by Lynne Graham
“After seven years, how can we go from having no relationship at all into a living arrangement? And me—a mistress? It’s crazy.”
Aristandros slowly unfolded his big, powerful frame from his seat and strolled toward her like a sleek, dark panther on the prowl. His narrowed gaze blazed golden and welded to her, homing in on the soft pink of her mouth. “It’s not a problem for me. I find you amazingly attractive.”
“And that’s all that it takes for you? Lust?” Ella slung between gritted teeth, with a look of distaste.
“Lust is all that we need to concern ourselves with, glikia mou.” He lifted a hand and let confident fingertips trace the proud curve of her cheekbone. Blue eyes spitting angry flames, she jerked her head away in a violent rejection of his touch. “Let’s keep it simple. I want you in my bed every night.”
Dear Reader,
I am honored to be included in the lineup of Harlequin Presents® authors chosen to represent Harlequin’s sixty successful years in publishing. That is certainly an anniversary to make us all proud.
I have been writing for Harlequin Presents® for twenty-three years and I cannot imagine life without the characters who occupy my mind for the duration of my stories. My heroes and heroines are as real to me while I write as the people I meet.
The Greek Tycoon’s Blackmailed Mistress was a particular pleasure to create, for Ella and Aristandros are particularly strong characters, and well-matched in conflict.
Ella has come through wounding experiences without losing hope for the future, or pride and pleasure in her career; Aristandros has to overcome his pride and bitter incomprehension at her past rejection to win her love again.
Congratulations, Harlequin!
Lynne Graham
Lynne Graham
THE GREEK TYCOON’S BLACKMAILED MISTRESS
All about the author…
Lynne Graham
Of Irish/Scottish parentage, LYNNE GRAHAM has lived in Northern Ireland all her life. She has one brother. She grew up in a seaside village and now lives in a country house surrounded by a woodland garden, which is wonderfully private.
Lynne first met her husband when she was fourteen. They married after she completed a degree at Edinburgh University. Lynne wrote her first book at fifteen and it was rejected everywhere. She started writing again when she was at home with her first child. It took several attempts before she sold her first book, and the delight of seeing that first book for sale in the local newsagents has never been forgotten.
Lynne always wanted a large family, and she has five children. Her eldest and her only natural child is in her twenties and is a university graduate. Her other children, who are every bit as dear to her heart, are adopted: two from Sri Lanka and two from Guatemala. In Lynne’s home, there is a rich and diverse cultural mix, which adds a whole extra dimension of interest and discovery to family life.
The family has two pets. Thomas, a very large and affectionate black cat, bosses the dog and hunts rabbits. The dog is Daisy, an adorable but not very bright West Highland white terrier, who loves being chased by the cat. At night, dog and cat sleep together in front of the kitchen stove.
Lynne loves gardening and cooking, collects everything from old toys to rock specimens and is crazy about every aspect of Christmas.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
PROLOGUE
‘AN ENCHANTING child,’ Drakon Xenakis remarked as he stood at a window, watching the little girl playing in the lush gardens of his grandson’s villa. ‘She reminds me of someone. I can’t think who…’
Aristandros veiled his brilliant dark eyes, his lean, darkly handsome face unrevealing. He said nothing, although he had made a genetic connection at first glance. In his opinion it was impossible not to: that blonde hair, so pale that it was somewhere between white and silver, and those hyacinth-blue eyes and pouting pink mouth were like miniature identity-tags. Yes, fate had placed an immensely potent weapon in his hands and he would have no qualms about using it to get what he wanted. Aristandros always kept his conscience well under wraps. Neither failure nor consolation prizes were acceptable to him. Without a doubt he would triumph—and winning most often meant breaking the rules.
‘But little girls need mothers,’ Drakon continued, his proud carriage impressively upright in spite of his eighty-two years. ‘And you specialise in—’
‘Beautiful models,’ Aristandros slotted in swiftly, conscious that the older man was likely to take a moralistic viewpoint and employ a more judgemental term for the women who entertained his grandson in the bedroom. ‘Timon, however, left me his daughter to raise, and I have every intention of meeting that challenge.’
‘Timon was a childhood playmate and a cousin, not your brother,’ his grandfather countered in a troubled voice. ‘Are you willing to give up the strings of gorgeous women and the endless parties for the sake of a child who isn’t your own?’
‘I have a large, well-trained and reliable staff. I don’t think Calliope’s impact on my life will be that catastrophic.’ Aristandros had never sacrificed anything for anyone, nor could he imagine doing so. But, even if he did not agree with his grandfather’s views, he respected him and he would allow the older man to have his say.
In any case, few men had more right to talk frankly on the score of family responsibility than Drakon Xenakis. The family name had long been synonymous with dysfunction and explosive scandals. Drakon blamed himself that all his children had messed up spectacularly as adults with their car-crash marriages, addictions and affairs. Aristandros’s father had proved the worst offender of all, and his mother, the heiress daughter of another shipping family, had matched her husband in her appetite for self-indulgence and irresponsibility.
‘If you think that, you’re underestimating the responsibility you’re taking on. A child who has already lost both parents will need a lot of your attention to feel secure. You’re a workaholic, just as I was, Aristandros. We’re brilliant at making money, but we’re not good parents,’ Drakon pronounced, his concern patent. ‘You need to find a wife willing to be Callie’s mother.’
‘Marriage really isn’t my style,’ Aristandros countered coolly.
‘The incident you are referring to took place when you were twenty-five years old,’ Drakon dared to remark, watching the younger man’s bronzed features shutter and chill at that less-than-tactful reminder.
Aristandros shrugged a broad shoulder. ‘It was merely a brief infatuation from which I soon recovered.’
Aristandros was, however, pierced by a familiar tide of bitter anger. Ella. He only had to think her name to feel that anger. Seven years ago, he had put a price on the head of the one woman he’d wanted, and the one woman he still couldn’t forget. He had sworn then that, one day, he would take revenge for what she had done to him. The engagement that never was—an unthinkable rejection. Yet, in some ways, hadn’t Ella done him a favour? The early unanticipated disappointment and the sense of humiliation which she’d inflicted had ensured that Ari had never dropped his guard with a woman again. Instead he had concentrated on enjoying the fruits of his fabulous wealth while he’d steadily grown tougher, harder and more ambitious.
His meteoric success had made him a billionaire and the focus of much fear and envy in the business world. Drakon’s plain speaking was a rare experience for Aristandros, whose aggressive instincts had brought him astonishing asce
ndancy and influence over others. Soon Ella too would have to make a bonfire of all her fine, noble principles and prejudices and dance to his chosen tune. He was looking forward to it. Indeed, he could hardly wait for the moment when she realised that he had what she most wanted. That first taste of revenge promised to be sweeter than heavenly ambrosia.
CHAPTER ONE
ELLA sat as still as a statue in the smart waiting area.
Locked deep in her stressful thoughts, she didn’t notice the admiring glances she received from the men walking past. In any case, she was accustomed to screening out the unwelcome notice that her physical beauty attracted. Her white-blonde hair, that rare shade most often seen only on children, turned heads as much as her bright blue eyes and slender, shapely figure. Her hands were tightly laced together on her lap, betraying her tension.
‘Dr Smithson?’ the receptionist said. ‘Mr Barnes would like you to go in now.’
Ella got up. Beneath her outward show of calm, a burning sense of injustice was churning in her stomach. Her prayers had gone unanswered and common sense was still being ignored. She could only marvel that her own flesh and blood could have placed her in such a cruel position. When would enough be enough? When would her family decide that she had paid a steep enough price for the decision she had made seven years earlier? She was beginning to think that only her death would settle that outstanding account.
Mr Barnes, the lawyer she had first consulted two weeks earlier—a tall, thin man in his forties reputed to be at the very top of the tree when it came to complex child-custody issues—shook hands with her and invited her to take a seat.
‘I’ve taken advice from the specialists in this area of the law, and I’m afraid I can’t give you the answer that you want,’ he told her with precision. ‘When you donated eggs to your sister to enable her to have a child, you signed a contract in which you relinquished all claim to parental rights over any baby born subsequently—’
‘Yes, I accept that, but as my sister and her husband are now dead surely the situation has changed?’ Ella broke in with the urgency she was trying hard to keep under control.
‘But not necessarily in your favour,’ Simon Barnes responded wryly. ‘As I mentioned before, the woman who carries the baby to birth is deemed to be its legal mother. So, although you are a biological parent, you cannot claim to be the child’s mother. Furthermore, you have had no contact at all with the little girl since she was born, which doesn’t help your case.’
‘I know.’ Ella was pale with strain and a curious feeling of shame, for she still found it hard to handle the fact that her sister, Susie, had pretty much cut her out of her life as soon as her infant daughter had entered the world. Ella had not even been allowed a photo, never mind a visit and a face-to-face encounter. ‘But I’m still legally Callie’s aunt.’
‘Yes, but the fact that you were not named as a guardian in your sister and brother-in-law’s wills does harm your case,’ the lawyer reminded her tautly. ‘Their solicitor will testify that the only party Callie’s late parents were prepared to nominate was Aristandros Xenakis. Don’t forget that he too has a blood tie with the child—’
‘For goodness’ sake, Aristandros was only her father’s cousin, not an uncle or anything!’ Ella proclaimed with helpless heat.
‘A cousin and lifelong friend, who putatively accepted responsibility for the child in writing well before the accident that killed your sister and her husband. I need hardly add that you cannot reasonably hope to fight his claim to custody. He is an extremely wealthy and powerful man. The child is also a Greek citizen, as is he.’
‘But he’s also a single man with an appalling reputation as a hellraiser!’ Ella protested fiercely. ‘Scarcely an ideal father-figure for a little girl!’
‘You are in dangerous territory with that argument, Dr Smithson. You too are single, and any court would question why your own family are not prepared to back you in your claim.’
Ella reddened at the humbling reminder that she stood alone and unsupported. ‘I’m afraid that my relatives will not take a single step that might risk offending Aristandros Xenakis. My stepfather and my two half-brothers rely on his connections to do business.’
The lawyer released his breath in a slow hiss of finality. ‘My advice is to accept that the law is unlikely to get you any closer to seeing the child, and that any attempt to challenge her current custodial arrangements will destroy any goodwill you might hope to create.’
Tears were burning like drops of fire behind Ella’s unflinching gaze as she fought to retain her self-discipline in the face of that bad news. ‘You’re telling me that there’s nothing I can do?’
‘I believe that the wisest move in your circumstances would be to make a personal approach to Aristandros Xenakis. Explain the situation and, on that basis, ask him if he will allow you to have contact with the child,’ Simon Barnes advised ruefully.
Ella shivered at that piece of advice; it was like a sudden, bitingly cold wind blowing against her bare, shrinking flesh. Aristandros had Callie. Aristandros, who despised Ella. What possible hope did she have of gaining a sympathetic hearing from him?
‘Some day you will pay for this,’ Aristandros had sworn seven years earlier when she was only twenty-one and in the middle of her medical studies.
‘Don’t take it that way,’ she had begged him painfully. ‘Try to understand.’
‘No. You understand what you have done to me,’ Aristandros had urged, diamond-bright dark eyes hard as granite and cold as winter ice. ‘I treated you with honour and respect. And in return you have insulted and embarrassed me and my family.’
Gooseflesh pebbling her skin beneath her clothes, Ella left the solicitor’s office and headed home to the spacious loft apartment she had purchased jointly with her friend, Lily. The other woman, who was training as a surgeon, was still at work when she got back. Ella and Lily had met at medical school and had been friends ever since, initially pooling and sharing resources, like the apartment and a car, while offering each other support during stressful times.
In common with many young doctors, Ella worked long hours and had little energy left with which to stamp her own personality on her surroundings. She had still not got round to choosing a colour scheme for her bedroom. A pile of books by the bed and a piano in one corner of the airy living-area testified to how she liked to spend her free time.
Before she could lose her nerve, she rang the UK headquarters of Xenakis Shipping to request an appointment with Aristandros. A member of his staff promised to call her back, and she knew she would be checked out since she was not a business client. She wondered if he would even agree to see her. Maybe out of curiosity? Her tummy flipped at the prospect of seeing him again.
She could hardly remember the girl she had been seven years earlier when she’d broken her heart over Aristandros Xenakis. Young, inexperienced and naïve, she had been much more vulnerable than she had appreciated. Her strong sense of self-belief had ensured that she’d stood up for what she believed in, but living with that decision had proved much more difficult than she had expected. Moreover, she had not met another man, as she had dimly assumed she would back then. She had recently begun to believe that she would never meet anyone she wanted to marry.
Was that another reason why she had agreed to donate eggs to her infertile sister? Susie, two years her senior, had suffered a premature menopause in her twenties, and her only hope of motherhood had been through donated eggs. Susie had flown over from Greece to London where Ella had been working as a junior doctor in a busy A&E department to ask for her sibling’s help.
Ella had been touched when Susie had approached her with her request. In truth, prior to that meeting, Susie had been as distant and critical of her outcast sister as the rest of the family. It had felt good to be needed, even better to be told that a baby born from her eggs would be much more precious to Susie than a baby born with the help of an anonymous donor. Of course, there had also been the greater lik
elihood of the child inheriting a closer physical resemblance to Susie through the use of her sibling’s eggs.
Ella had not hesitated to agree to her sister’s appeal. It would have been unimaginable for her to refuse. Susie had married Ari’s cousin, Timon, and they’d had a good marriage. Ella had believed that a child born to the young couple would enjoy a happy, secure life. While Ella had undergone the screening tests and treatment for egg donation, she had also attended counselling and signed an agreement to make no future claim on any child born.
‘You’re not thinking this through,’ Lily had argued at the time. ‘This process is not as straightforward as you seem to think it is. What about the emotional repercussions? How will you feel when a child is actually born? You’ll be the biological mother but you’ll have no rights at all over the child. Will you envy your sister—feel that her child is more yours?’
Ella had refused to accept that there could be anything other than a positive outcome to the gift of her eggs. While she’d been undergoing the donation process, Susie had often talked about what a wonderful aunt Ella would be for her child. But, shockingly, Susie had rejected Ella from the day that Callie was born. Indeed she had phoned Ella to ask her not to visit her in hospital, while also demanding that Ella leave her and her new family alone.
Ella had been horribly hurt, but she had tried to understand that Susie had felt threatened by her sibling’s genetic input to her newborn baby. She had written to her sister in an effort to reassure her, but her letters had gone unacknowledged. In despair at the rift that had opened up, she had gone to see Timon when he was in London on business. Timon had admitted ruefully that his wife was eaten up with insecurity over Ella’s role in the conception of their daughter. Ella had prayed that the passage of time would soothe Susie’s concerns but, seventeen months after Callie’s birth, Timon and Susie had died in a horrific car crash. And, as a final footnote, the young couple had been dead almost two weeks before anyone had thought to let Ella know, so that she hadn’t even got to attend the funeral.
