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‘LX Holdings has made a successful claim on the offshore company which...’ she took a breath ‘...which owns this villa. Which means...’
She faltered. Her mother’s complexion had turned the colour of whey.
Talia’s voice was hollow as she made herself finish what she had to say. ‘We have to move out. They’re taking the villa from us as well.’ Her voice broke. ‘I’m so sorry, Mum. I’m so, so sorry—’
A cry broke from her mother, high and keening. And then, as if in slow motion, Talia saw her mother’s expression change, her hand fly to her chest. Her whole body convulsed and she shook like a leaf.
‘No! I can’t! I can’t! I can’t lose this villa too! Not this too! I can’t! Oh, God, I can’t!’
There was desperation in her mother’s voice, and then she collapsed into a sobbing, hysterical mess, clutching at Talia. But Maxine Grantham was beyond any kind of soothing...beyond anything except complete collapse.
* * *
Restlessly, Luke seized the file from his in-tray, flicked it open, and stared down at the photos it contained. He frowned. Was this really a project he should go ahead with? It would take a lot of investment, a lot of work, and the return was uncertain.
Yet there was something in the photos that called to him. The state of brutal ruination inflicted by nature that the photos showed echoed across the years. Not earthquake damage this time, as in his memories, but the terrifying force of wind destroying whatever stood in its path.
His thoughts were bitter. Taking on such a project halfway across the world would help him put out of his mind what kept trying to occupy it—the infernal memory he needed to banish.
She didn’t want me—didn’t want what I wanted. Didn’t want anything about me.
He cut the endless loop that wanted to play and play inside his head and went back to staring at the photos, making himself read the notes compiled for him by his agent. He needed something to fill the emptiness inside him now that his enemy was destroyed and the burning ambition that had driven him all his adult life had been finally fulfilled.
The low ring of the phone on his desk interrupted his concentration and he reached for the handset absently. It was his PA, and her voice was uncertain.
‘There is someone here, Mr Xenakis, who is asking to see you. She has no appointment, and will not give her name, but she is very insistent. I told her it was impossible, but—’
Luke cut across her. He had no interest in whoever it was. ‘Send her away,’ he said curtly. ‘Oh, and is my flight booked and the villa reservation made?’
‘Yes, of course, Mr Xenakis, it is all done.’
‘Good. Thank you.’
He dropped the phone down on the desk, but as he did so there was a loud noise by the door to the outer office and it was suddenly flung open. The voice of his PA was protesting vigorously in English, not the French in which she spoke to Luke.
His head shot up, anger spiking at the intrusion. But the emotion died instantly when he saw who was pushing through the open door, his PA behind her, trying to stop her.
She stopped dead.
For a second there was complete silence, even from his PA. Then Luke spoke.
‘Leave us.’
But it was his PA he addressed. Not the woman who had forced herself into his office.
Not Talia.
* * *
Blankness filled Talia’s mind, wiping out every turbid emotion that had been raging inside her head since she had left Marbella that morning. With Maria’s help she’d got her wildly sobbing mother to bed and summoned her doctor. He’d prescribed a sedative, then taken Talia aside. He’d told her with a frown that such upset was not good for his patient, known to him already for her nervous attacks and for her weakened heart.
Talia had been appalled by the latter—her mother had never told her. The doctor had also made it clear to her that he blamed the slimming pills she took constantly. They’d put a strain on her heart—now exacerbated by her hysterical collapse.
‘She must have complete rest and quiet—and no further upset!’ the doctor had told Talia sternly. ‘Or the consequences could be most dangerous to her! Her heart cannot take any more stress of this nature!’
Talia had shown him out, his words mocking her with a cruelty that she could scarcely bear. No further upset...
She’d felt a beading of hysteria herself—they were about to be evicted from the last place that Talia had so desperately hoped might be salvaged from the debacle of her father’s ruin and disappearance. How could she possibly avoid further upset?
Throughout the sleepless night that had followed, during which she had tossed and turned, her hands clenching convulsively as she’d gazed tensely at the darkened ceiling, it had become clear that only one option was left to her.
Before she’d told her mother, her bleak plan had been to use the fast-dwindling amount of money she’d secretly squirrelled away to rent a tiny flat, somewhere in a cheap part of the costas, and then get the first job she could find to bring in a salary, however meagre. Her mother would be appalled, but what else could she do?
But if she insisted on that now, after the doctor’s grim warnings, she would be risking her mother’s life by forcing her to leave the villa and abandoning all hope.
By morning, dull-eyed and heavy-hearted, and filled with a kind of numb, dreadful resignation, Talia had come to the only conclusion she could. After her bleak exchanges with the lawyers in London, when they’d told her she and her mother were penniless and homeless, she had finally tracked down the headquarters of the mysterious LX Holdings. A morning flight had brought her here.
And now, paralysed by shock and disbelief, she was standing in the doorway of the huge office she had forced her way into in sheer desperation.
It could not be—it could not be...
Luke? But how—? Why—?
Shocked words fell from her frozen lips. ‘I don’t understand—’
With a curt gesture he dismissed his PA who backed away, closing the door as she left. She saw him step towards her. Heard him speak.
‘Talia...’
There was a hoarseness in his voice but his face was closed, filled with tension.
‘Why did you come here? How?’ The questions shot from him like bullets.
Talia felt her face work, but speaking was almost impossible. Two absolutely conflicting realities echoed in her head. Then slowly, as the hideous truth dawned on her, she made the connection—forced herself to make it.
‘It can’t be—you can’t be...’ Her voice was faint. Her face convulsed again. ‘You can’t be LX Holdings—’
She saw Luke’s brows snap together, as if what she’d said made no sense. His mouth twisted. ‘How did you find me?’ he said. He looked at her. ‘How did you know?’ he demanded. He had said nothing of his identity to her that fateful night—no more had she told him hers. So how...?
‘They...they told me. Your lawyers in London. When they spoke to me.’
Her voice was staccato, shock thinning her words. He was still staring back at her as if what she’d said made no sense at all. Her face worked again.
‘I’m Natasha Grantham,’ she said.
CHAPTER THREE
LUKE FELT THE world reel. He heard her words—how could he not?—but he felt only denial slice through him. No, he would not let her be that! Anyone but that!
She was speaking still, and he could still hear her—hear her and want only to silence her.
‘I’m Gerald Grantham’s daughter. You’ve taken everything he possessed. But...but I’m asking you not...not to take the Marbella villa as well. That...that’s why I’ve come here.’
Her voice faltered and she fell silent.
He stilled, and now a new emotion filled him—one that was cold, like ice water.
‘You are Gerald Grantham’s daughter?’ he repeated.
He had to be sure. In his head skimmed fractured memory from long years ago, when he’d first set himself to studying everything he could about the man he was going to destroy. Grantham had a daughter, yes, and a wife, too—always being trotted out at his side, dressed to the nines, glittering with jewellery, frequenting expensive venues, spending his ill-gotten money.
What had been the wife’s name? Marcia? Marilyn? Something like that...
And the daughter?
He felt that ice water fill his veins, heard her faltering voice echo in his pounding head, forced the connection through his brain. Natasha, she had said.
Logic clicked. Natasha. Wasn’t that a diminutive of Natalia? Talia...?
Talia!
Savage emotion seared through him, but he quenched it with the ice-cold water in his veins. His eyes rested on hers but they were masked, letting nothing show in them. He saw her nod and lick her lips. Those full, passionate lips that had caressed his body in ecstasy.
And all along she had been the daughter of the man he had spent his adult life seeking to destroy...
The irony, as savage as the emotion shredding his brain right now, was unbearable. How could the woman who had burned across his life so incandescently, so briefly, turn out to be the daughter of Gerald Grantham?
He tore his mind away. Focussed only on the present. Ruthlessly he slammed control over himself, refused to let any part of the emotion tearing across him show. There was no expression in his eyes and his body was taut and tense.
‘And you have come here wanting to keep the villa in Marbella?’ He echoed her words, his voice as impassive as his face.
He saw her nod again, as if her neck were stiff.
For one long, endless moment he just looked at her, fighting for control as the shock of her identity rampaged through his consciousness. He studied her as she stood in front of him, her stance rigid, clearly as shocked as he, and hiding it a lot less well.
Deliberately he let himself take in everything about her. She was wearing a suit in dark aubergine, a designer number, though too fussily styled to show her to her best advantage. Her glorious hair was confined to a plait, her make-up was subdued, and he thought she looked thinner than when he had seen her at that party.
He considered what had caused that: the sudden poverty she’d been plunged into...the complete reversal of her circumstances... What a blow that must have been to her.
Talia Grantham.
The name was like a dead weight around his neck. Gerald Grantham’s daughter—the gilded, pampered daughter of his enemy.
She was that all along and I didn’t know.
The realisation, coming as it had out of the blue, was like a savage blow to his guts, doubling him up with the force of it.
And now she was here, in a designer outfit Gerald Grantham’s money had bought for her, wanting to go on living in a palatial villa on an exclusive gated estate in the rich man’s playground of Marbella. As if she had every right to do so. Every expectation that of course she could go on living there.
Gerald Grantham’s daughter—taking the world for granted. Taking what she wanted just as her father had. Splashing his money on herself—money that had been bled from her father’s victims.
He could feel another emotion beginning to mount in him. It was an emotion he knew well, that had fuelled the last ten years of his life: slow, low-burning, inexorable anger.
But he would not let it show. Instead he went back to his desk and threw himself into his chair, swinging to look directly at her. As he gazed at her, taking in her presence a bare few metres from him, yet another emotion rose in him, just as powerful as his anger.
It was the emotion that had first kicked through every vein in his body as his eyes had rested on her at that fateful party. And it was instant, immediate, and impossible to deny. Impossible then and impossible now.
Thee mou, how beautiful she is!
It turned out nothing could change that—nothing! Not even the hideous discovery of who she really was and why she had come here.
Not to find me again—not to seek me out after abandoning me that morning, after that unforgettable night together. No, not for that—
Anger rose within him, cutting across the sudden overwhelming longing that was flooding through him as she stood before him, so incredibly, savagely beautiful. She was having exactly the same effect on him that she had had from his very first moment of seeing her, desiring her...
Turbid emotion filled him, mingling anger and desire, and it was a toxic, dangerous mix. It was impossible to subdue. It steered him now, formed the thoughts that swirled wildly in his head—thoughts he should not be having.
I should send her packing. I should tell her to get out of my office and get out of this villa she wants to keep for herself. I should have nothing more to do with her. She is my enemy’s daughter and she walked out on me as if I were nothing to her.
He could hear the words in his head and knew what they were telling him. It was the only sane thing to do.
But the words that came out of his mouth were not those words. He lifted his hands, as if making an accommodating gesture. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I don’t see why not.’
Even as he spoke the words he regretted them. But he could not call them back—would not. Something was starting to burn within him—a slow fire he knew he should extinguish to prevent it rekindling the passion he felt for her.
At his words he saw her expression lighten. He smiled and went on. ‘I am prepared to offer you a short-term lease—say three months—while you make alternative arrangements for your accommodation.’
He spoke briskly, in a businesslike fashion, watching her all the time.
He could see her eyes lighting up, see the visible relaxation of her stance at his reassuring agreement to what she’d come here wanting. She was getting what she wanted, despite what she had done to him.
His expression changed, becoming bland—deliberately, calculatingly so. ‘I’ll have a lease drawn up and rent set. I would think, given the size and location of the villa, something like thirty thousand euros a month should cover it.’
He watched her face whiten. Her reaction—such obvious outrage at his reply—made the anger inside him spear him again. But he would not let it show. Instead he smiled again, though it did not reach his eyes.
‘In life, Ms Grantham,’ he said, his voice silken, ‘we cannot have what we cannot pay for.’
He pushed his chair back, the movement abrupt. He stood and gave a shrug of deliberate indifference.
‘If you can’t pay the rent you must vacate the villa,’ he spelt out bluntly.
His eyes never left her, never showed any expression. Even though they wanted to sweep over her glorious body, concealed as it was beneath that fussy over-styled outfit she was wearing. It didn’t suit her—however expensive it had been.
Absently, he wondered at its difference in style from the simple yet stunning dress she’d worn at that party. He wrenched his thoughts away from where they must not go. His eyes from where they must not go either...
He saw her expression change, as if her own self-control was very near the edge. It must be a shock to her, he found himself thinking, bitterness infusing his every thought and his mouth thinning. Daddy’s darling daughter, realising her pampered lifestyle was over, that her doting father was no longer there to grant her every whim and wish.
‘No!’
He heard her cry out in protest at his brutal spelling out of the harsh truths of life, saw her face working.
‘Everything else has gone—but not that...not the villa too!’
For a moment so fleeting that Luke thought he must have misheard there seemed to be real fear in her voice, real despair...real desolation. She was staring at him, her expression pinched, and he thought he caught something vulnerable in the way she stood there, as if life had dropped a weight on her that she could not shoulder.
He felt a different emotion rise within him—one that made him suddenly want to blurt out that of course she could stay in the damn villa, that he didn’t give a damn about any rent. It made him want to surge to his feet, close the distance between them, take her into his arms and hold her close, to tell her he would make everything all right for her, all right for them both, that he never wanted to lose her again.
But then it was gone. She was only repeating what she’d said before, just more insistently. As if she was assuming, taking it for granted.
Of course she was Gerald Grantham’s daughter, was she not? She had never had to think of paying for anything at all. A rich man’s princess of a daughter, who got everything she wanted handed to her on a plate by an indulgent father.
‘I absolutely cannot lose the villa! I just can’t!’ Her eyes flared suddenly, widening as her long lashes swept down.
His mouth tightened again at the declaration of entitlement in her words. Her protest should have been like a match to his anger, and yet it gave rise to a quite different emotion. It was an emotion he should not let himself be feeling, but his eyes, his senses, were hungry to revisit it.
Memory flooded over him. The last time his eyes had held her she had been lying naked in his arms, sated from passion, her skin like silk against his body, her hair a glorious swathe across his shoulders, her mouth pressed against the wall of his bare chest, her exhausted limbs tangled with his...
And yet when he’d awoken from the overpowering sleep that had claimed him she had been gone, vanished into thin air.
Only to reappear now, suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere.
I can’t let her walk out on me again...
The words were inside his head and he knew he should wipe them away. He knew he should send her packing. He knew exactly what he should say to Gerald Grantham’s daughter.
He knew it. But he could not say it. Not for all the will in his body and in mind.
Instead, as if he were possessed by a force he could not resist, he felt his muscles start to loosen, his shoulders ease back, and then he heard the words that came from his mouth. Words he knew with every rational part of his mind he should not be saying, but which were coming from a place inside him where reason held no sway. There was only an instinct as old as time itself and just as powerful.
Not to let her walk out on him again...
‘Then perhaps,’ he heard himself saying, ‘we can come to an alternative arrangement...’
* * *
Talia stared at him. Her senses were reeling. She was floored...in shock...mesmerised.
She had thrust her way into this inner sanctum to which that snooty PA had been determined to bar her entry, and then, as she’d stared at the man jolting to his feet at her entry, she had realised just who it was who stood before her. It was impossible to recover from this truly unexpected outcome.
She could barely countenance the brutal demand he’d made of her to pay rent in order to stay on in their own home, though she did understand on a rational level that the villa was part of the spoils of his acquisition of what was left of her father’s once mighty business empire.
She had tried to ignore the leap in her senses as her eyes had clung to him in the custom-tailored suit that sheathed his lean body, the dark tie with the discreet gold tie pin, the gold links at his cuffs, the leather strap of that exorbitantly expensive watch she’d noticed the night they’d met. Still, his long-limbed pose was lithe and it radiated power—the kind of power that came from wealth, the way her father’s had.
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