Kitabı oku: «The Greek's Ultimate Conquest»

CHAPTER ONE

WHEN HAD HE actually last slept...?

The medication that the medic had administered to him in the field hospital had only taken the edge off his agony and since he’d got on the military air transport to Germany it hadn’t even done that, despite the copious amounts of alcohol he’d downed in an attempt to self-medicate.

But now he was finally about to fall sleep, the moment was delayed as a half-burnt log in the open grate disintegrated, sending a star burst of sparks outwards and pulling him back from the brink. He watched through heavy half-closed eyes as the flames flared briefly before fading, leaving dark specks on the sheepskin stretched over the wood floor.

The woman lying across his arm stirred gently before burrowing into his shoulder. He flexed his fingers to relieve the numbness that was creeping into his hand, and with his free hand pushed back a hank of hair tinged silver by the moonlight shining through the open window. He glanced down, the soft light caressing her face revealing the smooth curve of her cheek.

She was, simply, beautiful. It wasn’t just the bone structure and the incredible body, but she had something else about her...a glow, he decided, smiling at the uncharacteristically sentimental thought as he rubbed a strand of her hair between his fingertips. She was the sort of woman that at any other time in his life he would have gravitated towards. But even though he’d picked her out immediately when she had entered the bar earlier—with a noisy, youthful après-ski group oozing the confidence that came with privilege and intent on having fun and spending money—he had not reacted. Instead shutting out the sound of upper-class voices, he’d turned back to the drink he’d been nursing as he’d sunk once again into his black thoughts.

Then she’d come over to him. Up close she was even more spectacular, and she clearly had the self confidence that went with knowing it as she approached him. A real golden girl complete with golden glow, long gorgeous legs, her lithe body lovingly outlined in tight-fitting ski gear that was suited to her sinuous, athletic body. Her fine-boned face had perfect symmetry, the full lips and the deep blue of her wide-spaced eyes made him think of an angel, a sexy angel with a halo of lint-pale hair that glittered in the reflection of the beaten copper light shade suspended over his table.

‘Hello.’

Her voice was low, accentless, and had a slight attractive husk.

A flicker of uncertainty appeared in her eyes when he didn’t respond, then after a moment she repeated the greeting, first in French and then Italian.

‘English is fine.’

She took the comment as encouragement and slid onto a stool beside him. ‘I saw you from...’ Without taking her eyes from his face—they really were the most spectacular eyes—she nodded towards the group she had arrived with, who seemed to be involved in a noisy shot-downing game. The sight of the bunch of spoiled socialites giving the bar staff a hard time twitched his lips into a contemptuous sneer.

‘You’re missing the fun,’ he drawled.

She glanced back at her friends, giving what appeared to be a wince before training eyes that were a shocking shade of blue on him. ‘It stopped being fun about two bars ago.’ Her soft lips still smiled but a quizzical groove appeared between her brows and her head tilted a little to one side as she continued to stare at him. ‘You look...alone.’

He gave her a look then, the one that made ninety-nine out of a hundred people back off. The hundredth was generally drunk, although it was obvious this woman wasn’t; her blue stare was clear and candid, unnervingly so. Or maybe what unnerved him was the electric charge he could feel in the air between them, a low-level thrum but undeniably present.

‘I’m Chloe—’

He cut her off before she could introduce herself fully.

‘Sorry, agape mou, I’m not good company tonight.’ He wanted her to go away, he wanted to be left alone to slide back into the darkness, but when she didn’t, he wasn’t really sorry.

‘Are you Greek?’

‘Among other things.’

‘So what do I call you?’

Nothing worse than he’d called himself. ‘Nik.’

‘Just Nik?’

He nodded and after a moment she gave a little shrug of assent. ‘Fair enough.’

When her friends had left she had stayed.

This was her room, an apartment in an upmarket chalet—not that they’d made it as far as the bedroom. A trail of their clothing traced their stumbling path from the door to the leather sofa where they lay.

He had always enjoyed the physical, sexual side of his nature but last night... Nik still couldn’t quite believe how raw it had been, a true sanity-sapping explosion of need, and for a few moments he had felt free, free of grief, guilt and the oily taint left by the things he had witnessed.

He trailed a hand down her back, letting his fingers rest on the curve of her smooth bottom. As he breathed in her scent he desperately wanted to close his eyes, but for some reason every time he thought about it his glance was drawn across the room to where, he knew, even though the light was too dim to see properly, his phone lay after it had fallen from his pocket.

How did he know it was about to vibrate?

Then it did.

He glanced down to see if the sound had disturbed the sleeping woman and every muscle in his body clenched violently in icy horror and shock, trapping the cry of visceral terror in his throat. He was staring down, not at a warm, beautiful woman, but at the pale, still face of his best friend. The body he held was not warm and breathing but cold and still, the eyes not closed but open and staring up at him, blankly empty!

* * *

When he suddenly awoke, gasping, he was not in his bed but beside it on the floor on his knees, shaking like someone in a fever, sweat dripping from his body as he gulped for air. The effort of drawing oxygen into his lungs defined each individual sinew and muscle in his powerful back as he rammed his clenched fists against his rock-hard thighs. The scream that clawed at the edge of his mind remained locked in his raw throat as he struggled to reclaim reality from the lingering wisps of his dreams.

It finally came, and when it did he felt...well, he felt no better or worse than he had on any other of the countless times previously he’d woken out of exactly the same nightmare.

Slowly Nik got to his feet, the normal fluidity of his actions stiff, the athletically honed body so many envied, and even more lusted after, responding sluggishly to commands as he lurched across the room to the bathroom, where he turned on the cold tap of the washbasin full blast and put his head under the stream of cold water.

Fingers curled over the edge of the basin hid the fact he refused to acknowledge, that his hands were shaking, but as he straightened up he was unable to avoid a brief view of his own reflection in the mirror before he turned away, knowing that although the blinding visceral fear was temporarily back in its box, the shadow of it remained in his eyes.

The shower did not entirely banish the shadow either, but it did revive him. He checked the time; four hours’ sleep was two hours too little but the idea of returning to bed, probably only to relive the nightmare yet again, held little appeal.

Five minutes later Security buzzed him out of the building, the concierge dipping his head and wishing him a good run when he exited, while privately probably thinking that the guy from the penthouse who regularly took a pre-dawn run was insane. Maybe, Nik reflected grimly as he pulled up the hood of his sweatshirt against the rain, he had a point.

The exercise did the usual trick of clearing his head so by the time, shaved, suited and booted, he skimmed through his emails the night horrors had been banished, or at least unacknowledged. He had other things to focus on, things that were nothing to do with the message on his phone. After noting the caller identity with a grimace, he slid it into his pocket.

He knew without looking at the content that it would be a reminder about the dinner party his sister was hosting that evening, the one he had agreed to attend in a moment of weakness. With Ana it was easier to say yes, because no was not a word she understood, neither was single or unattached, at least where her younger brother was concerned.

He slowed as he reached another set of traffic lights that had sprung up overnight, and smothered a sigh as he struggled to push aside the thoughts of his evening entertainment and the inevitable candidate for the position of wife, or at least serious girlfriend material, who would be seated beside him.

He loved his sister, admiring her talent and the fact she juggled a career as a designer with being a single parent. He was ready to admit she had many good traits but unfortunately conceding defeat was not one of them!

Part of his mind on the increasingly heavy traffic he was negotiating, he tried to put the evening ahead out of his mind, but maybe due to his disturbed night the prospect of being polite to one of the perfectly charming women his sister produced on a regular basis to audition for the role of potential mate weighed more heavily on his mind.

He knew that as far as Ana was concerned all his problems would be solved the moment he found a soul mate. He still couldn’t decide if she really believed it and though there were occasions when he found her rosy optimism sweet, usually after a bottle of wine, mostly it was intensely irritating.

Hell, if he’d thought love was a cure-all he’d be out looking for it now, but as far as Nik was concerned the search would be in vain. It was a stretch but he was prepared to suspend disbelief and concede that it was possible that there was such a thing as true love, but if this was the case, the way some people were born colour-blind, he was love-blind.

It was a disability he was prepared to bear. At least he was never going to be in the position of having to experience the falling out of love process. It would be hard to find two people more civilised, more genuinely nice than his sister and her ex, but he had watched their break-up and eventual divorce and it had been toxic! The worst aspect of the split had been the child stuck in the middle. It didn’t really matter how hard you tried to protect them from the worst, and they had tried, a kid had to be affected by it.

Give him plain and simple lust any day of the week, and as for growing old alone, surely it was better by far than growing old next to someone you couldn’t stand the sight of!

He was prepared to concede that there were happy marriages around but they were the exception rather than the rule.

The car moved five yards before he came to another halt, and someone farther down the line of stationary cars sounded their horn in frustration. Nik raised his eyes heavenwards, the frown lines in his brow smoothing out as his glance landed on the neon-lit face on the advertising billboard across the road.

The advertising agency had clearly gone old school. There was nothing subtle about the message they were sending, just a straightforward fantasy for men to buy into. Use the brand of male face product clutched to the generous bosom of the woman in the bikini and you too would have similarly scantily clad and gorgeous women throwing themselves at you.

Not this one... His mobile mouth twitched into a sardonic smile; he was probably one of a handful of people who knew that this particular object of male fantasy was in a secret same-sex relationship. Secret, not because Lucy was concerned about any negative impact on her career, but because of a deal the couple had struck with her partner Clare’s soon to be ex-husband. The guy wouldn’t contest the divorce if the women waited to go public with their relationship until after he had landed the contract worth multi millions he was in the middle of negotiating with a firm who had built their brand on family values and a squeaky-clean image.

Maybe, Nik mused, if the guy had spent as much time on his marriage as he did on nurturing business deals he might still be married...? After all, if you believed everything you read, maintaining a good relationship took time, energy and hard work. Well, he definitely didn’t have the time. As for energy, he was quite prepared to be energetic, but not if the sex seemed like hard work... No, marriage really was not for him.

He was jolted from his reverie by another blast on a horn, from behind him this time. It had a knock-on effect...not quite a eureka moment but pretty damn close and, like all good ideas, it was perfectly simple. Actually he couldn’t quite figure out why it had not previously occurred to him to counter his sister’s relentless matchmaking by turning up with a date of his own choosing and acting like a man in love.

He smiled up at the inspiration for the idea looking down at him...was Lucy Cavendish in town? And if she was, he wondered if the idea would appeal to her sense of humour; failing that he’d appeal to her conscience. After all, she did owe him one as he was the person who’d introduced her to Clare.

* * *

The caterers were carrying boxes through the open front door when Chloe arrived. Tatiana had asked her to be early but maybe this was too early?

‘Go through to the office. Mum’s in there.’

Chloe did a double take and realised that one of the caterers holding a box was Eugenie, Tatiana’s teenage daughter.

The girl saw her expression and nodded. ‘Yeah, I know...not a good look, but Mum insisted I work at least half the holiday to reduce the danger of me being a rich spoilt brat who thinks money grows on trees. You look great!’ she added, her eyes widening as she took in the full effect of the sleeveless silk jumpsuit Chloe wore. ‘Of course, you have to have legs that go on for ever to get away with it.’

Chloe laughed as the girl whisked away.

The door of the study was open and after a brief tap Chloe went inside. The room was empty except for the dog that was curled up on top of a designer silk jacket that had been flung over a chair. Even crushed and underneath a Labrador the distinctive style of the design made the label it bore unnecessary. Tatiana had become famous for her use of bold, brilliant colours and simple wearable designs.

The animal opened one eye and Chloe went over, drawn by a silent canine command. As she stroked his soft ears she looked curiously at the drawings set up on the massive draftsman table that took centre stage in the room.

‘Oh, don’t look at those. I was having a bad day,’ Tatiana exclaimed, walking into the room. In one of her own designs, the petite brunette projected an air of effortless elegance. ‘Down, Ulysses!’ She gave a little sigh when the dog responded by wagging his tail and staying put. ‘Nik says a dog needs to know who’s master, but that’s the trouble—you already do, don’t you, you bad boy?’ she crooned.

Chloe gave a smile that she hoped hid the fact that her first thought whenever she heard the name of Tatiana’s younger brother was, Oh, God, not brother Nik again!

Nothing Tatiana said about her brother challenged Chloe’s growing conviction that the man thought he was an expert on everything—and was not shy about sharing his expert opinion.

But then, being reticent and self-effacing were probably not the most obvious characteristics for someone who was the head of a Greek shipping line, and though Chloe knew that Nik Latsis had only stepped into his father’s shoes relatively recently, it sounded to her as though they fitted him very well indeed!

Tatiana didn’t seem to question or resent the fact that her younger brother had inherited the company simply because he was male, so why should Chloe?

Maybe because she wasn’t Greek.

And there was no doubt the Latsis family considered themselves Greek even though they had been London based for thirty years. They were part of a large, well-heeled Greek community that had settled in the British capital. Rich or nouveau riche, they all had the rich part in common, that and being Greek, which seemed to be enough to make them a very tight-knit community where everyone knew everyone and traditions were important.

As she gave the dog one last pat she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror that made the generously sized room appear even larger, and made a conscious effort to iron out the frown lines that the thought of Tatiana’s invisible brother had etched in her forehead.

The invisible part was no accident. It was eighteen months since his father’s stroke had brought forward the younger brother’s ascension to the ‘throne’ of Latsis Shipping and he had kept a very low profile, something you couldn’t do unless you had loyal family and friends, limitless resources and, she supposed, an inside working knowledge of how the media worked that being an ex-journalist would bring.

The point being, Chloe, she told herself sternly, is that he is invisible. You’ve never met the guy, and yet here you are making all these judgements on the basis of a few comments and gut instinct. Something that she’d have been the very first to condemn in anyone else.

‘You’re being a hypocrite, Chloe.’

The softly voiced self-condemnation caused Tatiana, whose eyes had drifted with a distracted expression to the fabrics pinned on one of the boards, to look up. She directed an enquiring look at Chloe, who shook her head.

‘Those colours are beautiful,’ Chloe said, nodding to the fabrics, and lifted a finger to touch one piece of silk that was a shade or two deeper than the blue wide-legged jumpsuit she was wearing.

‘It would suit you, but I’m not sure...’ Tatiana stopped and shook her head. ‘Sorry, I just struggle to switch off sometimes.’

She smiled ruefully as she moved to kiss Chloe warmly on her cheek.

‘The trials of being artistic,’ Chloe teased.

‘I don’t know about that, but I do know that I am a bit of a workaholic...the work-life, home-life balance always did elude me.’ A wistful expression crossed her face. ‘Maybe that’s why I got divorced...’ She shook her dark sleek head slightly and smiled. ‘But never mind about that tonight...just look at you!’

Hands resting lightly on Chloe’s slim upper arms, she pushed the taller woman back a little. The sombreness of earlier drifted across her face when her glance stilled momentarily on Chloe’s legs covered in loose folds of sky-blue silk, but it was gone by the time her eyes reached Chloe’s face.

‘You look stunning, as usual. I’m not saying it’s all about a pretty face, but it definitely helps when you’re trying to get men to open their wallets for a good cause...and before you ask you have my permission to put the hard sell on everyone here tonight.’

‘People are usually very kind,’ Chloe said.

‘Especially when they are being guilted into it by the sister of a future queen. But why not use your connections? That’s what I always say, and, while I might not have the right sort, your sister certainly does.’ She sketched a curtsy and Chloe laughed. Her sister might be a princess and one day destined to be the Queen of Vela Main, but Chloe could not imagine anyone less royal. Both sisters had been brought up to believe that what a person did was more important than their title.

‘I’ll do my very best for the charity,’ Tatiana continued in earnest now. ‘In my book, I owe you.’ She walked across to the mantel where the marble surface was covered with framed photos. She selected one and held it up in invitation for Chloe to see it. ‘For what you did for Mel,’ she finished, looking fondly at the photo she held.

Chloe shook her head, uncomfortable with the praise. As far as Chloe was concerned, the young Greek girl was her inspiration. ‘I didn’t do anything.’ She took the frame that Tatiana offered and looked at the photo it held. It was a snap taken the previous month in a pavement café on a girls’ trip to Barcelona. ‘She’s a brave girl.’

Chloe had known Tatiana by sight and reputation before the other woman had boosted Chloe’s career by mentioning her blog in an interview she’d given covering London fashion week, two years ago now, Chloe realised, though it seemed more like a lifetime. Back then the interview was pretty much responsible for her blog becoming a profitable overnight success.

Chloe had contacted Tatiana to thank her for the plug and they had exchanged the odd email but they had never met in person.

That had happened in a very different context a year ago, after the designer’s god-daughter was moved into the room next to Chloe’s own in the specialist burns unit. Chloe had already been in there for three months; she’d known every crack in the ceiling and had been living vicariously through the love lives of the young nurses designated to her care.

Though the burns Chloe herself had received in a road traffic accident had been severe and painful and the healing process long, her own scars were easy to hide from view under her clothes. But the young woman in the next room had not been able to hide the damage done to her face by the fire caused by a gas explosion. Then, as if life hadn’t already thrown enough rubbish at her, the day after she had arrived at the burns unit her boyfriend had dumped her, at which point Mel had turned her face to the wall and announced she didn’t want to live.

As she’d listened through the partition wall Chloe’s heart had ached for the other girl. Their first conversation later that night shouted through the wall had been a one-sided affair, but it had been the first of many.

‘You got her through it, Chloe,’ Tatiana choked. ‘I’ll never forget that day I arrived and heard her laugh—you did that.’

‘Mel helped me as much as I did her. Did you see the information sheet she put together for me on make-up techniques?’ she asked, placing the photo back on the shelf. In doing so she accidentally nudged the one next to it and straightened it, admiring the frame; it was an antique one, the ebony wood delicately carved and rather beautiful.

Chloe was admiring the craftsmanship, running her fingers across the smooth indentations, when her glance drifted across the photo it held. Her mouth tugged into a smile; with a white-knuckle ride in the background, a younger Eugenie smiled back at her, complete with braces, from under the peak of a baseball cap with the logo of an adventure park emblazoned on it.

The jeans-clad man crouched down beside her in the shot was wearing the same cap, and he was... Chloe’s smile vanished like smoke as brutal stinging reality hit her like a slap across the face. Pale as paper now, she stared at the male in the picture, wearing jeans, a tee shirt, and a teasing, carefree expression on his handsome face, a face that bore no signs of a tortured soul. There were no shadows that she felt the need to banish; he was just a regular guy...well, only if the regular guy in question was more handsome than any man had a right to be with a body that an Olympic swimmer might dream of possessing.

She stood like a statue staring at the photo she held in a hand that quickly developed a visible tremor—the tremor penetrating past the skin level and moving deep inside her.

By sheer force of will she released the breath she was holding in her lungs, but not the avalanche of questions whirring in dizzying succession through her brain. She felt as though a dozen people were inside her shouting so loudly she couldn’t make out the individual questions.

Obviously it couldn’t be him but, equally obviously, it was! The man in the photos was the same man who she had spent a never-to-be-forgotten night of lust with. If all learning experiences were as brutal as that one had been, it would not be worth getting out of bed in the morning—happily they weren’t and she had moved on.

But that didn’t mean she’d forgotten any of it. Forgotten the feelings of emotional hurt and humiliation that had made her physically sick the next morning when she’d realised he’d slipped away during the night. And the worst part was, she had no one to blame but herself. Because she had been the one who had followed her instincts when she’d approached him in that bar, telling herself that what she was doing was somehow meant to be... If they had been handing out awards for naivety and general stupidity that night, she would have walked away with an armful of prizes!

She’d wondered if his name really was Nik. It seemed utterly incredible to her now that she’d ever thought it part of the romantic fantasy element of their night together that she hadn’t even known his full name! Time had stripped away the romantic gloss and revealed it for what it truly was—a cheap and tacky one-night stand, even if the sex had been utterly incredible.

Keeping her voice carefully casual, she half turned to Tatiana, as yet unable to tear her eyes from the snapshot. ‘How old was Eugenie in this one?’

Tatiana came across and looked at the photo of her daughter and she gave a nostalgic sigh. ‘Oh, that was taken on her tenth birthday, although just five minutes afterwards she was throwing up. Nik let her eat a bag of doughnuts then took her on some white-knuckle ride.’

Chloe’s own knuckles were bone white where her hand was pressed to her chest. Her poor heart was vibrating against her ribcage, her insides were quivering as she told herself sternly to get a grip, not to mention a sense of proportion. It was only a photo after all, and he was old history.