Mediterranean Tycoons: Masterful & Married

Swivelling back to face her desk, Amber picked up the telephone and dialled Tim’s number in Thropton. He had a right to know Spiro was dead.

The conversation was not as difficult as she had expected. Tim was quite philosophical about it: the past was past—so they had lost a good friend, but in reality they had lost him years ago.

‘You’re right, Tim…’ Suddenly her office door swung open and someone walked in unannounced. Amber lifted her head. Recognition was instant, her golden eyes widening in shock. ‘I’ll see you soon, love,’ she finished her conversation, and replaced the receiver.

She was thankful she was sitting down because she doubted her legs would support her. Lucas Karadines… She didn’t dare meet his cold black eyes, and, carefully taking deep breaths, she sought to calm her suddenly erratic pulse. She should have expected this as soon as she had read the line ‘something to her advantage’ she realised too late.

He was standing in the middle of her office as though he owned the place. Amber’s first thought was that Lucas at forty-one looked little different than he had done when they had first met. His body beneath the conservatively tailored charcoal-grey suit was still lithe and firm, his face was still handsome, but the harsh symmetry of bones and flesh mirrored a cold bitterness that she had never noticed before. He looked lean and as predatory as ever, but he looked older, harder than she would have expected for a happily married man, was her second thought. The lines bracketing his mouth were deeper, the hair at his temples liberally streaked with silver. But nothing could detract from the aura of dynamic, vibrant male he wore like a powerful cloak, masking his ruthlessly chauvinistic nature. He would be a handsome devil to his dying day, Amber acknowledged wryly.

Amber felt colour creeping under her skin as he made no immediate attempt to either move or speak. His hands were slanted casually into his trouser pockets, accentuating the musculature of his long legs. His eyes were hooded so she could not tell what he was thinking as they slid slowly over her head and shoulders to where the collar of her blue silk blouse revealed a glimpse of cleavage. She fought the impulse to slip her suit jacket off the back of the chair and put it on. This was her office, and Lucas was the intruder, and as he made no attempt to break the tense silence between them she finally found her voice.

‘What do you want?’ she asked abruptly.

Lucas Karadines for the first time in his life was struck dumb. The instant tightening in his groin shocked him into silence. His body had not reacted this way in years. His memory of Amber had not done her justice. She’d matured into the most exquisitely beautiful woman he had ever seen. His dark eyes drank in the sight of her. The hair scraped back from her face only accentuated the perfection of her features, the elegant line of her throat, the shadowed cleft between her luscious breasts her conservative blouse could not quite hide.

‘Not a great welcome for an old friend,’ Lucas finally murmured, his dark eyes gleaming with mockery, before scanning the elegant office. ‘So this is your domain.’

A corner suite with windows on two sides, it was light and airy, and in keeping with her present position in the firm as the youngest partner, and Amber was justifiably proud of her achievements. ‘Obviously,’ she said dryly.

‘You have done well for yourself, but then I always said you would.’ Lucas’s glance skimmed lightly over her desk as he moved towards it, noting her hand still on the phone. ‘Sorry if I interrupted your conversation with your lover, but you and I have some pressing business to discuss.’

Her hand gripping the telephone was white-knuckled, and, realising she was betraying her shock, she smoothly slipped her hands to her lap and managed to smile coolly back at him. She was fiercely glad that the sophisticate she had pretended to be when they had first met was now a reality. She refused to be intimidated by Lucas—or any man, for that matter.

‘I can’t imagine we have anything to discuss, Mr Karadines. As far as I am aware you are a client of Janson’s and I am not in the habit of poaching my father’s clients.’ It gave her great satisfaction to say it. Whether Lucas was aware Sir David was her father, she did not know. But she was making it abundantly clear he was not about to treat her like some inferior being to be discarded like yesterday’s newspaper as he had before.

‘Yes, I heard. I’m surprised you didn’t choose to join Sir David’s firm,’ he opined smoothly. ‘I seem to remember Clive Thompson was rather keen on the idea.’

‘He still is,’ Amber shot back, angry that Lucas had the nerve to remind her of that horrible party. ‘But I like it at Brentford’s and I don’t believe in nepotism,’ she said with a shrug. ‘Nor mixing business with pleasure.’ Let him make of that what he liked. She’d been dating Clive for the past year and part of the reason she had spent the last couple of weeks on holiday was to decide if she should accept Clive’s proposal of marriage.

‘Very wise of you. I dispensed with their services myself some months ago.’

That did surprise her. Neither Clive nor Mark, her half-brother, who had been the head of the firm since their father had retired two years ago, had mentioned the fact.

‘I didn’t know,’ she said blandly, implying that she didn’t really care.

‘Now, if there is nothing further, I am rather busy.’ Tilting back her head, she stared up at him, deliberately holding his eyes. ‘And it is usual to make an appointment.’ The sarcasm in her tone was very evident. ‘I am a busy lady.’

Lucas was not the slightest bit fazed. ‘I’m sure you are, Amber—a little too busy, it would seem.’

Amber raised her eyebrows. ‘Too busy, says a man who was the most driven, competitive workaholic!’ she mocked lightly. ‘Marriage has changed you. How is the family? Well, I hope.’ She was proud of her ability to ask the conventional question, and was surprised to realise it actually did not hurt at all.

Lucas stilled, his handsome face as expressionless as stone. ‘I have no family. Spiro was the last—that is why I am here.’

Amber’s face went white. Oh, God! In her shock at seeing Lucas again, she had forgotten all about Spiro’s death. How could she have been so callous? ‘I’m sorry, Lucas, truly sorry,’ she hastened into an explanation. ‘I only found out this morning. I’ve been on holiday, and the news hasn’t really sunk in yet. I’m sorry I missed the funeral. Please sit down.’ She indicated a chair at the opposite side of the desk with the wave of her hand. ‘I’ll order some coffee.’ She was babbling, she knew, and, pressing for her secretary, she quickly asked Sandy to bring in two coffees.

He lowered his long length into the chair she had indicated. ‘Cut out the phoney sympathy, Amber,’ he commanded bluntly. ‘We both know Spiro hated my guts, and the fact he left everything he possessed to you simply underlined the fact.’

‘He what?’ she exclaimed, her golden eyes widening in astonishment on Lucas’s hard face, and what she saw in his night-black eyes sent a shiver of something very like fear quivering down her spine. ‘No, I don’t believe you,’ she amended quickly. ‘Spiro wouldn’t.’ Then she remembered the ‘something to her advantage’.

‘Yes, Spiro would, and did, and your innocent act does not impress me,’ he said harshly. ‘You knew damn fine you stood to inherit Spiro’s share of the business.’

‘Now wait just a minute—’ Amber began, but at that moment Sandy walked in with the coffee.

Amber sat bristling with frustration as she watched her secretary, the girl’s eyes awestruck as she asked Lucas breathlessly how he took his coffee.

‘Black, please.’ He favoured her with a broad smile and just sat looking dark and strikingly attractive until the flustered girl handed him a cup of coffee. ‘Thank you.’

Amber thought Sandy was going to swoon. No wonder she had let Lucas in without an appointment. Even her secretary, who had only been married a few months, was not immune to Lucas’s lethal male charm.

When Amber had first seen Lucas walk into her office she had been in shock, but now the shock had worn off, and another much more dangerous emotion was threatening her hard-won equilibrium. Lucas was a handsome devil and he still had the power to stir her feminine hormones.

Amber hastily picked up her cup of coffee and took a long drink of the reviving brew. The days were long gone when she was a slave to the sexual excitement Lucas could arouse with a mere look or touch. He had killed them dead when he had accused her of being an oversexed female, excellent lover material, but never a wife, and then had gone off and married Christina.

For months after his desertion her self-esteem had hit rock-bottom. She’d questioned her own worth; perhaps Lucas had been right about her. She was sex mad, the hedonist he had called her. She certainly had been when she’d been with him. In consequence she had, without really being aware of doing it, adjusted her style of dress to elegant but conservative—no short skirts, or revealing necklines. She wore little make-up and kept her long hair ruthlessly scraped back in a tight chignon, and she had no idea she looked even more desirable.

The door closing as Sandy left brought Amber back to the present with a start, and, straightening her shoulders, she was once again in command. She looked at Lucas with narrowed hostile eyes. ‘I don’t need you to tell me what I do or don’t know,’ she said curtly, and, picking up the letter from the desk, she held it out to him.

‘Read that. I saw it for the first time this morning, and as yet I have not had time to respond, basically because I have an unscheduled guest. You.’ His fingers brushed hers as he took the document from her outstretched hand, igniting a tingling sensation on her soft skin. Her golden eyes narrowed warily to his face, sure he had done it deliberately, but he was unfolding the document.

She waited as he read the letter, and then with slow deliberation folded the document back up again. ‘This proves nothing,’ Lucas said bluntly, dropping the letter back on her desk.

‘I don’t have to prove anything to you, Mr Karadines.’ She shrugged dismissively. ‘Now finish your coffee and leave. I have work to do.’ Yes, Amber congratulated herself, she was back on track; the cool businesswoman. ‘And when I get around to contacting the lawyers, and discover the true state of affairs, then if I need to get in touch with you, I will.’ When hell freezes over, she thought silently. Standing up, she drained her coffee-cup and replaced it on the desk, before walking around heading for the door, her intention to show Lucas out as swiftly as possible.

‘Well, well. The hard-bitten businesswoman act,’ Lucas drawled sardonically, rising to his feet, and when she moved to pass him he reached out for her.

Amber felt every hair on her skin leaping to attention as his long fingers encircled her forearm. ‘It is no act. Believe me!’ she retaliated sharply. If he thought he was going to walk all over her again, he was in for a rude awakening.

‘You don’t fool me, Amber.’ His voice dropped throatily, his fingers tightening ever so slightly on her arm. His eyes wandered over her in blatant masculine appraisal, taking in the prim neckline of her blue blouse, the tailored navy blue trousers that skimmed her slender hips and concealed her long legs to the classic low-heeled navy shoes, and then ever so slowly back to her face until she thought she would scream with the effort to remain cool and in control. ‘You may dress like a conservative businesswoman, but it doesn’t change what you are. I always knew you had a passion for sex, but it was only after we parted that I realised you had an equal passion for money,’ he drawled cynically.

She wrenched her arm free from his hold, her whole body rigid with anger. Just who the hell did he think he was? So now she was a gold-digger, as well as a sex maniac in his eyes… With the greatest effort of will, Amber managed to control her fury and say calmly, ‘What exactly do you want, Lucas, barging into my office unannounced? I have neither the time nor the inclination for playing games. You obviously know something about Spiro’s will, which concerns me. So just spit it out and then go.’

His eyes darkened, and for a moment Amber saw a flash of violent anger in their glittering depths, and she knew she had been right to feel threatened. Then he was smiling mockingly down at her. ‘You used to like playing games,’ he reminded her, his eyes cruel. ‘Sexual games.’ His finger lifted and stroked down the curve of her cheek.

‘Cut that out,’ she snapped, taking a deep, shuddering breath. ‘You’re a married man, remember.’ Her golden eyes clashed with his, and as she watched it was like a shutter falling down over his face.

Lucas’s hand fell from her face, his black eyes cold and blank. ‘No, I am not. I told you before, I have no family.’

Confusion flickered in Amber’s eyes. Had he? Then she remembered, but she had thought he’d meant Spiro. ‘But what about Christina and your child?’

‘The child was stillborn. My father died three years ago, and Christina was gone the next,’ he informed her in clipped tones.

Her soft heart flooded with compassion, and unthinkingly she laid a hand on his arm in a tender gesture… Such tragedy must be heartbreaking even for a man as hard as Lucas. ‘I am so sorry, Lucas, I had no idea.’

‘These things happen…’ he brushed her hand away ‘…and, as you never cared much for any of them, I can do without your hypocritical sympathy. I would ask you not to mention the subject again. Except for Spiro, of course,’ he demanded with chilling emphasis.

Why was she wasting her sympathy on this man? Lucas meant nothing to her. He was simply another irritant in an already bad day, she told herself. So why did her cheek still burn where he had touched her, her pulse still race? It wasn’t fair that one man could have such a terrible effect on her senses. She glanced up at him, and briefly his towering presence was a threat to her hard-won sophistication, then she casually took a step back.

‘You want to talk about Spiro, fire away,’ she said flatly, retreating behind her usual hard shell of astute businesswoman, and deliberately she lifted her wrist and scanned the elegant gold watch she wore. ‘But make it quick, I have a lunch appointment.’

‘You have changed, Amber.’ His lips quirked in the semblance of a smile that did not quite reach his eyes. ‘I can remember a time when you begged for my company, you couldn’t get enough of me and pleaded with me to stay with you,’ he said silkily.

The unexpected personal attack made her go white, a terrible coldness invading her very being that he could be so utterly callous as to mention the last time they had been alone together. ‘I can’t,’ she denied flatly. He might even now make her heart race, but no way was she foolish enough to get personal with Lucas Karadines ever again.

‘Liar.’ He smiled sardonically. ‘But I’ll let it go for now, as you say you are busy, and we have a much more pressing item to discuss, partner.’

‘Partner.’ She bristled. What on earth was the man talking about? She’d rather partner a rattlesnake.

‘All right, pretend you’re innocent, I don’t really care. But, put simply, the will Spiro made when you invested in his art gallery made you his heir if anything happened to him.’

‘Oh, no!’ Amber exclaimed, a horrible suspicion making her face pale. It couldn’t be. But one look at Lucas’s dark countenance confirmed her worst fear. When she had given Spiro the money he had insisted on making a will naming her his heir as collateral for the loan, until he could pay her back.

‘Oh, ye-es,’ Lucas drawled derisively. ‘Spiro never changed his will. You are now, or very soon will be, the proud owner of a substantial part of Karadines.’

He was watching her with eyes that glittered with undisguised contempt and something else she could not put a name to.

Amber simply stared at him like a paralysed porpoise, her mouth hanging open in shocked horror. How typical of Spiro. He would get a bee in his bonnet about something, do it and then forget all about it. His business sense had always been negligible, but Amber hadn’t seen it until it was too late.

Lucas laughed, but there was no humour in it. ‘Struck dumb; how very typical of you. The silent treatment might have worked for you in the past with Spiro,’ Lucas drawled, a smile creasing his firm mouth, ‘but not this time. I am a totally different male animal to my late nephew.’

He’d got that right! Amber had a hysterical desire to laugh—a more ruggedly aggressive macho male than Lucas would be impossible to find. Her lips quirked, while she damned Spiro for landing her in this mess.

‘You find something amusing in this situation?’ he challenged icily.

The ring of the telephone saved her from answering. ‘Yes, Sandy, what is it?’ she asked briskly. ‘Clive.’ She glanced sideways at Lucas and caught a thunderous frown on his dark face.

‘Tell him two minutes, my client is just leaving,’ she informed Sandy before turning towards Lucas. ‘My lunch date has arrived, I’m afraid I must ask you to leave.’

‘Clive Thompson, I might have guessed—he was lusting after you the first time he met you,’ Lucas opined bluntly. His dark eyes swept over her cynically. Her wide, oddly coloured gold eyes, and the full sensual lips that begged to be kissed. Her startling beauty combined with a slender yet curvaceous body was enough to make a grown man ache. Lucas was aching and he bitterly resented it. ‘Obviously he has succeeded, but by your ringless fingers I see you have had no success getting him to the altar yet,’ he taunted.

The arrogant bastard, Amber thought angrily. He was still of the opinion she was good enough to bed, but not to wed. Well, he was in for a big surprise.

‘Ah, Lucas, that is where you are wrong.’ Amber smiled a deliberately slow, sexy curve of her full lips. ‘Clive appreciates my talents.’ Let the swine make of that whatever his lecherous mind concluded. ‘He has asked me to marry him, but I have yet to give him my answer—perhaps over lunch,’ she said. ‘So, if you will excuse me.’

He moved so fast Amber didn’t have time to avoid him. One minute there were six feet of space between them, and the next she was hauled against the hard-muscled wall of his chest. Before she could struggle, one large hand slipped down over her buttocks, pressing hard against his thighs, and she felt the heat of him searing into her even through her clothes. ‘No, I won’t excuse you,’ he rasped.

Amber’s throat closed in panic. The years since they had last met might never have been. It was as if Lucas had rolled back time, his sexuality so potent that it fired her blood, making her once again the young girl who had been a slave to her senses. Then his dark head descended and he kissed her.

‘Lucas, no,’ she managed to croak as his mouth plundered hers, as he ground the tender flesh of her lips back against her teeth in a brutal travesty of a loving kiss. But even as she hated him, her body flooded with a feverish excitement and she fought the compulsion to surrender with every ounce of will-power she possessed, but it was not enough. The sexual chemistry between them had always been explosive. The years had not dulled the effect, and with a hoarse moan she responded. Lucas’s hold relaxed as he sensed her surrender, and, realising how completely she had betrayed herself, she swiftly twisted out of his arms.

‘Get out,’ she ordered in a voice that shook, her arms folded protectively across her breasts as she put as much space between them as her office allowed.

‘Christo! It was only a kiss—since when have you ever objected to a kiss?’ he derided savagely. ‘I was wrong, you haven’t changed. You can’t help responding. It is to be hoped Clive knows what he is taking on.’

The cruelty of his attack drove every last vestige of colour from her face.

His narrowed eyes studied her pale face for a long moment before a self-satisfied smile tilted the corners of his mouth. ‘Well, well, you haven’t told Clive about you and I.’ He was far too astute; he had seen the answer in her lowered gaze.

Lifting her head, she looked straight at him. ‘There is no you and I,’ she declared angrily. ‘There never was, as you were at great pains to point out when you married Christina.’ Her eyes sparkled with cold defiance.

His temper rose as swiftly as her own. ‘Leave Christina out of this,’ he commanded. ‘And if you want Clive to stay in ignorance…’ he paused, his narrowed gaze cold on her lovely face ‘…you will have dinner with me tonight. I will pick you up here at six and we will continue our talk. We have a lot to discuss.’

Panicked by his kiss, her lips tingling with the taste of him, Amber had forgotten Lucas’s real reason for seeking her out. There was still the will to discuss…

‘All right,’ she said curtly. ‘I’ll check with New York this afternoon. The sooner this matter is settled, the better.’ The thought of Lucas back in her life filled her with horror and fear.

‘Amber, darling.’ Clive strolled into the office, saw Lucas and stopped. ‘Lucas Karadines.’ And he held out his hand for Lucas to shake. ‘Thinking of changing bankers yet again?’ Clive asked conversationally.

‘No, nothing like that. A private matter concerning my late nephew Spiro. Now, if you will excuse me…’ Lucas glanced at Amber, his dark eyes holding a definite threat ‘…until later.’ And he left.

Clive quickly crossed to Amber’s side, and put a comforting arm around her shoulder. ‘I forgot to tell you when I spoke to you yesterday. I heard about Spiro a week ago. I know he used to be a good friend of yours; it must have been a shock.’

A tragedy. A calamity that Amber had a sinking feeling was only going to get worse.

Lunch was a disaster. Amber toyed with the food on her plate, her mind in turmoil. One kiss from Lucas Karadines, and her carefully considered decision taken after two weeks in Italy to accept Clive’s proposal of marriage was shot to hell…

Clive was very understanding when she told him she needed more time. But she saw the hurt in his blue eyes when they said goodbye outside her office building, and she hated herself for it. He was a true friend.

CHAPTER SIX

RETURNING from lunch, Amber stopped at her secretary’s desk. ‘Sandy…’ she looked hard at the pretty brunette ‘…what possessed you to let Mr Karadines walk straight into my office? You know the rules. No one gets in unless they have an appointment, especially not Mr Karadines, you must inform me first. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Sorry.’ Sandy apologised and then grinned. ‘But he said he was an old friend and he wanted to surprise you, and I couldn’t resist. I thought you would be pleased. I know I would. Smart, charming and sexy as hell; what more could a girl want?’

‘He is also a domineering, chauvinistic pig, with the mind-set of a medieval monarch,’ Amber declared with a wry grin. Sandy was an excellent secretary but a hopeless romantic. ‘Now get back to work,’ Amber commanded and walked into her office, closing the door behind her. She couldn’t blame Sandy. Lucas had a lethal charm that few women, if any, could resist…

A fax to New York was her first priority and then Amber spent all afternoon trying to work, but without accomplishing much. It was five in the afternoon when she finally received a reply to her fax. She read it, and groaned; her worst fear was confirmed. Lucas, damn him, was right! She was Spiro’s sole heir, and clarification of what that entailed would follow by mail.

Amber did not need to know. She’d made up her mind that whatever Spiro had left her she would give to Lucas. She wanted nothing to do with Karadines ever again…

She’d been badly burnt once and only a fool put their hand in the flame a second time. Ruthlessly she squashed the wayward thought that Lucas was a single man once more. He probably wasn’t, she thought dryly. Lucas had a powerful sex drive, he was not the sort to do without a woman for very long, and there were millions of women out there only too ready to fall into bed with the man.