by Sara Wood
“Are you afraid,” he said softly, “that we would end up in bed together?”
Her eyes shot open. “No!” she lied in an awful squeak.
“Then you have no reason to refuse,” he said, casually peeling a leaf.
“I don’t know….”
“Do this, or I’ll see to it that our divorce takes years to settle,” he said in a steely tone. Her heart sank. He meant every word—and had the money and power and ruthlessness to carry out his threat.
Harlequin Presents®
They’re the men who have everything—except a bride…
Wealth, power, charm—what else could a handsome tycoon need? In THE GREEK TYCOONS miniseries you have already met some gorgeous Greek multimillionaires who are in need of wives.
Now let popular Presents® author Sara Wood tell you a dramatic, glamorous and passionate romance in The Greek Millionaire’s Marriage.
This tycoon has met his match, and he’s decided he has to have her…whatever that takes!
Sara Wood
THE GREEK MILLIONAIRE’S MARRIAGE
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
DIMITRI ANGELAKI braced his powerful legs as his launch surged forwards, its streamlined hull scything cleanly through the glittering sea towards the little fishing port of Olympos. He sang softly to himself, an old Greek love song, in a throaty voice that conveyed his passion for life and love.
It had been an odd day. One with stark contrasts of delight and anxiety, during which his senses had been utterly sated—and his nerves had been tested to the utmost.
Glancing around, he allowed himself an indulgent moment of pleasure, letting his gaze linger on his wife’s incredible body, and enjoying the gleam of her golden-goddess skin against the luxurious cream leather seat. To his approval, her bikini was minimal: three small turquoise triangles barely concealing the essence of her womanhood.
The dazzling light was turning her hair to white fire where it fanned over her slender shoulders and he felt a helpless little jerk in his chest when he recalled just where that hair had been that day, slithering and sliding over the most sensitive parts of his body in an erotic dance that had driven him to paradise and beyond.
His chiselled mouth curved sensually and a throb began yet again in his loins. That was the joy of sex with Olivia. First would come the anticipation: the fiery glances that ripped his brain to shreds, the messages of hunger and need clearly projected in her sea-blue eyes. Then, as surely as night followed day, came their un-inhibited lovemaking: inventive, crazy, wild and tender—but always intensely satisfying and releasing the steam valve of their mutual passion.
Finally, he thought, now fully aware of her and with all his senses on high alert, he could enjoy a rerun of every erotic second, from the first glance they’d exchanged to their final sighs of release.
A growl of pleasure rose to his throat and his hands were less than steady when he belatedly turned his attention to steering a straight line again. She got to him, right in the gut, and he loved that because it made him feel alive and utterly male.
Sometimes he wanted to shoot his fist up into the air after their lovemaking, and shout Yes! like a kid who’d just scored a goal. He grinned to himself at the very idea. He, a tycoon whose coolness under pressure was admired the world over! But property deals didn’t excite him nearly as much as these exquisite encounters with his wife. It was unfortunate that his work took him away from home so often and that the hectic nature of his breakfast-to-midnight schedules meant that it was pointless for Olivia to travel with him.
Still, the time they were together seemed all the more sweet. That day they had anchored offshore to swim naked in the silken sea. Then they had made love in a lemon grove, the intoxicating scent of a thousand blossoming trees adding to his delirium. Later, she’d fed him lobster and grapes on a hillside overlooking the ruins of an ancient temple dedicated to Aphrodite, the goddess of love.
‘Venus,’ he’d explained to her. ‘A poor second to you, my darling.’
Amazingly, he could still feel the thrilling touch of Olivia’s fingers on his mouth, his throat, his chest…and everywhere else. Each deeply pulsing inch of him bore her imprint. It had been one of the most sensual experiences in all the thirty-two years of his life.
Everything would have been perfect—if it hadn’t been for his increasing concern for Athena. A frown creased his sun-bronzed forehead as he willed Athena to ring from the hospital to say she was all right. He felt the tension screwing him up again, ruining the memories of the day. But then it was understandable. He loved Athena with all his heart…
Olivia stiffened when she heard the trill of Dimitri’s mobile. It had been ringing far too often that day, but with infuriating stubbornness he’d refused to turn it off.
‘Greek moguls,’ he’d said with a pretence at pomposity and referring to a standing joke between them, ‘need to stay in contact with their minions.’
‘Then find a minion you can delegate to,’ she’d protested, but had been fatally diverted when his mouth had closed firmly on hers and he’d kissed her complaint away with a breathtaking thoroughness.
Looking back, though, she could be more objective. His obsessive devotion to work had been a problem for some time. When he was away, and she only had her disapproving mother-in-law, Marina, for company, she felt increasingly lonely and unhappy. Her insecurity and doubts over Dimitri’s true feelings were painfully reinforced by Marina’s sly hints about Dimitri’s long absences.
Olivia clenched her fists. From the day of her marriage six months earlier, Marina had taunted her.
‘All Greek men have mistresses,’ Marina had purred. ‘Don’t think my son is any different.’
A mistress. Would that explain his lack of consideration? Even this long-anticipated trip today, to the ancient Greek theatre at Epidauros, had been marred by his inattention. She sighed. It could have been deeply romantic. Dimitri had demonstrated the acoustics of the two-thousand-year-old theatre by whispering ‘I love you’ from the performing area far below. Amazingly, she had heard every impassioned syllable from where she had been sitting, fifty-four rows up.
Quite enchanted, she’d risen to her feet to blow him a kiss. Unfortunately just then he’d received another of his infuriating calls and he had hurried out of the arena so that she couldn’t eavesdrop on his conversation.
Recalling how offended she’d been, and with her eyes flashing in anger, she curled up crossly in the luxurious seat of his launch, glaring at Dimitri. He handled the boat expertly with one hand, the other holding the loathed mobile to his ear.
Although his back was to her, she’d seen the tension of his body when the phone had rung. And now that he was engaged in an earnest discussion she wondered at the reason for his relief, which was apparent in the easing of those taut muscles that she knew so well. Something was going on.
Her heart cramped. He was almost cradling the phone, his magnificent body fluid with tenderness. A sense of dread played havoc with her stomach. She sucked it in, not breathing. Perhaps her mother-in-law was right.
Yet…Dimitri couldn’t keep his hands off her. Almost from the moment she’d become his secretary two years ago, at the age of twenty-four, they’d been mad for one another. Every moment in public together had been a deliciously tensioned ordeal; every second alone had become a shattering explosion of hunge
r and raw need. They had been blind to sense, reckless in surrendering to the volcanic passions that had seized them.
Thinking of those blissful stolen moments of abandon caused an instant arousal in her and she shifted her slim thighs, pressing her legs tightly together to control the pulsing heat that had begun to massage her with its irresistible rhythm.
Clouds of helpless longing confused her brain and ruefully she realised that the pressure of her bikini top had become unbearable because of the sudden fullness of her breasts and their tingling tips.
Focusing on him, she noticed that he was laughing now. The honey-gold naked shoulders shook with amusement as he murmured something intimate into the wretched phone.
A fierce stab of jealousy ripped through her. Dimitri was hers! Body and soul, heart and mind! Immediately she felt appalled by her irrational suspicion and, contrite, she went over to stand behind him, wrapping her arms around the warm, satin skin of his narrow waist in a gesture of remorse, the jutting peaks of her breasts pressing provocatively into his back.
Dimitri jumped as if she’d ambushed him, muttered into the phone something incomprehensible in Greek—which might have been ‘see you tomorrow’, though her Greek was still minimal—and with a hasty ‘Adio!’ he broke the connection.
Beneath her hand, his heart thudded fast and loud. In fear? she wondered, alarmed. Maybe he did have a mistress. Business took him away so often he could even be serving a whole harem of women for all she knew!
Yet when he swung around, his eyes were smouldering with intent. Hauling her slender body against his, flesh to flesh, he kissed her with slow deliberation, one deft hand killing the engine, the other untying her bikini straps.
He was fully aroused. Magnificently, thrillingly, urgently. Whilst she revelled in the hardness of him, she couldn’t help but wish she knew if it was for her, or the woman on the phone.
‘Who was that?’ she demanded, an ominous frown flattening her arched brows.
He was intent on an erotic stroking of her hair, the pale ash-blonde strands slithering over her sun-kissed shoulders. He disturbed the sprigs of lemon blossom, which he’d arranged around her head like a crown, and they drifted to the ground in a generous waft of intense perfume.
Dimitri’s marauding mouth savaged the golden skin of her throat before he answered lazily and with a satisfying huskiness.
‘A friend.’
To her suspicious mind, that sounded a shade too casual. And he hadn’t looked at her, his inky lashes dropping to hide his eyes.
‘Do I know him?’ she asked with even more studied carelessness.
There was a very slight hesitation but it was long enough for her to know he was about to be economical with the truth.
‘No. Forget it, my darling. Concentrate on what I’m intending to do to you, mm?’
She firmed her mouth but he teased it open easily with his tongue. The magic of his fingers, tantalisingly laborious as they undid the ties of her briefs, ensured that she did forget. The glorious surrender of her body began. Throatily whispering outrageous things to her, describing in detail what he had in mind, Dimitri eased her gently to the warm teak deck.
Her hands clutched at the waistband of his swimming trunks and slid them from his body. Beneath her avid fingers, the muscles of his small buttocks contracted and she ran her hands lovingly over the firm curves.
As a lover he was insatiable. Sometimes his hunger startled her, but she, too, could be as wild and demanding. Then there were times, like now, when his tenderness made her heart contract and his thought for her pleasure knew no bounds.
Olivia began to lose control as Dimitri’s wicked fingers slipped with unnerving accuracy to the swollen bud of sensation that lay close to her liquefying core. He did love her, she thought in an ecstatic haze. He’d married her, hadn’t he?
That evening, with the great ball of a startling red sun hovering low in the sky, she, Dimitri and the recently widowed Marina sat drinking strong Greek coffee on the terrace of Dimitri’s mansion overlooking Olympos Bay.
Marina had been sour-faced ever since they’d returned, glued to one another like limpets, after their day out. Olivia’s heart had sunk at the sight of the woman. It wasn’t easy, having your hostile mother-in-law living with you! Yet she knew how lonely Marina was since her husband’s recent death. She had known such loneliness when her parents had been killed in a motorway accident.
In a friendly gesture, she touched her mother-in-law’s arm with a sympathetic hand—which was almost immediately removed. Unseen by Dimitri, Marina gave her a glowering glance of deep suspicion.
‘It’s a wonderful sunset,’ Olivia said, offering the olive branch of peace in an opening gambit and refusing to be put off.
‘It always is,’ came the slightly tart reply. ‘I suppose you two are leaving me alone tomorrow as well. I remember you are shopping in Athens—’
‘Ah.’ Dimitri replaced his cup in the saucer.
Olivia knew from the look on his face that he was going to cancel their trip. This would be the third time—and he’d said that he wouldn’t disappoint her again.
‘Not business!’ she protested.
It seemed to her that he squirmed a little. ‘Some local…meeting that I can’t avoid. And after that I must fly to Tokyo for a week. Sorry. I’ll make it up to you.’ His smile was perfunctory, as if his thoughts were elsewhere. ‘When I return, we’ll definitely hit the shops and wear our credit cards out—’
‘I’m not a child to be offered bribes in pacification,’ she said, hurt. So he was going away again. Misery swept over her.
‘No. But this is important. In fact,’ he said, rising, ‘there are some calls I have to make in preparation—’
‘Minions,’ she muttered, glowering.
Dimitri paused in mid-stride as he headed for the door. He was anxious to call Athena to see if her false labour pains had really gone away, and he didn’t take kindly to Olivia’s resentment.
Turning slightly, he gave her a long, steady look. She didn’t understand. She had everything: money, a husband and security. In contrast, poor Athena had so little—though he’d make damn sure she didn’t go short. He himself had known poverty, and the enervating fear that went with it. When it was born—any time now—Athena’s child would carry Angelaki blood in its veins. He would have protected her and her child even if he hadn’t promised his dying father that he would do so.
Athena had given Theo, his father, the love and warmth that had been lacking in his marriage. Dimitri had seen his father’s new happiness with his young mistress and, though his feelings had been mixed, he had been pleased for him. But he would keep his oath that his mother would never know the humiliating truth. It was a matter of honour—and respect for his mother’s feelings.
Preoccupied with Athena’s immediate need for reassurance and security, he felt irritation rising at Olivia’s apparent dissatisfaction with life.
‘Remember that because of my hard work you are enjoying the proceeds of my wealth,’ he shot back angrily, and stalked into the mansion.
Seething at that unfair stab, Olivia sat tight and sipped her coffee. She wanted Dimitri, not his millions. Until her marriage she’d always worked, and had always occupied her mind. Now she was experiencing boredom for the first time in her life as she whiled away day after day, waiting for him to come home.
That wasn’t healthy. No wonder she pounced on him when he returned from yet another trip. Her Greek wasn’t good enough to win her a job to give her an outside interest—not that Dimitri would let her work. His mother ran the house and gardeners tended the grounds so all Olivia could do was to sightsee and shop. And long for Dimitri’s return when the house and she would spring into life again.
Paradise, she reflected, had its downside. She stared unhappily at the million-dollar view. The sun, now a yellow furnace, slipped beneath the horizon. For some reason she felt close to tears. And suddenly homesick for her friends.
‘My dear!’ exclaime
d Marina with false concern. ‘Your first quarrel!’
‘We’re both passionate people,’ she said coolly.
‘Dimitri does not like women to argue with him.’
‘He knew what he’d got when he married me. We’d worked together and slept together for two years,’ she reminded Marina. ‘He loves my independence. Loves it when I stand up to him—’
‘Oh, then he did, yes,’ Marina murmured. ‘But not now you are his wife. He will expect obedience.’
‘He can expect all he likes,’ Olivia said tiredly.
‘Then you must realise that he will turn to someone soft and yielding. Like his mistress. I expect that’s where he’s gone now,’ Marina said with satisfaction.
‘Mistress? He wouldn’t have the energy to manage another woman,’ Olivia told her with unusual frankness, stung by Marina’s spite.
The older woman pursed her lips in disapproval of such intimate knowledge.
‘My son is more of a man than you know. I’ll give you her address. I think her name is Athena. You can see for yourself.’
A cold chill went through Olivia. That had been said with such certainty… Please, no, she thought. She couldn’t bear it. Suddenly she felt she must get away from Marina.
‘I’m going to bed. Goodnight.’
Shaking with apprehension, she made her way to the master bedroom, where she found Dimitri lounging on their vast bed, laughing and murmuring into the phone. The moment he saw her he cut the call short and she felt a terrible sick sensation sweeping through her.
They stared at one another like two wary opponents in a boxing ring. She saw disappointment in his eyes before he swung off the bed and strode past her.
‘Where are you going?’ she asked, hating herself for sounding like a nagging wife.
‘Out.’
‘At this hour?’
Oh, that was stupid! But she understood now why women probed like this. They didn’t trust their husbands. And often with good reason.
