by Lynne Graham
His father’s widow, Ianthe, and her two surviving children had stayed with them there to attend Kasma’s funeral. It had been a sad and sobering occasion but it had also done much to build a bridge between Ash and his father’s former family. Ianthe had admitted to having been seriously worried about her daughter’s mental health but Ash’s late father, Angelos, had refused to face up to that reality. Kasma’s brother, Simeon, and his family also had young children and the two couples had become close friends since that last sad encounter.
The front door opened and Andreus scrambled down from his mother’s arms to hurl himself violently at Acheron, shouting, ‘Dad!’ at the top of his voice.
Tabby watched Acheron scoop his son up, and a warm smile curved her generous mouth because she never loved Acheron more than when she saw him with the children. He was kind, affectionate and patient, all the things that they had both so badly lacked when they were kids themselves. ‘I thought you wouldn’t make it back in time.’
‘Where’s the birthday girl?’ Acheron enquired.
Amber came racing downstairs, a vivid little figure clad in a flouncy new party dress, and flung herself at her father with very little more circumspection than her toddler brother. ‘You’re here!’ she carolled. ‘You’re here for my party.’
‘Of course, I am,’ Acheron said in the act of producing a present from behind his back, only to laugh as the housekeeper opened the door to let Amber’s best friend and her mother enter and the two little girls went running off together. ‘So much for being flavour of the month there!’ he teased.
‘But you’re always my favourite flavour,’ Tabby rushed to assure him in an undertone before she went to greet the arriving guests.
Acheron watched her acting hostess with quiet admiration. His Tabby, the best and luckiest find he had ever made, always warm, sunny and bright and still the most loving creature he had ever met. It didn’t surprise him in the slightest that he loved her more with every passing year.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from A MAN WITHOUT MERCY by Miranda Lee.
CHAPTER ONE
‘WHAT DO YOU mean, I can’t have Vivienne?’ Jack said. ‘I always have Vivienne.’
Nigel suppressed a sigh. He didn’t like disappointing his best client but there was nothing he could do about it.
‘Sorry, Jack, but as of yesterday Miss Swan doesn’t work for Classic Design any longer.’
Jack’s head jerked back with shock. ‘You fired her?’
Now it was Nigel’s turn to look startled. ‘Hardly. Vivienne was one of my best designers. No,’ he added, with true regret in his voice. ‘She quit.’
Jack could not contain his surprise at this second piece of news. Admittedly, he didn’t know Vivienne all that well, despite her having worked for him on his last three building projects. She was an extremely self-contained young woman who didn’t engage in idle chitchat. When on a job, her focus was always on her work, which was simply brilliant. He had asked her not long ago why she didn’t open her own interior design firm, and she’d replied that she didn’t want that kind of stress, especially now that she was engaged to be married. She’d said she didn’t want to live just for work any longer, a sentiment which Jack had not appreciated—till yesterday.
He’d been driving around the Port Stephens area, looking for suitable land for another retirement village, when he’d come across a small acreage for sale which had totally blown him away. It wasn’t what he was looking for, not even remotely. Not the right kind of land, for starters; not flat enough. There’d also been a huge house smack dab in the middle of the lot, perched on top of a hill. A house unlike anything Jack had ever seen, with a name that was as unique as the building.
Despite knowing he was wasting his time, Jack had still felt compelled to inspect Francesco’s Folly. From the moment he’d walked inside and out onto the first of the many balconies which all faced the bay, he’d known he wanted the place. Not only wanted it but wanted to live in it. Crazy, really, since Port Stephens was a good three-hour drive north of Sydney. Jack’s normal place of residence was a conveniently located and relatively modest three-bedroomed apartment in the same CBD building which housed his construction company’s head office. Aside from its inconvenient location, Francesco’s Folly was as far removed from modest as a residence could get, with eight bedrooms, six bathrooms and an indoor/outdoor swimming pool which would have put a Hollywood mansion to shame.
As a confirmed bachelor who never entertained at home, Jack had no need for a house this size, but it was no use. He simply had to have it, telling himself that maybe it was time for him to relax and live a little. After all, he’d been flogging himself for two decades, working six and sometimes seven days a week, making millions in the process. Why shouldn’t he indulge himself for once? He didn’t actually have to live in the place twenty-four-seven. He could use it as a weekender, or a holiday home. So could the rest of his family. Thinking of their pleasure at having such a dream place at their disposal had sealed the deal for Jack, so he’d bought Francesco’s Folly that very afternoon, getting it for a bargain, partly because it was a deceased estate, but mostly because the interior was hideously dated—hence his need for an excellent interior designer, one whose taste and work ethics matched his. It annoyed Jack considerably that the one person whom he could trust to do the job, and do it well, was unavailable to him.
But then it suddenly occurred to Jack that maybe that wasn’t the case.
‘So who was the sneaky devil who head-hunted her?’ he demanded to know, excited by the possibility that he could still hire the decorator he wanted for the job.
‘Vivienne hasn’t gone to work for anyone else,’ Nigel informed him.
‘How do you know?’
‘She told me so. Look, Jack, if you must know, Vivienne’s not feeling well at the moment. She’s decided to have some time off work.’
Jack was taken back. ‘What do you mean, not feeling well? What’s the matter with her?’
‘I guess it doesn’t matter if I tell you. It’s not as though it isn’t public knowledge.’
Jack frowned. It certainly wasn’t public knowledge to him.
Nigel frowned also. ‘I’m guessing by the look on your face that you didn’t read the gossip columns in Sunday’s papers, or see the photos.’
‘I never read gossip columns,’ Jack replied. He did sometimes skim through the Sunday paper—mostly the property section—but he’d been busy yesterday. ‘So what did I miss? Though, truly, I can’t imagine a girl like Vivienne making it into any gossip column. She isn’t the type.’
‘It wasn’t Vivienne. It was her ex-fiancé.’
‘Ex-fiancé... Good Lord, when did that happen? She was solidly engaged last time I saw her a few weeks back.’
‘Yes, well, Daryl broke off their engagement about a month ago. Told her he’d fallen in love with someone else. The poor girl was shattered, but she was very brave and soldiered on. Of course, the rat claimed he hadn’t cheated on her whilst they were still engaged, but yesterday’s paper proved that was just rubbish.’
‘For pity’s sake, Nigel, just tell me what was in the darned paper!’
‘The thing is, the girl Daryl dumped Vivienne for wasn’t just any old girl. He left her for Courtney Ellison. You know...? Frank Ellison’s spoiled daughter. Vivienne did the decorating job on the harbourside mansion you built for Ellison, so I guess that’s how the two lovebirds met. Anyway, the bit in the gossip column was announcing their engagement. In the photos—there were several—the Ellison girl is sporting a diamond engagement ring the size of an egg—as well as a much bigger baby-bump, meaning their affair’s been going on for quite some time.
‘Naturally, there was no mention of Courtney’s handsome husband-to-be having been recently engaged to another woman. Darling Daddy would have qu
ashed that. You don’t get to be a billionaire mining magnate in this country without having lots of connections in the media. As you can imagine, Vivienne is very cut up about it. She was in tears on the phone yesterday, which is not like her at all.’
Jack could not have agreed more. Tears were not Vivienne’s style. He’d never met any female as cool and collected as Vivienne. But he supposed everyone had their breaking point. He shook his head, regretting now that he’d recommended her to Frank Ellison. Jack hated to think that he was in some way responsible for Vivienne’s unhappiness. But how could he possibly have known that Ellison’s man-eating maniac of a daughter would get her claws into Vivienne’s fiancé?
Still...if ever there was a man willing and ready to be eaten by the likes of Courtney Ellison, it was Vivienne’s now ex-fiancé.
Jack had only met Daryl once—when he’d briefly dropped in on Classic Design’s Christmas party last year—but once had been enough to form an opinion. Okay, so darling Daryl was movie-star good-looking. And charming, he supposed, if you liked silver-tongued talkers who smiled a lot, touched a lot and called their fiancée ‘babe’. Clearly, Vivienne did, since she’d been planning on marrying him.
It saddened Jack that Vivienne had been unlucky enough to lose her heart to one of that ilk, but he had no doubt that she would, in time, see that she’d had a narrow escape from long-term misery as a result of Daryl’s defection. Meanwhile, the last thing that girl needed was to be allowed to wallow in her present misery. Jack understood that Vivienne was probably feeling wretched, but nothing would be achieved by cutting herself off from the one thing she was good at and would make her feel good about herself: her work.
‘I see,’ he said, quickly deciding on a course of action. ‘You wouldn’t have Vivienne’s address, would you, Nigel? I’d like to send her some flowers,’ he added before Nigel gave him some bulldust about privacy issues.
Nigel stared at Jack for a long moment before looking up the company files on his computer and writing down the address.
‘I don’t like your chances,’ he said as he handed the address over.
‘My chances of what?’ Jack replied, poker-faced.
Nigel smiled a dry smile. ‘Come now, Jack, you and I both know you don’t want Vivienne’s address just to send her flowers. You’re going to hotfoot it over to her place and try to get her to do whatever it is you want her to do. Which is what, by the way? Another retirement-home project?’
‘No,’ Jack said, despite thinking that Francesco’s Folly would make a perfect retirement home, when and if he ever actually retired. ‘It’s a personal project, a holiday house I’ve bought which badly needs redecorating. Look, it’ll do Vivienne good to keep busy.’
‘She’s very fragile at the moment,’ Nigel warned. ‘Not everyone is as tough as you, Jack.’
‘I’ve often found that the gentler sex are a lot tougher than we men think they are,’ Jack said as he stood up and extended his hand in parting.
Nigel tried not to wince when Jack’s large hand closed around his much smaller one. But truly, the man didn’t know his own strength sometimes. Didn’t know women as well as he thought he did, either. No way was Vivienne going to let herself be bulldozed into working for him. Aside from the fact that she was in a dreadful emotional state at the moment, she’d never overly liked the owner of Stone Constructions—something which Jack obviously didn’t know.
But privately she’d expressed the opinion to Nigel that Jack was a pain in the neck to work for, a driven workaholic with impossibly high standards which, whilst admirable in one way, could be very trying. Of course, he did pay very well, but that wasn’t going to help him where Vivienne was concerned. Money had never interested her all that much, possibly because she’d inherited plenty of her own when her mother had died a couple of years ago.
‘If you want some advice,’ Nigel called after Jack as he headed for the door, ‘Actually taking Vivienne some flowers—not red roses, mind you—might improve your chances of success.’
Though Nigel seriously doubted it.
Copyright © 2014 by Miranda Lee
ISBN: 9781472042002
THE DIMITRAKOS PROPOSITION
© Lynne Graham 2014
First Published in Great Britain in 2014
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