out equated with someone being reckless, someone who might at a push get into debt, someone who might resolve the problem by… Stop this, she told herself sternly, you’re getting paranoid.
‘You mean I’m a boring old stick.’ Tom pouted, exploiting his boyish charm for all it was worth.
‘You’re not old…’ Katie protested, subduing a flicker of irritation. ‘Or boring,’ she added hastily. ‘You’re solid and responsible.’
‘That makes me feel a hell of a lot better,’ Tom responded, his charm fading abruptly.
Conscious she had hurt his feelings, Katie tried to soothe his injured pride.
‘Women don’t actually want to marry exciting men,’ Katie told him, believing it. ‘They’re too unreliable.’ She stopped, unhappily aware that she was only making matters worse.
To her relief Tom recovered his humour and laughed loudly.
‘No, they just want to make mad passionate love to them,’ he suggested, thinking she looked especially adorable flushed and confused.
‘Some women might, but not me,’ Katie insisted firmly. ‘Men like that are vain and shallow and only interested in looking cool,’ she sneered.
Tom winced. ‘You’ll not share that with Nikos will you, sweetheart?’
‘I shall hang on his every word like it’s inscribed in stone,’ she promised dutifully, willing to flatter his friend if it made Tom happy.
‘You’ll like him.’
Katie couldn’t hide her scepticism.
‘Women do,’ Tom assured her authoritatively. ‘Actually you’re right, Nik wasn’t in my circles of friends; in fact he was a bit of a loner. He used to ride around on this dirty great motor bike…’
Katie nodded. She was beginning to get the picture, and she didn’t find it comforting. Someone reckless, who liked danger…her imagination had no problem at all picturing Nikos Lakis in motor-bike leathers looking brooding and dangerous.
‘I was there when he swerved to avoid a kid that ran out into the road. I didn’t do much, but he got it into his head that I’d saved his life.’
Katie listened to his modest pronouncement with a tender smile. ‘Which means you probably did.’
‘I only did what anyone else would,’ Tom insisted with a self-deprecating shrug. ‘To be honest I was surprised when he kept in touch after he left. Apparently it caused some almighty family row when he dropped out, but everything’s cosy now. His old man had a heart attack and major bypass surgery a couple of years ago and Nik took over the family firm…they’re a Greek shipping family, though since the seventies they’ve diversified dramatically…They’re billionaires… Are you all right?’ he added, examining her waxily pale face with concern.
Katie took a deep breath and refocused on his anxious face. Relief made her feel quite light-headed. A Greek billionaire’s son! She felt like laughing at her irrational fears. Let him be the biggest bore of the century; it no longer mattered.
‘Fine.’ She lifted her hand briefly to her forehead and felt a light sheen of moisture on her skin. ‘Minor blood-sugar dip, I didn’t have time for lunch today,’ she admitted, making a silent vow to tell Tom the truth before the evening was out.
Tom frowned disapprovingly. ‘They take advantage of you at that place.’ He squeezed her shoulder. ‘Never mind, not long now and you’ll be able to hand in your notice.’
‘Hand in my notice?’ Katie echoed blankly.
Tom laughed. ‘You’ll be far too busy to work when you’re my wife. Of course, if you want to continue with a little charity work…’
Katie could hardly believe what she was hearing—Tom expected her to quit work when they were married! There was no way!
‘You’ve got a bit more colour in your cheeks now,’ he observed, blissfully unaware that it was hostility to her impending retirement that had produced the delicate tinge of creamy rose to her pale honey complexion. ‘Come on, love, the sooner we feed you the better.’
‘And your friend doesn’t like being kept waiting,’ Katie couldn’t prevent herself from adding drily.
His friend called Nikos.
How stupid she’d been to be spooked by a name. There were most probably hundreds—no, thousands of men called Nikos in the world, she told herself as she followed Tom into the dining room.
This isn’t happening!
‘Here she is, Nikos.’ Tom, oblivious to the frozen state of the young woman beside him, proudly pushed her forward. Like a marionette she responded stiffly. ‘This is Katie. Didn’t I tell you she was totally gorgeous and clever too? Come on, sweetheart, don’t be shy…’
Shy? More like paralysed with shock and horror, not to mention being scared witless into the bargain! Oh, God, this meal looked like one she wasn’t likely to forget in a hurry!
If the floor had opened up at her feet Katie would have jumped into the black hole rather than live this moment. Even at the best of times she hated it when Tom introduced her to his friends with this sort of fanfare. Maybe there were women out there who could live up to the sort of lavish build-up he gave her, but Katie knew she wasn’t one of them.
The dark-suited, long-limbed figure rose with languid, almost feral grace to his feet. ‘You did indeed, Tom.’
All thoughts of hallucination vanished. Katie hadn’t heard it for seven years, but the deep, cultured voice was exactly as she recalled it. The bitter-chocolate tone with the merest hint of an accent made goose-bumps break out like a rash over her skin and had, she suspected, some worrying connection with her tingly feelings.
Despite her scornful dismissal, the tingly feelings continued to make their presence felt.
‘Tom’s told me so much about you I feel as though we already know each other.’
Unlike her, Tom didn’t seem to notice the sinister, sardonic edge in the soft words or see the cold hostility in the other man’s remarkable eyes as they roamed casually over her body, lingering longer than was polite on the exposed slopes of her breasts.
Despite the fact disbelief was ricocheting wildly around inside her head, Katie could almost admire his nerve, her own was very near to breaking-point. It wasn’t just not knowing how or why he was here—and that was bad enough!—it was the not knowing what he was going to do or say next that really terrified her.
Their glances locked, the expression on those finely chiselled features revealed little, but as their eyes briefly touched Katie was left with the definite impression that he was enjoying every second of her discomfiture. It was that discovery that enabled her to hold it together.
Katie welcomed the fortifying flicker of anger; it was something solid and real for her to cling to. The malicious pleasure she’d seen in those dark, unfathomable depths was inexplicable to her. Admittedly buying a husband might make her deserving of the odd sneer and snigger in some ungenerous quarters,
