'I never meant this to happen, Jemma,' he said tiredly.
'If you don't mind I won't go to lunch with you. Take Luke instead; he will explain much better than I can what has happened. There might be a way out for us all if you and Luke can agree. God, I hope so. Because I dread telling Leanne what's happened if you can't.' Patting her on the head, he added, 'I'll see you tonight at the party.'
Suddenly the enormity of the situation finally sank into her brain. Her father being jailed for fraud was a real possibility, and he wanted her agreement to stop it happening. It didn't make sense. And why it was all right to involve her, when he dared not tell his wife, rankled more than a little. She needed answers from her father, who was heading for the door with some haste.
She got to her feet to follow him, but a strong hand snaked around her wrist and brought her to a stop with a jolt. Amazingly, for a few minutes she had forgotten Luke was present, but with his fingers warm against her skin, sending a tingling sensation up the length of her arm, she was forcibly reminded.
'Your father is some piece of work,' he stated cynically, and rose to his feet, dropping her wrist and slipping a restraining arm around her waist instead.
'No one asked for your opinion,' Jemma snapped, and tried to pull free. 'Let me go!' She glanced angrily up at him as he tightened his grip on her.
'So you can run after your father and interrogate him with questions he is in no fit state to answer?' he drawled, with a sardonic arch of one dark brow. 'I don't think so.'
'What the hell has it got to do with you?' Jemma cried. She had had enough; she was angry and confused, and the quicker she could get away from Luke's domineering presence the better.
'As a shareholder in Vanity Flair—everything, Jemma.' he mockingly informed her, a wolfish smile that was no smile at all curving his firm lips.
Jemma had been so busy thinking of her father's dire situation she had given no thought to the shareholders involved, but now she did and exclaimed, 'Oh, my God! Your grandfather must have lost a fortune!'
'Don't worry about Theo, he's lost nothing. I bought his shares from him two months ago, so it's me you have to worry about. You heard your father: take me to lunch and all will be revealed.'
Jemma eyes widened as the full import of his words sank into her shocked mind. 'You… Then this is all your fault!' she burst out.
'No. It was your father's contemptible choice to steal in the first place,' Luke pointed out. But he saw the strained expression on her lovely face, the fear she could not quite hide in her extraordinary eyes, and he had the instinctive urge to protect her. Her father sure as hell hadn't. Jemma had no idea of the depth of her father's betrayal, of that he was sure, and for an instant he doubted the course of action he intended to pursue.
'My father is not a thief—the only contemptible person around here is you,' Jemma lashed back. 'It would make much more sense if it was you being accused of thieving.' Shackled by the curve of his arm, with the muscular length of his thigh hard against her and the warmth of his big body enveloping her, she discovered the light silk suit she wore suddenly seemed to take on the consistency of wool as heat surged through her and she panicked. She twisted to try and escape him, but surprisingly she didn't need to try very hard as Luke let her go and took a step back.
Any doubts Luke had had vanished at her insults. He had taken more than enough from this woman. Implacable determination glittered in his eyes as they raked over her. Her glorious hair was knotted loosely on the top of her head, a few stray tendrils framing her face. Lower down, the lapels of the fitted jacket she was wearing revealed the creamy curves of her breasts, defined her narrow-waist, and the straight skirt clung to the gentle curve of her hips to end a few inches above her knees. Damn it! He wanted her, and he was going to have her.
'I've never stolen in my life. But I'll forget you said that, Jemma, because I know this has been something of a shock for you.' She was looking at him as if he was something the cat had dragged in, but beneath it he could sense her confusion. 'If you want to save your father and his company from ruin, I suggest we go to lunch. I'm hungry, and I'm much more generous when my appetite has been appeased. But it is your choice…'
Choice… The word echoed hollowly in Jemma's mind. Luke's parting comment the last time she had seen him came back to haunt her. She had sensed the threat in his words at the time, and dismissed it as her overactive imagination, but, looking at him now, she knew she had been right to be apprehensive. Luke was watching her with a hard, challenging gleam in his eyes and her heart sank like a stone. What choice did she have? Her own father had told her to listen to Luke…
'I'm not hungry.' She wiped damp palms down her thighs. 'And I have no wish to sit in a public restaurant with you and discuss my family business where anyone can overhear the conversation. But I am prepared to listen to what you have to say, and here is as good as anywhere.' She moved to sit down, not sure how long her shaking legs would hold her.
Luke stepped forward, his dark features hard as he looped a long arm around her shoulders. She stiffened, every self-protective instinct she possessed telling her to escape now, while she had a chance, but the image of her father's haggard face stopped her.
'I understand your concern,' he taunted mockingly, his silver-grey eyes capturing hers mercilessly. 'But I am hungry, and I know a place where the food is excellent and privacy is assured. Shall we go?'
CHAPTER SIX
Which was why, half an hour later, Jemma was in Luke's apartment, seated on a black hide sofa, a glass of white wine in her hand, looking on in dismay as Luke placed an assortment of cartons on the coffee table and whipped off the lids. He had ordered on the carphone as they'd left Connaught Square, and it was only then she'd realised she had made another mistake.
'I hope you like Cantonese,' he said blandly, handing her a bowl and chopsticks. She took the bowl, too stunned to do anything else, and when he forked some rice and salt-and-pepper prawns into it she found herself eating a couple.
But, with her nerves on a knife-edge, she refused his every offer of more, and instead studied the apartment through the thick veil of her lashes, wondering how she had allowed herself to be tricked into coming here. And what an apartment—all stark black, white and steel. No curtains at the wall of glass that was the window. A sunken lounging area lined with black hide seating and a glass table. A state-of-the-art media system that was operated by a small computer fitted into the arm of one of the seats. With a couple of large modern sculptures in bronze strategically placed on the polished wood floor, an ebony cabinet and black lamps, and a massive LCD TV mounted on a white wall, the place lacked any colour, any traces of a home. It was the ultimate in bachelor pads.
But Jemma was not really surprised—Luke Devetzi was hardly the homely type. In fact when she had calmed down enough to think about what had happened she began to feel slightly better.
Last month she had been called to her aunt Mary's solicitor and told probate had been granted and she now officially owned thirty per cent of Vanity Flair and the villa on Zante. She had already telephoned the man on the island who looked after the house and arranged to visit the second weekend in September, to decide what alterations were needed.
Jemma lived quite comfortably on the profit from the florist shop, and she had money from Alan's life insurance that she intended using to expand Flower Power. It looked as if she'd never have any dividend from the shares she now owned in Vanity Flair, but, worthless or not, she was a major shareholder and that must be why her father had said he needed her agreement to Luke's rescue plan. Obviously Luke wanted to recoup the money he had lost by buying Theo's shares from him, but Jemma would have some say in whether the company was wound up.
'Some more wine?' Luke interrupted her thoughts by offering the bottle, and hastily she covered her glass with her hand. It was wine that had got her into trouble with Luke in the first place, and she wasn't going to make the same mistake twice.
'No, thanks. I think i
t's time we got down to business, don't you? After all, that is why I'm here.' She continued bravely, 'Correct me if I am wrong, but it appears that, as I'm a major shareholder, you need my agreement to any plan to wind up my father's company, and you also can't decide what happens to him without my approval.'
Luke relaxed back against the sofa, a hint of a smile playing around his mouth. 'You're not exactly wrong.' He paused deliberately. 'You are the major shareholder, and as such stand to lose the most, and lawfully nothing can be done without your agreement.' Jemma breathed a silent sigh of relief, but her relief was short-lived as Luke continued, 'Unfortunately for you, your father's problems go back a long way. According to my information, until you reached the age of eighteen your father was the trustee of the ten per cent share your mother left you. Then you became a partner, along with your aunt and your father, and for the next four years, until you sold your mother's shares back to your father, you were directly responsible for running the company, along with the other family members. Luckily you were not a shareholder at the time of your father's worse excesses and the flotation on AIM. But technically, though it is unlikely, you could be accused along with your father for the early fraud.'
'Me!' Jemma exclaimed. 'Are you mad? That's impossible; I never had anything to do with the business. The shares my mother left me I sold back to my dad to help pay for the house Alan and I bought when we married. I had never even attended a board meeting until this summer, and only then at my dad's insistence because I had inherited Aunt Mary's shares. Whoever told you different is lying.'
'Your father told me,' he said bluntly, rising from the sofa. 'He couldn't do anything else, because I've seen your signature on earlier documents. Fair enough, you were young, but surely when your father showed you the accounts and asked you to verify and sign them you at least checked them?'
Ashen-faced, she stared up at Luke, at last beginning to realise the enormity of the situation. 'I never read them—I thought I was simply signing as a witness.'
'For what it's worth, I believe you. But it doesn't alter the fact that the only way to stop the whole business collapsing and the full weight of the law falling on your father is a vast injection of money.'
'How much cash?' she asked dully, and he mentioned a figure she would have had trouble writing down, never mind finding. 'I can sell my house, and in time the villa in Greece, I suppose.' She blinked to hold back the threat of tears. That her own father had involved her in his crime ten years ago was too incredible to believe. But sadly she recognised Luke was telling the truth. The defeated, guilty expression on her father's face and his hasty exit, leaving her to Luke's mercy, spoke louder than words.
'A drop in the ocean—to coin an English phrase,' Luke mocked. Dropping down on the seat beside her and cupping her chin in his hand, he turned her face towards him. 'But I do have a solution; I'm prepared to invest all the money necessary to get your father out of this mess and make the company viable again, but I want something in return,'
'I'm sure my father will do anything you say,' Jemma murmured. 'Basically he is a good man, but, well, he has…'
'An expensive wife and lifestyle,' Luke finished for her cynically. 'But it's not your father I'm interested in—it's you, Jemma. I want to marry you.'
The man had taken leave of his senses, was her first thought, and then she saw the determined gleam in the cold depths of his eyes and wasn't so sure.
'We can announce our engagement at your father's birthday party tonight.'
His suggestion was so outrageous it snapped Jemma out of the fog of despondency that had threatened to consume her. Picturing Jan's face, she almost laughed out loud. 'Are you crazy?' she exclaimed. 'You're my sister's boyfriend, for heaven's sake.' And suddenly Jemma saw the perfect solution to the problem. 'She's the one you should be asking, not me. I'm sure she'll jump at the chance.'
'Jan is an old acquaintance, nothing more.' His hand tightened on her chin. 'I swear I have never known her in the biblical sense—as I have you.' His heavy-lidded eyes seared into hers, the sensual knowledge in the gleaming depths making heat rush to her cheeks. 'So there's no problem there.' His long fingers moved from her chin to stroke up her cheek and curve a fine tendril of hair behind her ear, and inwardly she trembled as he added, 'Forget about Jan. If you want to save your father, marry me.' His deep, dark voice grated over her raw nerves, and her tongue flicked out to moisten her suddenly too-dry lips. She saw the knowing glint in his eyes at her betraying movement. 'It's your choice, and I want your decision now.'
It was that word choice again, and this time she was in no doubt that the threat was genuine. She jerked her head from his hold and leapt to her feet. 'But why me?' Jemma demanded, staring down at him. He was lounging back against the seat again, totally at ease, while she was standing on trembling legs wondering how a day that had started out so perfectly had turned into such a nightmare.
'Do you really need to ask?' Luke drawled mockingly, his masculine gaze roaming over her to linger on the lush curve of her breasts before reaching her face. 'You've been married before, Jemma, you're not that naïve.'
'Exactly,' Jemma jumped in. 'And I know what marriage is all about. Love is an integral part, and we don't love each other.' She didn't even like him! He was just too powerful, too arrogant, too wealthy, and just too domineering for Jemma. But at least she retained enough common sense not to insult him further by telling him so.
'Love doesn't exist—it's just another four-letter word for lust,' Luke said cynically. 'And it has absolutely nothing to do with my proposal. To spell it out for you, I will personally make good the debts of Vanity Flair, buy out the smaller shareholders, take the company out of AIM, and turn it back into a family firm in which shares can only be exchanged between family members. One of my own men will be put in charge to make sure that your father, while retaining his position, won't be able to rob the company again. Obviously in return for the cash I need some surety, and that's where you come in. Marrying you makes me legally part of the family. Otherwise, there's no deal.'
Jemma swallowed the lump of fear that rose in her throat. 'But that's tantamount to blackmail…' she whispered. She shook her head to try and clear her thoughts, her eyes searching his face, looking for some sign that it was all a terrible joke.
But Luke's austere features were expressionless: he might as well have been conducting a board meeting. And in a way she supposed he was. Except that this time he was buying a marriage—and for a man who'd made his fortune trading on any commodity, why would this be any different? she thought bitterly.
'I still don't see what you get out of all this—other than a reluctant wife,' she said flatly. Then again. I could agree, and then divorce you six months later; that would leave me a heck of a lot richer and you even more out of pocket.'
'Nice try, Jemma.' He had the gall to grin as he rose to his feet and reached for her, his hands curving possessively around her shoulders. 'Sorry to disappoint you, but it's not quite that simple—there is one other condition. I want you to be the mother of my child, and to make sure of your compliance, my money will be fed into the company over the next three years.'
Mother of his child. Four simple words, but to Jemma very evocative. Her happiest childhood memories of her mother were when they had worked in the garden together, growing and nurturing plants and flowers. It was an intrinsic part of her nature to appreciate the continuity of life in all its forms. And for a moment the thought of having Luke's child stirred a basic response inside her. From the day she had married Jemma had always wanted a baby, but Alan had wanted to wait, and then it had been too late.
'So what's it to be, Jemma? Yes or no?' Luke asked, one hand moving from her shoulder to clasp the nape of her neck and tilt her face up to his. 'You know we're good together.' His dark head lowered—he was going to kiss her.
'No. No…' She pushed at his chest and hastily stepped back, putting some space between them. For a minute she had almost been seduced by his suggestio
n, and by the shameful need to feel his mouth on hers, to taste again the passion of his kiss, and yet Luke was trying to force her into marriage! Was she going mad?
'Pity.' Luke shrugged his broad shoulders. 'Two old men are going to be very disappointed—your father more than Theo, I fear.'
In a blinding flash of clarity Jemma saw it all. 'My God, that's it!' she cried, her golden eyes blazing angrily into his. 'I thought your grandfather was such a lovely old man, and yet between you you must have decided to ruin my father simply to get the house in Zante—or at least make sure your child did. I can easily believe that you are that devious, but I would never have thought it of Theo,' she accused bitterly. 'What is it with you Devetzi men? Is it your mission in life to destroy mine?'
'No,' Luke said harshly, his strong hand closing over her shoulders again. 'Theo has nothing to do with this. And whatever happens he is never to find out we had this conversation. He informed me after the party that he had given up on buying the villa because he had met you again and realised that you were a lovely woman who was unlikely to remain single or childless for much longer. So don't let what's happened between us spoil your opinion of Theo.'
'You really do care for him,' Jemma murmured, shocked; she hadn't thought Luke Devetzi capable of caring for anyone.
'Yes, of course I do.' His dark brows drew together in a brooding frown. 'I'm not totally devoid of human feeling, as you seem to think. But, to be brutally honest, marriage isn't something I've ever contemplated; the main reason I'm doing so now is because you told Theo that only your children can inherit the house on Zante. If I can please Theo and give him peace of mind by giving him the great-grandchild he longs for—a great-grandchild who will eventually inherit his old home—then that is worth any amount of money to me.'
For the first time since meeting Luke, Jemma caught a glimpse of the man within, and she had a grudging respect for him. 'Is Theo your only family?' she asked.
Bought by the Greek Tycoon Page 7
