A Tycoon to Be Reckoned With (Harlequin Presents)

by Julia James

  He ploughed on. ‘Especially,’ he said, looking at her without flinching, ‘women.’

  ‘Gold-diggers,’ she said. There was no expression in her voice.

  ‘Yes. A cliché, but true all the same.’

  A frown creased between Bastiaan’s eyes. He had to make her understand what the danger had been—how real it could have been.

  If she had truly been the woman I feared she was.

  ‘I know,’ he said, and his mouth gave a caustic curl of self-derision, ‘because when I was little older than Philip, and like him had no father to teach me better, a woman took me to the cleaners and made a complete fool of me.’

  Did he see something change in her eyes? He didn’t know—could only keep going.

  ‘So when I saw that twenty thousand euros had gone from Philip’s account to an unknown account in Nice...when I heard from Paulette that Philip had taken to hanging around a nightclub endlessly and was clearly besotted with someone, alarm bells rang. I knew the danger to him.’

  ‘And so you did what you did. I know—I was on the receiving end.’

  There was bitterness in her voice, and accusation. She’d had enough of this—enough. What was the point of him going on at her like this? There wasn’t one. And it was hell—just hell on earth—to stand here with him so close, so incredibly close.

  So unutterably distant... Because how could he be anything else?

  She made herself say the words that proved it. ‘I get the picture, Bastiaan. You seduced me to safeguard Philip. That was the only reason.’ There was a vice around her throat, but she forced the words through.

  She started to turn away. That vice around her throat was squeezing the air from her. She had to get out of here. Hadn’t Bastiaan Karavalas done enough to her without jeopardizing everything she had worked to achieve?

  ‘No.’

  The single word, cutting through the air, silenced her.

  ‘No,’ he said again. He took a step towards her. ‘It was not the only reason.’

  There was a vehemence in the way he spoke that stilled her. His eyes were no longer veiled...they were burning—burning with an intensity she had never seen before.

  ‘From the moment I first saw you I desired you. Could not resist you even though I thought you were Sabine, out to exploit my cousin. Because I thought that it gave me...’ he took a breath ‘...a justification for doing what I wanted to do all along. Indulge my desire for you. A desire that you returned—I could see that in every glance you gave me. I knew you wanted me.’

  ‘And you used that for your own ends.’ The bitterness was back in her voice.

  He seemed to flinch, but then he was reaching for her wrist to stay her, desperate for her to hear what he must say—must say.

  ‘I regret everything I did, Sarah.’ He said her name with difficulty, for it was hard—so hard—not to call her by the name he’d called her when she was in his arms. ‘Everything. But not—not the time we had together.’

  She strained away from him. ‘It was fake, Bastiaan. Totally fake.’ There was harshness in her voice.

  ‘Fake?’ Something changed in his voice. His eyes. His fingers around her wrist softened. ‘Fake...?’ he said again.

  And now there was a timbre to his voice that she had heard before—heard a hundred times before...a thousand. She felt a susurration go through her as subtle as a breath of wind in her hair. As caressing as a summer breeze.

  ‘Was this fake?’ he said,

  And now he was drawing her towards him and she could not hold back. The pulse in her veins was whispering, quickening. She felt her breath catch, dissolve.

  ‘Was this fake?’ he said again.

  And now she was so close to him, so close that her head was dropping back. She could catch the scent of his body, the warmth of it. She felt her eyes flutter shut and then he was kissing her, the softness of his lips a homage, an invocation.

  He held her close, and closer still, cupping her nape to deepen his kiss.

  Bliss eased through her, melting and dissolving. Dissolving the hard, bitter knot of pain and anger deep inside her. He let her lips go, but his eyes were pouring into hers.

  ‘Forgive me—I beg you to forgive me.’ His voice was husky, imploring. ‘I wronged you—treated you hideously. But when I made those accusations at you—oh, they were tearing me to pieces. To have spent those days with you, transforming everything in my life, and then that final day...’ He shut his eyes, as if to shut out the memory, before forcing himself to open them again, to speak to her of what had haunted him. ‘To think myself duped—because how could you be that woman I’d feared you were when what we had was so...so wonderful.’

  His voice dropped.

  ‘I believed all my fears—and I believed the worst fear of all. That you were not the woman I had so wanted you to be...’

  He gazed down at her now, his hand around her nape, cradling her head, his eyes eloquent with meaning. And from his lips came the words he had come here to say.

  ‘The woman I love—Sabine or Sarah—you are the woman I love. Only you.’

  She heard the words, heard them close, as close as her heart—the heart that was swelling in her breast as if it must surely become her very being, encompassing all that she was, all that she could be.

  She pressed her hand against the strong wall of his chest, glorying in feeling her fingers splay out over the hard muscle beneath his shirt. Feeling the heat of his body, the beat of his heart beneath her palm.

  Wonder filled her, and a whitening of the soul that bleached from her all that she had felt till now—all the anger and the hurt, the fury and the pain. Leaving nothing but whitest, purest bliss.

  She gazed up at him, her face transformed. He felt his heart turn over in his breast, exultation in it.

  ‘I thought it impossible...’ she breathed. ‘Impossible that in a few brief days I could fall in love. How could it be so swift? But it was true—and oh, Bastiaan, it hurt so much that you thought so ill of me after what we’d had together.’

  To love so swiftly—to hurt so badly...

  She saw him flinch, as if her words had made a wound, but he answered her.

  ‘The moment I knew—that hellish moment when I knew everything I’d feared about you, all I’d accused you of was false...nothing but false... I knew that I had destroyed everything between us. You threw me out and I could do nothing but go. Accept that you wanted nothing to do with me. Let you get on with your preparations for tonight without my plaguing you.’

  His voice changed. ‘But tonight I could keep silent no longer. I determined to find you—face you.’ A rueful look entered his dark eyes. ‘I bottled it. I was too...too scared to face you.’ His gaze changed again, becoming searching. ‘What you’ve achieved tonight—what it will bring you now—will there be room for me? Can there be?’

  She gave a little cry. ‘Oh, Bastiaan, don’t you see? It’s because of what I feel—because now I know what love is—that I can achieve what I have tonight...what will be in me from now for ever.’

  She drew back a little.

  ‘That aria I sang, where the War Bride mourns her husband’s death...’ She swallowed, gazing up at him with all her heart in her eyes. ‘She sings of love that is lost, love that burns so briefly and then was gone. I couldn’t sing it. I didn’t understand it until—’

  He pulled her into his arms, wrapping them tight around her. ‘Oh, my beloved, you will never feel that way again. Whatever lessons in love you learn from me will be happy ones from now. Only happy ones.’

  She felt tears come then, prickling in her eyes, dusting her lashes with diamonds in the starlight. Bastiaan—hers. Her Bastiaan! After such torment, such bliss! After such fears, such trust. After such anger, such love...

  She lifted her head to his, sought his mouth and found it, and into her kiss she poured all that was in her heart, all that she was, all that she would be.

  An eternal duet of love that they would sing together all their li
ves.

  EPILOGUE

  SARAH LAY ON the little sandy beach, gazing up at the stars which shone like a glittering celestial tiara overhead. There was no sound but the lapping of water, the night song of the cicadas from the vegetation in the gardens behind. But her heart was singing—singing with a joy, a happiness so true, so profound, that she could still scarcely credit it.

  ‘Do you remember,’ the low, deep voice beside her asked, ‘how we gazed up at the stars by the pool in my villa at Cap Pierre?’

  She squeezed the hand that was holding hers as she and Bastiaan lay side by side, their eyes fixed on eternity, ablaze overnight in the Greek sky.

  ‘Was it then?’ she breathed. ‘Then that I started to fall in love with you?’

  ‘And I with you?’

  Her fingers tightened on his. Love had come so swiftly she had not imagined it possible. And hurt had followed.

  But the pain I felt was proof of love—it showed me my own heart.

  Now all that pain was gone—vanished and banished, never to return! Now, here with Bastiaan, as they lay side by side on the first night of their married life together, they were sealing their love for ever. He had asked her where she wanted to spend her honeymoon but she had seen in his eyes that he already knew where he wanted them to be.

  ‘I always said,’ he told her, ‘that I would bring my bride to my island—that she alone would be the one woman I would ever want here with me.’

  She lifted his hand to her mouth, grazing his knuckles with a kiss.

  ‘I also always said—’ and his voice was different now, rueful and wry ‘—that I would know who that woman would be the moment I set eyes on her.’

  She laughed. She could do that now—now that all the pain from the way he had mistrusted and misused her was gone.

  ‘How blind I was! Blind to everything that you truly were! Except...’ And now he hefted himself on to one elbow, rolled on to his hip to gaze down at her—his beloved Sarah, his beloved bride, his beloved wife for all the years to come. ‘Except to my desire for you.’

  His eyes blazed with ardour and she felt her blood quicken in its veins as it always did when he looked at her like that, felt her bones melting into the sand beneath her.

  ‘That alone was true and real! I desired you then and I desire you now—it will never end, my beautiful, beloved Sarah!’

  For an instant longer his gaze poured into hers, and then his mouth was tasting hers and she was drawing him down to her. Passion flared and burned.

  Then, abruptly, Sarah held him off. ‘Bastiaan Karavalas—if you think I am going to spend my wedding night and consummate my marriage on a beach, with pebbles digging into me and sand getting into places I don’t even want to think about, then you are—’

  ‘Entirely right?’ he finished hopefully, humour curving his mouth.

  ‘Don’t tempt me,’ she said huskily, feeling her resolve weaken even as she started to melt again.

  But you do tempt me...

  The words were in Bastiaan’s head, echoing hers, taking him back—back to the time when he had been so, so wrong about her. And so, so right about how much he wanted her. He felt his breath catch with the wonder of it all. The happiness and joy that blazed in him now.

  He got to his feet, crouched beside her, and with an effortless sweep scooped her up into his arms. She gave a little gasp and her arms went around his neck, clinging to him.

  ‘No,’ he said firmly, ‘you’re right. We need a bed. A large, comfortable bed. And, as it happens, I happen to have one nearby.’

  He carried her across the garden into the house behind. It was much simpler than the villa in Cap Pierre, but its privacy was absolute.

  The grand wedding in Athens a few hours ago, thronged with family and friends, with Sarah’s parents, his aunt and his young cousin—Philip having been delighted at the news of their union—and even his own mother, flown in from LA, seemed a world away.

  Max had delivered Sarah fresh from rehearsals for a production of Cavalleria Rusticana—with himself directing and Sarah singing ‘Santuzza’ at a prestigious provincial opera house in Germany—making it very clear to her that the only reason he was tolerating her absence was because she happened to be marrying an extremely wealthy and extremely generous patron of the opera, whose continued financial sponsorship he fully intended to retain.

  ‘Keep the honeymoon short and sweet!’ Max had ordered her. ‘With your career taking off, it has to come first!’

  She’d nodded, but had secretly disagreed. Her art and her love would always be co-equal. Her life now would be hectic, no doubt about that, and future engagements were already being booked up beyond her dreams, but they would never—could never—displace the one person who for all her life would stand centre stage to her existence.

  She gazed up at him now, love blazing in her eyes, as he carried her into the bedroom and lowered her gently upon the bed, himself with her.

  ‘How much...’ he said huskily, this man she loved. ‘How much I love you...’

  She lifted her mouth to his and slowly, sweetly, passionately and possessively, they started together on their journey to the future.

  * * * * *

  If you enjoyed this story, check out these other great reads from Julia James.

  CAPTIVATED BY THE GREEK

  THE FORBIDDEN TOUCH OF SANGUARDO

  SECURING THE GREEK’S LEGACY

  PAINTED THE OTHER WOMAN

  THE DARK SIDE OF DESIRE

  Available now!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from KEPT AT THE ARGENTINE’S COMMAND by Lucy Ellis.

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  Kept at the Argentine’s Command

  by Lucy Ellis

  CHAPTER ONE

  ALEJANDRO NOTICED HER on boarding because she was easily the sweetest view on offer: a drop of honey on a dull day.

  A slightly built girl, sitting with her long slender legs crossed at the knee, her head was bent as she read, causing her mop of artfully arranged blue-black curls, cut short at the back and longer towards the front, to topple forward around her face. She wore the highly feminised clothes of an earlier era in a way he recognised was a fashion statement.

  As he made his way down the aisle towards his seat she lifted her eyes from her e-reader and they locked with his.

  Those curls, he discovered, framed delicate features. She had a short upturned nose, big dark brown eyes a
nd a mouth like a red rosebud. Her eyes widened, but there was nothing inviting in the way she looked at him. In fact her gaze dropped skittishly away. She reminded him of one of his fillies at home on the estancia, toeing the ground for some attention and then shying away.

  He didn’t mind shy—he could work with it fine.

  Sure enough, her gaze swung upwards again, back for another look, a little bolder this time, and her lavish rosebud of a mouth quivered with the beginnings of a smile.

  He returned her smile—the barest tilt of his mouth, because he was out of practice with the gesture. She responded by blushing and ducking her eyes back to the little screen.

  He was hooked.

  He was also barely in his seat before she gestured for assistance from a flight attendant. He watched in bemused interest as for the next twenty minutes Brown Eyes kept the cabin crew on their toes with a steady stream of what appeared to be trivial requests. Glasses of water, a cushion, a blanket... It was only when she began whispering furiously to the by now harassed female flight attendant that the points she’d scored with him for being pretty to look at flew out of the window.

  ‘No, I really cannot move!’ Her raised voice—demanding and shrill, despite the sexy French accent—had Alejandro putting down his tablet.

  When the flustered flight attendant came up the aisle he leaned out and asked what the problem was.

  ‘An elderly gentleman is finding it difficult to make the trip to the facilities, sir,’ she explained, ‘and we were hoping to relocate him to a closer seat.’

  She didn’t mention the intransigent Brown Eyes. But she was hard to miss.

  Alejandro grabbed his jacket and reached up to the overhead locker.

  ‘Not a problem,’ he said, flashing the flight attendant a smile. She blushed.

  Re-seated further towards the rear of the plane, he reopened his tablet, forgot about the brunette and gave his attention to the screen.

  The morning papers on his tablet didn’t offer much encouragement about his destination.

  When one of Russia’s richest oligarchs tied the knot with a sprightly red-haired ex-showgirl in a Scottish castle it was news, and from what Alejandro had heard from the groom himself the press had already set up shop in the surrounding town and area for long-lens shots of the ‘who’s who’ guest list.