by Nina Milne
‘A hundred per cent.’
‘Then let’s do it.’
Her beautiful face was set with concentration, and a small frown creased her brow as she climbed into the craft. But she smiled as he joined her and took her hand in his.
The gondolier set off and then stood at the front, a discreet distance away, facing forward and focused on his task.
‘I can’t believe I can do this now!’ Kaitlin said, her voice light with happiness.
‘I can. You’ve worked hard and you deserve this.’
Her panic attacks hardly ever surfaced now, and his pride and admiration for Kaitlin had grown every day, every minute, as she’d blossomed.
‘Thank you—and thank you for all your support and understanding and love.’
‘You have those for ever, Kaitlin.’
Her smile lit up her face as she gestured forward to the Bridge of Sighs. ‘Then it is appropriate that we are here.’
‘It’s perfect timing, indeed.’
His heart thudded in anticipation as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a jewellery box. Not a doubt crossed his mind. Instead hope and love filled his heart as he flicked the lid open to reveal the ring he had designed himself—a twist of emerald, ruby and diamond that glinted in the wintry November sun.
‘Lady Kaitlin Derwent—love of my life, the woman I want to wake up next to for the rest of my life—will you marry me?’
Joy tinged her expression and her green eyes sparkled with the happiness he knew to be reflected in his own.
‘Daniel Harrington—love of my life, my rock, my best friend—I would be more than honoured.’
He slipped the ring on to her finger, and as they swept under the Bridge of Sighs he kissed her and knew that their love would indeed be eternal.
* * * * *
If you loved this story,
then you won’t want to miss
RAFAEL’S CONTRACT BRIDE
and
THE EARL’S SNOW-KISSED PROPOSAL,
the first two books in Nina Milne’s
THE DERWENT FAMILY trilogy.
Available now!
If you want to read about
another wealthy hero, then try
BEHIND THE BILLIONAIRE’S GUARDED HEART
by Leah Ashton.
Keep reading for an excerpt from
CONVENIENTLY WED TO THE GREEK
by Kandy Shepherd.
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Conveniently Wed to the Greek
by Kandy Shepherd
CHAPTER ONE
ADELE HUDSON WAS too busy concentrating on the yoga teacher’s instructions to take much notice of the latecomer who took a place to her left and unrolled his mat. From the corner of her eye she registered that he was tall, black-haired, and with the lean, athletic body she would expect from a man who did yoga. Nice. But that was as far as her interest went.
Until she attempted to balance on one leg, with the other tucked up against her upper inner thigh, in the vrksasana or ‘tree’ pose. It seemed impossible for a beginner. Why had she thought this class was a good idea?
Dell risked a glance to see if the guy next to her was doing any better. He held the pose effortlessly, broad shoulders, narrow hips, tanned muscular arms in perfect alignment. But the shock of recognition as he came into focus made her wobble so badly she had to flail her arms to stay upright.
Alexios Mikhalis. It couldn’t be him. Not here in this far-flung spa retreat on the south coast of New South Wales where she had come to find peace. Not now when she so desperately needed to regroup and rethink her suddenly turned upside down life. But a second quick glimpse confirmed his identity, although he looked very different from the last time she had seen him three years ago pummelling her reputation in court. This man had done everything in his power to destroy her career. And very nearly succeeded.
A shiver of dread ran through her—threatening her balance in more ways than one. He was the last person on earth she wanted to encounter. She had more than enough on her mind without having to shore up her defences against him. Quickly Dell looked away, praying her nemesis hadn’t recognised her. Tragedy had visited him since they’d last met, but she doubted he would be any less ruthless. Not when it came to her.
‘Lengthen up through the crown of your head,’ the yoga teacher intoned in her breathy Zen-like voice.
But it was no use. Dell’s concentration was shot. Why was he here? The more she tried to balance on one shaky leg, the more impossible the pose seemed. How the heck did you lengthen through the crown of your head anyway? In spite of all efforts to stay upright, she tilted sideward, heading for a humiliating yoga wipe-out.
A strong, masculine hand gripped her elbow to steady her. Him. ‘Whoa there,’ came the deep voice others might find attractive but she had only found intimidating and arrogant.
‘Th...thank you,’ she said, her chin down and her eyes anywhere but at him, pretending to be invisible. But to no avail.
His grip on her arm tightened. ‘You,’ he said, drawing out the word so it sounded like an insult.
Dell turned her head to meet his hawk-like glare, those eyes so dark they were nearly black. She tilted her chin upwards and tried without success to keep the quiver from her voice. ‘Yes, me.’
Her final encounter with him burned in her memory. Outside the courthouse he had stood on the step above her using his superior height to underline the threat in his words. ‘The judge might have ruled in your favour but you won’t get away with this. I’ll make sure of that.’
In spite of his loss since then, she had no doubt he still meant every word.
‘What are you doing here?’ His famously handsome face contorted into a frown.
‘Apart from attempting to learn yoga?’ she asked with the nervous laugh that insisted on popping out when she felt under pressure. ‘Resting, relaxing, those things you do when you come to a health spa.’ She didn’t dare add reviewing this new resort.
This was the tycoon hotelier who had chosen to do battle with her. She was the food critic who had dared to publish a critical review of the most established restaurant in his empire. He’d sued the newspaper that had employed her for an insane amount of money and lost.
Alex Mikhalis had not liked losing. That he was a winner was part of the ethos he’d built up around him—the hospitality mogul who lau
nched nightclubs and restaurants that instantly became Sydney’s go-to venues, wiped out his competitors and made him multiple millions. ‘Playboy Tycoon with the Magic Touch’—her own newspaper had headlined a profile on him not long before her disputed review.
After the scene on the courtroom steps, she’d been careful to stay out of his way. Then he’d disappeared from the social scene that had been his playground. Even the most intrepid of her journalist colleagues hadn’t been able to find him. And here he was.
‘You’ve hunted me down,’ he said.
‘I did no such thing,’ she said. ‘Why would I—?’
‘Please, silence.’ The yoga instructor’s tone was now not so Zen-like.
‘Let’s take this outside,’ he said in a deep undertone, maintaining his grip on her elbow.
Dell would have liked to shake off his hand, then place her hands on his chest and shove him away from her. But she was a guest at the spa—here at the owner’s invitation—and she didn’t want to cause any kind of disruption.
‘Sorry,’ she mouthed to the instructor as she let herself be led out of the room, grateful in a way not to have to try any more of those ridiculously difficult poses.
With the door to the yoga room shut behind them, Dell took the lead to one of the small guest lounges scattered through the resort. Simple white leather chairs were grouped around a low table. It faced full-length glass windows that looked east to a view of the Pacific Ocean, dazzling blue in the autumn morning sun filtered through graceful Australian eucalypts.
Now she did shake off his arm. ‘What was that all about?’
‘My right to privacy,’ he said, tight-lipped.
Dell was struck again by how different the tycoon looked. No wonder she hadn’t immediately recognised him. Back then he’d been a style leader, designer clothes, a fashionable short beard, hair tied into a man bun—though not in court—flamboyant in an intensely masculine way. She’d often wondered what his image had masked. Now he was more boot camp than boutique—strong jaw clean shaven, thick dark hair cropped short, pumped muscles emphasised by grey sweat pants and a white singlet. Stripped bare. And even more compelling. Just her type in fact—if he had been anyone but him.
‘And I impinged on your privacy how?’ she asked. ‘By taking a yoga class that you happened to join? I had no idea you were here.’
‘Your newspaper sent you to track me down.’ It was a statement, not a question.
‘No. It didn’t.’ The fact she no longer worked for the paper was none of his concern. ‘I’m a food writer, not an investigative journalist.’
His mouth twisted. ‘Does that matter? To the media I make good copy. No matter how hard I’ve worked to keep off the radar since...since...’
He seemed unable to choke out the words. She noticed tight lines around his mouth, a few silver hairs in the dark black of his hair near his temples. He was thirty-two, three years older than her, yet there was something immeasurably weary etched on his face.
Another shiver ran up Dell’s spine. How did she deal with this? This wealthy, powerful man had been her adversary. He had threatened her with revenge. She was convinced his attack on her newspaper had led in part to her losing her job. But how could she hold a grudge after what he had endured?
‘I know,’ she said, aware her words were completely inadequate. Just a few months after his unsuccessful court case against her, his fiancée had been taken hostage by a crazed gunman in one of his city restaurants. She hadn’t come out alive. His grief, his anger, his pain had been front-page news. Until he had disappeared.
Wordlessly, he nodded.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I...wanted to let you know that when...when it happened. But we weren’t exactly friends. So I didn’t. I’ve always regretted it.’
He made some inarticulate sound and brushed her words away. But she was glad she had finally been able to express her condolences.
She was surprised at the rush of compassion she felt for him at the bleak emptiness of his expression. He had lost everything. She didn’t know where he had been, why he was back. His colourful and tragic history made him eminently newsworthy. But she wouldn’t make a scoop of his secret by selling the story of her encounter with him. In spite of the fact such a story would bring her much-needed dollars.
‘Be assured I won’t be the one to reveal your whereabouts,’ she said. ‘Not to my press contacts. Not on my blog. I’m here for the rest of the week. I’ll stay right out of your way.’
She left him looking moodily out to the waters of Big Ray beach and had to slow her pace to something less than a scurry. No way did she want this man to think she was running away from him.
* * *
In theory, Alex should not have seen Adele Hudson again. The Bay Breeze spa was designed for tranquil contemplation as well as holistic treatments. In the resort’s airy white spaces there was room for personal space and privacy.
But only hours after the yoga class he encountered her in the guest lounge, still in her yoga pants and tank top, contemplating the range of herbal teas and chatting animatedly to an older grey-haired woman who was doing the same. He was on the hunt for caffeine so did not back away. Not that he was in the habit of backing away. He’d always thrived on confrontation.
Alex had always regarded the sassy food critic as an adversary—an enemy, even. Back then he had been implacable in protecting every aspect of his business—an attack on it was an attack on him. He certainly hadn’t registered anything physical about the person he’d seen as intent on undermining his success with her viperish review of his flagship restaurant. Yet now, observing her, he was forced to concede she was an attractive woman. Very attractive. And in spite of their past vendetta, he had seen compassion and understanding in her eyes. Not the pity he loathed.
She wasn’t anything like the type of woman he’d used to date—blonde and willowy models or television celebrities who’d looked good on his arm for publicity purposes. Mia had been tall and blonde too. He swallowed hard against the wave of regret and recrimination that hit him as it always did when he thought about his late fiancée and forced himself to focus on the present.
Adele was average height, curvier than any model, with thick auburn hair she’d worn tied back in the yoga class but which now tumbled around her shoulders. She wasn’t conventionally pretty—her mouth was too wide, her jaw line rather too assertive for ‘pretty’—but she was head-turning in her own, vibrant way. It was her smile he was noticing now—she’d never had cause to smile in his presence. In fact he remembered she’d been rather effective with a snarl when it had come to interacting with him.
Her mouth was wide and generous and she had perfect teeth. When she laughed at something the other woman said her whole face lit up; her eyes laughed too. What colour were they? Green? Hazel? Somewhere in between? The other woman was charmed by that smile. Alex could tell that from where he stood.
Yet when Adele looked up and caught him observing her the smile faded and her face set in cool, polite lines. Her shoulders hunched as if to protect herself from him and her eyes darted past him and to the doorway. Who could blame her for her dislike of him? He wished he could make up to her for the way he’d behaved towards her. As he’d tried to make amends to others he’d damaged by his ruthless, self-centred pursuit of success. Make amends to them because he could never make amends to Mia. Her death hung heavily on his conscience. His fault.
He headed towards Adele. She smiled at him. But it was a poor, forced shadow of the smile he’d seen dazzling her companion just seconds before—more a polite stretching of her lips. He found himself wanting to be warmed by the real deal. But not only did he not deserve it from this person he had so relentlessly hounded, it would be pointless.
There was something frozen inside his soul that even the most heartfelt of smiles from a lovely woman could never melt.
Something that had started to shut down the day he’d got a phone call from the police to say a psycho had his city restaurant in lockdown and was holding his fiancée hostage with a gun to her head. Something that had formed cold and rock solid when Mia had lost her own life trying to save another’s.
‘Hello there,’ Dell said very politely. Then turned to the woman beside her and gestured towards him. ‘We met in the yoga class,’ she explained, not mentioning his name by way of introduction.
So she intended to keep her word about maintaining his privacy. He was grateful for that. Alex nodded to the older woman. He did not feel obliged to share anything about himself with strangers—even his name.
He turned to the artful display of teas in small wooden chests. ‘This is a fine selection,’ he said with genuine interest. He was here to glean information for his new project. A hotel completely different from anything he’d created before. He’d been isolated from the hospitality business in the past years and needed to be on top of the trends. He knew all about partying and decadence—what he sought now was restraint and calm. A different way of doing business. A different life.
‘Tea has become very fashionable,’ Adele said in what seemed a purposely neutral voice, more for the benefit of the other woman rather than any conscious desire to engage in conversation with him. ‘Not any old teas, naturally. Herbal teas, healing tisanes, special blends. I highly recommend the parsnip, ginger and turmeric blend—organic and vegan, which is a good thing.’
Alex gagged at the thought of it.
But if that was what people wanted at a place like this, it would be up to him to give it to them. Of course Adele would know about what was fashionable in foods and beverages. Her Dell Dishes blog attracted an extraordinary number of visitors. Or it had three years ago when he had instructed his lawyers to delve deep into her life with particular reference to her income.
At one stage he had thought about suing her personally as well as via the publishing company that had employed her as a food critic and editor of its restaurant guide. Back then, scrutinising Dell Dishes, he hadn’t thought she had done enough to monetise her site, to take advantage of the potential appeal to advertisers. Needless to say he hadn’t offered her any advice—he’d wanted to bring her down, not help her soar.
