The Konstantos Marriage Demand (13 page)

‘And if I hadn’t done what I did then you would have lost everything. As it was, you were at least left with the Atlantis.’

As she named the one rather run-down hotel that was all her father had let Nikos and his family keep from their ruined estates, she knew that she had hit home. If her words had been a slap in his face, then he couldn’t have reacted more strongly. His whole body stilled in the water, his face freezing into a hard, set façade that gave away nothing of what he was thinking.

‘And what do you know about the Atlantis?’

But the sense of injustice that had buoyed her up until now had abruptly deserted Sadie, taking all her courage with it. She couldn’t take any more, couldn’t face that ruthlessly probing look, the way that his amazing eyes seemed to burn right into her.

‘Enough,’ was all she could manage, and at the sight of his frown, the way that his mouth opened to demand more of an answer, her nerve broke completely and she made a swift dive into the water, kicking out her legs and turning to swim away, heading for the far side of the pool as fast as she could.

But of course Nikos came after her, his stronger stroke and more powerful muscles driving him through the water so that he came up behind her fast, long arms reaching out to grab at
her. He caught her just as she was about to scramble up the ladder on to the side, hauling her back against him and twisting her round in his arms so that she was forced to face him.

‘Explain,’ he snarled, issuing an order with no doubt at all that it would be obeyed.

But Sadie’s throat seemed to have closed up over the words she needed and she couldn’t get them out. She could only shake her head in despair, sending her soaking wet hair flying so that drops of water spun off and landed on Nikos’s face, close to his eyes. He dashed them away with a brusque movement of his head, refusing to let go of her arms in order to brush them aside. Instead his grip around her arms tightened and he gave her a rough little shake, pushing her to give him the answer he wanted.

‘Explain,’ he said again, and to her astonishment just a little of the attacking quality had gone out of his voice. ‘What you are saying doesn’t make sense. When your father set out to bring down the Konstantos Corporation, he damn nearly succeeded. In fact, we thought that he had done just that—taken everything. It was only later—after…’

Again he made a slight adjustment, as if there was something he was covering up, hiding from her.

‘Afterwards that I discovered Carteret had not quite managed to take everything. There was one little piece of the company left—something that had either been too small or, in his mind, not important enough to bother with…’

As he paused to stare into her eyes, Sadie found the strength to fill in the gap.

‘The Atlantis.’

Nikos nodded sombrely, his eyes never leaving her face. But she felt the way his hard grip on her arms had eased and knew it meant his mood had changed.

‘And you can only know about this because you were
somehow involved in making sure that it was still ours. That it was the one thing your father didn’t get his hands on.’

It was a statement not a question. His tone of voice and the dark-eyed look was levelled on her face told her that he already knew the answer but he wanted her to confirm it.

‘Yes.’

As she nodded her head in response, she suddenly felt a rush of pride and determination come back to bring new strength to her mind and body.

‘Yes, I was involved. I could have saved the island for you—my father actually gave me the choice, and I considered it at first—but at the time I felt choosing the one small hotel that was the other thing he had been prepared to concede might actually be more practical help than the sentimental attachment you had to Icaros. And I was right, wasn’t I?’

Nikos nodded slowly, his expression unreadable, bronze eyes clouded and hooded, hiding his real feelings from her.

‘You were right.’

‘Of course I was right—and bloody stupid at the same time. I knew you and so I chose the Atlantis, giving you at least a small business—something to keep you and the Konstantos Corporation one step away from complete bankruptcy. I chose that and I gave you a small start on the path to building your fortune back up again. Of course I didn’t know how quickly and easily you would do it. Or how you would then use all that you’d gained—all the money, all the power—to turn the tables on me and my family. To have your revenge—’

‘My revenge on your father,’ Nikos put in, but she was too caught up in what she was saying, fighting too hard against the tide of pain and bitter memories that threatened to swamp her, to hear what he was saying or to understand the tone in which he’d said it.

‘And then when you’d succeeded in getting back everything
you’d ever lost—and more—when you’d finished taking your revenge on my father—when he was dead and free from your cruel quest for vengeance—that was when Fate really dealt you an ace card. Because when you moved to take possession of Thorn Trees you just thought that you were going to throw us out. That you would kick us out of the family home and never see any of the damn Carterets any more. But of course I had to go and turn up in your office, begging for a chance to stay in the house—offering to do anything. And that…’

Her voice cracked on the words so that she had to struggle to go on.

‘And that was when you decided you could have it all. The money, the businesses, the house—and the ultimate satisfaction: your final, personal revenge on me.’

Nikos’s hands had fallen from her arms, setting her free, and so now, unable to bear the closeness to him any longer, she pulled away, swallowing hard to fight against the tears clogging her throat.

‘Well, you got what you wanted, Nikos—every last little bit of it. Two days ago you said that you weren’t satisfied—that the revenge you’d taken hadn’t been enough. Well, I hope to hell you’re satisfied now—you damn well ought to be, because to be honest there’s nothing left for you to take!’

She had to get away. Had to. If she stayed any longer then she was going to give herself away completely. Eyes stinging, vision blurred, she somehow managed to find the ladder out of the pool and scrambled up it.

‘No!’

But Nikos was only seconds behind her, vaulting out of the water and coming after her. He quickly caught up with her, grabbing her arm again to whirl her round to face him.

‘No, you’re wrong. Revenge doesn’t come into it any more.’

‘It doesn’t?’

‘No. It may have started that way but along the way things changed.’

‘Changed how?’

Nikos’s mouth twisted slightly, and just for a moment that clear golden gaze didn’t quite meet hers.

‘Along the way I abandoned revenge for something far more basic.’

Sadie frowned her confusion.

‘Basic? So tell me what is more “basic” than revenge?’

Nikos didn’t answer. But then he didn’t have to. Looking into his eyes, Sadie saw just what he meant. It was written there, clear and plain to see.

What was a more basic drive than revenge? There was just one answer. Lust. Physical desire. Sexual passion. That was what had driven him from the start and what was still behind everything he did. An intense, searing physical need that obliterated everything else, burning it up in its heat. She recognised that, and understood it. Because didn’t she feel the same whenever he touched her? Hadn’t she just been so driven out of her mind with the same overwhelming hunger that she had let him take her on the desk in his office without a hint of a thought?

‘So…’ Her throat was painfully dry, cracking on the single word. ‘So the whole story of a fiancée?’

‘I told you. It was a pretence from start to finish. It had to be.’

Nikos dropped his head, resting his forehead on Sadie’s so that his eyes burned into her from mere inches away.

‘How could there be someone else when I never got you out of my head? You ruined me for any other woman. You got under my skin and I never got rid of you.’

‘No—no one else?’

That was so much more than she had ever anticipated that her head swam under the impact of it.

‘How could I kiss you like this…?’

His mouth took hers, slow and sensual, heating her blood in an instant and making her sway unsteadily on her feet.

‘…if there was anyone else? How could I touch you…?’

If his kiss had been a sensual assault then his caress, the way his hands swept over her body, was like throwing a lighted match on to bone-dry tinder, making her skin flame in a second, setting her pulse racing between one uneven breath and another.

‘And how could I ever think of taking another woman to my bed when the only one I ever wanted is right here…?’

The one woman I have ever planned on marrying is you.

The words that Nikos had spoken in his office came back to tempt and torment her. Tempting because she so wanted them to be true. Tormenting because she could scarcely begin to imagine that he could actually mean them.

And yet when she had insisted that he tell her about his imaginary fiancée—oh, dear heaven—he had also said:
She is the only woman I have ever wanted to marry.

Was the world really spinning round her as she felt it was? Had she been out in the sun too long? Or was it really possible…? Could she believe a word he was saying?

But then Nikos took her lips again and she suddenly knew with a sense of total conviction that deep down she really didn’t care. All she needed, all she ever wanted most in the world, was right here before her in the shape of this man. The man she had fallen for five years before. And she had never managed to recover from that infatuation ever since.

She was sinking deep into the spell of sensuality he was weaving, definitely going down for the third time. But at the same time a tiny, barely audible voice of instinct was whispering inside her head that there was something wrong, something missing, but she couldn’t begin to think what. And quite frankly she didn’t even want to try.

His hands were hot on her body, smoothing over the tingling flesh exposed by her plain black swimming costume. The stretchy material had almost totally dried in the sun, but the heat of the day was as nothing when compared with the flames that were flaring inside, burning her up with the yearning need that he could create so easily. One broad palm cupped her breast, the thumb stroking wickedly erotic circles over her nipple so that she shuddered in uncontrolled response, feeling that she might actually collapse into a molten pool right at his feet. Against her stomach she could feel the hard ridge of his erection, and moist heat flooded between her legs in response.

‘So…’

Nervously, she slicked her tongue over her lips to moisten them enough to get the words she needed out of her mouth.

‘So—when we first met—would you have married me?’

‘Hell, yes. I’d have done anything to get you into my bed.’

That scorching, exciting mouth was doing amazing things to her. Tracing a burning path down her throat, over the exposed slope of her breast. When it caught one pouting nipple into its moist heat, suckling it through the black material of her costume, she cried aloud in response to the stinging pleasure-pain that sizzled through every nerve, destroying thought, leaving only space in her mind for the throbbing need she couldn’t deny.

‘Do you doubt it?’ Nikos questioned against her skin, his breath on the question feathering over the moistened nipple, making it burn with even greater need.

‘No…’

It was a moan of response and she shook her head vigorously, well past the point of being able to think about doubting anything. Her world was made up of just three things—herself, this man, and the wild sexual hunger that was blazing between them.

‘Then come with me now—come back to my bed,
glikia mou,
and let me show you exactly what I mean.’

She meant to answer, Sadie told herself. She had to answer—because there was only one possible response she could give him. But she wasn’t completely sure whether the wild, fervent
yes
that was burning in her thoughts had actually translated itself into sound or not.

But obviously it had—or it just didn’t matter and the way that she returned his kiss gave Nikos the answer he’d been waiting for. Because he didn’t ask any more questions or hesitate for a second. Instead he swung her up off her feet and into his arms and carried her out of the blazing sun into the coolness of the house and up the stairs, heading for his bedroom.

T
HE LATE MORNING
sun coming through the window and onto her face finally dragged Sadie from the deep, exhausted sleep into which she had fallen well after midnight. Yawning and stretching, she felt the faint aches in her body after the night of passion she had shared with Nikos.

A long, long night of passion that had followed on from the equally ardent afternoon they had spent in bed too. At some point they had emerged to eat a meal, drink some wine, but the food had barely been touched before Nikos had leaned across the table, catching her chin in his hand and drawing her face towards him to plant another long, lingering kiss on her partly open mouth. Sadie had responded with equal enthusiasm, and soon they had abandoned all pretence of wanting to eat and headed back to the bedroom.

She could still feel the places where Nikos had kissed her, caressed her, finding pleasure spots she hadn’t known existed, opening a world of sensual delights to her with every second that had passed. The scent of his body still permeated the sheets, and if she rolled over she could see the indentation on the pillows where his head had rested when they had finally succumbed to sleep.

And she could even still taste him on her mouth. If she
licked her lips then her tongue caught the faint flavour of Nikos’s skin, the salty tang of his sweat, the deeply personal memory of his tongue tangling intimately with hers.

Sighing contentedly, she stretched again, savouring the memory that the taste brought back to her.

The taste of her first, her one and only lover.

The taste of the one man she had ever loved.

Her heart kicked hard and sharp at the thought, pushing her upright in the bed, staring sightlessly out of the window to where the clear blue Aegean Sea lapped lazily against the shoreline below.

The one man she had ever loved and the one man she still loved with all her heart.

She drew in a sharp, raw-edged breath at the realisation that this was how it was, and nothing she could do would ever change it. She had fallen head over heels in love with Nikos in the first moment she had met him and nothing had changed since. All that had happened, all that had come between them, had never managed to destroy the way she felt, even when she’d believed it had. Deep in her heart, the feelings had remained just the same. She still loved him; she would always love him.

And Nikos?

Now she realised just what she had been trying to grasp hold of in her mind yesterday by the pool, when Nikos’s kisses and caresses had driven her so distracted with need that she hadn’t been able to think of her own name, let alone grasp the elusive, whispering little voice that had tried to warn her that not all was well. That there was something she really should be thinking of before she jumped in too deep and let the dark waters of sexuality close right over her head.

Now, too late, she knew what it was—and she also knew that it meant that her life would never be the same. She also knew that it had been too late yesterday, too late from the
moment she had confronted Nikos in his London office, seeing him again for the first time. Too late to go back to her old way of life, to managing to live without Nikos in it, without knowing that she still loved him. From the moment she had set eyes on him again she had fallen right back in love with him—though in those first days she had never realised the truth.

If, in fact, she had ever really fallen out of love with him. She had been terrified of being in love with a man who didn’t love her at all. And so she had forced herself to believe that she hated him because it was safer for her, easier that way.

‘Safer!’

Sadie actually spoken the word aloud, the way she was feeling turning it into a sound of shaken laughter.
Safer
just didn’t come into it.
Safer
wasn’t possible. Because the truth was that she had done exactly that, no matter how careful her personal safeguards had been.

She was in love with Nikos Konstantos and Nikos…Well, Nikos
wanted
her. He desired her intensely sexually; she could be in no doubt about that. He had spent last night and half of yesterday proving just that to her. He might even want to marry her. But only to get her into his bed and keep her there. He’d said as much yesterday.

‘Hell, yes. I’d have done anything to get you into my bed.’

But he had spoken no word of love. Had never shown any sign of even considering that such an emotion existed. And probably, for Nikos, it never had. He had never loved her in the past, didn’t love her now. And there was no hope that he would ever come to love her at any time in the future—if they had one together.

‘Oh, Nikos!’

Sighing, Sadie forced herself to throw back the covers and get out of bed. What was it they said about the cold light of dawn? Yesterday had been wonderful, the night a sensual fan
tasy come true. But now, with the morning light shining bright on the new day, and with Nikos no longer in her bed to kiss her distracted, keep her thoughts from the ‘what nexts’ and ‘if onlys’ that plagued her, she was forced to face the probability that last night had not been a beginning, a start to a future, but instead a one-off final fling.

Wasn’t it far more likely that Nikos had seen last night as a way, as he had said, ‘to deal with what is between us’? To get her out of his system once and for all. He had made no promise, offered her nothing else. And she would be all kinds of a fool if she looked for anything.

But for now she’d take what was on offer, she resolved as she headed for the bathroom and the shower. The truth was that she was weak enough to admit to settling for anything. Just one more day…just one more time…

That phrase was still repeating inside her head when, fresh from her shower, naked and with dripping hair, she wandered back into the bedroom. Only to stop dead at the sight of the dark figure standing by the window.

‘Nikos!’

With the sun blazing behind him, his imposing frame was just a black silhouette, his face a shadowed blank. But there was something about the way he stood, a tension in the broad shoulders under the soft blue linen shirt, in the way his hands were pushed deep into the pockets of his pale trousers, that warned her about his mood. He was not here for light conversation, and if she was any judge he was definitely not here to resume the lovemaking that had occupied so much of the night.

‘What is it?’ she asked sharply in the same moment that he spoke too.

‘We need to talk.’

It clashed with her own words, but she caught it and it sent her spirits, already only precariously balanced between good
and low, plummeting right down on to the floor beneath her bare feet. How many ominous, difficult conversations had begun with just those words?
We need to talk
implied that something had gone wrong—or was about to go wrong.

But what?

‘OK.’

It was all she could manage, and in a way that was totally ridiculous after the night they had just spent together she found herself wishing that she had wrapped a towel around her before she had left the bathroom. Standing here like this, totally naked, she felt so vulnerable and exposed, needing to hide. She certainly didn’t feel up to any ‘we need to talk’ type of discussion anyway.

‘Not like this. Get some clothes on first.’

Obviously Nikos felt the same about her appearance. Which should have been a relief but, in fact, only added to her tension. Last night, nothing would have distracted him from the fact that she was naked—or from taking full advantage of it. Now it was an awkward obstacle in the way of what he wanted to get done.

Which didn’t promise well for this talk.

‘Of course.’

But her clothes were in her room, not here in Nikos’s bedroom where they had spent the night.

‘I’ll…’

But Nikos was already moving, heading for the door as if he couldn’t get out of there quickly enough.

‘I’ll be in my office,’ he tossed over his shoulder at her.

‘I’ll be there.’

Somehow Sadie managed to keep her tone buoyant, when in fact, it should have been sinking with her spirits. She had admitted to herself that she expected her dismissal from his life to come sooner rather than later, but not this soon. She
doubted if Nikos even heard her anyway, as the door swung to behind his hasty exit.

He was a fool, Nikos told himself as he headed for the stairs, the pace of his steps matching the state of his thoughts. A stupid, total fool and he had just proved it to himself.

He should have known. He did know, damn it! He’d left Sadie sleeping in his bed this morning and she had been totally naked then. And then, when he had gone into the room and heard the shower running in the bathroom, any idiot would have assumed that when she emerged she was not likely to be wearing any clothes.

But he had not been thinking straight. With his mind so full of the news he had been given this morning, he hadn’t been thinking about anything else at all. And so when Sadie had finally emerged, beautifully naked, with her soft skin still pink and glowing from the shower, the sight had hit him like a blow to his already unfocussed head. And that was something he didn’t need. In two ways.

He already had the image of Sadie’s naked body in his mind.
Gamato
, after last night he knew that it was etched there permanently, never to be erased. If he had hoped that the sensory indulgence of the past eighteen hours or so would sate him on her charms and leave him free to live his life again, then he had been very badly mistaken. There was no way he was sated at all. The truth was that he doubted if he ever would be. There was no way he could have enough of Sadie Carteret, and one passionate night of total abandon had done nothing to appease the appetite he had for her.

If anything, it had only whetted it so that he was far hungrier now than he had ever been in the years they had been apart.

And that was why the article he had read in the English gossip columns had sent his mental temperature soaring, making any sort of rational thought impossible.

‘Gamoto!’

It was also impossible to sit down and wait for Sadie to appear. The thought that he might have actually started to trust her when the truth was that he was being led around by his nose—or another part of his anatomy—twisted cruelly in his guts.

She was down quicker than he had anticipated. And where he had been sure that, realising something was up, she would dress carefully for maximum impact—something like the fantasy come true of that red dress came to mind—he found he couldn’t have been more wrong.

Sadie had clearly rushed into her clothes, grabbing at the first thing that came to hand. And the first thing was a pair of worn denim jeans and a plain white v-necked tee shirt, her face clear of any make-up, pale against the still-damp darkness of her hair. Not that it helped any. The truth was that she was hellishly sexy in anything. And with the memory of her gloriously naked body in his arms, in his bed—underneath him, warm and willing all through the night and again in the bedroom just now—he had to make a fearsome effort to keep his eyes on her face. Because it was her face that he needed to see. He needed to look into her eyes, read her expression. That way he might have some chance of finding out what was going on in her conniving little mind.

‘What is it?’

So she was going for wide-eyed innocence. With just a touch of defiance. It was the look she’d had on her face the last time he’d seen her five years before. He didn’t want to look too closely at the memories that dredged up.

The newspaper was still lying on the desk, exactly as he had left it to go upstairs. He picked it up and tossed it towards her.

‘Read that.’

He knew exactly the moment she registered what the photograph showed by the way that the colour shifted in her face
and she bit down hard on her lower lip, white teeth digging into the soft pink. With an effort Nikos suppressed an urge to go to her and tell her to stop, to run his thumb over the damage she was inflicting on herself.

‘Well?’ he barked, when she had obviously taken in all she needed to, had dropped the paper back on to the desk and was preparing her answer.

‘Well, what?’

What did he expect her to say? Sadie asked herself. And, perhaps more to the point, was there really any point in saying anything? From the thunderous dark frown on his face, he had clearly already tried her, acting as judge and jury, found her guilty and was now prepared to pronounce sentence.

‘I don’t know anything about this.’

A wave of her hand indicated the incriminating photograph. And she had to admit that she understood only too well just why he was so angry.

She had come downstairs, feeling shaken and on edge, apprehensive as to what was ahead of her. From the mood Nikos was in it was obvious that something had gone terribly wrong, though she had no idea what. The only thing that she could think of was that Nikos had had second thoughts about the passion they had shared in the night and was going to tell her it was all over. That had been bad enough. But this she was totally unprepared for.

‘I
don’t!
’ she repeated when he turned a frankly sceptical look on her, making it plain that he had no intention of believing a word she said.

The picture was of the two of them in Cambrelli’s just a few nights before. And it had been taken in the moment that she had leaned forward, stretched out a hand to touch him. She hadn’t actually made contact at the time, but from the angle the photograph had been taken it looked as if she had. And in
the way their heads were inclined towards each other, eyes locked, seeing nothing else, no one else, the picture seemed to tell a story. A totally inaccurate story, but one that was encapsulated in the headline that ran along the top of the page.

‘Together again!’ it read, and the rest of the short article interpreted the scene in the way that she supposed it must have looked to an outsider. The sexy Greek billionaire and his marriage-shy ex-fiancée seemed to be back together, it claimed. They had met for a secret tryst in a down-market restaurant where they’d appeared to be getting closer by the second.