DEAR READER LETTER

By Sharon Kendrick

Dear Reader,

One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you - which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.

There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.

I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100th story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”

So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him… Wouldn’t you know it?

I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers.

Love,

Sharon xxx

Bought by Her Husband

Sharon Kendrick

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…

Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing and awesome 100th book! Sharon is known worldwide for her likeable, spirited heroines and her gorgeous, utterly masculine heroes.

CONTENTS

Cover

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

IN THE penthouse boardroom of the vast Christou shipping empire, Alexei Christou swung round in his chair and leaned back to gaze at the ceiling as the beautiful brunette who knelt before him began to unzip his trousers.

‘Mmm,’ he murmured. ‘Omorfo.’

A sigh of pleasure escaped from his lips, and he had just settled back to enjoy the ministrations of the ever-eager woman when the telephone began to ring. His mouth hardened with disbelief and fury and he tried ignoring it, thinking that the interruption might just go away. But it didn’t go anywhere. Infuriatingly, it just rang and rang, and he snatched it up in anger.

‘Ne? What the hell is going on?’ he bit out. ‘I told you that under no circumstances was I to be disturbed!’

He heard his male assistant give a nervous cough. ‘Forgive me, Kyrios Christou, for making this one exception—but in the circumstances I thought—’

‘What is it?’ hissed Alexei, deadly as a snake.

‘I have your … er … wife on the phone.’

There was a pause.

‘My wife?’ echoed Alexei softly, and the brunette jerked her head up from his lap to stare at him.

‘Ne, kyrios. What would you like me to tell her?’

That she was a heartless, unfaithful bitch? That she was the biggest mistake he had ever made in his life and Alexei was not a man who tolerated mistakes in anyone—least of all himself?

His eyes narrowed. This was no doubt a follow-up call to the letter he had received from England—so it wasn’t completely out of the blue. But even so, to hear from someone who had been out of your life for seven long years was a pretty strange sensation. Someone who had ripped through his heart and body and soul. A woman who had ensnared him and then betrayed him. His attention now fully engaged, he gave a cruel smile which would have filled his many business rivals with abject fear.

He held his hand up in a silent command for the brunette to stop what she was doing. Temporarily. It might not be the wisest thing in the world to be orgasming into her mouth while talking to his estranged wife—though in view of the way she had betrayed him might it not be a fitting revenge? His black eyes glittered. With ice for a heart—would she even care?

But Alexei resisted the temptation, recognising that such a self-indulgence would put him at a disadvantage—for what would it yield other than the momentary pleasure of release? There was a reason why men abstained from sex before battle and it was a good one. Sex weakened even the strongest of men, and Alexei was never weak—not any more. Not since the cheating witch he had married had disappeared from his life.

‘Put her through,’ he told his assistant softly.

In her poky London apartment, Victoria waited to be connected, clutching onto the telephone with a palm which was becoming clammier by the second. She was dreading this more than she could remember dreading anything—but maybe she would be immune to him by now. Immune to his potent sexuality and his unrealistic expectations of her as a woman and as a wife. Because she was not his wife, not any more—except in name—and even that wouldn’t be for very much longer. She was no longer bound to him—she had been freed from the stifling prison of marriage to the formidable Greek. What Alexei thought was no longer her concern.

Just stick to the facts, she told herself as she stared at the pile of bills which just seemed to grow higher by the day. Tell him what you want as quickly as possible, and let that be an end to it.

And then at a last there was a click, and she heard a voice clip out one single, cold word. ‘Ne?’ A familiar and threatening voice, and one which made the surface of her skin prickle and the beat of her heart begin to thump madly beneath her breast. Immune to him? As if.

‘Hello, Alexei.’

Black eyes glittered at the sound of her soft English voice, but he kept his voice as neutral as if he were talking to any other enemy. ‘Ah, so it is you,’ he said tonelessly. ‘What do you want?’

No, Hello, how are you, Victoria? Not even an attempt at social niceties—but what had she expected? Solicitous enquiries after her health from the man whose vicious parting words to her had been, ‘You’re nothing but a cheap, common tramp, and I rue the day I ever married you!’?

‘I … I need to talk you.’

‘How fascinating,’ he said, his voice deadly soft, like a tiger moving silently through the undergrowth towards its helpless and unknowing prey. ‘About what, precisely?’

Victoria closed her eyes. The words of her lawyer came back to her.

‘If you’re after a swift settlement, I would be cautious in how you handle him, Mrs Christou.’ And his even more disturbing follow-up. ‘Your husband has the upper hand. Not because he’s in the right, but because he’s rich. Very rich.’

He was right, of course. Rich men always won, because they could afford to employ lawyers to play long and obstructive games for them. And Alexei was richer than most. Millionaires were ten-a-penny in today’s world, but Greek shipping billionaires did not exactly grow on olive trees. The last thing in the world she wanted was a protracted fight over money. Just as her lawyer had said … she must handle him carefully.

Victoria opened her eyes and stared hard out of the window at the grimy grey chimneypots of the London skyline. She was far enough away to pretend that she was talking into an answering machine, not to the charismatic Greek she had married.

Yet the simple words she had rehearsed over and over remained stubbornly stuck in her throat. Or was she simply reluctant to say them—knowing that once they had been uttered it really would be over? Because wasn’t there a tiny part of every woman who wanted to hold on to their marriage—even if it had been a bad one? Everyone wanted to hang onto the fantasy, the dream of happy-ever-after.

‘I …’

‘Why, Victoria—you seem almost nervous.’

She could hear the cruel mockery in his voice. Keep cool, she told herself. ‘Not exactly nervous,’ she corrected him. ‘More like apprehensive—and are you surprised? We haven’t spoken in so long.’

‘I know we haven’t,’ he said, stifling a moan—for the brunette was inching her fingers to where he had already been hard but was now harder still. He watched as the light gleamed on the scarlet of her fingernails and tried to shift the image of Victoria from his mind. Of her coming to him pure and untutored and him teaching her everything he knew about the art of love. He shuddered.

‘Alexei?’

The voice at the other end of the phone broke into his confused thoughts and he groaned as he pushed the woman away. She sank back on her knees and stared up at him with a look of reproach, her scarlet lips shimmering as they folded into a faint pout. He shook his dark head and the pout intensified. But how could he have her do that to him when all her could think about was Victoria? Damn her! Damn her!

‘Alexei?’ Victoria frowned as she thought she heard him steady his breathing. ‘Are you still there?’

‘Ne.’ He smiled at the brunette. The kind of smile which said, When I’m finished with this damned phone call, then you can take me in your mouth and suck me dry. ‘But I am busy.’

So nothing had changed. Alexei Christou—a man with a mission and a tunnel vision which blinded him to everything other than making the Christou empire the biggest shipping company in the world. At least, that was what the papers said. Victoria had only seen his lust for power in its embryo stages—when it had devoured his life and excluded her, and begun the slow process of the disintegration of their marriage.

‘What is it that you want?’ said Alexei impatiently, giving a barely perceptible shake of his head as the brunette slid her fingers between her thighs and began to rub herself. Wait, he mouthed, and she pouted again.

‘There are matters we need to discuss. Did you get the letter?’

‘And what letter is that?’ he enquired disingenuously. ‘I receive many letters in the course of a working week. So many, in fact, that I can barely recall some of them. Refresh my memory for me, Victoria. What did it say?’

Don’t let him intimidate you. You’re no longer nineteen and madly in love with a dream. You’re an independent businesswoman—even if you’re not a terribly successful one. She gave a thin smile … understatement of the century.

‘You know very well what it said. It was a letter from my lawyer,’ she said flatly, ‘telling you that I intend to file for divorce.’ She took a deep breath. ‘It’s pointless ignoring it, Alexei—it isn’t going to go away.’

‘You want a divorce?’ He gave a soft, taunting laugh. ‘What makes you think I’ll give you one?’

‘Give me one?’ she echoed. ‘It isn’t your gift to make! You don’t have a choice!’

They had married young—Alexei had barely been out of college at the time, but his power and authority had grown in the intervening years. There were few people—in fact, not one—who would have dared to speak to him in such a way. His face darkened—and yet didn’t he feel the delicious thrill of conflict? Wasn’t there a tremor of excitement at the thought of doing battle—especially with her? For, deep down, didn’t the corroding thought remain that he had never really crushed her—as she deserved to be crushed. The woman who had cuckolded him with another man!

‘There is always a choice, Victoria mou. But what is this sudden rush? For seven years we have been apart, and you have shown no signs of wanting to be legally free of me. Why now? Have you decided to marry ….?’ He said something harsh in Greek which caused the brunette to look at him in shock. ‘To marry your lover?’ he finished in English—making the word sound as if it had nothing whatsoever to do with love. And it didn’t. It was all to do with possession—and even now the thought of his wife having another man do to her the things he had once enjoyed filled him with a murderous rage.

‘Is that why you want a divorce, Victoria? To please the man who has replaced me? Is it the same one you broke your marriage vows with? The one you took into your body before our marriage was a year old?’

Victoria swayed, a horribly familiar nausea clutching at her stomach—but she didn’t bother trying to correct him. He wouldn’t believe her if she told him that there was no replacement man waiting in the wings—as if anyone could replace him, even if there was! It was just another of Alexei’s accusations and it was pointless trying to deny it. Her pleas of innocence had fallen on deaf ears in the past and always would.

He had painted a picture of her as unfaithful, and nothing would ever rid him of that image—no matter how far from the truth it was. Alexei saw the world as he wanted to. Maybe that was what all rich men did. He had a single-mindedness which was both his strength and his weakness, and nothing would ever sway him.

What had her lawyer said? ‘Keep it short and keep it sweet—it’s best that way. After seven years apart, there can’t be a lot to say to say to each other.’

Her lawyer, of course, did not know of Alexei’s burning desire to always have the last word. To always be in the right. To get his own way, as he had spent his life doing. And—in spite of her intention not to do so—Victoria could not resist probing. But of course she was curious—what woman in her situation wouldn’t be?

‘You must be fairly keen to get divorced yourself, I would have thought?’ she questioned innocently. ‘I’m sure there must be a long line of women who are eager to become the next Kyria Christou?’

Of course there was! His cruel lips curved in anger. Did he mean so little to her that she could casually enquire about the women who had taken her place in his bed? The bitter seed of resentment, which had been planted so long ago and lain dormant for so many years, now began to spring into rampant and dangerous life.

Furiously, he acknowledged that she had somehow managed to kill his arousal stone-dead, and his fury grew. He waved the brunette away with an impatient hand and got up from his chair, going over to the window to stare out at the matchless blue of the Aegean sea, which was a sapphire stripe of ribbon in the distance.

‘Naturally, I remain a magnificent marital prize in most women’s eyes,’ he boasted softly. ‘But, unlike you, I have no desire to get divorced.’ He saw the brunette turn around and stare at him reproachfully, and remembered that she knew more than a smattering of English. He pointed to the door and indicated five minutes with his fingers—softening his dismissal of her by blowing a kiss, and seeing her grudging smile in return. Some men might have felt guilty at such cavalier treatment of a woman, but not Alexei.

He never promised what he couldn’t give—which was zero in the way of commitment. But he was never less than completely honest with the women who shared his bed, or who arrived on a whim to pleasure him when he was bored at work. From him they gained access to the most glittering parties around the globe. He bought them trinkets and jewels, and flew them around on his private jet.

Most importantly, he made them gasp with pleasure. Every single woman he had ever had sex with had told him that he was their greatest lover ever—and Alexei didn’t doubt them for a moment. He prided himself on his sexual prowess—but to him it was yet another thing to excel at.

So what if the lovers in his life were foolish enough to believe that they would be the one to change his mind about settling down? Sometimes women only believed what they wanted to believe—which was nothing like the harsh reality. And that was not his problem. Either they faced the truth of what he could offer them—or they were history.

‘You’re saying you want to stay married?’ Victoria was asking in disbelief as the penthouse door quietly closed and the brunette disappeared from his office with a final delectable wiggle of her lush bottom.

Alexei gave a humourless smile. ‘That is not what I am saying at all,’ he reprimanded softly. ‘I said that I did not wish to get divorced—the two concepts are quite different.’

At that moment she hated him, and his clever, slick way with words—the way he could twist things round to make her sound completely stupid. And in a language which was not even his mother tongue!

‘You’re talking about interpretation,’ she protested.

‘We both know what I’m talking about, Victoria,’ he retorted softly. ‘I didn’t get a lot from my marriage to you—but at least now it serves the purpose of keeping ambitious women off my back!’

Victoria bit back her outrage, knowing that Alexei’s appalling attitude towards women had nothing to do with her—but her future was.

It was time to stop tiptoeing around his feelings. She had rights—and all she wanted was her freedom.

‘Well, I do want a divorce,’ she said coolly.

‘Do you now?’ He gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘Then we seemed to have reached a sort of impasse.’

She heard the silken taunt in his voice and—despite all her vows not to let it—her temper flared.

‘You can’t stop me from getting one!’

‘Can’t I?’

There was a pause, and when Victoria spoke her voice was breathless. ‘Are you … th-threatening me?’

‘Threatening you?’ He gave a low laugh. ‘What a vivid imagination you have, Victoria.’

‘Don’t you dare patronise me!’

‘Now, now.’ His smile widened as he realised that he had very successfully hit his target. ‘There is no need for hysteria.’

Which, of course, made her want to give in to exactly that. She could have screamed. Or told him that he was the most egotistical and controlling man she had ever met. But she forced herself to take a deep, steadying breath instead—because she needed all her wits about her if she wanted to challenge him on an equal footing. And why tell him something he already knew but didn’t particularly care about?

‘Do you want me to have the papers served on you, Alexei? Because you’re going the right way about it!’

He gave another low laugh of pleasure as he heard the fury in her voice. How could he have forgotten how stimulating resistance could be? He might have a whole list of complaints about the woman he had been misguided enough to marry—but boredom had never featured on it. ‘You’d have to find me first,’ he challenged.

‘Oh, that’s possible—believe me. My lawyer can engage someone in Athens to track you down and serve you with divorce papers. This kind of thing happens all the time, you know—errant husbands refusing to face up to their responsibilities!’ And suddenly she stopped, aware that she had said too much.

Alexei drew in a silent and thoughtful breath. It sounded as if she had done her research. And it sounded as if she wanted money. His eyes narrowed. How much of a claim on his fortune was she intending to make? he wondered. He ran a speculative finger over the shadowed rasp of his jaw, which had sprung up despite an early-morning shave grabbed on the run from the brunette, who seemed to have discovered the principle of non-stop pleasure and was eager to put it to the test.

He stared out to sea, where he could see a ship moving slowly along the blue horizon—a Christou ship. It was just one of a mighty fleet of vessels which were renowned the world over and owned exclusively by the Christou family—with Alexei as its figurehead. Shipping brought untold wealth, and Christou dominated the market.

Could he be bothered even to fight this divorce? Alexei stretched his arms above his head and yawned. Even a weighty claim by most people’s standards wouldn’t even make a dent in the Christou billions. Shouldn’t he just sign Victoria her cheque and wave goodbye?

But his heart began to thud rhythmically in his chest.

Damn it, yes! He would fight her—as she deserved to be fought—for she had hurt and betrayed him. She had let him down, and that had been a hard lesson for a man like him to learn. He had held her in the kind of regard and esteem that he had felt for no other woman, and what had she done but hurl it all back in his face?

And in a way hadn’t he been expecting this for a long time? His estranged wife had surprised him by not demanding a slice of his fabulous wealth within months of the marriage ending. And then months had become years. It had become a stand-off, and he’d known that one of them would have to break it—but he had also known that it would never be him, for his fierce pride would not allow it. It had been a long, long wait, but it seemed that the time was here at last. And he meant to enjoy every second of it.

‘Even if you manage to serve me with papers,’ he said softly, ‘it doesn’t mean that I’ll co-operate with you.’

Victoria bit her lip. This was the worst-case scenario her lawyer had warned her about. He could play tricks with her and eke it out, and although she would win in the end it could take months, even years. In the meantime her debts would be mounting, with interest accruing—and with a business as small as Victoria’s just one large, unpaid bill could be enough to throw the whole thing out of kilter.

But it was more than the money she now owed as a consequence of that. Much worse was the knock-on effect on the woman who worked for her and relied on her. She knew Caroline’s circumstances and they weren’t easy. She had worked her socks off and shown Victoria nothing but loyalty—and Victoria was not prepared to jeopordise that dear woman’s livelihood on the say-so of her arrogant ex.

‘So you want a fight, Alexei, do you?’

‘Fighting is in my blood,’ he murmured. ‘You know that, Victoria.’

But he had never fought to keep her, had he? He had given up on her at the earliest opportunity—willing to believe the very worst of her. And a battle was the last thing she wanted or needed with a man who still had the ability to make her heart race—though today that was surely more through anger and frustration than instant turn-on?

Victoria looped a lock of hair behind her ear. Just take emotion out of the equation, she urged herself. Talk to him as if he’s a client just about to choose the menu for the tennis club’s annual dinner. Don’t let him realise he’s getting to you. ‘Is there nothing which will make you change your mind and reach a peaceful solution?’ she asked calmly.

Despite the suddenly reasonable tone she had adopted—Alexei recognised that this was the key question—and that with it she had just handed him the baton of power. A small smile curved his lips as he enjoyed the familiar feeling of being in control. And what better feeling could there be other than orgasm itself? But control lasted much longer …

Staring out at the azure sky, he anticipated the simple fish he would eat for lunch beneath a flower-decked canopy in a hidden green oasis of the city. Perhaps afterwards he would take one of his yachts out. Have a massuese on board, and maybe the brunette, too. He yawned. If he still had a hunger for her.

‘Perhaps there is,’ he said silkily, and he paused deliberately, because he knew that silence on the telephone could sound like an eternity to an adversary. ‘Why not come out here and we’ll discuss it?’

Victoria stilled, every instinct in her body shrieking its alarm as she listened to his suggestion in disbelief. ‘To … to Athens, you mean?’

‘Why not?’

‘Don’t be so ridiculous, Alexei!’

‘You think it such a bizarre suggestion?’ he mused. ‘Yet it is where I live and where you once lived—the place you once called your home, though we both know what a myth that was. For your life here was as much of a sham as your supposed desire to be a good wife. Is that why you cannot face Greece again, Victoria?’

She could think of plenty of reasons—but Alexei was the main one. The last time she had seen him he had told her that he would sooner go to hell than ever set eyes on her again. So what had changed? Instinctively Victoria licked at lips which had grown dry. Nothing had changed—for weren’t the insults still flowing thick and fast? He hated her—and he was making that very plain.

‘I can’t see the point,’ she whispered.

‘Can’t you? Maybe I might be a little more … considerate if you came and asked me to my face for a divorce.’

‘Ask you?’ she echoed, but her heart had now started thumping nervously in her chest. ‘You think I need to ask your permission? That I need your consent? We aren’t living in the Dark Ages!’

But in a way Alexei was—and he always had been—it was just that Victoria had been too young to see it at the time. For all his modern American education, beneath the exquisite Italian suits and handmade shoes there beat the heart of a primitive man.

‘This is all about the law, Alexei—and you don’t make it! Not in England, anyway!’

‘But I am a Greek,’ he reminded her proudly. ‘And you are married to a Greek.’

She opened her mouth to tell him that that didn’t matter. But she bit back her words. She had already said more than enough. He would know she had been doing her legal homework, and that would make him an even tougher adversary. But Alexei had spoken the truth—he was a natural fighter. Surely there was another way around this?

Surely they could draw a line under their mismatched marriage and wish each other well for the future? So that, even if the idea of being friends was an unrealistic one, at least they could have each other’s best interests at heart. And you would not wish harm to befall someone whom you had once loved to distraction, surely?

‘Come and see me,’ he said softly, his voice cutting into her thoughts. ‘Or maybe you don’t dare to, Victoria?’

Did she?

Once she had been like a piece of soft toffee in his experienced fingers. He had warmed her with his expert caress and the silken touch of his tongue. One sensual look from Alexei had been enough to reduce her to a melting state of desire.

But seven years was a long time, and she had grown from girl to woman. A woman who had more sense than to fall head-over-heels a second time for a black-eyed devil who knew how to send a woman to paradise and back with his body.

But not how to love her or trust her or properly share his life with her.

‘If I agreed to a meeting, then couldn’t it be here—in London?’ she added hopefully. That would be much better. They could meet in some anonymous hotel in the centre of the city and then afterwards she could hop on a bus and leave his life for ever.

Alexei smiled as he anticipated that he was about to get exactly what he wanted. Outside, the heat from the blistering sun frazzled off the buildings, though inside the air was as cool as spring water. He loved this capital city, despite its noise and its heat and its chaos, for it pulsated with life and colour and vibrancy. And it would amuse him to see his cool, English wife here once more—who in her way was the city’s very antithesis. Would he still desire her? he wondered idly.

‘I’m not planning to come to London,’ he said carelessly.

‘But it’s … easier for you to travel here.’

His sensual mouth curved into a predatory smile as he heard her diffident tone, and like a hungry vulture who had spotted a fragment of fresh flesh glistening on a dusty road he pounced on her sudden uncertainty.

‘And why is that, agape mou?’

The term of endearment made her face colour painfully, but the cynical way he said it allowed her to close her mind to the memories it provoked. ‘Because your job is … flexible,’ she said, hating herself for faltering—but how could she just come right out and say, Because you’re filthy rich and can do as you please, and I have to work for a living. Because I have a pile of ceiling-high debts and I’m not even sure I can afford the airfare out to Greece?

He smiled with heartless delight. ‘That, of course, is the beauty of being your own boss,’ he observed.

‘Well, I’m my own boss, too!’ she retorted, stung. ‘And—unlike you—I didn’t have it handed to me on a plate.’

His eyes narrowed, for he was never criticised. ‘Just what type of work are you doing these days, Victoria?’

She stared at the sugar fondant roses which were lying on the work surface, ready to garnish a birthday cake she’d just made. Although they were dusted white with sugar, beneath that they were still pink—like the bouquet she had carried on her own wedding day. It didn’t matter that the marriage hadn’t lasted, or that she had schooled herself into pushing it into the recesses of her mind—because deep down it still existed. She couldn’t completely wipe it away. And sometimes the memory could twang away mercilessly at her heartstrings and make her want to yelp aloud with self-pity.

But self-pity was a most unattractive emotion, and it never got you anywhere.

‘I’m still in catering, Alexei,’ she said crisply. ‘Nothing’s changed.’

‘Then I suggest you take a break from your catering.’

‘I’m not with you.’

‘Come to Athens and we will thrash out a settlement between us,’ he continued remorselessly. ‘Because if you want a divorce that’s the only way you’re going to get one.’

He put the phone down and issued a short, terse command into the intercom. The door opened and the brunette returned, unbuttoning her dress as she walked slowly across the office towards him.

CHAPTER TWO

‘VICTORIA—do you really think this is wise? You don’t have to go crawling to your ex-husband, you know! And certainly not for my sake!’

Caroline’s voice was vehement, and Victoria paused in her packing to look at her oldest friend. They’d met years ago at college, but Caroline had been forced to drop out early when she became pregnant.

Victoria had provided a shoulder to cry on when the baby’s father had done a runner, and had sat with her friend during a long labour as her birthing buddy.

And Caroline had been there to return the favour when Victoria’s marriage broke down and she’d barely been able to bring herself to get out of bed in the mornings. On good days they’d used to joke that they had both packed in some pretty heavy life experiences very early on. On bad days they hadn’t joked at all.

When Victoria’s catering company had begun to do well, she’d realised that she was going to need help—and her old friend had been the perfect answer. As a single mum, Caroline was glad of the work and of a flexible boss—and she was a talented cook. Thus a temporary arrangement had become a very happy permanent one.

Victoria folded a T-shirt and put it in the bag. ‘Point one—I’m not crawling to anyone. I’m entitled to some kind of settlement, and I owe it to myself to get it,’ she said slowly. ‘And point two—I’m not doing it for your sake. That sounds like I’m doing you a favour, and I’m not. My company owes you the money and I’m damned well going to make sure you get it. And let’s face it,’ she added gently, ‘you’ve got rent to pay and a child to look after.’

Caroline looked anxious. ‘I can’t bear to see you looking as worried as you’ve been this past week. Honestly—I can manage somehow.’

‘You shouldn’t have to.’ Victoria closed the small bag. ‘Anyway, this goes much deeper than a debt. This is something which is long overdue. I can’t carry on pretending the marriage never happened—that it will go away by itself. I need some sense of closure.’ She sighed. ‘I’ve been a coward where confronting Alexei is concerned.’

‘I’m not surprised. He was a pig to you—I can’t understand why you married him in the first place.’ Caroline pulled a face. ‘Well, maybe I can!’

Their eyes met in an unspoken moment of acknowledgement of why she had married him.

What woman in the world wouldn’t have been bowled over by Alexei Christou if he’d made up his mind that he wanted you?

Now it was easy for Victoria to step back and see that she’d been completely out of her depth—but no one could stop themselves from falling in love. She hadn’t been the first naïve young girl to do it, and she wouldn’t be the last—only in most cases it would have just been a short, passionate affair instead of a foolhardy marriage.

‘He’s just—’

‘Spoiled!’

‘Well, maybe—if spoiled means having been given everything you wanted all your life, which of course he has.’ But spoiled made him sound like a little boy—and if there was one thing that Alexei was, it was all man. Very definitely. She shuddered. ‘He’s just operates in a different league, that’s all. His life is nothing like mine—and it’s about time I was free of him.’

‘But you are!’

Victoria shook her head so that her silky mane of blonde hair caught the light and shimmered. ‘That’s just it—I’m not—not really. As long as I remain married—even if it’s only in name—then I remain tied to him. And that’s hopeless. I have to move on,’ she said, but she was aware that just speaking to him again had stirred up all kinds of troubled emotions.

Caroline handed her a tube of suncream. ‘How do you feel about seeing him again?’ she asked suddenly.

‘I’m dreading it,’ said Victoria truthfully.

She felt churned-up as she boarded a Greece-bound flight on a budget airline and settled herself back into her cramped seat—thinking how differently she had travelled to Greece in the past.

This time around she was surrounded by young backpackers who were happy to purchase their own sandwiches and drinks from the aircrew who wheeled trolleys up the narrow aisle. Yet when she’d been married to Alexei they had flown in style. And what style! The first time he’d taken her to his homeland Victoria hadn’t quite believed what was happening to her. It had been like stepping onto the set of a film—the kind of Hollywood blockbuster where the director had said there was no limit on the budget.

One of the Christou family jets had been made available to them, along with its own fleet of glossy crew. But even in the midst of her personal happiness at having married the man she had fallen in love with Victoria had begun to feel the first goose-bumps of foreboding. An outsider. An English girl. And poor, to boot. The gorgeous stewardesses had given her barely-concealed looks of amazement. As if to say—Why the hell has he married her?

She remembered thinking the same thing herself.

Self-consciously she had smoothed down the skirt of the brand-new dress Alexei had bought for her, remembering what her mother had said—Fine feathers make a fine bird. Did they? Did she look good enough for her Greek billionaire?

Perceptively, he had tilted her chin to look at him, the black eyes narrowing and bathing her in their ebony light. ‘My wealth—it intimidates you a little, agape mou?’ he had asked softly.

Some of his vigour had flowed to her through his fingertips, and Victoria had suddenly felt as strong as he was. ‘I don’t give a stuff about your wealth!’ she’d declared passionately. ‘I would love you if you didn’t have a drachma to your name!’

He had looked at her with purring approval, but maybe Victoria would have done herself a favour if she’d confided to him that the people who surrounded him did intimidate her. That it wasn’t easy when everyone was wondering what your new husband saw in you and how long it would last. And if he had known—might it have changed things?

Victoria viciously snapped off the ringpull from a can of cola and drank from it thirstily. Stop it, she told herself. Don’t remember times like those. Remember the reality. Which was hell. You’re going to Athens with one objective in mind. To see Alexei and to draw a line underneath the marriage. And he has forced this situation on you. He’s as controlling as he ever was—so remember that, too.

She stared out of the window as the plane flew over the impossibly blue Aegean sea and then began to descend on the high looming clutter of buildings which was Athens itself. As the ground rose up to greet them she could see the crazy architecture and the congested traffic on the streets below. Everyone had a view of Athens as noisy and hot and dusty. But Victoria knew of another city—a secret Athens—one which had been shown to her by Alexei and one tourists were seldom privvy to.

He had opened her wondering eyes to the small green parks hidden away from the busy life of the main drag. She had eaten in lively little family-run tavernas which were lit at night by strings of coloured lights looped through the trees, while people danced as if they had fire in their veins and beckoned for you to join them. And there had been Alexei—barefoot and dancing, too—his black head thrown back in laughter.

Despite her determination not to indulge in sentimentality or nostalgia, she felt a pang of regret as the plane touched down in his homeland. In England it had been simpler to try and put him into the darkest recesses of her mind and to think of the whole experience of her marriage as another faraway life she had once lived. But she was going to have to accept that this trip was bound to throw up painful reminders of all that he had meant to her.

She had just better be prepared for it—forewarned meant forearmed—and instinct told her that she was going to need all her wits about her. If she weakened—allowed misplaced emotion to make her vulnerable—then she would be easy prey for her clever, calculating husband.

Picking up her overnight bag, Victoria went outside to where the heat was bouncing off the tarmac and beating down on her pale skin—even though it was only June. Her skin was sheened with sweat as she climbed into the back of a yellow cab, and her cotton dress just beginning to stick to her body, but thankfully the taxi was air-conditioned, and she leant back on the seat with a sigh of relief.

The radio was blaring, the driver was singing, and worry-beads were swinging from the mirror with a little clatter. Outside, the traffic was bumper-to-bumper, but the sky was blue, and unwillingly Victoria remembered that this was the home of the Parthenon and the Acropolis, that this was where legend said the goddess Athena had invented the olive tree.

And she found herself wishing she were just an ordinary tourist—geared up to having a fabulous holiday in the sun—instead of going cap in hand to her wealthy ex.

It was stop-start most of the way, until the taxi stopped outside the impressive steel and glass tower of the Christou headquarters. Nervously, she over-tipped the driver, and could feel the palms of her hands growing clammy as she stepped inside the revolving doors which delivered her into a space-age foyer.

The air-conditioning hit her like an ice-cube. Tiny goosebumps began to appear on Victoria’s arms as the sleek brunette at Reception stared at her as if she had just landed from Mars.

The woman rattled off a question in Greek and then, as Victoria frowningly attempted to translate, she spoke again—this time in perfect fluent English.

‘Can I help you?’ she questioned, in a tone of voice which suggested that Victoria might be in the wrong building.

‘I’m here to see Kyrios Christou,’ said Victoria.

‘Kyrios Christou?’

‘Ne,’ agreed Victoria, dredging up a word in Greek from its dusty memory bank.

‘What is your name, please?’

‘It’s Victoria.’ She forced herself to smile at the unfriendly face. ‘Victoria Christou.’

Was it only her well-travelled appearance which made the brunette’s mouth fall open into a disbelieving ‘O’? Victoria wondered.

‘Christou?’ the woman repeated blankly.

‘Yes.’ Victoria nodded enthusiastically, seizing on the unexpectedly enjoyable moment—because she certainly wasn’t anticipating a lot of those during her visit. ‘I’m his wife. I believe he’s expecting me—though I didn’t give a precise time. You know what scheduled flights are like!’

‘He is expecting you?’ said the brunette again.

And suddenly Victoria’s social attennae were alerted to the fact that this response would hardly win prizes for professionalism. So was the woman just having an off-day, or did Alexei discourage callers by employing this rather attractive dragon to ward them off?

Unlike the brunette, she wasn’t wearing a designer linen dress—though how she could afford it on her salary, Victoria didn’t know—but surely she didn’t look that bad?

‘Perhaps you could just let him know I’m here?’ asked Victoria coolly.

The brunette laughed briefly, as if someone had just given her a piece of exceptionally good news. ‘It will be my pleasure,’ she said, as she picked up the phone and spoke rapidly into it, but the smile disappeared from her face when she was obviously given instructions to send Victoria straight up.

It was during the elevator ride that Victoria’s nerves came back to assail her—not helped by a peek at what she actually looked like. Unfortunately—or maybe that should have been fortunately—the lift was mirror-lined, which allowed her to see just how the journey had taken its toll. Perhaps the brunette’s incredulous reaction was understandable, after all. She tried telling herself that she wasn’t trying to wow Alexei, but even so there was a proud side to every woman who wanted her ex to still think she was drop-dead gorgeous.

Pulling a plastic pack of wipes from her handbag, she removed some of the grime from her face. Her hair was tied back, but she brushed out her fringe just as the lift pinged to a halt. No time for lipstick.

Oh, well.

A male assistant was waiting to greet her, and she followed him through a series of increasingly grand offices until finally he opened the door to one where a still, dark figure was standing with his back to her. Was that deliberate? she wondered. Of course it was!

He was looking out over the backdrop of Athens, and Victoria’s heart lurched as she saw the man she had once adored as much as life itself. The man who had taken her virginity. Who had told her he loved her and then shown her that love could break your heart. The man she’d married.

Alexei Christou.

Though the huge plate-glass windows were faintly tinted, the light still gleamed on his ebony-dark hair—worn just a fraction too long—so that instead of an heir to a billionaire shipping fortune he looked more like a sexy bandit. Or a very fit pool man … A rich woman’s fantasy lover.

And a poor one’s, too.

Victoria froze as he slowly turned his head, praying that her face and body were registering nothing other than …

What?

That was the trouble—what were the rules in a situation like this? How did you behave and react towards a man you hadn’t seen for seven years to whom you’d once been married? This was the man who had symbolised all her romantic hopes and dreams—and then had come to symbolise her own sense of failure and regret.

For Alexei had left his own dark legacy in her life—creating an impossible act for another man to follow. It didn’t seem to matter if a man had stepped out of the ‘suitable partner’ section at Central Casting—when compared to Alexei Christou they all seemed as two-dimensional as a cardboard cutout.

Even now he had the power to throw her into a state of confusion. If only she could be sure of her true feelings towards him—because surely it would be easier if she hated him. But as she stared at him across the expanse of the room it wasn’t hate she was feeling. Far from it. She was smacked sideways by a sensation she most definitely did not want to experience.

Was it desire which made the blood begin to roar in her ears and her heart begin to leap and race beneath her breast? She felt dizzy. As if her body didn’t belong to her any more. It was like looking down the wrong end of a telescope—her world had reduced down to just the space of one face. His face.

And, oh, it was impossible not to drink in all its hard and arrogant beauty. The luminous olive skin and the lush mouth, with its curved and slightly full lower lip. Lips which had kissed every single bit of her body and taken her to paradise over and over again.

But it was the eyes that drew her in, more than the memory of those sensual pleasures. Black and glittering, they had once stared at her with love—but now they studied her with nothing more than contempt, their cold ebony light raking over her.

Her heart-rate only increased. How could it not? She could feel it crashing loudly against her ribs and was surprised he couldn’t hear it.

Alexei, she mouthed, though no sound came from her lips, and suddenly she was having difficulty focussing.

Her vision blurred and then became clear again—and her head spun as her mind wickedly played tricks on her, dragging her back into that painful place she had vowed never to visit again.

But sometimes you had no choice, because the past had a pulling power all of its own.

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