Born of Irish/Scottish parentage, LYNNE GRAHAM has lived in Northern Ireland all her life. She has one brother. She grew up in a seaside village and now lives in a country house surrounded by a woodland garden, which is wonderfully private.

Lynne first met her husband when she was fourteen. They married after she completed a degree at Edinburgh University. Lynne wrote her first book at fifteen—it was rejected everywhere. She started writing again when she was at home with her first child. It took several attempts before she was published and she has never forgotten the delight of seeing that first book for sale at the local newsagents.

Lynne always wanted a large family and she now has five children. Her eldest, her only natural child, is in her twenties and is a university graduate. Her other children, who are every bit as dear to her heart, are adopted: two from Sri Lanka and two from Guatemala. In Lynne’s home, there is a rich and diverse cultural mix, which adds a whole extra dimension of interest and discovery to family life.

The family has two pets. Thomas, a very large and affectionate black cat, bosses the dog and hunts rabbits. The dog is Daisy, an adorable but not very bright white West Highland terrier, who loves being chased by the cat. At night, dog and cat sleep together in front of the kitchen stove.

Lynne loves gardening, cooking, collects everything from old toys to rock specimens and is crazy about every aspect of Christmas.

The Volakis Vows

The Marriage Betrayal

Bride for Real

Lynne Graham

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

The Marriage Betrayal

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Bride for Real

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

The Marriage Betrayal

Lynne Graham

PROLOGUE

‘I DON’T do English country weekends,’ Sander Volakis informed his father without hesitation.

With difficulty, Petros Volakis mustered a diplomatic smile, wishing for the hundredth time since the death of his eldest son that he had devoted a little more time and attention to his awkward relationship with his younger one. After all, on the face of it, Lysander, known as Sander to his friends, was a son that any man would be proud to possess.

Extremely good-looking and athletic, Sander had a shrewd brain for business and his outstanding entrepreneurial skills had already ensured that even without family backing he excelled at making money. Unhappily, however, Sander also had a darker side to his passionate temperament and a wild streak that ran deep. He was obstinate as a rock, arrogant and fiercely independent, indeed very much an extrovert individualist in a family of unashamedly conservative people. Over the years clashes between father and son had proved inevitable because Sander went his own way … always. Parental disapproval had not deterred him. But with the death of Titos, Sander’s older brother, the need to build bridges had increased a thousandfold, Petros reflected heavily.

‘Eleni’s family deserve to see you visit their English home again as a guest,’ Petros argued. ‘It’s not their fault that your brother died in the car crash and that his fiancée survived—’

Sander elevated a contradictory brow, his lean darkly handsome features grim while a glow of disagreement burned bright in his dark gaze. ‘Eleni only just escaped a charge of careless driving—’

‘They went out in Eleni’s car, so she was at the wheel!’ Petros snapped back at his son, frustrated by his unforgiving attitude. ‘It was a snowy night and the roads were treacherous. Have a little compassion and make allowances for human error. Eleni was devastated by Titos’ death.’

Not so devastated that she had resisted the urge to flirt with his younger brother within weeks of Titos’ funeral, Sander recalled with cynical cool. But he kept that salient fact to himself, well aware that his parent would gallantly protest that Sander must have misinterpreted her signals. Although only six months had passed since Titos’ demise, Sander had already become bleakly aware that that tragic event had transformed his prospects in the eyes of his peers. As his shipping tycoon father’s only surviving heir, he was now viewed as a much bigger catch than when he’d been seen as a mere maverick businessman cut loose from the family apron strings.

‘Relations between our respective families will relax again if you accept the invitation to stay at the Ziakis home,’ Petros declared.

Sander gritted his even white teeth, resenting the request, for he had no desire to fill his late brother’s shoes in any way. He liked his life just as it was and wondered if his parents were cherishing the ludicrous hope that he might miraculously warm to Eleni and marry her because she was an equally good catch in shipping terms. He almost winced at so depressing a prospect. Eleni might be beautiful and accomplished, but at twenty five years of age Sander had not the smallest desire to marry or settle down with one woman and his headline-grabbing private life remained as varied and adventurous as he could make it.

‘I would really appreciate this, Sander,’ the older man declared in a grudging undertone that hinted at how hard he found it to ask for a favour.

Sander studied the older man, reluctantly noticing the lines of age that grief had indented more heavily on his face. He was disturbed by that pull on his conscience and loyalty. But he could not fill the hole that Titos had left in their family. Having been the indisputable favourite from birth, his older brother would be an impossible act to follow. Sander had always refused to compete with his sibling because when he was quite young he had noticed that it had annoyed their parents when he’d outshone their firstborn. But what the hell was one weekend if it made his parents content that the social mores they based their entire lives on had been respected? Sander asked himself in sudden exasperation.

‘All right, I’ll go … this once,’ he felt moved to add, afraid that he might be creating a precedent and setting himself up for other boring social occasions.

‘Thank you. Your mother will be relieved. You’re almost certain to meet friends at Westgrave Manor and no doubt useful business connections as well,’ Petros continued, conscious that his son’s primary need to forge his own power base and fortune were more likely to influence him than anything else.

In the wake of that uncomfortable meeting neither man was best pleased with the other. Driven now by a desire to do his duty, Sander proceeded to an upper floor in the Athens town house to visit his grieving mother, Eirene. On his way his mobile buzzed and he checked the number: Lina, his current lover; this was already her third call since he’d left London. He switched his phone to silent, resolving to ignore her and ditch her at the first chance he got. A sense of injustice dogged him, though. What was it that turned women from exciting lovers into all-too-predictable demanding stalker types in search of a commitment he had already made clear he wasn’t offering?

As usual, his mother lamented Titos’ death as if it had only just happened. Sander submitted to being wept over and reproached for his deficiencies in comparison to his perfect brother before finally beating the fastest possible retreat back to the airport and the freedom that he revelled in. He knew it would be quite a few months before he could make himself visit again; going home was always a downer in his view.

CHAPTER ONE

‘OF COURSE you should go and take the opportunity to get to know your sister better,’ Binkie pronounced, beaming at the prospect of Tally being treated to a luxury weekend in a stately home. ‘You could do with a break after all the studying you’ve been doing.’

Unsurprised that the older woman had taken only the most positive view of the invitation, Tally swallowed back the admission that her father’s phone call and request had come as an unwelcome surprise. She pushed her honey-blonde curls off her brow with a rueful hand, her green eyes wary. ‘It’s not quite that simple. I got the impression that my father only wants me to go so that I can police Cosima’s every move—’

‘My goodness,’ Binkie cut in with a frown of dismay. ‘Did he say so?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Well, then, aren’t you being a bit too imaginative?’ Binkie asked in gentle reproof, her kindly brown gaze resting on the younger woman’s troubled face. ‘Granted your father rarely gets in touch but why immediately assume the worst of his motives? Maybe he simply wants his two daughters to get to know each other.’

‘I’m twenty years old and Cosima’s seventeen—if that’s what he wants why would he have waited so long?’

Tally responded wryly because, after a lifetime of disappointments and hurtful rejections, she was a dyed in the wool cynic when it came to either of her parents.

Binkie sighed. ‘Perhaps he has seen the error of his ways. People can mellow as they get older.’

Reluctant to parade her bitterness in front of the woman who was the closest thing she had ever had to a loving mother, Tally stared a hole in the table because Binkie was always an optimist and Tally was reluctant to make yet another negative comment. Binkie or, to be more formal, Mrs Binkiewicz, a Polish widow, had looked after Tally since she’d been a baby and had soon graduated from childcare to taking care of her employer’s household as well. Anatole Karydas was a very wealthy and powerful Greek businessman who had done his best to ignore his eldest daughter’s existence from birth. He hated Tally’s mother, Crystal, with a passion and Tally had paid the price for that hostility. Crystal had been a well-known fashion model, engaged to Anatole at the time that she’d fallen pregnant …

‘Of course I planned it!’ Crystal had admitted in a rare moment of honesty. ‘Your father and I had been engaged for over a year, but his precious family didn’t like me and I could see that he was going cold on the idea of marrying me.’

As, in the midst of that delicate situation, Crystal had been caught cheating with another man, Tally could only feel that her father had had some excuse for his waning matrimonial enthusiasm. Indeed, her parents had such different outlooks on life that she did not see how they could ever have made each other happy. Anatole, unfortunately, had never been able to forgive or forget the stinging humiliation of her mother’s betrayal or the embarrassing interviews she had sold to magazines maligning him in the aftermath of their break-up. He had also questioned the paternity of the child that Crystal was carrying. Ultimately, Crystal had had to take her ex-fiancé to court to get an allowance with which to raise her daughter and although her father had eventually paid his dues Tally had reached eleven years of age before he finally agreed to meet her. By that stage, Anatole had long since married a Greek woman called Ariadne with whom he’d also had a daughter, Cosima. Tally had always been made to feel that she was on the outside looking in and surplus to paternal requirements.

In fact she could count on two hands the number of times she had met her reluctant father. Currently a student in her last year of a degree course in interior design, however, Tally was conscious that Anatole had paid for her education and she was grateful for that because her spendthrift mother never had a penny to spare at the end of the month.

‘You like Cosima,’ Binkie pointed out cheerfully. ‘You were really pleased when you were invited to her seventeenth birthday party last year.’

‘That was different. I was a guest,’ Tally pointed out ruefully. ‘But my father made it clear on the phone that he was asking me to accompany Cosima this weekend to keep her out of trouble. Apparently she’s been drinking and partying too much and seeing some man he disapproves of.’

‘She’s very young. Naturally your father’s con cerned.’

‘But I don’t see how I could make a difference. I doubt very much if she would listen to me. She’s much more sophisticated than I am and very headstrong.’

‘But it’s heartening that your father trusts you enough to ask you to help, and Cosima does like you …’

‘She won’t like me much if I try to interfere with her fun,’ Tally retorted wryly, but she was far from impervious to the sound good sense of Binkie’s reasoning.

In truth, after a couple of brief encounters, organised mainly to satisfy the younger woman’s lively curiosity, Tally was the one still intrigued by her beautiful ornamental half-sister, who regularly appeared in the gossip columns rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous. The two young women had nothing in common in looks or personality and lived in different worlds. Cosima was the much loved and indulged daughter of a very rich man. She wore designer clothes and jewellery and was only seen out at the most fashionable social venues. The tougher realities that had shaped Tally and formed her attitudes had never touched Cosima, who had been cocooned in privilege from the day she was born. Cosima had never had to deal with unpaid bills or bailiffs or a mother who, when the cupboards were bare, would buy a new dress instead of food. Only the roof over their heads remained safe because the terraced town house in London where Tally lived with her mother and Binkie was an investment property belonging to her father.

It was there that the limousine called just over a week later to collect Tally. Having handed the driver a small weekend bag to stow away, she scrambled into the rear seat where her half-sister subjected her to a pained appraisal. ‘You’re dressed all wrong,’ Cosima complained, viewing Tally’s colourful raincoat and jeans with a grimace.

‘I have a typical student wardrobe and two business suits bought for my work experience last year and that’s pretty much it,’ Tally told her frankly, studying Cosima who was an extremely pretty girl with long black hair and big brown eyes, her slim figure beautifully set off by a fashionable mini dress and perilously high heels. ‘You look like you’re about to go out on the town.’

‘Of course. Some of the most eligible young men of my generation will be staying at Westgrave this weekend,’ Cosima remarked and then her vivacious face split into a huge grin. ‘You should see your face! That was me quoting Dad. He’d love to marry me off to some filthy-rich guy so that he could stop worrying about me. But I’ve already got a man.’

‘Great. Who is he?’ Tally enquired with interest and the lively enthusiasm that was the mainspring of her personality. She was grateful the attention was off her clothing deficiencies, because that so-visible difference between them had embarrassed her.

‘His name’s Chaz and he’s a DJ.’ Cosima veiled her gaze, her reluctance to share any more personal facts palpable. ‘Are you seeing anyone?’

‘Not right now, no,’ Tally fielded, her face warming when she thought about how long it was since she had gone out on a date. But then she loathed it when men she barely knew tried to paw her and was even more turned off when the same men were drunk. Finding a comparatively sober male on a night out, she had learned, was a challenge.

Being raised by a devoutly religious and moral woman like Binkie had put Tally rather out of step with her contemporaries. But having lived through the constant turmoil caused by her mother’s colourful love life, Tally had embraced Binkie’s outlook with gusto. Although now in her forties, Crystal remained a very beautiful woman. But none of her relationships had lasted, most of them being based on the most superficial male attributes and desires. Standing on the sidelines of such shallow affairs, Tally had long since decided that she wanted something more than just lust, a good laugh or an open wallet from a man, and she told herself that she was quite happy to sleep alone until she found it.

Cosima answered her ringing mobile phone and babbled in a torrent of Greek. Tally, who had attended evening classes in the language for several years, only to have her self-conscious efforts dismissed as ‘an embarrassment’ by her critical father, sealed her ears to the content of her half-sister’s chatter, aware that the younger woman had assumed that she spoke no Greek at all.

The limo was purring down a wooded lane by the time that Cosima ceased chattering. She slid her phone back into her bag and shot Tally a guarded look. ‘You know I’m not planning to tell my friends who you are. I’m sorry if that offends you but that’s the way it is,’ she declared. ‘If Dad had wanted to acknowledge you as his daughter you would have been given his name. That you don’t have our name says it all really.’

In response to that deeply wounding little announcement, Tally lost colour and before Cosima could add anything else, she said hurriedly, ‘So, for your friends’ benefit, who am I?’

‘Well, obviously, you’re still Tally Spencer, because that won’t remind anyone of anything—I mean, these days people don’t even remember Dad was ever engaged to anyone but my mother. But I certainly wouldn’t want all that dirty washing brought out. I think it would be safest to say that you work for me.’

‘In what capacity?’ Tally enquired with a frown.

Cosima wrinkled her delicate little nose. ‘You could say you’re my personal assistant and that you do my shopping and look after invitations and things for me. Some of my friends have employees like that. You know you’re only here in the first place because Dad said I couldn’t come without you!’ she complained petulantly.

Tally went red and nodded, her own quick temper surging, only to be suppressed by her common sense and intrinsic sense of tolerance for more volatile personalities. Cosima didn’t intend to be rude or hurtful. She was simply rather spoilt and accustomed to being everyone’s darling and she had not been taught to regard Tally as a real sibling.

‘As an employee I’ll be excluded from any activities and I won’t be able to look out for you.’

‘Why would I want you looking out for me?’ Cosima asked her witheringly. ‘You’ll be totally out of your depth mixing with my friends.’

‘I’ll try hard not to get under your feet or embarrass you in any way but I did promise our father that I would take care of you and I like to keep my promises,’ Tally retorted, tilting her chin and merely widening her fine eyes when her half-sister spat out a very rude word in challenging response. ‘And if you’re not prepared to let me try and do that, I might as well go home now—’

‘What choice does that give me? Dad would be furious if I stayed here without you in tow. I can’t believe we’re related—you’re so boringly stuffy, Tally!’ Cosima hissed as the luxurious car came to a halt in front of a big Victorian mansion surrounded by acres of beautifully kept lawn. ‘Isn’t it ironic that you remind me of Dad?’

Tally said nothing, reluctant to fan the flames.

‘You look like him as well,’ Cosima slung in bitter addition, lashing out like the child she still was in so many ways. ‘You’ve got his nose and you’re small and chubby. Thank heaven I took after my mother!’

Chubby? Tally clenched her teeth on that cutting comment. She had the shape of an hour-glass, full of breast and hip, but she had a tiny waist and did not have a weight problem. Did she look chubby? She winced. Small? Well, that was true. She was five feet two inches tall. Climbing out of the car, she watched her taller, slender half-sister greeting the leggy glamorous brunette at the imposing front door.

‘Eleni Ziakis, our hostess. Tally Spencer, my personal assistant,’ she announced chirpily.

A bunch of giggling young girls surged round Cosima in the echoing hall and it was left to Tally to follow the housekeeper upstairs. When Cosima joined them a moment later and saw Tally opening her weekend bag on one of the pair of single divan beds that furnished the bedroom, the younger woman turned to the housekeeper to say imperiously, ‘I can’t share a room with someone … I never share!’

An awkward few minutes followed while the older woman explained that all the guest rooms had already been allocated and Tally was forced to proclaim her willingness to sleep on bare boards if necessary. She was eventually shown up to another floor and put in a room already occupied by a member of the household staff who looked furious at the intrusion of a stranger. Taking the hint that her presence was unwelcome, Tally didn’t bother taking the time to unpack and quickly removed herself again to rejoin her sibling.

As she walked along the corridor on Cosima’s floor a tall broad-shouldered figure with a shock of damp spiky black hair appeared in a doorway. Unintentionally she froze and did a double take because the man wore only a towel wrapped round his lean brown hips. What wasn’t covered by the towel was buff enough to make even Tally stare. He stood over six feet in height and enjoyed the wide shoulders, muscular chest and corrugated six-pack stomach of an athlete. He was, without a doubt, the most gorgeous-looking guy she had ever seen with sculpted cheekbones, skin the colour of dulled gold and a beautifully shaped sensual mouth. The fact that he needed a shave and that black stubble accentuated his stubborn jaw line merely enhanced his masculine sex appeal. Tally was startled to discover that she literally couldn’t take her eyes off him.

‘I’ve just flown in from abroad and I’m too hungry to wait for dinner. I’d like sandwiches and coffee,’ he announced, brilliant dark golden eyes arrowing over her expectantly and lingering, for he instantly noticed that she was an exceptionally pretty girl, even if she wasn’t quite in his usual style. ‘Would that be possible?’

‘I’m sure it would be, but …’

‘I can’t raise anyone on the house phone. I did try.’ A scorching smile slashed his handsome mouth, lending him more charismatic pull than any guy with his already stunning looks required.

‘I’m not on the staff here,’ Tally told him gently.

‘You’re not?’ Sander studied her and the longer he looked, the more he liked what he saw. She had a knockout quality of warmth and friendliness that he found hugely attractive.

Her mass of dark blonde corkscrew ringlets was very unusual. Her eyes were the colour of shamrocks, her nose was endearingly freckled and her lush sexy mouth looked as though it would be most at home laughing or smiling. Her skin was as flawless as newly whipped cream. She was very natural, not a word or a state he was used to attaching to the women he met, and that intrigued him. He could tell at a glance that she didn’t take herself too seriously because no woman of his acquaintance would have been caught dead in her ordinary jeans and khaki T-shirt combo. On the other hand, those unprepossessing garments encased a very shapely figure that went in at all the right places and came out wonderfully generously in others. His hooded dark gaze rested appreciatively on the ripe swell of her breasts below the fine cotton top. He liked a woman to look like a woman, not a skinny boy.

Beneath that speculative appraisal, Tally was getting breathless. ‘No, I’m not on the staff but I’m not exactly a guest either. I’m here to sort of look after one of the younger guests.’ Registering that her tongue was running on without the guidance of her brain, she fell silent and coloured hotly at the way in which his attention was locked onto her breasts. She hated it when men did that but somehow when he did it, it sent an arrow of heat shooting down into her pelvis and her nipples tightened and stiffened uncomfortably inside her bra.

‘Look, if I see a member of staff downstairs I’ll mention your request,’ Tally assured him.

‘I’m Sander Volakis,’ he informed her lazily, his keen eyes trained to her like a hawk on the hunt. She was different and he, having recently dispensed with his latest bed partner because of her strident demands for his attention, was definitely in the mood for something different in the female line. Someone more low-key and less spoiled, he reasoned, a woman who might appreciate his interest without endeavouring to turn a casual affair into the romance of the century. A woman who worked for a living in an ordinary capacity would make a refreshing change from the celebrity beauties and models he usually dated. If she had no interest in achieving her fifteen minutes of fame, she might also be more trustworthy and less likely to flog the story of their affair to some mucky tabloid publication, he reasoned broodingly, for he loathed that kind of exposure in his private life.

Tally nodded, not recognising the name but liking the fracturing edge of the foreign accent that roughened his deep dark drawl.

‘And you are?’ he prompted, noting her lack of response to his name and encouraged by the tantalising suspicion that she might know nothing about him. No preset expectations would make for a more laid-back affair.

Tally blinked in surprise at the question. ‘Tally … Tally Spencer.’

‘And Tally is short for?’

People didn’t usually bother to ask and with reluctance Tally admitted, inwardly squirming, ‘Tallulah.’

Sander grinned, his amusement unhidden. ‘Lysander,’ he traded mockingly as he withdrew into his room again. ‘What were our parents thinking of?’

So preoccupied was Tally after that tantalising encounter that she almost walked head first into a pillar on the imposing landing that lay several yards further on. Blinking rapidly to clear her head, she descended the stairs and laughed at the recollection of the way her brain had gone walkabout and she had gawped at him as if he had magically dropped down from the sky. Evidently she was more susceptible to a good-looking guy than she had ever had reason to suspect. She was less amused by the recollection of her body’s hormonal reaction to him—that just embarrassed and irritated her. No man had ever made her feel silly and all hot and shivery in his presence before. Lysander Volakis, Greek, named for a Spartan general and built like one, her brain added with defiant force. She passed on his request for sandwiches to a maid passing through the hall.

Tally found Cosima in a girlie, giggly huddle in one corner of a gracious reception room and it didn’t take her teenaged sister’s warning look for Tally to decide that she was too mature to join the group without casting a dampener over their mood. There were drinks glasses on the table but there was no way of knowing who was drinking what in such a gathering. But Tally wondered anxiously if her sibling was consuming alcohol and if her father turned a blind eye to his daughter doing it a year short of the legal age limit. Determined not to get on the wrong side of her sister, however, she went off to explore the house and grounds.

Eleni Ziakis, his late brother’s former fiancée, delivered Sander’s sandwiches and coffee to his bedroom with her own fair hands and then she lingered as if her legs had turned to stone. Indeed so intent was the talkative brunette on ensuring his comfort, hanging on his every word and assuring him of how very welcome he was in her home, that she killed his appetite. It was steadily turning into the weekend from hell, Sander decided grimly when he finally saw her off. Eleni’s parents were not present to act as hosts, there was a bunch of teenyboppers running about the place with Eleni’s kid sister, Kyra, and Sander had walked into two of his ex-girlfriends within minutes of his arrival. One he was quite happy to catch up with, but the other—Birgit Marceau—was a less welcome sight. Birgit, the moody and tempestuous daughter of a French construction magnate, had taken their brief affair the year before way too seriously and had dealt badly with the break-up. Although Sander knew that he had done nothing wrong, he always felt uncomfortable when Birgit’s limpid brown eyes followed him mournfully round the room.

Tally wiled away an hour or so exploring the grounds before she ended up at the stable block, meeting and greeting the various mounts. Offered the chance to ride a friendly mare the following morning, she had to pass because she had never learned. She would once she was earning enough money to cover lessons, she told herself firmly. Crystal had insisted on her daughter attending ballet classes that she hated for years, but had refused to allow a little girl she already saw as worryingly tomboyish take horse-riding lessons.

Having little interest in clothes, money and men, Tally had not much in common with her mother. Her determination to live within her financial means and her dream of some day running her own interior design business were foreign to Crystal, who hated budgets and expected the man in her life to keep her. Tally’s enthusiasm for life and new experiences and her sheer energy were equally strange to her indolent mother.

‘Where have you been?’ Cosima demanded when Tally walked back into the big front hall.

‘Out seeing the horses,’ Tally confided.

Drawing closer, Cosima wrinkled her dainty little nose with distaste. ‘I can smell them on you!’

‘I’ll take a shower before dinner,’ Tally said cheerfully and she headed for the stairs just as Sander strolled down them, looking impossibly cool in well cut chinos and an open shirt.

‘Tally, you’ve been out doors,’ Sander noted, registering that her hair had been whipped into a gloriously wild tangle of streaming curls and her cheeks had been stung pink by the breeze. She looked more vibrant, sensual and kissable than ever. He loved the fact that she wasn’t fussing with her appearance or trying to duck his notice because her appearance was less than perfect. He could not recall when a woman had last been so real in his radius and it was a powerful attractant.

‘Saying hello to the horses,’ Tally confided with her ready smile, colliding with dark golden eyes fringed by sooty black lashes and feeling positively dizzy. Close up he was absolutely breathtaking and her mouth ran dry and her knees felt weak.

‘Maybe now that you’ve had a break you could take care of Cosima’s ironing. I’m afraid the staff are very busy this evening,’ another female voice interposed loudly.

Tally turned in some surprise to regard her hostess, Eleni Ziakis. ‘I’m sorry but why would I do Cosima’s ironing? I’m not her maid.’

‘No, she’s not,’ Cosima was quick to agree, her discomfiture patent in the face of Tally’s polite bewilderment.

Sander recognised with impatience that Eleni had spotted his interest in Tally and he strode off before his presence could trigger any further baiting from that source. Women, he thought in exasperation; can’t live with them, can’t live without them. His keen gaze was welded by libidinous male instinct to the voluptuous sway of Tally’s beautifully rounded backside as she climbed the stairs and the ready pulse of arousal at his groin let him know that he had gone without sex long enough to be getting uncomfortable. Her exuberant smile had informed him, should he ever have doubted the fact, that his interest was reciprocated. He would not be sleeping alone that night, he decided hungrily.

‘When the heck did you get to know Sander Volakis?’ Cosima gasped in disbelief, curiosity having sent her upstairs in her half-sister’s wake.

‘I ran into him earlier and he introduced himself … it’s no big deal,’ Tally fielded lightly.

‘The way Eleni was watching the two of you, it was a very big deal to her!’ Cosima laughed. ‘She used to be engaged to Sander’s older brother, Titos, but he was killed in a car crash last winter. I think Eleni’s trying to keep her interest in the family but she’ll have her work cut out. Sander is a real womaniser!’

In the midst of struggling to conceal her interest in those titbits of information, Tally was betrayed into turning right round and saying, ‘Is he?’

‘He has a new woman every month. Don’t waste your time, Tally,’ Cosima warned her. ‘Everybody dreams of pulling Sander but you’ll never make the grade.’

Tally flushed, her freckles standing out clearly against her fair complexion. ‘I have no desire to make the grade,’ she lied, and the very fact that she knew she was lying affronted her as she had always believed that she had more sense than to be attracted to the sort of arrogant guy who scored women like goals on the football pitch and marked a notch his bed post accordingly.

‘I’m not trying to put you down but you’re so not his type. He goes for really beautiful women … models, actresses,’ Cosima told her, her brown eyes scanning Tally’s unconsciously disappointed face with a touch of condescending amusement. ‘He’s got quite a reputation …’

‘I’m not interested in Sander Volakis!’ Tally proclaimed in a tone of annoyance.

Cosima made no attempt to hide her amusement. ‘Well, I wouldn’t say no if I got the chance and Dad would back me all the way—Sander is what is known as “eligible”, which basically means that the girl who gets him to the altar will have done very, very well for herself indeed!’

‘I gather he’s rich,’ Tally remarked, irritating herself, for while pride made her want to drop the subject, the curiosity that needled her and drove her on was stronger still.

‘I heard he made his first million before he even left school and even before you take his business interests into account you have to consider the family fortune,’ Cosima responded in a suitably lowered tone, an avaricious gleam in her gaze. ‘They made it in shipping and business is thriving.’

Tally actually found herself feeling sorry for Sander Volakis. Evidently his wealth and his family’s made him a target for ambitious socialites and gold-diggers. It struck her as ironic that Cosima, who had never ever had to worry about the cost of anything, should be so very obsessed with what everyone was worth, but that was how it was. Her half-sister measured people and their importance purely in terms of cash and Tally was very much aware that her own lack of money increased her lowly status in Cosima’s eyes.

However, when Cosima showed off her pathetically crumpled evening outfit Tally took pity on the younger girl. Cosima had never wielded an iron in her life but was forced to agree to try when Tally offered to teach her how it was done. For the first time Tally felt like a real sister and the two young women ended up in paroxysms of giggles over Cosima’s clumsy amateurish efforts at the ironing board.

‘What are you wearing?’ Cosima finally thought to ask.

‘Nothing very exciting.’

‘I’d loan you something but …’ Cosima glanced at their combined reflections in the wardrobe mirror and nothing more needed to be said. Cosima was tall and very slim while Tally was small and curvy. They would never be able to share clothes.

‘I’m fine.’ Tally was accustomed to such remarks, having grown up in the shadow of her taller, thinner mother who had tried to put her on a diet at the age of nine. Binkie had had to utilise a lot of tact to persuade Crystal that no amount of dieting was likely to give Tally the same long lean lines as her mother.

She donned her dull black chain-store dress knowing that, in her sombre apparel, purchased purely because it was suitable for so many purposes, she would resemble a crow amongst a flock of exotic birds. For the first time she looked at her reflection and experienced a daunting pang of regret for attributes she did not have. What evil fate had given her corkscrew curls, freckles and breasts like melons instead of straight silky hair and petite feminine proportions? Binkie had tried to teach her charge that looks weren’t important but Tally knew she lived in a world where appearance always counted. It mattered when you went for an interview and it mattered even more when you wanted to attract a man.

Did she really want to attract a wealthy womaniser? Who are you trying to kid? Tally scolded herself for being so silly and superficial all the way downstairs as she trailed in her effervescent teenaged sister’s wake. She espied Sander at the far end of the table seated beside Eleni Ziakis, who wore an eye-catching white gown that bared one shoulder, and she tried not to take strength from the fact that he looked bored stiff. Cosima was no company at all while she giggled with her friends, exchanged confidential chat in whispered Greek and texted constantly on her phone. When the meal was over, it was announced that drinks would be served afterwards.

‘I’m going to have an early night.’ Cosima smothered a yawn with one hand and complained, ‘I’m really sleepy and there’s a big party here tomorrow.’

Tally was relieved to be released from her chaperoning duties. Thinking cheerfully about the paperback romance she had packed, she was crossing the hall towards the staircase when Sander intercepted her.

‘Tally …’

Tally spun round and tipped her head back, dark blonde curls spiralling back from her cheekbones where the ready colour of awareness ignited the minute she met intent dark golden eyes. ‘Yes?’

‘Let’s go out for a drink,’ he suggested lazily, his attention roaming inexorably from her bright beautiful eyes down to her generous mouth and the voluptuous breasts shaped by her dress.

‘I was thinking more of going to bed …’ she began, tempted almost beyond bearing to say yes there and then. However, when she caught the amused gleam of confidence in his stunning gaze betraying his appreciation of her unintentional double entendre, she grasped the fact that he was expecting her to spend the night with him. As she turned cold at the suspicion that he saw her as a very sure thing in that respect, she glimpsed Eleni Ziakis staring coldly at them from a doorway and her colour heightened even more.

Her light ‘Thanks but no thanks’ tripped off her tongue without hesitation.

Startled by the kind of refusal that so rarely came his way, Sander stared down at her with a searching frown.

Awkward with the resulting silence, Tally felt prompted to fill it with a reasonable excuse and said, ‘I’ve got a great book to read.’

Sander, glib of tongue though he was, had no answer for that and Tally, conscious of how silly that last comment had been and hot with mortification at her ineptitude, fled upstairs. Mercifully her reluctant room mate was nowhere to be seen and Tally climbed into bed with her book. The adventures of a heroine who seemed to attract an incredible number of different men, not one of whom she wanted, only irritated Tally and the mood she was now in and she put the book aside and doused the light. But sleep was not so easy to find, for her thoughts were running back and forth over Sander’s brief invitation, and questioning why she had turned him down flat and in a way that would ensure he would never ask her again.

His approaching her when there were so many beautiful young alternatives available had shocked her. She knew she didn’t fit in with the exclusive guests staying at Westwood Manor. She didn’t have the right clothes, the right accent, background or attitude. So why had he selected her for his invitation? Could it have been because he assumed that she would be flattered, impressed to death and a pushover in the sex stakes? Or was that her low self-esteem doing the talking instead of her brain?

After all, a rich, sophisticated, good-looking guy had asked her out and she had said no because she was unprepared, and because deep down inside she was so insecure that she had felt he had to have an ulterior and base motive for choosing her. That was pathetic and most likely nonsense, she told herself impatiently, thoroughly irritated by the manner in which she had reacted. She fell asleep wishing she had said yes, wishing it over and over again …

Tally awoke a short time later with a start to find the light on and her room mate noisily rummaging through a drawer. She sat up blinking and, as she did so, her attention fell on a dainty vanity case sitting behind the door. Dismay filled her because it was a designer piece that belonged to Cosima; her half-sister was bound to be looking for it. Checking her watch and registering that it was only midnight, Tally got up, pulled on her robe and grabbed the case, planning to slide it just inside Cosima’s bedroom on the floor below.

But when she gently opened the door a small way, she peered through the crack and saw the bedroom was still brightly lit and the bed unoccupied. Entering the room and setting the vanity case down on the dressing table, she noted that the bathroom was empty as well and she wondered where Cosima was. It was when she was walking back across the main landing that she thought she heard her sibling’s voice and that it sounded oddly shrill. Approaching the banister, she looked down into the hall below.

She was astonished to see that the massive front door was standing wide and that Sander Volakis was guiding her swaying sister towards the stairs. My goodness, had they been out somewhere together? I wouldn’t say no if I got the chance, her half-sister had admitted earlier. Had Cosima said yes where Tally had said no? But Tally had no time to consider those daunting questions as Cosima was noisily chattering in slurred and hiccuping Greek, her eye make-up smeared round her eyes and her short skirt rucked up to show too much thigh. It was clear that she had over-indulged in some substance and that, as a result, she could hardly walk. Appalled by what she was seeing, Tally hurried down the stairs to find out how the younger woman had got into such a state …

CHAPTER TWO

‘WHAT on earth have you done to her?’ Tally demanded angrily before she even reached the hall.

Sander Volakis shot her an outraged look from scorching golden eyes. ‘This is not a conversation you and I are going to have …’

Tally folded her arms and blocked his path. ‘I assure you that we are going to have that conversation, whether you want it or not. It looks as though Cosima’s been drinking. Are you aware that she’s only seventeen?’

‘Aren’t you the one who’s supposed to be looking after her?’ Sander slashed back in blatant condemnation. ‘Tonight, you’re doing a lousy job of it!’

Tally was mortified, her fair skin blossoming pink at that jibe, which hit her right where it hurt. Evidently Cosima had pulled the wool over her eyes earlier that evening by faking tiredness and assuring her that she was going straight to bed. Having got Tally off her case she had then, it seemed, gone out. With Sander? Something hideously raw and painful twisted inside Tally’s stomach as she tried to deal with that unwelcome thought. Eleni Ziakis joined them, took in the situation at a glance and stared with a raised brow at Tally, making her writhingly aware that she was only wearing a wrinkled nightie and robe. As Eleni’s kid sister appeared at her elbow, the brunette spoke quietly to her and then said, ‘Kyra will take Cosima straight up to bed. Clearly she’s been drinking. It’s really not a good idea to attract attention to her condition by causing a scene, Miss Spencer—’

Tally compressed her full pink mouth. ‘I wasn’t aware that I was causing a scene. I would simply like to know what happened.’

‘Cosima is in no fit state right now to tell you and I can assure you that her parents would prefer this matter to be kept private,’ Eleni pointed out drily as Kyra took charge of Cosima and coaxed her carefully upstairs.

Sander thrust open a door on the other side of the hall. ‘We’ll discuss it in here, Tally.’

Tally knew that she was being challenged and she reckoned that he was so sharp he was in danger of cutting himself. She recognised the angry passionate glow in his gaze and the trace of aggressive colour accentuating the angles of his superb cheekbones. He had taken offence as only a guy unaccustomed to censure could do and she suspected that he was, at heart, the owner of a temperament as volatile as a smouldering volcano. And a trait that previously she loathed in her impulsive and often contrary mother suddenly became a deep and abiding source of fascination.

‘This really isn’t necessary, Sander,’ Eleni Ziakis declared. ‘There is no need for you to make any sort of explanation to anyone. Miss Spencer is being stupid and offensive.’

‘I can handle this alone, thank you,’ Sander fielded smoothly, ushering Tally past him and shutting the door in the brunette’s face.

‘Where did you take Cosima tonight?’ Tally questioned shortly.

‘I didn’t take her anywhere. Why would I have?’ A scornful dark brow elevated at the idea. ‘To me, she’s a little girl. I believe she and a group of her friends booked a taxi to take them to the pub in the village. When I arrived there the barman was refusing to serve Cosima any more alcohol without proof of ID. She had a blazing argument with him before stalking out in a temper.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ Tally groaned when he had finished speaking. ‘She told me she was having an early night.’

‘How many teenagers do you know?’ Sander derided in disbelief. ‘An early night?’

‘All right, all right,’ Tally sighed, feeling very foolish for being so trusting. ‘So what happened after that?’

‘I had one drink and left the pub about an hour later. Driving back I came upon Cosima sitting on a wall about a mile out of the village. She was so drunk she could barely stand and although I really didn’t want to get involved I didn’t feel that I could just leave her there. She got into my car and started crying hysterically—apparently she had arranged to meet her boyfriend at the pub but he didn’t show up.’

Embarrassed colour was creeping up below Tally’s skin, making her feel hot and uncomfortable. As she shifted position Sander focused fully on her and his attention could only linger on the magnificent expanse of the cleavage revealed by her open robe and low-necked nightie, the lace-decorated edge of which was gradually sliding apart and performing a very poor job of hiding her superb breasts, which were high and full and round. Just looking at that magnificent swell of feminine flesh, he got hard as steel.

‘I had no idea Cosima had even gone out,’ Tally admitted, sucking in a sustaining breath in the silence that suddenly seemed deafening.

‘And if she did sneak out, you didn’t want it to be with me,’ Sander finished in shrewd silken addition.

At that crack, Tally literally froze as it hit her in the back like an unexpected bullet and left her reeling. For an instant she could not credit what he had dared to insinuate. ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to say,’ she framed, playing dumb with all her might.

‘You know exactly what I’m saying. I was looking at you when you first saw me with Cosima,’ Sander declared with supreme assurance, brilliant golden eyes astonishingly vivid below the heavy fringe of his black lashes. ‘You didn’t like it. You were angry with me more because you were jealous than because you thought I had been fooling around with Cosima!’

Tally went rigid, the colour in her cheeks seeping away as mortification crept through her like a freezing, debilitating fog. ‘That is totally ridiculous. I hardly know you—why on earth would I be jealous?’

‘You tell me.’ As Sander voiced that invitation an insolent smile crept across his beautiful wilful mouth. And it was beautiful, she thought in almost pained recognition, as truly beautiful as he was altogether. He was an almost perfect masculine specimen, so gorgeous she couldn’t stop looking and drinking him in like a life-enhancing elixir.

‘I know enough about women to know what I read in your eyes, glikia mou,’ he extended.

Her hands closed into tight angry fists. ‘You didn’t read anything in my eyes because there was nothing there to be read!’

‘Liar … liar,’ Sander rhymed smoothly and coolly enough to send a current of violent anger rushing through Tally’s small still figure. For the very first time in her life she was mad enough at a man to want to hit him and to understand why provocation made people lose control. He might as well have tossed a hand grenade into the once tranquil pool of her mood, for all of a sudden she was on edge and ready to fight to defend her pride.

‘You’re incredibly vain,’ Tally condemned furiously, watching him move closer with the same wariness with which she might have watched a lion strolling free of a cage. That lithe long-limbed grace of his simply enhanced his sex appeal so that in spite of her annoyance she found herself trapped into staring at him, studying his every move with an appetite for the visual that was new to her. ‘I don’t even like you.’

‘I don’t need you to like me,’ Sander murmured, his perceptive dark scrutiny welded to her wide green eyes as he basked in the unwilling hunger he saw etched there. ‘I only need you to want me.’

A prickling sensation touched the skin at the nape of Tally’s neck as if that keen look of his had actually touched her. Part of her wanted to run away, but an even greater part wanted to see the moment out and cap his every comment. She had the vague spooky suspicion that someone was walking over her grave and that she was getting a wake-up call to finally experience that something she had waited so very long to find. She might want to slap him, she might want to shout at him and punish him for his exceedingly arrogant assumptions, but all of those very basic promptings were outrageously entangled with a very powerful desire for him to kiss her … and for her to taste him. He exuded a masculine strength that drew her even as it awakened her hostility. A pool of heat was forming low in her stomach while her bra was starting to feel like a metal restraint over the straining curves of her breasts.

‘And you do want me,’ Sander Volakis pronounced with confidence, dark eyes flaring to hot gold as he searched her heart-shaped face because, for a moment while she sparred with him, he had wondered if just for once he could have got it wrong. She had, after all, turned him down when he’d asked her out earlier but now, seeing that familiar look of desire in her gaze, he was already wondering if that refusal could’ve been a feminine ploy to spur his interest with a false show of indifference. ‘Just as I want you, glikia mou.’

It was that roughened masculine admission that slashed through Tally’s angry defences like a cruelly efficient steel blade since, until that moment, no man had ever contrived to make Tally feel insanely attractive and sexy. But Sander Volakis achieved that miracle at one stroke. While he studied her with scorching intensity and with a hunger he couldn’t hide, excitement was lighting her up inside like a fantastic firework display and she smiled in delighted acknowledgement of an appeal she had not known she had.

In receipt of that encouraging smile he pulled her up against his lean, strongly built frame and brought his wide sensual mouth down on hers with demanding fervour. The skilled slide of his tongue between her parted lips sent a jolt of excruciating pleasure roaring through Tally like an electric shock but that initial sweetness was swiftly followed up by a fierce sense of unbearable craving. The kiss wasn’t enough, nowhere near enough to meet the hunger that had fired her every skin cell with yearning. As she made an unconscious sound of dissatisfaction, her fingers dug tautly into his broad shoulders and she strained against the hard muscular contours of his broad chest and long, powerful thighs, urgently needing that physical contact to satisfy the tingling sensitivity of her nipples and the gnawing ache stirring between her legs.

In answer, Sander wrapped his arms round her and crushed her ripe mouth beneath his again, revelling in the taste of her and the lush firm softness of her shapely body against him. He wanted to gather her up and carry her off to bed to sate the fierce hunger she roused in him. He laced long fingers into the mass of her blonde curls and tipped her head back, meshing with glorious green eyes enhanced by skin the colour of clotted cream. Once again he attempted to pinpoint the source of her powerful attraction. Was it the fearless honesty of those eyes, which met his with no hint of the coy suggestiveness and secrecy he was more accustomed to seeing? Or the wild sensuality with which she surrendered to his mouth and gave him back kiss for fiery kiss, stoking his desire to ever greater heights? In bed, he suspected, her passion would be a perfect spontaneous match for his own.

A mobile phone buzzed. Tally blinked like someone who having been hypnotised, was now being called back to awareness and immediately raised her hands to break free of his hold and step back from him, her sudden rigidity an instant rejection of the new intimacy they had established.

Perfectly attuned to her, Sander frowned as he switched his phone off. ‘Don’t be like that,’ he groaned.

Tally was hot and dizzy. Dismayed to see that her robe was hanging open, she wrapped it more securely round her and reknotted the sash. Her hands were trembling and she was breathing rapidly, her bemused thoughts in freefall but that fast she understood that what he had just made her feel was the biggest temptation she had ever withstood. And she knew that what they had both felt was almost frighteningly powerful. Her nipples were tight, hard and almost stinging in response and at the heart of her she was uncomfortably hot and damp with a desire that clawed at her every sense. The taste of him? He tasted so unbelievably good that she could only want more …

Sander extended a lean brown hand. ‘Come …’

‘No, don’t say it!’ Tally urged, backing off another defensive step, feeling ridiculously like a woman in danger of losing her immortal soul. ‘Goodnight, Sander.’

‘You’re not serious?’ Sander breathed incredulously as she reached the door.

‘Very serious.’ Her hand closed tightly round the door knob and she refused to take the chance to turn her head and look at him again. ‘I don’t want anything else to happen.’

As the door swung shut on her quick exit Sander swore in raw and angry disbelief below his breath. What was the matter with her? Was the cut and run response her concept of flirtation? He had never ever got so hot with a woman only to have her walk away from him, leaving him unsatisfied. Nor had he ever been so surprised by the power of a woman to attract him. The prospect of a cold shower to cool his urgently aroused body had zero attraction.

Tally went to check on Cosima and found her sound asleep on top of the bed. Slipping off her half-sister’s shoes, she arranged a throw over the younger girl and suppressed a sigh. She would not hold spite: tomorrow she would try harder to win Cosima’s trust and perhaps she would get the chance to persuade her sibling that she was not sharing her weekend with some kind of prison warder.

But as Tally crept into the room she was sharing and slid back below the duvet on her bed, she was most troubled on her own behalf. When it came to the male sex she had always believed that she was intelligent and sensible and she had, if she was honest, looked down on several of the impulsive romantic choices her mother, Crystal, had made over the years. Yes, she acknowledged shamefacedly, she had felt quite superior in that field, convinced that she would never do anything half so foolish, so possibly she had deserved to be shot down in flames for being smug and short-sighted.

She had thought she knew it all and learned that in truth she was no more sophisticated than a toddler when it came to men. One salient fact had escaped her. Until she had actually experienced a genuinely powerful attraction to a man, she had not known what she was talking about. In the space of twenty-four hours, Sander Volakis had taught her things about herself that she really hadn’t wanted to find out. Meeting Sander had proved to be a horribly humbling experience, she reflected ruefully. She had learned that just being near him could make her as giddy, hot and incapable of rational thought as an empty-headed adolescent. She had learned that she was human and fallible and capable of doing foolish things. She had also learned that refusing to give way to so strong a desire and practising self-denial could actually hurt.

Little wonder, then, that her mother had wrecked so many of her relationships by being unfaithful. Crystal Spencer had never said no to such an attraction when it came her way, had never put her current lover or indeed her child’s stability ahead of sexual temptation. Crystal had done as she liked, when she liked, and had often paid the price for it. But Tally had also paid a high price too.

On more than one occasion, a young Tally had become attached to one of her mother’s live-in boyfriends and that man’s subsequent sudden disappearance from her life had distressed and confused her. At a tender age she had decided that men weren’t reliable and that it was safer not to care for them. It was only when she was older, and with hindsight, that she’d had to admit it was her mother’s behaviour that had often destroyed those relationships.

In any case, getting involved with Sander Volakis would lead nowhere. At least, it would have led her upstairs to his bedroom tonight, she admonished herself, well aware of his intentions. And deferred pleasure was definitely not something Sander knew much about. They had kissed and both had liked it and wanted more, and Sander would’ve seen no reason why they shouldn’t immediately satisfy that desire. She had known exactly what was on his mind, had felt the urgency of his need against her and had recognised her own.

Maybe she was going to die a virgin, Tally thought in sudden horror, untouched by human hand and unwanted. Sander was too cool to chase her uphill and down dale in the hope that she might relent. Her sudden astounding desirability to a male of his looks and worldly status must just have been a fluke, one of those crazy inexplicable things.

Utterly crazy, she repeated doggedly to herself. They had nothing in common aside of the fact that she was Greek on her father’s side and Sander didn’t even know that because her father and his family were in no hurry to tell people who she was. She and Sander inhabited different worlds. By all accounts he was a wealthy highflying businessman while she was a student. How much did she even share with Cosima who came from that same exclusive world of privilege? Precious little, she acknowledged sadly.

Yet, wasn’t this supposed to be the stage of her life when she made mistakes and discovered who she really was? When she broke the rules and experimented? But jumping into bed with Sander Volakis would definitely be a big mistake. There would be no future with him and she would only get hurt. Did every relationship have to have a future? Did serious feelings always have to be involved? Was there no room for anything lighter and more temporary?

In her single bed, Tally tossed and turned and fought with herself. It wasn’t as though she wanted to fall in love and get married any time soon. It wasn’t as though she was daft enough to imagine that Sander even cherished any long-term intentions where she was concerned. Crystal Spencer’s daughter could not be that naïve for, as a teenager, she had often been mortified to meet some strange man at the breakfast table while her mother flirted happily with her overnight guest, impervious to her daughter’s embarrassment.

As it was dawn before Tally got to sleep, she awoke late. She was utterly disorientated when she was shaken to by Cosima the next day and discovered that it was already the afternoon.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ she mumbled, pushing her tumbled curls off her brow and sitting up. ‘How long have you been up?’

Her sibling was infuriatingly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for a young woman who had gone to bed under the influence of alcohol. ‘Long enough to play a couple of games of tennis this morning and then have lunch. Now the men are off on a shoot and we’re going shopping, so you had better get up—’

‘Shopping? Why?’ Tally responded, pushing back the duvet.

‘That question says it all, Tally. There is no such thing as why when it comes to shopping!’ Cosima told her. ‘There’s a big party here tonight and you can’t possibly wear that cheap LBD again, and I want something new as well.’

‘About last night …’ Tally began awkwardly.

‘Don’t preach,’ Cosima urged with a steely look. ‘But I do owe you an apology for this room—it’s a dive.’

Tally absorbed the younger woman’s grimace at the faded walls and worn furniture deemed suitable for staff rather than guests and laughed. ‘It’s not that bad. What happened to Chaz last night?’

Cosima stiffened defensively at that question about her boyfriend. ‘He didn’t turn up because he couldn’t—he got lost,’ she said with an air of defiance that suggested that some of her friends might already have been less than impressed by that excuse.

Tally found herself being hustled out of the mansion and into a customised Range Rover that belonged to one of her sister’s friends. As she had not had the chance to have anything to eat her stomach was growling with hunger. During the drive back to London she tried to get Cosima to talk about Chaz but her sibling was disappointingly reluctant to part with any information.

Westgrave Manor was buzzing with bustling staff and caterers when Tally returned in a cab, the other girls having kept late beauticians’ appointments at the local spa. Her father phoned and asked how the weekend was going. Tally told no tales but she did take the opportunity to ask what he had against her sister’s boyfriend.

‘Charles Roberts has drug convictions. He’s an unscrupulous character and I don’t want him anywhere near my daughter,’ Anatole Karydas admitted grimly.

Tally made use of Cosima’s en-suite bathroom as she had been told to do, showering and washing and drying her hair. This afternoon had been fun. Her sibling had insisted on buying her a new dress and, although the turquoise satin mini dress with the bejewelled neckline had a shorter hemline than Tally usually wore, she felt amazing in it, loving the bright zingy colour and the way it seemed to light up her face. She had no idea what it had cost and had no intention of asking. Sometimes she felt aged by the lowering awareness that she was generally more sensible than her mother and just for once she wanted to feel young and carefree without sweating the serious stuff.

Dinner was served as a buffet. Starving as she was, Tally helped herself to food and then when she saw Sander’s proud dark head from a distance she abandoned that plate lest he think she was a greedy pig and filled another plate with a more sparing selection. Like lightning, she felt the excitement of him even being in the same room and she could barely credit the immaturity of her reactions, but her heart was already beating so fast and so violently it felt as though it were lodged at the foot of her throat and she couldn’t eat.

A dark-haired young man smiled down at her and pressed a moisture-beaded glass into her hand. ‘Have some champagne. I don’t think we’ve met,’ he murmured pleasantly. ‘I’m Robert Miller …’

‘Tally Spencer … gosh, this is awkward.’ She laughed, struggling to maintain a grip on the glass, the plate and the cutlery, not to mention the evening bag dangling on her wrist.

He took the plate for her and urged her over to a table.

A surge of dark fury rippling through him and sending golden sparks flaring in his dark eyes, Sander watched the whizz-kid software designer, Robert Miller, moving in on Tally. She did look incredibly sexy in her turquoise dress, its jewelled neckline seductively showcasing the creamy upper slopes of her breasts while the hemline showed off a good deal more of her shapely legs than had been on display the night before. The tightening swelling at his groin set his even white teeth on edge because he usually enjoyed a firmer hold on his libido.

As Cosima moved past, clinging to the arm of a tall man with dirty-blond hair spiked up, Tally called her name. Her sibling came to a reluctant halt to perform an introduction. While Cosima announced that her boyfriend had a booking at a fashionable club later that evening, Tally was instantly wary of Chaz, with his calculating blue eyes and tight controlling grip on the younger woman. At least thirty years of age, he was much older than she had expected and far too mature for a seventeen-year-old, she thought worriedly.

‘I’ll be leaving with Chaz soon to go to the club and I probably won’t bother coming back here,’ the teenager spelt out. ‘But you mustn’t tell Dad …’

Her heart sinking, Tally lifted her chin. ‘I won’t lie to him, Cosima.’

Angry resentment blazed in her sibling’s eyes. ‘But you have to—’

‘I don’t have to do anything,’ Tally responded with gentle regret. ‘And neither do you. I think you should finish out the weekend here with your friends.’

The younger woman hissed something very rude and stalked away. Wincing, Tally turned back to her companion. ‘Sorry about that, but I’m supposed to be looking after her.’

‘I suspect she’s quite a handful,’ Robert remarked with the wry smile of a man able to take a smart-mouthed teenager very much in his stride, pulling out a chair for her to sit down. ‘Anatole Karydas’ kid, isn’t she? Do you work for him?’

Uncomfortable with that pretence insisted on by Cosima, Tally half turned her head away. ‘Sort of …’

The passage of her uneasy gaze screamed to a halt on Sander, who was watching her from the other side of the room. One glimpse of his lean, darkly handsome features made her gulp, drove her mind blank. Even at that distance his beautiful dark deep-set eyes could make her shiver with helpless awareness and tug her nipples into stinging tightness below her clothing. She had never felt like that before and the tingling pool of warm dampness gathering low in her body fascinated her as he awakened her sexuality as no other man ever had.

A waiter approached her with a glass on the tray. ‘Miss Karydas sent it over with her compliments.’

‘Oh …’ Tally skimmed a brief glance at the fancy colourful cocktail and looked around for her sibling but couldn’t see her. Was this Cosima’s way of apologising? The glass was set down in front of her.

‘If you don’t eat your food will get cold,’ Robert Miller drawled.

Dragging her attention from Sander Volakis demanded every atom of self-discipline Tally possessed. She loved to look at him and the temptation to stare at the sculpted masculine perfection of his face pulled at her with embarrassing persistence. She sat down, glanced at the food and realised her appetite had vanished. She took an exploratory sip of the drink she had been sent instead. It was very fruity and much more to her taste than alcohol usually was.

‘Tally …’ Sander murmured, casting a long dark shadow over the table with his brooding stance. ‘Robert …’

Glancing up to encounter shimmering golden eyes and sensing the angry dissatisfaction he was struggling to hide in the set quality of his smile and his clenched fingers, Tally began to stand up. It was a visceral reaction to the unspoken emotional demand in his gaze and her immediate awareness that he did not like seeing her in another man’s company. Sander was jealous. No man had ever been possessive of Tally before and, although for the first time in her life she was feeling her power as a woman, she discovered that she had not the smallest desire to use it on him.

Besides, the volatile flash of the hot-blooded temperament he could not hide thrilled and fascinated her. Eleni Ziakis joined them and began to make determined conversation. In the midst of it Sander boldly closed his hand over Tally’s to tug her out from behind the table. Only pausing to throw Robert an apologetic glance, Tally grabbed her colourful drink and made no objection to Sander closing an arm round her to lock her against his lean, powerful body in a demonstration that lit annoyance in Eleni’s dark eyes. Tally ignored the other woman. Retrieved by Sander and momentarily mentally engaged in reliving the demanding urgency of his mouth on hers the night before, Tally was supremely happy but ever so slightly dizzy.

‘Tonight you’re with me,’ Sander informed her darkly as he walked her away.

‘And tomorrow?’ Tally dared, snatching a thirst-quenching gulp of her drink.

Sander paused, looked down at her and lifted a lean brown hand to push a handful of blonde-coloured corkscrew curls behind one small ear in a confident caressing movement. His scorching golden eyes were welded to her heart-shaped face and she could not have broken free of that hold had her life depended on it. ‘Tomorrow you’ll still be with me, glikia mou,’ he asserted, his other hand closing to her hip to urge her small curvy body closer to his.

And even through their clothing she could feel the long hard ridge of his erection and a dark forbidden excitement gripped her then.

‘What are you drinking?’ Sander prompted huskily.

‘I don’t know … Cosima sent it over. I was surprised because we’d had a disagreement and she was annoyed with me.’ Tally frowned a little because she could hear her words slurring.

‘What did you disagree about?’

‘She wanted to leave with her boyfriend and I said I wouldn’t cover up for her with her father. The boyfriend has drug convictions,’ she whispered thickly, her tongue feeling too large for her mouth and bumping into her teeth.

‘Let me get you something to eat,’ he urged.

‘Not hungry … in fact I feel a bit weird,’ Tally confided, because her lower limbs felt oddly detached from the rest of her body and clumsy and it was taking major effort to get her lips and her tongue to frame words properly.

‘How much have you had to drink?’

‘Only this one … I swear,’ she added vehemently when he sent her a suspicious look. ‘I can’t believe that I’m feeling like this after just one drink …’

Clutching his arm to steady herself on her jellied legs, she was relieved when he slotted her in behind a table and she could give up the struggle to stand upright. Her head felt too heavy for her neck and she propped her chin up on her upturned hand. She felt awful and could feel the world around her fading and closing in round her. ‘Sander … I’m so sorry … I think I’m going to pass out …’

As she began to slump Sander signalled Cosima, who was watching them fixedly. He lifted the glass. ‘Do I give this to the police?’

‘The police?’ Tally struggled to sit up again, mumbling in shock.

‘The police?’ Cosima squealed in horror.

‘You spiked Tally’s drink—’

‘No … police …’ Tally managed to frame with dogged emphasis, catching a glimpse of her sibling’s stricken guilty face. ‘No police.’

‘Was she getting in the way of your fun? Well, you just got in the way of mine!’ Sander completed harshly as Tally slumped down on her forearms on the table top. ‘Not a good idea, Cosima. Now you have to tell me what was put in that drink and I’ll decide what to do next. Meanwhile the boyfriend leaves. Eleni doesn’t want anyone spiking drinks at her party.’

Cosima was watching Sander as a snake watched a snake charmer and fright and fury were warring for top billing on her lovely face. Tally blinked drowsily and then finally closed her weighted eyes in relief. Not even a fire alarm could have roused her from her comatose state …

CHAPTER THREE

TALLY felt wonderfully comfortable as she opened her eyes slowly to focus on the elaborately gathered oyster silk canopy above her …

Propelled by sudden alarm, she sat up with a start, her widened eyes scanning her unfamiliar surroundings in dismay. This was not the bedroom she had been allotted. Morning light was seeping round the edges of the drapes and illuminating the opulent contours of a big room furnished with antiques. This was not Cosima’s room, either. Her attention fell on the masculine clothing draped on a nearby chair and her attention immediately shot to her own body below the sheets. Finding her bra and pants still in place, she winced when she recognised the turquoise dress she had worn the night before lying on the floor in a heap with her shoes and evening bag. Her last memories of the party came flooding back, before she noticed the fact that the pillow beside hers bore an imprint and heard the unmistakeable sound of water running beyond the door that was ajar at the far side of the bed. A door that led to an en-suite bathroom?

Tally was disconcerted and wired with consternation when Sander Volakis, his lean bronzed features extraordinarily handsome, strolled into the bedroom with only a towel anchored round his lean hips. He looked amazing, from his wide brown shoulders to the corrugated flatness of his stomach and long powerful legs. ‘Ah … you’re awake,’ he pronounced in the most incredibly calm greeting.

Hugging the sheet to her throat, Tally viewed him furiously over the edge of it. ‘How on earth did I get here? What happened? Did you sleep here last night as well?’

‘Naturally, this is my room,’ Sander supplied lazily.

‘So what am I doing here?’

‘There was nobody else to take on the job of looking after you. After the doctor had checked you over—’

‘The doctor?’ Tally gasped, becoming suddenly ludicrously aware that her hair was probably standing on end and her make-up smeared all over her face. Her most pressing desire then was to leap under the bed and hide but she was forced to sit there, the squirming focus of his uncomfortably steady scrutiny. ‘What doctor?’

‘Eleni and I thought it best to have the local GP check you out in case it was necessary for you to go to hospital. Cosima swore that she only put a sleeping pill—which she got from a friend, not the boyfriend according to her,’ Sander explained drily. ‘The GP asked for the bottle, consulted a colleague by phone and decided you were unlikely to suffer any lasting harm. He then gave Cosima a lecture about the risks of giving unprescribed drugs to third parties that left her in hysterics.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ Tally groaned, cringing at the amount of fuss and drama her passing out had caused. But she was genuinely disturbed that her sibling had subjected her to such a dangerous experiment and resolved to have a serious talk with the younger woman. However, at that moment she had a more pressing cause for concern: the presence of her underwear suggested that nothing intimate had occurred between her and Sander but she wanted to be sure. ‘I gather that … er … we didn’t do anything last night?’ she prompted, her cheeks reddening fierily.

‘I like my women awake,’ Sander asserted. ‘Awake, lively and consenting. I would never take advantage of a woman while she was helpless.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you but I still don’t understand why I seem to have spent the night in your room …’

‘Cosima didn’t volunteer to assist you and I chose not to leave you in the hands of the staff. None of them knew you. I wanted to be sure you were all right.’

‘Thanks.’ Unable to sit there any longer when she needed to use the bathroom, Tally wriggled out from below the sheet, hurried round the foot of the bed and sped for the bathroom like a runner sprinting for the finishing line.

Happily engaged in enjoying the view of her lush breasts and bottom bouncing in the inadequate support of a skimpy black bra and knickers, Sander just laughed as the door shut behind her. He loved her small but wonderfully curvaceous body and she was shy, which he was even less accustomed to. Shy, possibly even a little prudish, which would be an even more unfamiliar female trait for him, he acknowledged wryly, since the women he usually shared a bed with thought nothing of nudity. He’d had to have a very cold shower in the middle of the night to douse the flames of arousal caused by Tally cuddling her half-naked curves up against him.

Tally loosed a moan of horror at her tousled reflection in the many mirrors surrounding her. It was the bathroom from hell, she decided, unnerved by the number of reflections hitting her from every angle. Grabbing up a masculine comb, she began to enforce order on her curls while striving to discourage the frizz factor. After washing her face and making use of one of the new toothbrushes on offer, she stepped into the shower. She was still embarrassed by the gauche manner in which she had fled from the bedroom.

After all, in the circumstances, Sander Volakis had behaved surprisingly well for a male with the reputation of a rich, spoilt womaniser. Although he hardly knew her and their relationship only encompassed a passionate kiss or two, last night when it mattered he had looked out for her and looked after her. A lot of blokes would just have turned their backs and walked away from so awkward a scenario. That he hadn’t taken the easy way out really impressed her.

Donning the white towelling robe on the back of the door, Tally pushed her underwear into the pocket and returned to the bedroom.

‘Breakfast?’ Sander asked lightly, straightening from the table by the window, which was spread with a selection of food. Clad only in a pair of soft blue denim jeans that moulded his narrow hips and long powerful thighs and a white tee, he was a heartstoppingly attractive figure.

‘No, thanks, I’d better get back to my room.’

‘Why do you always want to run away from me?’ Sander enquired, ebony brows drawing together above his stunning eyes in a frown.

Tally recognised in a thought that was not for sharing that the more he made her feel, the more he scared her, and the more her native caution urged her to keep her distance. Sander Volakis was dangerous to her peace of mind, to everything she had ever known about herself, because with him she wanted to throw away the rule book and stop playing safe. She only had to look at him to want to walk into his arms and touch him, so retreat struck her as the wiser part of valour.

‘I’m not running away,’ she proclaimed with a taut smile.

As poised as a lion ready to spring, Sander paced several steps closer. ‘You feel the same vibe that I do.’

It was true, because when he was that close she was so tense she could hardly breathe, and when he reached for her and drew her close by dint of closing his hands round the ends of the sash tied round her waist she made no objection; indeed she laughed with a playful sense of freedom that was new to her.

‘I want you, moli mou,’ he growled soft and low, the roughened edges of his fracturing accent purring sexily along the vowel sounds.

‘You can’t have me,’ she told him daringly.

‘Just one little taste before you go,’ Sander husked, holding her against him and then lowering his arrogant dark head to toy with her full pink lips in a slow sensual assault.

As he suckled at her full lower lip his breath fanned her cheek and she shivered. A split second later as he deepened the pressure her pulses leapt like trapeze artists on a high wire, her mouth opening for the plundering pillage of his tongue, excitement hurtling through her in a shower of energising sexual sparks. It was more than a taste, it was a feast, as a sure masculine hand closed round the swelling softness of a rounded breast, his thumb grazing the swollen tender tip so that she gasped below his mouth, every sense greedily scrambling to get the most out of every new sensation. Go, her mind echoed in a curious refrain. Go … where? Just then she didn’t want to go anywhere if it meant separating from him.

Sander hauled her right off her feet and up into his arms and kissed her with stimulating thoroughness. The arm he banded across her hips pressed her into revealing contact with his potent arousal. By the time that he brought her down on the bed with him excitement was racing through Tally at the speed of a runaway train. She had an out-of-control sensation that should have scared her but instead she felt elated as she revelled in the heightened responses of her body and the sense of rightness between them. He felt like the guy she had long been secretly hoping to meet and, while a little voice at the back of her mind warned her that she had only just met him, he had already won her trust by taking care of her the night before. And trust was everything to Tally.

‘You have gorgeous breasts, glikia mou,’ Sander husked, the robe pushed apart to reveal the pouting globes he was shaping in his palms, long brown fingers tugging at her protuberant nipples in a tantalising caress. ‘I’ve been fantasising about them since we first met …’

Colour washed up over her face, her green eyes very bright, for she did not know what to say and she was hugely uncomfortable with the sight of her bare flesh in the daylight flooding through the windows. But before she could react, Sander bent his proud head to catch a tender rose-coloured tip between his lips and lave it with his tongue and a ball of heat burst in her pelvis, spreading aftershocks of stimulation through her entire lower body. For the first time in Tally’s life, desire was rippling through her in mindless waves and she could not believe how powerful and tenacious a hold it had on her. He kissed her again hard and fast and she stopped thinking altogether, her hands smoothing restively over the satin skin of his broad shoulders and her fingers spreading against the hair-roughened breadth of his chest. The husky soapy scent of him fresh from the shower was an aphrodisiac.

‘Are you staying?’ Sander prompted thickly, his accent scissoring sexily along the syllables.

For an instant, breathless and with her body on a high of burning desire, she could not fathom why he should be asking her such a question.

Sander ran a teasing fingertip along her reddened lower lip. ‘I want you. I wanted you the first moment I saw you but I like to play fair. I also want your assurance that you’re fully recovered from last night.’

‘Of course I am.’ I wanted you the first moment I saw you; yes, she liked the sound of that, as it so perfectly matched the way she had felt when she first saw him. The wanting, the burning craving, had been as instantaneous for her as a chemical reaction. She gazed up into lustrous dark eyes shaded with gold in the light and her heartbeat thudded heavily, the muscles in her pelvis clenching in a response that came as easily as the next breath to her lungs. But that insane pulse of desire pulling at her made it almost impossible for her to think clearly. Was she going to sleep with him? She wanted to. She knew that with a little thought she could probably come up with at least twenty reasons why she should not sleep with him but, just for once, Tally was rebelling against her cautious and sensible side. Sander was beautiful, sexy and surprisingly thoughtful and she was flattered that he found her so attractive. She was convinced that she would never find a more suitable male to be her first lover.

‘Tally …’ Sander smiled down at her.

And because she already feared that she was thinking too much and detracting from her newly found confidence and spontaneity, she pulled him down to her and kissed him with all the fierce passion she had always suppressed.

Sander was blown away by her enthusiasm: she was like a torch in his arms and she had the body of a goddess. He traced the swollen heart of her and found her flatteringly wet and ready for the next step. He rolled on a condom with practised ease and without any further ado, for he was hugely aroused, he pulled her under him and pressed back her knees.

As eager as he was for the final act, the pulse of desire in her pelvis steeping up in urgency, Tally made no demur. But as she felt the sure probe of his manhood at her entrance, nerves made her suddenly tense and his thrust when it came pierced her deep and hurt. At the sound of her cry of pain and resulting grimace, Sander had to struggle to rise above the pleasure of the tight grip of her inner muscles. Momentarily he froze and swore, pulling back from her in an abrupt motion.

‘What the hell …?’ Sander exclaimed.

Gripped by severe embarrassment when she realised how he had reacted to her cry, Tally breathed, ‘You didn’t have to stop.’

Sander frowned down at her as though she was talking in another language. ‘Of course I did. I hurt you.’

Tally could feel herself reddening so hotly that she felt as if she were roasting alive from outside in. ‘I didn’t realise it would be so … er … uncomfortable the first time,’ she mumbled apologetically.

As Sander retreated even further from her he noticed a spot of blood on the white fibres of the robe she lay on. ‘The first time? Are you saying that you were a virgin?’

Tally focused on a strong brown and very tense shoulder. ‘Er … yes.’

Sander rolled all the way back from her and sprang off the bed in one defensive movement. ‘So what’s your game?’ he demanded before he disappeared into the bathroom.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Confused, Tally hastily flipped the robe back across her exposed body and sat up, wincing at the tenderness between her thighs. She was totally mortified by the ignominious ending to their intimacy. He had stopped dead, clearly had had no desire to continue and he was angry as well. Having always assumed that men found it a challenge to stop at the eleventh hour, as it were, she was bewildered and inclined to think that she must have turned him right off.

Sander reappeared and scooped up his boxers to pull them on. He sent her a scorching glance of suspicion from stunning dark golden eyes. ‘What are you playing at? You’re a virgin. I didn’t sign up for complications.’

Although she wanted to sink through the mattress, Tally, in her turn was becoming angry at his attitude. ‘What’s your problem? Perhaps I should’ve warned you—’

‘Of course you should’ve warned me!’ Sander blasted back at her, his lean dark face grim. ‘If I’d known I would have taken my time and I wouldn’t have hurt you!’

Her cheeks red, Tally tied the sash on her robe and slid off the bed onto nerveless lower limbs. ‘Well, let’s not make a meal of it. I appreciate that you’re surprised but I don’t think there’s any reason for you to be so annoyed with me.’

‘I don’t like surprises. Women usually have an agenda with me …’

Tally pulled a face as she stooped hurriedly to gather up her dress and shoes. ‘Could my agenda be … getting away from you as quickly as possible?’ she prompted dulcetly, fighting her sense of humiliation with all her might.

‘Women don’t usually sacrifice their virginity in a casual encounter.’

‘Well, that’s me told, is it?’ Tally quipped, paling at that description of their intimacy. ‘Sorry if I departed from the norm and spooked you. I didn’t realise that you only dallied with identikit females. What sort of women are you used to? Or is that a rude question?’

Sander could not recall when he had last met a woman who could have equalled Tally Spencer’s innocence. Even when he was a teenager his female companions had been as sophisticated and nonchalant about sex as he was himself. In the world in which he moved everyone was sexually experienced and it had not even crossed his mind, in spite of the shyness he had noticed, that she might be any different.

‘You’re my very first virgin,’ Sander admitted, zipping his jeans, and surveyed her with brooding tension. ‘I’ve heard that the less experienced a woman is, the more she expects from a man.’

‘You heard wrong, where I’m concerned anyway. I may have almost zero experience but I expect nothing from you, least of all a lecture about sacrificing my virginity in a casual encounter!’ Tally traded flatly, tilting her chin, corkscrew curls shimmying back from her flushed cheekbones, enhancing the bright green colour of her eyes.

‘I wouldn’t have chosen to make love to you if I’d known I would be your first lover. You must’ve had some reason for waiting so long to have sex …’

Tally flinched, determined not to stroke his ego by admitting that it had taken him to fill her with the desire and need to experience that ultimate intimacy. ‘I’m not exactly an old lady. Nor am I as unusual as you think. Not every girl sleeps around from a young age. The time just felt right.’

‘But why did you pick me? Or is that a stupid question?’ Sander enquired cynically.

‘A stupid question?’ Tally queried from the bathroom doorway, because she was planning on getting dressed but not in front of him.

‘Maybe working for the Karydas girl has given you a taste for her lifestyle and you’re hoping that I will deliver it,’ Sander derided.

‘Oh, so now you think I’m a gold-digger … my goodness, you’re as obsessed with your financial worth as Cosima is!’ Tally condemned furiously, outraged by his suspicions about her character. ‘Get a life, Sander! We had sex but I’m not expecting a commitment of any kind from you! In fact if I ever see you again after this fiasco, it will be too soon!’

Within minutes, Tally had shed the robe and donned her clothing. She emerged from the bathroom again and pushed forcefully past Sander, who was in her path, by raising her hands to push against his broad chest in vehement rejection.

‘Tally—’

‘Get lost!’ Tally launched back at him angrily as she stalked out of the room and headed straight upstairs to her own.

So much for him being the special guy whom she was connecting with, she castigated herself bitterly while she eradicated all evidence that she had not spent the night in her own bed. Having donned casual clothing and packed her stuff for departure, suddenly she could not wait to go home and she took out her mobile phone to check out the local train times and then to ring her father. It was not a call she enjoyed making but she felt that it was only fair to tell him what had happened, lest he receive some other version of the truth from his daughter. Anatole Karydas was shocked and rather silent and it was with a heavy heart that she finally went downstairs to confront her sister.

‘Oh, it’s you …’ Wrapped in a colourful silk kimono, Cosima pulled a long-suffering face and reluctantly let her into her bedroom. ‘I suppose you’re expecting me to grovel but you should’ve minded your own business last night. Even though Chaz had nothing to do with what happened, he was thrown out of the party. No doubt you’re pleased about that!’

‘Right at this minute, I couldn’t care less about you or your boyfriend. Thanks to you, I passed out in public and was left to depend on the kindness of strangers while I was unconscious,’ Tally reminded the younger woman, her bright eyes level and accusing, her hurt over Cosima’s lack of concern or guilt on that score well concealed because she had her pride. ‘How could you put me through that? It was a very dangerous thing to do and a very unpleasant experience.’

Cosima was defiant. ‘So?’ she traded sulkily. ‘I didn’t want you here this weekend.’

‘It won’t be a problem you have again,’ Tally assured her drily. ‘I’ll see you … or maybe I won’t.’

Her sibling followed her to the door, only then noting the small case Tally had left in the corridor. ‘Where are you going?’

‘I have a train to catch—’

‘But you’re supposed to be leaving with me this afternoon,’ the pretty brunette protested, her surprise and annoyance patent.

‘I’d like to go home now. All the best, Cosima,’ Tally pronounced with sincerity and departed in relief …

CHAPTER FOUR

HAVING breakfasted, Sander was just settling down with the financial section from one of the Sunday broadsheets when he glanced out of the window and saw Tally’s small figure wheeling a case at a brisk pace down the driveway.

Thinking about what might have prompted her sudden departure from Westgrave Manor, Sander’s lean powerful body became tense and he stifled a curse. It was nothing to do with him if that spoilt little shrew, Cosima, had sacked her assistant. But, a moment later, prompted by the same instincts that had once made him search night and day for a week to find a lost dog, Sander sprang upright with a frown and headed out to his car.

It was not that he regretted what he had said to Tally Spencer—he did not. Given a choice he would never have chosen to sleep with a virgin. It was not even that he was still interested in her—he was not. Sander liked sex to be simple and his very frustrating encounter with Tally had persuaded him that in straying from his usual female format he had made a cardinal error. Instead of experiencing a refreshing difference and a lot of passion with his choice of an ‘ordinary’ girl as a lover, he had landed a virgin and a feisty and ungrateful one at that. A fast learner as he was, he knew that in future he would stick to the experienced sophisticates he was accustomed to.

Tally glanced up when she heard the growling sports car behind her slow down, but when she saw Sander gazing back at her from the lowered driver’s window, colour stung her cheeks and her chin came up at a defensive angle. ‘What do you want?’

Her dark blonde hair was blowing in the breeze in a spectacular torrent of curls. Her vivid green eyes were wide and defensive above her creamy skin and her soft full lips that had tasted like ripe strawberries were slightly open and moist. The familiar surging heaviness of reaction at his groin infuriated Sander and he studied her with frowning force, wondering what it was about her that got to him sexually every single time.

‘I’ll give you a lift to wherever you’re going,’ he told her.

‘Thanks, but I’m heading to the station and it’s only down the road,’ Tally told him stonily, convinced as she was that he could only have followed her because he felt sorry for her.

Those lean bronzed features of his were so breathtakingly handsome that that embarrassing need to look and then look again at him was already assailing her afresh. He levelled dark golden eyes fringed by silky black lashes as long as fly-swats on her and she wanted to scream. She’d had sex with him and although the act had not reached the usual conclusion it had still proved a disaster. That awareness clawed at her, making her eyes evasive and her spine rigid as discomfiture spread through her like toxic waste that suppressed every warmer response.

Sander climbed out as if she hadn’t spoken and snatched up the small case by her side to shove it into the small space behind the front seats. ‘Come on,’ he urged impatiently.

Unprepared to have a stand-up row with him within sight of the manor house, Tally compressed her generous mouth and slid into the passenger seat, feeling hugely self-conscious and uncomfortable.

‘Did the spoiled brat sack you?’ Sander enquired, accelerating down the drive. He was striving not to notice the way that her fine wool sweater hugged her breasts and the tight denim defined her rounded thighs, or to recall that glorious body spread before him naked in an invitation that had gone badly wrong.

‘Er … no. We just decided to go our separate ways sooner rather than later,’ Tally parried, not wanting to tell lies or to brand Cosima a liar. She felt uneasy about this fact, yet to tell him the truth was impossible. He was Greek born and bred like her sibling and he moved in the same social circles, so she was too proud to admit her real relationship to Cosima when her father and his family preferred to virtually ignore her existence.

‘That kid is out of control. She committed an offence last night,’ Sander pointed out as he drove out onto the main road.

‘She’s young and wilful. No doubt she’ll get over it—’

‘What age are you?’ he cut in abruptly.

‘Twenty.’

‘You come across as more mature than that.’ Sander was surprised and not best pleased by the news that she was only just out of her teens.

‘Just not mature enough to head you off this morning!’ Tally rejoined with scantily leashed bitterness.

‘Don’t take it that way,’ Sander drawled, shooting a measuring glance at her strained profile as he parked on the quiet road outside the train station.

Tally shot him a look of naked loathing. ‘How did you expect me to take it? It was a lousy experience and you insulted me into the bargain!’

In the simmering silence, Tally scrambled out and flipped round to reach for her case but Sander was faster. Colour scoring his high cheekbones at the bite of that word, ‘lousy’, and the unexpected force of her antipathy, he lifted her case out and extended his arm to her in silence at the front of the car. His self-command in the face of her emotional outburst tightened her expressive mouth and made her feel foolish.

As she stood there rigid with the force of aggression she was containing and with her luminous eyes still hurling angry defiance, Sander was amused and intrigued. Women never fought with him and even more rarely criticised him and she did not look the type to do so either, for she was so small and softly rounded in shape, an exceedingly feminine woman in appearance. Was it that quality that encapsulated her appeal for him? He was tempted to haul her into his arms, lift her up against him and prove that he could turn ‘lousy’ into orgasmic delight and it annoyed him that he was not to have that opportunity.

‘We should meet for dinner some evening,’ Sander murmured silkily.

‘You’ve got to be joking!’ Tally slung, turning on her heel to walk away without even a hint of hesitation.

‘You don’t know what you’re missing, glikia mou.’

‘Don’t I? I told you how I felt about you!’ she tossed back sharply. ‘And don’t call me your sweetheart. I’m not your sweet anything!’

‘These are absolutely beautiful!’ Binkie exclaimed, burying her nose in the fragrant bouquet of roses that had just been delivered.

‘My goodness,’ Tally remarked, joining her in the kitchen. ‘Does one of Mum’s men think she’s home from Portugal?’

‘They’re not for your mother, they’re for you!’ Binkie proclaimed, turning eyes that positively shone with satisfaction onto Tally.

‘Me?’ Tally was satisfyingly thunderstruck by that announcement and she plucked the card from between the older woman’s fingertips. Literally tearing off the envelope enclosing the tiny card, she stared down at just two words and a phone number.

Dinner? Sander

‘Oh,’ she muttered tightly, dropping the card as though it had burned her, while wondering why Sander Volakis handed out such conflicting messages. And did he seriously think that he could just toss her some flowers and she would phone him like an obedient little girl grateful for his attention and eager to forget how he had offended her?

Only five days earlier, Sander had made it painfully clear that he wanted nothing more to do with her and his insinuation that she had slept with him because he was rich had deeply insulted her. Yet he had offered her a dinner date a mere hour later when he dropped her at the train she had caught back to London. She had made it plain that she wasn’t interested, so why was he now sending her flowers? An extravagant bunch of very expensive and truly lovely roses, as well.

Binkie wanted to know everything about the sender of the flowers and Tally had to belatedly admit to meeting Sander at Westgrave Manor and share what she knew about him. Reluctant to upset Binkie, she did not tell the disheartening tale of Cosima’s antics during that weekend. Her colour fluctuating wildly beneath the older woman’s speculative scrutiny, Tally leant heavily on Sander’s allegedly bad reputation with women as she spoke. The heady glow of romantic hope in Binkie’s eyes slowly began to recede.

While Tally enjoyed arranging the roses and setting the vase in her bedroom she had no intention of making use of Sander Volakis’ mobile phone number. In a weak moment she did a search on his name on the Internet and was immediately rewarded with even more good reasons to keep him at a distance. Sander evidently specialised in leggy, famous blondes of the model, entertainment industry celebrity or socialite brand. He dated ladies who wore very small dresses or bikinis and who were papped leaving nightclubs and posing on yachts. And she was quick to remind herself that she hadn’t liked him, indeed, had wanted very badly to slap him that morning at Westgrave and had only resisted the urge in a futile effort to reclaim her lost dignity.

Bearing those important facts in mind, Tally accepted that it was very perverse of her to lie awake every night thinking about the volatile Greek and the lean hard-boned lineaments of that unforgettable face of his. Her intelligence put Sander squarely in the incompatible category, but something infinitely less rational and more contrary kept him alive and vibrant in her thoughts. Yet he had put her off sex, she conceded in rueful mortification. All very exciting up to a point and then a rather painful disappointment, she recalled with a grimace, wondering if it would have got better had he continued and then scolding herself for her lingering curiosity. She had learnt a good lesson, she told herself instead.

Getting intimate with a stranger was a very bad idea. Sander had assumed that she had sacrificed her virginity in an effort to impress him in some way. So why hadn’t he got the message when she refused to see him again?

Cosima phoned her that same morning and confided that Sander had called her to ask for Tally’s address. ‘Are you seeing him?’

‘No, but he sent me flowers,’ Tally admitted to satisfy the younger woman’s curiosity.

‘Dad was very impressed when I told him—’

‘You shouldn’t have mentioned it,’ Tally cut in. ‘Nothing’s going to happen.’

‘Maybe Sander did it for a bet or something,’ her sibling suggested. ‘Why else would he be chasing you?’

‘I don’t know, but you seem to have more ideas on that score than I do,’ Tally said drily.

Crystal returned that evening from a month-long stay at her current boyfriend’s Portuguese villa. Deeply tanned and wearing a lot of gold jewellery, Crystal watched her daughter work on her latest interior design project for college at the dining room table and sighed. ‘Don’t you ever get tired of being so sensible, Tally?’

‘Meaning?’ Tally prompted, wondering what had etched shadows like bruises below her mother’s fine eyes.

‘Peter has decided that he wants a break from me,’ she revealed with a shrug that was clearly intended to be careless but which didn’t quite pull off the feat. ‘Thinks we’re getting too serious. Well, we have been practically living together for the past six months …’

Tally picked up on the brittle shaken note in her mother’s admission and scrambled out of her seat to wrap her arms round the thin, attractive blonde. Crystal might have a messy love life and be foolish with money, but Tally loved her mother and hated to see her hurting. ‘Oh, Mum, I’m sorry!’

‘I’ve been dumped,’ Crystal confided thickly, tears glazing her eyes. ‘I’m the one who usually does the dumping but I didn’t see it coming. I was a fool, I thought Peter was with me for the long haul …’

Tally gave the taller woman a comforting hug. ‘Never mind. You’ll meet someone else.’

‘It’s not that easy any more.’ Crystal sighed. ‘I’m forty-three next birthday, not twenty-three. Men my age want much younger women, and they get them too.’

Navel-gazing wasn’t Crystal’s thing, however, and within a couple of days Tally’s mother had regained her spirits and her extensive net of contacts and busy social calendar played their part in that revival. That weekend, Crystal headed off with a female friend to spend a week in a swanky Scottish castle. Tally, who tried to keep her mother’s financial affairs in order, stayed home to be dismayed by the size of the older woman’s credit-card bills when they arrived in the post. Crystal could spend as if there were no tomorrow and Peter, a wealthy retiree, was no longer around to support her taste for the high life. Tally resolved to make yet another attempt to persuade her mother to live more within her means. At the start of the following week, she saw Binkie off on her annual summer trip home to Poland where she stayed with her relatives.

The following evening the bell buzzed at seven. Local children had been playing the annoying game of ringing the bell and running away and Tally answered the door with a frown because she expected to find the doorstep empty. But when she found Sander Volakis there instead, his tall, beautifully built body elegantly attired in a charcoal-grey suit teamed with a gold silk tie, she was totally thrown off balance.

One part of her wanted to slam the door and double-lock it, but it was an urge mainly fostered by the awareness that she hadn’t combed her hair since lunchtime and was wearing very little make-up. As a young woman who prided herself on her common sense, she was dismayed by her sudden attack of vanity, while the other, more dominant part of her response to his appearance was to simply stare at him and enjoy the view. And when Sander, his jaw line roughened by a five o’clock shadow of stubble that only enhanced his classic masculine features and wide sensual mouth, settled his stunning night-dark eyes on her, he was very much a sight to be savoured.

‘Tally,’ he purred like a jungle cat on the prowl, studying her from beneath heavy black lashes and very much liking what he saw.

Tally didn’t do fussy fashion and her denim miniskirt and white cotton top could not have been plainer. Yet rarely had Sander been so aware of a woman’s lush curves at breast and hip or her shapely legs. As self-conscious colour stained her creamy cheeks and her green eyes widened and then veiled to conceal their expression an unfamiliar stab of possessiveness gripped him.

‘Ask me in,’ he urged.

‘No,’ Tally mumbled, her hand clinging to the door and pushing it a little more closed in rebellion.

‘Are you that scared of what might happen?’ Sander quipped with a husky sound of amusement.

‘Nothing would happen,’ Tally fielded stiffly. ‘Been there, done that.’

‘But you haven’t. We’ve barely begun,’ Sander countered forcefully, frustrated by her blank refusal to accept that reality.

‘Your choice, then,’ Tally traded, her face warm as she made that blunt reminder of the manner in which he had withdrawn from their short-lived intimacy. ‘My choice now is not to take it any further.’

‘But you’re making the wrong choice,’ Sander told her with impregnable confidence.

‘You only think that because it’s not what you want and I’m pretty sure that you only ever do what you want,’ Tally rattled off at equal speed.

‘Women don’t usually argue with me.’

‘Well, you definitely don’t want to be spending time with me, Sander,’ Tally declared. ‘I think I’d always be arguing with you.’

That quip provoked a spontaneous laugh from Sander that lightened the intensity on his lean, dark, brooding features. ‘You challenge me—’

‘Which you would enjoy for what … all of five minutes?’ Tally cut in unimpressed. ‘You know what your problem is? You’re bored. That’s the only reason you’re wasting your time sending me flowers and turning up where you’re not welcome.’

For a split second, Sander was stunned by the realisation that she was spot on with that assessment. Of late, the women he took to bed had become very predictable and unexciting. In fact, he could not recall when a woman had last stirred this amount of interest in him and he wondered if it was possible that Tally’s resistance was the greatest part of her attraction. Just for once, a woman was not falling into his arms like an overripe plum or making a huge effort to please and flatter him. Indeed Tally Spencer didn’t think much of him and had no reservations about letting him know the fact.

‘I spoke too frankly and offended you. Is that all you’ve got against me?’

‘No, it’s not. You’re rich and spoilt and you think you deserve special treatment. We’ve got nothing in common, Sander.’

‘Except this, which you can’t deny …’ And before Tally could even guess his own intention, he had stepped forward to lower his handsome dark head and seal his mouth to hers in a kiss that hurtled through her unprepared body like a depth charge primed to explode on contact. Shivering, her lips swollen and tingling from the drugging pressure of his, Tally experienced a tugging ache at the very heart of her that left her literally weak at the knees.

Sander slowly lifted his head again, his brilliant gaze glittering gold enticement. ‘Dinner tomorrow night. I’ll pick you up at eight.’

And with that intense assurance that was so integral a part of him, Sander strode off without awaiting her response. Tally blinked, leant back against the door to dizzily close it and knew that he had played a blinder. That one scorching kiss, which her heart was still racing from, had nothing to do with intellect and had contrived to kill all rational thought within seconds. She thought of not being there when he called to collect her but that struck her as cowardice. Later, she fell into bed in a daze, her brain at war with an overriding but indefensible desire to see him again …

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