
Long brown fingers came to cover her own.
‘You are not going anywhere…’
Katie turned her head impatiently towards him. ‘Shut up and phone for the fire brigade—that’s my flat over there with smoke pouring out of the damned window.’
‘Theos!’
CHAPTER FIVE
KATIE didn’t wait around to see if Nikos was doing as she requested. She tore open the door, which he no longer barred, and, gathering her long skirts, ran full pelt down the path to the entrance she shared with Sadie.
In between pounding on the door she fumbled in her purse for her key. Before she found it Sadie, dressed in a baggy pair of silk trousers and a low-cut top that made her look like an inmate of a harem, appeared blinking sleepily.
‘Where’s the fire…?’
Katie had no time to waste on explanations. ‘Upstairs.’
Sadie’s eyes widened as she appreciated for the first time the urgency in Katie’s manner. ‘You’re serious!’ She sniffed the air. ‘I can smell smoke.’
Katie barged unceremoniously past her friend. ‘That’s because my flat’s on fire, and Alexander is still in there!’ she yelled over her shoulder as she raced up the stairs two at a time.
She ignored Sadie’s alarmed cry of ‘Katie, you can’t go up there…he’s just a cat!’
The smell of smoke got stronger as she climbed the stairs, but when she arrived at the top all she could see that was out of the ordinary were a few puffs of pale smoke oozing from the gap under the door of her attic apartment—it wasn’t good, but Katie had expected worse. With any luck the fire brigade would arrive before it got out of hand.
For a moment she stood there indecisively, at a loss to know what to do next. What did people do under such circumstances…?
‘If in doubt cross your fingers,’ she declared unscientifically. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door.
She exhaled noisily with relief as no lethal fireball knocked her over, and she pressed a hand flat against her chest where her thudding heart was trying hard to escape.
Perhaps this is my lucky day after all… she mused. ‘Lucky…!’ She rolled her eyes. Oh my word, I’m turninginto one of those irritating people who see a bright side to a calamity, no matter how dire. ‘There’s optimism, Katie, and then there’s insanity. Your flat is on fire because you forgot to turn off your iron—that’s not lucky, it’s disastrous.’
The sound of her own voice calmed her nerves and strengthened her resolve. Her flat consisted of an open-plan living-area-cum-kitchen and a small bedroom with en suite facilities. Though the main room was filled with an acrid smoke that stung the back of her throat and made her eyes water, Katie could see no more obvious signs of the fire, which seemed to advance her theory that it had started in the bedroom. That was where she had ironed the creases from her dress on the floor rather than be bothered getting out her ironing-board.
‘Alex…good puss, nice kitty,’ she called, advancing cautiously into the smoke-filled room.
She had barely gone a couple of yards into the room when the visibility became nil. The only thing she could now see was a dull orange coming from underneath her bedroom door; it was the only thing that gave her any sense of orientation in the gloom. It also gave her a deep sense of foreboding…how long would the door contain the flames?
At times like this a well-developed imagination was not helpful.
No good thinking about that, she told herself, just get onwith it. The sooner you find that damned cat, the sooner you can get out. Despite this stoicism her knees were shaking as she cautiously proceeded.
She stopped every few feet to listen but there was no response to her calls.
Katie didn’t know why she had expected him to respond, because Alexander was not a nice kitty, or a good puss, he was a belligerent animal who brought live mice into her bedroom and spat when you tried to show him affection. If he’d been human, doctors would have said he had a personality disorder.
And if I had any sense, she reflected grimly, I’d leave him to fry!
‘Alex, puss, puss…’ Mid coaxing call she walked straight into a solid object—the coffee-table she’d discovered in the garage sale. The impact of solid teak on her vulnerable shin was enough to send her to her knees. She eased her weight from her bruised knee and felt the tangled fabric of her dress rip.
‘Damn!’
It was while she was on her knees that she realised the smoke was thinner nearer the floor. She decided to continue her search from this position.
She was crawling cautiously along when she heard a deep voice calling her name.
Nikos…well, if he wants to murder me this would be the ideal opportunity, she thought. If ever there was a situation where black humour was appropriate, this was it, she decided, continuing her search, studiously ignoring his increasingly urgent cries.
Her grim smile turned into a cough when she heard a loud sound of impact closely followed by a strong Greek curse. It must, she realised in retrospect, have been the cough that alerted him to her position because moments later she was aware of strong hands sliding underneath her arms and hoisting her off the ground.
‘Let me go, you fool!’
‘Be still and keep calm. I have you.’ He did, in an iron grip that made escape impossible. ‘You are quite safe now,’ a deep, soothing voice in her ear informed her.
Katie, who had no desire to be saved, knew instinctively that safety was something Nikos Lakis’s arms would never offer her. It was the thought of what they might offer that made her start to struggle in earnest. As several of her blows connected the reassuring note in his deep voice began to sound a lot more strained.
She let out a shriek as he stopped trying to gently soothe her when, reverting to character, without so much as a ‘by your leave’ he threw her resistant body over his shoulder fireman-fashion.
This is a classic case, she told herself, lapsing into exhausted passivity, of resistance being quite definitely futile.
Katie was forced to maintain this undignified position until they had reached the hallway when she found herself plonked on the wooden floor, which Sadie had only had stripped and polished before Christmas… Oh, God, poor Sadie…! And this is all my stupid fault! I’m the tenant from hell!
She felt cool fingers press against the pulse point at the base of her throat, then a hand, the same one presumably, slid under her chin and began to firmly tilt her head back.
Her watering eyes shot open; embarrassingly it seemed that Nikos had wrongly attributed her sudden inertia to a loss of consciousness. She was ashamed that for a spilt second she had actually considered letting him try to revive her—her curiosity was purely of the scientific variety, of course.
‘Will you stop that?’ In her head her voice had been strong and defiant, but annoyingly what actually emerged from her dry lips was a weak croak.
‘Well, that’s a relief, you don’t require mouth to mouth,’ said the big figure who was straddled over her body as he settled back on his heels.
Though his face and clothes were blackened and soot­-stained, he still managed to looked as incredibly handsome as ever, Katie noted despairingly.
‘Imagine your relief and quadruple it,’ she croaked.
‘I did not expect gratitude for saving your life, but civility would have been nice…’
‘Saving my life!’ she squeaked, struggling to sit up. ‘My life didn’t need saving, I had everything under control until you got all Neanderthal.’ Panting and unable to rise, she grabbed onto the first available solid support to provide leverage, which happened to be his thighs, which were clamped either side of her waist.
The iron-hard firmness she encountered made her pause and caused her sensitive stomach muscles to tighten; escape somehow seemed less urgent as her splayed fingers explored a wider area and discovered no give in the bulging contours.
Then she came to herself and was deeply ashamed. It was unforgivable under the circumstances that she’d wasted precious seconds.
‘Thanks to you,’ she snarled, ‘Alexander is probably frying in there,’ she informed him, sliding out from between his legs and struggling to her feet. She got to them when, unaccountably, her knees gave way.
Nikos, a startled expression on his face, had also got to his feet, but with considerably more agility and athletic grace than she had. He caught her as she slid to the floor, which cushioned the impact of her contact with the bare wood.
With her head thrust between her knees, Katie batted blindly with her hands connecting only with empty air. It was only after she stopped fighting that he let her up.
‘You stupid, stupid man!’ she quavered, wiping with the back of her hand angry tears that coursed down her filthy face leaving paler tracks in the grime. Nikos, who was kneeling beside her, did not look particularly chastened by her attack. ‘Alexander is still in there.’ She gestured towards the door.
Nikos looked grim. ‘I heard you. Stay calm—hysteria will achieve nothing.’
‘I am calm!’ she bellowed.
‘Why on earth didn’t you tell me what you were doing earlier? Surely this was not the time to preserve your image?’
Katie’s brow creased in impatient bewilderment—image, what image? As for staying calm, the part of his recrimination she did understand was not only unjust, but would, if she’d been the type given to throwing wobblers, have set her off again. Katie was rendered speechless—but only temporarily.
‘Like you gave me a chance!’ she yelled. Or would have yelled if she hadn’t been coughing so much.
‘Katie…oh, Katie! You’re all right, thank goodness!’ A sobbing Sadie gasped as she reached the top of the staircase. ‘Oh, my, I really should lose a couple of pounds,’ she moaned, clutching her chest. ‘I’m signing into that fat farm next week…’
Nikos was looking with some bewilderment at Sadie, who was babbling wildly on about the detox therapies guaranteed to shed the pounds.
It seemed likely to Katie he was about to make one of his nasty sarky remarks.
Katie elbowed him hard, wanting to protect her friend from his nasty tongue. ‘She’s terrified, it’s her way of coping,’ she hissed at him. God, the man had the empathy of a brick.
Nikos seemed to take her explanation on board. Nodding, he left her side with a terse instruction to stay put!
‘Just take some deep breaths.’ Katie watched in astonishment as, with a smile of incredible charm and gentle manner, Nikos bent over Sadie.
The sound of Nikos’s voice seemed to calm Sadie, who nodded and looked up at him gratefully. Katie saw her do a double take and then an appreciative grin spread over her face.
‘Are you asthmatic?’ Nikos asked.
‘No, just fat and unfit.’ Sadie laughed shakily. ‘I ran all the way from the gate,’ she explained. ‘I think the fire brigade are coming. I heard them in the distance. Shall I go back and wait for them…?’
‘Take Katerina downstairs, and leave the house immediately.’
I suppose, Katie thought numbly, that people like Nikoscome into their own in situations like this—situations that require someone to take charge and make decisions. Not even his worst enemy—which might be me—can accuse Nikos of having a problem with decision-making, she conceded wryly.
‘I’m not going anywhere until Alexander—’
‘I will get Alexander and you will leave the building,’ Nikos announced in a lordly fashion. ‘How old is he?’ he asked, advancing towards the door from which smoke was now billowing.
‘You can’t go in there,’ Katie said positively, as convenient as it might be, she couldn’t let the rat die for her cat, who might still have a few of his lives left.
‘Concentrate.’
Katie was, on the amazing silver flecks in his eyes. She was stressed, exhausted, terrified, and frankly there couldn’t be a worse time to admit that you were sexually attracted to a person, and had there been any other conceivable explanation for the way her mind disintegrated and her body came to life around him Katie would have plumped for it.
‘How old is he?’ Nikos asked as though she hadn’t spoken.
The relevance of this escaped Katie, but she recognised she wasn’t totally immune to the indefinable something Nikos possessed that inspired compliance, no matter how silly the question or request.
‘Threeish, I think.’ That was what the vet had estimated when he’d given the ginger tom his injections. ‘I think we’ll sedate him next time,’ he’d said drily as he’d disinfected the scratches on his arm.
Nikos stopped in his tracks. ‘Three!’ he ejaculated, his lips twisting in a grimace of appalled disgust. His chest lifted. ‘You left a three-year-old child alone?’
Katie’s jaw dropped. He thought…he actually thought she…! Words failed her. God, she’d known he had a low opinion of her, but she hadn’t thought it was this low!
Sadie, who was supporting Katie, came to her aid. ‘Child?’ She looked at the tall Greek as though he’d gone mad. ‘Alexander is a cat.’
At her words Nikos, whose body was primed for action, each muscle clenched in anticipation of the task ahead, went quite still. Only his eyes moved; they slid from Katie to Sadie, who nodded, before returning to the original object of his scrutiny.
Katie observed the muscles in his throat move as he swallowed.
‘You risked your life for a cat?’ There was no discernible inflection in his voice.
‘Sorry, I realise it would have suited you much better if I had left a helpless baby alone.’
He gave an impatient frown. ‘What are you talking about, suited my purposes? I have no hidden agenda.’
‘You’re right—it’s not hidden, it’s blatantly obvious. It’s so much easier for you to carry on pretending you’re doing the dirty to save your friend from making a terrible marriage if I reveal myself to be an avaricious monster with no redeeming characteristics whatsoever. If, however, I turn out not to be a heartless bitch you’ll look less like the true friend and more like a spiteful, vindictive pig who can’t bear to see anyone else happy because he’s too emotionally retarded and shallow to form a decent relationship himself!’ she concluded breathlessly.
The blank incredulity of his expression gradually metamorphosed into one of smouldering fury. ‘Have you quite finished?’ he enquired with clipped hauteur.
‘Actually, no, I haven’t,’ Katie heard herself grit back belligerently, even though she’d run out of emotional steam.
As the expectant silence lengthened Nikos lifted a satirical eyebrow.
‘I didn’t risk my life. You said I did,’ she reminded him. ‘But I didn’t,’ she ended lamely. Though actually, now that she came to think about it, her actions looked a little different. This no doubt had something to do with the fact she was viewing it without the stimulation provided by gallons of adrenalin pumping through her veins.
‘I might have known you wouldn’t like animals,’ she heard herself grouch pettishly. Why can’t I keep my mouth shut while I’m still ahead? she wondered in exasperation. What was it about this man that made her say stupid things? When he was around she seemed to be possessed by a need to prove she was even more selfish and superficial than he thought her.
‘I like animals—in fact I frequently prefer them to people, especially the crazy, stupid, female type of person.’
Katie, who was normally capable of giving as good as she got, was deeply embarrassed to feel her eyes suddenly fill with tears at this fairly mild—by his standards—insult.
She wasn’t the only one to feel uncomfortable. It seemed that quite by accident she’d discovered another of Nikos’s weak spots…he looked even more dismayed by her tears than she was.
He cleared his throat. ‘I didn’t mean…’ As he spoke he seemed to notice for the first time the hand he had extended towards her. For a split second he stared at it as if it didn’t belong to him, an expression of shock on his dark, lean features. Then his expression became as unrevealing as ever as he lowered it to his side. His chest lifted as he took a deep breath.
‘Take Katerina outside and wait for the fire brigade,’ he instructed tersely as he turned to Sadie, who silently handed him a torch from her pocket. ‘Thank you.’
‘I don’t need taking anywhere…’ Katie’s voice rose to a querulous squeak as her comments fell on deaf ears. ‘And you can’t go back in there.’
‘Look on the bright side—if I don’t come out you’ll be able to marry Tom.’
Katie gave a cry of alarm as he turned and stepped back into her smoke-filled flat. If it hadn’t been for Sadie’s restraining grip on her arm she would have followed him.
‘Don’t worry, he’s not daft,’ Sadie soothed. ‘He was only trying to wind you up.’ Curiously she searched her friend’s face. ‘He won’t take any silly risks.’
This confidence from someone who had only just met the man seemed wildly misplaced to Katie. ‘I am not worried, well, no more than I would be about anyone else. Absolutely not at all,’ she said half to herself. ‘I just can’t believe he had the cheek to accuse me of risking my life. What’s he trying to prove?’
‘Do you mind if we discuss this outside?’ Sadie wondered nervously.
‘What? Yes, of course.’ With one last look at the door of her flat, which Nikos had closed behind himself, Katie followed her friend down the stairs.
‘What did he mean when he said—?’
‘I thought you said you heard the fire brigade…’ Katie interrupted, craning her head to look up the road for any sign of flashing lights.
‘I thought I did,’ Sadie replied apologetically.
‘When that guy—?’
‘Nikos,’ Katie supplied distractedly.
‘When Nikos said. Good grief…Nikos…?’ You could almost hear the sound of Sadie’s chin hitting her chest as the name clicked. ‘You mean he’s the one you…’
‘I married, yes. I don’t know how you can think about that when your house is on fire and it’s all my fault. You should be screaming abuse at me.’
‘I will if it will make you feel better, but first tell me about that incredible man.’
‘There’s nothing to tell.’ Nikos was the one subject Katie wanted to avoid. Although the way things were going it didn’t seem likely she would have much choice. Her choices were narrowing in other areas too. Her hopes of concealing the marriage from Tom now seemed hopelessly optimistic. She found that she was no longer thinking in terms of if, but when her sordid secret would be revealed.
‘He turned up tonight—apparently he and Tom went to university together.’
‘I don’t believe it!’ Sadie gasped, clearly startled by Katie’s taut explanation. ‘What were the odds on that? That must have been a bit awkward for you.’
‘Ever so slightly,’ Katie agreed drily.
‘Has he spilled the dirt to Tom?’
‘Not yet, but it’s only a matter of time.’ For the hundredth time in the past two minutes she glanced tensely over her shoulder towards the house. ‘Shouldn’t he be out by now?’
‘It’s only been a couple of minutes, Katie,’ Sadie soothed. ‘You know, I don’t know how much you paid for him, but if it had been common knowledge he was available on the open market I’m betting the price would have been higher,’ she joked with a lascivious grin.
‘I did not buy him!’ Katie denied hotly. ‘Well, not like that, it was a business arrangement, nothing more.’
Sadie shrugged pacifically. ‘If you say so. Are you sure you two haven’t met since the wedding?’
‘I don’t think I’d have forgotten.’ No, an encounter with Nikos Lakis was something that stayed in a person’s memory for ever like…like…eating bad shellfish, she thought sourly.
‘Fair enough. It’s just that you two don’t talk or act like people who have as good as just met…’
Katie never had to respond to this thought-provoking observation because at that exact moment they both heard the unmistakable and very welcome shriek of a siren.
Hands folded against her chest, Katie began to jump up and down. ‘They’re here!’ she yelled, silent tears slipping silently down her face.
Both women watched with relief as the engine drew up outside the house, disgorging several capable-looking uniformed figures. The noise of their arrival had attracted the attention of several neighbours in the tree-lined avenue, who came outdoors to investigate the activity in the normally sedate neighbourhood.
‘Have I ever told you about my fireman fantasy?’ Sadie caught the tail-end of Katie’s incredulous expression and looked sheepish. ‘Well, you have Nikos—you can hardly begrudge me a fireman.’
‘He’s not my Nikos,’ Katie retorted.
‘If you say so, but be a sport, Katie, I’m trying to distract myself and that one—’ she pointed ‘—is absolutely gorgeous…’
Katie was no longer listening; she was busy running towards the fireman who had inspired Sadie’s lustful fantasy.
She caught his arm and tried to speak; considering the urgency of the occasion, this seemed a bad time to lose her voice. The fire-fighter, who was probably used to dealing with people gibbering with fear, exuded a calm aura that helped Katie finally get her words out.
‘Th-there’s a man still in there,’ she told him beckoning towards the window on the top floor.
‘Has he been in there long?’
Katie swallowed and pulled distractedly at her long hair. The sooty smell that came from it made her nose wrinkle—no doubt the rest of her smelt just as terrible and as for how she looked… Aah, how shallow am I, thinking about my lipstick when all this is going on? ‘I don’t know…it seems like a long time.’ Her lips trembled and she scrubbed at her dirty face. ‘It’s my fault,’ she confessed. ‘I think I left my iron on…I knew I’d forgotten something, and now I’ve killed N…Nikos and Alexander.’
‘There’s more than one person?’ he queried sharply.
‘Alexander is a cat,’ Sadie explained for the second time. ‘Katie, he’ll be fine. He didn’t look like an easy man to kill to me.’ Sadie smiled at the fire-fighter. ‘I’m the owner, officer.’
‘Hello. Is there any means of access other than the stairs?’
‘There is a fire escape around the side of the house.’
Katie, not placated, shrugged off the comforting arm that slid around her shoulders. ‘I’m a selfish cow, I sent him back in there for a…’ Her lips began to tremble as she fearfully contemplated the consequences of her actions.
Before she could reveal to the fireman what Nikos had gone back in for there was an almighty deafening explosion as her bedroom window exploded. The fireman, his arms outstretched, shielded the two women as glass from above showered on the garden below.
‘It would be better, ladies, if you waited a little farther back until the ambulance arrives.’
Katie saw his mouth move, she heard the words, but she felt as though she were in a black hole; she felt numb.
Sadie nodded, getting a firmer grip on the box containing family photos and treasures that she had automatically snatched up before they’d left the house. She urged Katie backwards while the burly fire-fighter, shouting instructions to his crew, strode off purposefully.
Katie resisted and Sadie looked with concern as the slim figure who was standing gazing with horror-filled eyes at the wicked tongues of orange flames shooting out of the window pushed her away.
‘Come on, Katie, we should get out of their way,’ Sadie suggested gently. ‘Mrs James next door has put the kettle on.’
Katie, her arms wrapped tightly about herself, continued to rock back and forth. Under the layer of grime her skin was paper-white. ‘He’s dead, isn’t he? I mean, if he was in there he has to be, doesn’t he? Nobody could survive that.’
Sadie shrugged helplessly. ‘I really don’t know.’ The muffled keening sound that suddenly emerged from Katie’s bloodless lips before she choked it back made the hairs on the back of Sadie’s neck stand on end.
The next sequence of events occurred with such bewildering speed that Sadie didn’t have a chance to do anything but yell a warning to the fire-fighters as her friend, running as if all the fiends of hell were at her heels, suddenly began to pelt towards the door of the house.
Katie was never going to make it there, the two fire-fighters aiming to cut her off were closing fast, but before they had an opportunity to do so she tripped and fell. Though she landed on her knees it was the sharp pain that shot through her ankle as it turned awkwardly that made her cry out.
Just what I need—a sprained ankle, or, the way this day is going, it will probably be broken!
Impatiently brushing the tears of self-pity and impatience from her face, Katie squared her shoulders and, catching her soft lower lip between her teeth, concentrated her efforts on getting to her feet.
So far, so good, she thought as she tentatively took a cautious step; to her relief her ankle hurt but it took her weight. Wincing, she hobbled over to a convenient Japanese flowering cherry tree that was shedding its sweet-smelling blossoms onto the damp grass below and leaned against the trunk.
She gazed towards the house. The fire crew, seeing she was not seriously hurt and no longer capable of dashing headlong into a burning building, had turned their attention elsewhere.
Katie was pondering the compulsion that had been responsible for her stunt—as if I could do something the fire-fighters couldn’t—when she finally recognised what the fire crew had turned their attention to. A tall figure was emerging from the smoke.
‘Thank God!’
She watched through a teary haze of relief as a couple of paramedics headed purposefully towards Nikos. The incredible noise of a fire scene seemed to recede to a low background buzz and the hurrying figures appeared to slow; only her heart continued to beat fast, so fast she could feel the vibration of each inhalation in her throat. She lifted a hand to her spinning head; each breath she took was an effort.
If I faint now he’ll probably accuse me of faking it to steal his moment of triumph. Only she didn’t faint, the nervous tension found a more prosaic release.
‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ she gulped to nobody in particular, before she quietly did just that—not that anyone noticed; they were all crowding around Nikos.
Trust him to turn out to be a hero…it was a part he was born to play, she thought, a wry but relieved smile on her face as she leaned back against the tree trunk.
CHAPTER SIX
THE hero was clearly not comfortable with his moment of fame.
‘I am fine.’ The cough that followed this impatient pronouncement did not add weight to his claim. Ignoring a recommendation to breathe deeply, Nikos pushed aside the oxygen mask that someone was trying to slip over his head. ‘I don’t need that!’
‘You’ve inhaled a lot of smoke,’ the paramedic explained patiently.
Nikos smiled thinly and resisted the impulse to point out to this well-meaning individual that as the one who’d done the inhaling he didn’t need any reminders. After a few moments of fruitless arguing they reached a compromise, of sorts.
‘Though it is an unnecessary precaution I will come with you if you give me a few moments to speak to my wife.’ Nikos gestured towards the solitary figure on the lawn and immediately regretted it because by no stretch of the imagination did she look in need of comfort. In fact she looked extraordinarily composed. ‘I think she’s in shock,’ he improvised.
Hopefully this would adequately explain away the fact that his wife had been able to contain her joy at his miraculous escape. His lips curled in a cynical smile, then he shrugged; at least she wasn’t a hypocrite.
‘Well, just a few minutes…’
Everyone, Nikos reflected, was a sucker for a couple in love.
Did the professionals think it strange his wife had not been part of his reception committee? That she hadn’t dashed to throw her arms about his neck, tears of joy running down her cheeks? Nikos did not ponder the question for long; he rarely worried about how his actions were viewed by strangers. Though the potent image did remain in his mind, not because he was thinking about the impact on others—no, it was the impact on himself that occupied his thoughts.
Smooth arms wrapped around his neck, a soft, pliant body pressed to his, a silky head close to his heart. As he closed the distance between them anyone noticing would have wrongly assumed that the dark bands of colour highlighting the slashing curve of his high cheekbones were a product of the inferno he had just escaped—they’d have been wrong.
This scenario in his head was not a displeasing one, so the primitive response of his body was not, Nikos reasoned, to be wondered at. It was an explanation he was content with, but his reluctance to release this image was less easily rationalised.
Katie levered her back from the tree trunk and pushed a large hank of heavy hair from her face. ‘You found me, then…’
Nikos nodded. Her question made him realise that even though she had made no push to attract his attention, some inner radar had located her the moment he’d emerged from the building.
If you ignored the dark film of grime covering his skin and clothes he looked quite remarkably unscathed by his recent brush with death. In fact, he radiated an almost indecent amount of edgy vitality. It occurred to Katie that this was probably the most natural and relaxed she’d seen him. Near-death experiences obviously did for him what a box of chocolates, a soppy romance and a glass of wine did for her.
One corner of his mouth lifted as their eyes touched. Katie felt a flare of indignation—it clearly hadn’t even occurred to him that she had been through hell and back during the last few minutes because of his ridiculous macho stunt.
She didn’t know if she wanted to hit him or kiss him. Not literally kiss him, of course, because that would involve…her stomach took a sharp dive and the flow of her thoughts skidded to an abrupt halt. Her wide eyes were drawn by an invisible but irresistible force to the sensual curve of Nikos’s mouth.
She swallowed convulsively, unable to prevent the image forming in her head of that sexy mouth claiming her own, parting her lips, his tongue invading her mouth, tasting…touching.
She shook her head and took a deep, tremulous breath. But it was too late, the chain reaction had already started.
Her eyelids fluttered as a rush of fluid warmth worked its way up swiftly from her shaking knees until her entire body was bathed in the golden glow. She held her breath and willed the flames consuming her to subside.
Katie couldn’t deny she had wanted to experience that kiss for real; for several moments she had been consumed by the wanting. Even now her bones ached with the raw desire that had swept through her with the ruthless force of a forest fire.
She was guiltily aware that she had never felt that way anticipating Tom’s kiss. She struggled to understand what had happened and more importantly why it was happening. It had to be her hormones; this was some sort of revenge attack because she’d neglected them.
Or maybe this wasn’t just hormones—it was conceivable that she was actually suffering from some post-traumatic thing? Her flashbacks just happened to be of something that hadn’t happened yet—yet! A grammatical error, nothing more, and she for one hated people who banged on about Freudian slips.
The more she considered it, the more she became convinced that the extraordinary things she was feeling were a result of the near-death thing. That sort of ‘we could have died but didn’t, let’s go to bed’ thing—it apparently happened in war situations all of the time. Her eyes widened in alarm as she realized she’d jumped from kissing to bed!
That was an alarming leap by anyone’s standards.
She realised that Nikos was waiting for her to say something.
‘You’re not dead,’ she heard herself blurt out stupidly. Stupid it might be, but it was a far safer option than begging him to kiss her.
‘Sorry. I’m a bit singed if that’s any help.’
Katie took a deep offended breath. ‘Don’t be facetious!’
Nikos inclined his head in meek acknowledgement of her censure. ‘It’s true, look at my eyelashes.’
‘I don’t want to look at them,’ she snapped, turning her head away. In fact looking at any part of him was a bad idea, though unless she wanted to appear extremely odd she had no option. ‘This might be a joke to you,’ she remonstrated severely, ‘but how do you think I’d have felt if I’d had your death on my conscience? Huh, I don’t suppose you even thought of that, did you?’ The hot, impassioned words tumbled out of her. ‘No, of course not, you were too busy being Action Man. Talk about grandstanding!’ She gave a disgusted snort.
It was one of life’s injustices, she reflected bitterly, that men got to do all the glamorous action things and were then patted on the back and told what marvellous chaps they were. While women, because they were delicate and frail creatures, got to wait at home, look after the babies and go prematurely grey.
If Tom ever wanted to do something rash and life-threatening she was going to go with him. It didn’t seem likely her resolve would be put to the test; if anything like that came up Tom would most probably delegate someone else to take care of it—which was the sensible thing to do. You wouldn’t catch Tom rushing into burning buildings for a cat; he would have, quite correctly, left it to a properly qualified person.
Actually, when you thought about it, have-a-go heroes were a bit of a liability.
Katie was disturbed to discover Nikos was looking at her rather too intently. ‘You were scared for me?’ he said, in the shocked manner of someone who had just made an extraordinary discovery.
She strove to calm her laboured breathing. ‘I was…concerned, as I would have been about anyone in the circumstances. Though it seems my fears were groundless. You seem to lead a charmed life,’ she observed heavily.
Her resentful gaze had examined most aspects of his person and she could see no obvious signs of injury other than a bloody gash on his temple. Even if he had emerged unscathed she considered his composure after such an incident abnormal. What did it take to shake this man? Demanding to be kissed would most likely do it. It was almost worth putting the theory to the test…almost!
‘That has been said of me,’ Nikos conceded with one of his charming, high-voltage grins. ‘I’m touched by your concern, but it is unnecessary, I was in no serious danger.’
Katie had a sudden flashback to that awful moment the window had blown out. The metallic taste of fear was once more strong in her mouth as she again experienced that creeping paralysis of dread.
‘Are you all right?’
‘What could be wrong?’ She was beginning to think that maybe he was one of those peculiar men who indulged in extreme sports, the sort that got a kick from risking life and limb.
‘I managed to locate the fire escape,’ he went on to explain, ‘thanks to Alexander who was sitting at the top of it crying. That is, I’m assuming this is Alexander.’ He opened his shirt, revealing a good deal of bare chest in the process, and presented her with a large, dirty cat who, at the prospect of being clutched to his loving owner’s bosom, stopped purring like a steam engine and spat furiously before leaping into space and disappearing into some bushes.
Katie began to laugh a little hysterically. ‘Oh, that’s Alexander, all right, he’s one of a kind. I’m surprised he let you carry him.’
‘He was not too keen on the idea at first,’ Nikos conceded drily. ‘But he came around to it in the end.’ He rubbed his face and revealed in the process a long, nasty-looking scratch.
‘That’s a first, Alexander is not a very…pliable animal. The vet did say he might be a little less aggressive if I had him done, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.’ Nikos’s penetrating eyes held an expression that made her wonder if he didn’t have a hormone issue of his own? The introduction of this possibility made her lose the plot for a second. It was hard to concentrate when illicit thrills were fizzing through your body.
‘Done?’ Nikos echoed, looking puzzled.
Katie slowed her breathing and told herself that a man who had just escaped from the jaws of death was not likely to have sex on his mind. She mimed a snipping action with her fingers—an action guaranteed to pour cold water on the flame of the most persistent male lust—and Nikos gave a very predictable male gulp in response.
‘I don’t want to be responsible for an explosion in the local cat population so I keep him in at night,’ she told him matter-of-factly.
From Nikos’s glazed expression she had the feeling this was more information than he wanted. Not that he looked bored, precisely, more… A little shudder snaked its way down her spine. Perhaps she was way off beam, maybe the thoughts of a sizzling kiss were still on her mind. But while they were standing here talking about cats she felt as though there was a silent conversation going on that had nothing to do with words and everything to do with the way his dark eyes were eating her up.
‘Don’t you think you should do up your shirt? You might catch cold,’ she suggested huskily as her eyes returned for the umpteenth time to the expanse of hard-muscled torso. The olive-toned flesh looked silkily smooth and hard and was dusted across the widest part of his broad chest with a fine sprinkling of dark hair that thinned the nearer his waist it got. Her stomach gave a lazy somersault as she followed the directional arrows.
He laid a hand against his firmly muscled midriff. ‘Actually I feel quite warm.’ For one awful moment Katie though he was going to invite her to feel for herself—an invitation she would obviously have rejected? ‘How about you?’
Katie dabbed her tongue to the tiny beads of sweat along her upper lip and drew a shaky sigh. This time there was no longer any doubt about the undertones in this innocent enquiry. If she’d felt more herself and less like a lustful stranger Katie would have confronted him about his inappropriate flirting…flirting, with its light, frivolous overtones, was actually far too light a term for the erotic verbal games he played.
‘I’m fine,’ she returned, throwing him a look that dared him to contradict her. ‘I’m really sorry about your face.’ Really sorry that it’s so damned beautiful, she thought weakly.
‘I’ll survive.’ He suddenly reached across and pulled a piece of blossom from her hair.
Like a hunted deer being stalked by a wolf, Katie backed up into the tree. Her heart was beating like a war drum as he placed a hand on the smooth trunk above her head. If he leaned any closer their bodies would be touching…the crushing pressure reached the point where her shallow, painful breaths were clearly audible.
‘You weren’t hurt or anything?’ It didn’t really matter what she said, she just had to speak, not only to demonstrate that he hadn’t disturbed or rattled her, but to banish the erotic images from her head.
It did neither; her weak, wispy voice sounded as though it came from a great distance away. As for being undisturbed, she was clearly insane! It was taking literally all of her will-power to prevent herself turning her cheek into the palm that remained close to her face.
‘Mr Lakis, I really must insist that you come with us now. You need to be checked over. Your wife too.’ The paramedic turned to Katie, who tried to gather her wits. ‘I understand from your friend that you too were inside the building earlier.’
It took Katie several seconds to register what he was saying and who he was saying it to. ‘Oh, yes, but I’m fine.’ Wife, he had definitely said wife. Her alarmed blue eyes flew accusingly to Nikos’s face; he returned an insouciant smile. ‘I’m perfectly fine,’ she gritted.
The sexual tension might have dissipated, but she sensed it was still there, waiting beneath the surface to bubble up given the right conditions… Katie resolved never to permit that to happen.
Dark eyes gleaming with mockery, Nikos continued to smile down into her wrathful features. ‘Let’s allow the doctors to decide that, shall we, yineka mou?’
‘Your husband’s right, it’s always best to be on the safe side, and that was quite a tumble you took. Did you do any damage?’
‘You fell?’ Nikos inserted, for all the world as if he actually was a concerned husband.
‘She went down like a stone,’ the other man confirmed. ‘It isn’t exactly a good idea to enter a burning building,’ he added, slanting Katie a wry look.
‘You went back into the building?’
Bemused by his anger, Katie shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t.’
‘She fell over before she could get there. That’s quite a turn of speed you have there, Mrs Lakis. I wouldn’t bet against you in the hundred metres,’ he teased.
Nikos, who was regarding her with total incredulity, did not appear to share his amusement.
‘I wasn’t thinking,’ Katie said in a small voice.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ the paramedic advised kindly. ‘People rarely do think when they know a loved one is trapped in a burning building. Ask any of the fire crew.’
Katie didn’t know where to look—except not at Nikos!
‘Katerina has always been an impulsive creature, haven’t you, yineka mou?’
The satiric bite in his voice made Katie wince. She did her best to disguise her limp, but evidently not well enough.
‘You’ve hurt yourself!’ the paramedic exclaimed in concern before she’d taken a couple of steps. ‘Hey,’ he hailed, ‘the lady here needs a stretcher.’
Katie laid a restraining hand on his arm. ‘Please, no stretcher,’ she appealed, shaking her head. ‘I’d much prefer to walk and it’s nothing serious.’
To her intense annoyance he looked towards Nikos, who presumably gave her request his husbandly seal of approval, because the guy walked away and left them to make their own way to the ambulance.
Unbelievable! If she had been his wife in the real sense of the word, admittedly a scenario about as likely as seeing a herd of flying pigs overhead, but had she been, she would definitely have challenged this outrageous sexist assumption that she needed permission…that she wasn’t capable of making her decisions.
Oh, my goodness, wouldn’t I just! she thought grimly.
Obeying another of those unwise impulses, Katie lifted her head and for a split second her eyes meshed with midnight-dark orbs. It was long enough to reveal Nikos seemed to be really steamed up. This struck Katie as particularly perverse; she was the one who’d been made to feel a total fool. How dared he go around telling everyone she was his wife? As for the image the guy had drawn so vividly of a woman pushed beyond reason by an overriding compulsion to save her man, she had thought she would die from sheer embarrassment!
‘Lean on me,’ Nikos wanted to throttle the woman, but felt obliged to put aside his natural inclinations and offer his assistance having watched her painfully hobble a few steps while maintaining the pretence every one didn’t hurt her like hell.
‘I’d prefer to crawl on my hands and knees.’
The air hissed through his clenched teeth as he exhaled. ‘As you wish,’ he replied stiffly.
He made no concessions to her injury as he strode off, not that Katie wanted or expected any, but the grim smile pinned on her lips got harder and harder to maintain with each step.
‘So were you so frightened for me that you were willing to risk your life in a futile attempt to rescue me?’ Nikos’s dark, sardonic voice observed somewhere above her head.
Katie’s spirits, already badly mauled, sank to knee-level. Her worst fears were confirmed. This was exactly what she’d been dreading—he’d thought about her crazy rescue bid and come to the conclusion she’d acted that way because she was nursing some burning passion for him. Maybe he half expected women to fall in love with him? And maybe that expectation was usually justified, an ironic voice in her skull suggested.
Actually, when you thought about it, it was quite funny.
Despite recognising the humorous potential of the situation Katie found herself unable to laugh or even smile. She was, however, seized by a desperate need to establish that she was not one of the worshipping masses.
‘It wasn’t like that…’ She paused and gave a frustrated sigh; how could you explain away why you did something when you didn’t know yourself? ‘I didn’t think…’ she revealed lamely.
‘That I never doubted,’ he incised grimly. ‘For the past seven years when I have thought of you at all it has been as a shrewd, hard-headed young woman who, despite an extraordinarily innocent exterior, is capable of bending the rules ruthlessly to get what she wants. In short, a woman well able to take care of herself.’
He exhaled and dragged a hand roughly through his dark hair. ‘That is what I expected, you understand? A woman like you should know how to negotiate. But what do I get?’ His revolted gaze came to rest on the top of her head, which had she been able to stand upright would have just topped his shoulder. ‘You…!’ He shook his head and, with an expression of rampant exasperation, began to list the traits he had discovered her to possess. ‘Not only are you opinionated to the point of derangement…’ he choked.
Good grief, she thought, lifting her astonished eyes to his furious face. I needn’t have worried—he doesn’t think I’m in love with him, he just thinks I’m crazy! Could be he’s not far out, she thought, contemplating the firm contours of his mouth with an expression of dreamy speculation.
‘Do not interrupt!’ he thundered, holding up his hand. ‘You are sentimental and you possess no sense of self-preservation whatever. I am a patient man…’ he revealed without a trace of irony.
Too late, Katie clamped her hand over her lips to prevent the gurgle of laughter escaping.
Nikos gave her a thunderous look as he visibly fought to retain control of his extremely volatile temper—only he didn’t have a volatile temper. ‘I have humoured you too long,’ he announced forcefully.
‘That’s a laugh—’ she began. She let out a strangled shriek when without warning he swept her up into his arms and strode off without a single word.
‘Put me down this instant!’ she hissed. His arms were muscular and extremely strong because, although Katie was slim, she was not a small woman and he barely seemed to register the burden he carried.
‘What, and see you stagger along in that ridiculous manner?’
Silently seething and reduced to winding her arms around his neck to anchor herself, Katie allowed herself to be carried to the ambulance with as much dignity as she could muster—what choice did have?
Sadie was waiting at the steps. ‘Why did you tell them I had been in the flat?’ Katie demanded of her friend in a trembling undertone.
Sadie looked startled at her vehemence and followed them up the stairs. ‘Sorry, but they asked.’
Katie felt a wave of remorse. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to take it out on you. That man,’ she explained, glaring at Nikos’s ear, ‘is a manipulative snake.’ Even his hair curled perfectly into the nape of his neck.
She held herself rigid while, apparently oblivious to her insult, Nikos deposited her on a seat and straightened with sensible caution considering the limited headroom.
‘I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him—less, in fact!’ she declared loudly.
Sadie shot a wary look in Nikos’s direction and he in his turn returned her look with a smile of spectacular charm, which much to Katie’s disgust had an immediate effect on Sadie. She melted like an ice cream on a warm day.
‘A sexy snake.’
Sadie’s sly remark earned her an amused grin from Nikos. ‘Thank you,’ he said, inclining his head. ‘And may I say that a true English rose like yourself is much admired in my country?’
Katie shook her head as Sadie blushed. ‘What a load of b—’
‘Don’t spoil it, Katie,’ Sadie interrupted, casting her friend an irritated glance. ‘Do go on,’ she begged Nikos with a throaty laugh.
Katie glared at her friend indignantly—she was flirting, and flirting pretty well. ‘Has anyone ever told you that you’re a sucker for a pretty face?’
‘Frequently,’ Sadie admitted. ‘I’d better go,’ she added as the ambulance crew began to display impatience to be off. ‘Call me later.’ She smiled at the paramedic who, after checking that his passengers didn’t require anything, had taken a seat at the opposite side of the vehicle.
‘I feel terrible leaving you to cope with all of this mess,’ Katie fretted.
‘You know me, I thrive on challenge,’ Sadie replied, cheerily waving goodbye.
‘Your friend is very nice.’
‘She’s just recovering from an extremely messy divorce. So leave her alone, the last thing she needs is some slick operator moving on her,’ she warned him grimly.
‘I can pass the time of day with a woman without contemplating sleeping with her, you know.’
Katie snorted and Nikos looked amused. ‘I have never been in an ambulance before,’ he remarked, looking around with interest as the door closed. ‘Or even,’ he added with a mock growl, ‘made love in one.’
‘Very funny.’ No doubt tonight’s events would be regurgitated for the amusement of his glitzy friends—with suitable witty additions—for many weeks to come. ‘I suppose you ride around in gold-plated limousines.’
‘No, as a matter of fact I fly my own helicopter when possible. So do you really think I have a pretty face?’ he continued seamlessly.
Talk about anything you say being used in evidence!
‘That was a figure of speech.’ Actually his was not a pretty face, it was a formidably beautiful face. She didn’t need to look to see his dark, fallen-angel features or be transfixed by the brooding sensuality of his sexy eyes and mouth—they were etched in her mind.
How, she puzzled, could something as basic as the arrangement of planes and angles of a face make it so…? She struggled for a term adequate to describe it—unforgettable was a term casually bandied about, but in this instance it was fully deserved. Her memory would never be free of the image, she acknowledged, looking down at her hands tightened into fists on her lap.
‘If you continue to breathe like that the professionals—’ Nikos glanced towards the uniformed figure who had left his seat opposite and was now talking to the driver ‘—will assume that you need oxygen.’
Katie was disconcerted to discover that his eyes were contemplating the rapid rise and fall of her breasts…actually, disconcerted didn’t really cover the things that were happening to her body. Nikos had to have noticed at least one of them as his attention was riveted in one of the areas in question; her breasts felt tense and tender and her nipples were active in a pleasurably painful way.
It had reached the point where she couldn’t be sure what shocking surprise her body was going to spring on her next. Even the things coming out of her mouth seemed to be bypassing her brain.
‘Why did you tell them I’m you’re wife?’ she asked in a desperate attempt to divert his attention from her aching, brazen breasts.
‘You are my wife.’
Her inability to dispute this made Katie scowl. ‘Only when it suits you,’ she pointed out tartly.
Somehow she doubted Nikos would have been so eager to recognise their relationship if she’d turned up at his place of work declaring to all and sundry that he was her husband! What she couldn’t figure was why he’d carelessly gone public, in this admittedly limited way, now. The last thing he struck her as being was a careless man; quite the contrary, she was pretty sure he never did anything without a reason, but what reason?
Possibly his actions were simply designed to wind her up?
For the past seven years he had successfully managed to forget he had a wife so she could strike the possibility that he’d decided she was the perfect bride for him.
No, he was up to something.
‘We may have gone through a ceremony and signed on the dotted line, but it takes more than a signature on a piece of paper to make me your wife!’ she told him scornfully.
‘So, what does it take…?’
Katie shuffled away to lessen the contact of his heavy thigh against her own. The action only increased the worrying air of smug triumph she sensed in him.
‘It takes…oh, for goodness’ sake, will you stop that?’
‘Stop what?’
‘Will you stop looking at…you know?’
‘No.’
Katie gave a snort of exasperation; the innocent look sat very uncomfortably. ‘Well, how would you like it if I kept looking at your…?’ Content she’d made her point, and deeply embarrassed into the bargain, she decided it would be expedient to move quickly on.
Nikos, however, seemed in no hurry to do so. ‘I think I would find it quite stimulating,’ he said.
Taking a deep steadying breath, Katie gritted her teeth and doggedly refused to allow him to distract her. ‘It takes…’ she began.
‘What does it take?’ he prompted, his curiosity genuinely aroused by the wistful expression he saw flit across her delicate, fine-boned features.
Katie shook her head; she was not about to expose her idea of an ideal marriage to his cynical scorn.
‘Do you think they might let us a share a room at the hospital?’
‘I suppose in Greece that passes for a sense of humour?’ She gave a disdainful sniff and tried to stop herself coughing. ‘Just for the record, I’m not sharing a room with you and I’m not staying in any hospital.’
Nikos shook his head. ‘Did nobody ever tell you it’s dangerous to tempt fate?’
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘MARRIED?’ the on-call radiographer, or Clare, as she had introduced herself, glanced towards Nikos. ‘Yes, of course you are,’ she said, not without a hint of envy. ‘Date of birth…?’ Katie gave it and the older woman checked the details on the form and nodded. ‘Is there any possibility you are pregnant?’
She stood with her pen in her hand waiting for Katie’s response. Katie, aware of Nikos’s very interested presence beside her, felt her face flush. After a lengthy pause she shook her head and mumbled an indistinct, ‘No, there isn’t.’
The radiographer obviously misunderstood her hesitation. ‘If you’ve any doubts?’
‘I’ve no doubt at all,’ Katie responded firmly. ‘I can’t possibly be pregnant. I haven’t…’ she choked.
‘Oh, I see…’ The radiographer nodded understandingly and shot a speculative look in Nikos’s direction. ‘So long as you’re sure.’
‘We have been living apart,’ Katie was dismayed to hear him suddenly volunteer glibly. Equally suddenly he picked her hand up from where it lay twisted with its partner on her lap. With a tender smile he raised it to his lips. ‘We are only recently reunited.’
His words and the fervent kiss he planted on her open palm managed to hint at a lovers-parted-and-reunited story of epic proportions.
The radiographer was clearly a big fan of a happy ending. ‘Oh, isn’t that lovely?’ she sighed soulfully. ‘You just wait here a moment, Mrs Lakis, and I’ll be right back.’
The instant she was gone Katie snatched her tingling hand away and wiped it across her lap vigorously, as though she could wipe his touch away.
‘Was that charade really necessary?’ she enquired icily. It seemed he couldn’t resist any opportunity to provoke and embarrass her. Or maybe, she mused scornfully, he just couldn’t let the implied slur on his manhood stand. Yeah, that would be right.
‘So you’re not sleeping with Tom?’
Katie stiffened defensively as his question took her off guard. ‘That’s none of your business, but if I was,’ she added confidently, ‘I certainly wouldn’t be stupid enough to get pregnant.’
Though she wasn’t as a rule a judgmental person, she had always found it hard to understand how in a day and age when contraception was so readily available people still fell pregnant unintentionally—though the falling was part of the self-deception as far as she was concerned; there was nothing accidental about it.
‘Maybe, maybe not…people in the grip of passion do not always think logically.’
‘Rubbish.’ One dark brow lifted at her forceful denunciation. ‘There’s absolutely no excuse for neglecting to take basic precautions.’
Katie frowned to hear herself sound so self-righteous and dogmatic…it was the sort of uncharacteristic response he brought out in her. He said night and she was almost falling over herself to screech day.
An enigmatic half-smile touched the corners of Nikos’s wide, passionate mouth as he observed the flare of panic in her eyes.
‘So you don’t think that the dizzy heights of passion could make a person, could make you, forget?’ His heavy lids lifted and Katie found herself captured and as helpless as a butterfly caught on a cruel pin by his dark gaze. ‘Forget your own name, where you begin and your lover ends…?’ he persisted throatily.
His rough velvet voice was describing a situation that was beyond her understanding, but one that held a dangerous appeal. Just listening to his sweetly insidious drawl made her feel hot and cold at the same time, and increased that tight, achy feeling that had been a more or less constant presence low in her belly all night.
The way his knowledgeable eyes were scanning her face made Katie, bitterly ashamed of her body’s wanton response, shift uncomfortably in her seat.
‘Forget the most basic precautions? Do me a favour,’ she scoffed stubbornly.
‘You cannot visualise yourself in a situation like that?’
‘No!’ Katie gritted through clenched teeth as she tried very hard not to allow the images he spoke of to crystallise in her mind. Even though she tried very hard some images filtered through her mental block; they were of limbs entwined, warm brown skin gleaming with sweat, fractured gasps and soft moans. She was hard put not to moan herself.
Nikos was beginning to think that the favour that would most benefit her would come from someone who could wipe that smug look of superiority from her face—his narrowed gaze homed in on the soft contours of her full lips—and why should that person not be him?
The voice of reason in his head immediately provided at least half a dozen legitimate reasons why it should not. Despite this, the idea, however ill advised, lingered on.
‘No matter how sophisticated society becomes, mother nature has built in some very efficient safety systems into the human design that will ensure the continuation of the species despite our best attempts to foil her.’ In a voice that was all honeyed temptation and earthy suggestion, he expanded his theory into territory Katie found even more uncomfortable, yet despite this she found herself perversely hanging on his every word. ‘It is not by accident that we are intoxicated, that sense and reason are suspended in the heat of passion.
‘Men,’ he proclaimed confidently, ‘are programmed to impregnate and woman are programmed to bear children.’ He shrugged and studied her shocked face; it seemed to Katie that the silver flecks in his eyes glittered like stars in a night sky. ‘You can’t fight against basic instincts, pethumou.’
She tried to escape but her restless gaze was repeatedly drawn back to his; a stab of sexual longing so fierce it robbed her of breath lanced through her body.
Katie shook her head. ‘You can’t talk like that,’ she gasped in an agonised whisper. The men she knew didn’t casually discuss impregnation in hospital waiting rooms.
‘You find my frankness offensive? Such things make you squeamish?’
Offended? She was terrified.
‘I am not squeamish. I just don’t think this is the appropriate time or place for talking about such things,’ she told him repressively. Unfortunately Nikos was not so easily repressed.
‘Sex is not a subject for open discussion?’
‘Not between people who are virtually strangers.’
‘So if I was Tom you would feel comfortable discussing sex.’
Katie took a deep, infuriated breath. ‘Tom and I do not discuss sex,’ she yelled.
‘Mrs Lakis…?’
Katie spun around to find the radiographer standing there.
‘We’re ready for you now.’
Her ankle was declared a nasty sprain, which they strapped with a stretchy support bandage and advised her to keep elevated. The doctor said he was satisfied that she had not sustained any damage to her lungs, though he did suggest Katie might like to stay in overnight to be observed.
To her relief when she politely but firmly refused the invitation he wasn’t too perturbed.
‘The doctor should be finished with your husband in a few minutes,’ the nice nurse who had attended her promised, showing her to a waiting area.
I can hardly wait.
Katie had caught sight of her reflection in a plate-glass door so wasn’t surprised that on the way there she was the focus of a number of curious stares.
Not to put too fine a point on it, she looked scary!
It was hard to tell what the original colour of Sadie’s once lovely dress was and there were several rips in the long skirt that revealed more than was decent of her long, grubby legs. Though she’d had the opportunity to wash the worst of the dirt from her face and hands, what she longed for most was to soak in a lovely hot bath until the acrid smoky smell that seemed to have penetrated pore-deep was gone.
‘I feel awful for asking, but I don’t suppose you’ve got any change for the phone, have you? I didn’t exactly come prepared,’ she explained with a rueful glance down at her ruined outfit.
Katie waited until the helpful nurse was out of sight before she headed for the pay phone she’d spotted in the foyer. First she phoned Tom; he wasn’t at home and he wasn’t answering his cell phone. She was about to leave him a message, but thought better of it…there was nothing he could do and telling him about the fire would only alarm him unnecessarily.
Next she rang Sadie’s mobile number.
‘I was starting to think they were keeping you in,’ Sadie said, sounding tired but pretty upbeat, which in the circumstances said a great deal for her powers of endurance.
Sadie got the bad news over with first.
‘Your flat’s a write-off. The good news is they managed to contain the fire to the top floor. The rest of the house is all right, barring some smoke damage in the hall and down the stairs. I’m staying with the Jameses next door tonight, they said you’re quite welcome to kip down on their sofa. I’ve got the spare room.’
‘Say thanks to them from me, but actually I can’t face the journey back.’ The hospital was a fifteen-mile trip from the village and she was ready to drop; in fact, remaining upright was difficult. ‘I’m just going to get a taxi to the nearest hotel and sleep for a week.’
‘Fair enough, see you tomorrow?’
‘Definitely,’ Katie agreed. ‘Sadie…I’m really sorry,’ she added in a rush.
‘God, we don’t even know if it was your fault and I’m the one that didn’t get around to refitting the fire alarms after the painters finished last month. Besides, nobody was hurt, that’s the main thing, and I’m extremely well-insured,’ she added cheerfully. ‘So don’t beat yourself up about it.’
It wasn’t until she’d hung up that Katie realised she had no money for a taxi, hotel room or, for that matter, any more for the phone. Don’t panic, think about this calmly and logically, she told herself.
So logically she had no money, and calmly she had no transport, her head hurt and she was dressed in revealing rags—Katie reckoned she was entitled to panic a little and to feel mildly despondent.
Maybe I should have taken up the offer of a hospital bed, she thought as she stepped into the reception area, a big densely carpeted open space that was divided by banks of greenery and seats—obviously meant to give a welcoming impression. The place, a hive of activity during the daytime, was, barring a few porters and sundry members of staff who were on their way somewhere in a hurry, almost completely deserted at this time of night.
Katie wasn’t on her way anywhere. She wrapped her arms across her chest feeling incredibly conspicuous and rather lonely. Her adrenalin levels had dropped and the events of the evening were beginning to catch up on her with a vengeance.
‘Here, take this.’
Startled out of her gloomy thoughts by the deep voice, Katie looked at the jacket being offered to her and then warily at the man himself.
He was as dishevelled as she was, his skin and clothes streaked with black, but unlike her he appeared supremely indifferent to the fact. It struck her as deeply unfair that, whereas torn clothes and messy hair made her look like a scarecrow, they lent him an indefinable edge of mystery and danger…mean, moody and macho…nobody was going to overlook him in a crowd!
She was inclined to think that if you stripped this man of his wealth, status and even his clothes he wouldn’t lose his infuriating imperious air of command.
Katie raised her eyes with a jerk to his face feeling, and probably looking, as guilty as any nicely brought-up girl would caught in the act of mentally stripping a man—make a note for future reference: do not think naked around Nikos—but then no matter how things turned out she wouldn’t be around him for very much longer.
This reflection ought to have made her feel upbeat—but somehow a heavy feeling had settled over her.
‘You are shivering,’ he observed with a frown.
Katie looked again at the jacket; she thought of refusing it and then decided this would be an empty gesture and, besides, she didn’t want to risk being arrested for indecent exposure!
‘Yes, I am. Thank you.’ She slid the jacket over her hunched shoulders, and drew it around herself. It still held the warmth of his body; she found this second-hand warmth disturbingly intimate. ‘My dress has a little more ventilation than was intended.’
‘I could say I hadn’t noticed, but I’d be lying.’
Katie shot him a wary glance but his enigmatic expression was unrevealing—maybe that was just as well.
‘Sit?’ he suggested, nodding towards a seated area.
Katie shook her head. ‘Hospitals at night are strange, don’t you think?’ Her restless glance took in the big empty area. ‘Almost spooky,’ she heard herself babble.
‘I thought you’d gone.’
Katie didn’t tell him that that had been her plan.
‘Have you contacted Tom?’
She shook her head. ‘I tried to.’ Not so very hard, a voice in her head suggested drily. ‘He’s not picking up, but it sounded as if he was in for an all-night session, didn’t it? He could very well be in the middle of sensitive negotiations,’ she elaborated, ‘so it’s probably better I don’t bother him.’
‘I don’t think many men would consider it a bother to drop whatever they were doing if their woman had just escaped death.’ The contemptuous curl of his upper lip seemed to be a reflection of Nikos’s opinion of any man who wouldn’t rush to the side of their woman.
Katie was annoyed that she felt impelled to defend her absent fiancé.
‘And Tom would!’ she began. ‘Escaped death…’ she added, frowning. ‘Isn’t that a tad over-dramatic?’ Her light laughter trailed away as she tried to imagine Tom calling her his woman in that way, and if he had she would probably have laughed.
When Nikos used the term it didn’t sound funny. It must be the accent—men with exotic, sexy accents could get away with saying things that a native speaker could not. It went without saying that she didn’t want anyone to call her his woman; it was sort of dated, sexist stuff—the sort of things the man that her grandfather had picked out for her mother would have used.
She concluded that his accent must be responsible for the shivery sensations she experienced every time he was around.
‘Possibly.’ He conceded her words with a careless shrug of his broad shoulders. The flimsy nature of his shirt made it difficult not to notice how his taut muscles flexed and bulged through the fine material. ‘But nevertheless I think you should let Tom decide that for himself.’
Katie’s lips tightened; his persistence, not to mention his perfect musculature, was beginning to annoy her.
‘Can’t you wait until the morning to tell him what an awful creature he’s got mixed up with?’ she taunted.
‘Actually I was thinking of how I would feel in his place.’
Katie flushed, not enjoying the sensation of being quietly put in her place. ‘I suppose that must have taken quite a stretch of your no doubt limited imagination.’
‘Theos!’ Anger lent his dark, taut features a menacing cast.
‘And I suppose you would walk away from an important business negotiation if your girlfriend needed you. That’s really likely.’ This was the sort of man who put personal relationships way down his list of priorities.
A wave of weakness suddenly hit her; it was so strong she swayed. Nikos, whose simmering anger had left him the moment he’d taken in the white-faced exhaustion in her face, took her by the arm.
‘Sit!’ he urged strongly. The woman was clearly unfit to take care of herself. He wondered why Tom let her out alone!
Katie complied, reasoning it would be a lot more embarrassing to fall on her face than follow his direction. Pride had its place but you had to know when to swallow it. She sat for a moment with her eyes closed, waiting for the awful weakness to pass. To her relief Nikos let her be.
‘I’m a little tired.’
Nikos slanted her a veiled look through half-lowered lids. ‘I find it strange that you feel obliged to apologise for behaviour that needs no apology but not for insults you throw so indiscriminately at me.’ He shook his head when she opened her mouth to respond.
‘Hush!’ he urged, pressing a finger to her parted lips. ‘We will not squabble. I am not so unimaginative that I cannot see you are at the end of your tether. As for what I would do, we are not talking about me.’
Not talking, thinking or fantasising about, which was something she really ought to bear in mind! Unconsciously she ran the back of her hand across her lips where he had touched.
‘I just thought that Tom isn’t going to lose any sleep over what he doesn’t know about. Besides,’ she added brightly, ‘he knows I don’t need him to hold my hand every time something goes wrong.’
‘You are a tough, independent woman, then?’ Nikos asked, sounding amused.
Katie’s eyes narrowed. Her want-to-make-something-of-it? look was weak, but strong enough to make her opinion of his condescension known.
‘If you’re asking if I’m quite capable of taking care of myself, then,’ she told him proudly, ‘yes, I am. Do you have a problem with that?’
He would prefer his women clingy and needy; that went without saying. The sort that would tell him at frequent intervals how big, strong and marvellous he was, and never, ever disagree with him! In short, women who would not upset his theory that the world revolved around him, she concluded scornfully.
‘Does Tom?’ he fired back smoothly.
Katie waved her tastelessly large diamond ring at him. ‘Quite obviously not.’
‘Maybe you are more circumspect around him?’ he suggested drily.
‘Around Tom I can relax,’ she breathed, closing her eyes and imagining herself in his undemanding company. With Tom she never felt stressed or under pressure or…excited?
Her eyes shot wide open; where did that come from?
‘But not around me?’
Katie laughed; she couldn’t help herself. It was such a ludicrous idea: relax with Nikos! She could more readily imagine falling asleep on top of an active volcano! But then, she mused as her eyes moved over his tall, elegant figure, he did have something of a volcano’s explosive qualities…and he was liable to erupt for no apparent reason.
‘Do I look that stupid?’ If ever there was an invitation, this was it.
Katie heaved a sigh and squared her shoulders, steeling herself for the inevitable scathing riposte…it didn’t come. In fact the strange, tense silence between them stretched on and on…
He had stilled to the point of seeming not to breathe at all as his restless dark eyes got as far as her face and didn’t move. An expression she couldn’t decipher flickered across his taut face; it was only there for a moment, but this was long enough to unsettle her completely.
‘No.’
After the build-up she’d been expecting something a bit more—memorable than that.
‘You didn’t answer my question.’ Except with a question—he seemed to be good at that. ‘Do you have a problem with strong women?’
Nikos shrugged. ‘Strength is not an issue. My relationships with women are rarely competitive either physically or intellectually.’
Katie’s contempt increased. In other words he picked them weak, thick and great in bed. Just as well I’m not after the job because I don’t qualify in any of the above.
‘Some women feel there is a need to sacrifice their femininity in order to compete on an equal footing with men; that is their choice. I just happen not to find them particularly attractive. I admire women that manage to succeed but do not try to be one of the boys.’
‘Are you calling me unfeminine?’ she demanded hotly.
‘I would hardly categorise you as a high-flyer who is anxious to compete with men on their own terms.’
Why, the patronising—!
‘Are you leaving your job before or after the wedding?’ he wondered with a guileless smile.
Katie caught her breath. You had to hand it to the man—he could deliver insults with a smile better than anyone she had ever met.
‘I’m not leaving at all. My job may not be high-powered but I happen to enjoy it,’ she told him with frigid dignity.
‘Really?’ One dark eyebrow lifted. ‘Tom led me to believe you could not wait to leave…’
‘I haven’t told Tom yet,’ she interrupted tightly.
‘Do you tell Tom anything?’
‘My relationship with Tom is none of your business.’
‘Actually it is very much my business.’
‘Only because you’re an insufferably, interfering…’ Lips compressed, eyes glittering with suppressed frustration, Katie bit back the rest of her tirade; this was neither the time nor place for a slanging match, especially one she was likely to lose.
‘Don’t you think Tom is capable of making his own decisions without you to shove him in the right direction? Not that you could,’ she added quickly. She lifted her chin. ‘Tom is his own man!’ she declared proudly.
‘I’m sure Tom is more than capable of making his own decisions when he is in possession of all the facts…once he has them I will be more than happy to abide by his decision.’
‘It’s not the facts, it’s the way you present them.’
‘Then you present them in the manner you feel shows you in the kindest light; I have no objections. Even if Tom accepts his wealth has nothing to do with your desire to be his wife.’ His expression made it clear he was a lot less gullible. ‘That does not alter the fact you are not free to marry him.’
‘I could be if you weren’t such a stubborn, malicious…’ She heaved several steadying breaths; she would not resort to name-calling. ‘Why should I marry Tom when apparently I’m already married to a billionaire?’
Nikos, who seemed prepared for her comment, totally misinterpreted her throw-away sarcasm.
‘Before the pound signs start flashing before your eyes I will draw to your attention the fact that the pre-nuptial agreement Harvey had me sign works both ways. I’ve checked, Harvey knows his business, it’s watertight. Sorry, but I’m not your golden goose. What’s wrong?’ he asked as the colour seeped from her skin.
Katie, her eyes bright pools of shimmering anger stared up at him. Incredibly his bafflement seemed genuine…how could anyone possibly insult a person like that and not realise it might offend?
She began to slide his jacket off her shoulders. ‘Don’t let me keep you,’ she said pointedly.
‘Don’t be foolish,’ he retorted impatiently. ‘You are cold, I’m not. This is a foolish gesture.’
Katie shrugged and let the jacket slip to the ground. ‘Maybe I want to make a foolish gesture.’
‘Now you’re just being ridiculous,’ he gritted, bending to retrieve the garment from the carpeted floor. His colour was heightened when he took his seat; the twist of his sensual lips was overtly contemptuous.
‘That’s your fault,’ she blurted resentfully.
One supremely eloquent dark brow twitched as his expressive eyes swept over her face. ‘This I have to hear,’ he remarked, throwing the jacket casually across one shoulder. ‘You were saying?’
Katie flushed. ‘There’s no point saying anything because no matter what I say you’ll just twist it,’ she announced mutinously.
‘In other words your accusations have no foundation.’ Before she could protest he replaced his jacket over her shoulders and, keeping a grip on each lapel, jerked her gently towards him. Katie was overpoweringly conscious of his strength; she breathed in his warm male scent and felt uncomfortably giddy.
He bent his head towards her. ‘No matter how outrageously unpleasant you become,’ he imparted softly, ‘I am not leaving you alone.’
‘So you’ll just call me an avaricious grasping bitch!’ To her intense dismay Katie felt her eyes fill with weak tears.
Nikos looked into the swimming blue pools, an expression of genuine surprise stamped across his handsome features. ‘I said nothing of the sort!’ he ejaculated.
‘You accused me of wanting to screw you for some nice fat divorce settlement!’ She breathed wrathfully. ‘For your information I wouldn’t take my bus fare off you,’ she added tremulously.
How, she wondered, could you detest someone so much yet find you wanted to lay your head against his chest and cry? Why in the circumstances would anybody in their right mind seek comfort and safety in the arms of their enemy? It was inexplicable and extremely scary, she concluded, staring with a dazed expression at the broad expanse that filled her with the strangest yearning.
As he surveyed her downcast features the harsh lines of Nikos’s face softened. ‘I did not intend to offend you, Katerina. Let us stop arguing, you’re not well.’
‘What’s this—Greek chivalry?’
He picked up on her scorn but reacted with curiosity, not injured pride. ‘You doubt such a thing exists?’
‘After meeting you—yes!’
Surprisingly her acid retort made him laugh, then as his appraisal of her weary, strained features continued his expression sobered once more. ‘Let’s be practical.’
When am I anything else? Katie thought with a spurt of revolt.
‘What actually are your plans?’
Did she have any? She shrugged. ‘Hopefully I won’t be reduced to sleeping on a park bench.’
‘What’s this—British humour?’ Despite her determination to be angry with him, Katie was amused to hear him cleverly use her own format against her. Whatever else was wrong with him, the man did have a quick wit and clever tongue—far too clever, she brooded darkly. A conversation with him had more dips and bends than a roller coaster.
‘You doubt such a thing exists?’ she quipped.
‘What can I say without insulting a person’s cultural heritage?’
Katie flushed at the subtle reprimand, then got even more worried when it occurred to her that he might have imagined there were xenophobic overtones in her earlier gibe. She frowned as she tried to recall whether what she had said could be construed that way.
‘Have you ever actually met any Greeks other than myself?’
‘Yes. As a matter of fact I’ve lived with one.’ She was pleased to see her enigmatic reply disconcert him; if she had been better acquainted with him she would have been even more surprised.
‘Does Tom know about this?’
Katie gave him a sunny, composed smile. ‘Yes, he does.’
‘I suppose this failed relationship explains your antipathy to me.’
‘Did I say I had a failed relationship?’
‘I naturally assumed as you’re not in it any longer…’
‘Well, you assumed wrong,’ she replied, her eyes locked to his. She hadn’t intended to make her reply vague, but now that she thought about it having Nikos imagine she had a colourful past did not seem such a bad idea.
‘As a matter of fact it was a beautiful relationship.’ The taunting tone suddenly died from her voice and her eyes softened. ‘Very beautiful,’ she revealed in a tone of deep, ineffable sadness. ‘I doubt if I’ll ever have a relationship quite like it again.’ Unless she had a daughter of her own one day?
‘Then your antipathy to me…’
‘Is solely due to the fact that you’re an offensive, malicious, detestable man.’
In the thunderous silence that followed her pronouncement Katie started to regret being so mean. I haven’t even asked if he’s all right, she thought, glancing guiltily towards the wound on his forehead. It was barely visible through the heavy swathe of hair that had fallen across his forehead.
‘I didn’t mean to offend you,’ she added when he didn’t respond. ‘Well, I did, but not— Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t sulk!’ she blurted out in frustration. She waited for the inevitable ice to filter into his expression and wondered if there was a medical condition that could account for what her tongue was doing.
‘Relax, Katerina,’ he advised. ‘I’m not offended.’
She gave a sigh of relief. ‘Good. What did the doctor say?’
‘My chest is clear.’
Your chest is perfect, Katie thought. ‘That’s excellent,’ she said gravely.
‘And the X-ray of my skull was as it should be. They insisted on putting a stitch or two in my head,’ he admitted in a casual manner.
‘One or two?’ Katie echoed doubtfully. ‘It looks more to me…’ Without thinking, she reached out to lift the concealing hair from the wound. Before she touched him long brown fingers curled over her own. A bolt of neat electricity sizzled along her raw nerve endings.
‘Will you not take my word?’ He gave a humourless smile. He seemed a little tense…but then there was a lot of it about, she thought, swallowing a bubble of hysteria. ‘No, of course you won’t.’
‘I only wanted to see if you’re all right.’
Nikos dismissed her concern with a terse shake of his head. ‘The amount of stitches is of no consequence.’
He brought her hand down but didn’t release it immediately; instead he turned it over and ran his thumb across her open palm.
‘You have pretty hands.’ He looked as if he was almost as surprised to hear himself say this as she was.
Katie’s eyes lingered on his long, tapering fingers. His were strong, expressive hands and her tummy fluttered again.
‘Thank you, so do you.’
She sensed some of the tension slip away from him and, though his lips twitched, he didn’t respond to her comment.
‘You know, I think we can do a little better than that park bench.’
Although the physical contact had disturbed her she felt a twinge of regret when he released her hand. She tried to gather her straying wits. ‘What do you mean…?’
‘I mean I have a suite at the Hall Hotel.’
He would, of course—staying in anything less than a five-star hotel would obviously be beneath his dignity, and the Hall was the only five-star hotel in the area.
‘That’s you sorted, then.’
Nikos gave a heavy sigh and looked impatient. ‘Theos, you are hard work,’ he observed tersely. ‘We’re both tired…’
‘Which is no excuse to snap.’
A nerve in his lean cheek began to pump. ‘So kind of you to remind me of my manners.’
‘I get the feeling that doesn’t happen too often.’ More’sthe pity, she thought, sending him a sour look.
He signalled his disapproval of the interruption with the faintest twist of his lips. ‘I was about to say that I’m quite willing to take your extreme reluctance to accept my help as read? It will save a lot of time and frayed tempers in the long run. If anyone asks I’ll swear you fought me tooth and nail. You hate me, I’m arrogant, you’d prefer to sleep on a park bench…blah…blah…’ he drawled.
She shot him a look of intense dislike. ‘I know this confirms my boring predictability, but I would prefer to sleep on a park bench!’ she declared.
‘Well done!’ he congratulated her. ‘The first step in correcting our faults is accepting you have a problem.’
‘Once you go away I won’t have a problem.’ If you overlook my penniless and homeless condition. Heavens, what was she going to do if he took her at her word…?
‘Don’t make a song and dance about this. You can’t stay here, you have no money. I, on the other hand, have—’
‘Too much money.’
‘Some people might think so,’ he conceded, ‘but actually I was thinking of a spare bed and a taxi which should arrive any moment.’
‘Spare bed?’
‘Sorry if you thought otherwise, but it has been a long day…’ he explained apologetically.
Katie blushed fierily at the silky innuendo in his voice. She gathered the jacket and her dignity around herself as best she could.
‘You won’t know I’m there,’ she promised grimly.
Nikos regarded the top of her dark head with a twisted smile. ‘That I very much doubt, agape mou,’ he drawled.
She pretended not to hear the endearment.
CHAPTER EIGHT
KATIE sniffed a few of the luxury bath products provided and, selecting one that had a tang of rosemary, she poured it into the water.
She inhaled deeply, enjoying the scent from the pungent-smelling oil in the steamy air. She gave a deep sigh as she slid slowly into the hot water. It was bliss.
She lost track of time as she lay there, drifting in every sense of the word. The delightful idyll was only spoiled when there was a loud knock on the door.
Katie groaned and slid under the water to block out the noise; fronds of water-darkened hair floated on the surface like exotic petals above her head. When she emerged, wet hair plastered to her face, the knocking was louder and accompanied by a voice. She wiped the moisture from her face with her hand and grimaced.
‘Are you all right, Katerina? If you don’t answer me I shall be forced to come in!’
He would too.
This was a situation fraught with dangerous possibilities…which no doubt accounted for the dramatic increase in her pulse-rate.
Katie bit her lip and blew a section of frothy suds from her arm, watching as individual bubbles detached themselves and began to float across the room.
‘It’s locked!’ she shouted, hoping he’d go away.
If she hoped he’d go away, why then did she have this image in her head of being joined in the water by a sleekly muscled male body…? Why even as she spoke was she seeing water sliding over powerful shoulders…?
She almost certainly didn’t want answers to these questions.
There was a short silence. ‘A locked door is not an obstacle to a determined man,’ he told her, sounding irritated but a lot more relaxed than he had done before she’d spoken. ‘So if you are not unconscious answer me.’
Katie watched the bubble that had travelled the farthest ping on a mirrored surface. ‘What do you want?’ she called crossly.
‘Do you want anything from room service? I’m ordering some supper.’
Her stomach responded to the offer with a hungry growl. ‘No.’
‘You hardly ate anything at dinner.’
‘And whose fault is that…?’
‘You ought to have something,’ Nikos persisted, choosing to ignore her indignant accusation.
‘What are you going to do, force-feed me?’ She winced at the sound of her own voice. God, this is starting to sound more and more like a playground squabble. One of them had to start acting like a grown-up. ‘Actually…Nikos…’ she began tentatively. Why was it so hard for her to say his name? ‘I wouldn’t mind a sandwich? Nikos…?’ she called, but there was no response. She shrugged; he obviously hadn’t hung around.
Katie sank back down into the scented water but found it impossible to recapture her relaxed mood, so after washing her long hair until it was squeaky clean she climbed out of the roll-top bath. As she reached for a towel she caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror—how could she not? The ceiling was about the only place in the bathroom that didn’t have a reflective surface.
She barely registered the fleeting image she had of the tall girl with long, slim legs, flat belly and firm, fairly full breasts with small pouting nipples that stood out darkly against pale honey skin. She picked a large soft towel from the pile on the vanity unit and was about to dry herself when an impulse made her turn and rub some of the condensation from the nearest mirror.
Towel still in her hands, she extended one leg in front of her and pointed her toes, watching the effect of her balletic pose in the mirror. Thoughtfully she replaced her foot on the tiled floor then turned, viewing her body critically from several angles. How, she wondered, would a stranger view this body? Would they notice that her hip bones were too bonily prominent or detect that, viewing from this angle, you could see that her right breast was just fractionally fuller than the left?
She ran her fingers slowly down the damp flat contours of her belly; the sensitised nerves in her abdomen quivered under her touch. She found herself staring into her own eyes…they were darkened, alien, the pupils dilated. She shivered, not from cold because her skin was hot to the touch.
‘Oh, my goodness!’ she gasped, wiping a shaking hand across her lips, which appeared pinker and fuller than usual—as if I’d just been kissed. Who am I kidding? It’s no stranger’s eyes I’m trying to see myself through, but a very specific pair of eyes—inky-dark fathomless eyes.
It was bad she was thinking about Nikos looking at her naked, but infinitely worse was the inescapable fact she was getting seriously aroused thinking about him doing so!
Shaking with reaction, she covered her shamefully engorged nipples with her crossed arms and stumbled towards the washbasin; gulping, she turned on the cold tap. The cold water she splashed on her face did clear her head but not her deeply troubled thoughts.
I’m about to marry one man and I’m thinking this way about another.
‘What does that say about me?’ she demanded of the image in the mirror. The fact that she was actually married to the object of her lustful fancies was not, considering the exceptional circumstances, relevant.
Maybe it was time to admit what she had with Tom was not a basis for a lifelong commitment? She shook her head, rejecting the idea. Friendship and respect lasted longer than lust—this inevitably led her thoughts full circle back to Nikos.
‘I will not let him do this to me!’ she gritted out loud. Only an idiot would want a spectacular burst of showy fireworks when they could have a steady, slow-burning flame. But did she?
Shaking the excess moisture off her face, she took a deep breath and began to rub herself vigorously with a towel. Long before she’d finished her skin was pink and tingling.
When Katie went back through to her bedroom the door to the sitting room shared by the two bedrooms in the large, luxurious suite was open. She couldn’t hear any signs of life beyond it, but just in case she tiptoed quietly towards it with the intention of surreptitiously shutting it. She’d feel safer with a visible barrier between them…but would he, the sly voice in her head wondered…if he knew what you were thinking?
That was never going to happen!
Pretending she wasn’t attracted to him was not going to work any more—actually it never had worked particularly well to begin with—neither could she blame it on the heightened emotions surrounding the fire. The truth was every time she looked at him she was overwhelmed by a mindless hunger with an emphasis on the mindless. Lust was something she could deal with, she told herself without a great deal of conviction.
If only, she thought wistfully as she grasped the door handle, Nikos could be as easily shut out of her thoughts. As part of her new honesty policy she acknowledged it was going to take a lot more than two inches of polished mahogany to accomplish that—yes, that’s going to take a bitof good old-fashioned self-control, she told herself sternly, so stop acting as if you don’t have any choice about this!
‘There’s always a choice!’ Katie grimaced to hear the lack of conviction in her voice—once more with feeling, girl! ‘There’s always a choice…?’
She frowned and leaned her weight against the door, which, only half closed, had come to an abrupt halt. She grunted softly and gave a shove just as the obstacle revealed itself to be a six-feet-five-in-his-bare-feet obstacle!
Her stomach dipped dramatically as she angled a dismayed look up at his lean, imposing features.
Oh, heavens! Not only could she not get him out of her thoughts, her assumption she could physically shut him out was proving to be optimistic as well!
‘Sorry, I didn’t see you there.’ She smiled tensely as he opened the door fully, and tightened the belt on the calf-length hotel robe. As befitted an up-market hotel, the robe in question was as sumptuously rich as the décor; in fact it was so fluffy and comforting it was hard to tell she had a waist.
Only Katie didn’t feel particularly comforted wearing it; it wasn’t the provocative nature of this modest get-up that bothered her, but what she was—or rather what she wasn’t—wearing underneath!
Her glance skimmed over Nikos in what she hoped was a casual way, not likely to be misconstrued as an I-want-to-rip-your-clothes-off sort of way! It revealed that, like herself, he had used the time to bathe, but unlike her he did not have to rely on the robes the hotel supplied. He had changed into casual light-coloured jeans and a polo shirt in a slightly darker silky fabric.
This relaxed version of Nikos was equally devastatingly attractive as the formal one.
‘Were you talking to yourself…?’
Katie, lips clamped tight, shook her head vigorously.
One dark brow quirked. ‘I thought I heard something.’
‘I must have been thinking out loud…’
His lips quivered faintly. ‘But not talking to yourself.’
His mockery made her want to hit him, which was not a civilised response, but somehow civilised was hard to achieve around Nikos.
‘Sorry if it disturbed you. Goodnight?’ she added with more hope than expectation of him taking the hint. He was not big on taking hints.
‘You thought I was asleep, perhaps?’
A perfectly innocent question, but something about the gleam in his slightly narrowed eyes made Katie suspect some sort of trap in his seemingly innocuous words.
Nikos had found that many women with expertly applied make-up were almost unrecognisable when seen without it; this was not the case with Katerina. A searching scrutiny of her freshly scrubbed features had revealed a complexion that was flawless, her full, wide lips were a delightful deep pink, the only flaw in fact was the faint bruised bluish shadows beneath her wide-spaced, incredibly blue eyes. Did she not sleep enough? The thought of what she did when she should be sleeping brought a harsh, uncompromising frown to his brow.
‘Asleep?’ she repeated, wary and resentful of the stern look of disapproval he was giving her. ‘I hadn’t really thought about it.’
‘Then I really can’t account for it.’
‘Account for what?’
Still frowning, Katie turned, her eyes following the direction the sharp tilt of his dark head indicated. She almost groaned out loud when she saw what he was showing her. The large gilt-framed mirror above the queen-sized bed was clearly visible from the other room through the door. It must have given him a perfect view of her approaching the door.
‘You looked as if you were trying not to disturb anyone, like a little mouse.’
Katie, recalling the furtive way she’d crept across the room, felt a hot tide of mortification wash over her skin.
‘One would be excused,’ he continued, ‘for thinking you didn’t want me to hear you.’
Katie bit her lip; the rat was enjoying her discomfort, she could see it in his eyes. Just so long as he doesn’t find mine equally revealing. The thought sent a shudder slithering down her spine. She swallowed.
‘I said you wouldn’t know I was here,’ she reminded him.
‘So you did. You are so considerate,’ he murmured with palpable insincerity. He nudged the door wider with his shoulder and his features hardened. ‘Except when you let me think you’ve passed out in the bath.’
She was startled by the unexpected comment and her eyes flew to his face. ‘You didn’t think that.’ Her scornful smile faded as their eyes locked, her own widened. ‘Did you? But I don’t faint…’
A swift mental review of the events in question left her uneasily conscious that her refusal to respond to his calls just might have been interpreted that way by someone who was totally over-cautious.
‘It was not such a great leap to make. Consider,’ he suggested. ‘You are obviously totally exhausted, you have had a traumatic experience…and of course I did not have that one vital piece of information which would have made me realise that my fears were groundless—you don’t faint,’ he observed with heavy sarcasm.
Katie tossed her head back and gave a combative smile, she’d show him that a totally exhausted—which in her book translated as ‘you look like hell’—person was not going to meekly accept his lectures.
‘Who do you think you are?’
‘Your husband.’
For a moment Katie thought he really could read her mind until common sense intervened and she reasoned that she must have spoken out loud.
‘I take it the traumatic experience you are referring to is you showing up?’ Her defiant shrug had a hint of desperation about it; though pitting her wits against Nikos was stimulating in a sticking-your-finger-in-an-electric-socket sort of way, it was also deeply exhausting and Katie felt she was losing momentum. Not to mention her mind.
The problem was she wasn’t a naturally aggressive person, normally, and she was extremely hampered by the fact she knew she was behaving extremely badly. Nikos, on the other hand, obviously lacked any form of self-awareness; the man had autocratic leanings, which unless someone took him in hand soon would turn him into a fully fledged despot before long.
Nikos released a strangled expletive. ‘It had not occurred to me,’ he revealed coldly, ‘that you would be stupid enough to lock the door.’
If he carries on talking to me as if I’m a silly child caught in misdemeanour I’ll… She stopped mid furious thought as her mind produced an image to match his words.
‘You mean if it hadn’t been locked you’d have come barging in?’ she yelped as a remarkably vivid image of Nikos exploding into the bathroom danced across her vision. For some reason her imagination had taken some poetic licence when it came to what he was wearing—very little! And as for having him leap energetically into the bath with her—that was a totally unnecessary sequel!
‘If you were ill or in need of assistance, yes, I would have, but if you mean do I get my thrills from entering bathrooms uninvited? No, I do not.’ Though his facial expression did not alter his abrupt shift of mood was evident in the smouldering gaze that rested on her face. ‘If I get invited in…’ he gave an expressive shrug ‘…that changes things.’
‘The picture that conjures up makes me queasy.’ For all the wrong reasons, she thought. Jealousy was all she needed!
‘I didn’t realise that you had such prudish tendencies. Though I should have guessed when you said you and Tom do not talk about sex.’
‘I am not a prude,’ she denied angrily. Aware that her reaction was a bit OTT, she moderated her voice but couldn’t prevent her distaste creeping in. ‘I just think what goes on between a man and woman in private should remain that way and should not become the subject of crude jokes.’
‘Well, at least you recognise it was a joke. Perhaps some food will help you gain some sense of proportion?’
If he wanted plain talking she’d show him she could do that too! ‘And for your information we don’t talk about sex, we do it!’ She smiled triumphantly as she flaunted her non-existent sex life under his superior nose.
For a moment Nikos looked startled, then a deep laugh was wrenched from the depths of his throat. ‘Thank you for sharing that with me,’ he said solemnly.
Katie had never felt so humiliated in her life. She didn’t know how she’d allowed herself to be goaded into making such a childish retort.
‘Why shouldn’t I have a healthy sex life? What’s so funny about that?’ she demanded.
‘You talk about sex with the same swaggering bravado as a boy who has not yet lost his virginity.’
‘I am not a boy.’
‘Nor a v—’
‘You know, I think I am a little hungry,’ she cut in brightly.
This attempt to change the subject was so blatant that Nikos smiled. His smile guttered as an incredible thought occurred to him. He shook his head, dismissing it almost instantly; it was amazing what crazy ideas a man could get into his head when he hadn’t eaten or slept.
Being an honest man, he couldn’t be totally sure if his diminished mental acuity didn’t lie at the door of a quite different basic need that was not being met. A basic need that he was conscious of every time he looked at his friend’s lover…his own wife.
Nikos frowned. He had all the complications and surprises he needed in his business life; he made sure his personal life was unstressed and uncomplicated. It seemed if he wanted a return to that desirable status quo it would be necessary to remove Katerina Forsythe from his life as soon as possible. Which was the reason he’d come here, but somehow in between rescuing cats from burning buildings and being hospitalised he had been losing track of that detail.
‘Fortunately I ordered enough for two in case you changed your mind.’
Katie looked beyond him and saw the glass-topped table set with a tempting array of light refreshments. Her stomach growled softly, reminding her of how little she’d eaten during the past twenty-four hours.
‘Oh…’ She gave a last wistful look at the spread. ‘Actually I think I’m fine after all,’ she explained unconvincingly.
‘This sudden loss of appetite—is it a case of…cutting off your nose to spite your face? Have I got that right?’ he asked innocently.
‘Don’t be cute!’ she accused. ‘Your English is a damned sight better than mine and we both know it,’ she growled.
‘Nobody has ever called me cute before. I’m touched.’
She found she couldn’t carry on acting as though she were unaware of the malicious mockery in his lean face. ‘So must I be…in the head!’ She banged a hand against the side of the area in question. ‘Just being here makes me certifiable.’ Her expansive gesture took in the luxurious surroundings.
‘Are you crying?’
Katie heard the wary quiver in his deep voice and remembered he didn’t like women’s tears.
‘No, but it would serve you right if I was,’ she told him, sniffing loudly.
Nikos’s expression softened; she talked so tough but looked so vulnerable. The combination affected him strongly.
‘It’s true I don’t like women’s tears, but if anyone has reason to weep it is you. You have been very brave…but now you are tired and hungry. Come and eat. Let’s call a truce.’
Though she was highly sceptical of his offer of a truce, quite irrationally his unexpected kindness cut through Katie’s defences where all his clever taunts had not.
‘What’s on the sandwiches?’ If she persisted in being stubborn, he might jump to the totally wrong conclusion—namely that she was scared to be in the same room as him!
Nikos had the good sense not to act as if he had won. ‘Smoked salmon and cream cheese, beef and horseradish and cucumber?’
Katie found it hard not to drool. ‘I am hungry.’ As if to back up her words her stomach chose that moment to growl again—this time extremely loudly. Her glare dared him to laugh. ‘And I hate to see good food go to waste.’
‘Indeed,’ he agreed, maintaining his gravity. ‘Especially just to prove a point.’
‘So much for a truce. I knew you couldn’t do it!’ she crowed.
‘It doesn’t start until we start eating.’
‘Well, if you’re going to make the rules up as we go along…’
‘I surrender, you win,’ he conceded, holding up his hands in mock submission.
‘I’m not the one scoring points, I’m hungry.’
Nikos stepped aside to let her pass. ‘So am I,’ he murmured.
Katie took his enigmatic words at face value—she wasn’t going somewhere that anybody with an ounce of sense would fear to tread!
Nikos led her to a long cream sofa piled high with plump cushions.
‘Elevate your foot,’ he suggested, pushing the cushions into a pile one end.
She had sat down at the opposite end before the extent of his inside knowledge struck her. ‘How did you know I’m supposed to?’
Nikos slid a hand under her knees and neatly swivelled her round. ‘I asked the doctor,’ he divulged, placing her feet on the pile of cushions.
Katie’s toes curled; she was astounded and indignant. ‘And he told you?’ So much for patient confidentiality.
‘You are my wife.’
‘Will you stop saying that?’ she begged.
‘Even if I do it will not change anything. I doubt the doctor saw any reason not to tell me. Now where is this bandage?’
‘In my pocket.’
‘It should be on your foot.’
‘Well, I couldn’t get it on, it’s too tight. I tried.’
He held out his hand. ‘Let me.’
Katie shook her head. ‘Don’t be silly.’ She scooted her feet up the sofa and tucked them protectively under the hem of her robe.
A nerve began to pulse in his lean cheek. ‘My touch offends you?’
‘Don’t be silly, of course not!’ she scoffed.
Telling him what his touch actually did was naturally not an option.
‘You are hyperventilating.’
‘I am not and there really is no need for a bandage; my ankle feels perfectly fine after the bath.’ Her voice rose to a shrill squeak in her frantic efforts to convince him.
‘No, it is not, I saw you limping.’
Katie closed her eyes in frustration. ‘Go on, have it your way,’ she gritted, untucking her leg and stretching it out stiff-kneed.
She could hardly tell him the idea of him placing his hands on her skin for any length of time made her hot with excitement and cold with dread. What if she got turned on? Who was she kidding? There was no if about it! Hell, he only had to look at her and she felt emotionally mugged. What if when he touched her she did or said something really stupid?
Nikos silently looked at the ankle extended towards him but he made no attempt to touch it or her. The moment stretched on…
He remained motionless so long the muscles in her thigh started to quiver. The silence between them was heavy with tension; finally Katie could bear it no longer.
‘Are you going to do this or not?’ she demanded peevishly. Not would be good.
Nikos rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, revealing the sinewy strength of his forearms. Katie was engulfed by a wave of longing that filled her with despair.
‘Then for goodness’ sake get it over and done with!’ she snapped.
When he did take her ankle between his big hands, they felt cool and capable. His attitude as he gently examined the tender bruised area was detached but sympathetic.
‘It is badly swollen and the bruising is coming out.’ His dark brows met in a frowning line as he examined her injury with strong, sensitive fingers. ‘It looks extremely painful.’
It was, but this wasn’t the reason Katie evaded his questioning glance. When she looked at him she saw his fingers touching, stroking areas on her body other than her ankle. The dangerous fantasy fuelled the pulse of inappropriate excitement that throbbed through her.
She took out her self-disgust on her innocent ankle. ‘You didn’t mention ugly,’ she told him with a disconsolate sniff. With a frown she compared the injured ankle with her sound one; it was at least three times the size.
‘I’m sure Tom will still love you if you had ankles as thick as tree trunks.’
She supposed it was the thought of Tom’s uncritical adoration that brought the thin sneer to his lips. As far as Nikos was concerned she would never be good enough for his friend or him.
‘I’m not so sure,’ she mused half to herself as her thoughts turned to Tom’s love of all things beautiful and perfect.
It was only his way of talking but sometimes, when Tom referred to her as his most precious possession, it made her uncomfortable. Tom liked his possessions in mint condition; if anything fell below the high standards he demanded he got rid of it. He had laughed and called Katie hopelessly sentimental when, after dropping a valuable vase, she hadn’t let him throw it away.
‘You bought it for me that day we went to an antique fair, and if I turn it like this,’ she explained, ‘you won’t be able to see the crack at all.
‘It’s not worth anything now. I’ll buy you another one.’ He looked perplexed when she told him a new one wouldn’t be the same.
‘No, because then it won’t have a flaw,’ he replied drily.
Would he buy another wife just as easily when the old one got too worn? Katie was immediately ashamed of the unbidden thought.
‘You place a high value on your looks and a low one on yourself.’
The stinging contempt in Nikos’s voice brought Katie’s attention swinging back to his face. She discovered he was angry. Inexplicably and impressively furious.
‘If people can’t see beyond your beautiful face and attractive figure, don’t you see that that is their problem, not yours?’
Katie blinked in bewilderment at the harsh reproach in his voice. He thought she had a beautiful face…?
‘I…’ She bit back a cry of pain as his lean fingers tightened painfully around her bruised ankle.
Nikos immediately loosened his grip. ‘I’m sorry I hurt you.’
‘Not really,’ she lied.
He grunted and slid her a look of irritation. Supporting her ankle against his own knee, he proceeded to roll the tubular bandage into a manageable shape.
‘I would ask you to tell me if it hurts, but—’ he raised his dark head from his task and there was an ironic gleam in his eyes ‘—I’d be wasting my time, wouldn’t I?’
Katie doubted any pain could be worse than that sharp but sweet pleasure of having his fingers brush lightly against her skin.
‘Thank you,’ she said quietly when the support was back in place.
Nikos finished smoothing invisible wrinkles from the bandage over the curve of her calf and lifted his head; there was a faint flush along his high cheekbones. ‘It was hardly brain surgery. Sit there,’ he added. ‘I’ll bring you some food.’
‘Oh! I thought I’d just take something to my room.’
One side of his mobile lips dropped. ‘Running away?’
‘I can’t run.’
‘That’s true. I don’t like to eat alone; stay.’
Not likely. ‘All right, I’ll stay,’ she heard herself reply. ‘It seems a strange time of night to be eating.’ But then it had been a strange day.
‘You eat when you are hungry.’
Katie smiled at this simplistic philosophy; it was very Nikos.
‘People have far too many hang-ups about food,’ he revealed. ‘How’s this?’ he added, passing her a laden plate.
‘If I had any hang-ups about food I’d faint, but it looks great.’ Her enthusiasm sounded false and hollow to her own ears; it was the fault of his slow-burning smile, the one that crinkled the corners of his eyes.
‘We can pretend we’re having a midnight feast, is that not what they do in English schools?’
‘Not the one I went to,’ Katie replied, thinking of the local comprehensive she had attended. She imagined it was a far cry from the sort of school Nikos had gone to. In fact her life was a far cry from his.
‘Were you clever at school?’
‘Not particularly,’ she replied, suspicious of his interest. ‘But I was very popular.’ She gave a sudden impish grin that gave him a glimpse of the dry sense of humour that she had not had much opportunity to display in his company. ‘But only because I had an extraordinarily handsome twin brother. You’d be amazed at how many girls wanted to come home for tea with me.’
‘You were a twin?’
Katie, her mouth full of sandwich, nodded.
‘It must have been especially hard for you to lose him,’ he mused. Katie didn’t reply; talking about Peter was still hard. ‘What sort of man was your brother?’
Katie considered the question.
‘He was handsome, impetuous, funny…’ She stopped and flicked a wry look towards Nikos—best to beat him to the punchline. ‘In short he was the exact opposite of me.’
He didn’t dispute her assessment. ‘You were the sensible twin?’
His perception was spooky; Peter had been the creative, impulsive twin and she had been the practical, grounded one.
‘Peter was very special,’ she said quietly.
‘My brother was older, and we were not particularly close. It was hard on my father when he died—Dimitri was his favourite.’
It was impossible to tell from his impassive expression whether he had minded this. Katie, seeing him as a little boy trying to gain parental approval, discovered that she had enough indignation for them both.
‘He was groomed to take over virtually from birth. When we lost him my father literally almost worked himself to death because he didn’t think I could fill my brother’s shoes.’
And psychologists wondered why children went off the rails! With fathers around like the insensitive clot Nikos was describing it was a wonder any children ever turned out normal!
‘That’s so unfair!’ she blurted out angrily. She flushed as he shot her a strange look. ‘I just hope,’ she added stiffly, ‘I never make any child of mine feel inadequate,’ she declared fiercely.
If Nikos had ever had any inadequacies he had obviously worked through them long ago—it was hard to imagine anyone more assured and confident than he was.
‘And do you plan on having any children soon?’
Katie sighed. ‘Tom doesn’t think it would be a good idea to start a family for a few years yet.’
Nikos suspected she was unaware of how wistful she sounded. ‘And you?’ he probed gently.
‘You shouldn’t have a baby to fill a gap in your life.’

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