About the Authors

Unable to sit still without reading, BELLA FRANCES first found romantic fiction at the age of twelve, in between deadly dull knitting patterns and recipes in the pages of her grandmother’s magazines. An obsession was born! But it wasn’t until one long, hot summer, after completing her first degree in English Literature, that she fell upon the legends that are Mills & Boon books. She has occasionally lifted her head out of them since to do a range of jobs, including barmaid, financial adviser and teacher, as well as to practise—but never perfect—the art of motherhood on two now almost grown-up cherubs. Bella lives a very energetic life in the UK, but tries desperately to travel for pleasure at least once a month—strictly in the interests of research! Catch up with her on her website at www.bellafrancesauthor.com.

Growing up near the beach, ANNIE WEST spent lots of time observing tall, burnished lifeguards—early research! Now she spends her days fantasising about gorgeous men and their love lives. Annie has been a reader all her life. She also loves travel, long walks, good company and great food. You can contact her at annie@annie-west.com or via PO Box 1041, Warners Bay, NSW 2282, Australia.

Also by Bella Frances

The Playboy of Argentina

The Consequence She Cannot Deny

The Tycoon’s Shock Heir

Claimed by a Billionaire miniseries

The Argentinian’s Virgin Conquest

The Italian’s Vengeful Seduction

Also by Annie West

Seducing His Enemy’s Daughter

A Vow to Secure His Legacy

The Flaw in Raffaele’s Revenge

The Desert King’s Secret Heir

The Desert King’s Captive Bride

Contracted for the Petrakis Heir

Inherited for the Royal Bed

Her Forgotten Lover’s Heir

The Greek’s Forbidden Innocent

Passion in Paradise collection

Wedding Night Reunion in Greece

The Princess Seductions miniseries

His Majesty’s Temporary Bride

The Greek’s Forbidden Princess

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Redeemed by Her Innocence & Sheikh’s Royal Baby Revelation

Bella Frances and Annie West

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90001-4

REDEEMED BY HER INNOCENCE & SHEIKH’S ROYAL BABY REVELATION

Redeemed by Her Innocence © 2019 Bella Frances Sheikh’s Royal Baby Revelation © 2019 Annie West

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Authors

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Redeemed by Her Innocence

Back Cover Text

Acknowledgements

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

EPILOGUE

Sheikh’s Royal Baby Revelation

Back Cover Text

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

About the Publisher

Redeemed by Her Innocence

Bella Frances

When a merciless billionaire meets a virgin beauty…

Can the beast be tamed?

Ruthless businessman Nikos Karellis won’t risk his company to save Jacquelyn Jones’s struggling bridal boutique. But he will give her the best night of her life! Discovering that Jacquelyn’s as pure as the white wedding dresses she designs, Nikos is intrigued… But returning to Greece together leaves him emotionally exposed and warring with past guilt. Could untouched Jacquelyn’s sensual surrender be this dark-hearted Greek’s redemption?

Indulge in this dramatic tale of seduction…

Acknowledgements

With grateful thanks to Joyce Young,

By Storm, Glasgow and London, for her insights

into the world of wedding dress design.

For Graham Frize,

redeeming innocence wherever he goes.

Beautiful, sinful and wonderful friend.

CHAPTER ONE

NIKOS KARELLIS WALKED straight into the bridal suite of Maybury Hall, Wedding Venue of the Year, and slung his suit carrier down on the four-poster bed. So this is romance, he thought, frowning at the frills and flowers and buckets of girly fizz. He lifted a bottle, checked the vintage and slipped it back into the watery ice. He was a long way off celebrating yet. He’d travelled through eight time zones and three continents, and he needed something a bit harder to take the edge off.

Finally he saw what he wanted, tucked underneath a gilt mirror featuring chuckling cherubs—a tray with decanter, glasses and water jug. Perfect. He poured a generous measure, then he added a little more, skipped the water, and sank it, the burn and peaty fumes soothing as they slid down his throat.

Cheers, Martin, he thought, tipping his glass at the chandelier. At least his former brother-in-law’s taste in whisky was better than his taste in décor.

The bridal suite.

Of all the rooms in his flagship luxury hotel, Martin had chosen to put him up here. Maybe it was his idea of a joke, but it wasn’t a very funny one. Pretty much nothing about being married to Maria made him laugh any more.

Nikos reached for the decanter, pausing in the act of pouring a second. The temptation was strong, but clear-headed was the only way to be tonight, because tonight was the beginning of the end, the face-to-face to get it all out in the open. Whatever it was that Martin thought had been hidden away in Maria’s legacy, this was the night when they’d sort it out, because it was draining—and not just financially.

Despite what Martin’s lawyers and the Inland Revenue seemed to think, there were no hidden assets, no secret stash of cash, no offshore investments. She had drunk them all, or snorted them all. And that was that. It would be a hard story to tell her doting brother, but Nikos was damned sure he wasn’t going to leave anything out, because he’d had enough.

The tit-for-tat legal wrangling had gone on for too long so he’d done it the old-fashioned way; lifted the phone, and asked for a meeting. When Martin suggested this black-tie event in one of his chain of luxury hotels, Nikos didn’t hesitate. It was that or wait another six weeks until they’d even be on the same continent.

He could barely wait six more minutes now that he finally had the end in sight. Five years since Maria’s death—but it was only his wedding ring he’d tossed into the cool, blue Aegean; the pain and the memories had been much harder to shift.

Too late to stop himself, he touched his ring finger. Empty space, smooth skin. Even though House, his high-end chain of department stores, was now in the Forbes 100, with turnover almost hitting the four billion mark, that feeling of bare skin felt better than anything. It was the feeling of freedom. More than that, it was the cast-iron knowledge that he was on his own now. On his own, forging his path, no wife hanging off his arm, or around his neck, no damage to clean up after—just these final few crumbs and then he really was home free.

He filled up a fresh glass with water and walked to the window. The estate was impressive, immense, expanding off into horizons of oak trees and lawns, and willow-draped lakes. He could just see the roof of the lodge house he’d passed and the huge iron gates at the end of the road, where a car had just pulled up. Something about it made him strain forward to see better…

But just then a knock sounded on the door, and he turned.

‘I heard you’d arrived.’

Martin Lopez stood in the door and for a second they looked at each other. The same dark hair, dark eyes, sallow skin and high cheekbones as Maria—a look that he’d once found ravishing, irresistible, forging a love so strong he’d moved from delinquent eighteen-year-old biker to husband, in three years.

Looking back, which he had done all too often in the ten years they’d been together, it had been a predictable car crash of wrong place, wrong time. The minute he’d rescued her from the Bentley she’d wrapped around a lamp post on the side of the Sydney highway, they’d been inseparable—he was tennis coach, swimming coach, personal trainer, anything she could do to keep him in her life, and, after where he’d been, it had felt like arriving at the Promised Land.

Unfortunately some promises were very hard for Maria to keep.

‘Martin. Good to see you.’

He walked towards him, stretching out a hand, reading in the light press of Martin’s palm and the shifting of his gaze that he was on edge.

‘Nikos. I’m glad you came. It’s been a long time.’

‘Too long,’ said Nikos, holding the handshake a second longer, reassuring him that they were friends, no matter what had gone before.

‘Yes, and I wanted to get in touch, but it’s not been easy since Maria died.’

‘I guess not. Our lives have taken different directions.’

‘But we’ll always have her in common.’

‘I can’t deny that,’ said Nikos, staring hard at Martin, wondering what was really going on in his mind. He had done everything for the Lopez family; they were all set up for life. He had nothing left to give.

But something was eating the other man up. Martin dropped his gaze and turned back to the door.

‘Shall I show you around, before the guests start to arrive?’ he said, over his shoulder.

‘Absolutely,’ Nikos said, strolling out to the grand hallway, where the faces of various English rose aristocrats in grand gilt frames hung around the walls, no doubt wondering what the hell had happened to the old house now that the Lopez Hotel Group had transformed it.

‘Yes, it’s great to see you,’ Martin said, stepping alongside him now like a best buddy. ‘And I’m really grateful that you’ve agreed to present an award. We sold an extra fifty seats when it was announced yesterday.’

Nikos shrugged. ‘It’s no problem. I was on the way back from Sydney when I got the call.’

‘Visiting your mother? How is she?’

They were at the top of a wide sweep of carpeted stairs, no doubt a prime photo opportunity for the hundreds of brides who used Maybury Hall.

‘Ah, she’s OK. Thanks for asking. She doesn’t know me any more but she seems quite happy, and they look after her well.’

His monthly visits to Sydney were the one fixed item in his calendar. He knew they wouldn’t last for ever…

‘So how’s business?’ he asked, keen to change the subject.

They walked down the stairs, as staff carrying huge displays of flowers and cakes criss-crossed over the black-and-white floor beneath them.

‘I’m getting out soon,’ said Martin, with a mirthless laugh. ‘This is the last sponsorship I’m doing. I want to end on a high. The hotels are doing well, but the wedding industry’s being choked to death by overseas competition.’

‘China?’

Martin nodded. ‘It’s hitting the dress side worst of all. With the volume they can produce overseas, there’s just no profit margin for the little guy. Unless it’s high-end, bespoke, but even then it’s tough.’

‘People will always want to get married,’ said Nikos. People other than himself.

‘Yes, but it’s not what it was. Even the ones that have been on the go for years are feeling it. Another one of them is just about to hit the buffers, and it’s one of my old pals who once owned it. It’s his daughter’s now.’

They rounded the corner of the staircase and fell into step walking on through the lobby. All around, the paraphernalia of an industry built on hormones and fiction—love and marriage. A sham that left Nikos stone cold.

‘It’s a pity, because she is a lovely girl—at least she was last time I saw her. But she’s out of her depth.’

‘As in overinvested, or out of her depth because she doesn’t have the skill?’

‘A bit of both probably. Which makes it awkward. She’ll be here tonight and I’ve got a feeling she’s going to make a pitch. And I don’t have the heart to tell her she’s the problem.’

‘Yes, that’s a tough one,’ said Nikos, who had his own tough message to deliver to Martin, as soon as they got the chance to talk in private.

They turned the corner of the hall and stood on the threshold. Tables, heavy in white linen, spread off in all directions; the band at the side of the stage was tuning up a series of mismatched sounds.

Soon the movers and shakers of the wedding world would all be here to congratulate themselves on their achievements in this phony industry, and he, the man least likely to marry ever again, would be presenting one of them with a cube of etched Perspex that would wind up displayed on a shelf somewhere. The irony wasn’t lost on him.

Suddenly screens at either side of the stage flickered to life with images of Titian-haired brides in long flowing dresses running through fields of corn. That was it—he’d had enough.

‘So what’s the schedule?’ he asked, folding his arms and facing Martin. ‘Because we’ve got our own difficult conversation to have. And I want to make sure we’ve got enough time.’

‘As soon as this is over. I promise you.’

‘I’ll wait until ten. We talk from then until this thing is finished. And then I’m leaving, Martin. And I won’t be back.’

A shadow fell across Martin’s face. His eyes darted furtively down and back up.

‘I hear you,’ he said, stepping closer. ‘But it’s not just me who’s trying to get to the bottom of this. There are some people Maria was involved with that are very unhappy, Nikos. People that you know well.’

As if he’d felt a blow, Nikos flinched. Hair stood up on the back of his neck. Someone did a microphone check and a short burst of static screeched through the space.

‘People that you know well.’

He’d thought this was all dead. Buried, with his wife. But it wasn’t. It was still there, always there. Shadows that didn’t fade in the warm afternoon sunshine or fresh summer mornings. Dreadful, dark shadows that never went away, no matter where he went or what he did.

‘OK, Martin,’ he said, dredging up his words, like hauling on armour. He stood tall, he breathed deep, he squared his shoulders. There was no option; there was never any option. But his mother was safe, so nothing else mattered.

He looked at the other man. It wasn’t his fault. There was no one to blame but himself.

‘We’ll talk later,’ he said. ‘We’ll get this sorted. They won’t bother you.’

He patted Martin’s shoulder as he passed, and made his way through the tables, scattered like giant confetti on the ground.

Two miles east of Maybury Hall, in the pretty market town of Lower Linton, Jacquelyn Jones, owner of Ariana Bridal, was also getting ready to attend the Wedding Awards, and with almost the same mix of dread and trepidation.

As designer-in-chief of the bridalwear boutique that had occupied the same spot on the main street for the past fifty years, she could have been going to collect an award. Her father had managed to do just that, scooping five top awards in the past two decades, but that was before she had taken over from him, and before the business had stopped turning such healthy profits.

No, she was going there tonight to get money. Or she was going to die trying. Because if she didn’t, the whole thing was going to fall apart, one stitch at a time.

But first she had to get rid of Barbara, who had just slipped in through the courtyard garden as Jacquelyn had been closing up for the evening. With five husbands in the bag, she was the boutique’s best, but also nosiest, customer. No doubt she had scented blood, or at least the high anxiety that Jacquelyn was trying to conquer as she arranged a vase of white arum lilies.

‘So you’re definitely going to the Wedding Awards at Maybury Hall tonight? Even though that snake-in-the-grass Tim Brinley will be there? Good for you! You go and show them all. It’s disgraceful. He should be struck off, not getting a blooming award!’

‘You can’t be struck off for being unfaithful, Barbara,’ said Jacquelyn, though goodness knew she would have done a lot worse to her ex-fiancé. ‘And he deserves the award. He’s a good photographer.’

‘Tsk. You say that. But he owes everything to you and your connections. And it’s not going to be easy on you though, no matter how hard you try to put on a brave face. After what he did! The thought of everyone whispering behind your back…’

‘No one will be giving me a second’s thought. Nikos Karellis is going to be there so they’ll all be star-struck and googly-eyed over him.’

‘What? Nikos Karellis, owner of all those House department stores? The billionaire Greek god who is now conveniently unattached?’

‘I believe he’s Greek Australian, actually, though I really don’t see the big attraction. He’s not my cup of tea at all.’

‘Oh, Jacquelyn,’ said Barbara. ‘You mustn’t judge all men badly. Tim was cruel but there are plenty more fish in the sea and it’s time you started looking.’

‘This is an awards dinner, Barbara, not a singles bar.’ She twisted a lily to the side, stood back to examine it.

‘But Nikos Karellis—you might never get another chance! Think of the doors he could open for you! And you could do with some cheering up. You’ve not been yourself at all since Tim jilted you. It’s affecting the business. Everything’s got a bit shabby, if you don’t mind me saying.’

Jacquelyn kept her face fixed on the lilies even though she couldn’t see them, her eyes crushed closed in frustration and anger.

Barbara was right. She was completely right. And that it was so obvious was even worse. There was barely enough money to pay the machinists’ wages let alone invest in a refresh of the boutique. And all avenues to borrow money had closed. The bank wanted the previous loan repaid and capturing the interest of a financier had seemed impossible.

She knew they cast her as a silly girl playing at shops, not as a serious businesswoman. She was caught in a vicious circle of stiff competition, poor profits and higher costs, and she couldn’t seem to break free.

‘I don’t know what your parents were thinking disappearing off to the south of Spain, leaving you in charge here, after what happened. No wonder the place has run into difficulties.’

‘Mum’s rheumatics are what’s taken them to Spain,’ said Jacquelyn, ‘and the last thing they need is worrying that they need to come back here. If you’ll excuse me a moment…’

She stood up, scooped up the debris from the flowers and tossed it into the bin, then kept walking through into her studio, standing in the vale of light that flooded the space, desperate for a moment of calm.

But there was no escape, because right in front of her, spread out on her work desk, were the sketches she’d been poring over for the past two days. She swept them up, bundled them into a pile and bashed them off the top of the desk. They were rubbish. She knew they were, but she had lost all feel for designing fairy-tale dresses. She had lost her feel for fairy tales too. She needed practical things—like money—to hire someone who did.

‘Oh, don’t worry on that account,’ called Barbara from the kitchen. ‘I never mention a word about Ariana when I call. We keep it strictly social now. So much goes on in Lower Linton for such a tiny little town.’

And is regurgitated every Sunday on calls to Mum, thought Jacquelyn. Nothing went unnoticed or unreported. Nothing.

She looked up and saw Barbara position herself at the doorway.

‘Barbara, it was lovely of you to drop by, but don’t let me keep you. I’m sure you’ve got loads to do tonight.’

‘Yes, I am rather busy,’ said Barbara, narrowing her critical eyes as she wandered round the studio, like a detective in some third-rate TV show.

Jacquelyn wondered what clues she had left out and too late saw the piles of dirty teacups and balled-up handkerchiefs. Clues that might even find their way muttered into the hors-d’oeuvres of wherever Barbara dined tonight.

‘Well, I hope you show that Tim Brinley what he’s missing.’

Jacquelyn did her best to smile and tidied the scattered sketches into a pile. The inky sharp-limbed figure on top seemed to flinch as she was set down and Jacquelyn cursed the stress that was flowing through her, stress that was making it harder and harder to get these sketches right. And she had to get them right. She absolutely had to.

‘I bet Nikos Karellis would happily help out. He’s definitely got an eye for the ladies. If all else fails…’ Barbara’s voice trailed off as she raised a pencilled eyebrow and stared directly at Jacquelyn’s figure.

‘If “all else fails” what, Barbara? What are you trying to suggest? That I throw myself at a total stranger? Do you really think that’s my style?’

Behind her, the row of mannequins looked on like a jury of headless Greek goddesses. She’d been baited and caught, exposing herself as easily as if she’d taken out an ad in the front page of the Lower Linton Chronicle.

‘Darling, if it was your style you wouldn’t be in this mess,’ said Barbara as she lifted her clutch and re-formed her perfectly engineered face. ‘And if I were you I’d start getting ready now. You’re looking a bit puffy around the eyes. I’ll see myself out.’

And she did, sailing past in a haze of sickly sweet scent, on through the studio to the hallway, heels clicking on the stone steps and then out into the courtyard where they faded and were finally silenced by the dull thud of the wooden door.

Jacquelyn stood tight and tense until she finally heard the car roar off, then she let out a huge sigh and felt her eyes burn—again.

‘Stop it, stop it. Pull yourself together!’ she hissed through the hot self-pitying tears that had formed.

You knew this moment would come. Five years in charge and you let it all trickle through your fingers. Well, now it’s happened. And you’ve got one chance left to stop this before it’s too late.

She’d taken the once thriving family business and run it into the ground and had no one but herself to blame. She’d taken her eye off the ball, worried herself sick about things that turned out not to have been worth worrying about at all. Like a man. Like that stupid, stupid break-up, with that stupid, weak-willed man.

She sat down again, propped her elbows on the table and bowed her head.

Before her, the blank-faced sketches said nothing. She spread them out and stared at them. Any fool could see that there was something missing, something wrong. But she just didn’t seem to know how to get them right. She’d whittled it down from twenty to twelve to this final bundle of six.

When she’d showed them to Victor, the pattern cutter, he’d been gracious and complimentary, but she’d known he’d been faking it. She’d seen the confusion in his eyes. Another dud collection. Again?

Around the studio, light was sinking into a pale mauve sunset. Through the window she could see traffic on the main road out of town that led to London. Just two miles east sat Maybury Hall, where the Wedding Awards were being held tonight.

She was running out of time. She had to get going. Everyone else could gush over Nikos Karellis, but it was Dad’s friend Martin Lopez and his millions that she needed to see. She was going to approach him tonight and ask him to finance the business. She’d offer five per cent. Twenty per cent. Whatever it took.

Outside she heard a car prowl along the lane. Surely Barbara wasn’t back again…?

She jumped up and ran out through the studio and down the stairs, then burst out into the courtyard. She slid the bolt across the wooden door and leaned back against it, breathing a deep sigh. But there was no knock, no screeching voice, just the quiet sounds and sights of a summer evening: water bubbling over the giggling cherubs in the fountain and the sun-dappled flower beds, sleepy and still.

Peace. If only she could stand still and enjoy it—but that was half her problem. Instead of busying herself out in the world, she had shut herself away, hiding in the familiar silks and satins, and beads and crystals that hung in the boutique.

She looked through the French doors of the shop.

Fairy tales were made real in there. Women were made into princesses. Dreams came true.

Once upon a time she’d believed that. She absolutely had. Happy ever after was the only ever after there was.

How wrong she’d been. Happy ever after didn’t exist.

CHAPTER TWO

JACQUELYN STRETCHED HER SMILE and lifted a glass of champagne. She wouldn’t drink it but it was the perfect accessory, and gave her something to do with her hands.

She might be feeling as if she were dying but she knew how to put on a show. Her dress was a fairy tale. How could it possibly be anything else? Her blonde hair was tousled, in a knot held up with beads of fine crystals, silken and soft and sparkling.

Her gown was cerulean-blue satin. The chiffon bodice crossed over her chest and the skirt billowed out in the signature ‘Jones’ cut that flattered and flowed to the floor. Her long neck and elegant shoulders were shown to perfection with a single pearl droplet on a fine chain. Her make-up was just the perfect blend of colours and tones to hide and highlight, and her lips were glossily, naturally, plump and soft.

All in all she was a walking miracle, she thought to herself. It was amazing what a few tricks of the trade could do. But if she, with her know-how and connections, couldn’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear tonight, who could?

She pulled her lips into a superhappy smile as a camera flashed a photo of the table, and all the while she surreptitiously scanned the crowd. She would not crack an inch in front of anyone, in case it got back to Mum and Dad. She was on show, wearing the most flattering cut and colour of dress.

‘The best model you have is yourself,’ as Dad always said.

‘Don’t you get too big for your boots,’ said Mum.

Jacquelyn tried to straighten her shoulders, but they didn’t need straightening. She twisted her head a tiny bit to the left, to see if Martin was here yet, but not so much as to be too obvious. Not that it mattered. They’d all think she was showing off to Tim Brinley or, worse, pitching for Nikos Karellis. As if.

She had been flippant, blasé, when Dad had phoned her about the awards.

Of course she’d be fine with Tim being there. Life moved on. And she would have a chat with Nikos Karellis if she got the chance, and, yes, she remembered his friend Martin Lopez. She promised she’d make a point of saying hello to him. She could give him a cast-iron guarantee on that front.

She felt the smile slip from her face and tension creep across her brow, and checked herself, taking a tiny sip of champagne and putting the glass down as if she were having the most marvellous evening, chatting and gossiping with the people at her table.

‘I hear Nikos Karellis has arrived.’

‘Made quite a splash already. In the bridal suite but with no bride, of course.’

‘Ha-ha. I wonder who’ll be the second Mrs Karellis.’

‘I only just found out he was married to Maria Lopez. She was old enough to be his mother!’

‘I don’t think he’s looking for a mother now!’

‘I’d never heard of her before…’

‘Where have you been? I thought everyone knew that story!’

Jacquelyn knew. She’d known the story for years, since the morning at breakfast her father had put the newspaper down with a, ‘Good grief, you’ll never guess who’s died,’ and then proceeded to tell them the story of his friend Martin Lopez and his beautiful sister, who’d married a man fifteen years younger. Photographs of him carrying her coffin, grief painted onto such a handsome face, had filled the nation’s need for gossip for a day or so.

‘Poor man,’ her mother sighed, lifting the paper from her father’s hands.

‘Poor man, nothing. Rich man. He’s worth a fortune now,’ said her father.

‘He’s just lost his wife,’ her mother chided. ‘Money can’t take away that pain, no matter what you say. He must have really loved her. Just look at him.’

Jacquelyn sipped her tea. She knew what love was. Every fibre of her being pulsed with it for Tim, her childhood sweetheart. Love was going to school with him, listening to music. He was her best friend, boyfriend and soon-to-be husband.

Love was them agreeing to save themselves for their wedding night, no matter how tempting, because there was nothing more important than that. Their secret pact, their complicit agreement. Their bond of trust.

There was no other option. Because that was what good girls did. Although it was never shown in public, Nonna Ariana was sniffy about the girls who wore white when they should be wearing ivory.

‘If this is the most important day of their life, then they should act like it. It isn’t just a fancy dress, it’s real. They should know better, bringing shame on their families!’

So Jacquelyn was steadfast. She was determined. And Tim was too, because it was all going to be worth it. It was all leading to a rosy future. It was the rest of their lives. What did a few more months matter?

So no, Nikos Karellis had meant nothing to her then.

And unlike every other woman here, he meant nothing to her now. She wouldn’t waste a moment talking to someone whose interest in women was superficial.

It was Martin Lopez she needed to find, and fast. She couldn’t bear it if this whole night passed without a chance to give him her pitch.

‘It’s him. Here he is.’

She started, like a deer at the burst of a gun, but it was just the hotshot Australian that had entered.

‘Wow, isn’t he amazing?’

Despite herself, her head swivelled to the front of the stage to see.

Well, physically—there was no doubt about that. Was it the height of him, the breadth of his shoulders, or the gleaming white shirt and midnight-blue tux? Was it the short-cropped dark hair and dark stubble, the trademark tattoo that snaked from below his left ear and disappeared under the shirt collar?

Whatever, he was devilishly dark and handsome, and like every other woman in the room she found herself unable to stop staring. One by one, people crossed over to say hello, gushing and scraping before him—people that Jacquelyn knew to be supremely confident in business, acting star-struck and silly.

‘Are you coming over to meet him?’ said the woman next to her.

‘No, thank you. I don’t want to be caught in the crush of groupies,’ she said, a little unkindly.

‘Suit yourself,’ said her companion, and stood up.

Jacquelyn turned to watch her shimmy her way across the floor, still trying desperately to catch a glimpse of Martin, but the crowd around Nikos Karellis was thick now and totally obscured the table.

And then she saw him seated beside Nikos. He was older than she remembered. Streaks of silver in his dark hair, but still a handsome man, and, she hoped, still a gentleman.

Her stomach turned a somersault and her hands dampened. She tried to wipe them on the tablecloth discreetly as she stood up.

Please, please, please remember me, she thought, and began to make her way across the floor towards him.

Nikos’s patience had almost completely run dry. His smile was still fixed in place but he’d chatted and shaken hands with people all evening, in the bar and now here at the table. He hated the side effects of fame. The people who wanted to say hello were nice enough but they had no idea who he was—or where he’d come from. They were only seeing some airbrushed version of reality, as fake as the whole wedding industry itself.

He glanced down at Martin with a raised brow.

‘How much more of this?’ he said, leaning over.

Martin shrugged and smiled.

‘The awards start in five minutes. After that we’ll disappear off to my suite and talk properly.’

Nikos nodded and straightened up, trying to remember the name of the woman to his right who’d just introduced herself, but when he turned around, it wasn’t a plump old lady who was right in front of him, it was a beautiful young woman.

She was tall, toned and blonde, and with a practised sweep he took her all in—from the stunning cerulean-blue floor-length gown that held her feminine curves to perfection, and all the way up past the graceful curve of her shoulders, to the top of her elegant topknot.

She wasn’t overtly sexual, but something about the shape of her hips and the neat swell of her breasts made his body react violently. And he noted with some pleasure that he hadn’t felt such a reaction for a long time.

Suddenly the night was looking up, and even as he reached out his hand to shake hers, he made a mental calculation of how long he would be occupied with Martin before he could properly get to know her.

But she didn’t take his hand.

She didn’t even look in his direction. Instead she sailed right past him and stopped, as Martin looked up and got to his feet.

‘Jacquelyn. It is you! I saw you coming across the floor and I wondered if it was. I thought I might see you tonight.’

Jacquelyn? Nikos quickly noted her name and watched, wondering how this exchange was going to play out. By the warmth in the way Martin was leaning towards her, lingering as he kissed each proffered cheek, he was clearly fond of her. But he had to be at least twice her age…

And the way she was holding herself was interesting: she was transmitting anxiety, with her spine so rigid, shoulders tense; and that smile, beaming a bit too bright.

‘And this is my brother-in-law, Nikos Karellis. Nikos, Jacquelyn Jones—owner of Ariana Bridal. Her father Joseph and I were at school together.’

So, Martin really was old enough to be her father. That was helpful.

She turned her flawless face and keen blue eyes to Nikos. The smile she’d given Martin slipped slightly, he noted, and her spine tightened a notch more too. She blinked and with a long stretch of her arm she permitted her hand to be shaken.

Which he did and he read in that tense-fingered, quickly retracted handshake that he’d just been judged and dismissed. She didn’t like him.

Well, it did happen. Not often, but he wasn’t every woman’s cup of tea. Particularly the ones who thought they were a bit above him. Even with all his money, he never forgot where he’d come from. And nor, it seemed, did they.

He knew the type. They saw his tattoos, his warpaint as his mother called it. The sensual ones saw brutality and found it fascinating. The repressed ones didn’t get him. They saw brutality and found it disgusting.

The truth, of course, was that he had left brutal back in Sydney at the side of the road. Bikers were brutal; his dad was brutal. His entire childhood had been brutalised beyond what any of these lovely people could understand. They had no idea that his mother suffered brain injury as a result of a beating from his father. Or that he had run drugs for him as an after-school chore.

The fact was that he’d made it his life’s work to be free of every trace of violence and aggression. He’d severed ties with everyone except his mother, and poured millions into projects for delinquent kids.

So to be judged as ‘less than’ pressed his buttons, just a little.

He stood tall, squared his shoulders, one hand on his hip, in a gesture that called out her condescension.

‘Former brother-in-law. My wife passed away five years ago.’

She dropped her gaze completely, and when she swept her perfectly oval lids open again there was a tiny flash of recognition.

‘I’m sorry for your loss. I never met her but my father spoke about Maria. And you.’

Did he now? thought Nikos, his mind conjuring up an image of her baby blues widening over some story or other. Maria’s high jinks were always being reported on some media space. And the look on her face told him that she was remembering something of that sort right now.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I appreciate your kind words. And I’m very pleased to meet you. Are you up for an award tonight?’

The dart of her eyes down to her feet and the blush of pink that bloomed over her face told him all he needed to know on that front. He was beginning to remember the earlier conversation. Was this the woman who was bad in business?

‘No, I’m afraid not.’

‘Someone else’s turn, this year. But Ariana has won awards in the past, Jacquelyn, haven’t you?’ cut in Martin, gallantly.

‘Oh, yes, one or two. We’ve won Wedding Dress of the Year and been runners-up a few times.’

‘That’s quite an achievement,’ said Nikos. So the business was once at the top of its game. ‘And is this one of your own designs?’

Despite her slightly dismissive glance he stood back to view.

He had a practised eye. He was a retail giant, for heaven’s sake. House was the ‘stylish woman’s department store of choice’, built on his keen eye, and in one of the most rapid, successful expansions in retail in recent years, he’d taken on concessions in all other departments. So he had every professional right to cast his critical eye over the very seductive shape of Ms Ariana Bridal, even as she tried to shield herself with her long slim arms, twisting to the side, speaking the least subtle body language he’d ever witnessed.

Then she started staring over his shoulder, as if looking for someone better to talk to, even more clearly communicating, I’m not interested.

Didn’t she know that being not interested made her uniquely the most interesting person here?

‘Sorry, did you say you designed this yourself?’ he repeated quietly.

She turned, with a slightly irritated look on her face, which he found curiously seductive.

‘Not me, but this is our original design.’

‘Isn’t this the Jones cut?’ said Martin, whom Nikos was beginning to find more than mildly irritating himself.

‘Nonna Ariana’s, yes. Martin, I wonder if we might have a word,’ she said, lowering her voice as she turned to him now and took a step away from the table. Martin mirrored her and moved away too. She was clearly trying to cut Nikos out of the conversation. ‘Later on this evening? Would that be all right?’

Music started to play, people were taking their seats, Martin hesitated and Nikos raised his eyebrow, reminding him that he had a prior engagement.

‘Tonight? Oh, I’m not sure. It’s not ideal.’

‘Please, Martin. There’s something I want to discuss.’

The floor was emptying, people were taking their seats. They were beginning to look very conspicuous as the only three people still standing.

Jacquelyn knotted her fingers together as if she was praying. She looked truly anguished.

Martin looked at Nikos with a what can I do?

Nikos felt a tiny twinge of regret on her behalf but he had bigger things to worry about than a buttoned-up Englishwoman, no matter how attractive.

‘Ah, this could be tricky. I’ve got Nikos here as my guest.’

She turned to look at Nikos as if he was even more of a pariah than she’d first thought, as if he were personally responsible for the fact that her business was dying on its feet.

‘We’d better take our seats now. See you later, sweetheart,’ he said, with a wink.

Jacquelyn walked back to her table as if she were entirely made of wood and tried to take her seat with grace that seemed to have completely deserted her.

Had she blown it already? She reached for her glass, something to hold as she quickly replayed the meeting in her head. Martin seemed to have been friendly enough but he’d been totally eclipsed by Nikos Karellis. And no wonder. The man was completely unnerving. She’d never met anyone so—intense. So physical. He’d made her self-conscious, tongue-tied and totally put her off her stride.

She slipped a glance to the side to look at him as the band struck up and was met with him staring right back at her. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up in an instant and she looked away.

All through the starter she could feel him staring and she absolutely would not look at him. Maybe he thought that she had gone over there to meet him? He probably thought that every woman was in love with him. He was so off the mark. She’d never let herself fall for a man like him. Anyway, she had one single mission here tonight, and it had nothing to do with love.

She turned again to tell him that with her eyes but he was talking intensely with the woman on his left. She watched as he listened to her, tilting his head towards her and smiling as the woman started flirting, throwing her head back when she laughed, playing with her hair, touching her chest and batting her eyelashes, all while Martin looked miserably at his salad.

She felt more and more desperate and in a haze of self-pity she began to cast around the room, looking for Tim. At the back of the hall she found him, his once boyish good looks now paunchy, his blonde hair thin.

He could have been her husband. They could have been sitting together at that table, waiting to collect awards, gossiping about how everyone was fawning over Nikos Karellis. At one point any other future would have been completely unimaginable.

Jacquelyn Jones not married to Tim Brinley? Don’t be ridiculous—it’s written in the stars…

But strangely enough she didn’t feel wistful. And she didn’t blame him for the mess of Ariana. She blamed herself. Funny how a crisis could put everything into perspective. And this was a crisis. For all she played it down with everyone, especially her parents, she was in a full-blown state of emergency.

She pushed the food about on her plate, unable to eat, and words seemed to stick in her mouth like cardboard. All she could focus on were the minutes ticking by and the location of Martin Lopez.

She sat through the tables being cleared, the lights being dimmed, and then the award hosts, two TV presenters she recognised from a breakfast show, arrived on stage to start the ceremony.

And then in a never-ending series of announcements and applause she sat through the awards, from Best Florist to Best Accessories, Best Cake to Best Make-Up, Best Venues to Best Stylist. When the Best Photographer names were called out, she prepared herself.

Suddenly there was the image of the winning photograph. A bride and groom on a horse. It was Tim’s—it had to be. He loved to ride and he loved to use the riding motif in his photographs. It looked so phoney to her now.

The compère boomed out his name.

As the crowd burst with applause, she lifted her hands from her lap and tapped them together briefly. Most people wouldn’t know what he’d done to her, but some of them would, and she couldn’t let herself down by acting so childishly.

She forced herself to watch him accept his award, and she realised then that there was nothing there now other than the memory of a man she’d once loved, an outline of something once vivid. A bare-branched tree in winter, once so full of leaves.

She had so much more to worry about now.

The final award was Best Wedding Dress, and to announce it Nikos Karellis bounded athletically to the stage.

‘He was her tennis coach,’ she heard the woman beside her whisper.

‘Ooh, he could coach me in anything he wanted,’ said someone else, and giggled.

Jacquelyn tried not to roll her eyes, but she couldn’t help looking closer, measuring his stature with her own innate sense of proportion. He was quite physically perfect. Exceptionally physically perfect. In the pit of her stomach something awoke, a swirl of longing, a primal feeling that tugged and shocked her, and she squirmed and moved in her seat. She looked around to see if anyone had noticed, but everyone’s face was turned to the stage, eyes wide with interest.

The finalists were announced. The winning dress displayed on the screen and then the flushed and jubilant face of the designer, a pretty brunette. Nikos delivered the glass trophy, kissed her warmly on each cheek and gave her an affectionate squeeze.

Nice, thought Jacquelyn.

She had barely had a peck on the cheek in the three years since Tim. She was never the most physical person, but she liked affection, as much as everyone else. She liked being held close; she liked her hair being stroked and all the intimacy that came with being with someone you cared for.

Another wave of self-pity washed over her.

Was she destined to be single her whole life? Would she ever meet someone else?

She looked around the room. She might not be the youngest person here, but she was almost certainly the only one who was still a virgin.

She wondered if anyone knew. Sometimes she felt as if she were wearing a sign. And sometimes, there were moments she wished she could just go out and find someone and have sex and be done with it.

Those months after Tim left she’d tortured herself thinking she’d been wrong, stupid, blindly falling in with Nonna’s views, not thinking for herself. She’d almost considered tracking him down to tell him she’d changed her mind. But he’d gone. And that was that. And now she was glad. She really was.

The ceremony was over. The audience was applauding. The final comments were being made. Some people had already started to move. The lights came up. She spun back round to see if Martin was still there, but he’d gone.

She threw down her napkin and pushed back her chair. It caught on the carpet. She struggled to right it as she looked up. Where on earth had he gone? Everyone was heading off to the bar, but where was Martin?

Panic gripped her. What if she lost sight of him? What if he disappeared and she couldn’t find him?

Then she saw him, heading off in the opposite direction. She picked up speed, almost stumbling over the parquet dance floor in her heels, desperate not to lose sight of him. But then suddenly from nowhere Tim appeared!

‘Jacquelyn, wait,’ he called, and he reached a hand around her arm.

She turned, confused, wondering what on earth to say.

The days she’d spent longing for the tiniest glimpse of him, five seconds of his time so that they could ‘work it out’. Yearning to see his face, feel his hands, just be in the same room as him, again.

Now all she felt was embarrassment. All she could think was that he was holding her back from the one thing she had come here to do.

‘I’ve got nothing to say to you,’ she said, tugging her arm away. His face, the one she had once thought handsome, twisted as if she had slapped him.

‘I know this isn’t the right time,’ he said, grabbing for her arm again, ‘but you have to know that I’m really sorry about the way I treated you. I’ve grown up, I’ve moved on…’

‘Look, I’m not interested.’

People were crowding at the opposite doors; thankfully no one seemed to be looking this direction. But he was right in front of her, blocking her view of the door to the hallway where Martin had disappeared.

‘I thought I could do it but what you wanted was unnatural, Jacquelyn,’ he whispered. ‘I’m a man. I have needs and you wouldn’t listen.’

‘We made a promise!’ she hissed. ‘You never once said that you couldn’t do it. Instead you just vanished! So you’ll have to live with that. Now let me go, I’m in a hurry.’

‘You made the promise for both of us. Your martyrdom is wasted, you know. That whole “pure as the driven snow” act is so last century.’

‘Look, get out of my way. I couldn’t care less what you think.’

She tried to step past him, but someone else was there.

‘Is everything OK here?’

A deep Australian drawl, a strong unflinching presence.

‘I’m trying to find Martin. Is he still here?’ she asked desperately, smoothing her hair. The last thing she wanted was him to hear any of this.

Nikos’s eyebrows were raised over dark eyes that flashed concern.

‘I need to see him.’

‘Yes, he’s here,’ he said, and he came towards her, reading the situation with a frown. Then he turned to Tim, bearing down on him with his six-foot stature.

‘Don’t you know any better than to crowd a woman?’ he said, stepping further into the space, his body telegraphing masculinity, strength, power, the like of which she’d never experienced before.

Tim’s face blanched and he took a step back.

‘Now look here. I’m a friend of Jacquelyn’s and I’m only trying to have a conversation.’

She looked at the two of them and a moment of clarity struck like a thunderbolt. Tim looked so short and plump and silly next to this man. What on earth had she seen in him? She had wasted so much time and tears, and now she was reduced to begging for crumbs from some rich man’s table when she should have been taking Ariana on to the next level?

She shook her head in despair. Where had she gone so badly wrong?

‘Tim, the only reason you’re here right now is because there are people here tonight who remember what you did, and you want me to say it’s OK. Well, it’s not OK. Nothing about it is OK. So why don’t you take your half-baked little excuse for an apology and your stupid plastic award and get out of my way?’

She turned to Nikos, whose eyes were wide. She’d shocked him too. Good.

‘I want to see Martin. Now. Where is he?’ she said.

A grin broke out across his face and he stepped to the side.

‘Come with me, I’ll take you to him.’

CHAPTER THREE

MARTIN’S SUITE WAS in the Duchess Wing, about a mile of plush velvet carpet to the east of the grand ballroom. They walked in complete silence along its length until the ornate double doors came into sight.

Nikos had the good sense not to say a word until they got there but he was weighing up what he’d just heard and it sounded nasty. Whatever the guy had done, breaking a promise sounded like the least of it. And accusing her of being a martyr. Nikos had met more than a few of those, but in his experience they tended to be the nice ones.

Maria had never played the martyr. Maria took what she wanted and what other people wanted too…

‘You all right?’ he asked, his hand on the doorknob. ‘Is there anything I can do?’

Jacquelyn looked up at him with eyes that told him she was still feeling some pain.

‘I’m fine,’ she replied. ‘Thank you.’

Nikos nodded and opened the door of Martin’s suite, ushering her in.

‘I found your friend Jacquelyn. She wants a word.’

Martin looked up, surprised. He was sitting at a fireplace filled with yet another giant arrangement of flowers.

‘Of course. If that’s OK with you, Nikos?’

Nikos stood back and watched her sail right past him and perch on the sofa opposite Martin. Her back was ramrod straight and she turned, flashing Nikos a look that might have said, thank you, but might as easily have said, beat it.

‘Yeah, sure. I was on my way to get my phone. I’ll be back in five. That long enough, do you think?’

Martin nodded vigorously. Jacquelyn didn’t move a muscle.

Nikos closed the door and walked back to his suite.

She was a force of nature, that one. The Ice Queen, but the way she’d blasted that guy was pure fire. It was impressive. And if she pitched like that to Martin he didn’t stand a chance.

Maybe he’d been too harsh on her. She was clearly passionate about her business, and good for her. If he’d been in tough times, the last thing he’d want to do was waste his precious time on small talk with a stranger.

He collected his phone and checked for messages and emails, frowning when he saw yet another one from his accountant, Mark, about the investigation into Maria’s missing assets. He had better get answers from Martin. This whole thing was getting more and more out of hand.

He rounded the corner of the hallway and paused. He put an ear to the door to see if they were still talking.

Martin’s deep voice was making reassuring noises; Jacquelyn seemed to be silent. He knocked on the door and walked in.

‘OK? All wrapped up?’

He didn’t have time to worry if it wasn’t. He had his own issues to deal with now.

‘Nikos. Great timing.’

Martin was facing Jacquelyn. They were both standing, but now Martin was the one who looked imploringly at him, and Jacquelyn’s eyes were bright with—hope?

‘I was just explaining to Jacquelyn that I’m retiring. She’s looking for an investor and I was trying to think of someone else who’d be a good fit. I don’t know if I mentioned but Ariana Bridal goes back quite a long way. They need to modernise, perhaps? Would that be right, Jacquelyn? And so maybe you or your connections would be a…better fit…?’

Nikos shook his head.

‘I’m not looking to invest in anything, Martin. I’m here to sort a problem.’

He held up his phone.

‘A problem that’s giving me a headache. While we were giving out awards, I’ve been getting more messages.’

‘I won’t take up much of your time, Mr Karellis.’

On a heartbeat Jacquelyn turned and walked towards him. She was breathtaking and he realised he was still standing holding his phone in the air. Quickly he pulled his arm down.

‘Time is what I don’t have. Martin?’ he said, meaning, Martin, what the hell are you thinking?

‘Maybe you could squeeze in five minutes with Jacquelyn before you go?’

‘I promise it won’t take longer than five minutes. Ten at the most. Martin understands. This is a business that has so much to offer. We go back decades and we’ve got great plans. We just need a break.’

Nikos looked at Martin, who raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders as if to say wouldn’t hurt.

With a sigh that he didn’t even know he was going to make, he breathed out an, ‘OK.’

‘Five minutes. If we get this sorted,’ he said to Martin. Then turning to Jacquelyn, ‘Wait in the bar and I’ll send someone.’

She nodded and smiled, and as she breezed past she stopped suddenly and grabbed his hand in both of hers. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘I guarantee you won’t regret it.’

He nodded gruffly, but the sensation of his coarse hand in her delicate fingers was sweet and soft and he was happy to linger there for a moment. He smiled, and she smiled back. Light seemed to sparkle in her eyes and her features lit up. The face of an angel.

She squeezed his hand and then let go and headed for the door, trailing behind her delicate scent.

He waited until she had gone and then closed the door. ‘What the hell’s going on, Martin?’ he said. ‘You know I’m under pressure here.’

‘You could have said no,’ said Martin, eyebrows raised.

‘Garbage. You set me up. There’s no way anyone could say no to that.’

‘She’s quite something, isn’t she?’

‘Hmmm,’ said Nikos, ‘but you do know that I won’t be giving her anything other than some hard home truths? I’m not getting mixed up in anything. Especially with a woman who just needs to stand in a corner and whistle and she’ll have men lying at her feet.’

‘She’s not like that at all. She’s from a very good family.’

‘That counts for nothing. Anyway, let’s get on with this. What’s going down? Why the year-long battle with your lawyers? Just what are you trying to prove?’

Martin stood with his back to the fireplace of flowers. The top of his greying head was visible in the ornate mirror. His face was cast in a sickly pallor, and he frowned and clasped his fingers. He was clearly agitated.

‘I’m not trying to prove or disprove anything. My back’s against the wall. All I know is that Maria had some investments. She was involved in something just before she died. I think it was illegal.’

Nikos nodded. No shocks so far…

‘I see. Do we have any clue as to what it was?’

He noticed Martin wringing his hands again.

‘Not exactly. She never confided in me—apart from the garbled message she left the night she died. And I think that’s what the police are following up too.’

Nikos turned away. The night she died…almost the worst night of his life.

He’d turned up at his villa in Greece and found his wife topless in the hot tub with his old man. The night her drug-taking and his old man’s drug-selling had combined in one fatal party. The night Nikos had walked away and never looked back, not even when she ran screaming after him.

No, he didn’t ever want to think about that night again, but it didn’t seem he had any choice.

‘That stuff about the drugs?’ he said quietly. ‘We both know she bought them from my dad.’

‘I think it’s more than that. I think he’s the one behind the other investments. At least, that’s what he’s telling me…’

Nikos looked up sharply.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ve had some communication from him.’

Suddenly Martin’s sickly pallor and wringing hands made sense. Communicating with Arthur was never pleasant and Nikos had studiously avoided it for nearly twenty years. He blocked calls, emails, and every security guard knew his father’s face on sight. He’d left Australia to get away from him, and he was damned if he was going to let him into his life in any way, shape or form ever again.

‘OK. Out with it. What does he want?’

Martin cleared his throat.

‘He wants forty million dollars. He says that that night they both went fifty-fifty on some investment she’d bought into in Cayman. He transferred five million dollars and then she… Well, you know what happened.’

‘You don’t really believe that, do you?’

Martin turned and leaned his hands on the fireplace.

‘I don’t know what to believe. He says he gave her the money and the company has quadrupled in value. He says she invested it—and he works it out to be forty million that he says he’s owed.’

‘Owed?’

‘By you as her beneficiary. And if you won’t pay up—me.’

‘He’s insane. Did you tell him that she left nothing? Zero? That there is no estate—only trails of debt that lead in a hundred different directions. All I have is what I built myself and, trust me, I don’t have a spare forty million lying around. I’d have noticed if I did. What evidence does he have for any of this?’

Martin shrugged.

‘That’s all I know. But I’m guessing you’ll find out one way or another.’

Nikos laughed mirthlessly.

‘I wouldn’t give him forty cents, never mind forty million dollars. After what he did?’

He’d had enough of all this. He walked to the door, was there in three strides.

‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’ said Martin, still hooked around the fireplace.

Nikos turned. ‘What else is there? He’s a lowlife blackmailing piece of scum and if he thinks this is going to result in anything other than me hating him even more, he’s mistaken.’

He opened the door and then closed it again.

‘And I suggest you get yourself some better company to keep, Martin.’

He pulled the door closed and stood in the plush silent hallway, his heart thundering in his ears and his body primed for fight. He had to get a hold of himself or he’d rip someone’s head off. He had to throw everything he had at it. But the fact that it was his old man who had stoked it all to life wasn’t wasted on him. Everything he touched turned poisonous. Every goddamned time.

There would be some grain of truth in that cock-and-bull story because it was too crazy for there not to be. But he wasn’t leaving it up to chance. He was going to go back to the villa and go through the vault. The one place he’d avoided for years might be the one place he’d find what he was looking for.

He speed-dialled his accountant.

‘Mark,’ he said, ‘as soon as you get this I want you to check out every transfer that went into or out of Maria’s accounts around the time she died. I’m looking for an investment in a company registered in the Cayman Islands. It’s probably something that she’ll have buried so it might be hard to find. That’s all I have for now but I think this could be what’s behind the investigation and the letters from Martin Lopez’s solicitors.’

He clicked off the phone as a waiter walked past with a tray of drinks. Parties were still kicking off but he was in no mood to party. What he needed now was silence. And sleep.

He was jet-lagged and pumped with adrenalin, and there wasn’t enough whisky in the whole place to knock him under. He needed to stand in a hot shower and hit the sack.

He pushed open the door of his suite, stepping out of his trousers, removing his jacket, heaving at his tie and unbuttoning his shirt with fingers that even now still shook with rage.

In the shower he stood, water from all angles pummelling his back and legs and head. He had to cool it. Be cool. Rein it in, Nikos. Calm it.

He thought of his mother lying in her bed in the nursing home. He thought of her sweet smile in the photograph of them at the beach, and then he thought of the blank, unseeing eyes that had looked at him the day before.

Every step he took was for her. To make her proud, to make all her own suffering worthwhile. He wasn’t going to go under because of his father. He wasn’t going to let Arthur ruin his reputation or his fortune. He was going to fight back.

He turned off the jets of water and dried himself. There was a noise outside. He opened the bathroom door a crack and listened. Someone was battering on the door. Martin?

He walked through the room, kicking up his suit trousers and catching them in his right hand as he opened the door with his left.

But it wasn’t Martin. It was the blonde in the blue dress.

‘Hi,’ he said, confused. Then he slapped his forehead. ‘Damn. Sorry. You’ve been waiting in the bar to see me. I said I’d send for you.’

Her eyes opened like starbursts, falling from his face to his chest and the towel knotted at his hips.

‘Sorry, I was taking a shower.’

She stared at her feet, then down the hall, then at her feet. ‘I am so sorry. I really did not mean to disturb you. It was getting so late… I’ll go back and wait downstairs.’

‘What time is it?’ he said, trying to bury his impatience. This he could do without.

‘Um…’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know. My phone ran out of power.’

‘And I clearly don’t have a watch on,’ he said with a cynical chuckle.

She blushed furiously. She was very, very pretty when she blushed. She was very pretty, full stop. He could be in the mood to spend some time with her. That would be better than whisky at taking the edge off, for sure.

‘Come in. I’ll get some clothes on. We can chat now.’

He threw the door back and walked inside, tossing the trousers over a chair in the passing.

‘If you don’t mind, I’d rather not.’

He turned around, couldn’t hide his surprise, but she was staring at her feet, her hands clasped in front of her.

‘Much as I want to have a meeting with you, it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to come in while you’re undressed.’

He walked to the wardrobe and helped himself to a large white fluffy bathrobe, tied it at his waist.

‘Suit yourself,’ he said.

She looked up. Further along the hallway, noise bubbled out as a door opened. After-parties were probably taking place all over the hotel and she was too prudish to step over the threshold of his room?

‘I hope you understand,’ she said, taking another step back from the doorway. ‘I want to talk about my business—that’s all.’

He almost laughed out loud but when her face didn’t break into a smile, he realised she was completely serious. How about that? She’d secured a meeting with him, but only on her terms. And those terms were…refreshing.

‘Well, that’s fine by me—but I won’t be around for much longer if you still want that five minutes.’

‘Maybe I could come by tomorrow morning before you leave?’

That would be a no, he thought.

With his flight scheduled for ten thirty, he’d be out of here an hour earlier, and the thought of cramming anything else into his head right now was not appealing at all.

But she looked so young, so full of hope. Like a flower opening its petals at the first burst of sunshine. He didn’t really want to crush her, did he?

He nodded.

‘OK. Come for breakfast. Nine.’

The sweet joy that spread across her face was beautiful, like a child’s, and it was amazing how good that made him feel—for a second.

‘Thank you so much. I promise not to waste your time.’

‘We’ll see,’ he said.

But as he put his hand on the door and began to close it, his phone lit up. Mark. More bad news.

CHAPTER FOUR

A SLEEPLESS NIGHT, anxiety and a heatwave. What a killer combo. But at least she had a reason, and a fast-approaching deadline.

Jacquelyn flew around the studio tidying up the mess she’d made over the previous four hours. She was exhausted but she was getting ready to meet Nikos Karellis and for the first time in ages she felt hopeful, optimistic—happy?

It wasn’t what she’d set out to do, but it was even better than finance from Martin Lopez. This was a chance with House, for goodness’ sake! It was the retail sensation that had expanded when everyone else was shutting up shop and disappearing down online rabbit holes.

Just those four brief meetings with Nikos Karellis had lit something up inside her, ignited some hunger that she’d never possessed before. Something had rubbed off and made her want to be part of that world. It was as if he’d sprinkled some of his magic dust and she’d breathed it in, and from the moment she’d closed the door to his suite, she’d been unable to get him out of her mind.

Who are you trying to kid? she thought fleetingly. You saw him nearly naked and you’re as hooked as every other woman. The only difference is that you were afraid to step through the doors to see where it might lead. But you could have…

No. This drive to get it right had nothing to do with any attraction to him as a man. She would never dream of having a business meeting in his suite. This was all about Ariana. It was so important to get it right!

And she would. She’d tossed and turned for a couple of hours, got up at three and then started work. By six she had completely reworked the strategy. She’d created four personas of Ariana Bridal clients. She’d sketched out a cost-benefit analysis, which presupposed cash injection from House. And then she’d gone the extra mile and thrown in some figures based on the concession opportunities that she’d gain linked to the brand. It was all pure speculation and she could be way, way off, but it showed imagination. It showed that she’d done some homework at least.

So she still hadn’t fixed the designs. But that part would come. With cash they could hire a designer again, someone who could really capture what it meant to be an Ariana bride…

She practised her pitch out loud as she poured her fourth coffee and walked with it through to her bedroom to start getting ready. She would show him what she was capable of. She wasn’t some airhead underachiever; she was the heart and soul of this business, and with his cash injection Ariana could be a great little addition to his portfolio.

But first she’d need to make a start on her appearance.

The clock showed seven. Just under two hours should be fine. She’d have time for a quick face masque and then some brightening cream. Then she’d plaster on the concealer and some coral lipstick.

She heard the door and tried to peer outside. There was a huge black car in the lane. Barbara, in one of her current husband’s limousines. She’d be ‘on her way to the gym’, which really meant she’d been scouring social media since she woke and couldn’t wait to get the details. She probably already knew about her breakfast meeting with Nikos.

‘Hello, Barbara,’ Jacquelyn said, as brightly as she could, as she pulled back the bolt on the door. ‘This is an early call today.’

‘Hello, Jacquelyn.’

Nikos!

He looked fresh and vital in a crisp white shirt and dark jeans, but with that solar intensity that made her take a step back. Her hands flew up to her hair in a defensive motion as she did a mental checklist. Three hours’ sleep, four hours’ staring at a screen, four coffees, no make-up, hair everywhere. She stared down—a skimpy camisole and pyjama shorts.

‘What are you doing here? How did you know where I lived?’

‘I looked it up,’ he said simply.

‘But I thought I was to come to Maybury Hall at nine. Isn’t that what you said? Oh, no, I’ve not messed this up completely, have I? I’ve been working on a presentation all morning. I’ve personalised it just for you. And House.’

‘No, it’s not nine,’ he said with a wry laugh. ‘It’s only seven. And I’ve come by here on my way to the airport. Something’s come up and I’ve got business to attend to I can’t put off.’

He was solemn, sullen and serious. He was going and taking with him the air that she needed to breathe. She felt bereft—as if the ray of hope, the hot air balloon that she had finally found to take her over this rocky ground had just been punctured. All those hours she’d spent she’d completely convinced herself that there was no way forward now other than with concessions in the House stores.

‘We can reschedule?’

Reschedule? She knew a brush-off when she heard one.

‘Oh. I see.’

She knew by the slight surprise in his eyes that she hadn’t hidden her disappointment at all well. But this was awful. This was the pacifier that Martin Lopez had passed her. There was nothing else.

‘I’m sorry—I realise that you are a very busy man. I hope everything is OK.’

‘Everything will be OK, thanks. And I’m perfectly serious about another time. My assistant will be in touch in a couple of days to sort out a date…’

She hesitated, the words of despair held back in her mouth. When? she wanted to whine. Because in six days we could be closed down…gone…forgotten.

‘Oh, that would be wonderful. If you have the time.’

‘Of course. It would be my pleasure.’

He looked so sincere, and seemed to hesitate when she extended her hand, put on her smile.

‘Well, thank you anyway. It was lovely to meet you last night, and I’m very grateful for your time. I do realise how busy you are.’

He looked away. ‘I’m a man of my word, Jacquelyn. I said I would listen to your pitch and I will.’

She heard the words but her disappointment seemed to know no bounds. It was the light going out. It was exhaustion. It was being up all night and so full of adrenalin.

‘Please, don’t worry about it,’ she said, on a sigh.

‘Look, I’m heading to Greece. Why don’t you come along on the flight—make the pitch then? I often have meetings as I travel; if you’re OK with that, I’d be happy to accommodate it.’

Travel with him on his plane? Alone? To talk about Ariana and House. That was intense. Insane. That was the offer of a lifetime.

‘Why yes, that would be super,’ she said, her mind running ahead, but then… ‘When do you fly?’

‘I’m on my way to the airport now.’

‘Now? As in right now?’

She looked down again at her skimpy clothes and then up into his face, which seemed to have softened slightly.

‘Don’t worry. I won’t ask you to pitch in your pyjamas. The flight will take a few hours. I’m going to be busy for a while—you can finish your presentation, if that’s what you want to do. There should still be plenty of time for the pitch. If there’s not enough time, do it after lunch. You can come to the villa. Fly home later this evening. You’ll be back at work tomorrow.’

He stepped out into the street and seemed to look over his shoulder.

‘OK? It’s the best I can do.’

‘I’ll take it,’ she said, knowing that this was in fact a better offer than she could ever have imagined. Travelling with Nikos to his villa in Greece. Lunch and then making her pitch. Surely this indicated that he was really interested in what she had to offer?

‘Could you give me ten minutes?’

He checked his watch; he raised his eyebrows.

‘Five?’ she said.

He nodded and stepped inside.

‘I’ll be right back.’

With an energy she didn’t know she possessed Jacquelyn flew upstairs to the flat, ran a shower and was in and out of it in under a minute. She dragged a brush through her damp hair and tied it into a braid. She lathered cream on her face, hands and arms and threw her favourite cornflower-blue sundress over her head. With a minute to spare she applied deep pink lipstick, slid on gold jewellery and leather sandals.

Never in her life had she gotten ready so fast. She looked flushed and desperate, but the light golden tan and blue of the dress picking out the blue of her eyes made the whole appearance somehow alive.

Let that be a lesson, Jacquelyn Jones, she thought.

She tossed a jersey dress into her bag and clean underwear, just in case, then grabbed her laptop, the folio of designs and looked around the studio. Coffee cups, handkerchiefs and the half-eaten slice of toast she had started and then discarded.

She ran downstairs, pulled the door closed and went out into the courtyard where Nikos was waiting. He stood in profile, staring at the fountain, lost in thought.

She beamed at him, carried away by her own enthusiasm and energy, but when he turned to look it was with a face etched deep with concern.

‘Is everything OK?’ she asked, suddenly stalling on the steps.

He focused on her, swept her with his eyes and then his face seemed to brighten.

He put his phone in his pocket.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Sure. All good. You look beautiful, Jacquelyn.’

‘Thanks,’ she said, astonished. Because getting a compliment from a man like him seemed to be worth more than getting a compliment from anyone else. It didn’t make her flesh crawl or make her feel patronised. And she wanted him to think she was beautiful.

How odd that she should care…

He smiled.

‘Let’s go to Greece,’ he said.

CHAPTER FIVE

SO HE DIDN’T always make the right decisions, and extending a pity invitation to Jacquelyn Jones was definitely not one of his best. As soon as he’d taken the second call from Mark, he should have followed his first instincts and sent her a message.

But when he’d found out that Ariana Bridal was only two miles from Maybury Hall he didn’t have the heart to drive by. And all he was going to do was offer her another place, another time, and, if he was completely honest, hopefully another agenda—one not related to business.

With every passing minute he had regretted this gut reaction to those blue eyes. He owed her nothing but somehow he’d found himself agreeing to meeting her not once but twice. This was getting way out of hand.

They’d had no time to talk on the flight—he could have predicted that—and the time of this pitch had dragged on now, to some post-lunch rendezvous, every minute heightening her optimism and dimming his.

But in a way it had been a salvation having her chatting away and oohing and ah-ing about the scenery on this first journey back from the airstrip to the villa. He doubted she’d noticed him turn his head away when they neared the hairpin bend that dropped to the steep olive grove where Maria’s car had taken its tragic turn.

The skid marks were still on the road, twin black lines, baked into the cement. On through the village of Agios Stephanos they drove—it was almost exactly as he remembered, the bakers, the store, the old men who stared, and dogs tied up in pockets of shade, barking at the cars as they passed.

He pointed out the tiny old white church clinging to the side of the steep cliff, roughened with centuries of hot sun and windswept winters. His great-grandparents had been married there, and their parents and grandparents before them, but he kept those facts to himself.

Further on, faded signs sent far-travelling tourists to sacred wells, and a stream trickled down to the level of the sea, where his private shingle beach presented itself to crystal-clear aquamarine waters, and where once upon a time he’d moored his boat.

Once upon a time this had been the one place on earth he’d felt truly alive, and truly alone. It was in his DNA and it was a thousand miles from Sydney.

Maria hadn’t particularly liked it here—too basic, too boring—and he’d seen no reason to try to change her mind. He’d kept it private and personal, loving his times alone here. Occasionally he’d entertained like-minded clients who’d turned into friends, but never, it had to be said, anyone who was still at the stage of pitching a proposal.

He stood now in the library, sheaves of papers strewn all over the table. Beyond them, through the window, he looked out over the old familiar gardens and tennis courts, down to the pool house to where, with another apology, he’d sent word for her to wait for him.

The hour he’d asked her to wait had become three, as he’d rummaged through Maria’s unfiled documents, with calls back and forth to Mark. He’d sent more apologies and the offer of anything his guest’s heart desired, including food and drink, spa treatments from his private masseuse and her choice of clothes from the vast wardrobes in the villa.

Finally, he closed the door of the safe, clutching the bundle of papers that he’d been searching for. They were a mess but they showed Maria’s ownership of a company listed in Cayman. He connected by video phone to Mark and his lawyer and together they went through them word by word. It seemed that she’d bought a shadow company, but that it had ceased trading six months later.

There was no sign of any money ever changing hands between her and his father. And there was no sign of any profits, which meant that neither his father nor Martin nor the Inland Revenue were due anything at all.

Finally even the calm, unflappable Mark breathed out a sigh of relief. And that said something.

‘That was a close call. I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet, but at least we know there was stuff happening that you weren’t party to. This is good news.’

Good news. He nodded as the knowledge sank in. His wife had deceived him in new and even more dangerous ways. It shouldn’t really have been a surprise, but it was still painful. And what else was he going to find out?

‘I take it you’ll be out of commission for the next few hours in some kind of post-apocalyptic celebration?’

‘For your information, I’m going straight into another meeting. I’ve got someone waiting to pitch a new concession for House.’

‘A pitch? On Sunday. After what you’ve just been through?’

‘It’s no big deal. I don’t think it’ll come to anything. It’s a favour to a friend—it’s bridalwear, bespoke—not something I see working for us. It’s not the right brand, but I might be able to give her some feedback that’ll help.’

‘Sounds like just the way to unwind after averting an unaffordable tax bill, a rush on your stock and a media storm. But hey, who am I to judge?’

Nikos raised his eyebrow at Mark’s attempt at humour. He was emotionally wrung out, stressed out and jet-lagged. And now he had this to do. Mark was right. He wouldn’t be able to focus on a word she was saying. He had to just chill for a couple of hours.

‘Incidentally, I’ve doubled your security in the short term. Until all this blows over. I think it’s best to be on the safe side.’

‘Is there anyone here in Greece?’

‘Not since after the break-in. Your last-minute change of plans caught us off guard but I can get a couple of guys there if you want.’

‘It’s OK, I’ll be heading back soon. Thanks,’ said Nikos, then clicked off the phone and pocketed it. The break-in six months earlier had taken him by surprise, but it was just some opportunistic petty criminal. They’d been disturbed before they could take anything.

Still, he was glad Mark had the sense to step things up. He’d felt uneasy leaving Manhattan, but then, these days he felt uneasy everywhere. Leaving Maybury Hall he’d felt something wasn’t right, that strange car, parked too long, that just happened to stop off at Lower Linton when he did…?

He was probably getting paranoid.

He tripped down the steps to the pool, just as he caught sight of Jacquelyn, sitting under a parasol in the shade, her laptop in front of her, staring intently at the screen. Her brow was furrowed and her eyes intense, her lips moving, her hands gesticulating—she was practising her pitch to him.

Oh, man. She was all geared up and he was gearing down.

He took the last flight of steps, slowing his pace, trying to think of the best words to begin his own pitch to her. He knew his own body—he was buzzed up and he needed release. It was either sex or exercise. It wasn’t politely listening to a friend of a friend telling him about her plans to bring more fishtail wedding dresses to market.

He strode past the drained hot tub, ignoring it, and right up to the pool house, just as she noticed him. She looked up, startled, touched her hand to her chest in an endearing way. In her simple blue sundress, with broad straps over sleek shoulders, she looked good. She looked great. That was all he could think.

‘I’m so sorry!’ she said. ‘I didn’t see you there. I would have been ready for you up at the house if I’d known.’

‘I’m the one who needs to apologise, dragging you all this way and then leaving you here to fend for yourself all afternoon. Have you been OK? Got everything you need?’

‘Yes. Totally,’ she said. ‘I’ve had a lovely afternoon sitting out here. It’s the best waiting room I’ve ever been in. It’s beautiful. You’re so lucky.’

He looked around, nodding. The Aegean was particularly calm, particularly blue. Behind him sparrows were flying in and out of the bushes and hedges that screened the pool, just as they’d always done. The sun was beginning its late afternoon slide, the light that perfect hot, bright dazzle that made everything look at its best. And the pure, cool twenty metres of water right beside him looked as inviting as he’d ever seen it. It was pretty near as perfect as anywhere could be.

Jacquelyn stood up and smoothed her dress, catching his eye. He forced his gaze to remain on her face.

‘So where do you want to do this?’ she said brightly. ‘Up in the house? It’s only me and the laptop. I can fall in with whatever suits.’

He ran his hands through his hair, biting down on the adrenalin that was building in him. He didn’t want to go back in there. He didn’t want to sit down politely and listen to anything she had to say. He wanted to be out here, in the sunshine, living life, remembering Greece the way it used to be for him. He wanted to shake off the cobwebs of Maria’s death once and for all, and he couldn’t think of a more engaging woman to do it with.

‘To tell you the truth, the thing that would suit me most now is just to chill for a while. I’ve been on the go for hours and I need to unwind.’

He glanced at the pool house and her eyes followed his, widening when she looked back at him.

‘How about we shelve the business talks for a bit? I don’t think that tagging on a pitch right now is going to be the best idea—we both need to be clear-headed. What do you say?’

He winced as the words came out of his mouth. She was going to be more and more convinced that there was a crock of gold at the end of this rainbow when, really, it was much more likely to be a crock of something else.

‘Well, yes. Of course. I don’t want to get in the way. I’ll fall in with your plans. You were good enough to invite me here in the first place—I’m just happy to get the chance.’

Why did that irritate him slightly? That she was glad only to be here for her five-minute pitch? He wanted her to want to be here because he was Nikos Karellis the man, not the CEO of House. He opened a bottle of water and splashed some into two glasses, handing her one.

‘You need to stop apologising for yourself. Would be my first piece of business advice. If what you’ve got to offer is worthwhile, people will be prepared to wait for it.’

Her lips formed a surprised ‘oh’ and he was sure she was about to start with another apology but she clamped her mouth closed.

‘Thanks for the advice, then,’ she said, taking the glass and putting it straight down on the table.

‘You’re welcome. Always better to say thanks for your patience than to apologise for holding someone up. It’s assertive. Someone in your position needs to be very assertive.’

‘I’ve never had any complaints before,’ she said, and he noted as she drew herself up. He noted because the slight movement drew his eyes to the curves under her dress, the way it creased and hugged and flattered.

‘I’m sure you haven’t had many complaints at all,’ he said, and he meant it innocently enough, but in the pause that extended now between them, in the moment in which they each regarded the other, the unmistakeable heat of sexual tension began to bloom. He felt the physical rush and saw it reflected in the widening of her eyes, the slight parting of her lips.

‘If any,’ he finished, underlining the point, unnecessarily.

‘I meant,’ she said, clearing her throat, ‘I haven’t had any complaints about being assertive. Though that doesn’t seem to get me anywhere. In the business world.’

He drained his glass and reached for more. In the quiet afternoon, the only sounds were the slosh of water in his glass, and the bursts of cicadas through the heavy heat. The sun beat down on his back, warmth spread and seemed to soothe his tense shoulders. The world was beginning to slow and right itself. Greece was seeping under his skin again.

‘Maybe you’ve been talking to the wrong people. I guess some people, some men, are threatened by an assertive woman.’

‘Well, I can’t seem to be any other way,’ she said, walking to the edge of the terrace. She placed her hands lightly on the top of the barrier and stared out to sea. Sunlight glinted on her golden hair and bathed the edges of her shoulders; the skirt of her dress floated up in the warm summer’s breeze.

‘Be yourself,’ he said. ‘It’s working well from where I’m standing.’

She cast a glance back over her shoulder.

‘With all due respect, it’s easy for you to say. You don’t have to ask anyone to finance your company. You’ve got everything you could ever need.’

Everything he could ever need? People thought that having the cars and houses and planes was everything. Easy mistake to make but they were so wrong. He wanted peace. He wanted trust. He wanted to be able to wake up in the morning to birdsong; he wanted to roll over in his bed and hold the warm body of the woman he loved, not slide into cold space, wondering where she was and who she was with, and what she’d done.

But he doubted he would ever find it, if it even existed.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and he looked up from his self-pity. ‘I overstepped the mark there. I had no right to say that. It was unprofessional. I just want you to know that I’m really grateful for this chance—I don’t want to do anything to ruin it.’

‘Oh, come on, Jacquelyn. Give yourself a break. Maybe you should try being a bit less professional for a while. All I’m saying is that I’d be grateful for your company for the next few hours. As one human being to another, the real Nikos and the real Jacquelyn.’

She was on the back foot. He could see tension in her eyes and the nervous way she clasped her hands. She walked over to where her laptop sat and moved it out of the wedge of sunlight that had crept onto the table. Then she closed the lid halfway.

‘Well, the thought of spending time here… Who wouldn’t want to do that? I mean, it’s gorgeous, and I haven’t had a holiday in four years, but…’

‘There’s a “but”?’

‘But can I get your word that the pitch will definitely go ahead?’ she said, her hands clasped in front of her chest.

‘The pitch will definitely go ahead,’ he repeated, nodding. ‘Come hell or high water, you’ll get your chance to talk about your business. I’m only talking a walk, a swim, then an early dinner. You could stay here tonight—there’s plenty of space,’ he said quickly, when he saw a look of surprise and shock sweep over her face. ‘Get an early night and then you’ll be fresh for the morning. Pitch at nine and I’ll have the jet ready for ten-thirty. I’m heading back to New York via London tomorrow too. I think that would work—yeah?’

‘You mean stay all night? I don’t think so. I wasn’t really counting on that. I’m not really prepared.’

‘I wasn’t counting on it either,’ he said, with an honesty that he didn’t expect. ‘This is the first time I’ve been back here in years. I thought I’d hate it, I thought I’d want to get away the minute I…found what I was looking for in the vault, but I don’t. I really want to hang out, relax.’

He looked round again at the terrace, the pool, the bushes popping with colour and even the empty hot tub that shimmered in the baking heat. The olive groves behind him on the hillside, the goats roaming free. This was home, and he’d had no idea how much he’d missed it.

‘Come on. If you won’t do it for me, do it for the staff who’re slaving in that kitchen preparing dinner for us tonight. You can’t let them down.’

‘That’s not fair. That’s blackmail,’ she said, but a smile was tugging at her lips.

‘I never said it was fair. But if you want that on your conscience…’

‘OK. I’ll stay. As long as I can get an early night in the guest bedroom…’

‘Of course. That’s a given. So on that basis we have a deal?’ He laughed, and extended his hand.

‘Deal,’ she said, and as she slid her hand into his, and looked up with those cool blue eyes, he knew there was a fire that burned there, and he was even more sure that there was nothing he wanted more on this earth than to light it.

CHAPTER SIX

THE BRIGHT AFTERNOON sparkled and finally faded as the lilac clouds of dusk slipped through purples and mauves and came to settle over the low hills. Night wrapped warm arms around the vast lands of the villa, snuffing out everything except the sconces on the walls, the lamps dotted on paths and the fiery glow of the man himself.

Jacquelyn, freshly showered, hair long and loose, slipped into her silk jersey maxi dress and stepped out on the terrace to watch.

Her hands curled round the cool metal barrier and she breathed, deeply. What a day. From the moment the plane had touched down on the soil she’d been swept up in love for this place. The light, the scents and sounds, every fabulous aspect of this fabulous villa. And then spending the last part of the afternoon walking through shady olive groves, visiting the fabled Well of Agamemnon and sitting on Nikos’s private beach.

She could hardly believe she was the same person who had been so dismissive of Nikos Karellis only one day earlier. Now her heart raced and her stomach fluttered at the thought of his face breaking into a smile, as he took her hand to guide her down the worn sandstone steps onto the baking sand.

She’d been right not to strip off and swim though, tempted as she was. But that would have been a step too far. Instead she’d kept her sundress on and her dignity intact, and watched happily from the tiny terrace as he’d emerged from the pool house in a pair of swim shorts and jogged past her into the sea.

He was magnificent. All that she’d denied herself in that flash as he’d opened the door to his suite, she’d then feasted on from the safety of her deck chair. She’d gorged herself on the rippling muscles of his back, his firm calves and thighs as he’d pounded past her to the waves. The sight of his fabled tattoos winding from his neck over his back and his chest, tracing their silky path over strong, hard, perfect muscles.

He’d pounded the waves, swimming out some fifty metres and back, making her feel stupidly, ridiculously nervous when he’d almost seemed to disappear in the foaming white horses.

And then finally he’d emerged and walked towards her, dragging a towel this way and that, mesmerising her, like a magnificent godlike hypnotist. She’d been powerless to stop herself. And that was OK. Because all she’d been doing was looking. And as long as she remembered that, she was in no danger.

But even now as she stood watching him on the terrace below, she knew that every single thing about Nikos Karellis eclipsed every single thing about every other man she’d ever met. Back and forward he paced, like a general pacing in front of his army. In the calm, silent night his voice carried to where she stood, switching from the Greek she barely recognised, to Italian and then back to his deep, drawling Australian English—he was orator, statesman and king all in one.

She knew she should be thinking about her presentation, but she simply couldn’t make her mind focus. Yet. As long as she had an early night, she’d be up at dawn and get back into the zone.

‘Hey up there! Juliet! Coming to join me?’ said Nikos. He had walked to the end of the terrace and was almost underneath her.

‘Yes, Romeo, just coming,’ she laughed. She lifted her fingers to her lips to blow him a kiss, and then stopped—what was she thinking? She drew her hand back as if she had been intending to tuck her hair behind her ear.

But the look in his eyes told her he knew. He knew she was attracted to him. She was useless at hiding it. From the way she’d drooled as he’d dried himself down, to the way she’d been caught, open-mouthed, watching him just now.

Of course she was attracted; who wouldn’t be? The question was, what was she going to do about it?

She slipped silently along the hallway, her feet slipping on the marble, her silver bracelets jangling. She caught sight of herself in the mirrored doors that led out to the terrace.

You’d better be careful, Jacquelyn, she told herself. You’re almost out of your depth. Don’t spoil it all now…

She walked across the lamp-lit terrace. Nikos walked towards her, and her heart leaped in her chest. She breathed, she smiled. She took the cheek he offered, right, then left, and she kissed him quickly, ignoring the swirl of musky male scent and the smooth warmth of his skin.

‘You look very beautiful,’ he said. ‘That coral colour suits you. The cut of the dress—really nice.’

She knew it did. The soft jersey draped over her figure, hugging her curves, the coral pink toned with her skin. She was lucky.

‘Thank you,’ she replied as he showed her to her seat at a round table, tucked in the corner of the trailing rose arbour, lit by candles and strings of little lamps.

‘Are you hungry?’ he asked as he settled himself beside her and speared a bit of melon, watching her carefully.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said, looking at the plates of appetisers. But she wasn’t. She wasn’t hungry in the slightest.

He nodded, still watching, and she lifted some food to her plate.

‘Your room OK?’

‘Oh, yes. Thanks. Very comfortable.’

He nodded. ‘I’ve been busy, but that swim did me the world of good. Unfortunately it was all waiting for me when we got back from the beach.’

‘I guess you’re always on call.’

‘Aren’t you? As head of a business, there never seems to be a moment when someone doesn’t want an instant solution to some problem or other.’

‘I’m not quite in your league. My issues are more around being taken seriously.’

He raised a sharp eyebrow.

‘Not by my staff. But by men. Bank managers usually.’

‘You feel objectified in the business world?’

‘Objectified. Patronised. Demoralised. Take your pick. I’m sorry if I sound bitter, but the number of times I’ve heard “Oh, isn’t your father coming?” Honestly. It would never happen if I were a man.’

‘People make judgements in less than a second. It takes a lot to change a preconceived idea, but I bet you can do it if you want to.’

It was the thing that upset her more than anything else. Taking over from her father, and feeling that sense of disappointment every time it was she alone who walked into meetings. It was fine when she was just there as window dressing, but as soon as she was running the whole show she knew she’d been judged and filed before some of them had even read past the first line of her accounts.

‘I don’t imagine anyone has ever told you you’re far too handsome to be getting all mixed up in business before?’

‘No,’ he said, scathingly. ‘And I honestly can’t believe in this day and age that anyone would doubt your credentials because you’re a woman.’

‘It happens,’ she said, taking a sip of wine, feeling it slide warmly into her stomach.

‘If it’s any consolation, you wouldn’t begin to imagine what’s been said to me. The question is, do we let what other people think affect our decisions?’

‘Is this about to turn into my second piece of business advice?’ she asked, smiling as she took another little sip of the very delicious wine.

‘Life advice,’ he countered.

‘So why exactly does Mister Seventy-Sixth-on-the-Forbes-List feel so maligned?’

‘I don’t. But what I’m trying to get across is that people paint pictures in business. And in life. The perfect world you think you see here…’

He jerked his fork around the space. Lamps were now glowing softly right along the lines of the terrace, highlighting clumps of sleeping flowers nestled in their bushy beds. Further on, the blue glimmer of the pool and the solid lines of pale loungers stretched out expectantly under the watchful hillside, and the bright-faced moon above.

‘This paradise and every other paradise like it will be hiding all sorts of cracks and holes and heartache.’

As she stared up at him lazily spearing watermelon and letting it slide down his throat, she recalled another article she had read, about his early childhood and humble beginnings.

‘You had it tough at one point in time, didn’t you?’

He raised an eyebrow, continued to munch melon and she watched in a hazy trance now as his muscled forearms flexed with each movement of his fork, and the thick column of his throat constricted with each swallow. It was poetry in motion, dark and male and utterly magnetic.

‘No tougher than any other kid growing up in an abusive, dysfunctional family. All things considered, I had it pretty easy.’

‘I’m sure you could take care of yourself,’ she said, a trifle dismissively. He might have had humble beginnings but he had it all laid out at his feet now. He had no idea how she’d had to struggle.

‘Well, you see, that’s where you’re wrong, Jacquelyn. I couldn’t. So that’s how I ended up here.’

He sounded so different, so quiet. He glanced down at the plate where a few glistening pink cubes of melon remained, but then he put his fork down, stared at it for a moment.

‘I ran away. I met my wife at the side of the road when she was still someone else’s wife. I knew what she was doing was wrong but I was eighteen. I was in so much trouble, with the police, with the gangs, with my father. I knew if I stayed in Sydney I’d be dead within a year. And then along comes Maria. And she wanted to be my wife and so I married her, I “reinvented myself” and now here I am. And here you are.’

As he spoke she felt the ghosts of his past swirl around. She saw him look at her, really look at her. He wasn’t looking at her like a boss, he was looking at her like a man.

‘Here we are indeed,’ she said, and she glanced around with a nervousness that she wasn’t sure was real.

‘So, you see, I’ve bought the T-shirt with the whole marriage crap. It doesn’t really do it for me now that I’ve grown up. No offence,’ he said.

‘None taken. For the record, I may work at one end of the marriage production line, but I’m well aware of how it can end up.’

‘Things didn’t work out for you either, did they?’

She flushed. She hated bringing all that up again. Not here, not now.

‘Things worked out,’ she said, but she couldn’t meet his eye.

‘Still hurts, huh? You’re not alone. Men can tend to have the upper hand in relationships. Things seem a bit less complicated for us.’

‘That’s just an excuse for dishonourable people to act in a dishonourable way,’ she said, and there was the bitterness in her voice, still there because she really didn’t buy the argument that men were different from women. There were people who were good and there were people who weren’t. There were good men in the world, like her father. The trouble was, they all appeared to be taken…

‘OK. I hear you. But relationships come in many forms. I’m not saying it’s OK to lie, but if everyone is clear about the boundaries, who are you to judge?’

‘Not everyone is as clear about the boundaries as you think they are,’ she said.

Nikos looked at her with understanding painted in his eyes.

‘That Tim guy,’ he said, quietly. ‘What did he do to you?’

She’d told no one apart from her mother the facts of that night, but somehow the whole story had made it around town before she’d even taken her ring off and flushed it down the toilet.

‘It’s no secret. We were going out for four years, engaged for two and he left me five weeks before we were due to get married.’

He nodded. He reached over and squeezed her hand, but she drew it back again quickly. ‘I’m sorry, but people split up, all the time. It happens. Better that it happened before you got married than after.’

‘I know that. And believe me, I thank my lucky stars every day now. But it was how he did it. We were out for dinner. He ordered fillet steak, medium rare—he even said that—and then he just excused himself to go to the bathroom and never came back.’

She’d sipped her gin and tonic, watching the light dance off the self-same engagement ring, and feeling so proud and pleased that she would soon have a golden band there beside it. And she’d sipped some more as she’d waited on Tim, and then some more until she’d finished her drink. And then she’d realised, he was away too long. Far too long.

The shame, the humiliation. How long she had sat there, calling for help. ‘My fiancé is stuck in the toilet…something must have happened to him. Please call the police…he’s been abducted…’

All the silly nonsense she’d convinced herself was true until, gently but firmly, the police officer had told her he had driven away in his own car—and had shown it to her there on the CCTV.

‘That’s pretty tough. You mean you didn’t actually split up—he just split? Was there someone else?’

Nikos poured a little more wine, the gentle slosh of liquid in the glass a mesmeric accompaniment to his words.

‘I think so. I heard he went abroad, met someone else, a woman with children of her own. He’s only been back in the country a few months.’

She wasn’t going to tell him about the email he’d finally sent a month later. Saying it was all her fault, that she wouldn’t listen. She’d driven him away.

‘Rubbish,’ her mother had said.

‘I’ll kill him if I get my hands on him,’ her father had said.

‘And yet you’re “pure as the driven snow”. Wasn’t that what he called you?’

So he’d heard that. She wondered what else he’d heard. She swallowed and looked away.

‘I might not have had the same experiences as some other people.’

‘Experiences?’ he asked. ‘What kind of experiences are we talking about?’

How could he lace a simple word with such meaning? The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, a shiver ran through her and she forced herself to stare at her wine glass. She was hardly going to tell him about her sexual experiences, or lack of.

‘I don’t really care for the things other people care for.’

He watched her as he poured her another glass of wine. His eyes sparkled wickedly in the candlelight. He was as intoxicating as the wine. One more lingering stare and she’d be drunk. She reached for the water.

‘You’ve been a good girl your whole life long.’

And look where it’s got me, she thought, but sipped her water, said nothing. Being good was the only way she knew how to be. She didn’t ask for it to be this way; she simply couldn’t imagine any other way.

Her teenaged years with Tim had been innocent. They’d had their fun, but she’d been told by her mum and Nonna what wearing white meant. It had been drummed into her, like her date of birth, her address, her vital statistics.

All she’d wanted was to wait until they were married. What was so wrong with that? Why couldn’t Tim do the same?

‘Have you ever stepped onto the dark side, Jacquelyn?’

She swallowed, looked at him hard.

‘I’ve never been tempted,’ she said.

He smiled then and all over his face was temptation. In every hard line of his jaw, every brooding inch of his eyes, in the devilish swirl of his tattoo, she could see now, clearly, the other side of Nikos Karellis. The profit-driven retail mogul was gone and in his place was the Sydney Hell’s Angel, and there was nothing remotely gentlemanly about him.

No more polite tolerance, no more board-meeting manners, now she was picking up something else entirely. Now he was seeing her as a woman, and nothing else.

Her heart thundered in her ears. Her body was swirling, she felt drunk, out of control, exhilarated, afraid.

‘Never been tempted?’

He pushed away his plate and sat back, one hand resting on the white linen cloth. She shook her head. Things were shifting, the ground moving from under her, the world reforming into another place entirely. She was suddenly conscious of her legs, bare, her arms resting on the chair, her spine erect, the bodice of her dress with its revealing view of cleavage.

She pushed herself back from the table and the silk jersey of the dress slid over her bare legs as she crossed them, leaving her thigh exposed. He looked right there, at her leg, and she knew he liked what he saw.

‘Not even a little?’ he said, his fingers drumming a slow tattoo on the white linen.

Prickles of awareness swept over her arms, her legs and right to the tips of her breasts. She felt a tingling at the nape of her neck. Her body was waking up from a long sleep. And it felt good. It felt exciting.

Her fingers curled around the cushion of the seat as she leaned forward to pull the skirt of the dress back over her legs.

‘Leave that,’ he whispered. ‘Let yourself be tempted.’

Her breath quickened. Her heart picked up a strong, thudding beat. She felt herself rooted to the spot, hot and heavy and utterly under his spell. She was in very dangerous territory.

He pushed his chair back too, turned himself round to face her. She was afraid now—but only of herself and the calm, cool exterior that was slipping and sliding and beginning to feel like a puddle of watery ice at her feet.

Kiss me, kiss me, she thought, willing him closer. Her eyes fixed on his lips, her breasts ached under her dress and her back now arched into a curve all by itself, inviting him to savour her and take her.

But he sat there, just watching, drumming his fingers, slowly, slowly.

‘I’ll make the first move,’ he said, and he stood then and closed the two steps to stand beside her. His groin was level with her eyes and her mouth. It was huge and she longed to reach out and touch him.

She was shocked, shocked that these thoughts were in her mind. And it was as if he knew. He stood still as a rock, watching her, then suddenly she felt his hand on the crown of her head, and with a jerk her head was tugged back.

‘I bet you’ve got dark little thoughts and wicked fantasies in that head of yours.’

Her face flamed but she didn’t try to deny it.

‘I think you want me to forget why you’re really here and lift you up and turn you in my arms and let you feel what you are only imagining.

‘You want to taste it—it’s so close now, Jacquelyn. It’s right here. But you’re still too afraid to let go.’

Her head was tilted up, her hair caught in a bunch in his hand, her lips were open and his face glowered down at hers, dark and deadly.

‘I’m not afraid,’ was all she said, her voice hoarse and throaty.

Slowly he raised her to standing, tugging her hair with just the most exquisite mix of pleasure and pain. And she was so close to him now she felt as if she was breathing in the very essence of maleness, the root and power of masculinity, and she was getting drunk on it.

‘You want to know what it’s like to make love to me.’

She would die rather than admit it, but silence was her confessor.

‘And for a reason I still can’t quite put my finger on, I am just as curious to know what it’s like to make love to you.’

‘I’m trying to take that as a compliment,’ she said, rolling her head sensuously as his grip loosened to a caress.

‘You should. It’s been a very long time since I felt anything like this. A very long time. Maybe never…’

He trailed a finger down her cheek. Her eyes fluttered closed, her lips parted. She felt the finger land on the cushion of her lower lip. She would not give in so easily. She would not grab him the way she wanted to.

Seconds ticked by. His finger followed the lines of her lips, lightly dusted the edges of her cheekbones, the arcs of her eyebrows and with every passing moment she yearned for his lips.

‘You know if we do this, Jacquelyn…you know what that means.’

Her head had fallen back and his arms scooped against her back, holding her steady as her neck lengthened in a gentle stretch. His fingers slid up to rest on her collarbone. And then she was closer still and she knew she was past the point of no return, that she had to feel his lips now…

‘What does it mean?’ she breathed.

Instead of answering, he now followed where his fingers had trailed from the base of her neck, with tiny feverish little kisses, brands. Up her neck to the apex where her jaw began, the most tender spot, so weakening her that her knees buckled.

‘It means nothing. Just an amazing night, one amazing night. And tomorrow we go back to where we were.’

She heard his words and she felt his kisses, at her cheekbones, and she knew if she only waited, if she had the patience, if the seconds could only stop stretching for hours, days, weeks, that his lips would finally land on hers, that she would feel his kiss and taste him and know him.

And it was as if every moment of her life had been building to this. As if every single moment she’d ever spent as a girl, learning about her femininity, the way she walked and talked and held herself, the way she put on lipstick and painted her toenails, every moment was building into this, the essence of who she was as a woman.

Kiss me, she gasped, maybe aloud this time…

Her eyes were still closed but she knew he was hovering over her face. She knew he was staring at her, at her opened lips. She felt her body throb with longing, she felt her nipples harden and ache for his hands. She arched her back and pressed closer to him, sinking into his maleness.

‘I will kiss you. I’ll kiss every part of you. But first…open your eyes, Jacquelyn.’

The rough rasping burr of his voice demanded and received. Her eyes flew open and she stared into his face. His eyes sparkled, points of light in the darkness, the black night sky behind.

‘You understand what I am saying? This means nothing beyond pleasure. I don’t owe you anything and you don’t owe me. Your company and my company are nothing to do with this.’

‘I understand,’ she breathed, impatient for the sensations to return. If he had given her a contract to sign in blood she would have done it.

She stared at him, and when he didn’t move she twisted out of his grasp and put her hands on his face, framing his mouth. She registered the surprise in his eyes, and heard the burst of black laughter that spilled from his throat.

‘You are impatient, aren’t you?’

But as she opened her mouth to speak he grabbed her wrists and tugged them down to her sides. Her back arched and her breasts protruded and he growled and then finally, finally he placed his hot harsh kiss on her mouth. And his lips were hard and soft and wet and warm and she began to drown in each moment as the tug to have more and more began to tear at her. Then his tongue teased her lips apart, and now they duelled, and she gasped as another sharp tug built at her core. One of his hands now held her wrists, the other he trailed to her jaw, holding her steady.

‘So we’re clear—you’ll not set this pace. That’s not how things roll.’

She had never done anything more than kiss or caress a man. And she knew that none of the kisses or caresses had ever felt like this. Being close to him, the anticipation, each single moment was like a lifetime love affair in itself. The pleasure and pain of waiting, the exquisite heat that was building and building. She was emboldened. She was sexually confident in a way she’d never been before, she’d never known this language, these words and phrases, and she was desperate to start to converse.

‘You don’t really believe that,’ she said, finding her voice. ‘We both know who’s really in control here.’

‘You’re deluded, Jacquelyn. You’re mine. And I will do anything I want with you.’

‘Anything?’ she laughed.

She could barely keep the shivering desire from her voice. In the fleeting seconds she saw that she was in a new world. She’d never given away control of her body before, never fully relaxed.

Sex had once seemed part of a wonderful world that she would one day be given a map to arrive at. Then, it became this giant immovable structure that dominated everything, everywhere she looked, everyone was part of it and she was locked out.

She was tired of being the one on the outside. She wanted to know. She wanted to know so badly and she wanted to know now, tonight, with Nikos.

She didn’t want to think about tomorrow, there was only now.

‘I think you’d succumb to pretty much anything I asked.’

But still he did nothing other than glaze her with his eyes. Her spine felt bent as a bow, strung out, and his body was going to be the instrument that she played. She was almost reverberating with the tension of holding back. She longed to sing and throb and climb the heights with him. But she wasn’t going to break and beg.

‘You think very highly of yourself, don’t you?’ she asked, her voice tremulous and she knew he heard it too, because he smiled even more devilishly.

‘When it comes to lovemaking? I think we both know the answer to that. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t think the same.’

‘Well, what are you waiting for?’ she said.

‘Good question.’

Then he bent his head low, to the exposed column of her neck. And she could see the crown of his head, the thick, dark crop of his hair. He released her wrist and she sank her fingers into his hair, holding him to her neck, her décolletage, her breasts. He growled as he nuzzled first one nipple, then the other. She heard a song in her own throat, a call from her heart.

Hungry, thirsty, greedy for every last bit of this man, she ran her hands over his head and down to his shoulders. She filled her palms with his muscle and drank deeply of the very air around him, the hot, humid night, the sky now bands of orange and mauve and the sun a tiny ball of gold sinking out of sight.

And like an addict craving more and more, she could not seem to get enough of his tongue, his lips, the pleasure he brought. She marvelled at the solid mass of muscle across his shoulders, ached to touch the skin beneath and slid her fingers to the buttons to begin her greedy exploration.

‘Let’s get comfortable,’ he said, standing and scooping her up in his arms in one smooth movement.

Her laptop slid from the seat, from the corner of her eye she saw it land and fold, and as it hit the ground her heart sank with a moment of dread, as she remembered why she was really here and thought of what was still to come—the unfinished presentation, the half-baked plan…

But it was only a moment, a fleeting grey cloud of worry in this dazzling sky, and was gone, because she was up in his arms, her vision now his solid chest and the retreating terrace with all the ornaments of their brewing passion, the whisky bottle, the dining table, the half-drunk glasses of wine, the coffee pot, untouched, the candles flickering in the late evening breeze, to the billowing curtains of the daybed…

And then down she was placed. Soft mattress, cream curtains all around, tiny lights within the canopy like some fairy-tale chamber and there, proud and male and staring down at her like the warrior returned, Nikos.

She sat up on her elbows as he leaned over her and their lips found each other in a new familiarity. His tongue claimed hers, hot breath and wet mouths, his scent, his skin, his utterly irresistible Nikos-ness had her scrabbling up, holding him while he pulled off his shirt.

And then she saw what she had needed to see, and he was magnificent and marvellous and she felt as if she was reeling at the sight. His shoulders, broad and golden, and biceps, inked and hard, and his chest, wide and dark, and his nipples, small and flat and beaded, and it was there her tongue went, as her hands touched and stroked and grabbed and she filled all of her senses with this man.

What on earth had she been imagining? Not this! This was so much more, so wonderful. The more male he was, the more she felt her own femininity, the more emboldened she was. So this was making love. She was awake and alive for the first time in her life.

She felt his arms slide under her shoulders; her legs wrapped around his waist as if they had a hundred times before.

‘Take your dress off,’ he said in a growl.

His words splashed water on her fever, and she slid back from the discovery of his body to look up into his face. For a moment he looked distant, his eyes dark and impassioned, as if the fire that burned was darker now, and the light behind his eyes was almost out.

For one horrible second a laser point of fear burned in her heart. She was on fire with lust, dishevelled, her dress around her waist, her breasts soaked with his mouth, her nipples taut, but the sweetness had gone, the sense that something uniquely special was building between them. Now she could be anyone lying here in this chamber.

She could still stop this now. She could roll over, fix her clothes, run back to the terrace, collect her laptop and turn back into the person she really was. She had her life, her business, her family name, her little courtyard and her shop. She was never going to be this woman again. She had opened the door but she didn’t need to run through it.

But then he moved. Back. He stepped back as if he sensed what she was thinking. He pulled out of the fiery circle that had been burning around them and she felt the chill of that. Was he having second thoughts? His eyes were trained on her but it was concern she saw there; she saw it and she scorned it. She didn’t want his concern, or anybody else’s.

She was sick of being Jacquelyn Jones. She was sick of being the devoted daughter whose only goal in life was to replicate the goals of all the people who came before her. She was sick of waiting for a fantasy that hadn’t come true. This was her fantasy now—here in Greece, in the villa of one of Europe’s best lovers, and she would never be here again…

In a moment she was up on her knees. She threw her arms around his neck and she found his mouth and she kissed him with everything she had.

He paused, he stilled, and then the fire erupted in seconds, the roar of his voice and the cry from her throat as he, one-handed, laid her down, and unfastened his belt and flies and she scrambled out of her dress.

Her eyes and hands started to grab for him, the huge silken-tipped beautiful manly thrust of him, but he grabbed her wrists and shook his head.

‘Ladies always come first,’ he said, and then he dropped to his knees, and eased hers apart and placed his head where she longed to see it, and instead of rejecting, because she knew in her heart that there would never be another touch like his, she lay back and let him call the song from her heart with every lap of his tongue.

The bloom of her orgasm built from every pore of her body to her core, one huge wave of pleasure, and she screamed his name as pulse after pulse rocked her.

And as she sank back he was there, naked, sheathing himself masterfully, his eyes boring into her face, his own desire as boldly painted as the inked designs on his chest. His arm was now under her back, her chest lifted, her neck stretched and her head falling back, and then she was down again and he was sliding his shaft inside her body, and as it closed around him, inch by inch, the flash of pain was buried by the last moments of her beautiful, heart-melting orgasm.

But her eyes opened into his face, watching, and she killed his questioning look with a smile and a kiss and a silent prayer of thanks for making her first time better than her wildest dreams.

She squeezed her thighs and urged him on, and he pushed himself inside her, his body sliding over hers, the weight and warmth, the strength and power rubbing against her soft tender flesh and nothing in the world had ever felt as good as this. She relished it like the best food and wine, the best sunset, the softest silk. Nothing was as good now, nothing would ever be as good again.

Her lips kissed and tasted, her hands roamed everywhere—his hair, his muscled back; she grabbed for the sheets of the daybed, then back to him again, as he thrust and built it up all over again.

Then a cry came from his throat, the start of a noise that built—he pushed himself back from her and, bereft of his body, she reached forward and licked at his nipple, flat and hard—and he opened his eyes and smiled, sweetly—he smiled and she licked again and then he started to thrust hard and fast and he was going to orgasm, she could feel the moment swirl and swell between them.

It was all she needed to join him. Like two animals writhing, loving under the light of the stars, lost in passion.

And then it was over. He rolled onto his back, threw his arm above his head. She rolled with him, as if tugged by a magnet, and watched as he blew out a long sigh. He shook his head, first with a kind of incredulity and then as if to settle everything back down to normal.

She lay back beside him, gazing up at the tented roof of the daybed, the tiny lights twinkling down, witnessing their heartbeats slowing, and the cool realisation of each second ticking by, knowing that what was once hidden was now known.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked, but without moving.

She waited a moment before replying as the images flashed through her mind.

‘Perfectly well, thanks,’ she said.

He leaned up on one elbow, stared at her.

‘For a moment I thought you were a virgin.’

‘No. I’m not a virgin,’ she said. Not any more.

Because technically it was true, and he didn’t need to know her truth—not right now. She’d tell him later, because all she wanted to feel now was the relief, the joy of being part of a world that she’d never been able to visit before. She wasn’t a little girl any more, she was a woman. A healthy, happy, normal and free woman.

What a truly beautiful experience. What an amazing man…

‘My mistake,’ he said.

His eyes were soft, his mouth in a smile, his face mere inches away; that special moment bloomed again, that calling to her that this was all OK, that she hadn’t been crazy to do this, that she was safe.

Yes, that she was safe…

‘Shall we see if we can feel any better than “perfectly well”? Based on first impressions, I think we might just manage it.’

He was leaning even closer and now mingled in with the man was the scent of them and, like a switch, on it went—her lust and longing. Her body turned towards him, complicit and willing, and she was welcomed back into his arms with a smile that turned into a kiss, that turned into an embrace and, with a laugh in her throat that startled her, she was swept up in his arms, and on through the night, to the house.

And with every step she felt a tremor of anxiety, and with every breath she batted it away. This was one night. One night. And all her tomorrows were ahead of her. Nothing was going to change how they passed. Nothing she could do now was going to change a single thing, other than her memories.

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