by Lynne Graham
Prudence sat up on her knees. ‘Or…to me?’ she suggested uncertainly.
Nik laughed with rich appreciation. ‘You were never in the running. I don’t think I’d like a wife rich enough to buy and sell me ten times over.’
‘Are you absolutely sure of that?’
Nik stared down at her, lush black lashes of extraordinary length merely accentuating the depth and clarity of his clear gaze. ‘Why are we having this conversation? Were you disappointed at being left out of his will?’
‘No…because I wasn’t…left out, I mean.’
Nik frowned. ‘What did Theo leave you? Some family memento? I’m surprised he left you anything.’
‘He left me everything.’
Nik froze. ‘Theos mou…you cannot be serious.’
‘Everything: the houses, the cars, the jewellery, the businesses, the jets, the yacht.’
Nik studied her in unconcealed shock and then he spread his powerful arms in a movement of acceptance, dark colour lying in a line along his superb cheekbones. ‘If you say it is so it must be so, but I can hardly credit it-’
‘Wait until you see the recording he made.’ Her announcement made, Prudence scrambled off the bed and pelted back to the lounge to remove the disc from her handbag.
Having followed her, Nik extended a hand and took it from her. ‘Theo filmed himself-’
Sudden misgivings assailed Prudence as she recalled some of the inflammatory things that her grandfather had said. ‘I don’t think you should watch it-’
‘Why not?’ Nik enquired almost lazily.
The tension in the air made her heartbeat speed up. She was appalled at how thoughtless she had been in bringing the recording to his notice. ‘You never got on with him-’
‘Neither did you…or the rest of the human race for that matter. What did he say about me?’
Prudence was rigid. ‘Why should you assume that he said anything?’
‘If Theo took the trouble to make a film, it was to gloat about how clever he was.’
‘Look, it’s mine and I would like it back…’ Awkwardly she stuck out her hand.
‘No…I insist on watching it.’ Nik shot her a wrathful glance of challenge.
And he did.
Prudence hovered in an agony of horror and shame. From the first cringe-making words, when Theo gloried in having made her an heiress who held her husband in the palm of her hand, she saw Nik turn white below his vibrant bronzed skin tone and she felt sick.
‘Nik…don’t let him get to you-’
Nik slashed a silencing hand through the air. She could feel the rage vibrating through him while her grandfather delineated his every move.
‘He’s right…I was a prize fool,’ Nik growled.
‘No, he’s wrong…you’re a very different man from him and I wouldn’t want you any other way. Please don’t watch any more of this.’
But he paid her no heed. His classic profile set granite-hard, he watched the film from start to finish and then replayed it to ensure that her interruptions had not caused him to miss a single poisonous word. Finally he swung back to her, his golden eyes glittering as dangerously as the heart of a furnace, aggressive energy written in every line of his lean, beautifully balanced body. ‘If you keep the money, I walk…’
Prudence just stared at him, certain she had misheard, misunderstood, mis-something, anything that could convince her that he was not serious. ‘You don’t mean that.’
‘You’re not going to miss what you’ve never had or what you never expected to possess, thespinis mou.’
‘That’s not the point. You’re just mad because Theo said all that stuff and it was offensive.’
‘Once you suggested that I might regard you as a financial asset. I will not be known as the husband of the Demakis heiress.’
‘Well, you are!’
‘Not if I choose not to be. Don’t tell me greed has got to you already,’ Nik breathed with ringing scorn.
‘I don’t have to justify myself to you. I’m a Demakis.’
Nik shot her a derisive appraisal.
‘I meant that Theo was my grandfather and that’s why he wanted me to inherit his estate. He acknowledged me. He may have waited until he died but he finally allowed me to feel like a member of his family and I’m not going to reject everything he spent his whole life working for,’ Prudence protested in a sudden feverish bout of self-defence.
‘Then you have a problem. I will be no woman’s kept man.’
‘Maybe you should wait until you get the offer to be one!’ Prudence shot at him, frantically blinking back tears. ‘I owned virtually nothing but the clothes I stood up in when we got married and I had to live with it-’
‘You lived with it so well, you fled to another country!’
‘How can you throw that at me again?’
‘Once a Greek husband, always a Greek husband, glikia mou.’
‘I’m going to be rich…and I’m going to enjoy every minute of it!’ Prudence told him defiantly.
‘But not with me…’
The words hung there in cold, confrontational challenge and she blenched. She was so furious with him that she felt light-headed with sheer rage.
‘So you don’t want to be married to the Demakis heiress? OK, if that’s how you feel, I’ll go back where you seem to think I belong!’ Pausing only to retrieve the DVD and tuck it back in her bag, Prudence walked out to the hall. Her overnight bag was sitting there. She lifted it. She gave him lots and lots of time to say something to stop her. Something like, Where are you going? or, Come back here, or even, Let’s talk about this tomorrow. The terrible silence roared in her ears like the quiet before a hurricane and perspiration dampened her short upper lip. The sound of the apartment door banging shut behind her shook her.
She took a cab back to the Demakis villa and swanned in as though she had always lived there. The staff still on duty were assembled and formally introduced to her. The cook promised her a special supper calculated to tempt the most delicate appetite and the housekeeper showed her into a magnificent bedroom suite with a balcony that overlooked the garden. She went for a shower and put on a light wrap.
Why was she feeling so devastated? She was furious with Nik and she had every right to be! Supper arrived on a tray. Stress always made her want to eat but when she looked at that food and thought of never, ever being held in Nik’s arms again she felt sick with fear. She wanted Nik. She craved Nik. This was crazy. He had fought to keep her as his wife. He had forced her to stay as his wife and to live with him. He took marriage very seriously. He could not just suddenly decide to let her go solely because she had inherited a lot of money…could he?
Could he really be so diabolically unreasonable? He was stuffed full of macho reactions and ferocious pride. With reluctance she recalled his raw admission that, eight years earlier, he had been taunted about what a good financial catch she would be. What a prophetic warning that had been! Well, she already knew that Nik wasn’t after her money, she thought wretchedly. No decent male would want to be labelled a fortune hunter. She could understand that but she could not understand that he could be prepared to abandon her and their future together on the strength of a principle.
Dogs were barking frantically in the grounds that surrounded the villa. The sound of the commotion prompted her to walk out onto the balcony that overlooked the gardens. A security man came to apologise for the noise. He explained that a man had been seen climbing in over the wall, and that there had been a chase, but the intruder had got away.
Prudence got into bed and lay there getting madder and madder. But underneath the anger was a vast, spreading well of terrified insecurity and fear. She loved Nikolos Angelis to bits. She adored him. She had been so, so happy with him, but she had let a crack appear and a distance develop when she’d turned away from him after her miscarriage. That gulf had only lasted for a few weeks but it had strained their relationship and left a vulnerable spot. I lost a child, too, he had said. Maybe
he was still angry about the way she had reacted. She should not have left the apartment in a temper; she should have stayed.
Exhaustion sent her to sleep in bursts. Around dawn an idea that at first seemed crazy came to her. She ran it round and round inside her head until it no longer seemed quite so off the wall. She could do to him what he had done to her. She could put pressure on him through his company. Why not? What did she have to lose? What was pride if it meant life without Nik?
The delicate, summery blue dress she put on had a neckline that dipped in a flattering V at back and front. She examined herself from all angles and was extra-careful with her make-up. He would be at his office in Athens. He was there a couple of days a month and she had planned to start accompanying him on the trips. Of late, she had developed an embarrassing tendency to pine when he was out of sight and touch for longer than ten hours. All the barriers had come down and love had got a firm and increasingly desperate hold on her. But when Nik heard what she had to say, he would be surprised and she had not the slightest idea how he would react…
Before Prudence could go out, Cassia Morikis arrived at the gate and asked to see her. On the brink of turning down the request, Prudence changed her mind and received the beautiful blonde in the vast expanse of the formal drawing room. Encouraging her visitor to relax and feel at home was not on her mind.
Looking unusually subdued, Cassia fixed anxious brown eyes on her. ‘I’m sure you know why I’m here. I’m afraid I drank too much yesterday and I was very rude to you.’
Prudence knew very well that the other woman must have panicked once she realised that Prudence was now her father’s employer. ‘Yes, you were.’
‘I hope you’ll accept my apologies,’ Cassia murmured plaintively. ‘I’m sure that Nik would want you to forgive me.’
‘Nik couldn’t care less. I told him who spiked his drink,’ Prudence countered drily, watching dismay and embarrassment flare in the blonde’s gaze. ‘But I assure you that I won’t hold your behaviour against your father.’
Minutes after Cassia’s hasty departure, Prudence left the villa, propelled by her determination…
CHAPTER TEN
WHEN PRUDENCE ENTERED Nik’s cool contemporary office, her heart rate speeded up as if she was running a sprint.
As Nik’s stunning dark golden eyes collided with hers, an electric jolt of attraction flamed through her. His lean, darkly handsome face broke into a smile as he strode towards her. ‘You are very welcome, thespinis mou.’
Wrong-footed by that unexpected salutation, Prudence went pink and worried that he assumed her visit meant surrender to his terms.
‘Would you like a tour of the building?’ Nik enquired smoothly, for it was her very first visit to his offices in Greece.
Prudence tensed. ‘Perhaps later. I came here because I have something important to tell-’
His slumberous gaze wandered from the moist fullness of her lips to the luscious curve of her breasts and back up again in an act of bold appreciation. ‘I like the dress-’
‘Please let me say what I have to say,’ Prudence cut in a touch unsteadily, liquid heat pooling in her pelvis and making her press her thighs together. It shook her that he could awaken desire in her so easily with a certain look or the dark resonance of his husky voice.
With a graceful movement of one hand that signified assent to her wish to talk, Nik leant back against his glass desk and regarded her with an intimidating level of expectancy.
‘I place a very high value on our marriage,’ Prudence told him stiffly.
‘That’s good.’
‘So if you don’t come back to me-’
Nik shifted long, graceful fingers. ‘But I haven’t gone anywhere-’
‘Don’t interrupt me. If you destroy our marriage I will allow Demakis International to destroy your company,’ Prudence completed tightly and she was holding herself so rigidly that her knees began wobbling.
Nik studied her in fulminating silence, dark eyes shorn of gold and gleaming, his big, powerful frame motionless and still apparently relaxed.
‘You think I won’t do it but I will!’ she swore shakily. ‘We were very happy together and money shouldn’t be allowed to come between us.’
‘I should have known what I was doing when I blackmailed a Demakis into making our marriage real. You learn fast, pethi mou.’
Prudence sucked in a steadying gust of oxygen, her nerves leaping like jumping beans. She had done it. She had threatened him just as he had once threatened her with the loss of all she held dear. But she was appalled at herself, sick inside, ashamed.
Dry-mouthed, she said, ‘So what do you say?’
‘Bring on the big guns.’
Her cheeks flamed, her tummy flipping. ‘That’s not a serious response.’
Nik continued to regard her levelly. ‘It is. Coercion doesn’t work with me. Do you think Theo didn’t try it?’
Her throat felt very tight. ‘So you’re saying…no?’
‘I’m saying no.’
She could feel the colour draining from her face. Suddenly the solid ground beneath her feet was vanishing, for she had backed herself into a corner from where there was nowhere else to go. But she lifted her head high, tilted her chin and shrugged as if his response was a matter of near indifference to her. Turning on her heel, she began to walk away.
‘But if you were to ask me to be with you of my own free will,’ Nik murmured almost roughly, ‘I think we could work something out very easily.’
Eyes glinting with tears, Prudence froze in her tracks.
‘I missed you last night,’ he added gruffly.
She gulped and drew in a long, slow, shaky breath before she spun back to face him again. ‘You…did?’
‘I’ve got incredibly accustomed to being married.’
‘Have you?’ There was a sob trapped in her throat. She had plunged from the heights down into the depths, and was now somewhere back in the middle, terrified of making assumptions.
‘I acted like a jerk yesterday. I let Theo get to me.’
Prudence was starting to breathe again. ‘I don’t blame you for being mad-’
‘There was a special delivery waiting for me when I arrived in the office this morning. There were two copies of that film-’
‘My goodness, Grandfather sent one to you as well?’
‘Watching it again, I retrieved my sense of humour, thespinis mou. I took so much care to keep our reconciliation private and it was crazy to do that. It should not have mattered to me that doing what I wanted meant that I was also doing what Theo Demakis wanted me to do,’ Nik imparted wryly.
‘That was always an obstacle between us.’
‘Ne…yes, when I was younger. But not any more. I like to think I’m grown up now.’ There was a rueful twist to his wide, sensual mouth. ‘Although I felt distinctly boyish last night when my romantic attempt to make a surprise visit on my wife was rudely concluded by a bunch of slavering, attacking dogs and over-zealous security guards.’
Her soft blue eyes widened in astonishment as she recalled the late-night disturbance at the Demakis villa which had sent the dogs crazy, and she gasped, ‘That was you last night?’
‘That was me,’ Nik confirmed.
She unfroze and launched herself forward to close her hands over his. ‘Why didn’t you say who you were?’
‘It wouldn’t have been cool-’
‘I so wanted you to come,’ Prudence framed in a wobbly voice. ‘If I’d known that you were out there, so close to me-’
‘I had a very important meeting first thing today…then I was planning to drive over and make a conventional entrance-’
‘If only I’d known that…I need never have come here-’
‘But what a joy it is to me to know that you would fight for me, too, pethi mou,’ Nik slotted in, drawing her closer with lean, strong hands, his classic bronzed features taut and serious.
‘A joy?’
Dark golden eyes looked down in
to hers with a light that warmed her. ‘There is something that I should have said a long time ago, something I have never said to any other woman. I love you…’
Her full pink lips parted. ‘You mean it?’
‘More than anything. For the space of a moment yesterday I let my pride rule me and I acted like a jerk, but I never stopped loving you…and I don’t believe I ever could.’
She was so tense she could barely inhale as she looked up at him, desperately striving to see the proof of his words in his lean, darkly handsome face. And there it was in his beautiful eyes: all the depth of emotion, affection and sincerity that she could ever have dreamt of seeing there. He found her mouth and the passion that never failed to ignite blazed but this time it was laced with a new deep trust and affection that was no longer concealed.
‘Let’s get out of here…’ Nik said raggedly, linking her hand to his.
The city traffic was horrendous but it didn’t bother them too much, because they were too busy kissing to notice.
‘When did you fall for me?’ she finally asked, when she had to push him away to get some breath back into her lungs and held him at bay with a staying hand.
‘I don’t know…I honestly don’t,’ Nik groaned, contenting his need for constant physical contact by lifting her hand to his mouth and lazily sucking on one finger at a time. ‘We were friends first. But there was always the barrier of not knowing what had gone wrong between us on our wedding night and that kept it strictly platonic-’
‘I so wish I’d talked to you now…but I was hurt and embarrassed and I honestly did think you’d got drunk because you were so unhappy at having to marry me-’
‘No…I was not at all unhappy. In fact, at the altar I was struggling to suppress a lust-fuelled fantasy about exactly how I would unveil my virginal bride’s lush body,’ Nik confessed, making her soft blue eyes widen in shock, and then laughing at her expression. ‘Sometimes you are so innocent…’
