One-Click Buy: September Harlequin Presents

by Penny Jordan

  ‘Stop it…’ Fear and panic laced her voice. ‘You’re a bastard.’

  He inclined his head. ‘No, Kallie, I’m not.’ He lifted a hand and ticked off long fingers. ‘I need to get married more or less immediately, you’ve fallen into my path like a ripe plum, you are available…and you’ve grown up into a very attractive young woman.’

  ‘So that’s it? You only want me now because I come up to your standards of physical perfection?’

  He smiled and it didn’t reach his eyes. ‘You’re no image of physical perfection, Kallie, don’t flatter yourself, but for some reason I find myself wanting you more than I’ve wanted any other woman in a long time…so I don’t anticipate that there’s going to be any hardship on our wedding night when you come to me…’

  His insulting choice of words barely impinged her consciousness, she reacted purely to his assertion that she would ever choose willingly to sleep with him. ‘I’ll never—’

  ‘Yes. You will,’ he cut in ruthlessly. ‘And I am going to enjoy every moment of this sweet revenge, every step of the way, every piece of flesh that’s going to be uncovered as you give yourself to me, as you offer yourself up as you did seven years ago. In the place of the marriage that you made sure didn’t happen, don’t you think when I need a wife now that it’s only fair that you step into that role?’

  She couldn’t control the shiver that shook her frame at his words. And she knew it wasn’t a shiver of fear. She hated this man. He had her backed into a corner with no way out.

  ‘How can I be sure you’ll still deliver on the loan?’

  He shrugged. ‘I could watch your family flounder. Heaven knows, I have the right. But contrary to what you think, Kallie, I’m not that cruel. On our wedding day when I get my convenient wife, you can consider the loan approved.’

  She had an overwhelming urge to jump up and run as fast as she could, as far away as she could. But he would find her if she did. She knew that without a doubt. She sank back against the chair, unable to sit up straight in the face of his condemnation.

  She looked miserable. ‘I don’t want them to suffer, despite what you might think.’

  And suddenly Kallie had to do something, had to try and make him listen. There had to be a human being in there somewhere. The old Alexandros. She appealed to him now, sitting up straight again.

  ‘Alexandros—’

  He started to cut her off and she put up a hand. ‘Please. Just let me say something.’ Her eyes were an intense green on his. ‘I never went to the paper with that story. I would never have done something like that. You knew me…’ Better than nearly anyone.

  He said nothing and Kallie searched her brain frantically. ‘Why would I have done it, Alexandros? Why?’

  There was unmistakable tension in his huge frame, just inches away from her. He shrugged dismissively. ‘Because you were just one more in a long line of people who thought they could cash in on the Kouros money.’ Except that was a myth by then!

  ‘Did your father put you up to it, Kallie? See his ticket out of debt? Or did you just do it for the hell of it, to see if you could turn my head yourself? I told you that day I didn’t go in for seventeen-year-olds.’ His mouth twisted mockingly. ‘But if you’d come to me as you are now…’

  He flicked an openly appraising look up and down her body. It should have disgusted her. It should have made her angry. But it didn’t. It made her feel hot and bothered and confused and out of her depth.

  But he wasn’t finished. ‘To tell the truth, seven years on I’m not much interested in why…’ He shook his head. ‘You changed, Kallie. The girl I knew would never have tried to seduce me and get someone to photograph the evidence.’

  Her insides stung with acute hurt and the humiliation rose up again so sharply she felt sick. To think that he would have believed that of her.

  Kallie bit her lip hard and could feel blood. As if his rejection hadn’t hurt enough that night, he had to reiterate just how unwelcome her advances had been and how futile it was to try and get him to listen to anything, any explanation.

  ‘I’m sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.’

  ‘It’s a bit late now.’

  His words flayed her like a whip, cutting so deeply that she winced inwardly. ‘But really it wasn’t like that. I didn’t—’

  ‘Give me a break.’ Derision and disbelief stamped his features, his mouth a bitter slash. ‘There were three people there that night, you, me and whoever your loyal photographer was. Pity they were so amateur…but they got enough.’

  She slumped back again, defeated and diminished by his derision and cruelty. And now that she knew what he wanted, all avenues of escape were closed off. She couldn’t assert her innocence any further, and she couldn’t explain what had happened as that would involve someone who wouldn’t be able to handle this much more dangerous Alexandros. Eleni had come up to Kallie at her parents’ funeral, nearly hysterical with remorse and guilt. She’d told her everything—how she’d followed Kallie out to the patio, taken the picture, hacked into her e-mail and sent in the story.

  For one blissful moment, unaware of him across the table, Kallie’s mind was fixed on that awful day of such tragedy. The added pain when Eleni had revealed the truth. Kallie had always had her suspicions but, still, to hear it explained…She’d been shocked and angry. Dismayed, hurt. About to lash back, already filled with grief and now anger. But Eleni’s husband had stepped in. He’d explained everything, exactly why Eleni had been acting so on the edge. Which was the reason why Kallie couldn’t defend herself now.

  She’d discovered that her cousin had had a nervous breakdown, and had been undergoing intense therapy after suffering numerous miscarriages. Kallie had seen the pain on Eleni’s husband’s face. Her fight had left her. It had only been after that incident and with the benefit of maturity and hindsight that Kallie could see just how Eleni had also been captivated by him. And how highly strung and manipulative her cousin had always been. Especially with regard to Alexandros.

  The man who sat opposite her now, looking so calm and so devastatingly at ease as he toyed with her life. He had been on a mission ever since he’d seen her again. It was as if she’d awakened the sleeping dragon. And she had to take it, had no choice.

  She didn’t need to remind herself that, despite Eleni’s involvement, if she hadn’t pursued Alexandros that night, there wouldn’t have been an excuse for a story in the first place. She had no one to blame for this except herself. No matter what the consequences had been, or how unwittingly she’d played a part. And now he held the future of Demarchis Shipping in his hands.

  She lifted dull eyes that were mute with an appeal she was unaware of. Weary beyond belief.

  ‘I have no choice, do I?’

  He answered slowly, ‘Of course you do, Kallie, we always have a choice. Yours is very simple. If you walk away now, your uncle will not receive one euro from me, and as he’s been turned down by every bank, and no other shipping company will touch him, he and, consequently, the family, will be ruined. If you agree to marry me, he’ll be fine.’

  Some choice…

  She asked the fateful question. ‘How long would we…?’

  He shrugged one broad shoulder. ‘For as long as I want, Kallie. The day you start to bore me, the day I lose interest, is the day we’ll divorce and you can consider this marriage over.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  AND just like that, from the moment she’d fatefully bumped into Alexandros Kouros again, he’d come back into her life with the force of an atom bomb and turned everything upside down and inside out. And all because he needed a convenient wife. Someone who wouldn’t expect a happy ever after when he discarded them by the wayside of his fast-paced life that had no room for a real marriage.

  Kallie moved through the next three weeks as though in some kind of a fog. Where once Alexandros had been blissfully absent, now he was everywhere she turned. In her office, at the door of her flat, on the phone, barking terse instr
uctions. The paparazzi had snapped them coming out of the Hotel de Crillon that night after dinner. Kallie had been so shell-shocked coming out that she’d barely noticed the flashing, popping bulbs. And only the next day when she’d opened the papers had she seen the pictures. Headlines screamed of a possible romance…which was promptly confirmed by Alexandros’s PR people. Before she even had time to draw breath, the net was being drawn tighter and tighter around her. And no doubt, she thought bitterly, he saw the justice in dragging her name through the papers now, too.

  She drew the line, however, when he sent over a credit card one day close to the wedding with an order to kit herself out, and called him angrily on the phone.

  ‘I will not be paraded like some gilded lily. And I will not go and buy clothes with your money, to your specifications. You may be as good as blackmailing me to buy yourself a convenient wife but I will not be your chattel, Alexandros. I’ve been dressing myself successfully with no complaints for some time now and I intend to keep doing so.’

  ‘Well, believe me, you’re going to need a little gilding to be my wife. Your look is far too casually natural—’

  Kallie gasped in consternation, seething. ‘Weren’t you the one who implied that I might have had work done? Make up your mind!’

  He was quite unconcerned, drawling, ‘That was before I saw you again properly. I’m quite sure now that you’ve had no…surgical enhancements and, believe me, I’m looking forward to finding out for sure.’

  That was when Kallie slammed the phone down. She cut up the credit card and sent it back to Alexandros with a courier. Which he received with a wry smile. The first woman, ever, to refuse his money. He wondered what game Kallie might be playing but couldn’t deny that he was growing more and more intrigued by the day. Having to take a convenient wife was turning out to be far more entertaining than he’d first anticipated.

  The day before the civil marriage was to take place at the office of the mairie on the Place Du Panthéon, Kallie was meeting her uncle for lunch near his office on the Champs Elysées. The Arc de Triomphe was a mere shape in the distance as she steeled herself and went into the restaurant.

  He stood as she approached and they kissed on both cheeks in a warm greeting. She hadn’t seen him since that night at the Ritz. They’d spoken on the phone when she’d delivered her news of the wedding and now she couldn’t put off the inevitable any more. Finally, after she’d prevaricated for as long as possible, he got to the point. Taking her hand across the table, he said gently, ‘Kallie, darling, you know how important to me you are, you’re like another daughter.’

  ‘I know…’ She tried to keep the emotion out of her voice, aching to be able to confide in someone, anyone.

  ‘Are you telling me the truth about Alexandros?’ He shook his head. ‘I just find it a little hard to believe that you bumped into him that night and have had this whirlwind romance. I know him, Kallie. He’s not given to random romantic whims…and this, well, it’s completely out of character. Especially with the history between you. I remember how angry he was. That story in the paper—’

  Kallie cut him off before he could delve too deeply into the past—the present was hard enough to deal with. ‘Alexei. Please. believe me when I say you don’t have to worry about anything.’ She crossed her fingers under the table on a superstitious reflex. ‘It is true. We met that night and…I don’t know.’ She shrugged and pasted a bland smile on her face. ‘He’s changed. Seven years is a long time. He doesn’t harbour any grudges.’ Her fingers were clenched so tightly that Kallie could feel the blood flow stopping. ‘Trust me, Alexei, I don’t want you to think about it, really. I want to marry Alexandros.’

  She prayed that her hopelessly romantic uncle wouldn’t push her to say anything about love. He looked unconvinced for a long moment but then something seemed to pass over his face and he smiled. ‘I do trust you, Kallie.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘I know it can happen like that. After all, didn’t I fall in love with your Aunt Petra in just a week?’

  Kallie smiled weakly.

  A rogue part of her needed to check something. ‘Alexei, that night at the Ritz, you mentioned that you’d had to go to Alexandros. Is there anything you want to tell me?’

  He paled and Kallie’s heart fell. Confirmation…as if she needed it at this stage. Even so, a tiny part of her had clung to some mad, irrational hope. He blustered slightly, clearly embarrassed, his macho Greek pride painfully evident and obviously the reason why he hadn’t said anything about the loan. ‘My dear, don’t be ridiculous, we’re just doing business, that’s all.’

  She read far more into his reactions than he suspected. She’d checked up on what Alexandros had said and every word he’d uttered had been true. Things were even worse than she’d anticipated. She didn’t know how Alexei had been managing for so long without a loan. His efforts to secure loans elsewhere were dismayingly documented in financial papers. Guilt made her feel cold inside again. If she’d been the slightest bit interested, she would have noticed. Her shares had long been sucked into the haemorrhaging business.

  She had to comfort herself that at least this way she was keeping Alexandros’s lust for revenge to herself. No one else would ever know and the Demarchis shipping fleet would be safe. It was cold comfort, however, as she said goodbye to her still uncomfortable-looking uncle. She’d never felt so alone and vulnerable in her life. As she walked back down one of the most famous boulevards in the world, she felt as if everything was closing in on her and her last chance of possibly avoiding her fate had just disappeared. Snuffed out like the light of a candle. She shivered in the warm spring air.

  When she got back to her office Alexandros was waiting for her. Her whole body stiffened in blatant rejection of what was to come the next day. He noted it with narrowed eyes as he watched her walk in from behind her desk. As at home as if he sat there every day. He made a thorough study of her, up and down, taking in the black pencil skirt, the cream high-necked shirt, which she was supremely grateful for now.

  ‘Can I help you with something?’

  He uncurled his tall length from the chair and came around the desk. Devastatingly compelling in a dark suit and dark shirt. Kallie took a step back. The room seemed to have become as hot as hell in seconds. Alexandros flicked his head to indicate the window and looked out. Kallie walked over very warily, keeping a good distance, but even that couldn’t stop the frisson of awareness running through her.

  Outside, swarming on the pavement, were what seemed to be hundreds of photographers. The circus that surrounded Alexandros Kouros. She hadn’t seen them before as she’d come in through another entrance. He came and stood beside her. Her skin prickled uncomfortably. So far he hadn’t said a word. The moment seemed to stretch for ever. And finally with silky deadliness he said softly, ‘You see that? They’re all going to be waiting outside the office of the mairie tomorrow. Waiting to see you arrive, go in and then come out on my arm. And they’re going to get the pictures they want. If you’re planning any little surprises, like not turning up, then I will find you, Kallie, and I will take you as far away from here as I can, and we will be married where you will have no escape.’

  She turned to face him, dread in her body at his cold tone. This stranger before her. Bitterness laced her voice. ‘I’ve already told you I’d marry you. I’d do anything to save my family from ruin. Even if it means marrying you and subjecting myself to a period of purgatory.’

  He turned to face her, his face stamped with arrogance and a sensuality that even now called to her on some base, carnal level. She hated him. She knew she kept telling herself that…and knew it felt as though she was trying to convince herself.

  He reached out a finger and trailed it along her jaw. She clenched it and he tapped where it bulged out against her smooth skin.

  ‘Such dramatic language, Kallie. When you set me up all those years ago, when I was considered as close as family, it made me very wary. I’m just warning you what will happen if you decide
to leave your family to their fate. That’s all.’

  He was so far off base from how Kallie felt that her head swam. She would never, ever do something to hurt her family. It seemed as if everything, every conversation that had ever passed between them, had turned to poisoned ashes. And amounted to nothing. He’d decided to judge her solely based on what he’d perceived her to have done seven years ago.

  She straightened her shoulders and stuck her chin out.

  ‘I will be there tomorrow, Alexandros, and, believe me, you’re going to be sorry you ever married me.’

  ‘Somehow I don’t think so. But I admire your attempt at bravado. One other thing. I’ve asked members of our families, just as a little added…insurance.’

  Kallie felt her throat clog and wanted nothing more than to hit him right in the solar plexus, wipe that smug smirk from his face. But then he snaked a hand around the back of her head through her hair and pulled her softly to him. Panic coursed through her. Her hands came up in an instinctive and classic defense pose between them.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ She tingled with anticipation.

  ‘Just the one other thing I need to confirm for myself before I make you my wife…check the levels of compatibility…’

  ‘Levels of—’

  And before she could speak another word, his head had dipped, daylight disappeared and his mouth was on hers. Warm and intoxicating and hot and…words disappeared. Kallie found her hands resting against his broad chest, his heat coursing over her skin, making her heat up all over. She felt herself wanting to melt into him, against his hard length. His lips moved against hers, hard and insistent. A completely instinctive unbidden response made her open her mouth and at the first touch of his tongue to hers, an explosive heat erupted deep in her belly.

  She felt him pulling her in tighter, lifting her up against him. She wanted nothing more than to give in…lean against him, savour the support. Her eyes flew open. His were shut. Hidden.