The Kyriakos Virgin Bride / The Billionaire's Bidding
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Later? Jeez, but he was arrogant! He sounded so sincere, so loving. And there would be no later for them. Not anymore.
Pandora half wished she could go back to that blissful state of ignorance, before she’d learned the truth. Instead of this emptiness that filled her now. But what use would that be? She’d only be kidding herself. Pretend, Zac had said, and that’s exactly what she was doing.
“Smile,” his voice crept into her thoughts, and a second later a burst of silver-white light exploded in her face.
She looked wildly around at the throng, the people. Katy grinned at her from behind an oversize camera. Pandora struggled to smile back.
No, this was not her life. This public pretence. The glimpse of what her life married to Zac would be like was devastatingly sad. Nothing more than a series of hollow pretences for public show from one day to the next—if she stayed. But she didn’t have to stay trapped in a marriage to a man who wanted her only because she was a virgin.
Pretend?
Never. Zac was about to discover the extent of the error he’d made.
“Good, you are packed.”
Pandora glanced to where Zac loomed in the doorway, immaculate in a lightweight suit over a white T-shirt worn with fashionable European aplomb. “I’m leaving, Zac. The fairy tale is over.” She hefted a suitcase off the bed. “I think it would be best for all concerned if this marriage was annulled.
“Annulled?” Zac stared at her. “Annulled? This marriage can never be annulled. It’s already been consummated.”
Pandora raised her chin a notch. “Then I want a divorce. I’m not staying in a marriage with a man who doesn’t love me.”
A shadow moved across his face. “Pandora—”
She took a step toward the door…toward him. “No, I gave you the two hours of pretend you wanted. You’re not going to sweet-talk me out of this—”
“There can be no divorce.”
Stopping short of the threshold, she looked up at him. “What do you mean there can be no divorce? You’re not the man I married. That man would never have pretended to love me. I want a divorce.”
His face hardened. But instead of taking issue with her challenge, he spoke to the man behind him. “Take the bags, Aki.”
“Hey, wait a minute. Those are my bags and my—”
“You said you were going. Aki will take your bags downstairs for you.”
Was that all he was going to say? Pandora stared into his inscrutable face. Hard. Distant. A world apart from the man she’d married. Her mouth moved, but no words came out. She swallowed.
Was it over so easily?
She’d expected some resistance. A challenge. A huge wave of disappointment rocked her. Aki hoisted up her bags and headed down the stairs. Turning away from Zac, she moved back into the room and crossed to the dressing table to pick up the rainbow-hued silk scarf and designer handbag she’d so nearly left behind with all the turmoil stewing inside her. A quick check inside the bag revealed her wallet, her cell phone and her passport.
She tried not to let her shoulders sag. There was a thick knot at the back of her throat, but she wasn’t going to let Zac see her cry.
The last thing she wanted was for him to know how much she cared—how much she’d loved him. How much his silent surrender to her demand for a divorce had devastated her. Fiercely she said, “I need to call the airport to book a seat.”
There was a pause. Then Zac said, “Everything is being taken care of.”
“Already?” She spun around to find him right behind her.
“I’ll take you to the airport if that’s what you want.” His hand touched her elbow. “But first we talk. Alone, without interruption.”
“We can talk on the way to the airport.” She shrugged his hand off and glanced around the immense bedroom— the room where he’d made such devastating love to her and taught her about the power of being a woman. Stuff she’d never known.
Last night…no, she wasn’t thinking about last night. About the tender passionate lover whom she’d stupidly believed loved her with all his heart.
With a jerky movement Pandora swung on her heel and made for the door. She charged through the sitting room in a blur of tears. Furiously she blinked them back.
Downstairs there was nobody to be seen. A sense of desolation overtook her. No one in the huge mansion cared that she was going, no one cared enough to say goodbye. She thought of asking to see Katy, then shook the thought away. What did it matter? She’d never see Zac’s sister again.
Outside, the paved sweep of drive was empty. No one strolled in the parklike grounds, Mount Pendeli rising up in a solid mass of green beyond.
The only person to be seen was Aki crossing the driveway as he made his way to a circle of concrete set on the edge of the grassy park, where he deposited her bags.
“Where’s the taxi?” She glared accusingly at Zac.
“Christos. Do you really think I’d see my wife off by taxi—like some common…” He paused, but she got the message. And then he reached out and grabbed her hand. “Come.”
Almost running to keep up with his long, brisk stride, she crossed the drive and then she was back on the grass. The sun blazed in the halcyon sky overhead. Pandora’s heels sank into the perfectly manicured lawn. Aki had disappeared. Ahead lay the flat circle of concrete. A row of cypress trees lined the drive that led to the large electronic gates in the distance. Why had she not noticed how much those gates resembled prison bars before?
Surely he didn’t mean to dump her outside the gates of his property? No, Zac would not do that to her. She was certain of that. He’d said he wanted to talk, so where was he taking her? She dug in her heels, dragging him to a stop. “Where are we going?”
“I’m taking you away. Where we can be alone, where we can sort this—this misunderstanding—out.”
“Oh, no. I’m going to the airport. There’s plenty of time to talk on the way.”
“You’re my wife, I am—” A deafening drone drowned out the rest of his reply. He grabbed her arm. Pandora resisted, determined not to let Zac dictate to her. Through the roaring noise she was aware that Zac was shouting at her.
She glared at him. “What?”
“Get down! Get back!” he yelled close to her ear.
The huge black shadow of a helicopter swept over them. Shuddering, finally comprehending, she let him pull her out of the path of the hovering machine.
Aki had returned with another batch of bags. These must belong to Zac, Pandora realised as the helicopter settled onto the concrete helipad and Aki started passing the bags—hers, too—up into the belly of the helicopter.
Zac’s bags and her bags being loaded into the helicopter did not equate to her plan of going to the airport. She stared at the monstrous machine, its shiny white body bearing the royal-blue-and-yellow logo of Kyriakos Shipping. For the first time she saw the stylised feminine profile with long flying hair within the logo for what it was. A virgin. Then the slowing rotor blades grabbed her attention.
Pandora’s stomach clenched and a fine attack of perspiration broke out along the back of her neck. “I’m not going anywhere with you. Especially not in that—” she stabbed a finger at the helicopter “—hellishly dangerous thing. I want a taxi to the airport. I’m leaving. I want a divorce.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
Zac’s bronzed face was hard. Inscrutable. This was not the man she’d fallen in love with. This was someone else altogether. A stranger, stripped of the indulgent, cherishing mask. A man so hard she feared he’d break her.
As he’d already broken her heart.
“How could I ever have agreed to marry you? I hate you.”
Something moved across his face, a flash of darkness, and then it was gone. “That’s too bad. Because we’re going on honeymoon, to be alone—like you wanted.”
“No way!”
There was a reckless gleam in his eyes. “Well, then, what have I got to lose?”
Picking her up, he hoisted her over his shoulder and tore across the grass to the open doors of the helicopter.
“No,” she yelled, fear making her stiff.
He ignored her.
Each stride he took caused her to lurch against his shoulder, and with one hand she clung to her handbag while the other clutched his shirt.
“Put me down!” Pandora caught a glimpse of Aki’s startled face as Zac clambered into the helicopter, his arms tight as chains around her.
“Stop fighting me.”
“Never,” she vowed as she tumbled down onto his lap, her hair plastered to her face as tears clogged her eyes.
Zac shouted something at the pilot. The helicopter started to rise. Pandora hammered her fists against Zac’s chest. “Let me out!”
She pushed back her streaming hair. In a blur of horror she stared out the window. Below, Zac’s huge house was retreating, growing smaller. She let out a wail of disbelief, of sheer terror.
“Hush, you are making a scene.”
Pandora realised she was sobbing. “That’s all you can say? You kidnap me, then tell me to be quiet?”
“You’re crying.” His hand smoothed her hair.
“Of course I’m crying.” She twisted her head away from his touch. “I don’t believe you! Who the hell do you think you are?”
But she knew. He was Zac Kyriakos. One of the richest men in the world. So powerful that he could do what he liked with her. No one would stand in his way.
Four
When the descent started, Pandora lifted her face out of her hands and glimpsed the dark bronze disc of the sun glowing in the western sky against a fiery display of clouds. Out of the window she watched the darkening ground rushing up beneath the helicopter with a sense of frozen horror.
They were going to crash.
She was going to die. Panic bit into her and she struggled not to scream, knowing once she started she’d never stop.
Her fingers twisted around the soft, colourful scarf she’d rescued from her handbag and clung to like a talisman during the flight. She closed her eyes, hating the helplessness. And tried not to think about it. Not about what was happening to her now. And certainly not about the twisted metal wreck that burned in her darkest nightmares.
At last the helicopter rocked and settled on the ground. A wave of uncontrollable anger swept her. How dared Zac do this to her?
Grabbing her handbag, she stormed to the door. The instant the pilot opened the door, she shot out, her legs almost collapsing under her as they met solid ground.
“Slow down.” Zac was at her side, his hand under her elbow. She shrugged it off.
“Don’t touch me,” she snapped at him.
“You could’ve fallen.”
“I would rather fall than have you touch me.” Head bent to avoid the slowing rotor blades, she didn’t look back as she scurried away. Once safe from the blades, she straightened. The rough fingers of the evening sea wind tugged her hair and the strands whipped across her eyes.
“That’s not what you were saying last night. Then it was Oh, Zac. Yes, Zac! Last night you couldn’t get enough of my touch.”
At the taunting whisper, she turned and glared, brushing the hair out of her face with an impatient hand.
In the dusky light she could see the strange smile twisting his face, adding a cynical edge that caused her temper to flare higher.
“That was last night,” she bit out. “Before I discovered that you’d misled me. Used me. I hate you, you know that? I’ve never said that to anyone in my life before. But I mean it—I really, really hate you.”
The caustic, knowing smile vanished. For a second, stark shock flared in his eyes and he looked shaken by her response. A shadow fell across his face and all emotion leached out, leaving his gloriously sensual features hard and cold.
“Get a hold of yourself, Pandora. You’re starting to sound hysterical.”
The icy tone shook her. He spun away, and to her consternation Pandora watched as he strode across the flat rooftop, his suit jacket flapping in the wind. Anguish twisted inside her. How had it come to this? What had happened to the affinity, the sense of rightness between her and Zac?
Had he ever cared about her?
Or had it all been an elaborate charade?
Before they’d left Athens he’d said he was taking her somewhere they could talk. A quick look around the castellated parapets, sheer, steep white walls that ended on a slab of black rocks licked by the lazy sea far below revealed this was not quite the kind of venue she’d had in mind. Jeez, not even Rapunzel would’ve gotten out of here. Where on earth were they?
All she knew was that this godforsaken place was where Zac intended to have their showdown. She set her jaw and vowed not to let him walk all over her. She had some stuff to say to him, too. Her stomach turned over just thinking about that. But what choice did she have? Straight talk was all that was left.
And then she’d be off home to New Zealand on the very next flight. And Zac Kyriakos, his handsome face, gorgeous body and immense wealth could go to hell. She wasn’t staying married to a man who didn’t love her.
Ahead, Zac disappeared through an arch into the castle. Or eyrie. Or whatever this whitewashed structure was. Pandora was annoyed to find herself scurrying in his wake. She paused in the shadows at the top of a set of stone stairs that spiralled down into the heart of some kind of tower where wall sconces lit the whitewashed walls. Zac was already two levels down, his footfalls ringing against the hard stone.
“What about my luggage?” she called down.
“Georgios will attend to it,” Zac tossed over his shoulder without slowing his pace.
“I hate you.”
The staccato beat of his shoes against the stairs drummed the horrible words into a crazy kind of rhythm inside Zac’s head and left him reeling.
I hate you. I hate you. The echo grew louder and louder until he wanted to bang his forehead against the curving walls of the tower that surrounded him and watch the stone to crumble into dust…the way his dreams had.
But he couldn’t. He was Zac Kyriakos. That kind of behaviour did not become him. So he squared his shoulders like the man he was, the man he’d been born and raised to be, and tried to convince himself that it wasn’t relief that coursed through him when at last Pandora’s footfalls sounded on the stone stair treads far above.
Good, she was following.
He slowed his pace a fraction. There’d been a moment after they’d disembarked from the helicopter when he’d wondered if she would. But she’d given in. He told himself that he’d never expected any other outcome, never doubted she would do exactly as he wanted.
Even though she hated him.
Zac was waiting when Pandora finally exited the stairwell onto a wide terra-cotta-tiled landing that branched off to a narrow kitchen on one side and a huge sitting area to the other. Pandora caught a glimpse of stainless steel and pale marble bench tops in the unexpectedly modern galley-style kitchen before Zac gestured her forward.
“This way.” He spoke in a cold, distant tone, and nerves balled her stomach in a tight knot.
She followed him into a large, airy space—and gasped at the sight of the sunset-streaked sky. Glassed on three sides, the space gave an impression of height and light and freedom, of seeing the world from the perspective of a gull in the sky. A rapid scan of her surroundings revealed a pair of long ivory leather couches separated by a heavy bleached-wood coffee table. An immense cream flokati rug added softness to the room without breaking the monochromatic colour scheme. Like the stairwell, the walls in here were covered with rough plaster and washed with white. And nothing detracted from the incredible impact of the sky and sea turned gold by the setting sun.
Except the brooding man standing an arm’s length from her.
Pandora gave him a quick glance and looked away, a frown pleating her brow. So he was affronted because she didn’t want him near her? Because she’d lashed out that she hated him? What the hell did he expect given the way he’d behaved?
Kidnapping her.
Thrusting her into that flying monster.
Agitated, she brushed back the tendrils of hair that the buffeting wind on the rooftop had tousled. “You know, I haven’t been up in a helicopter for years.” Her voice shook with a mixture of anguish and rage and long-suppressed emotion.
He swivelled on his heel, arrogance in every line of that hard, lean body, and balled his hands on his hips, watching her from behind inscrutable eyes. “I really don’t care about the last time you went joyriding.”
“God, I hate you!”
Pandora itched to smack that insolent, cold-as-marble mask. But her hands were trembling so much she doubted she would succeed. Where had she ever gotten the idea that his eyes were tender, loving? That the hard slash of his mouth revealed passion and humour? That this stranger loved her?
The urge for straight talk that had raised its head less than ten minutes ago vanished. He didn’t deserve any explanation of her terror. He didn’t deserve to hear about… about…about the other stuff she needed to tell him. His thuggish behaviour, his lack of consideration for her, had put him beyond the pale. She didn’t owe him a thing. He could take his talk and stick it where it hurt most—she wasn’t staying around.
Reaching for her handbag, Pandora struggled to unzip it. Her shaking fingers groped and encountered the smooth cover of her cell phone. She pulled the phone out, clutching it like a lifeline.
“I’m going to phone my father and then this nonsense is going to stop. He’ll send someone to come fetch me.”
Zac’s gaze dropped to the phone in her hand. “There’s no reception on the island.”
“The island? We’re on an island?” Pandora’s voice rose until she could hear the shrill tinge of hysteria he’d mentioned so scathingly.
“Yes, Kiranos. My hideaway. Only my close family knows of its existence. It’s where I come to unwind. No phones, no bodyguards—only the simple pleasures in life.” The gaze that rested on her face was filled with grim contemplation. “Just peace and quiet.”
“I don’t believe that!” She swept a quick look around and then out over the expanse of sea. And swallowed. “You’re far too important to put yourself out of reach.” Pandora hated the sliver of doubt that crept into her voice as she considered that this unknown Zac might well have set up this godforsaken place to be out of touch with the rest of the world.
“Believe it. Cell phones are useless on Kiranos.”
Kiranos…an island. She struggled to come to terms with his unwelcome revelation. He’d brought her here to talk and be alone. Realisation dawned. He’d never intended to have a brief conversation and take her to the airport.
An island. Bang went her plan of getting on the next flight…unless she wanted to swim for it. Her gaze swept the vista ahead of her. No other landmasses. No ships.
A few quick steps took her to the wall of glass that translated into a set of sliding doors. Another step, and she stood on a narrow, windy deck suspended high above the rocky beach below. She stared over the glass balustrade at the endless stretch of water that gleamed like liquid gold far below. No, she’d never make the distance across the sea. She was trapped. Trapped with the formidable stranger who was her husband.
The only way she was going to get off this piece of rock with its moat of seawater was to convince him to release her. To talk—oh, God, that word again—her way out of it.
And she had to succeed.
With an impatient huff, she flipped the cover of the cell phone shut and stepped back inside to where Zac waited, unsmiling.
“So what am I supposed to do here?”
“Relax. Sunbathe. Gaze at your navel.” He glanced at her from under those impossibly long lashes and added softly, “Make love….”
She flinched and dropped the phone. It thudded onto the floor. Zac bent to scoop it up.
Putting her hands on her hips, she faced him down. “You’re mad, you know that? Totally psycho. You kidnap me, put me in a helicopter…now you expect me to make love? I hate—”
“You hate me. I know, I know. That refrain is becoming a bore.” But a muscle worked in his cheek.
Emotion choked her, a painful knot in her throat. “You know nothing. But you think you know it all.” To her horror, she felt the tightness of tears at the back of her throat. “Why, Zac? Why did you marry me? Obviously not because you loved me! Why did you bring me here with a drummed-up excuse that you wanted to talk? Why can’t you let me go? What’s so special about a virgin in this day and age, for goodness’ sake?”
He stared at her, his eyes empty holes in that hard face.
Another swallow to ease the sudden dryness in her mouth. So perhaps it would be better to start the talk thing he’d been so hot on sooner rather than later. She didn’t care for this silent, inscrutable Zac.
She tried another tack. “Tell me about this prophecy you and Dimitri were talking about. I deserve to know, don’t you think?”
“Okay.” Zac sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. His shoulders sagged and suddenly he looked so weary, so disillusioned, that Pandora was tempted to rush to him, throw her arms around him and comfort him. Then she came to her senses. Why on earth was she feeling sorry for him?
This was Zac.
Zac who’d laughed with her, hugged her and pretended to love her. Zac who’d lied to her. Zac whom she’d married yesterday in the wedding of the decade, promising never to forsake. Zac who’d brought her to this rock with a castle on it to talk to her. Well, now he could damn well talk.
“Go on,” she invited with a barbed little smile.
He ignored the taunt.
“Let me get us something to drink.” Moments later he was back with two short, squat glasses filled with blocks of ice and mineral water. He set them down on the wooden coffee table and shrugged off his jacket.
Pandora couldn’t help noticing how the white T-shirt clung to his broad shoulders. Quickly she averted her gaze, picked up her glass and took a long sip. “You were going to tell me about this prophecy,” she reminded.
He inclined his head. “It’s a legend rather than a prophecy. Sit down, it will take time.”
Pandora sank down onto the leather sofa and Zac settled himself opposite her. “I told you that my great-grandfather repaired the family fortunes after the first World War?”
Pandora nodded, her interest caught despite her resolve not to be sucked in by his explanations. “Orestes Kyriakos married a wealthy Russian princess and used some of her funds to rebuild the Kyriakos Shipping fleet.”
“That’s right. After the Suez Canal was opened, Orestes followed in the footsteps of Aristotle Onassis and Stavros Niarchos and built his first supertanker to transport crude oil. When my grandfather, Socrates, took over Kyriakos Shipping, he continued to commission more supertankers. And by the time the oil crisis hit in the early seventies, Socrates had gone into the production of crude oil. He established three refineries and he left those to my cousin, Tariq, whose mother—my aunt—married the Emir of Zayed.”
“I didn’t realise that.”
“Socrates’s remaining grandson, Angelo, inherited three islands and a string of resorts that Socrates owned.” He paused. “But I digress. My father lacked the magic Kyriakos touch—he lost more money than he ever managed to make. My grandfather called him an idle playboy and took me out of his care when I was six years old. Said he didn’t want my father’s sloth rubbing off on me. He considered my father a disgrace to the Kyriakos name and disinherited him in his will. He raised me, didn’t want me to be the failure my father was.”