The Virgin's Secret

by Abby Green

  “Are you thinking about what it would feel like if my mouth was to touch yours right now?”

  Angel’s gaze flew up and clashed with pure molten gold heat. An answering heat invaded her lower body, and she felt the urge to clamp her legs together, as if that might dampen the strange ache building up there.

  Before she could articulate a response, his hand had cupped her jaw and cheek, and suddenly there was no distance between them—only him, so tall and close that he blocked out the sky. And his head was descending, coming nearer and nearer. He smelled musky and hot. It was something so earthy that Angel could feel the response being tugged from her down low in her belly, as if she recognized it on some primitive level. Dimly she wondered if this was what people meant when they talked about animal attraction.

  Desperately trying to cling to something, anything rational, Angel brought a hand to cover his, to pull it down, to stop him, to say no…. But then his mouth was so close that she could feel his breath feather there, mingling with hers. Her mouth tingled. She wanted…she wanted—

  All about the author…

  Abby Green

  ABBY GREEN deferred doing a social anthropology degree to work freelance as an assistant director in the film and TV industry—which is a social study in itself! Since then it’s been early starts, long hours, mucky fields, ugly car parks and wet-weather gear—especially working in Ireland. She has no bona fide qualifications, but after years of dealing with recalcitrant actors she could probably help negotiate a peace agreement between two warring countries. After discovering a guide to writing romance, she decided to capitalize on her longtime love for Harlequin® romances and attempt to follow in the footsteps of such authors as Kate Walker and Penny Jordan. She’s enjoying the excuse to be paid to sit inside, away from the elements. She lives in Dublin and hopes that you will enjoy her stories. You can e-mail her at abbygreen3@yahoo.co.uk.

  Abby Green

  THE VIRGIN’S SECRET

  THE VIRGIN’S SECRET

  This is for my lovely editor, Meg, who shines a torchlight into the dark corners where I’ve tied myself into knots, and helps me unravel it all again into something coherent. Thanks for everything—you’re a star.

  I’d also like to dedicate this book with special thanks to Anne Mary Luttrell, whose waiting room is a magical place where many a plot has been incubated. Thanks for your healing hands (needles) and words.

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  PROLOGUE

  LEONIDAS PARNASSUS looked out of the window of his private plane. They’d just landed at Athens airport. To his utter consternation his chest felt tight and constricted—a sensation he didn’t welcome. He was curiously reluctant to move from his seat, even though the cabin staff were preparing to open the door, even though sitting still and not moving was anathema to him. He told himself it was because he was still chafing at the reality that he’d acquiesced to his father’s demand that he come to Athens for ‘talks’.

  Leo Parnassus did not carve out time for anything or anyone he deemed a waste of his resources and energy. Not a business venture, a lover, nor a father who had put building up the family fortune and clearing their shamed name before a relationship with his son. Leo grimaced slightly, his face so harsh that the steward who had been approaching him stopped abruptly and hovered uncertainly. Leo saw nothing though but the heat haze on the tarmac outside and the darkness of his own thoughts.

  He was Greek through and through, and yet he’d never set foot on Greek soil. His family had been exiled from their ancestral home before he was born, but his father had returned triumphantly just a few years ago; finally realising a lifelong dream to clear their name of a terrible crime and to glory in their new-found status and inestimable wealth.

  Bitter anger rose when Leo remembered his beloved ya ya’s lined and worn face. The sadness that had grooved deep lines around her mouth and shadowed her eyes. It had been too late for her to return home. She’d died in an alien country she’d never grown to love. Even though his grandmother had urged him to return as soon as he’d had the chance, he’d condemned Athens on her behalf for breaking her heart. He’d always sworn that he wouldn’t return to the place that had spurned his family so easily.

  Athens was still home to the Kassianides family who had been responsible for all that pain and sadness, and who were suffering far too belatedly and minutely for what they had done. They had cast a long shadow over his childhood which had been indelibly marked by their actions, in so many ways.

  And yet, despite all that…here he was. Because something in his father’s voice, an unmistakable weakness had called to him, in spite of everything that had happened. It had touched him on some level. In short, he’d felt compelled to come. Perhaps he wanted to prove to himself that he was not at the mercy of his emotions?

  The very thought of that made him go cold; at the tender age of eight he’d made an inarticulate vow never to let any intensity of emotion overwhelm him, because that’s what had killed his mother. Surely he could handle looking his ancestral home in the face and turn his back on it once and for all? Of course he could.

  But first he had to deal with the fact that his father wanted him to take over the Parnassus shipping business. Leo had denied his inheritance a long time ago; he’d embraced the entrepreneurial American spirit, and now ran a diverse subsidiary business that encompassed finance, acquisitions, and real estate, recently snapping up an entire block of buildings in New York’s Lower East Side for redevelopment.

  His sole input to his father’s business had been a couple of years before when they’d tightened the noose of revenge around the neck of Tito Kassianides, the last remaining patriarch of the Kassianides family. It was the one thing that had joined father and son: a united desire to seek vengeance.

  Leo had taken singular pleasure in making sure that the Kassianides’ demise was ensured, thanks to a huge merger his father had orchestrated with Aristotle Levakis, one of Greece’s titans of industry. That victory now, though, when he was faced with the reality of touching down in Greece, felt curiously empty. He couldn’t help but think of his grandmother, how much she’d longed for this moment and never got a chance to see it.

  A discreet cough sounded, ‘I’m sorry, sir?’

  Leo looked up, intensely irritated to have been observed in a private moment. He saw the steward was gesturing to the now open cabin door. Leo’s chest clenched tightly again, and he had the childishly bizarre urge to tell them to slam the door shut and take off, back to New York. It was almost as if something outside that door lay in wait for him. Such a mix of emotions was rising to the surface, and it was so unwelcome that he stood up jerkily from his seat as if he could shake them off.

  He walked to the cabin door, very aware of the eyes of his staff on him. Normally it didn’t bother him, he was used to people looking at him for his reaction, but now it scraped over his skin like sandpaper.

  The heat hit him first, dry and searing. Strangely familiar. He breathed in the Athens air for the first time in his life and felt his heart hit hard with the intensifying of that absurd feeling of familiarity. He’d always felt that coming here would feel like betraying his grandmother’s memory, but now it was as if she was behind him, gently pushing him forward. For a man who lived by cool logic and intellect, it was an alien and deeply disturbing sensation.

  He concealed his eyes behind dark shades as an ominous prickling skated over his skin. He had the very unwe
lcome sensation that everything in his life was about to change.

  At the same moment on the other side of Athens.

  ‘Delphi, just take a deep breath and tell me what’s wrong—I can’t help you until I know what it is.’

  That just provoked more weeping. Angel grabbed another tissue, a trickle of unease going down her spine now. Her younger half-sister said brokenly, ‘I don’t do this kind of thing, Angel, I’m a law student!’

  Angel smoothed her pretty sister’s fall of mahogany hair behind one ear and said soothingly, ‘I know, sweetie. Look, it can’t be that bad, whatever it is, so just tell me and then we can deal with it.’

  Angel was absolutely confident when she said this. Delphi was introverted, too quiet. She always had been, and even more so since a tragic accident had killed her twin sister about six years ago. Ever since then she’d buried herself in books and studies, so when she said quietly, after a little sniffly hiccup, ‘I’m pregnant…’ the words simply didn’t register in Angel’s head.

  They didn’t register until Delphi spoke again, with a catch in her voice.

  ‘Angel—did you hear me? I’m pregnant. That’s what…that’s what’s wrong.’

  Angel’s hands tightened reflexively around her half-sister’s and she looked into her dark brown eyes—so different from her own light blue ones, even though they both shared the same father.

  Angel tried not to let the shock suck her under. ‘Delph, how did it happen?’ She grimaced. ‘I mean, I know how…but…’

  Her sister looked down guiltily, a flush staining her cheeks red. ‘Well…you know Stavros and I have been getting more serious…’ Delphi looked up again, and Angel’s heart melted at the turmoil she saw on her sister’s face.

  ‘We both wanted to, Angel. We felt the time was right and we wanted it to be with someone we loved…’

  Angel’s heart constricted. That was exactly what she had wanted too, right up until— Her sister continued, cutting through Angel’s painful memory.

  ‘And we were careful, we used protection, but it…’ She blushed again, obviously mortified to have to be talking about this at all. ‘It split. We decided to wait until we knew there was something to worry about…and now there is.’

  ‘Does Stavros know?’

  Delphi nodded miserably and looked sheepish. ‘I never told you this, but on my birthday last month Stavros asked me to marry him.’

  Angel wasn’t that surprised; she’d suspected something like this might happen with the two of them. They’d been sweethearts for ever. ‘Has he spoken to his parents?’

  Delphi nodded, but fresh tears welled. ‘His father has told him that if we marry he’ll be disinherited. You know they’ve never liked us…’

  Angel winced inwardly for her sister. Stavros came from one of the oldest and most established families in Greece, and his parents were inveterate snobs. But before she could say anything Delphi was continuing in a choked voice.

  ‘…and now it’s worse, because the Parnassus family are home, and everyone knows what happened, and with Father going bankrupt…’ she trailed off miserably.

  A familiar feeling of shame gripped Angel at the mention of that name: Parnassus. Many years before, her family had committed a terrible crime against the much poorer Parnassus family, falsely accusing them of a horrific murder. It was only recently that they had atoned for that transgression. When her great-uncle Costas, who had actually committed the crime, had confessed all in a suicide note, the Parnassus family, who were now phenomenally successful and wealthy, had seen their chance for revenge, and had returned to Athens from America on a wave of glory. The consequent scandal and shake-up in power meant that her father, Tito Kassianides, had started haemorrhaging business and money, to the point that they now faced certain bankruptcy. Parnassus had made certain that everyone now knew how the Kassianides family had wilfully abused their power in the most heinous way.

  ‘Stavros wants us to elope—’

  Angel’s focus came back, and she immediately went to interject, but Delphi put up a hand, her pale face streaked with tears. ‘But I won’t allow him to do that.’

  Angel shut her mouth again.

  ‘I won’t be responsible for him being cut off and disinherited—not when I know how important it is to him that he gets into politics some day. This could ruin all his chances.’

  Angel marvelled at her sweet sister’s selflessness. She took her hands again and said gently, ‘And what about you, Delph? You deserve some happiness too, and you deserve a father for your baby.’

  A door slammed downstairs and they both flinched minutely.

  ‘He’s home…’ Delphi breathed, a mixture of fear and loathing in her voice as the inarticulate roars of their father’s drunken rage drifted up the stairs. More tears welled in her red-rimmed eyes, and suddenly Angel was extremely aware of the fact that her baby sister was now pregnant and needed at all costs to be protected from the potential pain of dealing with any scandal or losing Stavros. She took her gently by the shoulders and forced her to look into her eyes.

  ‘Sweetheart, you did the right thing telling me. Just act as if everything is normal and we’ll work something out. It’ll be fine—’

  Delphi’s voice took on a hysterical edge. ‘But Father is getting more and more out of control, and mother is unravelling at the seams—’

  ‘Shh. Look, haven’t I always been there for you?’

  Angel winced inwardly. She hadn’t been there when Delphi had needed her most, after Damia, her twin’s death, and that was why she’d made the promise to stay at home until Delphi gained her own independence, her twin’s death having affected her profoundly. Now her sister just nodded tearily, biting her lip, and looked at Angel with such nakedly trusting eyes that Angel had to batten down the almost overwhelming feeling of panic. She caught a lone tear falling down Delphi’s face and wiped it away gently with a thumb.

  ‘You’ve got exams coming up in a few months, and enough to be thinking about now. Just leave everything to me.’

  Her sister flung skinny arms around Angel’s neck, hugging her tight. Angel hugged her back, emotion coursing through her to think that in a few months her sister’s belly would be swollen with a baby. She had to make sure she and Stavros got married. Delphi wasn’t hardy and cocky, as her twin had been. Where one had been effervescent and exuberant, the other had always been the more quiet foil. And as for their father—if he found out—

  Delphi pulled back and spoke Angel’s thoughts out loud. ‘What if Father—?’

  Angel cut her off. ‘He won’t. I promise. Now, why don’t you go to bed and get some sleep? And don’t worry, I’ll handle it.’

  CHAPTER ONE

  I’LL handle it. Those fatalistic words still reverberated in Angel’s head a week later. She’d gone to speak with Stavros’ father herself, to try and remonstrate with him, but he hadn’t even deigned to see her. It couldn’t have been made clearer that they were social outcasts.

  ‘Kassianides!’

  Abruptly Angel was pulled out of her spiralling black thoughts when her boss called her name. It must have been the second or third time, judging by the impatience on his face.

  ‘When you can join us back on earth, go down to the pool and make sure it’s completely clear and that the tea lights are set out on the tables.’

  She stuttered an apology and fled. In all honesty Angel’s preoccupation had been distracting her from something much more panic-inducing and stressful. Almost too stressful to contemplate.

  She was here at the Parnassus villa, high in the hills of Athens, to waitress at a party that was being thrown for Leonidas Parnassus, the son of Georgios Parnassus. Everyone was buzzing about the fact that he might be about to take over the family business and what a coup it would be, Leo Parnassus having become a multimillionaire entrepreneur in his own right.

  It hit her again as she hurried down the steps that were expertly overgrown with extravagantly flowering bougainvillea. She was in the P
arnassus villa, the home of the family who hated hers with a passion.

  For a second she stopped in her tracks, a hand going to her breast as an intense pain tightened in her chest. This was the absolute worst place she could be in the world. For a second she felt hysteria rising at the irony of it. She, Angel Kassianides, was about to serve drinks to the crème de la crème of Athens, right under the Parnassuses nose. The thought of what her father would do if he could see her now made her break out in a cold sweat.

  She bit her lip and forced herself to go on, breathing a sigh of relief when she had a quick look around the pool area and saw no one. The guests hadn’t started to arrive yet and, though there were some staying at the villa, Angel knew that they’d be getting ready. There was no reason for anyone to be by the pool, but still…an uneasy prickling skated over her skin.

  She hadn’t been able to avoid coming here tonight. She and her waiter colleagues had been halfway to their secret destination in a packed minibus before it had been revealed, for ‘security reasons’. Angel knew well that if she’d bailed out of this evening her boss would have sacked her on the spot. He’d sacked people for less in his prestigious catering company. She couldn’t afford for that to happen—not when her income was the only thing helping put her sister through college and keeping food on their table.

  She tried to reassure herself: her boss was English, recently moved to Athens with his English/Greek wife. He knew nothing of the significance of who Angel was, nor her scandalous connection to the Parnassus family. She busied herself placing out the tea lights in their antique silver holders in the middle of the white damask-covered tables, and sent up fervent thanks that, tonight of all nights, not one of the other staff were local. Things were so busy at the moment that her boss had had to call in their part-time workers, and they were all either foreign or from outside Athens.