his credentials, and moved on down the drive at a speed greater than he would normally. He wanted this evening over and done with.
CHAPTER FOUR
NIKOS stood in the ornate salon, itching for dinner to be announced. His host seemed to be in no hurry. He was regaling his guest with a lengthy description of his latest toy—a one-hundred-and-fifty-foot yacht which he had just taken delivery of. It was, by all accounts, an opulent vessel, and Yiorgos was telling him in great detail about the splendour of the décor of its interior—and how much it had all cost. The telling seemed to be putting him in a good humour. His colour was high, but his eyes were snapping with satisfaction.
‘And you, my friend,’ he said, slapping Nikos on the back with a still powerful hand, ‘will be the first to try her out! You will spend your honeymoon on it! What do you think of that, eh?’
Nikos smiled briefly. Again, a honeymoon spent on board Yiorgos Coustakis’s new yacht would send just the message to the world he wanted.
‘Good, good,’ said his grandfather-in-law-to-be, and slapped him once more on the back. Then his head snapped round. Automatically Nikos followed his gaze. A servant had opened the double doors to the salon.
A figure stepped through.
It was the flame-haired temptress!
Nikos felt a kick to his gut that was as powerful as it was unwelcome.
What the hell was she doing here?
The woman had paused for a moment in the doorway—making sure all eyes were on her, Nikos thought—and now started to glide forward towards them. Her head was held high—that glorious dark auburn hair twisted up into a topknot that revealed the perfect bone structure of her stunning face.
As for the rest of her…
Nikos felt his breath catch again. The dress was simply breathtaking on her, revealing the lushness of her figure even more generously than the close-fitting jacket had that afternoon. Now, instead of only being able to imagine the rich creaminess of her skin, he could see acres of it displayed for him, from her swan-like neck down across the sculpted beauty of her shoulders, the graceful curve of her bare arms and, best of all, towards the swell of her ripe breasts…
He felt himself ache to caress them…
Like a chill breath on the back of his neck, he felt Yiorgos Coustakis watching him. Watching him lust after his mistress.
Disgust flooded through him. Whatever the hell the old man was playing at, bringing his mistress to dinner, taking pleasure in seeing his guest responding to her lavish charms, he would have none of it! His face hardened.
For Andrea, walking in through the doors and then freezing to a stupefied halt at seeing the very man she had been trying not to think about all evening standing there beside her grandfather, it was like déjà-vu all over again. Just as the first sight of her had brought instant sexual appreciation into the man’s eyes, so, an instant later, that had been replaced by disdain—all over again.
And, just as she had on the terrace, she reacted instinctively. Her chin went up; her eyes glinted dangerously.
She was glad of her anger—it took her mind off the fact that her heart was racing like a rocket and that her eyes were glued to his face.
She stopped, resting her hand on the back of an antique sofa beside her. Her eyes met those of the stranger, defiant and glittering.
‘Well,’ said Yiorgos Coustakis to the man he had chosen to be his son-in-law, ‘what do you think of her?’
What the hell do I say? thought Nikos savagely. He said the only thing he could.
‘As ever, Yiorgos, you have impeccable taste. She is…outstanding.’
They were speaking Greek, Andrea registered. Well, of course they would be! Her eyes flew from one to another.
‘You are to be envied,’ Nikos went on, with gritted politeness, wondering what the hell to say to the old man about the woman he was warming his bed with. Disgust was filling his veins. He wanted out of here—fast.
Yiorgos Coustakis smiled.
‘I give her to you,’ he said. He made a gesture of presentation with his hand. The satisfaction in his voice was blatant.
Nikos froze. What the hell was this? Was this supposed to be some kind of sweetener that the old man imagined he might want in order to bed his plain, sexless granddaughter? If so, he had better extricate himself from the delusion.
‘Your generosity is…overwhelming, Yiorgos,’ he managed to get out. ‘But I cannot accept.’
A look of deliberate astonishment lit Yiorgos Coustakis’s face. ‘How is this?’ he demanded. ‘I thought…’ He paused infinitesimally, milking the pleasure he was getting from the situation to its utmost, watching this arrogant, ambitious pup squirm for one moment longer. ‘That you wanted my granddaughter? That you were impatient to meet her…’
He gave a short laugh, his eyes snapping with malicious pleasure as he watched Nikos’s face change expression as the truth dawned.
‘She is my granddaughter, Nikos—what did you imagine, eh?’ he asked softly.
Only Nikos’s years of self-discipline enabled him to keep his expression steady. Inside, it felt as if the floor had given way beneath him.
‘This is your granddaughter?’ he heard himself say, as if seeking confirmation of the unbelievable.
Yiorgos laughed again, still highly pleased with the joke he had played on the younger man. He knew perfectly well what conclusions he had jumped to when, just as Yiorgos had planned, he had first set eyes on the girl that afternoon, sublimely unaware that the plain-faced fiancée he had been led to expect was no such thing at all.
He glanced across at the girl and beckoned imperiously.
‘Come here,’ he commanded in English.
Andrea walked forward. Her heart was pounding again. She could feel it thrilling in every vein. The man with the steel-grey eyes was looking at her full on, and she was all but knocked senseless by the way he was looking at her—either that or jolted by a million volts of electricity scorching through her.
If she’d thought he’d looked a knock-out that afternoon, in his hand-made business suit, the way he looked now, in his tuxedo, simply took her breath away! She swallowed. This was ridiculous! No man should have such an effect on her! She’d seen good-looking blokes before, been eyed up by them—even kissed some in her time—but never, never had any man made her feel like this.
Breathless, terrified—enthralled. Excited!
Beside the man, her grandfather ceased to exist. She took in a vague impression of a stockily built figure, shoulders bowing with age, and that craggy, heavy-featured face she had registered as he’d sat at his desk that afternoon.
But right now she had no eyes for him.
She was simply drinking in the man at his side—she wanted to stare and stare and stare.
‘My
