Bought For The Greek’s Bed

Julia James

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

VICKY could hear her heels clacking on the marble floor of the vast atrium as she headed towards the reception desk, which was an island in the middle of an ocean of gleaming white and metallic grey. The whole interior screamed modernity—ironic, really, Vicky found herself thinking, as the man who ran this whole mega-corporate shebang was as antediluvian as a dinosaur. A big, vicious dinosaur that ripped your throat out with its talons, tore you limb from limb, and then went on its way, searching for other prey to dismember.

Walking into this dinosaur’s cavern now made it all come rushing back. In her head she could again hear that deep, dangerously accented voice, carving into her with a cold, vicious fury that had stripped the flesh from her bones with savage economy. She could hear the words, too, ugly and foul, not caring how they slayed her, his fathomless eyes pools of loathing and—worse than loathing—contempt. Then, having verbally dismembered her, he had simply walked out of her life

She had not seen him since. And yet today, this morning, right now, she was going to walk up to that reception desk she could see coming closer and closer, walk up to that svelte, immaculate female sitting there watching her approach, and ask to see him.

She felt her throat spasm.

I can’t do this! I can’t.

Protest sliced in her head. But her nervous feet kept on walking, ringing on the marble. She had to do it. She’d tried everything else, and this was the only avenue left. Letters had been returned, all phone calls blocked, all e-mails deleted unread.

Theo Theakis had absolutely no intention of letting her get close enough to ask him for what she wanted.

Even as she replayed the thought in her mind, she felt a spurt of anger.

I shouldn’t damn well have to go and ask him! It’s not his to hand out or withhold. It’s mine. Mine.

To her grim chagrin, however, the law did not see it that way. What she wanted was not, as her lawyer had sympathetically but regretfully informed her, hers to have, let alone dispose of.

‘It requires Mr Theakis’s consent,’ her lawyer had repeated.

Her face darkened now as she closed in on the reception desk.

He’s going to give me his damn consent, or I’m going to—

‘May I help you?’

The receptionist’s voice was light and impersonal. But her eyes had flicked over Vicky’s outfit, and Vicky got the instant feeling that she had been classified precisely according to the cost of it. Well, her clothes at least should pass muster in these palatial corporate surroundings. Her suit might be well over a year out of date fashion-wise, but its designer label status was obvious to anyone with an eye for couture. Not that she herself had such an eye, but the world she’d once moved in—albeit so briefly—had been ruthlessly observant in that respect. And now this rare remnant of that vast wardrobe she had once had at her indifferent disposal was finally coming in useful. It was getting her the attentive focus of someone who was standing in the way of what she wanted.

‘Thank you.’ She smiled, striving to keep her voice just as light and impersonal. It was hard, though, given the mixture of apprehension and anger that was biting away inside her. But, whatever the strength of her feelings about her situation, there wasn’t the slightest point showing them now.

So she simply stood there, as poised as she could, knowing that the pale ice-blue dress and jacket she was wearing was perfectly cut, and that the thin silver necklace went with it flawlessly, as did her high-heeled shoes and handbag, which were both colour co-ordinated. Her hair, newly washed and styled—albeit by herself, not a top hairdresser—flicked neatly out at the ends, and was drawn off her forehead by a hairband the exact colour as the rest of her outfit. Her make-up was minimal and restrained, and the scent she was wearing was a classic fragrance she’d got as a free sample in a department store a while ago.

She looked, she knew, expensive, classic, English and—oh, dear God, please—sufficiently appropriate to get past this hurdle.

Right, time to do it—now.

In a deliberately poised voice, she spoke.

‘I’d like to see Mr Theakis,’ she said. She made her tones slightly more cultured than she usually bothered to do. But this was England, and these things counted. She gave the name as though it were something she did every day, as a matter of course. As if, equally as a matter of course, her giving it were not in the slightest exceptional and would always meet with compliance.

Was it going to happen now? She must not let any uncertainty show in her face.

‘Whom shall I say?’ the receptionist enquired. Vicky could tell that she was staying neutral at this point, but that she had conceded that it was indeed possible that this designer-dressed female might actually be someone allowed that level of access. Might even, unlikely though it was, given the restraint of her appearance, be a female granted the privilege of personal intimacy with Theo Theakis. But Vicky also knew, feeling another bite of her tightly leashed anger at having to be here at all, that she did not look nearly voluptuously delectable enough to be one of his legion of mistresses.

Vicky gave a small, poised smile.

‘Mrs Theakis,’ she said.

Theo Theakis sat back in his leather executive chair and felt his blood pressure spike. The phone he’d just picked up and discarded lay on the vast expanse of mahogany desk in front of him, as if it were contaminated.

And so it was.

She was here, downstairs, in this very building. His building. His London HQ. She had walked into his company, his territory, daring to do so! His eyes narrowed. Was she mad? Daring to come near him again after he’d thrown her from him like a diseased rag? She must be mad to be so stupid as to come within a hundred miles of him!

Or just shameless?

His face darkened. Shame was not a word she knew. Nor disgrace. Nor guilt.

No, she neither knew or felt any of those things. She’d done what she had done and had flaunted it, even thrown it in his face, and had felt nothing—nothing at all about it. No hesitation, no compunction, no remorse.

And now she had the effrontery to turn up and ask to see him. As though she had any right to do so. That woman had no rights to anything—let alone what he knew she was here for.

And certainly no right—his eyes flashed with a dangerous, dark anger that went deep to the heart of him—no right at all, to call herself what she still did…

His wife.

Vicky sat on one of the dark grey leather sofas that were arranged neatly around a smoked glass table. In front of her, laid out with pristine precision, were the day’s leading newspapers in half a dozen languages. Including Greek. With a fragment of her brain that was still functioning normally she started to read the headline that was visible. Her Greek was rusty—she’d deliberately not used any of the language she’d acquired—and now her brain balked at forming sounds out of the alien writing. But at least it gave her mind something to do—something other than just going round and round in an ever-tightening loop.

I ought to just stand up and walk out. Not care that he’s refused to see me. Not sit here like a lemon with some insane idea of door-stepping him when he leaves! Because he might not leave—he’s got a flat here, somewhere up above his damn executive suite. And anyway the lift probably goes down to an underground car park, where he’s either got one of his flash cars or a chauffeured limo waiting. There’s no reason he should walk past me…

So she should go, she knew. It was pointless just continuing to sit here, with her stomach tying itself in knots and her feet slowly starting to ache in their unaccustomed high-heeled shoes.

But I want what I came for. I won’t go back empty-handed until I’ve done everything I can to get it!

Determination gave strength to her expression. What she wanted was rightfully hers—and she’d been cheated of it. Cheated of what she had been promised—what she needed. Needed now, two years later, with imperative urgency. She could afford to wait no longer. She needed that money!

And it was that thought only that was keeping her glued to the grey leather as the slow minutes passed. Pointless, she half accepted, and yet the deep, deep sense of outrage she felt still kept her there.

She had sat for almost two hours before she finally accepted that she would have to throw in the towel this time around. Sinkingly resigned, Vicky knew that, stupid as she would look, she would just have to get to her feet and leave. People had been coming and going intermittently all the time, and she knew she’d been on the receiving end of some half-puzzled, half-assessing looks—not least by the receptionist. With a sense of bitter resignation she folded up the last of the newspapers and replaced it on the table. Useless—quite useless! She would just have to think of some other way of achieving her end. Quite what, though, she had no idea. She’d already done everything she could think of, including looking at the possibility of taking legal action, which had been promptly shot down by her lawyer. A face-to-face confrontation with her husband had been her last resort. Her eyes flashed darkly. Not surprisingly, considering that Theo Theakis was the last person on earth she ever wanted to see again!

Which was why, as she picked up her handbag from the floor and prepared to stand, bitter with defeat, her stomach suddenly plummeted right down to her heels. Right there in front of her appeared a bevy of suited figures, gracefully exiting one of the lifts and sweeping forwards across the marble floor to the revolving doors of the Theakis Corp’s London HQ.

It was him.

She could see him. Her eyes went to him immediately, drawn by that malign awareness that had been like doom over her ever since that first fateful encounter. Half a head taller than the other suits around him, he strode forward, his pace faster than theirs, more impatient, as they hurried to keep up. One of the group was talking to him, his expression concentrated, and Theo had his face half turned towards the man.

Vicky felt herself go cold.

Oh, God, don’t do this to me! Don’t, please!

Because she could feel it again—feel that tremor in her veins that Theo Theakis could always set running in her whenever she looked at him. It was as if she was mesmerised, like a rabbit seeing a fast car approaching and not being able to move, not being able to drag her eyes away.

She’d forgotten his impact, his raw physical force. It was not just his height, or the breadth of his shoulders and the leanness of his hips. It was not the fact that he looked like a billion dollars in a charcoal handmade suit that must have cost thousands of pounds, with his dark, sable hair immaculately styled, or that his face seemed as if it was planed from a fine-grained stone that revealed every perfect honed contour. It was more than that—it was his eyes, his dark, fathomless eyes, that could look at her with such coldness, with such savage fury, and with another expression that she would not, would not, let herself remember. Even now, when he wasn’t even looking at her, when he was half focussed, clearly impatient, on what was being said to him. She saw him give a brief assenting nod, and look ahead again.

And that was when he saw her.

She could see it happening. See the precise moment when he registered her presence. See the initial flash of disbelief—followed by blinding fury.

And then it was gone. Just—gone. As she was gone from his vision. Gone from the slightest claim on the smallest portion of his attention. He had simply blanked her out as if she did not exist. As if she had not been sitting there for nearly two whole hours, waiting. Waiting for him to descend to ground level, where the mortals dwelt in their lowly places, far, far from the exclusively rich, powerful people that made up his world.

He was walking past her, still surrounded by his entourage. Any moment now he would be past the sofas and out of the sheer glass door, which one of the group was already hurrying to hold steady for his august passage. Very soon he would be out of the building he owned, the company he owned, and away from the people he owned.

She surged to her feet towards him.

She saw his head turn, just by a fraction. But not towards her. He gave one of the suits flanking the outer edge of his entourage an almost imperceptible shake of his head. Vicky saw the man peel off from the group, cross behind it with a swiftness that was as soft-footed as it was unanticipated by her, and intercept and block her path exactly where she would have been level with her target.

‘Get out of my way!’ It was a hiss of fury from her. It was like a spot of rain on a rock. The man didn’t move.

‘I’m sorry, miss,’ he said. His eyes didn’t meet hers, his body didn’t touch hers—he just stood there, blocking her way. Letting Theo Theakis get away from her and stride off with total and complete unconcern for the fact that he had taken something from her that was not his to take and had kept it.

Her self-control was at breaking point. She could feel it snapping like a dry twig beneath her high heels. She felt her hand arch up, gripping the soft leather clutch bag she was holding like some kind of slingshot, and with every ounce of muscle in her arm she hurled it towards the man who was walking past her, walking out on her. Totally stonewalling her.

‘Speak to me, you bastard! Damn well speak to me!’

The handbag bounced off one of the suits’ shoulders, falling to the ground. The bodyguard in front of her caught her arm, too late to stop her impetuous action, but in time to force it down, not roughly, but with the strength his profession required of him.

‘None of that, please,’ he said, and there was a slight grimness to his mouth—presumably because, she thought, with a glance of vicious satisfaction, he hadn’t expected a ‘nice young Englishwoman’to behave in such an outrageous fashion.

Not that it had done her the slightest good at all. The entourage just kept going—hastened, even. Though the man at the centre did not change his pace by a centimetre. He simply walked out of the building and disappeared into the sleek black limo that was waiting at the kerb. The car moved off. He had gone.

You swine, thought Vicky, trembling all over. You absolute, total swine.

She had never, ever hated him so much as at that moment.

Theo let his gaze rest silently, impassively, on the newspaper clipping that had been placed in front of him. He was at breakfast in his London apartment, and on the other side of the table his private secretary stood, uneasily waiting for his employer’s reaction. It would not be good, Demetrious knew. Theo Theakis hated anything about his private life getting into the press—which was ironic, really, since the life he led made the press very interested in him indeed, even though they could never get much information on him at all.

Theo Theakis managed his privacy ruthlessly. Even when the press could smell a really juicy story bubbling beneath the expensive surface of his tycoon’s existence, Theo would remain calm. Eighteen months ago, when rumours had started to circulate like buzzing wasps about just why his apparently unexceptional marriage had proved so exceptionally brief, the press had been hot on his tail. But, as usual, they’d got absolutely nothing beyond the bland statement issued at Theo Theakis’s curt instruction. Which was exactly why, Demetrious knew with a sinking heart, the tabloid from which the cutting had been taken had snapped up this latest little morsel.

He stood now, watching and waiting for his employer’s reaction. He wouldn’t show much, Demetrious knew, but he was aware that the mask of impassivity would be just that—a mask. Demetrious was grateful for it. Without the mask he would probably have been blasted to stone already by now.

For a few seconds there was silence. At least, thought Demetrious gratefully, there was no picture to go with the newspaper article. What had happened yesterday in Theakis HQ would have made a photo opportunity for any paparazzi to die for. As it was, it was nothing more than a coyly worded few paragraphs, laced with speculation, about just what had caused the former Mrs Theo Theakis to hurl her handbag at him and call him an unbecoming name. The journalist in question had teamed the article with an old photograph from the press archives of Theo Theakis, looking svelte in a tux, walking into some top hotel in Athens with a blonde, English, couture-dressed woman on his arm. Her expression was as impassive as his employer’s was now.

But she certainly hadn’t been impassive yesterday. And nothing could hide the glee with which the brief, gossipy article had been written up.

Theo Theakis’s eyes snapped up.

‘Find out who talked to these parasites and then sack them,’ he said.

Then he went on with his breakfast.

Demetrious stood back. The man was ruthless, all right. There were times, definitely, when he felt sorry for anyone who ever got on the wrong side of Theo Theakis. Like his ex-wife. Demetrious wondered why she’d done what she had. Surely by now she must know it was just a waste of her time? She’d been plaguing his boss for weeks now, and he’d not given an inch. He wasn’t going to, either. Demetrious could tell. Whatever it was she so badly wanted, she could forget it! As far as Theo Theakis was concerned she clearly no longer existed.

Demetrious turned to go. He’d been dismissed, he knew, and sent on an errand he would not enjoy, but which had to be done all the same.

‘One more thing—’

The deep voice halted him. Demetrious paused expectantly. Dark eyes looked at him with the same chilling impassivity.

‘Instruct Mrs Theakis to be here tonight at eight-thirty,’ said his employer.

CHAPTER TWO

VICKY was ploughing through paperwork. There was a never-ending stream of it: forms in triplicate, and worse, letters of application, case notes, invoices, accounts and any number of records, listings and statistical analyses. But it all had to be done, however frustrating. It was the only way, Vicky knew, to achieve what this small voluntary group, Freshstart, was dedicated to achieving—making some attempt to catch those children who were slipping through the education net and who needed the kind of dedicated, intensive, out-of-school catch-up tutoring that the organisation sought to provide them with.

Money was, of course, their perpetual challenge. For every pound the group had, it could easily have spent five times that amount, and the number of children who needed its services was not diminishing.

She gave a sharp sigh of frustration, which intensified as she picked up the next folder—the batch of quotes from West Country building firms for doing up Jem’s house. Jem had deliberately kept the work to the barest minimum—a new roof, new electrics, new flooring—to secure the property and make it comply with Health and Safety regulations. Everything else they would have to do themselves—painting, decorating, furnishing—even if they had to beg, borrow or steal. But the main structural and safety work just had to be done professionally—and it was going to cost a fortune.

Yet the house, Pycott Grange, was a godsend. Jem had inherited it the previous year from his childless maternal great-uncle, and now that probate had been granted he could take occupation. Although it was very run down, after years of neglect, it had two outstanding advantages: it was large, standing in its own generous grounds, and it was close to the Devonshire seaside. Both those conditions made it ideal for what everyone hoped would be Freshstart’s latest venture. So many of the children it helped came from backgrounds that were grim in the extreme—deprived, dysfunctional families, trapped in dreary inner-city environments that simply reinforced all their educational problems. But if some of those children could just get a break, right away from their normal bleak lives, it might provide the catalyst they needed to see school as a vital ladder they could climb to get out of the conditions they’d been born into rather than the enemy. Two weeks at the Grange, with a mix of intensive tuition and space to play sport and surf, might just succeed in turning their heads around, giving them something to aim for in life other than the deadbeat fate that inevitably awaited them.

But the Grange was going to cost a lot of money to be made suitable for housing staff and pupils, and a lot more to run, as well, before Jem’s dream finally came true. Disappointment bit into Vicky again. If the building work could start, without more delay, then there was a really good prospect that the Grange could open its doors in time for the long school summer holidays coming up in a few months. Already Freshstart had a list as long as your arm of children they would like to recommend for the experience. But without cash the Grange would continue to crumble away, unused and unusable.

If we just had the money, she thought. Right now. And they should have the money. That was the most galling part of it. They should—it was there, sitting uselessly in a bank account, ready to be used. Except that—

I want what’s mine!

Anger injected itself into the frustration. It’s mine—I was promised it. It was part of that damned devil’s agreement I made—the one I knew I shouldn’t have made, but I did, all the same. Because I felt…

She paused mentally, then finished the sentence. Felt obligated.

Wretchedness twisted inside her as painful memories came flooding back.

Vicky could hardly remember her father. She had always known that he had been born to riches, but to Andreas Fournatos his money was no more than a tool. At an early age he had taken his share of his patrimony and gone to work for an international aid agency, where he had met her mother and married her—only to die tragically when Vicky was not yet five. It had been his money, inherited by his widow, which had set up Freshstart, and Vicky’s mother had run the organisation until Vicky had taken over her role.

She had had very little contact with her father’s side of the family—except for her one uncle. Despite hardly knowing her, Aristides Fournatos had been so good to her, so incredibly kind and welcoming. She had always understood why her mother had withdrawn from her late husband’s family all those years ago—because it had simply hurt too much to be reminded of the man she had married and lost so early. So, although there had been Christmas cards and birthday presents arriving regularly for Vicky throughout her childhood from her Greek uncle, her mother had never wanted to return to Greece, and had never wanted Vicky to accept her uncle’s invitations.

Aristides had respected her mother’s wishes, knowing how much it pained his sister-in-law to remember her first husband after his premature death. And when Vicky’s mother had remarried, Aristides had been the first to congratulate her, accepting that she wanted to put all her emotional focus on her second husband—a divorced teacher with a son the same age as Vicky—and raise Vicky to be English, with Geoff as the only father she could remember. They had been a happy, close-knit family, living an ordinary, middle class life.

But when Vicky had been finishing her university course Geoff had been given the opportunity to participate in a teaching exchange in Australia. He and her mother had moved there, finding both the job and the lifestyle so congenial that they had decided to stay. Vicky could not have been more pleased for them, but, adult though she was, she’d still felt miserable and lonely, left behind in England.

That was when her uncle Aristides had suddenly swept back into her life. He had descended on Vicky and carried her off to Greece for a much needed holiday and a change of scene. And also for him to get to know his niece better. His arrival had had her mother’s blessing—she had accepted that it was only natural that her daughter should get to know, even if belatedly, her own father’s family, and now that she had emigrated to Australia she was beyond the painful associations herself.

Having been brought up in England, in an English family, it had been strange for Vicky to realise that she was, by birth, half-Greek. But far, far more alien than coming to terms with the cultural heritage she had never known had been coming to terms with another aspect of her paternal family. Its wealth.

Because her father’s money had been spent on charitable causes, she had never really registered just how very different the lifestyle of her uncle would be. But staying with Aristides in Greece had opened her eyes, and she had been unable to help feeling how unreal his wealthy lifestyle was compared to her own. For all his wealth, however, her uncle was warm, and kind, and had embraced her wholeheartedly as his brother’s child. A widower in late middle age, without children, he was, Vicky had seen with fondness, clearly set on lavishing on her all the pampering that he would have bestowed on a daughter of his own. While honouring his brother’s altruism, and accepting her mother’s desire to put the tragic past behind her, Aristides had nevertheless made no bones about wanting to make up for what he considered his niece’s material deprivation.

At first Vicky had tried to stop him lavishing his money on her, but then, seeing him so obviously hurt by her refusal to let him buy her the beautiful clothes that he’d wanted her to have, she’d given gave in. After all, it was only a holiday. Not real life. So she’d stopped refusing and had let herself be pampered. Her uncle had taken so much pleasure in doing so.

‘Andreas would be so proud of you! So proud! His so-beautiful daughter!’ he would say, time and again, with a tear openly in his eye, his emotion unashamedly apparent and, Vicky had found with a smile, so very Greek.

And so very Greek, too, she’d discovered, in his attitude to young women of her age. They were, she’d had to accept, though loved to pieces, treated like beautiful ornamental dolls who must and should be petted and pampered, but also sheltered from the real world.

It had been the same when she’d made her second visit to Greece. She had visited her mother and stepfather in Australia for Christmas the previous year, and Aristides had invited her to spend the next festive season with him in Athens. But that time as soon as he’d greeted her she’d been able to tell something was wrong. There had been a strain about him that she’d sensed immediately.

Not that Aristides had said anything to her when she’d arrived in Athens. He’d simply reverted to his cosseting of her, telling her she was too thin and working too hard, she needed a holiday, some fun, new clothes. Because she’d known that his concern was genuine, and that he took great pleasure in pampering her, she’d once again given herself to his unreal world, where all the women wore couture clothes which they changed several times a day, according to the social function they were attending next. As before, she had gone along with it—because she’d seen the pleasure it gave her uncle to show off his young half-English niece, whose natural beauty was enhanced by clothes and jewellery.

‘My late brother’s daughter, Victoria,’ he would introduce her, and she’d heard the pride in his voice as he did so, the affection, too. Family, she’d swiftly learnt, was of paramount importance in Greece.

For Vicky it had been fascinating, the glittering world she had dipped her toes into, where breathtaking consumption was the order of the day. Sitting around her uncle’s vast dining room table, laden with crystal and silverware, with the female guests glittering like peacocks in their evening gowns and jewels, and the men as smart as magpies in their black-and-white tuxedos, she’d found herself realising with a strange curiosity that, had her father not been so determined to abnegate his wealthy background, this could have been her natural environment. Except, of course, she’d amended, she would not have had her English upbringing but one decidedly Greek. It had been a strange thought.

But she’d known that, fascinating as it was to observe this rarefied social milieu, it was, all the same, profoundly alien. She’d felt as if she was at a zoo, observing exotic mammals that lived lives of display and ostentation that were nothing to do with reality. Their biggest challenge would be which new yacht to buy, which designer to favour, or which Swiss bank to keep their private accounts in.

Not that their wealth made them horrible people—her uncle was kindness personified, and everyone she’d met so far had been gracious and charming and easy to talk to.

All except one.

Vicky’s expression took on a momentary darkening look.

She hadn’t caught his name as her uncle had brought him over to be introduced to her before dinner, because as she’d turned to bestow a social smile on him it had suddenly frozen on her mouth. She’d felt her stomach turn slowly over.

Greek men were not tall. She’d got used to that now. But this man was tall. Six foot easily. Tall, and lean, and so devastatingly good-looking that her breath had congealed in her lungs as she’d stared at him, taking in sable hair, a hard-planed face already in its thirties, a blade of a nose, sculpted mouth and eyes—oh, eyes that were black as sloes. But with something hidden in them…

She’d forcibly made herself exhale and widen her smile. But it had been hard. She’d still felt frozen all over. Except for her pulse, which had suddenly surged in her veins. Mechanically she’d held out her hand in response to the introduction, and felt it taken by strong fingers and a wide palm. The contact had been brief, completely formal, and yet it had felt suddenly, out of nowhere, quite different. She’d withdrawn her hand as swiftly as politeness permitted.

‘How do you do?’ she said, wondering just what his name was. She’d missed her uncle saying it.

‘Thespinis Fournatos,’ the man acknowledged.

She was getting used to being addressed by her birth father’s name. At home she’d taken Geoff’s surname, because when her mother had married him he’d adopted her, and it was easier for them all to have the same surname. But understandably, she knew, her uncle thought of her as his brother’s son, and to him she was Victoria Fournatos, not Vicky Peters.

But there was something about the way this man pronounced her Greek name that sent a little shiver down her spine. Or maybe it was just because of the low timbre of his voice. The low, sexy timbre…

Because this man, she realised, with another surge of her pulse, was an incredibly attractive male. Whatever it was about the arrangement of his limbs and features, he had it—in buckets.

And he knew it, too.

She felt the tiny shiver turn from one of awareness to one of resistance. It wasn’t that he was looking at her in any kind of suggestive way. It was more, she could tell, that he was perfectly used to women reacting to him the way that she had. So used to that reaction, in fact, that he took it for granted. Instantly she schooled herself against him, making herself ignore the breathless fluttering in her insides. Instead, she glanced at her uncle, who made some remark to the man in Greek, which Vicky did not understand. She knew a few Greek phrases, and a smattering of vocabulary, and was with practice and effort just about able to read Greek script haltingly, but rapid speech was completely beyond her.

‘You live in England, I believe, Thespinis Fournatos?’ The man turned his attention to her, with the slightest query in his voice. More than a query, thought Vicky—almost disapproval.

‘Yes,’ she said, leaving it at that. ‘My uncle very kindly invited me for Christmas. However, I understand that in Greece Easter is the most important time of the year—a much more significant event than Christmas in the calendar.’

‘Indeed,’ he returned, and for a few minutes they engaged, with Aristides, in a brief conversation about seasonal celebrations.

It was quite an innocuous conversation, and yet Vicky was glad when it finished—glad when a highly polished, dramatically beautiful woman, a good few years older than herself, came gliding up to them and greeted the tall man with a low and clearly enthusiastic husk in her voice. She spoke Greek fluently, and made no attempt to recognise Vicky’s presence.

Although Vicky could sense that Aristides was annoyed by the interruption, she herself took the opportunity to murmur, ‘Do please excuse me,’ and glided off to talk to some of her uncle’s other guests.

She was equally relieved when the seating arrangements at dinner put her at the other end of the table, away from the man with the devastating looks and the disturbing presence. The Greek woman who had accosted him was seated beside him, Vicky saw, and she was glad of it. Yet for all the woman’s obvious intention to keep the man’s attention turned firmly on herself for the duration, Vicky was sure that every now and then those sloe-dark eyes would turn in her direction.

She didn’t like it. There was something that disturbed her at the thought of that tall, dark and leanly compelling man looking at her. She could feel it in the tensing of her body.

Why was she reacting like this? she interrogated herself bracingly. She knew she was physically attractive, had learnt to cope with male attention, so why was this man able to make her feel so self-conscious? As if she were a schoolgirl, not a grown woman of twenty-four.

And why did she get the uncomfortable feeling that he was assessing her, observing her? It wasn’t, she knew, that he was eying her up—though if he had been she would not have liked that in the slightest. Maybe, she chivvied herself, she was just imagining things. When his dark eyes intercepted hers it was nothing more than a trick of her line of sight, of her being so irritatingly aware of him. An awareness that only increased during the meal, along with her discomfort.

It was as the guests were finally leaving, late into the night, that the tall man whose name she had not caught came up to her. His dinner jacket, she noted abstractedly, sat across his shoulders to perfection, honing down to lean hips and long legs. Again she felt that irritating flurry of awareness and was annoyed by it. There was something unnerving about the man, and she didn’t like it.

‘Good night, Thespinis Fournatos,’ he said, and looked down at her a moment. There was a look in his eyes that this time she could not mistake. It was definitely an assessing look.

Her back stiffened, even as her pulse gave a sudden little jump.

‘Good night,’ she replied, her voice as formal as she could make it. As indifferent as she could get away with. She turned to bid good night to another departing guest.

Afterwards, when everyone was gone, her uncle loosened his bow tie and top shirt button, poured himself another brandy from the liqueur tray, and said to her, in a very casual voice, ‘What did you think of him?’

‘Who?’ said Vicky, automatically starting to pile up the coffee cups, even though she knew a bevy of maids would appear to clear away the mess the moment she and her uncle retired.

‘Our handsome guest,’ answered her uncle.

Vicky did not need to ask who he meant.

‘Very handsome indeed,’ she said, as neutrally as possible.

Her uncle seemed pleased with her reply.

‘He’s invited us for lunch at the yacht club tomorrow,’ he informed her. ‘It’s a very popular place—you’ll like it. It’s at Piraeus.’

I might like it more without Mr Handsome there, she thought. But she did not say it. Still, it was a place she had not seen yet—Piraeus, the port of Athens. But, instead of saying anything more on that, she found herself changing the subject.

‘Uncle, is everything all right?’

The enquiry had come out of nowhere, but it had been triggered by a sudden recognition that, despite the smile on her uncle’s face, there was tension in it, too—a tension that had been masked during the evening but which was now, given the late hour, definitely visible.

But a hearty smile banished any tension about him.

‘All right?’ he riposted, rallying. ‘Of course! Never better! Now, pethi mou, it is time for your bed, or you will have dark circles under your eyes to mar your beauty. And we cannot have that—we cannot have that at all!’ He gave a sorrowing sigh. ‘That Andreas were still alive to see how beautiful his daughter is! But I shall take care of you for him. That I promise you. And now to bed with you!’

He shooed her out, and she went, though she was still uneasy. Had she just been got rid of to stop her asking another question in that line of enquiry?

Yet the following day there was no sign of the tension she thought she’d seen in him, and when they arrived at the prestigious yacht club, clearly the preserve of the extremely well-heeled of Athens, her uncle’s spirits were high. Hers were less so, and she found her reserve growing as the tall figure at the table they were being conducted to unfolded his lean frame and stood up.

Lunch was not a comfortable meal. Though the majority of the conversation was in English, Vicky got the feeling that another conversation was taking place—one that she was not a party to. But that was not the source of her discomfort. It was very much the man they were lunching with, and the way his dark, assessing eyes would flick to her every now and then, with a look in them that did not do her ease any good at all.

As the meal progressed she realised she was becoming increasingly aware of him—of his sheer physical presence, the way his hands moved, the strength of his fingers as they lifted a wineglass, or curved around the handle of his knife. The way his sable hair feathered very slightly over his forehead, the way the strong column of his throat moved as he talked. And the way he talked, whether in English or Greek, that low, resonant timbre doing strange things to her—things she would prefer not to happen. Such as raising her heart rate slightly, and making her stomach nip every now and then as her eyes, as they must during conversation, went to his face.

She watched covertly as he lifted his hand in the briefest gesture, to summon the maître d’. He came at once, instantly, and was immediately all attention. And Vicky realised, with a disturbing little frisson down her spine, that there was another reason other than his dark, planed looks that made him attractive.

It was the air of power that radiated from him. Not obvious, not ostentatious, not deliberate, but just—there.

This was a man who got what he wanted, and there would never, in his mind, be the slightest reason to think otherwise.

She gave an inward shiver. It wasn’t right, her rational mind told her, to find that idea of uncompromising power adding to his masculinity. It was wrong for a host of reasons, ethical and moral.

But it was so, all the same.

And she resented it. Resented the man who made her think that way. Respond to him that way.

No! This was ridiculous. She was getting all worked up over someone who was, in the great scheme of things, completely irrelevant to her. He had invited her uncle for lunch, presumably for that singular mix of business and sociality that those in these wealthy circles practised as a matter of course, and she had been included in the invitation for no other reason than common courtesy.

She forced herself to relax. Her uncle was turning to her, saying something, and she made herself pay attention with a smile.

‘You are fond of Mozart, are you not, pethi mou?’

She blinked. Where had that question come from? Nevertheless, she answered with a smile, ‘Yes—why do you ask?’

But it was their host who answered.

‘The Philharmonia are in Athens at the moment, and tomorrow night they are giving a Mozart concert. Perhaps you would like to attend?’

Vicky’s eyes went to her uncle. He was smiling at her benignly. She was confused. Did he want to go? If he did, she would be happy—more than happy—to go with him. Aristides liked showing her off, she knew, and as she did indeed like Mozart’s music, she’d be happy to go to a concert.

‘That sounds lovely,’ she answered politely.

Her uncle’s smile widened. ‘Good, good.’ He nodded. He glanced across at their host and said something in Greek that Vicky did not understand, and was answered briefly in the same language. He turned back to his niece.

‘You can be ready by seven, can you not?’ he asked.

‘Yes, of course,’ she answered. She frowned slightly. Why had her uncle spoken to their host about it?

She discovered, with a little stab of dismay, just why on her way back to Athens with Aristides.

‘He wants to take me to the concert? But I thought we were going?’

‘No, no,’ said Aristides airily. ‘Alas, I don’t have time to go to concerts.’

But he does, thought Vicky. A strange sensation had settled over her and she didn’t like it. She also didn’t like the feeling that she had been stitched up—set up…

With no room to manoeuvre.

Well, she thought grimly now, that was how it had started—and how it had gone on. And even now, after everything that had happened, all the storm and stress, the rage and frustration, she still did not know how it had ended up the way it had. How she had gone from being escorted to a Mozart concert by a man whose company disturbed her so profoundly, to becoming—her mouth pressed together in a thin, self-condemning line—his wife.

Mrs Theo Theakis.

CHAPTER THREE

HOW could I have done it?

The question still burned in her head, just as it always had. How could she have gone and married Theo Theakis? She’d done it, in the end, for the best of reasons—and it had been the worst mistake of her life.

She could still remember the moment when her uncle had dropped the thunderbolt at her feet. Informing her that Theo Theakis was requesting her hand in marriage, as if they were living in the middle of a Victorian novel.

Aristides had beamed at her. ‘Every woman in Athens wants to marry him!’

Well, every woman in Athens is welcome to him! thought Vicky, as she sat there, staring blankly at her uncle, disbelief taking over completely as he extolled the virtues of a man she barely knew—but knew enough to be very, very wary of. Since the Mozart concert she had seen Theo Theakis only a handful of times—and she could hardly have said he’d singled her out in any particular way. Apart from knowing that he was rich, disturbingly attractive, and, from the few conversations she’d had with him about any non-trivial subject, dauntingly and incisively intelligent, he was a complete stranger. Nothing more than an acquaintance of her uncle, and no one she wanted to get any closer to.

In fact, he was someone, for all the reasons she was so disturbingly aware of, her preferred option would have been to avoid. It would have been much, much safer…

And now, out of nowhere, her uncle was saying he wanted to marry her?

It was unbelievable—quite, quite unbelievable.

She wanted to laugh out loud at the absurdity of it, but as she stared at her uncle blindly she started to become aware of something behind the enthusiastic words. Something that dismayed her.

He was serious—he was really, really serious. And more than serious.

Vicky’s heart chilled.

In her uncle’s face was the same tension she’d seen when she’d arrived in Athens. The tension that she’d been moved to ask about the evening she’d met Theo Theakis for the first time. And something more than tension—fear.

It was shadowing his eyes, behind the eager smiles and the enthusiastic extolling of just why it would be so wonderful for her to be Mrs Theo Theakis. Behind her uncle’s glowing verbiage of how every woman would envy her for having Theo Theakis as a husband, she could hear a much more prosaic message.

A dynastic marriage. Something quite unexceptional in the circles her uncle and aspiring bridegroom moved in. A marriage to link two wealthy families, two prominent Greek corporations.

Oh, Aristides did not say it like that—he used terms like ‘so very suitable’—but Vicky could hear it all the same. And more. Vicky realised, with a sinking of her heart, that she could hear something much more anxious. Her uncle didn’t just want her to marry Theo Theakis—he needed her to…

The chill around her heart intensified.

She waited, feeling her nerves biting, until he had finally finished his peroration, and was looking at her with an anticipation that was not just hopeful but fearful, too. She picked her words with extreme care.

‘Uncle, would such a marriage be advantageous to you from a…a business point of view?’

There was a flicker in Aristides’s eyes, and for a moment he looked hunted. Then he rallied, using the same tone of voice as he had when she had impulsively asked him whether everything was all right.

‘Well, as you know, sadly my wife was not blessed with children, and so it has always been a question—what will happen to Fournatos when I am gone? Knowing that you, my niece, are married to Theo Theakis—whose business interests do not run contrary to those of Fournatos—would answer that question.’

Vicky frowned slightly. ‘Does that mean the two companies would merge?’

A shuttered, almost evasive look came into Aristides’ face.

‘Perhaps, perhaps. Eventually. But—’ His tone changed, becoming bright, eager, and, Vicky could tell from familiarity, deliberately pitched to address a female of her age, who should not be concerning herself with such mundane things as corporate mergers. ‘This is not what a young woman thinks about when a man wants to marry her! And certainly not when the man is as handsome as Theo Theakis!’

It was the signal that he would not be drawn any more from the fairy tale he was spinning for her in such glowing colours. Vicky could get no more out of her uncle regarding the real reason behind this unbelievable idea of Theo Theakis saying he wanted to marry her. It was only the anxiety she felt about what she had seen so briefly in her uncle’s face and respect for his kindness and generosity that stopped her telling him that she had never heard anything so absurd and walking straight out.

With rigid self-control she managed to hear him out, and then, with all the verbal dexterity she could muster, she said, ‘I’m…I’m overwhelmed.’

‘Of course, of course!’ Aristides said hurriedly. ‘Such a wonderful thing is most momentous!’

Vicky hung on to her self-control by a thread. Groping about for some excuse to go, she muttered something about a dress fitting she had to get to in the city and slipped out of the room. Her mind was in turmoil.

What on earth was going on?

Her mouth set. Her uncle might not give her any answers, but she knew someone who could.

Even though he was the very last person she wanted to go and see.

She made herself do it, though. She went and confronted her suitor.

He did not seem surprised to see her. He received her in his executive suite in a gleaming new office block, getting up from a huge leather chair behind an even bigger desk. As he got to his feet, his business suit looking like a million euros all on its own, Vicky again felt that frisson go through her. Here, in his own corporate eyrie, the impression of power that emanated from him was more marked than ever.

She braced her shoulders. Well, that was all to the good. Obviously sentiment—despite her uncle’s fairy-tale ramblings about how wonderful it would be for her to be married to so handsome and eligible a man as Theo Theakis—had nothing to do with why the man standing in front of her had informed Aristides Fournatos that he would be interested in marrying her.

Even as she formed the thought in her head, she had to cut it out straight away. ‘Marriage’ and ‘Theo Theakis’ in one sentence was an oxymoron of the highest order.

‘Won’t you sit down?’

The dark-timbred voice sent its usual uneasy frisson down her spine. She wished it wouldn’t do that. She also wished she wasn’t so ludicrously responsive to the damn man the whole time. It had been the same all the way through that Mozart concert he’d taken her to, when she’d sat in constrained silence during the music and made even more constrained small talk during the interval. She’d been dreading he’d suggest going for supper afterwards, and had been thankful that he had simply returned her back to her uncle’s house, bidding her a formal good night. Since then she’d seen him a handful of times more, each encounter increasing her annoying awareness of his masculinity. His company disturbed her, and she kept out of any conversation that included him as much as possible. She also did her best to ignore the speculative looks and murmurs that she realised were directed towards them whenever they were together.

Now, of course, she knew just what they had been speculating about.

Well, it was time to put a stop to this nonsense right away.

She sat herself down in the chair Theo Theakis was indicating, just in front of his desk, and crossed her legs, suddenly wishing the skirt she had on was longer and looser.

‘I take it your uncle has spoken to you?’

Her eyes went to him. His face was impassive as he took his seat again, but his eyes seemed watchful.

Vicky nodded. She took a breath.

‘I don’t mean to be rude,’ she began, and saw the slightest gleam start in the dark eyes. ‘But what on earth is going on?’ She eyed him frankly; it seemed the best thing to do. It took more energy than she liked.

He studied her a moment, as if assessing her, and she found it took even more effort to hold his gaze. Then, after what seemed like an age, he spoke.

‘If you were completely Greek, or had been brought up here, you would not be asking that question.’ He quirked one eyebrow with a sardonic gesture. ‘You would not, of course, even be here, at this moment, alone with me in my office. But I appreciate I must make allowances for your circumstances.’

Automatically Vicky could feel her hackles start to bristle, but he went smoothly on, leaning back in his imposing leather chair.

‘Very well, let me explain to you just what, as you say, is going on. Tell me,’ he said, and the glint was visible in his eyes again, ‘how au fait are you with the Greek financial press?’

The bristles down Vicky’s spine stiffened, and deliberately she did not answer.

‘As I assumed,’ Theo Theakis returned smoothly. ‘You will, therefore, be unaware that there is currently a hostile bid in the market for your uncle’s company. Without boring you with the ways of stock market manoeuvrings, one way to defend against such an attack is for another company to take a non-hostile financial interest in the target company. This is currently the subject of discussion between your uncle and myself.’

‘Are you going to do it?’ Vicky asked bluntly.

She could see his eyes veil. ‘As I said, it is a subject of current discussion,’ he replied.

She looked him straight in the eyes. ‘I don’t see what on earth this has to do with the insane conversation I’ve just had with him!’ she launched robustly.

Did his face tighten? She didn’t know and didn’t care.

‘Your uncle is a traditionalist,’ observed Theo Theakis. ‘As such, he considers it appropriate for close financial relationships to be underpinned by close familial ones. A Fournatos-Theakis marriage would be the obvious conclusion.’

Vicky took a deep breath.

‘Mr Theakis,’ she said, ‘this is the most idiotic thing I’ve heard in all my life. Two complete strangers don’t just marry because one of them is doing financial deals with the other’s uncle! Either there’s something more going on than I can spot, or else you’re as…unreal…as my uncle! Why on earth don’t you just do whatever you intend financially, and get on with it? I’ve got nothing to do with any of this!’

His expression changed. She could see a plain reaction in it now.

‘Unfortunately that is not so.’ His voice was crisper, almost abrupt, and the light in his eye had steeled. ‘Answer me this question, if you please. How attached are you to your uncle?’

‘He’s been very kind to me, and apart from my mother he is my only living blood relative,’ Vicky replied stiffly. She felt under attack and didn’t know why—but she knew she didn’t like it.

‘Then you have a perfect way to acknowledge that,’ came the blunt reply. He leant forward in his seat, and automatically Vicky found herself backing into her chair. ‘Aristides Fournatos is a traditionalist, as I said. He is also a proud man. His company is under severe and imminent threat of a hostile acquisition, and his room to manoeuvre against it is highly limited. To put it bluntly, I can save his company for him with a show of confidence and financial strength which will reassure his wavering major institutional shareholders because he is backed by the Theakis Corp. Now, personally, I am more than happy to do that, for a variety of reasons. Hostile bids are seldom healthy for the company acquired, and the would-be acquirer in this instance is known as an asset-stripper, which will dismember the Fournatos group to maximise revenues and award their own directors massive pay rises and stock options. In short, it will pick it apart like a vulture, and I would not want that to happen to any company, let alone Fournatos. However, my reasons for helping to stave off this attack are also personal. My father was close friends with Aristides, and for that reason alone I would not stand by and watch him lose the company to such marauders.’

‘But why does that have to involve anything other than a financial deal between you and my uncle?’ persisted Vicky.

Cool, dark and quite unreadable eyes rested on her.

‘How do you feel about accepting charity, may I ask?’ Vicky could feel her hackles rising again, but the deep-timbred voice continued. ‘Aristides Fournatos does not wish to accept my financial support for his company without offering something in return.’

‘How about offering you some Fournatos shares?’ said Vicky.

Theo Theakis’s expression remained unreadable.

‘Your uncle wishes to offer more.’ There was a pause—a distinct one, Vicky felt. Then Theo Theakis spoke again, as if choosing his next words with care. ‘As you know, your uncle has no heir. You are his closest relative. This is why he wishes to cement my offer of support to him at this time with marriage to yourself.’

‘You’re willing to marry me so you can get his company when he dies?’ Vicky demanded. If there was scorn in her voice she didn’t bother to hide it.

The dark eyes flashed, and the sculpted mouth tightened visibly.

‘I’m willing to enter into a marriage with you to make it easier for Aristides to accept my offer to save his company from ruin.’ The sardonic look was back in his eyes now. ‘Believe me when I say that I would prefer your uncle to accept it unconditionally. However—’he held up an abrupt hand ‘—your uncle’s pride and his self-respect have already taken a battering by allowing his company to be exposed to such danger in the first place. I would not wish to look ungracious at what he is proposing. For him, this is a perfect solution all round. His pride is salved, his self-respect intact, his company is defended, its future is secured. And as for yourself—’ the dark eyes glinted again, and Vicky could feel a very strange sensation starting up in her insides ‘—your future will also be settled in a fashion that your uncle, standing as he feels himself to do in the place of your late father, considers ideal—marriage to a man to whom he can safely entrust you.’

Vicky got to her feet. ‘Mr Theakis,’ she started heavily, ‘you seriously must be living on another planet if you think for a moment that I—’

‘Sit down, if you please.’

The instruction was tersely issued. Abruptly, Vicky sat, and then was annoyed with herself that she had.

‘Thespinis Fournatos—somewhere between your intemperate reaction, your uncle’s very understandable desires and my own unwillingness to stand by helplessly while your uncle’s company is taken over we must reach an agreement acceptable to all. Therefore what I propose is this.’ His gaze levelled with hers, and he placed his hands flat on the arms of his chair. ‘We enter into a formal marriage in the private but mutual understanding that it will be of very limited duration—sufficient merely to see your uncle through this current crisis and satisfy public and social decencies. I believe that when your uncle has his company safe again he will accept the dissolution of our brief marriage and will come to other arrangements for the long-term future of the Fournatos group. If you have the regard for your uncle which you say you have, then you will agree to this proposal.’

Emotions roiled heavily in Vicky’s breast. One was resentment at being spoken to as if she were a mix between a simpleton and an ingrate. The other was more complex—and at the same time a lot more simple.

She didn’t want to marry Theo Theakis. Not for any reason, period. The very idea was absurd and ludicrous and insane. It was also—

She veered her thoughts away. Pulled her eyes away from him. She didn’t like sitting here, this close to him, alone in his huge office. Theo Theakis disturbed her, and she didn’t like it. She didn’t like it at all.

She forced herself to look at him again. He was still levelling that impassive, unreadable gaze on her, but she could see, deep at the back of his eyes, the glint in it. There was antagonism there, and something else, too, and she liked that least of all.

She jumped to her feet again. This time Theo Theakis did not order her to sit down. She clutched her handbag to her chest and spoke.

‘I don’t believe there isn’t a different way to deal with this,’ she said. ‘There just has to be!’

And then she walked out.

The problem was, it was one thing to march out of Theo Theakis’s executive office in umbrage, but quite another to face her uncle again. It was evident, she realised with a sinking heart, that as far as he was concerned of course she would be marrying the man she now knew would be saving his company. That Aristides had kept this information from her only fuelled her sorrow. The awful thing was that, had it not been for her visit to Theo and his brutal explanation of the cruel facts, she would have had no hesitation in telling Aristides, as gently as she could, that she could not possibly entertain the idea of marrying a man who was virtually a stranger. Let alone one who caused such a frisson of hyper-awareness in her every time she set eyes on him.

But because she now knew just how vital it was for her uncle to be able to wrap up Theo Theakis’s financial help in a dynastic marriage, she simply could not do it.

Yet how could she possibly agree to such a marriage? It was out of the question! Even if it was limited to the superficial temporary marriage of convenience that Theo Theakis was advocating.

I can’t possibly marry him! It’s absurd, ludicrous, ridiculous…

But even though those were the words she deliberately used to describe such a marriage, she could feel her resistance being eroded. The more closely she studied her uncle’s face, the more she could see the web of anxiety in it, the fear haunting the back of his eyes. For him, it seemed, everything depended on her accepting this marriage proposal. And as far as her uncle was concerned, Vicky could see, no young woman in her right mind would dream of turning it down! It offered everything—a husband who was not just extremely wealthy but magnetically attractive, who was lusted after by all other females, and held in respect and esteem by all men. What on earth was there to turn down? To her uncle, he was an ideal husband…

It was a clash of worlds, she knew. Her modern world, where you married for love and romance, and his, where you married for family, financial security and social suitability. A clash that could not be resolved—or explained. Every instinct told her that she could not—should not—do what her uncle wanted. And yet her heart squeezed. If she turned down this marriage proposal—even on the terms that Theo Theakis was offering her—the consequences for her uncle would be catastrophic.

I can’t do it to him! I can’t let him go under! But I can’t possibly marry a man I don’t know, for any reason whatsoever! But if I don’t, then my uncle will be ruined…

Round and round the dilemma went in her head, making dinner that evening a gruelling ordeal. Vicky was horribly aware of the expectant-yet-anxious expression that was constantly in her uncle’s eyes, both day and night, and she herself endured a fitful, sleepless night. And so it was with a sense of escape the following morning that she took a telephone call from London.

But her pleasure in hearing Jem’s voice swiftly turned to dismay. She had left the running of Freshstart to him while she was in Greece, but before the phone call was over she realised it had been a mistake. Jem was great with kids—he could make emotional contact with the most troubled teenager—but as an organiser and administrator he was, she had to admit, poor.

‘I’m really sorry, Vicky, but it seems I didn’t get that grant application in on time and the deadline has passed. Now we can’t apply again till next year.’ Jem’s voice was apologetic. ‘They were shorthanded with the kids, so I went to help out, and then I was out of time to get the form into the post.’

Vicky suppressed a sigh of irritation. Even with the money her father had left, the charity needed every penny it could raise, and the grant she’d been counting on getting would have gone a long way. Now she had even more on her plate to worry about, despite the unbelievable situation she found herself in here in Greece.

However, soon her attention had to return to that, when, shortly after she’d finished speaking to Jem, there was another phone call for her.

It was Theo Theakis.

‘I would like you to join me for lunch,’ he informed her with minimal preamble, and told her the name of the restaurant and the time he wanted her to be there. Then he hung up. Vicky stared at the phone resentfully, wishing the man to perdition.

All the same, she presented herself at the designated location at the appointed hour, and slid into her seat as Theo Theakis got to his feet at her approach. Instinctively, she avoided anything but the briefest eye contact with him, and self-consciously ignored the various speculative glances that were obviously coming their way.

Her lunch partner wasted little time in getting to the point.

‘I do not wish to harass you, but a decision from you on the matter under consideration is needed without delay,’ he began, as soon as the waiter had taken their orders. ‘The marauding company has just acquired another tranche of shares. Other shareholders are clearly wavering. Unless a very clear signal is sent to them imminently to say that I am aligning myself with Aristides they will start to sell out in critical numbers. So…’ His dark eyes rested on her without expression. ‘Once again I must ask you whether you are prepared to accept the recommendation I made to you yesterday.’

She could feel her hands tensing in her lap.

‘There has to be another way of—’ she began tightly.

‘There isn’t.’ Theo Theakis’s voice was brusque. ‘If there were, I would take it. However, if you are still of the same mind as you were yesterday afternoon—’ again Vicky could hear the note of critical condemnation in his voice, and it raised her hackles automatically ‘—then allow me to mention something that was omitted from our exchange then.’

He paused a moment, and Vicky made herself meet his eyes. They were quite opaque, but there was something in them that was even more disturbing than usual. She wanted to look away, but grimly she held on.

He started to speak again.

‘Because of your upbringing in England I appreciate that the concept of a dynastic marriage such as your uncle hopes for is very alien to you. However…’ He paused again minutely, as if deciding whether to say what he went on to say. ‘There is another aspect of such arrangements which your lack of familiarity with them might require me to make plain to you. It is the matter of the marriage settlement. Although the issue is complicated by the matter of the threat to your uncle’s company, nevertheless in simplistic terms the outcome for yourself would be a sum of money set aside—in the form, if you like, of a dowry. No, do not interrupt me, if you please—I appreciate you find the term archaic, but that is irrelevant.’

He broke off while the sommelier approached with the wine he had chosen for lunch, and went through the ritual of tasting it, approving it with a curt assent. Then he continued. There was a slightly different tone to his voice as he spoke now. A smooth note had entered it, and Vicky felt it like a rich, dark emollient over her nerve-endings.

‘It must be hard for you,’ Theo Theakis said, as he contemplatively took a mouthful of the wine, setting back the glass on the table but never taking his eyes from her. ‘Staying with your uncle and appreciating, perhaps for the first time, just how very different your life would have been had your father not been of the philanthropic disposition that he so abundantly was. In the light of that, therefore, and in respect of the sum of money I alluded to, which in the event of a normal marriage would remain with me, I am prepared, since I am proposing a highly limited marriage, to release this sum to you on the dissolution of the marriage.’ His veiled gaze rested on her. ‘Additionally, I am willing to make you an advance on this sum at the outset of our temporary marriage. The figure I have in mind is this.’

He named a sum of money that made Vicky swallow. It was about three times the amount of the grant that Jem had just failed to apply for.

Her mind raced. With that money they could…

She dragged her thoughts away from all the things that Freshstart could spend that kind of money on, and back to the man sitting opposite her, in his superbly tailored business suit, with his dark, sable hair and his opaque, unreadable eyes that nevertheless seemed to send a frisson through her that went right down to her bones.

‘Well?’

She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

‘The final sum released to you when our marriage ends would be twice as much again,’ he said, into the silence.

Twice as much?

What we could do with such a sum!

She stared, unseeing for a moment, ahead of her, oblivious even of the disturbing figure opposite her. What would her father have done? She could not remember him, but her mother had told her so much about him.

‘He gave away his inheritance to those who needed it. He didn’t think twice about it.’

Her mother’s well-recalled words echoed in her head. She felt her throat tighten. What should she do? If she went ahead with this insane idea she could not only save her uncle’s company, but inject into her father’s charity a sum of money that would help so many children blighted by poverty and wrecked families…

But I’d have to marry Theo Theakis…

Slowly her eyes refocussed on the man sitting at the far side of the table. The familiar frisson went through her.

If he were just an ordinary person I could do it…

But he wasn’t—that was the problem. He was a man like no other she had ever encountered, and to whom she reacted as she had never done in her life before.

It’s too dangerous…

The words formed in her mind and etched into her brain cells.

No—it didn’t have to be dangerous! In fact—she pressed her lips together determinedly—it was absurd to even think of that word. Absurd because it didn’t matter that she reacted so strongly to Theo Theakis. The point was that he was not reacting to her at all! It was all on her part, and if she just succeeded in keeping a totally tight lid on the way he affected her then she could just go ahead and…

She inhaled sharply. Good God, was she really thinking what she was thinking? Was she really, seriously thinking that she could go ahead with this insane scheme? Surely to God she couldn’t be?

Yet she could feel her mouth shaping words, hear them sounding low across the table, coming from somewhere she didn’t want to think about.

‘How long would we have to stay married?’

The phone on her desk was ringing, and Vicky heard it from a long, long way away. Sucked down into the past. Painfully, she dragged her mind back to the present—the present in which frustration and bitter anger warred in equal proportions.

‘How long would we have to stay married?’

The fateful question she had posed that day over lunch reverberated in her head. It had been the moment that she had mentally acceded to the idea of entering into the kind of marriage that Theo Theakis had outlined to her. She’d known that even at the time.

And he’d started to cheat her from that very moment! Because the kind of marriage he’d outlined had been nothing, nothing like it had turned out to be!

He cheated me right from the start—and he went on cheating me right to the end! The brutal, merciless end…

Anger buckled through her again. Oh, Theo Theakis might have paid out upfront all right—the money he’d said was an advance on what he would make over to her when they were finally free to end their marriage—but as for the rest of it…

It’s mine! He promised it to me—it’s not his to keep!

He’s got no business hanging on to it! Just because I…

The insistent ringing of the phone finally broke through her angry reverie. She snatched it up.

‘Yes?’ she said tersely.

The voice that answered was accented, formal, and studied.

‘This is Demetrious Xanthou. I am aide to Theo Theakis. He has instructed me to inform you that he will receive you this evening. If you will be so good as to give me your address, I will arrange a car for 8:00 p.m.’

For ten seconds Vicky went totally still. But the emotions that warred in her were not tranquil. Turmoil seethed in her. Haltingly, hardly able to concentrate, she gave her address. Then, hand shaking only very slightly, she set the phone down.

She stared ahead blindly for a moment. Then her face set again, and a grim, ruthless expression entered her eyes.

She was finally going to get her face-to-face with the man who had rent her limb from limb with his savage words. Well, she wouldn’t care about that now—she had one thing only in her sights.

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