Kitabı oku: «The Greek's Blackmailed Wife», sayfa 2

CHAPTER TWO

LAURANNE stared at Zander in stunned silence.

He wanted her to work for him?

Was he mad?

Had he forgotten everything that had happened between them?

Had he forgotten the hideous details?

Her skin prickled and she suddenly felt hot. Terribly hot. ‘You must be joking. I will never work for you again.’

A smooth dark eyebrow lifted and he smiled, totally unperturbed by her passionate declaration. ‘You think not?’

She stared at him helplessly, realising too late that she’d said the wrong thing. A blatant refusal simply fuelled his ferociously competitive instinct. No one ever refused Zander Volakis anything. It just cemented his desire to win.

He was assuming she’d issued him a challenge, instead of which her refusal to work for him had originated from the most basic instinct for survival.

She resisted the impulse to slap the arrogant smile from his handsome face. ‘This isn’t one of your games, Zander. I wish you’d never come here but seeing as you have we might as well sort things out once and for all.’ Her heart was banging against her ribs as she came to an instant decision. ‘I—I want a divorce.’

There was a pulsing silence and he surveyed her with a maddening degree of cool.

‘You want a divorce?’ He sounded faintly amused. ‘This is very sudden, agape mou. After five years you suddenly want a divorce?’

Five years of utter misery. Five years of burying her past and trying to get on with her life. It was like ignoring an enormous wound and hoping that it would heal by itself.

But it hadn’t healed. Maybe a divorce was the answer.

‘We made a mistake, Zander,’ she croaked, wishing her insides didn’t feel so raw. ‘Let’s put it right.’

Then maybe she could finally let go and get on with her life.

There was a long silence and Zander watched her thoughtfully. ‘All right,’ he said finally. ‘Do this job for me, and I’ll consider it.’

‘No!’ She didn’t want him to turn it into one of his deals. She just wanted him to leave before she fell apart. ‘I don’t want to work for you again.’

It was just too painful. Seeing him again.

Being this close—

He paced slowly across the carpet, infuriatingly calm in the face of her growing anger. ‘You’re running a business, Lauranne. Can you afford to turn away wealthy clients?’

‘Whatever you offered would never be enough to even vaguely tempt me to work for you again,’ she said bitterly. ‘There’s more to a business than money.’

He laughed. ‘If you think that then it’s a wonder you’re still trading.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t expect you to understand what I mean,’ she flung back, her eyes blazing with the fire of past injuries. ‘You only ever look at the bottom line.’

‘Where else is there to look?’

‘At people! People matter, Zander. People have feelings—’ She broke off, horrified with herself for becoming so emotional. How could it still hurt so much? Whoever said that time heals had never been in love with Zander Volakis. She was rapidly discovering that time hadn’t healed anything at all. Trying to calm herself, she reached out and poured herself a glass of water with a shaking hand. ‘Believe it or not, when I refused to see you I was not issuing you with a challenge.’ She’d been protecting herself. ‘I don’t want to have anything to do with you and I can’t think why you would want me to work for you again.’

‘Because I need someone to do a good job.’

Her fingers tightened around the glass and she glared at him, hating him for coming back into her life. Hating herself for reacting so strongly. ‘And what makes you think I’d do a good job for you?’

‘Three reasons come to mind,’ he drawled lazily. ‘Firstly because I will pay you an indecent sum of money that you can’t afford to turn down; secondly because if you don’t do a good job, then I won’t give you that divorce that you suddenly seem to want so much.’

Lauranne licked dry lips. ‘You said three reasons.’ Her voice was little more than a croak. ‘What’s the third?’

He smiled. ‘Thirdly you will do the very best job you can, because if you mess up then I’ll ruin you and I’ll ruin Farrer.’ He gave a casual shrug. ‘Simple really.’

The glass slid from her hand and shattered on the floor. Like my life, Lauranne thought numbly, not even bothering to pick up the pieces as she stared at Zander. ‘You can’t be serious.’

‘I never joke about work,’ he said smoothly. ‘You should know that much about me.’

She did know. When it came to work, Zander was single-minded. Driven.

She tried another tack. ‘You can’t possibly want me to work for you again. Not after everything that happened.’

‘Five years ago I wasn’t safe to be in the same room as you,’ he agreed, ‘but thankfully I’ve moved on since then. You’ll work for me, Lauranne.’ He delivered his statement with cool confidence, his total lack of emotion in direct contrast to her own highly charged feelings. His careless, arrogant assumption that she’d eventually agree to his demands increased the tension in the room by dramatic degrees.

‘You fired me,’ she said, her voice shaking with a passion so powerful that it threatened to consume her usually rational self. ‘You fired me publicly and then ruined my reputation so thoroughly that no other company would touch me.’

He shrugged, casually dismissive of her passionate statement. ‘What happened between us is in the past. Fortunately for you, I’m willing to forget what you did.’

She gaped at him, rendered speechless by his overwhelming arrogance.

Forget?

Had their marriage really affected him so little that he could forget?

And did he really think that she would ever forget?

Had he really no idea just what he’d done to her? How much she’d suffered because of him? Part of her was proud that she’d survived in spite of him and part of her wanted to leap on him and claw at that devastatingly handsome face if only to provoke some degree of emotional response.

‘You’re my husband and yet you tried to destroy me.’ Her voice was little more than a whisper. ‘You took vows, Zander. Made promises. And none of them meant anything to you, did they? You are utterly ruthless and I will remind myself of that fact every single day of my life.’

Black eyes clashed with blue. ‘You angered me.’

Such a simple statement with which to justify brutal behaviour. He was just so Greek, she reflected helplessly, his otherwise razor-sharp intellect neutralised by his driving need for revenge.

He stepped towards her and she tensed, her body rendered immobile by the naked sexuality in his masculine gaze. She felt that gaze with every feminine part of her quivering body. Heat built inside her and slowly spread outwards, consuming her with its intensity. Her knees wobbled and she was forced to face the inevitable. That even hating him she still wanted him with every fibre of her being.

How could she?

How could her body still react to the man when her mind was ordering her to feel nothing and run?

But it was impossible to stand this close to Zander Volakis and feel nothing. She was still helplessly vulnerable to his overwhelming sexuality.

Appalled by that revelation, she reminded herself that she might not be able to control her reaction to him, but she could certainly control her actions and she had more sense than to act on those feelings.

Determined to conquer her own weakness, Lauranne curled her fingers into her palms. ‘Get out before I call Security.’

The faint lift of his brow and the hint of amusement in his dark eyes drew attention to the foolishness of her words. Her ‘Security’ consisted of the caretaker who maintained the building and was nominally responsible for keeping the alarm system in working order. Hardly a match for a professional security team, or even Zander himself. He was taller and broader than every other male of her acquaintance and she knew from experience that he was a man who could handle himself physically.

‘I think we both know that your “Security” are unlikely to challenge me.’ Zander moved closer still and suddenly the room seemed airless. The meeting room was huge and light and yet he managed to dominate every inch of the space around him.

‘I want you to go. I mean it, Zander.’ She dragged her gaze away from those indecently thick dark lashes, trying hard to ignore the masculine jaw and the wide, sensual mouth that could kiss a woman to a state of madness. Instead she forced herself to focus on the pain and the hurt. The destruction of her life. The man was a ruthless hunter. He took what he wanted and then moved on, stepping neatly over the debris that he’d created. ‘I have absolutely nothing to say to you. If you truly want to work with my company then you can talk to Tom.’

It was the wrong thing to say.

With appalled fascination she stood totally still, watching the change in him again, seeing the way his broad shoulders tensed in preparation for a fight.

‘You have the nerve to suggest that I talk to him, knowing what I would do to him if he set just one foot inside this office again—are you really that stupid?’

She stared at him, transfixed, hardly daring to move or speak in case her actions inflamed him further.

No. She wasn’t stupid.

She’d just forgotten what it was like to deal with an elemental Greek male. All the other men she knew were civilised and mild mannered. Not Zander. He was shockingly primitive, his emotions so hazardous and unpredictable that he should have had ‘handle with care’ printed on his back.

But she wasn’t twenty-one any more and she wasn’t going to allow him to intimidate her. ‘You don’t frighten me, Zander. And if you lay one finger on Tom ever again, I’ll—I’ll—’ She broke off, helplessly, aware of just how ridiculous her threats must seem to this man.

‘You’ll what?’ Dark eyes clashed with hers, his gaze heavily loaded with derision. ‘Still fighting battles for that pathetic little coward, Lauranne?’

‘He isn’t pathetic—’

‘He left you in here with me,’ Zander pointed out dryly, his tone dripping with masculine derision. ‘Hardly the actions of a hero, given our past history. He should have been in here, protecting his woman.’

‘I was never his woman.’

There.

She’d said it. Finally she’d said it. The words she should have spoken five years earlier and would have done if it hadn’t been for her stupid pride and a misguided desire to play him at his own game.

But her statement had no impact on Zander. It was five years too late.

‘Don’t insult my intelligence,’ he ground out, anger and tension evident in the aggressive thrust of his jaw and the set of his wide shoulders. ‘You were in bed with him. And you were wearing my wedding ring at the time.’

Lauranne stared at him helplessly, her chest rising and falling as she struggled to breathe. Zander was Greek to the very backbone and she knew that there was no point in trying to tell him the truth. And anyway, wasn’t part of it her fault? Hadn’t she manipulated the situation because she’d wanted Zander to be jealous? Wanted to punish him for the hurt he’d caused her. And she’d succeeded.

She’d succeeded so well that his reaction had frightened her—

The whole situation had escalated out of control so fast that she hadn’t even had a chance to confess the truth. That the embrace he’d witnessed had started off as comfort. A brotherly hug to ease the pain of having discovered that Zander had no intention of changing his playboy lifestyle just because he’d married her.

‘It’s too late for excuses and explanations,’ Zander interrupted harshly. ‘You’re only making them because you’re afraid that I’m not safe around your lover. And you’re right. I’m not safe.’ His dark eyes glittered dangerously and he fixed his gaze on her face with a fierce intensity. ‘I’m not safe at all.’

‘Zander—’

‘Despite your mouth and your attitude, you were a virgin when I met you.’ His tone was raw, his breathing shallow and decidedly unsteady as he wrestled for control. ‘So what was it, Lauranne? What happened? Did you need to experiment? Did you need to find out what it was like with other men?’

The injustice of it bit through to her soul.

Her temper flaring, she glared at him. ‘You don’t have the monopoly on variety, Zander.’

It was a foolish, inflammatory thing to say and the moment the words left her mouth she wished she could retract them.

Zander Volakis was a poor choice of adversary.

His eyes clashed with hers and Lauranne felt like an animal caught in headlights, aware of the rapid approach of danger but unable to move. Instinctively she tensed and prepared for impact. She heard his sharply indrawn breath, saw the flash of anger in his eyes and knew she was looking at a man at the very edge of tolerance.

His mouth was pressed together in a grim line, his gaze hostile and challenging, and she realised that the past was a subject she was never going to be able to discuss with this man unless he was physically restrained. He just wouldn’t listen to her. Not then and not now.

It was only when he unexpectedly turned and started scanning the photographs and award certificates on the walls that she suddenly realised that she’d been holding her breath.

Starved of oxygen, her head thumping and her heart banging against her chest, Lauranne dragged some much-needed air into her lungs. Forcing herself to breathe slowly she glanced around her. She couldn’t run because he could outrun her, so all she could do was wait, unsure as to when the next attack would come.

He stopped in front of one of her certificates, legs planted firmly apart in an attitude of pure male dominance. ‘You’ve received plenty of awards—’

‘I’m good at my job. And I was good at my job when you fired me.’

He ignored that. ‘We’d gone way past a business relationship.’

And that had been her biggest mistake, of course.

She’d married the boss. And when her marriage had fallen apart, so had her career.

‘You were my wife and you betrayed me,’ he growled. ‘And now you have what you obviously wanted. A new life with your lover.’

Lauranne gaped at him, deprived of speech by his spectacular misinterpretation of the facts.

‘Tom is not my lover.’

If she hadn’t been so appalled she would have laughed. This was a man with a brilliant brain, a man whose ability with figures was legendary and who had an awesome reputation for strategic thinking.

Why was it that with her he developed tunnel vision?

How had he added two and two and made fifty?

Hadn’t he known how much she’d loved him?

She opened her mouth to ask him that exact question and then closed it again. What was the point? It was too late. Too late for both of them. They’d moved past the point where communication could make a difference. And the past was history now. She just wanted him to be history too and the less she spoke, the better. There was only one level on which they’d ever communicated effectively and she didn’t even want to think about that.

So she stayed silent, trying to anticipate his next move.

‘I don’t want Farrer anywhere near my business,’ he said harshly, ‘but I want you working for me again.’

His emphatic statement should have stimulated a sharp retort on her part but her brain had ceased to function. She was operating on a much baser level.

Mesmerised by his shockingly potent masculinity, Lauranne opened her mouth and her tongue flickered out to moisten her lips. His dark gaze homed in on the gesture with the speed of a heat-seeking missile and suddenly she was holding her breath. Remembering.

His eyes lifted back to hers and she felt the tension throb between them, the atmosphere so taut that it threatened to snap at any moment. His eyes dropped to the tiny pulse in her neck and then moved lower still, resting on the soft swell of her breasts under the cream silk blouse.

Did he know?

Did he know what effect he had on her? Fighting the temptation to lift her hands and cover herself, Lauranne stood still, helpless to prevent the hardening of her nipples and the growing ache in her pelvis.

Imprisoned by that shimmering dark gaze, she felt herself melt inside, hypnotised by a force too powerful to resist.

Sexual awareness throbbed between them and then he swore softly in Greek and dragged his gaze away from her, a muscle working in his lean, bronzed cheek.

Of course he knew, she thought helplessly. Hadn’t he always known? He’d recognised her response to him before she had. And that was hardly surprising. A man as experienced with her sex as Zander knew everything there was to know about female reactions. He was able to detect the most subtle of signs and know exactly when to make his move.

‘Farrer would never be able to satisfy a woman like you.’ His harsh statement took her by surprise and she gaped at him, stunned by his unspoken implication that he would be the only male to ever fulfil that task. ‘You’d trample all over him.’

‘Not every woman is vulnerable to your particular brand of Neanderthal machismo,’ she said bitterly and then wished she hadn’t because he was across the room in less than two strides, pulling her against him in a powerful movement that reminded her that she was talking utter rubbish.

She was extremely vulnerable and she always had been where Zander was concerned.

‘Let’s test that theory, shall we?’ His dark eyes shielded by impossibly long lashes, he gazed down at her, muttered something in Greek and then brought his mouth down on hers in a kiss of such savage urgency that she had no time even to whimper a protest.

Her mouth opened under the determined pressure of his and then she was kissing him back, her tongue tangling with his, her hands sneaking upwards to lock in his silky black hair.

It was wild and hot, the kiss of a man seeking to stake his claim, and she responded in full measure, her hips grinding against his in an effort to draw herself closer to the very centre of his masculinity.

How she’d missed this—

How she’d missed him.

It was as if their bodies recognised each other, drawn together by a force more powerful than the mere physical. She felt him shudder and then he was lifting her onto the desk, curling her legs around his muscular length so that they were held together in the most intimate way possible.

‘Not vulnerable?’ He growled the words against her mouth and yanked her closer so that she felt the hard throb of his erection against her most sensitive flesh. ‘Does he make you feel this, Lauranne?’

Heat exploded in her pelvis and she squirmed closer still, frustrated by the barriers that still remained.

And then suddenly he released her, uttered a savage curse and extracted himself from the coil of her body with decisive force, leaving her to clutch dizzily at the desk for support.

Her whole body throbbed with a sexual need that she hadn’t felt for five long years and for a second she stared at him blankly, unable to comprehend why he had ended something so utterly perfect. Then her passion-clouded brain flickered slowly to life and humiliation set in.

He’d ended it because the kiss had had nothing to do with chemistry and everything to do with revenge. She’d dented his ego and he was punishing her.

What was she doing?

This man was her enemy. Without thinking she’d issued another challenge, this time to his sexuality, and he’d responded by kissing her in anger, using passion as a punishment, not a seduction. The moment his mouth had crushed hers she’d been clinging to him, swept away by a primitive sexual need that she’d only ever felt with this man.

Was she really that shallow?

‘I hate you,’ she whispered, but the words were meaningless even to her because the lips that formed them were soft and swollen from his kisses and the eyes that glared at him were still hazy with passion.

‘I don’t care.’ He stepped away from her with all the grim satisfaction of a male who had very definitely proved his point. ‘I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty. We’ll discuss terms over dinner.’

Dinner?

She stared at him, muted by the shivers that still affected her body.

‘What?’ He lifted a smooth, dark eyebrow in her direction. ‘No smart remark? No refusal? No, you’re the last man on earth I’d eat dinner with? This isn’t going to be much fun if you’re so compliant, agape mou.’

‘Why d-dinner?’ Still shocked by the intensity of her response to him, her brain seemed to have slowed to a virtual halt.

He dealt her a wry smile. ‘Despite the fact you claim not to be vulnerable to me, I suspect that the only way you and I will ever be able to conduct a conversation of any length, agape mou, is if we meet in a very public place. Hopefully the presence of an audience will curb our natural instincts to strip each other naked.’

She stared at him, shattered at being confronted with such an unpalatable truth. How could she have responded like that? She should have slapped his handsome face, instead of which—

‘I have absolutely no trouble resisting you,’ she croaked and he smiled.

‘Of course you don’t.’

His eyes dropped to her breasts and she was suddenly painfully conscious that her nipples were pushing against the thin fabric of her blouse, visible evidence of her arousal.

Resisting the temptation to cover herself, she lifted her chin, trying to salvage a trace of dignity from the wreckage of her pride.

‘I don’t want to discuss terms.’ She wasn’t going to let him threaten her. ‘I have nothing to say to you, Zander, in private or in public.’

‘Then I’ll do the talking.’ Totally indifferent to her protests, he strolled casually towards the door and then paused, a hint of danger in his glittering dark eyes as he focused his attention on her one more time. ‘Oh, and a word of warning—’ his voice was quiet but she tensed, detecting the steel under that deceptively soft tone ‘—if you want to have a civilised evening, then don’t mention Farrer.’

Civilised?

She almost laughed.

How could an evening with Zander ever be civilised? He was the least civilised person she’d ever met.

‘I won’t be mentioning anything because I’m not meeting you.’

Black eyes slammed into hers, holding her captive. Like two fighters in a ring they faced each other, the atmosphere antagonistic and highly charged.

‘Don’t play games with me, Lauranne,’ he warned softly. ‘The stakes are high. Seven-thirty. And you know well enough that if you’re not here, I’ll find you.’

With that he turned and strolled out of the room with the same degree of cool authority with which he’d entered it.

Lauranne stared after him with helpless hostility, unsure whether to scream or cry. For five years she’d successfully locked her past away. She’d managed to get on with her life. And then Zander had sauntered back into it with his hot black eyes and his arrogant ways and all her attempts to forget what they’d shared, their marriage, were ground to dust. One frantic, febrile kiss later and suddenly her emotions were free again.

When he’d walked through the door she’d been spitting and angry, in fact all the things she should have been five years before when she’d been too distraught to defend herself from his accusations.

She knew now what he was and who he was—

Knew that Zander Volakis didn’t possess a soft side—

But all that had ceased to matter when he’d kissed her. She’d forgotten everything except the burning heat of his mouth, the erotic probe of his tongue and the hardness of his body against hers. And her traitorous, yearning body had responded with a desperation that had been humiliatingly obvious to a man as experienced and sophisticated as Zander.

She slid off the table and straightened her clothes, wishing that her emotions could be tidied with the same ease. The knowledge that he could still have such a powerful effect on her filled her with despair.

It didn’t really matter if he agreed to a divorce, she thought helplessly. What they shared was so powerful that all the lawyers in the world wouldn’t be able to negotiate an end to it. And the only answer was to stay away from him.

Once he discovered that he couldn’t bully her, he’d leave her alone. He couldn’t really ruin the business, she reasoned, mentally running through their list of clients. He was calling her bluff.

Trying to frighten her into submission.

There was no way she was eating dinner with him. In fact there was no way she was going to see him again in any shape or form.

He might be arriving to collect her at seven-thirty, but she wouldn’t be here. And if she knew him well enough to know that he’d find her, then he should also know her well enough to know that she wouldn’t make it easy for him.

If he thought he was going to knock on the door and collect her, then he was in for a long and disappointing evening.