Kitabı oku: «Proof Of Their Forbidden Night»

CHAPTER ONE

‘WHAT DO YOU think of the news that Papa is engaged to the Ice Queen? Isla has hooked her claws into him, make no mistake.’

Andreas Karelis came to an abrupt halt a few feet away from the helicopter which had brought him to his family’s privately owned island, Louloudi, and stared at his sister, who had run across the garden to meet him. Nefeli’s shrilly furious voice had risen above the whomp-whomp of the slowing rotor blades.

From the air the island, partially covered with a cedar forest and olive groves, resembled an emerald set amid the azure Aegean Sea. Andreas’s happiest boyhood memories were of running free on Louloudi, away from his parents’ expectations of the Karelis heir. He owned houses in California and the French Riviera and a penthouse apartment in Athens, but Louloudi was the only place he thought of as home.

‘I have heard nothing from Stelios,’ he said curtly and his sister’s eyes widened. Usually Andreas kept a tight control over his feelings and no one, not even Nefeli, who was the only person he was at all close to, knew what he was thinking. But he disliked surprises, good or bad, and this was definitely the latter.

‘I thought Papa might have phoned you. He dropped the bombshell when I arrived.’ Nefeli tossed her dark curls over her shoulders. She was petite with a volatile temperament—the opposite of Andreas, who owed his tall, athletic build to his Californian maternal grandmother and had learned early in his childhood to suppress his emotions. It was a lesson he had mastered with astonishing success.

‘A press statement will be released tomorrow to formally announce Papa’s engagement to Isla, but he wanted to share the news with his family first. God!’ Nefeli’s voice went up another octave. ‘She’s his housekeeper, and young enough to be his daughter. What is Papa thinking?’

Andreas gave a careless shrug to hide his violent dislike of his father’s matrimonial plans. The strength of his reaction surprised him, and he reminded himself that Stelios was free to do as he pleased. There was no fool like an old fool, especially a widowed, elderly billionaire in thrall to a beautiful young woman, he thought sardonically.

A restlessness gripped him as he visualised the woman who was now apparently Stelios’s fiancée. Isla Stanford was undeniably beautiful. An English rose with her spun-gold hair and creamy skin. But she had an untouchable air that Andreas would usually find off-putting. He preferred women who were sexually confident, which was why he had found his intense awareness of Isla on the few occasions that he had met her so puzzling.

‘Papa has brought her to Louloudi and she is to attend my birthday party at the weekend,’ Nefeli said sulkily. She slipped her hand through her brother’s arm as they walked towards the villa. ‘You will have to do something, Andreas.’

‘What do you suggest?’ His trademark lazy drawl with its blend of cynical amusement disguised his thoughts but his restless feeling intensified when Nefeli spoke again.

‘Why don’t you seduce her? I’m sure you could quite easily. Women always fall at your feet, and when Papa realises that the Ice Queen had only pretended to be interested in him for his money, he’ll get rid of her and everything will return to normal.’

By normal Nefeli presumably meant that Stelios would revert to behaving like a man in his late sixties who should be preparing for his retirement instead of lusting after a blonde bimbo who saw cash signs when she looked at him. Except that Isla was not your average bimbo. It would make life a lot easier if she was, Andreas brooded.

‘I don’t want to risk getting frostbite,’ he quipped. He swore silently. It wasn’t that he had any objection to his father taking another wife. Just not her. Not Isla. Why couldn’t the old man marry a woman of a similar age to him? A comfortably plump widow who would share Stelios’s twilight years, rather than an ice-cool blonde with intelligent grey eyes and a Mona Lisa smile that drove Andreas to distraction.

His thoughts flew back to eighteen months ago when he had been summoned to the house in Kensington which his father had purchased shortly after his wife’s death, some six months earlier. Stelios’s decision to move to London had been a surprise, and after Andreas had handed his rain-spattered jacket to the butler and been shown into the drawing room, he’d intended to ask why his father had chosen to live in a country with such an infernal climate.

But his mind went blank and his gaze was riveted on the woman sitting close to Stelios on the sofa. Too damned close, had been Andreas’s first thought, followed by a strong urge to snatch her away from his father’s side. She rose to her feet, as graceful and supple as a ballerina, and slipped her hand beneath Stelios’s arm when he stood up. Her solicitousness as she hovered protectively next to his father had irked Andreas.

‘Andreas, finally you have found the time to pay me a visit.’

Stelios’s greeting held a note of criticism which Andreas had come to expect, and he gritted his teeth as he stepped forwards to kiss his father’s cheek. ‘It is good to see you looking well, Papa.’

In fact his father looked tired, but Andreas barely noticed and his attention was on the woman. Who was she? Stelios’s personal assistant perhaps? Her appearance gave no clue to her role in Stelios’s life. She was wearing a white dress with three-quarter-length sleeves and a softly flared skirt that fell to just below her knees. A narrow black belt around her slender waist and black patent stiletto-heeled shoes were elegant accessories. Her hair was the colour of pale honey, drawn back from her face and tied in a ponytail that reached halfway down her back. She looked as demure as a nun, but the curve of her full lips and her high, firm breasts suggested an understated sensuality.

Andreas couldn’t take his eyes off her and he gave a jolt when his father said drily, ‘Allow me to introduce my housekeeper, Miss Stanford. Isla, this is my son, Andreas.’

‘I’m pleased to meet you,’ she murmured.

Her voice made Andreas think of a cool mountain stream and at that precise moment he would have gladly jumped into an ice bath to put out the fire raging inside him.

‘The pleasure is mine, Miss Stanford.’ He had intended to sound sardonic, but the word pleasure hovered in the air, infusing his greeting with sensual heat and something that sounded to his own ears like a challenge. He noticed the faint flush of rose pink that stained her cheeks like the sweep of an artist’s brush over a white canvas. Her eyes widened a fraction and Andreas glimpsed his confusion mirrored in those grey depths.

There was another emotion too. He recognised a flash of awareness, before her long eyelashes that were a few shades darker than her hair swept down and shut him out. Time juddered to a standstill. In the silence Andreas heard the harsh rasp of his breath and the unevenness of hers, but when she met his gaze again her expression was unreadable.

She turned to Stelios. ‘I’ll go and make tea.’

‘Thank you, my dear.’ A look passed between the old man and his housekeeper that Andreas could not decipher. Irritation swept through him. When the hell had his father, a lifelong coffee addict, started drinking tea?

‘I prefer coffee,’ he said abruptly, earning a frown from Stelios.

‘Of course.’ Isla Stanford gave a perfunctory smile that made Andreas long to ruffle her composure. He wanted, badly, to discover if there was heat beneath her ice and if her lips would fit the shape of his as perfectly as he imagined.

She stepped past him and her elusive perfume teased his senses. He watched the sway of her hips as she walked across the room and heard himself blurt out, ‘Would you like some help?’

‘I can manage, thank you.’ She sounded amused. Pausing in the doorway, she glanced back at him and her brows arched as she gave him a speculative look that made him feel like a wet-behind-the-ears schoolboy. ‘Or don’t you trust that I can make Greek coffee, Andreas?’

The way she spoke his name in her soft English accent had made him want to growl like a predatory beast. Andreas hadn’t trusted her, and every time he had met Isla on subsequent visits to his father in London his instincts warned him that she was trouble. Now the news of Stelios’s engagement to the woman his sister had christened the Ice Queen proved that those instincts had been right.

He followed Nefeli into the house, where the marble-lined entrance hall was blessedly cool after the heat outside. Andreas had left California sixteen hours ago. Admittedly, travelling by private jet was not arduous but he was looking forward to a leisurely shower and a drink. He was about to ask the butler Dinos to bring a whisky and soda to his room when his sister turned to him.

‘You had better hurry up and get changed. You’re later than expected. Papa has arranged a formal dinner party this evening to celebrate his engagement to Isla.’ She grimaced. ‘I can’t believe he is planning to marry her. He’s making a fool of himself. Can’t you think of anything that might make Papa see sense?’

Nefeli’s plea stayed in Andreas’s mind when he entered his private suite of rooms and quickly showered, before he donned black suit trousers, a snowy white shirt and a black dinner jacket. He would have preferred to pull on a pair of old denim shorts and a T-shirt and stroll down to the beach, but instead he had to sit through a dinner party to mark his father’s betrothal. Theos! He glowered at his reflection in the mirror and raked his fingers through his unruly dark hair that moments ago he’d attempted to tame with a comb.

He could in fact think of something that might make his father question his relationship with his erstwhile housekeeper who was now his fiancée. What if he were to reveal how Isla had come apart in his arms when he’d kissed her in London a month ago? Would Stelios be so keen to marry her?

Andreas’s jaw clenched at the memory of Isla’s wild response to him—the way she had opened her mouth beneath his and made a husky moan when he’d thrust his tongue between her lips. With a frown he acknowledged that he had kissed Isla to satisfy his curiosity, but she had tested his control in a way he hadn’t expected. So much so that he had cut his trip to England short and flown back to California the next day.

Had Isla set her sights on a bigger prize? Stelios was the head of Karelis Corp—the family-owned business which operated the largest oil refinery in Europe. The company also ran the biggest chain of fuel stations in Greece and had interests in shipping and banking. Andreas was the heir to the Karelis business empire but he was in no rush to take over from his father. He had carved out a career as a champion rider in the World Superbike league until a serious accident had forced him to retire from motorbike racing.

Forcing his thoughts back to the present, Andreas muttered a curse and strode out of his suite. He paused in the corridor outside his father’s private apartment and knocked on the door. If he could have a conversation with Stelios and his new fiancée before dinner, he might have a clearer understanding of the reason for their surprise engagement. There was no reply, and after waiting for a few seconds he opened the door and glanced around the sitting room. The door leading to the bedroom was closed and the idea that Stelios was in there with Isla evoked a corrosive feeling in the pit of Andreas’s stomach.

The bedroom door opened and, before he had time to retreat, the butler walked through to the sitting room. ‘I thought that my father and Miss Stanford might be here,’ Andreas explained.

‘Kyrios Stelios is downstairs in the salon. He asked me to fetch his glasses.’ Dinos lifted his hand, in which he held a spectacles case. ‘Miss Stanford’s room is next door but she is down in the salon with your father.’

So Stelios and Isla were not sharing a bedroom at the villa, Andreas mused as he descended the marble staircase. It struck him as unusual behaviour for a couple who had announced their intention to marry. The whole situation of the sudden engagement was odd, especially as his father hadn’t mentioned his marriage plans at their last meeting a month ago.

It was not his concern if Stelios made a fool of himself over his pretty young housekeeper, Andreas told himself. If he admitted that passion had flared between him and Isla, his father might not believe him, or might accuse him of trying to make trouble. Their relationship had never been close, especially after Stelios had been forced to choose between his wife and family, and his mistress.

Andreas had been twelve when his father had admitted that he’d been seeing another woman in England and intended to leave his marriage for her. Andreas’s mother had been devastated, and Andreas had vowed that he would never speak to his father again unless he dumped his mistress and returned to his wife and children. He’d hoped that by taking his mother’s side he would win her love, but she had continued to treat him with the same disinterest that she’d always shown him. His father had remained married but from then on he had been cool towards Andreas.

Helia Karelis had died two years ago from an overdose of her sleeping pills. A tragic accident, the coroner had recorded, but Andreas was sure his mother had known what she was doing when she’d swallowed a handful of pills, just as he was sure she had never got over her husband’s affair, even though it had happened many years ago. Her unhappiness with her marriage had proved to Andreas the folly of falling in love. He avoided emotional dramas in the same way that any sane person would take precautionary measures against coming into contact with the Ebola virus.

As for Isla, Andreas shrugged his shoulders. He couldn’t explain why he had come on to her like a teenager on a first date in London. It wasn’t his style and he was confident that when he met her again he would see her for the gold-digger he suspected she was. The way she had responded to his kiss with a sweet ardency that had almost made him believe she was inexperienced must have been an act, he told himself.

He strode into the salon where pre-dinner cocktails were being served and stopped dead in his tracks. The room was full of guests—various relatives and, curiously, considering the dinner party was supposed to be a family gathering, several high-ranking representatives from the oil industry were present as well as members of Karelis Corp’s board of directors. There was a low hum of chatter, the clink of glasses on silver trays carried by the serving staff. But Andreas only saw Isla and his blood thundered in his ears.

This was a different Isla to the decorous housekeeper he had met on previous occasions at his father’s house in Kensington. Tonight she was a lady in red—a sultry siren in clingy scarlet velvet, with sparkling jewels around her throat that drew his attention to the pale upper slopes of her breasts above the plunging neckline of her dress. Her blonde hair was swept up into a chignon to expose the delicate line of her neck. The scarlet gloss on her lips emphasised their fullness.

Lowering his gaze, he saw that the hem of her dress came to her mid-thigh and her long slim legs were enhanced by high-heeled strappy shoes. Isla Stanford was every hot-blooded male’s fantasy and Andreas was burning up. She looked over at him, and as their eyes locked he saw a pink stain spread across her face. The convulsive movement of her throat when she swallowed told him that she was as aware as he was of the electrical current that arced between them. He stared at her mouth, so lush and red and infinitely inviting, and felt the urgent stirring of his desire swell beneath his trousers.

For a moment Andreas forgot that Isla was attending the party as Stelios’s guest. Something primitively possessive swept through him and he strode across the room, driven to stake his claim on the woman who had been in his thoughts too often in the past months. He and Isla had unfinished business.

But just then his father finished talking to another guest and slipped his arm around Isla’s waist. Andreas’s eyes narrowed as he halted in front of the mismatched couple.

‘Finally, you are here.’ Stelios sounded irritable. ‘I expected you to arrive several hours ago. We were about to start dinner without you.’

‘Good evening, Papa,’ Andreas greeted his father drily. ‘Miss Stanford.’ He kept his expression bland as he glanced at Isla and back to Stelios. ‘I apologise if I am late. I said I would arrive some time in the afternoon but I did not specify an exact time and I was unaware that you were giving a dinner party.’

Stelios sniffed. ‘Well, you are here now. I hope you will offer your congratulations when I tell you that Isla has agreed to be my fiancée.’

Even though Andreas had been pre-warned by his sister of his father’s engagement, the sight of a diamond the size of a rock on Isla’s finger filled him with fury. It had to be a joke, surely? This grey-haired, wrinkled old man and an exquisite English rose who must be some forty years younger than her future husband.

He jerked his gaze to Isla’s face and noted the faint quiver of her lower lip, the flash of sexual awareness in her wide grey eyes that she quickly concealed beneath the sweep of her lashes. She was his, goddammit. Yet it was his ageing father’s arm around her slender waist and Stelios’s obscenely gaudy ring glittering on her finger.

‘Well, Andreas?’ his father prompted. ‘I can see you are surprised by my news, but I’m sure you will agree that I am a lucky man to have such a beautiful fiancée.’

At a rough guess, the diamond solitaire was worth a six-figure sum. Andreas gave a sardonic smile. ‘Congratulations,’ he drawled, directing his mocking gaze at Isla. ‘You appear to have hit the jackpot.’