Kidnapped by the Greek Billionaire

Kidnapped

by the

Greek Billionaire

Rachel Lyndhurst

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2012 by Rachel Lyndhurst. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

2614 South Timberline Road

Suite 109

Fort Collins, CO 80525

Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com
.

Edited by Alethea Spiridon Hopson

Cover design by Liz Pelletier

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition February 2012

For Colin, my hero

Chapter One

“Damn this place!”

Andreas Lazarides stared up through the Bentley’s dark-tinted windows into a dull London sky. His driver was parked illegally, his delegates were late and he was in danger of forgetting how much he stood to gain by courting this parliamentary lobbying group.

He
hated
it when people were late.

As he sat there,
waiting
, Andreas realized with disbelief that this was his second no-show in the capital that morning.

He made a grab for his briefcase as a police officer indicated they should move immediately. His chauffeur turned the key in the ignition and waited expectantly.

“Okay, I’ll get out here and call when I need you back.”

Andreas glared as the car’s red taillights disappeared into traffic. His hand tightened into a fist; his cell phone was still on the back seat of the Bentley. He inhaled savagely as he pictured his already tight schedule being squeezed. And none of this was his fault.

“Bloody politicians,” he muttered as he glanced across the river to Big Ben. His annoyance intensified into volcanic exasperation as the first warm, heavy drops of a summer storm began to spatter the shoulders of his Canali suit.

Stalking across the gritty pavement, Andreas Lazarides cursed every atom on earth that had brought him to this particular place and time.

…

The secretary was immaculately dressed and coiffured, and her huge white reception desk was equally intimidating. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Miss Dean, but the senior partner left the building some time ago.”

Kizzy Dean felt her stomach churn with panic. There had to be some mistake. “But I have an appointment, a long-standing one. It’s taken me over two months to get a meeting, in fact, I—”

“You’re late,” the other woman snapped. She returned the passport Kizzy had been instructed to bring along as ID. Her long, red nails reflected the cold neon strip light overhead. “Ten minutes late, to be precise.”

Kizzy felt heat flood her cheeks as their eyes locked in a silent impasse. Clearly, it would be a waste of breath to try to explain that her train journey had taken four hours instead of two due to a bomb scare. Her obsessive forward planning had failed spectacularly and she was, as had been so sharply pointed out, a full
ten minutes late
.

And she was never,
ever
late.

Kizzy’s eyes fell helplessly to the secretary’s gilt nameplate on the desk. Nervously, she fingered the envelope in her hand. Things were starting to go terribly wrong. It felt as though she were slipping off the edge of a cliff; she needed to take action to save herself. And fast.

“Listen, Mrs. Hoppenwilde,
Isabella
, this really isn’t my fault and in the light of this letter it’s imperative that I speak with him immediately.” Kizzy battled inwardly with her pride; she hated having to beg. But what choice did she have? “Please. Is there
anything
you can do to help me?”

“I’m afraid not. By my calculations, he’ll be on his first glass of champagne one hundred meters up on the London Eye, and he’s due to leave London immediately after that engagement.” Isabella Hoppenwilde regarded her frostily. Her thin smile verged on the sadistic. “Looks like you’ve had it.”

…

Kizzy fought to steady her breathing and palmed the weave of her skirt, willing it down another discreet inch or two to cover the snag her hosiery had sustained on the London Underground.

She was still struggling with what she had read in the dark oak-paneled offices of Heliades International Inc., the chilling words that had made her chase like a lunatic across London toward the river Thames
.
The words that meant she had no choice in the drastic step she was about to take, because she had nothing left in the world to lose.

Her frantic bolt to the London Eye—where she now stood, staring up at the wheel—had left her feeling disheveled and clammy, her heavy woolen suit an instrument of torture. The tweedy garment was the only suitable business attire she owned and the last of her funds had been sunk into the new stilettos she was wearing.

And now those new stilettos really hurt.

Kizzy glanced down at her pointy toes and wondered if she dared slip her heels off for a moment, but she forgot her discomfort when she noticed once more the large white envelope protruding from her bag. Its forbidding, formal whiteness made her heart flood with dread.

Tearing her eyes away, she looked determinedly up at the colossal ring of glass and steel that held her future, a future for which she intended to fight tooth and nail.

Oh, how she wished she were somewhere else right now.

“Ow!”

Kizzy tottered backward as a large raindrop landed forcefully just beneath her eye, stinging her skin. As her eye began to water, she scrubbed at it angrily in case it ushered along a flood of real tears.

“Here,” came a deep
male
voice from beside her. A blue, folded silk handkerchief was thrust into her hand. “Same thing just happened to me.”

“Please don’t worry.” She instinctively went to push away the offering. “It’s very kind, but—”

The breath stalled in her lungs as her eyes focused on the striking physical embodiment of That Voice. His tall body was all angles, a mass of square and triangular planes of masculinity, which shifted powerfully beneath the fabric of what was obviously a very expensive suit.

As she slowly dared to look up farther, his face was close enough for her to take in every detail.

Her knees went as weak as a newborn lamb’s.

A shock of jet-black hair stroked his smooth caramel-lacquer brow above a pair of assertive eyebrows tapering elegantly over dark onyx eyes that shimmered with tiny flecks of gold, pewter and slate. Briefly, trying not to stare like a schoolgirl, Kizzy’s gaze slid to his aristocratic, almost Roman nose and the terse line of his mouth below it, a mouth that made her tingle with sudden and acute female awareness. Before she could stop herself, her lips parted to exhale a soft, involuntary breath of excitement.

“It’s not contaminated.” He pressed forward the triangle of navy blue silk again and nodded with satisfaction as she took it from him. “You look harassed. Not here for pleasure, then?”

She must look a
mess,
Kizzy realized with horror, and hurriedly swept the handkerchief across her face. She did her best to ignore the trace of male scent within its fibers, though it was difficult.

“I’m trying to find my boss actually; it’s a matter of urgency.”

“Not an MP, is he?” the businessman drawled sardonically. A look of wry amusement briefly softened the harsh perspective of his face as he looked absently around him.

“No.” She handed back the crumpled handkerchief. “He’s a complete and utter bastard.”

A dark eyebrow rose. “Is that so?”

“Sorry—I’m not usually so insulting about people, but this man is different.” Kizzy felt annoyance as the stranger shrugged and rocked back on his heels, clearly unconvinced. “If you must know, this man intends to take my job, my home and my entire future from me. And he hasn’t even got the guts to do it to my face.”

The Suit looked over his shoulder and then at his watch. “He must have his reasons.”

“I doubt if Andreas Lazarides gives a damn about anyone or anything.” She glared angrily up at the gigantic tubular wheel spokes splayed across the sky. “But I’m not giving in without a fight.”

Kizzy glanced across at him as the man squinted into the distance. He must be a big shot in the city, she thought. Smart and gorgeous, but undoubtedly a workaholic judging by the way he seemed to be constantly thinking, analyzing, speculating.

His dark eyes unexpectedly found hers again. “Andreas Lazarides. A Greek bastard, then?”

Kizzy nodded and shot him a crooked smile; his accent was quite compelling.

His own mouth remained stern. “So what’s your name? Miss…?”

She paused for a moment and tried not to be drawn further into the deep mocha swirl of his eyes. His tone had suddenly become a little harsh and her stomach clenched for a second. She needed to be careful. After all, he was a complete stranger.

He could be anyone.

“Isabella,” she murmured, before she could stop herself.

She held out a hand and suppressed a tremor of awareness as his large, warm hand captured hers and held it for a second longer than was absolutely necessary. The sensation rocketed straight to the middle of her chest and seemed to double her heart rate.

“Isabella Hoppenwilde,” she continued, lying instinctively.

The air hung still for a moment and Kizzy was aware of nothing but the way this city Adonis was staring at her, sucking her into the dangerous depths of his eyes, almost undressing her with his unwavering scrutiny.

Perhaps he was waiting for her to ask his name in return?

It would be the polite thing to do. Not that she was feeling particularly polite today, of all days.

“So how are you planning to find him? There are hundreds of people around.” He released her hand. “Unless, of course, he stands out from the crowd in some way.”

“I’m just going to watch while everyone comes off,” Kizzy said feebly, realizing that she had no idea what her quarry looked like. They had never even spoken on the phone, let alone met.

“Well, let me help you spot him,” he offered, much to her surprise. “What does he look like, this Andreas Lazarides?”

“He’s balding and generally surrounded by security staff,” she heard herself bluff shamelessly, not daring to hesitate in case he guessed she was lying. “And he’ll head straight for one of those ostentatious blacked-out vehicles that will be circling the area, a Mercedes or something. Oh yes, and he always struts about in a very pompous, self-important way—his method of compensating for being so short.”

She smiled with satisfaction at the image she had just created. He sounded quite revolting, her Andreas Lazarides.

“Sounds like he may be doing a couple of circuits of the wheel—especially if it’s a boozy corporate do,” the Suit replied and looked coldly skyward as heavy raindrops began to fall faster and closer together. “In which case, you could be standing out in this for an hour. I’ve got a better idea. My party seems to have let me down, and as you will discover,” he gestured toward the embarkation pier where a guide stood next to a silver-wheeled metal case, “the Eye waits for no one.”

She was hit by a rush of adrenaline as he grabbed her hand and pulled her along behind him. Her high heels clattered on the grooved metal plating underfoot as they shot along a roped-off “fast track” route to the front of the queue, netting curious stares and a number of speculative camera flashes as they went.

“No, I can’t!” Kizzy was quickly trying to work out a dignified exit route, a means of escape from a situation that was beginning to feel increasingly dangerous. “My boss—”

“I intend to help you find him.” He broke off briefly to speak into the waiting guide’s ear. “Join me for thirty minutes on the Eye and we’ll spot him while we’re up there. There can’t be too many stack-heeled bastards with receding hairlines per capsule and his henchmen are going to make it obvious where he is.”

“Really…I don’t want to put you out.”

Kizzy was frantically trying to decline his invitation without making a fool of herself. She was going to look completely nuts if she confessed she’d never even met her boss in the flesh.

“It’s moving so slowly, I could lose him if he gets off before us, so—”

She rubbed her brow without even realizing she was doing it, inadvertently revealing her unease.

“That won’t happen.” He tugged her sharply toward an empty capsule. “Now jump!”

The guide swiftly loaded the silver-wheeled box into the capsule and all Kizzy could do was watch the door slide closed as if in a horrible dream.

There was an eerie quietness as the rattle of London life was muffled into submission. Then the crowd outside gradually shrank from view as the Eye continued its relentless journey. Her attention was jolted back from the sight of the world disappearing beneath her feet by the sound of a popping champagne cork. It hit the ceiling and then rolled toward the soles of her uncomfortably shod feet.

“Let’s celebrate,” the dark stranger announced smoothly, handing her a champagne flute, “our chance meeting. Like two planets colliding. The chances of it happening? Slim. The results? Earth-shattering.”

Kizzy felt color warm her cheeks and couldn’t be sure if it was panic because she was alone with—practically kidnapped by, in fact—this incredibly sexy man, or shame at allowing her body to respond to his domineering smile in a way that was most unladylike.

“Thank you,” she murmured. Her fingers curled tightly around the slender champagne flute. “You’re incredibly generous, especially considering I’m a complete stranger.”

“A most beautiful stranger,” he corrected and smiled with obvious satisfaction at the deepening flush of color that accompanied the lowering of her eyelashes. “But, you know, it’s odd. Somehow it feels as if we have known each other for rather longer than five minutes.”