The Greek Tycoon's Mistress
Julia James
How long can she resist this gorgeous Greek tycoon?Theo Atrides is wealthy, powerful and successful. Leandra has no intention of being his next conquest. But when they are forced to spend a week together on his private island, Theo decides to do whatever it takes to make Lea surrender. Faced with his relentless plan of seduction, she finds the challenge of resisting the gorgeous Greek playboy too much to bear….
“Stop fighting me, Leandra, and let me give you the pleasure I know you ache for.”
His voice was low and sensual. She felt the fire flickering along her veins, stealing her sanity. She tried to fight it, but she couldn’t. The noose of his dark eyes had caught her, and she was helpless.
What was the point of trying to fight him—fight herself? Ever since she had laid eyes on him, Theo Atrides had set a flame alight within her—one she had never known existed, one she could not douse.
She had tried to douse it, dear God, how she had tried! She had tried to hate him, and despise him. She had tried yelling at him and ignoring him. She had wept and she had blushed.
But it was all for nothing. She knew that now.
The dark allure that was Theo Atrides held her in thrall.
Harlequin Presents has an exciting new author….
The Greek Tycoon’s Mistress
is the outstanding first novel from Julia James.
It’s highly sensual and very intense!
Theo Atrides has met his match, and
he’s decided he has to have Leandra…whatever that takes!
They’re the men who have everything—
except a bride…
The Greek Tycoon’s Mistress
Julia James
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER ONE
THEO ATRIDES narrowed his dark eyes. Fabulously wealthy, dangerous to cross, he was unfairly blessed with a sexual magnetism that had as much to do with the aura of raw power that surrounded him as the physical attributes with which he was so shamelessly endowed.
He paused at the head of the flight of wide-sweeping stairs, looking down into the hotel’s crowded banqueting suite. It was a sea of men in black tie, women in rainbow evening dress. Chandeliers caught the glitter of jewels everywhere.
From his vantage point, like an eagle poised in its eyrie, Theo let his alert gaze systematically quarter the throng below, searching with steady purpose. Suddenly he stilled. Beneath the silk-smooth covering of his superbly tailored tuxedo, his tall, powerfully built frame tensed.
Yes, they were there! Both of them.
It was the woman he studied, and as he did so his jaw tightened.
She was dressed to kill. Of that there was no doubt. His expert eye looked her over. Medium height, with a figure both slender and generous—and very, very much on show. Blonde hair cascaded down her bare back in rippling waves. Her skin was pale, like an opalescent pearl against the thigh-length little black dress which dipped so low over the swelling orbs of her breasts that only their delicate tips were veiled by the clinging satin. Likewise, her pert little bottom was tightly, and barely, sheathed, while shimmering stockings covered her legs from exposed thigh to provocative black satin stiletto heels.
A perfect package. So skimpily wrapped. So tempting to unwrap.
She laughed, throwing her head back, letting that fabulous fall of hair ripple down that naked back, exposing the tender line of her throat, the dazzle of diamonds hanging from the succulent morsels of her earlobes.
Theo couldn’t even see her face yet, and already he felt his loins tightening. Hardening.
The rush of sensual pleasure of his own ultra-masculine reaction warred with a hard, tight shaft, not of desire, but anger, mingling explosively. Women like that were trouble. Especially for the men they caught in their toils.
He should know…
Slowly, he began to walk down the wide sweep of stairs.
Leandra had never felt more naked in her life. With every breath she feared that her breasts would finally escape her low-cut bodice completely, and every movement of her legs would make the tight sheath of her skirt ride up over her bottom. Chris must have been mad to make her wear a dress like this!
But he had been adamant that she should look as brazenly sexy as she could, or there was no point in any of this charade at all.
Even so, she hated the way she looked in the tarty get-up!
She took a quick but deep, controlled breath—the same technique she used to subdue stage fright. For that was all this was, Leandra reminded herself—a stage performance. Certainly a glitzy charity gala at one of London’s top hotels was not her customary stamping ground.
She was more used to pub theatres and grimy green rooms—the usual lot of a struggling actress. Now, thanks to Chris, she was standing beside a handsome young Greek millionaire—and almost sick with nerves.
Demos Atrides, who ran the UK subsidiary of the vast Atrides business empire, turned to her with a reassuring smile. She gave him a wide smile back, the way her role demanded.
She liked him a lot, and not just because of Chris. For all his wealth Demos was very diffident—he needed Chris’s buoyant confidence to keep his spirits up, Leandra knew. She wasn’t the only one dreading the coming confrontation.
Would their charade be convincing? Leandra swallowed. She mustn’t be the one to let them down—after all, she was the professional actress.
Demos’s light touch on her arm made her start slightly.
‘He’s here,’ he said in his soft, mellifluous voice, the Greek accent distinct. As was the tension in his face.
Leandra drew in her breath. ‘Here goes,’ she said, and wished herself luck.
As he approached them Theo Atrides felt his mood darken. He didn’t want to be here, but his grandfather Milo had insisted. As patriarch of the Atrides clan he was used to getting his own way. That was why, Theo knew, Milo was taking it so hard that his younger grandson refused to come to heel.
Not that it was like Demos to cause trouble. He’d always done everything Theo had asked of him, running the London office diligently and competently. His affairs had always been conducted with discretion; even Theo knew nothing about them.
Why make such a fuss about this one?
Theo’s mouth thinned. The reason was right in front of him. Blonde, lush and very, very sexy. No wonder his little cousin didn’t want to come home and marry Sofia Allessandros, the bride Milo had chosen for him. What man would want to give up a mistress like this?
Demos Atrides felt the heavy hand on his shoulder, and for a moment it felt like the clap of doom. Then he recovered.
‘Theo!’ he exclaimed, with a forced expression of delight. ‘It’s good to see you. My PA told me you’d phoned from the jet to ask where I’d be tonight.’ He glanced beyond his cousin. ‘Where is Milo?’
‘Resting,’ returned his cousin tersely. ‘The flight was a strain. You shouldn’t have made it necessary, Demos.’
The words were a reproof, and Demos coloured slightly.
‘There was no need for him to come,’ he replied defensively.
‘Wasn’t there?’
Deliberately Theo shifted his focus to the woman hanging on to Demos’s arm like a gilded limpet. As his eyes lit full on her face for the first time he felt, like an electric shock, a response that was like a kick in the gut.
For a moment his brain churned. She wasn’t in the least what he’d been expecting from what he’d seen of her so far. He’d assumed that the brazenly sexy body would be accompanied by nothing more than a vacuous expression and an avaricious nature.
Instead, a pair of intelligent amber-coloured eyes flashed up at him, deep-set and lustrous, catching him with an unexpected beauty despite being caked in eyeshadow and their lashes clotted with too much mascara. Something showed in their depths, but before his scrambled brain could identify it it was gone. Theo dismissed it, and went on studying the rest of her face. It was layered in make-up, far too much of it, but the excess could not camouflage the height of her cheekbones and the fine, straight line of her nose. Nor could the sticky scarlet lipstick disguise the tender curve of her mouth.
Theo suddenly felt an odd desire to take a tissue and sweep away the acres of gunk smeared all over her extraordinary natural beauty…
For a moment, the merest instant, something stirred in him that had nothing to do with his immediate and all too easily identifiable reaction to the lush physical charms of the woman in front of him. Something that disturbed him—moved him…
He snapped his mind away. It didn’t matter an iota what he thought of Demos’s mistress. It only mattered that he got his cousin away from her and back to Athens and his engagement to Sofia Allessandros.
It was what everyone expected—especially Milo. He was desperate to see the next Atrides generation secure. He had never, Theo knew, recovered from the tragedy that had almost overwhelmed the family eight years ago, when both his sons and their wives had been killed when the Atrides jet had crashed. Theo himself had hardly had time to grieve. At the age of twenty-four he had found himself single-handedly in charge of the entire Atrides business empire as Milo suffered a near-fatal stroke at the loss of his sons. Business rivals, seeing the Atrides clan so stricken, had swooped.
Theo had fought them off, swiftly becoming battle hardened, and now, at thirty-two, the Atrides empire was stronger and wealthier than ever. No one dared challenge its ruthless boss these days.
All it needed now was a new heir for the next generation—Milo was right.
But it would not be Theo who provided one.
Marriage was not for Theo. Never would be.
If anyone was going to give Milo the great-grandsons he craved, it would have to be Demos—and Sofia Allessandros. As for the foxy piece clinging to Demos’s arm—well, she’d just have to look for another rich lover!
His eyes swept over her again. With looks like that it shouldn’t take her long to find one…
Leandra stared at the man looking her over with those dark, heavy-lidded eyes. Just stared. Oh, good grief, but he was devastating! Absolutely devastating! She’d heard enough about Big Bad Cousin Theo from Demos, heaven knew. He wasn’t just a tough, ruthless businessman.
Women flocked around Theo Atrides, and he helped himself to the ones he wanted, sampled them, then discarded them for fresh sweetmeats. Leandra could see why—and it was not, definitely not, just because he was stinking rich. Theo Atrides could have pulled women by the bucketload without a drachma to his name!
Leandra felt herself helpless under the impact of his sheer physical presence, from the commanding height of his six-foot-plus frame to the subtle but heady scent of his aftershave mingled with raw, potent maleness. The photos she’d seen of him—family shots in Demos’s apartment, glossy spreads in celebrity magazines—whilst capturing his eye-catching good looks, had not prepared her for the real Theo Atrides. Let alone for his effect on her.
She’d blithely assumed, because she was totally unattracted by Demos’s looks, that she’d be as immune to his cousin’s.
Oh, boy, what a mistake! Theo Atrides’s features were much stronger, his eyes keen and hooded, darker than his twenty-six-year-old cousin’s and far, far more knowing. His nose was a strong slash, his cheekbones powerful and high, and his jaw might have been hewn with a chisel. His mouth had none of Demos’s fullness, but was wide and mobile and, Leandra registered with a hollow feeling, a million times sexier…
In fact, in just about every atom of his being, Theo Atrides was a million times sexier than his cousin.
And a million times more dangerous. In an act of unconscious self-preservation Leandra veiled her assessing eyes, adopting instead the vacuous expression of a bimbo that fitted the charade she was acting out. Doing so had its compensations. It allowed her to look him over just the way she wanted to—needed to.
Not that he’d look twice at her. All his women, however briefly they lasted, were either celebrities in their own right—a couple of supermodels, an opera singer and an Oscar-winning movie star sprang effortlessly to mind—or else they were blue-blooded scions of Europe’s cosmopolitan aristocracy and America’s Wall Street plutocrats.
Except that he was looking at her. Theo Atrides was looking her over very, very thoroughly, with all the expertise of a practised connoisseur of the very best in female beauty.
It was a nerve-tingling experience.
As she felt, almost physically, those dark, knowing eyes wash over her, Leandra could feel her legs jellify. Her breath had frozen solid in her throat, making it impossible to breathe. Her heart, it seemed, slewed to a stop in her chest and her eyes were stretched so wide she must be goggling. Then, just as she started to go into complete meltdown under his blatantly sexual appraisal, she realised she could see contempt openly sitting in his eyes. It was obvious what he thought of a woman dressed as revealingly as she was.
Two impulses warred within her. One was to grab the nearest tablecloth and cover herself up. The other was to slap his face so hard it would spin the stars for him!
Of course she did neither—she could not afford to.
Instead, she behaved in the way that her role in this elaborate charade required her to behave. Badly.
‘Demos,’ she husked, pressing into his side more closely, unconsciously seeking his protection from such an arrant sexual predator, ‘who is this gorgeous, gorgeous man?’
Leandra’s voice was slightly breathy. It was not entirely put on. Her body was out of control, reacting to this man’s presence in ways she had only ever read about, never experienced. It was a mix of terrifying and exhilarating.
Demos opened his mouth to answer, but was forestalled.
‘Theo Atrides,’ murmured his cousin. His voice had dropped a register and taken on a deep, dark husk of its own, heavy with his drawling Greek accent. The raw sexiness of it made Leandra’s toes curl, accompanied as it was by a kilowatt’s worth of sexual charge blazing through eyes which were suddenly, devastatingly, heavy-lidded and half closed.
He turned to Demos.
‘And this is…?’ He paused expectantly, the purring note still deep in his voice.
His appeal to his cousin sent a frisson of waspish anger through Leandra. Doesn’t he think me capable of answering for myself? she thought indignantly.
‘Leandra,’ supplied Demos. He said her name reluctantly.
‘Ross—’ completed Leandra, with the very slightest bite to her voice.
‘Leandra,’ echoed Theo Atrides drawlingly, ignoring the irrelevance of her surname. Women like her had no need of anything other than a first name—preferably something exotic.
‘You are very lovely, Leandra.’ He paused infinitesimally. ‘Very lovely. All over.’
The heavy-lidded dark eyes washed over her. She felt they were stripping off every last vestige of clothing. Then he helped himself to her hand.
His touch was as electric as his look. To her shame, Leandra believed that she actually trembled as he made contact.
His hand was large and smooth. Warm and strong. And very powerful. Hers looked pale and fragile within its olive-tanned grasp.
Leisurely, Theo lifted her scarlet-tipped, freshly manicured fingers to his lips. But instead of grazing her knuckles in a courtly fashion, as Leandra was steeling herself to expect, he turned her hand over to expose her palm and bent his head.
As his lips touched her flesh she felt them part slightly. Then, in a caress that exploded every nerve-ending in her palm, they laved her skin softly and sensuously. She felt a prickle of arousal all over her body, delicious and enticing. Warm, liquid coils of heat pooled in her veins. Then suddenly, shockingly, she felt the tip of his tongue flicker exploringly at the junctions of her fingers.
Shock, outrage and a sizzle of raw sexual excitement electrified her, searing the breath in her fractured lungs. She couldn’t move even as he released her from his shockingly intimate caress.
She grabbed her hand back into her own possession. It felt as if every nerve-ending in it had been set on fire, humming like flame racing along her veins. For one long, overwhelming moment she felt as if the world was whirling round her, and the only still point was the flare of sensation echoing in her hand.
Her lips parted and she stared, helplessly, at Theo Atrides.
He smiled down at her. A warm, intimate smile. A knowing, indulgent smile. A dangerous, sexy smile.
Almost, almost she felt herself moving blindly towards him, to press herself up against his lean, hard body and give herself to him absolutely. He was like a powerful magnet sucking her towards him.
But she had to resist. She must! She was here to play his cousin’s mistress—nothing more. Forcibly she relaxed her muscles, and by sheer effort of will—still reeling from the sensual onslaught of Theo Atrides’s terrifyingly skilful, insolent mouth on her exposed, defenceless skin—she managed to pull her body back from leaning into his.
Thee mou, thought Theo, as she drew back with obvious reluctance, the girl couldn’t have come on stronger if she’d given him her telephone number! She’d all but gone up in flames for him! What the hell would she be like if he got her horizontal?
A sudden, overpowering image of her lying beneath him, naked and aching for him, yielding her body to him with soft moans, filled his mind with devastating, vivid clarity. He thrust it aside brutally. This was no time to get the hots for a woman who was threatening the stability of his family and its very future! All her sizzling reaction to his deliberate sexual provocation had proved was that, whatever she felt for Demos, it wasn’t anything that stopped her lighting up for any other man. The faithful type she wasn’t!
He turned back to his cousin.
As his attention snapped off Leandra wondered why she felt bereft, instead of relieved—as if a source of heat suddenly turned off had revealed how cold she had been feeling.
All her life.
In a daze she tried to make herself concentrate on what Theo was saying to his cousin. It was hard, because her brain felt like mush.
‘So,’ Theo said to Demos, his deep voice sounding amused, ‘this is what is keeping you in London so long, I see! I can’t say I’m surprised, now I’ve met this delicious morsel of female flesh—’ His eyes worked over Leandra once more, so brazenly she felt her stomach drop even as anger leapt in her throat at such a description. ‘But,’ he went on, holding up a hand peremptorily and focusing back on his cousin, ‘all good things come to an end, Demos. Sofia is waiting for you. It’s time to come home.’
Leandra could feel Demos tense.
‘I’m not ready,’ he replied tersely. His usually mild voice sounded strained.
‘Then be ready,’ said Theo unforgivingly. He reached out and closed his hand around his cousin’s shoulder, turning him slightly away from Leandra as if she were an intruder on the scene.
He switched to Greek, reinforcing her exclusion.
‘Milo’s on the way out, Demos. It’s only a matter of time. His doctors know it and he knows it. He’s old—he’s had too much to bear in his life—don’t do this to him. Come home and get engaged to Sofia. It’s all he asks. He needs to know that the next generation is assured—you can’t blame him for being anxious. He knows, Christos, he knows, just how uncertain life is! He needs to know that a great-grandson could be on the way soon—he needs an heir.’
He spoke rapidly, in a low voice.
Stiffly, Demos answered. ‘Milo has two grandsons, Theo. Why don’t you oblige?’
Theo’s jaw tightened. ‘I’m not the marrying kind, little cousin.’
For a second something showed in Demos’s eyes.
‘And suppose I’m not either?’ he said.
There was something in Demos’s voice that stayed his cousin. Theo looked at him narrowly.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ he asked slowly.
For a long moment Demos just looked across at him, as if he was going to say something. Then, with a fling of his hand, he shook Theo off his shoulder.
‘It means I’m having too much fun to want to settle down! I’m not ready to marry anyone, let alone Sofia Allessandros!’ An urgent note entered his voice. ‘Make Milo see that, Theo. Make him!’
Anger lashed through Theo. Anger at both of them—Milo for wanting to arrange other people’s lives because he was taking leave of his own, and Demos for insisting on living his own life when he had responsibilities to meet!
And most of all anger, irrational but powerful, against the girl plastered against Demos—the cause of all this trouble.
He wanted out of this! He hadn’t wanted to come here, and now he was here he wanted to wash his hands of the whole business. He wanted to get away—away from the endless demands of family, of business—go some place where all he had to do was gaze out over the blue Aegean, hear the cicadas calling, inhale the heady scent of the maquis, feel the zephyred wind from the south on his body.
With a soft, compliant woman in his arms…
Like the one at Demos’s side…
He gave a rasp in his throat, banishing the dangerously enticing vision.
‘Enough!’ His hand slashed the air with a short, brusque slash. ‘I’ll expect you tomorrow, Demos. Milo wants to see you at nine. We’re in the penthouse suite here. Be on time.’ He eyed his cousin darkly, his harsh gaze sweeping out to Leandra. ‘And get some sleep tonight!’ he finished, reverting to English.
His eyes flickered briefly over her face. The expression in them made her want to hit him. His thoughts were naked. With a woman like her at his side what man would want to sleep?
He, for one, could think of a thousand better things to do with her—
He snapped his mind away again. The woman was an irrelevance.
Soon her brief intrusion into his family affairs would be over—permanently.
Demos Atrides opened the door to his apartment and ushered Leandra inside. Immediately she was tightly enveloped in a bear hug.
‘Well,’ demanded the extremely handsome blond embracing her with long familiarity. ‘How did it go? Did he show?’
Leandra extricated herself, tossing her evening bag on the silk-covered sofa, and kicked off one of her high heels. Her feet were killing her. She said nothing. She didn’t think she could for the moment.
‘Oh, yes, he showed all right,’ said Demos behind her. His voice was tight.
‘And?’ demanded the other young man. ‘Did he fall for it?’
Demos gave a short laugh, displaying the tension he was still under.
‘Hook, line and sinker—isn’t that what you say?’
The blond laughed, showing an expanse of gleaming white teeth in a brilliant smile that lit his handsome face. Leandra laughed too, but hers was short, with an edge to it.
‘With the emphasis on hook—as in hooker,’ she said bitingly. ‘God, Chris.’ She kicked off her other shoe and flexed her aching ankles. ‘Thanks to that dress you poured me into, Theo Atrides looked at me like I was some kind of tart!’
A shiver went through her at the memory of the way Demos’s cousin had looked her over—and more than looked…
But Chris was not dismayed. ‘That’s brilliant, Lea—just what we wanted! He’s got to think Demos is totally captivated by his sexy little mistress! Speaking of sexy—’ he caught her shoulders ‘—you, darling, look absolutely edible! Yum, yum!’
Leandra was in no mood for his foolery. Reaction and revulsion were setting in with a vengeance.
‘Leave off, Chris!’ she said, pushing his hands off her shoulders and heading towards the bathroom. ‘I need to get out of this ridiculous costume!’
The evening had been far more of an ordeal than she had thought it would be—thanks to that wretched dress and Theo Atrides! She stepped out of the shower and towelled herself vigorously. It had seemed so easy, as well as a good deed, to pretend to be Demos’s mistress. All she’d had to do was move into the spare bedroom in Demos’s luxury apartment and spend the last three weeks appearing to be living with him—until his family finally got the message that he wasn’t coming home to marry Sofia Allessandros.
Leandra stared at her reflection as she combed out the knots in her wet hair, her face set. Had tonight’s performance been sufficiently convincing? Would the Atrideses finally leave him in peace now?
She hoped so—with a shudder she knew she couldn’t face another encounter with Theo Atrides. Her nerves couldn’t stand it.
A sudden shaft of depression hit her. Theo Atrides was the most incredibly attractive male she’d ever laid eyes on, and he’d seen her as nothing more than a sexy, trashy tart.
But what if he hadn’t?
Her comb paused and her imagination took flight. She saw herself, gowned in black still, but soft velvet, long, sweeping the ground, its modest décolletage set with a single white rose, her hair caught in a low, elegant chignon at the nape of her neck, her make-up subtle, her perfume elusive…
If Theo Atrides had seen her looking like that then perhaps those heavy-lidded eyes would have gazed at her quite differently, mused Leandra dreamily. Sensually, yes, but without that offensive glint of contempt he hadn’t bothered to hide. His eyes would have shown nothing but the desire of man for woman. As old as time. An eternal hunger yearning to be sated.
She sighed, beguiled by her own impossible vision. Then, abruptly, she sobered. Struggling actresses, whatever they wore, were not his fare. And even if they were, she added crushingly, it wouldn’t do you any good! Even filmstar Madeleine Fareham with her precious Oscar hadn’t gone the distance! The papers were full of her marrying her latest costar on the rebound from Theo Atrides!
Decisively, Leandra tugged the last of the knots from her newly washed hair as if she were tugging something out of her that had just taken root—a weed that looked like an orchid but was really nothing more than poison ivy.
Back in the lounge, Chris and Demos were drinking coffee. Leandra, swathed in a towelling robe, poured herself a cup and collapsed next to Chris. He put his arm around her shoulder.
‘Better now?’ he asked sympathetically.
She nodded. ‘Yes. Sorry—but, honestly, the way you dressed me up—I just felt so exposed! And Demos’s cousin looked at me like I was some kind of total floozie! It was horrible! Still…’ she took a deep breath ‘…it’s all over now. Thank goodness. Oh, Demos.’ She leant forward and tossed the diamond earrings in his lap. ‘Here you go.’
He caught them and put them on the coffee table. Then he met Leandra’s eyes.
‘Lea—thank you. Thank you a thousand times.’ He sounded embarrassed. ‘And I am sorry that my cousin behaved towards you in such a disrespectful way.’
Leandra held up a hand. She didn’t want Demos feeling bad about it.
‘It’s OK,’ she said lightly, playing it down. ‘I’ll survive. And, hey, it’s like Chris says—that was the whole plan—to make me look like a rich man’s sex toy. I should be glad he believed it!’
She looked down into her coffee cup. Oh, Theo Atrides had believed she was a sex toy all right! Memory leapt at her, searing her belly with its heat as she felt again the echo of his hand taking hers, kissing her palm…the touch of his flickering tongue…
Beneath the protectively thick towelling robe she could feel her breasts tighten.
Angry mortification filled her. She could tell herself all she liked that it had been hateful to be treated like that, but she knew she was a liar.
Theo Atrides had had an effect on her that she had never encountered in her life before. It had overwhelmed her, blasted her out of the sky like a fireball…
She’d been helpless, totally helpless. If he’d wanted, he could have taken her hand and led her away from Demos—led her away to a private room and folded her against his body, lowered that hard, mobile mouth to hers and done anything he wanted to her…anything at all…
She stared down into her coffee, appalled by this shaming realisation.
A shudder went through her as she fought to throw his image, his memory, out of her mind.
‘Lea—are you all right?’
She jerked her head up. ‘I’m fine—fine. Just tired, that’s all.’
Chris was looking at her closely.
‘Did the bastard get to you, Lea?’ he asked quietly. At his side Demos stiffened at this cavalier description of the cousin he had always looked up to, but he said nothing.
Leandra bit her lip. She could deny the way she’d reacted to Theo Atrides, but it wouldn’t fool either of them for long. She might as well admit it now.
‘Yes,’ she acknowledged. ‘But it doesn’t matter—all that matters is that he leaves Demos alone now.’
She made her voice bright and cheerful and decided she had to just pull herself together. It didn’t matter a jot that she had all but melted over Theo Atrides. It didn’t matter that he was the most devastating male she had ever seen. It didn’t even matter that he thought her nothing but a wind-up sex toy.
She would never set eyes on him again.
Theo Atrides had come and gone in her life. He wouldn’t be back.
CHAPTER TWO
THEO stared moodily out over Hyde Park from the penthouse suite where he and his grandfather were staying. The trees had turned autumnal already; summer was over.
His mood was grim. Demos had just left, and the exchange with Milo had not been pleasant. When his grandfather had finished lecturing him on duty, responsibility, family and Sofia Allessandros waiting in Athens for him to deign to turn up, Demos had stubbornly repeated what he’d said to Theo the night before. He wasn’t ready to get married. That was all. He was enjoying his bachelor life.
Then he’d walked out.
Theo turned back towards Milo.
‘You are so sure of this marriage?’ he heard himself ask.
Milo flashed him a dark look from eyes which, though wrinkled, were still keen and sharp.
‘Demos needs a good marriage. Sofia Allessandros is just the girl for him.’
Theo paused. ‘I know,’ he said carefully, ‘that you are in a hurry. But can’t you give him more time? It’s his life, Milo.’
The dark, shrewd eyes stared at him.
‘I’m worried about him,’ he said. ‘I want to see him safe with Sofia Allessandros.’
There seemed to be meaning in his words. Theo frowned.
‘This woman of his? A pillow-friend, nothing more. He won’t marry her, if that’s what’s worrying you!’
The dark eyes snapped and Milo’s mouth thinned.
‘Young men are foolish!’ He fixed Theo with a piercing, uncomfortable look. ‘You would have made such a foolish marriage…’
The accusation hung in the air. For a moment Theo stilled. Then, with a deliberate shrug of his powerful shoulders, he said, ‘Well, you and my father soon sorted that out, didn’t you? And that other “minor complication” it involved!’
The accusation had been returned, and Milo felt it. His eyes snapped again. ‘Don’t take that tone! We did what was necessary. A woman like that—you should be grateful!’
Theo stilled again. ‘Grateful.’ The word fell heavily from his lips.
A harsh, impatient rasp sounded in the old man’s throat.
‘Money showed her true colours! It always does with women of her stamp!’
He shifted restlessly in the chair he was sitting in. Pain flickered briefly in his face. Theo saw it. Pity filled him. The past was gone—his grandfather and his father had done what they had thought best, by their lights. And they had been right, he knew. Money did show true colours. And he was grateful, just as Milo said he should be. Grateful to have had his illusions shattered.
Illusions were always dangerous. In business, and in bed.
Theo had no illusions any more. Never again. He knew what he wanted from women now. It was simple, pleasurable—and painless. As for taking a wife—no. No matter how much Milo pressurised him to continue the family name, he knew he would never trust a woman with his happiness again.
‘Sofia will make Demos a good wife. You know that.’
Milo’s voice brought him back to the problem in hand.
Yes, Sofia Allessandros would make Demos a good wife. She had been groomed from childhood to be the perfect wife for a rich man. And, like every well brought up Greek girl, she was as untouched as the morning dew.
Theo’s brow darkened briefly. The image of Demos’s lovely young pillow-friend slid into his mind, lush and enticing. Tempting men from their duties, their responsibilities—their families.
As if reading his thoughts, Milo spoke again.
‘Demos won’t look twice at Sofia while he’s got a mistress to warm his bed.’
The grim look returned to Theo’s face. Leandra’s lush body swayed in his vision.
‘That one would warm any man’s bed!’
His grandfather’s eyes narrowed. ‘Yours, Theo?’
Theo gave a rasp of denial. But Milo hadn’t built a business empire from scratch without being able to read men’s thoughts. He gave a sudden rough laugh.
‘Well, that would be one way of removing the obstacle!’
Theo’s mouth set in a thin line.
‘I was thinking of something a little more basic.’
His grandfather gave that rough laugh again. In his time, Milo Atrides had kept mistresses by the score.
‘Nothing is more basic than sex,’ he said bluntly.
‘Except money,’ corrected his grandson. He looked straight at Milo. ‘That method never fails. You, of all people, should know that.’
If his grandfather heard the bitterness in his grandson’s voice, he ignored it. He had done what he had had to do. The woman had been a danger to his family. As this one now was.
‘Yes,’ he agreed, relaxing back in his chair. ‘Money’s a good method.’
Theo nodded.
‘I’ll take care of it. She’ll be out of his bed in a week!’
Leandra frowned in concentration. ‘Can you just give me my cue again please, Demos?’
‘Of course.’
He smiled obligingly, but Leandra could see that his eyes were troubled. The morning’s interview with his grandfather had been painful, she knew. She felt so sorry for him. In the weeks she’d spent at his apartment she’d grown to like this young man who came from such a totally different world. Their only link was Chris. Why did his family keep trying to arrange his life for him? It was bad enough his grandfather pressurising him to marry—now even his cousin was joining in!
His cousin was totally unlike Demos, she mused. With Demos she felt safe and comfortable. With Theo Atrides she’d never feel safe or comfortable. She gave an inward shiver.
Then, resolutely, she turned back to the page. Demos was kindness itself in agreeing to help her learn this fiendishly difficult part. It would bring neither fame nor fortune, but it was a privilege to have been chosen for it. The Marchester Festival, highly specialised though it was, had an excellent reputation. Besides, the effort of learning it helped to take her mind off Theo Atrides.
And she needed all the help she could get. He was haunting her. She couldn’t get him out of her mind. His hooded eyes were vivid in her brain, looking her over—setting her body on fire…
He intruded everywhere, even in her dreams. Which was ridiculous—she would never see him again. He’d go back to Athens with his grandfather, admit defeat over Demos, and that would be that.
He would admit defeat, wouldn’t he? After all, in the end there was nothing either Theo or his grandfather could do to force Demos to marry Sofia Allessandros. All Demos had to do was stand firm.
Would Sofia mind being rejected by the man she was expecting to marry? No one seemed too concerned about her wishes in all of this!
‘Demos,’ she heard herself asking, ‘are you sure Sofia won’t be upset that you won’t marry her? It sounds like she’s spent her whole life assuming you will.’
He looked away uncomfortably. ‘I can’t help it, Leandra. You know I can’t marry her. For me to do so would be to wrong her grievously.’
She bit her lip. Carefully, she said, ‘Can’t you tell her why? And your family?’
Demos’s face shuttered. ‘Do not ask that of me,’ he answered. There was anguish in his voice, and guilt—Leandra could not press him. He had burdens of his own to carry. One day he would be able to set them down, but not now, she knew. He was not ready.
Instead, she asked another question.
‘Demos, when is your grandfather likely to go back to Athens?’
The shadowed look in his eyes intensified.
‘I am not sure,’ he admitted. ‘Theo wants him to see a Harley Street specialist while he is in London.’
‘Oh. Then what would you like me to do? What would be best?’
‘If you would be kind enough to stay here I would be most grateful, Leandra.’ There was entreaty in Demos’s voice.
She smiled reassuringly. ‘Of course, if that is what you want. I can hardly complain about the standard of my accommodation! I’m in the lap of luxury here! And I’m happy to help out if there’s anything I can do. There’s a saying in English—in for a penny, in for a pound!’ She tapped at the page of her script with a grin. ‘But I’ll drive a hard bargain, my young Greek millionaire! Back to work!’
He pored over the words with her, heads together. Suddenly she gave a laugh. Her amber eyes gleamed wickedly.
‘Oh, if your cousin could see us now! He’d never believe it! Never!’
Remembering the look of unveiled contempt in Theo Atrides’s eyes as he looked her over like a piece of sex-trash, she felt a sharp sense of satisfaction.
It was a beautiful day, even for central London. The mild, sunny autumn weather was still holding. Leandra swung down the Edgware Road, her body pleasantly tired and stretched from her dance class in Paddington. Acting was hard work. London heaved with struggling actresses, and competition for parts was fierce. Still, acting was what she had always wanted to do, and her very staid parents had been happy enough for her to work it out of her system—as they’d been sure she would within a few years.
Her eyes shadowed, grief showing in them briefly. Their death in a coach crash on holiday had been so sudden, so brutal. Even now, nearly two years later, the memory was like a knife in her breast.
Chris had been so kind to her, proving a true friend, taking her under his wing and looking after her while she was raw with grief and shock. No wonder she hadn’t hesitated when he had asked her for a favour for Demos.
The blare of a car horn made her jump. The Edgware Road was clogged with traffic, and she was still quite some way from Demos’s Mayfair apartment. She made an inward grimace. She would miss that fabulous apartment all right! Going back to her tiny studio flat on a noisy road south of the Thames—all she could afford at London property prices, even with the legacy from her parents—was not something she was looking forward to. For the first time she could understand why women would agree to exchange their self-respect for such a luxurious lifestyle.
Her amber eyes darkened. That was exactly the kind of woman Theo Atrides thought her—that much was obvious. The kind who latched on to men just because they were rich! Not for the first time she felt a stab of anger at him. Oh, she would love to see him eat his words! ‘Delicious morsel of female flesh’ indeed!
She should not have recalled them to mind. For with them came an image of the man saying them—tall, powerful, those dark, heavy-lidded eyes making her stomach flip over slowly, oh, so slowly as her legs turned to jelly…
Someone brushed past her on the crowded pavement. Automatically she moved to one side, and then, just at the same time, someone brushed her from that side as well. She glanced either way, frowning suddenly. London was safe enough on the whole, if you were sensible, but muggings happened all the time. She clutched at her shoulder bag more tightly, but even as she did so she felt her body crowded from both sides.
It happened so quickly. One moment she was being hustled on the wide pavement and the next, in broad daylight, on a busy London road, two men had caught her by either elbow, pulled her forward and then, before she could scream, she was being thrust into the gaping interior of a huge black-windowed limousine that was suddenly there, pulled up at the kerb. The door slammed behind her. Her head was tilted forcibly back, a pad pressed over her nose and mouth. Her eyes flared in terror and then, as the drug sucked into her gasping lungs, fluttered helplessly shut as consciousness drained away.
‘Well, did he tell you how long I’ve got?’
Milo’s voice was harsh, but Theo could hear the exhaustion in it. Milo was tough, but age was finally taking its toll.
‘Six, maybe nine months. A year if you are spectacularly fortunate.’
Theo did not mince his words. He would not be thanked if he did.
Milo’s eyes gleamed fiercely. ‘Hah! Long enough to see a great-grandson on the way!’
Theo looked out of the window of the chauffeur-driven limo. They were nosing down Harley Street. Traffic was bad. Rush hour was all around them.
He did not answer his grandfather. Instead, he said, ‘He wants to put you on a different drug regime. Says it could buy you time. He wants to start you straight away, but he’ll need to monitor you for a week or two to see how you respond. You don’t need to be in hospital. So I’ve taken the suite for another fortnight. I’ll stay with you, naturally.’
His grandfather gave a rasp. ‘Not in that damned hotel, you won’t! And neither will I. We’ll stay at the apartment. I want to see more of Demos anyway!’
Theo frowned. ‘The girl is still there. I haven’t had a chance to buy her off yet!’
Milo gave a harsh laugh.
‘Save your money. She’s been dealt with.’
Theo’s head swivelled.
‘I said I’d handle it—’
‘Well, I’ve saved you the trouble. And my way was a whole lot cheaper! And more certain.’
‘What do you mean?’ Theo’s words were slow, filled with foreboding. ‘What have you done?’
Milo looked at his grandson with grim satisfaction.
‘She’s gone,’ he said. ‘She was in the way, so I had her removed.’
Cold snaked down Theo’s spine.
‘What…exactly…have you done with her?’
Milo gave another harsh bark of laughter.
‘Don’t look at me as if I’d had her murdered! She’s perfectly safe. Sunning herself on a beach.’
Theo’s brows drew together.
‘She agreed to go on holiday?’ He sounded sceptical.
‘I didn’t waste time asking her. I just sent her!’
The cold snaked down Theo’s spine again.
‘You sent her? How? Where?’
‘How? I had her picked up and packed off. I had a tail put on her when she left Demos’s apartment this morning. She was put in a car, kept quiet, driven to an airfield and that was that. Don’t look at me like that, boy! I’m not incapable yet! I know agencies who will do such things and be discreet about it!’
But his grandson was staring at him with an appalled look on his face.
‘Are you telling me,’ he said, his voice hollow, ‘that you had her abducted?’
Milo made a testy noise in his throat. ‘I had her removed! That’s all! She’s perfectly safe—I told you!’
A word escaped Theo that was not in polite usage.
‘Where?’ he demanded urgently. ‘Where is she, Milo?’
His grandfather gave his harsh laugh again.
‘So eager to find her?’ he jeered. ‘Maybe you do want to replace Demos between her legs!’
Theo ignored the crude jibe. The cold had spread from his spine through every part of his body. Had Milo gone insane? Had he really had a British citizen abducted from the streets of London and flown out of the country?
‘Where is she?’
Milo’s eyes flashed. ‘Don’t take that tone with me! She’s on that hideaway island of yours. The one you take your own pillow-friends to!’
Theo’s eyes stabbed black fire.
‘What?’
Milo gave another snort. ‘Hah, did you think I did not know of the place? Of course I knew! But if you want to keep a place like that to yourself, who am I to interfere? A man wants to be private when he communes with Eros. I respect that. So you see—’ he sounded well pleased with himself ‘—Demos’s little tart will be perfectly at home there. She can improve her tan and pretty herself up for her next protector. And by the time I let her off the island Demos and Sofia will be engaged!’
He cast a triumphant look at his grandson, still staring at him appalled.
‘Cheaper than a pay-off, and far more certain.’
‘With only one slight downside.’ Theo’s voice was hollow. ‘Abduction is a criminal offence.’
How Theo got through the next twenty-four hours he didn’t afterwards remember. Milo, utterly oblivious of what he had done, had had to be taken back to the hotel. Then Theo had to confront a frantic Demos who had realised, when he returned to his apartment from his office, that Leandra seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth.
‘Milo did what?’
Demos had gone white.
‘She’s safe, Demos. That much is clear.’ Theo spoke tersely.
‘I’m going out there right away!’
Theo caught his shoulder. ‘No! I will deal with it.’
Demos glared at him accusingly. Theo could read his thoughts. He shook his head. His smile was grim. ‘Even I have my limits, little cousin.’ For a moment they looked into each other’s eyes. Theo had been like a big brother to Demos all his life.
‘Trust me,’ said Theo, holding his cousin’s stricken gaze. ‘You stay here and take care of Milo. Right now—’ he inhaled sharply ‘—I don’t want to be too close to him!’ He shook his head. ‘I knew he was desperate, but to commit such an act! He seems to have absolutely no idea of what he’s done!’
Grimly, Theo knew that if he couldn’t find a way to silence the girl she might drag the Atrides name through the criminal courts. Milo could even be facing a jail sentence.
As for what the press would make of it…
He snapped his mind away. His hand squeezed on Demos’s shoulder.
‘Trust me,’ he said again, and took his leave.
But even then his problems hadn’t been over. The Atrides jet had been stranded on the tarmac. UK airspace had been in chaos—the air traffic control system had gone down again. It wasn’t until well into the next day that Theo had finally been able to get airborne.
Then, when he’d landed in Athens, he’d found Sofia’s father, Yannakis Allessandros, had heard the Atrides jet was due and assumed it was Demos at last. Calming a justifiably exasperated Yannakis, and trying to assure him that Demos’s continued absence was not an insufferable slight to his patiently waiting daughter, had taken yet more precious time.
The next blow had been to discover that the Atrides corporate helicopter stationed at Athens had developed a fault, and the others were scattered at other locations on various company business. Hiring a replacement he proposed to pilot himself—the fewer people who knew about Leandra Ross’s illicit presence on his island the better!—had meant having his own pilot documentation exhaustively vetted by a helicopter company extremely nervous of letting the head of one of the country’s largest companies fly and possibly crash himself.
By the time he finally headed east out to sea the bright Mediterranean sun was low in the sky and Theo Atrides was in the worst mood he’d been in for a very, very long time.
Leandra sat on a rock, the sunlight pounding down on her. She stared doggedly out into the blinding sky, constantly scanning the heavens, then dipping back to the horizon again.
Her face was set, skin stretched tight. Her head ached.
In her stomach, fear coiled like a snake.
She had surfaced earlier that day to discover, through her drugged and groggy senses, that she was lying on a bed in a cool, shady room. Although there were few furnishings, it was very luxurious. The large double bed she’d been lying on was covered by an exquisite hand-stitched quilt, and the furniture was dark wood with an antique patina.
Her terror had been absolute. She’d fought for memory.
There was a car. I was pushed inside. Everything went black…
Fear had crammed in her throat. She’d staggered to her feet, lurching towards French windows dimmed with wooden slatted blinds. She had pulled them open. Beyond was a terrace, flooded with sunlight much brighter than it could ever be in England at this time of year. And the scent of flowers was wrong for England—heady and pungent, coming from fragrant blooms tumbling out of ceramic pots. She had lifted her eyes further forward. Beyond the terrace was vegetation—Mediterranean vegetation—and beyond she’d glimpsed bright azure sea.
The house she had emerged from seemed to be built as a long, low series of rooms, one after another, their French windows all closed. Then, suddenly, those of the room at the end of the terrace, where it ended in a vine-shaded patio, had opened, and an elderly woman had come out. She was dressed in black and carrying a bucket and mop.
She’d seen Leandra and nodded her head, smiling. She had set her things down and made some gestures with her hands, clearly ushering Leandra into the room.
Suddenly it had dawned on Leandra where she must be.
Greece! I’m in Greece!
And if she were in Greece, there could be only one reason why…
Demos. This had something to do with Demos Atrides. It had to—it just had to.
Emotions had coursed through her. One, she knew, was relief. At the back of her mind a dark, hideous fear had been lurking, that she had been abducted and taken away to be white slaved to the Middle East, or worse…
But why had Demos brought her here? And by such extreme means? She wanted answers—fast!
‘Demos?’ she croaked.
But the woman only smiled and nodded, and made those movements with her hands again. With chilling realisation Leandra understood. The woman was deaf; she was signing.
A bubble of hysteria beaded in Leandra’s throat. There was no way she could communicate in sign language with a deaf Greek woman! Then, as a wave of faintness washed over her, the woman was taking her arm and gently guiding her inside the room, sitting her down on a large, soft sofa in front of an empty stone fireplace.
Leandra shut her eyes in confusion and faintness, only to open them again a few minutes later when the woman brought in a tray of food. Hunger clawed in her stomach, and she fell to, swiftly devouring the delicious freshly made bread and soup, washing it down with hot coffee.
A magazine on the lower shelf of the coffee table caught her eye. It was a fashion magazine in Cyrillic. More relief washed through her. She was definitely in Greece and this must definitely have something to do with Demos! But where was he?
She combed the villa. It wasn’t large, and it didn’t take long to realise the only person in it other than herself was the elderly housekeeper. Fighting back fear, Leandra headed off outside. Demos had to be somewhere!
The grounds consisted of an attractively landscaped Mediterranean-style garden, with no lawn but a lot of little stone-paved paths and beautifully tended plants and shrubs. Olive trees were dotted here and there, perhaps remnants of an original olive grove. Instinctively she headed towards the sea, making her way down a little stone path until she emerged some few minutes later on to the edge of a perfect crescent beach.
Leandra stopped dead. It was absolutely exquisite! Gentle waves broke on golden sand. On either side of the beach the land curved protectively, white gleaming limestone brilliant in the sun.
Looking back, she glanced towards the little villa, half hidden by the olive trees.
It was a gem of a place! Very private, very rustic, but with a simplicity that caught at the heart as much as the eye.
But of Demos there was no sign.
Apart from the housekeeper the only other human being was an elderly man watering plants, who must be her husband—and from the way he would only sign to her Leandra realised that he too was deaf.
Her face tightened and she felt fear claw at her again. Instinctively she skirted around the villa, determined to make her way to a public highway and thence to a village or taverna with a phone she could call London from and find out what on earth was going on! At least she had her purse with her, and somewhere she must be able to change money.
She halted dead. She could see no entrance to the villa, no drive leading to a public roadway. Nothing.
The grounds just seemed to stretch on, rising slightly as the contours of the land led gently upwards. She found a pathway and set off. Maybe she could cut across land and find a road further inland. There must be some sort of traffic passing, however remote this villa was. Judging by the absolute silence—not the hint of a sound of traffic, even from far away—it must be pretty remote, Leandra found herself thinking worriedly.
Resolutely she went on, gaining the top of the rise. She paused and looked down. There, below, nestled close to the beach, was the little villa. Beyond it she could see a flat, bare area of ground, the modern metal-framed hangar and windsock declaring it to be a helipad. Just below the helipad was a small cove, with a stone jetty and boathouse, but no sign of a boat. To the front of the villa was the beach, a secret jewel. She swept her eye past the beach, bringing it round to the opposite direction. The sea went with her.
She went on sweeping her head round—and still the sea was visible.
As she completed her three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn Leandra felt her insides dissolve.
There was sea visible in every direction.
As she stilled, like a statue frozen in disbelief, the truth hit her.
She was on an island.
Theo closed the throttle and cut the rotors. He’d landed. Finally.
As he shut down the controls with routine expertise he glanced out of the helicopter, sliding off his headphones as he did so.
The girl was there waiting for him.
He’d seen her running towards the helipad as he’d made his descent, alerted by the racket the rotors made which was audible all over the island, he knew.
He glowered balefully in her direction. What an infernal mess this was! Cheaper than paying the girl to leave Demos? Theo snorted. It was going to cost an arm and a leg to sweeten her after her ordeal! And if she chose to press charges…
Sweat pricked beneath the collar of Theo’s business suit. He wanted a shower, and a long, cold beer.
He slid the door back and stepped out on to the ground. There was no way he was flying back to Athens tonight. The chopper would need refuelling, for a start, and night was coming on. Besides, he was tired.
Tired physically and mentally.
And his temper was on a knife-edge.
He just hoped the girl wasn’t the hysterical type. She must have been frightened by what had happened to her, he found himself thinking as he slid the door to and headed across to her. She was standing very still.
Theo hoped she wasn’t going to start weeping and wailing all over him.
He hated that in a woman.
As he drew closer, walking with his customary rapid stride, it dawned on him that if he hadn’t known it was Leandra Ross standing there he’d never have recognised her.
The clinging sex kitten was gone. Her lush, slender body, which had been so lavishly on show the other evening, was now almost completely concealed by a sweatshirt and jeans. Her glorious blond hair was pinned haphazardly on her head and her face was completely free of make-up. Yet she was still a stunner.
As he approached he felt his body responding. She had an unconscious grace, standing there, so very motionless—poised almost, he thought, like a nymph of mythical Greece, sighted by Apollo, or Dionysus, or any one of the Olympians in a mood for dalliance, deciding whether to flee from the approaching god or yield to his desire…
Again, just as it had at the gala, the vision that leapt in his mind was vivid. He saw her caught by his restraining arms, drawn close against him, so soft against his hardness, pressing her pliant body against him…
Brusquely he quelled the thought. It was an irrelevance. She was simply a complication—a deadly, dangerous complication now, thanks to Milo!—and she had to be neutralised as soon as possible. That was all.
He stopped in front of her.
CHAPTER THREE
LEANDRA was staring at him as if transfixed.
After hours of staring out to sea, up into the heavens, desperate to spot something, anything, heading towards the island, the approach of a helicopter had sent her hurtling down towards the helipad. Until its noisy rotors had cut through the silence the only sounds she’d heard had been the old man hammering intermittently as he mended an outhouse roof and his wife emerging from what must be their living quarters behind the villa to hang up washing.
Then, as Leandra had watched the machine land, a new terror had filled her. The helicopter bore no markings, no Atrides logo.
Oh, God, suppose this isn’t anything to do with Demos! Suppose I really have been white-slaved!
She’d felt weak with horror.
Then, as the door of the helicopter had slid back and the occupant had emerged, her eyes had lit on a figure she knew all too well.
Theo Atrides, immaculate in a business suit that must have been handmade for him, his night-dark eyes veiled by a pair of aviator sunglasses, had shut the helicopter door with effortless ease and started to walk towards her.
Something had started to simmer inside her.
He looked so cool, so composed, so immaculate—so imposing. So damn calm that Leandra had felt her emotions boil up inside her as if the lid had just been taken off a pressure cooker heated in a furnace.
He’d kept on coming closer. His face set, his eyes hidden by the impenetrable sunglasses that half her mind registered, made him look so ludicrously sexy that she wanted to scream!
And if it hadn’t been the sight of Theo Atrides heading towards her as if he could melt butter as he walked that made her want to scream, then something had. Something powerful, and black, and overwhelming, and absolutely, totally raging!
She had been through so much—terrified out of her mind—and now here he was, just sauntering towards her looking like a million dollars.
He stopped in front of her. And the lid flew right off the pressure cooker.
With a frenzied strength she hadn’t even known she was capable of Leandra found her hands lifting and starting to pummel, insanely, at the broad chest, thumping and pounding as if she were possessed by all the devils in hell.
Her voice was yelling. She could hear it. Yelling right at Theo Atrides, letting out all the terror and anger and bewilderment and outrage she was feeling—had been feeling all day, since she had surfaced to realise that someone, someone, had kidnapped her right off the streets of London, drugged her out cold, and dumped her down a thousand miles away.
And that someone hadn’t been kindly, troubled Demos at all! It had been his overbearing, arrogant, contemptible cousin, who’d looked at her as if she was dirt. He was the one who’d done this to her! And she knew why! To get rid of her! That was why! To make sure Demos couldn’t hide behind her, so he could drag him back to marry Sofia!
How dared he? How dared he?
Then, abruptly, her hands were seized and held away from him. ‘Be silent!’
Her face contorted even more. ‘I will not be silent! You kidnapped me and I’ll see you in gaol!’
‘I said, be silent, you virago! Be silent and I will explain!’
Theo looked down at her, his hands like vices around her wrists to immobilise her.
She was a she-devil, a maniac!
Her eyes were flashing like swords trying to pierce him and her chest was heaving raggedly, the breath choking and panting in her throat. Her face was contorted with fury.
And he had thought she might wail and weep!
But at least she had stopped yelling at him. With a hard, heavy command he impelled her to step backwards, increasing the distance between them but still prudently holding on to her wrists all the while.
‘Let me go!’ she spat at him, writhing against his implacable hold.
‘Only if you listen to me!’
Breath shuddering, she gasped, still venomous, ‘What’s to tell, Mr Atrides? You kidnapped me and I’ll see you in gaol!’
He swore again. ‘I did not kidnap you. I am not responsible for your presence here, which—’ he gave a heavy intake of breath again ‘—I regret as much as you. Believe me!’ he finished crushingly.
He eyed her balefully as she stood there, panting and dishevelled, face twisted like a demon. This was all he needed—a virago flying at him! The perfect end to an intolerable day!
‘Now,’ he went on, his voice commanding her as if she were the most junior minion in his employ, ‘if your hysteria is finally spent, listen to me!’
Heart still pounding in her chest, every limb trembling, jerkily she nodded.
He let her go. Her eyes flashed. ‘Well, go on,’ she ground out, breath still painful. ‘You said you’d explain to me! Go on. I’d love to hear you explain away what you’ve done to me, Mr Oh-So-Almighty Theo Atrides! And then you can tell it to the police!’
His face darkened at her hostile, vicious tone. No one spoke to him like that! His body stiffened, growing taller and even more imposing, Leandra felt, suddenly shrinking her to about a centimetre high.
‘You will not speak to me in that tone,’ he informed her coldly, every inch the head of the Atrides Corporation and a man held in respect by all who crossed his path.
It was the wrong attitude to take. The pressure cooker inside her head might have blown its lid, but there was still a whole lot of anger boiling away in the depths!
‘Try saying that to the judge sentencing you for criminal abduction and false imprisonment!’ she bit back, her chest still heaving with emotion.
He flashed a hand upward imperiously.
‘Be silent! I had no part in this debacle, I assure you! And if you will finally condescend to listen to me I will explain what has happened.’
He glanced past her. ‘But not here.’ He glared balefully down at her. ‘It has been a tiring day. I will speak to you in twenty minutes on the terrace. Be there.’
Then he was striding away towards the villa, leaving behind a fuming, shattered Leandra.
Slowly her hands fell to her sides. She could not credit what she had just heard him say.
He dismissed me, she thought incredulously. He kidnapped me, imprisoned me, and now he’s just walked away.
Unbelievable, she thought. Unbelievable!
Twenty minutes later he walked out on to the patio where Leandra sat at an ironwork table, nerves still shot to pieces. Suddenly she had something else to make her breathing ragged. Her eyes fastened on Theo Atrides and could not move.
Dear God, but he was devastating!
He had obviously had a shower. His dark hair was still damp, gleaming like ebony, and he had changed out of his business suit into casual trousers, immaculately cut, and a polo shirt with a top designer logo discreetly on the pocket. His sunglasses had been discarded and now Leandra could get the full glory of those powerful, hooded eyes surveying her as he approached.
Just as he reached the table and sat down opposite her the elderly housekeeper emerged from the living room immediately behind the patio, carrying a tray with a glass of beer on it and a pot of filter coffee.
Theo nodded at her, signing a brief response which made her smile and nod before backing away.
‘Agathias is deaf,’ said Theo, draining a generous portion of his beer as if he needed it, indicating to Leandra that she should help herself to coffee. ‘So is her husband Yiorgos.’
‘So I discovered,’ Leandra said repressively. ‘How very convenient to hire gaolers who can’t hear their prisoners demanding to be released!’
The night-dark eyes flashed at her.
‘As a non-hearing couple, especially of their generation, they find it easier not to be always amongst hearing people. This island they look after for me is a haven for them. But they will return to stay with their family on the mainland when the weather worsens in winter. And they are not, Ms Ross, my hired gaolers!’
‘You just admitted this was your island!’ Leandra shot back.
‘Yes,’ said Theo heavily, ‘this is my island. But Agathias and Yiorgos are not here to be gaolers, only caretakers. All they know about you is that you were carried in from the helicopter insensible.’ His jaw tightened. ‘I’m afraid Agathias assumed you were drunk.’
An outraged expression formed on Leandra’s face.
‘Drunk?’ she said furiously. ‘I was drugged, Mr Atrides! Abducted from Edgware Road and forcibly knocked out! Don’t even think of making out that I was drunk!’
‘Of course I don’t think you were drunk! I know perfectly well what happened to you.’
Her eyes widened, her expression instantly accusing.
‘My God, so it was you who did it! It was you all along!’
A rasp sounded in his throat. ‘No! I had nothing to do with this, Ms Ross. Absolutely nothing!’
She looked across the table at him, lips thinning.
‘Oh? Then who, pray, is responsible? Do tell me!’ she enquired venomously.
For a long moment he just looked at her.
‘It was my grandfather,’ he said quietly.
She started. ‘Your grandfather? Is he completely mad?’
Theo sighed sharply and reached for his beer again. ‘Not mad, no. But old, Ms Ross, nearing the end of his life.’
He looked at her directly. She looked nothing like the way she had at the gala, hanging on to Demos’s sleeve!
The memory, which also sent an unwanted kick through his system, reminded him of why he was here. The only reason he was here. To separate her from Demos—and not he reprimanded himself grimly, to wonder how it was that her eyes could shift from amber to gold, then back to amber…
‘My grandfather is determined not to die before he sees my cousin marry. Demos must surely have told you that he will shortly be marrying a Greek girl?’
He watched her face closely as he spoke. Had Demos told her, or was she wallowing in ignorance of the fact that their affair was going to hit a brick wall any time now?
For her part, Leandra was wondering how best to react. It had just dawned on her that she was going to have to stay in character as Demos’s mistress—or completely destroy the whole charade. She thought fast. If she had been Demos’s mistress, would he have told her about Sofia?
She gave a little shrug. ‘I know his family want him to marry,’ she returned. ‘But that’s up to Demos, isn’t it?’
Her answer was a clear provocation, and Theo took it as such. He ignored her jibe and ploughed on.
‘My grandfather is an old, sick man, Ms Ross, who has had much grief in his life. In his…urgency…to hasten the wedding he…’ Theo chose his words carefully, as if he were conducting a press interview with news-hungry journalists ‘…may have overstepped the mark in this instance.’
Leandra felt a spurt of anger. Overstepped the mark? Abducting and imprisoning her was ‘overstepping the mark’?
‘He had me kidnapped!’ she threw at him fiercely.
Theo’s face was unreadable. In his time he’d struck deals worth billions—and he knew how to conceal his feelings when he had to.
‘That’s a very harsh word, Ms Ross,’ he said temporisingly.
‘It’s a very true one!’ she whipped back.
He drank some more of his beer, giving himself time before making his next move. Leandra watched him, eyes narrowed.
‘Ms Ross—’ Theo moved in again ‘—I freely admit there has been a gross error committed. You have, most inadvertently, been subjected to an experience which has, I don’t doubt, been very distressing…’
Right now, he thought privately, she looked about as distressed as a hangman—eyeing him up as her next customer!
Compunction filled him. She had every right to be angry, he knew. Milo had behaved unforgivably. But he had to persuade her not to press charges.
To that end he was prepared to offer her very substantial compensation—providing she also agreed to end her liaison with Demos. Then, at last, he could get Leandra Ross out of his hair and out of his life!
He opened his mouth to start working towards the offer he was prepared to make.
She pre-empted him totally.
‘I don’t care, Mr Atrides, who gave the orders to bring me here! I just want out. OK? As in out right now. Tonight.’ Her demand was crisp, clear, and very insistent.
His expression hardened instantly.
‘That’s impossible, I’m afraid,’ he said immediately.
The amber eyes flashed. He wished she wouldn’t do that. It distracted him, and he needed his wits about him now. He didn’t need to know how anger made her eyes glitter like gold.
Her riposte came swiftly.
‘You flew yourself in, now you can fly me out. Simple.’
‘Not simple at all,’ he retorted dismissively. ‘The helicopter needs refuelling, it’s getting too late to fly, I haven’t checked out the weather forecast, or logged a return flight with Athens air traffic control, and finally—’ he held up a hand decisively ‘—I am in no mood whatsoever to go anywhere else today!’
Leandra’s face whitened and her fingers gripped convulsively at the table surface. ‘But I’ve got to get away from here! I’ve got to! I absolutely demand that you fly me back to Athens immediately and put me on a plane to London!’
There was a note of panic in her voice, beneath the peremptory order, but Theo ignored it. He was in no mood to do anything other than keep to his firm intention of staying right where he was. He pushed away his empty glass and got to his feet.
‘I do not respond to orders—or pleading. No one is going anywhere tonight, and that is final! Now, if you will excuse me, I must contact my office. Please feel free to enjoy the facilities of my island.’ An ironic gleam showed in his eyes. ‘You may roam at will—be my guest.’
He strolled off, oblivious to the choking sound of Leandra Ross spitting with fury behind him at his parting jibe.
‘Agathias will serve dinner in an hour,’ he threw over his shoulder. ‘Do not be late.’
He disappeared inside the villa and Leandra was left fuming disbelievingly. She was going to be stuck here all night with the insufferable Theo Atrides!
The prospect appalled her.
Changing for dinner did not take Leandra long. After showering in the en suite bathroom in her bedroom she could not face putting on the clothes she had worn for nearly two days. But the only other garment she could find was a thin, silky wrap hanging on the back of the bathroom door. Her lips compressed. Presumably it had been left by a former female visitor to the island.
It was pretty obvious to her now just what this island was all about! This must be where Theo Atrides took his high-profile celebrity lovers when they wanted to get away from the flashbulbs of the paparazzi. With only an elderly deaf couple to look after them, they could be as private as they liked.
She tugged the belt of the wrap tight. Well, Theo Atrides’s glittering sex-life was nothing to do with her. His only use was to airlift her back to Athens.
Unfortunately, if she didn’t want to starve, it looked as if she was going to have to put up with his company for dinner. Defiantly she padded down the corridor on bare feet and into the dining room which opened, she discovered, off the living room.
As she walked in Theo glanced round from opening a bottle of wine.
He stilled totally.
Leandra Ross stood on the far side of the room, wearing nothing but a thigh-length silk wrap belted so tightly at the waist that each breast was moulded in all its glory beneath the taut material. Her long hair streamed over her shoulders, loosed like liquid gold against the scarlet of the skimpy robe. From beneath its short hem her slender legs were like creamy silk. Her feet, arched and narrow, were bare.
Instinctively, just as it had when he had first set eyes on her at the charity gala, Theo felt his body responding to the vision she presented. Desire, hard and insistent, kicked in his guts.
Then another, dampening reaction set in.
Christos, but she was a fast worker!
His mouth twisted cynically. Did she think she could flash her body to get him to fly her back tonight? Was that what this tempting display was all about?
A contemptuous glint showed in his eyes. Or was she after something more than a ride back to Athens? Well, if she thought she could manipulate him the way she ran circles round Demos she was in for a rude surprise. He chose the women he bedded—they didn’t choose him! And, however tempting a morsel Leandra Ross was, he had no intention—none whatsoever—of making this hellish mess even more complicated than it was already! The only relationship he wanted with her was via his chequebook. Clean and simple.
Even thinking of anything else was sheer lunacy!
From her side of the table Leandra saw the expression in his eyes. She bristled instantly.
He’s doing it again! Looking at me like I’m trash!
Did he think she was wearing this wrap thing on purpose? Only hunger kept her from bolting back to her room. Defiantly she flashed a scintillating smile at him, as false as it was dazzling, and took her place at the table. What did she care what Theo Atrides thought? He was nothing to her!
There was a caustic look on his hard, handsome face as he sat down opposite her.
If he had been going to comment on her appearance he was prevented by the arrival of Agathias, entering through the door leading to the corridor and the kitchen beyond, carrying a tray bearing bowls of soup which she placed on the burnished table. The smell of food drove away everything else from Leandra’s mind and, hardly waiting before Agathias had put a bowl of the creamy liquid before her, she set to.
She ate fast, driven by hunger. Besides, the soup was delicious. So, too, was the delicately flavoured fish which followed. Not bothering to speak to her dining companion, Leandra cleared her plate completely, reaching for a hunk of bread from the basket between her and her host and mopping up the last of the delicious juices. Eating had made her almost forget that she was dining in Theo Atrides’s utterly unwelcome company.
Agathias arrived to clear the table, bringing coffee with her. Then she bustled out, leaving them alone once more.
Theo poured out more wine, refilling Leandra’s glass. She realised, to her dismay, that she’d drunk rather more than she’d realised. Determinedly she ignored the wine glass and poured herself some coffee.
She felt better now, on a full stomach. The last of the drug seemed to have cleared from her system and her headache was gone. Maybe her mood was better because this time tomorrow she’d be back in London—to sanity.
A shudder went through her. The whole thing had been the most hideous ordeal! Now, calm and well fed, with a large glass of wine inside her, she was filled with incredulity that Demos’s grandfather should have committed a criminal act and had her kidnapped.
Even so, her sense of fairness interposed, and she had to concede that no actual harm had come to her. Maybe, she thought unwillingly, she had overreacted when Theo had stepped out of that helicopter. She squirmed mentally as she recalled how she had gone berserk at him. After all, she thought grudgingly, he had flown straight out to take her back to London, and he did seem pretty appalled by what his grandfather had done.
‘Mr Atrides,’ she began, her voice slightly husky with nerves, ‘I want to apologise for the way I behaved when you arrived. I…I was…very frightened…very confused…I…I didn’t know what had happened to me…’
She trailed off. There was a closed look on his face—as though, she thought, he was evaluating what she had said. No, she amended, as if he were evaluating why she had just said what she had.
It confused her, making her stare at him wide-eyed, wondering what was going on in his mind.
Then, in a very foreign gesture, he gave a shrug, his broad shoulders moving with perfect musculature beneath the material of his polo shirt, stretched tautly across his chest. The movement distracted her, making her realise just how very perfect that pectoral musculature was. No running to seed for this captain of industry! However he kept fit, he kept very fit indeed…
She snapped her mind back to what he was saying.
‘Please, do not apologise. It was perfectly understandable.’
The handsome acceptance of her expression of regret was so astonishing that Leandra simply stared at him. There was something different about him suddenly, she realised, and then worked out what it was. The cynical look in his eye had disappeared. The expression in it now was bland.
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