Fairy tale for just one night?

Cruelly mistreated by her stepfamily, Ellen Mountford retreated to the shadows of her father’s home, feeling unworthy and unloved. But when powerful tycoon Max Vasilikos wants to buy the glorious English country estate, Ellen can hide no longer…

Under the scrutiny of the Greek’s arrogant stare, Ellen fights the urge to retreat further and stands up to him, yet Max is relentless. He tempts her out to a glamorous charity gala, where Ellen is transformed from dowdy recluse to belle of the ball. Now there is a new glint in Max’s eye that is even more devastating…seduction!

‘Take a look, Ellen,’ Max instructed softly.

Ellen looked.

And made no response.

She could have made no response even if someone had held a gun to her head, or shouted ‘Fire!’ She could only do what she was doing—which was staring. Staring, frozen, at the couple reflected in the mirror. At the tall, superbly elegant and dashing figure of Max Vasilikos...

And the tall, superbly elegant and stunning female at his side.

Dark ruby-red gown in lush moiré silk, wasp-waisted, flaring over her hips to flow in a waterfall of colour the full length of her legs and out into a sweeping train, its body-hugging bodice boned and darted to lift her breasts and reveal a full, generous décolletage, before fanning out over each shoulder in a splay of feathers. Curling tendrils played around her face—a face whose eyes were huge, thickly lashed and fathoms deep, whose cheeks were sculpted as if from marble, whose mouth was as lush and richly hued as damsons...

Emotion swept through Ellen. She couldn’t give a name to it—didn’t need to. She needed only to feel it rush through her, like a tide, like a river sweeping her upstream, unstoppable, irreversible, pushing everything that had been inside her head simply...out.

Because how could everything she’d thought about herself...everything that had been ground into her painful, mortified consciousness with sneering jibes and contemptuous looks...how could any of that stay now?

He turned her back to her reflection. ‘That is who you are, Ellen Mountford—you are beautiful.’

JULIA JAMES lives in England and adores the peaceful verdant countryside and the wild shores of Cornwall. She also loves the Mediterranean—so rich in myth and history, with its sunbaked landscapes and olive groves, ancient ruins and azure seas. ‘The perfect setting for romance!’ she says. ‘Rivaled only by the lush tropical heat of the Caribbean—palms swaying by a silver sand beach lapped by turquoise waters...what more could lovers want?’

Books by Julia James

Mills & Boon Modern Romance

A Tycoon to Be Reckoned With

Captivated by the Greek

The Forbidden Touch of Sanguardo

Securing the Greek’s Legacy

Painted the Other Woman

The Dark Side of Desire

From Dirt to Diamonds

Forbidden or For Bedding?

Penniless and Purchased

The Greek’s Million-Dollar Baby Bargain

Greek Tycoon, Waitress Wife

The Italian’s Rags-to-Riches Wife

Bedded, or Wedded?

Visit the Author Profile page at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.

A Cinderella for the Greek

Julia James

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my younger self.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

MAX VASILIKOS LOWERED his tall frame into the leather chair by the desk and relaxed back into it, his long legs stretching out in front of him.

‘OK, what have you got for me?’

His UK agent handed him a set of glossy brochures. ‘I think there are some good contenders here, Mr Vasilikos,’ he said hopefully to this most demanding of clients.

Max’s dark eyes glanced briefly, and then he found his gaze lingering on only one of the properties.

An English country house, in warm honey-coloured stone, with wisteria tumbling over the porch, surrounded by verdant gardens and sheltering woodland, with a glimpse of a lake beyond the lawn. Bathed in sunshine, the whole place had an appeal that held his gaze, making him want to see the real thing.

He picked up the brochure and shifted his gaze to his agent.

‘This one,’ he said decisively.

* * *

Ellen paused in the hallway. She could hear her stepmother’s sharp voice coming from the drawing room.

‘This is exactly what I’ve been hoping for! And I will not have that wretched girl trying to spoil it—again!’

‘We’ve just got to hurry up and sell this place!’

The second voice came from Ellen’s stepsister, Chloe, petulant and displeased.

Ellen’s mouth tightened. She was all too aware of the source of their displeasure. When Pauline had married Ellen’s widowed father she and her daughter, Chloe, had had only one aim—to spend his money on the luxury lifestyle they craved for themselves. Now all that was left, after years of their lavish spending, was the house they had jointly inherited with Ellen after her father’s sudden death last year from a heart attack—and they couldn’t wait to sell it. That it was Ellen’s home, and had been in her family for generations, bothered them not in the slightest.

Their hostility towards her was nothing new. From the moment they’d invaded her life Pauline and her daughter had treated Ellen with complete contempt. How could Ellen—tall and ungainly, clumping around ‘like an elephant’, as they always described her—possibly compare with slender, petite and oh-so-pretty Chloe?

She clumped down the rest of the stairs deliberately now, to drown out their voices. It sounded, she thought grimly, as if her stepmother had hopes of a potential purchaser for Haughton. Despite knowing she would need to resort to legal action against her stepdaughter in order to force a sale through, Pauline obdurately kept the house on the market, and relentlessly went on at Ellen to try to wear down her resistance and force her to agree to sell up.

But Ellen’s heart had steeled in that first winter without her father, when her stepmother and Chloe had been disporting themselves expensively in the Caribbean. She would make it as difficult as she could for Pauline to sell her beloved home—the home Ellen had been happy in until the terrible day her mother had been killed in a car crash, sending her father spiralling into a grieving tailspin of loneliness that had made him so dangerously vulnerable to entrapment by Pauline’s avaricious ambitions.

As Ellen walked into the drawing room two pairs of ice-blue eyes went to her, their joint expressions openly hostile.

‘What kept you?’ Pauline demanded immediately. ‘Chloe texted you an hour ago saying that we needed to talk to you.’

‘I was taking lacrosse practice,’ Ellen returned, keeping her tone even. She sat down heavily on an armchair.

‘You’ve got mud on your face,’ Chloe informed her sneeringly.

Her gaze was not just hostile, but contemptuous. Ellen could see why. Her stepsister was wearing one of her countless designer outfits—a pair of immaculately cut trousers with a cashmere knit top—her nails were newly manicured and varnished, her freshly cut and styled ash-blonde hair and make-up perfect.

A familiar silent sigh went through Ellen. Chloe was everything she was not! Petite, with a heart-shaped face, and so, so slim! The contrast with her own appearance—she was still wearing the coaching tracksuit from the nearby private girls’ school where she taught Games and Geography, with her thick, unmanageable hair gripped back in a bushy ponytail and her face devoid of any make-up except the streak of mud on her cheek that Chloe had so kindly pointed out!—was total.

‘The estate agents phoned this afternoon,’ Pauline opened, her gimlet eyes on Ellen. ‘There’s been another expression of interest—’

‘And we don’t want you ruining things!’ broke in Chloe waspishly, throwing a dagger look at her stepsister. ‘Especially with this guy,’ she continued.

There was a note in her voice that caught Ellen’s attention. So, too, did the discernibly smug expression in Pauline’s eyes.

‘Max Vasilikos is looking for a new addition to his portfolio—he thinks Haughton might be it.’ Pauline elucidated.

Ellen looked blank, and Chloe made a derisive noise. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t expect her to know who Max Vasilikos is,’ she said. ‘Max Vasilikos,’ she spelt out to Ellen, ‘is a stinking rich property tycoon. He’s also just had an affair with Tyla Brentley—you must have heard of her, at least?’

Ellen had, as a matter of fact. She was an English actress who’d found fame in Hollywood in a hugely successful romantic blockbuster, and the pupils at her school were full of her. But as for this Max Vasilikos... Apart from surmising that with a name like that he must be of Greek origin—well, ‘stinking rich’ property tycoons were nothing to do with her.

And they would be nothing to do with Haughton either, please God! A cold shiver went down her spine. Someone like this Max Vasilikos would sell it on for a huge profit to a Russian oligarch or a Middle Eastern sheikh who would spend a week or two in it, at best, every year or so. And it would languish, unloved and unlived-in...

Pauline was speaking again. ‘Max Vasilikos is sufficiently interested to come and view the property himself. As a courtesy I have invited him to lunch with us.’

That smug expression was in her eyes again. Ellen just looked at her. ‘Does he understand the ownership structure of Haughton and that I am unwilling to sell my share?’ she asked bluntly.

Pauline waved a hand to brush aside this unpalatable detail. ‘What I understand, Ellen,’ she said bitingly, ‘is that if—if—he expresses an interest, we will be very, very fortunate. I do not,’ she emphasised, ‘want you rocking the boat. Moreover—’ she glared at her stepdaughter ‘—if nothing I can say will make you see sense about selling up, perhaps Max Vasilikos can.’

There was an explosive, choking half-laugh from Chloe. ‘Oh, Mummy, don’t,’ she jeered. ‘You simply can’t inflict her on him!’

Ellen felt the jibe, flinching inwardly and yet knowing it for nothing but the truth. No man—let alone one who dated film stars—could look at her with anything but complete indifference to her appearance. She had nothing to attract a man in her looks. Knew it...accepted it. At least, though, she wasn’t cruel like her stepsister.

Pauline had turned to Chloe. ‘Nevertheless, that’s just what we are going to have to do,’ she continued. ‘Ellen has to be there.’ Her gaze went back to her stepdaughter. ‘We’ll present a united front.’

Ellen stared. United? A more fractured family was hard to imagine. But, although it would be gruelling to endure, it would at least, she realised grimly, give her the opportunity to make it clear to this Max Vasilikos just how unwilling she was to sell her share of her home.

With reluctant acquiescence she got to her feet. She needed a shower, and she was hungry, too. She headed for the kitchen. It was the part of the house she liked best now—the former servants’ quarters, and the perfect place for keeping out of Pauline and Chloe’s way. Cooking was not a priority for either woman.

She’d moved her bedroom to one of the back rooms as well, overlooking the courtyard at the rear of the house, and adapted an adjacent room for her own sitting room. She ventured into the front part of the house as little as possible—but now, as she headed back across the hall to the green baize door that led to the servants’ quarters, she felt her heart squeeze as she gazed around her at the sweeping staircase, the huge stone fireplace, the massive oak doorway, the dark wood panelling and the ancient flagstones beneath her feet.

How she loved this house. Loved it with a strong, deep devotion. She would never willingly relinquish it. Never!

* * *

Max Vasilikos slowed the powerful car as the road curved between high hedges. He was deep in Hampshire countryside bright with early spring sunshine, and almost at his destination. He was eager to arrive—keen to see for himself whether the place that had so immediately appealed to him in the estate agency’s photos would live up to his hopes. And not just from an investment perspective. The encircling woods and gardens, the mellow stonework, the pleasing proportions and styling of the house all seemed—homely. That was the word that formed in his mind.

In fact... It’s a house I could see myself in—

The thought was in his head before he could stop it, and that in itself was cause for surprise. He’d always been perfectly happy to live a globetrotting life, staying in hotels or serviced apartments, ready to board a plane at any moment.

But then, he’d never known a home of his own. His eyes shadowed. His mother had always been ashamed of his illegitimacy, and that was why, Max thought bleakly, she’d married his stepfather—to try and disguise her child’s fatherless status.

But the very last thing his stepfather had wanted was to accept his wife’s bastard into his family. All he’d wanted was a wife to be a skivvy, an unpaid drudge to work in his restaurant in a little tourist town on a resort island in the Aegean. Max had spent his childhood and teenage years helping her, keeping the taverna going while his stepfather played host to his customers, snapping his fingers at Max to wait at tables while his mother cooked endlessly.

The day his mother had died—of exhaustion as much as the lung disease that had claimed her—Max had walked out, never to return. He’d taken the ferry to Athens, his eyes burning not just with grief for his mother’s death, but with a fierce, angry determination to make his own way in the world. And make it a glittering way. Nothing would stop him. He would overcome all obstacles, with determination driving him ever onwards.

Five years of slog in the construction industry and finally he’d saved enough from his wages to make his first property purchase—a derelict farmhouse that, with the sweat of his brow, he’d restored and sold to a German second-home-owner, making enough profit to buy two more properties. And so it had begun. The Vasilikos property empire had snowballed into the global enterprise it now was. His tightened mouth twisted into a caustic smile of ruthless satisfaction. It even included his stepfather’s taverna—picked up for a song when his stepfather’s idleness had bankrupted him.

Max’s expression changed abruptly as his sat-nav indicated that he’d arrived at his destination. Manoeuvring between two large, imposing stone gate pillars, he headed slowly along a lengthy drive flanked by woodland and massed rhododendrons that in turn gave way to a gravelled carriage sweep alongside the frontage of the house. He slowed down, taking in the vista in front of him, feeling satisfaction shaping inside him.

The photos hadn’t deceived—everything they’d promised was here. The house was nestled into its landscaped grounds, the mellow stonework a warm honey colour, and sunshine glanced off the mullioned windows. The stone porch with its gnarled oak door was flanked by twisted wisteria, bare at this time of year, but with the promise of the show to come. Already in bloom, however, were ranks of golden daffodils, marching thickly along the herbaceous borders on either side of the porch.

Max’s sense of satisfaction deepened. It looked good—more than good. Not too large, not too grand, but elegant and gracious, and steeped in the long centuries of its existence. An English country house, yes, built for landowners and gentry, but also inviting, its scale domestic and pleasing. More than a grand house—a home.

Could it become my home? Could I see myself living here?

He frowned slightly. Why was he thinking such things?

Have I reached the age where I’m starting to think of settling down? Is that it?

Settling down? That was something he’d never thought of with any woman—certainly not with Tyla. She was like him: rootless, working all over the world.

Maybe that’s why we suited each other—we had that in common.

Well, even if that had been true enough at the time, it hadn’t been sufficient to stop him ending things with her. Her absorption in her own beauty and desirability had become tiresome in the end—and now she was busy beguiling her latest leading man, a Hollywood A-lister. Max wished her well with it.

So maybe I need a new relationship? Maybe I’m in search of novelty? Something different—?

He gave himself a mental shake. He wasn’t here to ponder his private life. He was here to make a simple business decision—whether to buy this property or not for his extensive portfolio.

Engaging gear again, he crunched forward over the gravel, taking the car around to the back of the house. He drew to a halt and got out of the car, again liking what he saw. The rear façade, built as servants’ quarters, might not have the elegance of the front section of the house, but the open cobbled courtyard was attractive, bordered by outhouses on two sides and prettied up with tubs of flowers, and a wooden bench positioned in the sunshine by the kitchen door.

His approval rating of the house went up yet another notch. He strolled towards the door, to ask if it was okay to leave his car there, but just as he was about to knock it was yanked open, and someone hefting a large wooden basket and a bulging plastic bin bag cannoned straight into him.

A Greek expletive escaped him and he stepped back, taking in whoever had barged so heavily into him. She was female, he could see, and though she might be categorised as ‘young’ she had little else that he could see to recommend her to his sex. She was big, bulky, with a mop of dark bushy hair yanked back off her face into some kind of ponytail. She wore a pair of round glasses on her nose and her complexion was reddening unbecomingly. The dark purple tracksuit she wore was hideous, and she looked distinctly overweight, Max decided.

Despite her unprepossessing appearance, not for a moment did Max neglect his manners.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said smoothly. ‘I was seeking to enquire whether I might leave my car here.’ He paused. ‘I am expected. Max Vasilikos to see Mrs Mountford.’

The reddening female dragged her eyes from him and stared at his car, then back at him. Her cheeks flushed redder than ever. She shifted the weight of the basket on her hip but did not answer him.

‘So, is it all right to leave my car here?’ Max prompted.

With visible effort the woman nodded. She might have mumbled something as well, but whatever it was it was indistinct.

He gave a swift, courtesy-only smile. ‘Good,’ he said, dismissing her from his notice, and turned away to head around the house to the front entrance, his gaze sweeping out over the gardens as he walked. Even this early in the spring he could see that they would be beautiful as summer arrived.

Again he felt that unexpected sense of approval that was nothing to do with whether or not this place would be a profitable investment to make. He walked up to the front door—a massive, studded oak construction—hoping the interior of the house would match the charms of the exterior.

The door opened in front of him—clearly his arrival had been communicated. The female standing there could not, Max thought, have been more different from the one who’d cannoned into him at the kitchen door. She was petite, ultra-slender and immaculately styled, from her chic ash-blonde hair and perfect make-up to her well-tailored outfit whose pale blue hue matched the colour of her eyes. The fragrance of an expensive perfume wafted from her as she smiled warmly at him.

‘Mr Vasilikos—do come in!’

She stood back as Max walked in, taking in a large hall with a flagged stone floor, a cavernous fireplace, and a broad flight of stairs leading upwards. It suited the house, Max thought.

‘I’m Chloe Mountford. I’m so glad you could come.’ The daughter of the house—as he assumed she must be—was gliding towards one of the sets of double doors opening off the hall, and she threw them open with a dramatic gesture as he followed after her.

‘Mummy, it’s Mr Vasilikos,’ she announced.

Mummy? Max reminded himself that it was common in English upper crust circles for adult children to use such a juvenile form of address for their parents. Then he walked into the room. It was a double aspect drawing room, with another large but more ornate marble fireplace and a lot of furniture. The decor was pale grey and light blue, and it was clear to his experienced eyes that a top-class interior designer had been let loose in there.

He found himself conscious of a feeling of disappointment—it was all just too perfect and calculatedly tasteful—and wondered what the original decor would have looked like. The effect now was like something out of a highly glossy upmarket magazine.

I couldn’t live in this. It’s far too overdone. I’d have to change it—

The thought was in his head automatically, and he frowned slightly. He was getting ahead of himself again.

‘Mr Vasilikos, how lovely to meet you.’

The slim, elegant woman greeting him from one of the upholstered sofas by the fire, holding out a diamond-ringed hand to him, was extremely well preserved and, like her daughter, had clearly lavished money on her clothes and her appearance. A double rope of pearls adorned her neck which, Max suspected, had benefitted from the attentions of a plastic surgeon at some time.

‘Mrs Mountford.’ Max greeted the widowed owner, his handshake firm and brief, then sat himself down where she indicated, at the far end of the sofa opposite, away from the fire. Chloe Mountford settled herself prettily on a third sofa, facing the fire, at the end closest to Max.

‘I’m delighted to welcome you to Haughton,’ Mrs Mountford was saying now, in a smiling, gracious tone.

Max smiled politely in response as her daughter took up the conversational baton.

‘Thank you for taking the time from what I’m sure must be a dreadfully busy schedule. Are you in England long this visit, Mr Vasilikos?’ she asked brightly.

‘My plans are fluid at the moment,’ Max returned evenly. He found himself wondering whether Chloe Mountford was likely to make a play for him. He hoped not. The current fashion might be for ultra-thin figures, but they were not to his taste. Nor, of course, were women at the other extreme.

His mind flickered back to the female who’d cannoned into him at the back door. Being overweight wasn’t a good look either—especially when a woman was badly dressed and plain to boot. A flicker of pity went through him for any woman so sadly unattractive. Then Chloe Mountford was speaking again.

‘There speaks the globetrotting tycoon!’ she said with a light laugh.

She turned her head expectantly as a door set almost invisibly into the papered wall opened abruptly and a bulky frame carrying a loaded coffee tray reversed into the room. It belonged, Max could see instantly, to the very female he’d just been mentally pitying for her lack of physical appeal.

The unlovely tracksuit had been swapped for a grey skirt and a white blouse, the trainers replaced with sturdy lace-up flats, but her hair was still caught back in a style-less bush, and the spectacles were still perched on her nose. She made her way heavily into the room, looking decidedly awkward, Max could see.

‘Ah, Ellen, there you are!’ exclaimed Pauline Mountford as the coffee tray was set down on the low table by the fireside. Then his hostess was addressing him directly. ‘Mr Vasilikos, this is my stepdaughter, Ellen.’

Max found his assumptions that the hefty female was some kind of maid rearranging themselves. Stepdaughter? He’d been unaware of that—but then, of course, knowing the details of the family who owned Haughton was hardly relevant to his decision whether to purchase it or not.

‘How do you do?’ he murmured as he politely got to his feet.

He saw her face redden as she sat herself down heavily on the sofa beside Chloe Mountford. Max’s glance, as he seated himself again, went between the two young women sitting on the same sofa, took in the difference between the two females graphically. They could hardly be a greater contrast to each other—one so petite and beautifully groomed, the other so large and badly presented. Clearly nothing more than stepsisters, indeed.

‘Mr Vasilikos,’ the stepdaughter returned briefly, with the slightest nod of her head. Then she looked across at her stepmother. ‘Would you like me to pour? Or do you want to be mother?’ she said.

Max heard the bite in her voice as she addressed the owner of the house and found himself sharpening his scrutiny.

‘Please do pour, Ellen, dear,’ said Mrs Mountford, ignoring the distinctly baiting note in her stepdaughter’s tone of voice.

‘Cream and sugar, Mr Vasilikos?’ she asked, looking straight at him.

There was a gritty quality to her voice, as if she found the exchange difficult. Her colour was still heightened, but subsiding. Her skin tone, distinctly less pale than her stepsister’s carefully made up features, definitely looked better when she wasn’t colouring up, Max decided. In fact, now he came to realise it, she had what might almost be described as a healthy glow about her—as if she spent most of her time outside. Not like the delicate hothouse plant her stepsister looked to be.

‘Just black, please,’ he answered. He didn’t particularly want coffee, let alone polite chit-chat, but it was a ritual to be got through, he acknowledged, before he could expect a tour of the property that he was interested in.

He watched Pauline Mountford’s sadly unlovely stepdaughter pour the coffee from a silver jug into a porcelain cup and hand it to him. He took it with a murmur of thanks, his fingers inadvertently making contact with hers, and she grabbed her hand back as if the slight touch had been an unpleasant electric shock. Then she ferociously busied herself pouring the other three cups of coffee, handing them to her stepmother and sister, before sitting back with her own and stirring it rapidly.

Max sat back, crossing one leg over the other, and took a contemplative sip of his coffee. Time to get the conversation going where he wanted it to go.

‘So,’ he opened, with a courteous smile of interest at Pauline Mountford, ‘what makes you wish to part with such a beautiful property?’

Personally, he might think the decor too overdone, but it was obviously to his hostess’s taste, and there was no point in alienating her. Decor could easily be changed—it was the house itself he was interested in.

And he was interested—most decidedly so. That same feeling that had struck him from the first was strengthening all the time. Again, he wondered why.

Maybe it’s coming from the house itself?

The fanciful idea was in his head before he could stop it, making its mark.

As he’d spoken he’d seen Pauline Mountford’s stepdaughter’s coffee cup jerk in her grip and her expression darken. But his hostess was replying.

‘Oh, sadly there are too many memories here! Since my husband died I find them too painful. I know I must be brave and make a new life for myself now.’ She gave a resigned sigh, a catch audible in her voice. ‘It will be a wrench, though...’ She shook her head sadly.

‘Poor Mummy.’ Her daughter reached her hand across and patted her mother’s arm, her voice warm with sympathy. Chloe Mountford looked at him. ‘This last year’s been just dreadful,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Max murmured. ‘But I can understand your reasons for wishing to sell.’

A sharp clunk came from the sofa opposite, and his eyes flicked to see his hostess’s stepdaughter had dropped her coffee cup on to its saucer. Her expression, he could tell, was tight. His focus sharpened. Beneath his swift glance in her direction he saw her cheeks redden again. Then she reached for the silver coffee pot and busied herself pouring another cup. She did not speak, but the tightness in her face was unabated, even as the colour started to ebb. She took a single gulp from the refilled cup, then abruptly got to her feet.

‘I must go and see about lunch,’ she said brusquely, pushing past the furniture to get to the service door.

As she left Pauline Mountford leant towards him slightly. ‘Poor Ellen took my husband’s death very hard,’ she confided in a low voice. ‘She was quite devoted to him.’ A little frown formed on her well-preserved and, he suspected, well-Botoxed forehead. ‘Possibly too much so...’ She sighed.

Then her expression changed and she brightened.

‘I’m sure you would like to see the rest of the house before lunch. Chloe will be delighted to take you on the grand tour!’ she gave a light laugh.

Her daughter got to her feet and Max did likewise. He was keen to see the house—and not keen to hear any more about the personal circumstances of the Mountford family, which were of no interest to him whatsoever. Chloe Mountford might be too thin, and her stepsister just the opposite, but he found neither attractive. All that attracted him here was the house itself.

It was an attraction that the ‘grand tour’ only intensified. By the time he reached the upper floor, with its array of bedrooms opening off a long, spacious landing, and stood in the window embrasure of the master bedroom, gazing with satisfaction over the gardens to let his gaze rest on the reed-edged lake beyond, its glassy waters flanked by sheltering woodland, his mind was made up.

Haughton Court would be his. He was determined on it.

CHAPTER TWO

ELLEN MADE IT to the kitchen, her heart knocking. Having anyone arrive to look over her home, thinking he was going to buy it, was bad enough—but...oh, dear Lord...that it was such a man as Max Vasilikos! She felt her cheeks flame again, just as they’d flamed—horribly, hideously—in that first punishingly embarrassing moment of all but sending him flying at the back door.

She had been gawping like an idiot at the devastating male standing in front of her. Six foot plus, broad-shouldered, muscled, and just ludicrously good-looking, with classic ‘tall dark stranger’ looks and olive skin tones. Sable hair and charcoal eyes, a sculpted mouth, incised cheekbones and a jaw cut from the smoothest marble...

The impact he’d made had hit her all over again when she’d taken in the coffee. At least by then she’d been a fraction more prepared—prepared, too, for what she’d known would be the inevitable pitying glance he’d cast at her as she took her place beside Chloe.

She felt her throat tighten painfully. She knew exactly what he’d seen, and why he’d pitied her. She and Chloe couldn’t have made a bigger contrast, sitting beside each other. Hadn’t she seen that same expression countless times over the years, whenever male eyes had looked between the two of them? Chloe the svelte, lovely blonde—she the heavy, ungainly frump.

She wrenched her mind away from the image. She had more to concern her than her lack of looks. Somehow she was going to have to find an opportunity to lay it on the line for Max Vasilikos about his buying her home. Oh, Pauline and Chloe might trot out all that sickeningly hypocritical garbage about ‘painful memories’, but the truth was they couldn’t wait to cash in on the sale of the last asset they could get their greedy hands on.

Well, she would defy them to the last.

They’ll have to force it from me in a court of law, and I’ll fight them every inch of the way. I’ll make it the most protracted and expensive legal wrangle I can.

A man like Max Vasilikos—an investment purchaser who just wanted a quick sale and a quick profit—wouldn’t want that kind of delay. So long as she insisted that she wouldn’t sell, that he’d have to wait out a legal battle with Pauline and Chloe, she would be able to fend him off. He’d find somewhere else to buy—leave Haughton alone.

As she checked the chicken that was roasting, and started to chop up vegetables, that was the only hope she could hang on to.

He’ll never persuade me to agree to sell to him. Never!

There was nothing Max could say or do that would make her change her mind. Oh, he might be the kind of man who could turn females to jelly with a single glance of his dark, dark eyes, but—her mouth twisted—with looks like hers she knew only too painfully she was the last female on the planet that a man like Max Vasilikos would bother to turn the charm on for.

* * *

‘Sherry, Mr Vasilikos? Or would you prefer something stronger?’ Pauline’s light voice enquired.

‘Dry sherry, thank you,’ he replied.

He was back in the drawing room, his tour of the house complete, his mind made up. This was a house he wanted to own.

And to keep for his own use.

That was the most insistent aspect of his decision to purchase this place. Its prominence in his mind still surprised him, but he was increasingly getting used to its presence. The idea of having this place for himself—to himself. Mentally he let the prospect play inside his head, and it continued to play as he sipped at the proffered sherry, his eyes working around the elegant drawing room.

All the other rooms that Chloe had shown him bore the same mark of a top interior designer. Beautiful, but to his mind not authentic. Only the masculine preserve of the library had given any sense of the house as it must once have been, before it had been expensively made over. The worn leather chairs, the old-fashioned patterned carpets and the book-lined walls had a charm that the oh-so-tasteful other rooms lacked. Clearly the late Edward Mountford had prevented his wife from letting the designer into his domain, and Max could not but agree with that decision.

He realised his hostess was murmuring something to him and forced his attention back from the pleasurable meanderings of the way he would decorate this room, and all the others, once the house was his to do with as he pleased.

He was not kept making anodyne conversation with his hostess and her daughter for long, however. After a few minutes the service door opened again and Pauline Mountford’s stepdaughter walked in with her solid tread.

‘Lunch is ready,’ she announced bluntly.

She crossed to the double doors, throwing them open to the hall beyond. Despite her solidity she held herself well, Max noticed—shoulders back, straight spine, as if she were strong beneath the excess weight she must be carrying, if the way the sleeves of her ill-fitting blouse were straining over her arms was anything to go by. He frowned. It seemed wrong to him that his hostess and her daughter should be so elegantly attired, and yet Ellen Mountford—presumably, he realised, the daughter of the late owner—looked so very inelegant.

But then, sadly, he knew that so many women who felt themselves to be overweight virtually gave up on trying to make anything of what looks they had.

His gaze assessed her as he followed her into the dining room, her stepsister and stepmother coming in behind him.

She’s got good legs, he found himself thinking. Shapely calves, at any rate. Well, that was something, at least! His eyes went to her thick mop of hair, whose style did nothing for her—it wouldn’t have done anything for Helen of Troy, to his mind! A decent haircut would surely improve her?

As he took his seat at the end of the table, where she indicated, his eyes flicked over her face. The glasses, he decided, were too small for her, making her jaw look big and her eyes look small. And that was a shame, he realised, because her eyes were a warm sherry colour, with amber lights. He frowned again. Her lashes might be long—what he could see of them through her spectacle lenses—but that overgrown monobrow was hideous! Why on earth didn’t she do something about it? Do something about the rest of her?

It wouldn’t take that much, surely, to make her look better? Plus, of course, decent clothes that concealed her excess weight as much as possible. Best of all, however, would be for her to shift that weight. She should take more exercise, maybe.

And not eat so much...

Because as they settled into lunch it was clear to Max that he and Ellen Mountford were the only ones tucking in. That was a shame, because the roast chicken was delicious—the traditional ‘Sunday lunch’ that the English loved so much and did so well. But neither Pauline Mountford nor her daughter did anything more than pick at their food.

Max found himself annoyed. Didn’t they realise that being too thin was as undesirable as the opposite? His eyes flickered to Ellen Mountford again. Was she overweight? Her blouse might be straining over her arms, but her jawline was firm, and there was no jowliness or softening under the chin.

She must have noticed him glancing at her, for suddenly he saw again that tide of unlovely colour washing up into her face. That most certainly did nothing for her. He drew his glance away. Why was he thinking about how to improve the appearance of Ellen Mountford? She was of no interest to him—how could she possibly be?

‘What are your plans for the contents of the house?’ he asked his hostess. ‘Will you take the paintings with you when you sell?’

A sound that might have been a choke came from Ellen Mountford, and Max’s eyes flicked back to her. The red tide had vanished, and now there was the same tightness in her face as he’d seen when her stepmother had mentioned her bereavement.

‘Very possibly not,’ Pauline Mountford was answering him. ‘They do rather go with the house, do you not think? Of course,’ she added pointedly, ‘they would all need to be independently valued.’

Max’s eyes swept the walls. He had no objection to having the artwork—or, indeed, any of the original furniture. The pieces that had been acquired via the interior designer were, however, dispensable. His gaze rested on an empty space on the wall behind Chloe Mountford, where the wallpaper was slightly darker.

‘Sold,’ said Ellen Mountford tersely. The look on her face had tightened some more.

Chloe Mountford gave a little laugh. ‘It was a gruesome still life of a dead stag. Mummy and I hated it!’

Max gave a polite smile, but his gaze was on Chloe’s stepsister. She didn’t seem pleased about the loss of the dead stag painting. Then his attention was recalled by his hostess.

‘Do tell us, Mr Vasilikos, where will you be off to next? Your work must take you all over the world, I imagine.’ She smiled encouragingly at him as she sipped at her wine.

‘The Caribbean,’ he replied. ‘I am developing a resort there on one of the lesser known islands.’

Chloe’s pale blue eyes lit up. ‘I adore the Caribbean!’ she exclaimed enthusiastically. ‘Mummy and I spent Christmas in Barbados last winter. We stayed at Sunset Bay, of course. There really isn’t anything to compare, is there?’ she invited, after naming the most prestigious resort on the island.

‘It’s superb in what it does,’ Max agreed. The famous high-profile hotel was nothing like the resort he was developing, and the remote island was nothing like fashionable Barbados.

‘Do tell us more,’ invited Chloe. ‘When will the grand opening be? I’m sure Mummy and I would love to be amongst the very first guests.’

Max could see Ellen Mountford’s expression hardening yet again with clear displeasure. He wondered at it. Out of nowhere, memory shafted like an arrow. His stepfather had been perpetually displeased by anything he’d ever said—so much that he’d learnt to keep his mouth shut when his stepfather was around.

He dragged his mind away from the unhappy memory, back to the present. ‘Its style will be very different from Sunset Bay,’ he said. ‘The idea is for it to be highly eco-friendly, focussing on being self-sustaining. Rainwater showers and no air conditioning,’ he elucidated, with a slight smile.

‘Oh, dear...’ Pauline shook her head regretfully. ‘I don’t think that would suit me. Too much heat is very trying, I find.’

‘It won’t be for everyone, I agree,’ Max acknowledged tactfully. He turned towards Ellen. ‘What do you think—would it attract you? Wood-built lodges open to the fresh air and meals cooked on open fires in the evenings?’ He found himself unexpectedly wanting to draw her into the conversation, to hear her views. They would be different from her hothouse stepsister’s, he was sure.

‘Sounds like glamping,’ she blurted in her abrupt manner.

Max’s eyebrows drew together. ‘Glamping?’ he echoed, mystified.

‘Glamorous camping. I believe that’s the contraction it’s for,’ she elucidated shortly. ‘Upmarket camping for people who like the idea of going back to nature but not the primitive reality of it.’

Max gave a wry smile. ‘Hmm...that might be a good description for my resort,’ he acknowledged.

A tinkling laugh came from Chloe. ‘I’d say “glamorous camping” is a contradiction in terms! It would be luxury for Ellen, though—she runs camps for London kids. A million miles from upmarket. Totally basic.’

She gave a dramatic shudder, and Max heard the note of dismissal in her voice.

‘Adventure breaks,’ Ellen said shortly. ‘The children enjoy it. They think it’s exciting. Some of them have never been into the countryside.’

‘Ellen’s “good works”!’ Pauline said lightly. ‘I’m sure it’s very uplifting.’

‘And muddy!’ trilled Chloe with a little laugh, and sought to catch Max’s eye to get his agreement.

But Max’s attention was on Ellen. It was unexpected to hear that she ran such breaks for deprived inner-city children, given her own privileged background. He realised that he was paying her more attention.

‘Do you hold them here?’ he asked interestedly.

If so, it was something he might keep on with—adding it to the extensive list of charitable enterprises that were his personal payback for the good fortune that had enabled him to attain the wealth he had.

‘They’re held at my school, nearby. We set up camp on the playing fields,’ came the answer. ‘That way the children can use the sports pavilion, including the showers, and have use of the swimming pool as well. So they get the fun of camping, plus the run of the facilities of a private school.’

As she spoke for the first time Max saw something light up in Ellen Mountford’s eyes, changing her expression. Instead of the stony, closed look that alternated only with the tomato-red flaring of her cheeks when he paid her attention there was actually some animation, some enthusiasm. It made a significant difference to her features, he realised with surprise. They seemed lighter, somehow, less heavy, and not even those wretched spectacles could hide that.

Then, as if aware of his regard, he saw her face close down again and she grabbed at her wine glass, that telltale colour washing up into her face, destroying the transformation he’d started to glimpse. For some reason it annoyed him. He opened his mouth to make a reply, to ask another question, see whether he could get back that momentary animation, draw her out again. But his hostess was speaking now, and he had to turn his attention to her.

‘After lunch,’ said Pauline Mountford, ‘I’m sure you would like to see the gardens here. It’s a little early in the season as yet, but in a week or two the rhododendrons along the drive will start their annual show,’ she told him smilingly. ‘They are a blaze of colour!’

‘Rhododendrons...’ Max mused, more for something to say than anything else. ‘Rose tree—that’s the literal translation from the Greek.’

‘How fascinating!’ said Chloe. ‘Do they come from Greece, then?’

‘No. They come from the Himalayas.’ Her stepsister’s contradiction was immediate. ‘The Victorians introduced them to England. Unfortunately they’ve taken over in some places, where they are invasive pests. ‘

Max saw her eyes flicker to Pauline and her daughter, her expression back to stony again.

Chloe, though, continued as if her stepsister had not spoken. ‘And then a little later on in early summer we have the azaleas—they are absolutely gorgeous when they are fully out in May. Masses and masses of them! Mummy had the most beautiful walk created, that winds right through their midst—’

There was an abrupt clatter of silverware from her stepsister.

‘No, she did not. The azalea walk has been there far longer. It was my mother who created it!’

The glare from behind Ellen Mountford’s spectacle lenses was like a dagger, skewering the hapless Chloe as Max turned his head abruptly at the brusque interjection. Then his hostess’s stepdaughter scraped back her chair and got to her feet.

‘If you’ve all finished—?’ she said, and started to grab at the plates and pile them on the tray on the sideboard. She marched out with them.

As she disappeared Pauline Mountford gave a resigned sigh. ‘Oh, dear,’ she said. ‘I do apologise for that.’ She glanced at her daughter, who promptly took up the cue.

‘Ellen can be so very...sensitive,’ she murmured sadly. ‘I should have known better.’ She gave a little sigh of regret.

‘We do our best,’ her mother confirmed with another sad sigh. ‘But, well...’ She trailed off and gave a little shake of her head.

It was tricky, Max allowed, for his hostess and her daughter to have to smooth over the prickly behaviour of their step-relation, in which he was not interested, so he moved the conversation back to the topic he was interested in, asking how far Haughton was from the sea.

Chloe Mountford was just telling him that it would make an ideal base for Cowes Week, if sailing was an interest of his, when her stepsister made another entrance, bearing another tray weighed down with a large apple pie, a jug of custard and a bowl of cream, which she set down on the table heavily. She did not resume her place.

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ she announced shortly. ‘Coffee will be in the drawing room.’

Then she was gone, disappearing back through the service door.

* * *

‘So, Mr Vasilikos, what do you make of Haughton?’

Pauline Mountford’s enquiry was perfectly phrased, and accompanied by a charming smile. She was sitting in a graceful pose on the sofa in the drawing room, where they had repaired for the coffee that Ellen Mountford had so tersely informed them would be awaiting them.

Max had been the only one to partake of the apple pie—no surprise—but he was glad he had. It had been delicious—sweet pastry made with a very light touch indeed, and juicy apples spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg. Whoever had made it could certainly cook.

Had the graceless Ellen made it? If so, then whatever her lack of beauty she could certainly boast of one key asset to draw a man to her side. His thoughts ran on. But perhaps being a good cook was not to her personal advantage—not if she overindulged in her own creations.

He gave a little shake of his head. There he was, thinking about that woman again. Why? She was nothing to him, and would remain so. He relaxed back a fraction in his seat. His hostess was clearly fishing for whether he wanted to buy this place or not. Well, why not give her his good news right now? He’d made his decision—and every passing moment only confirmed it. It might have been a decision made on impulse, but it was a strong impulse—the strongest he’d ever had—and he was used to making decisions on the spot. His instinct had never failed him yet—and it would not fail him now.

‘Charming,’ he said decisively, stretching out his legs towards the fire in a fashion that was already proprietorial. ‘I believe...’ he bestowed a smile on her ‘...that we will be able to reach an agreement in the region of your asking price—which is a realistic one—subject, of course, to the usual considerations of purchase: a full structural survey and so forth.’

He saw her eyes light up, and from the corner of his eye he was sure that her daughter’s had done the same.

‘Oh, that is excellent!’ came Pauline’s gracious response.

‘Marvellous!’ echoed her daughter.

Enthusiasm was in her voice. And relief too—Max could detect that.

It did not surprise him. Being forced to live here with the perpetually prickly Ellen could hardly be comfortable. He did not blame either mother or daughter for being eager to make new lives for themselves. Or even, he allowed, for having preferred to be abroad this last year. Hadn’t he himself hightailed it from his stepfather’s taverna the moment his poor mother had been finally laid to rest?

He pulled his mind away again. He did not want to remember his miserable childhood and downtrodden mother. Nor was he interested in the tense convolutions of the Mountford family either.

He set down his empty cup. ‘Before I leave,’ he said, ‘I’ll take a look around the gardens and the outbuildings to the rear. No, don’t get up—’ This to Chloe, who had started to stand. He smiled. ‘My footwear is more suitable for the outdoors than yours,’ he explained, glancing at her stylish high heels and not adding that he preferred to keep his own pace, and would rather not have her endless panegyrics about the charms of a property he had already decided would be his.

Though it was only prudent to check out the areas he had not yet seen, he did not envisage there being anything so dreadful as to make him change his mind.

He strode from the room, and as he shut the door behind him he heard animated conversation break out behind him. To his ears it sounded...jubilant. Well, his own mood was just as buoyant. Satisfaction filled him, and a warm, proprietorial sense of well-being. He glanced around the hallway—soon to be his hallway.

He paused in his stride. A family had lived here for generations. Emotion kicked in him. It was an emotion he had never felt before, and one that startled him with its presence—shocked him even more with his certainty about it. The words were in his head, shaping themselves, taking hold. Taking root.

And now it will be my home—for my family.

The family of his own that he’d never had...the family he would have.

A pang stabbed at him. If his poor mother had survived longer how he would have loved to bring her here—make a home for her here, safe from the harshness of her life, cosseting her in the luxury he could now afford to bestow upon her.

But I’ll do that for your grandchildren—give them the happy upbringing you could not give me—and I’ll feel you smile and be glad! I’ve come a long way—a long, long way—and now I’ve found the place I want to call my home. I’ll find the right woman for me and bring her here.

Who that woman would be he didn’t know, but she was out there somewhere. He just had to find her. Find her and bring her here.

Home.

He started to walk forward again, heading for the baize door that led through to the back section of the house. He would check it out, then go out into the courtyard area, take a look at the outbuildings before making his way around to the gardens and exploring them.

He was just walking down the passageway towards the back door when a voice from the open doorway to what he could see was a large stone-flagged kitchen stopped him.

‘Mr Vasilikos! I need to speak to you!’

He halted, turning his head. Ellen Mountford was standing there and her face was stony. Very stony indeed. Annoyance tensed him. He did not want this. He wanted to get outside and complete his inspection of the place.

‘What about?’ he replied with steely politeness.

‘It’s very important.’

She backed away, indicating that he should step into the kitchen.

Impatiently Max strode in, taking in an impression of a large room with old-fashioned wooden cupboards, a long scrubbed wooden table, a flagstone floor and a vast old-fashioned range cooker along one wall. The warmth from the oven enveloped him, and there was, he realised, a cosy, comfortable, lived-in feel to the space. No top interior designer had been let loose in here, that was for sure—and he was glad of it.

He turned his attention to Ellen Mountford. She’d taken up a position on the far side of the kitchen table and her hands were pressed down over the back of a chair. Tension was in every line of her body, and her expression was both stony and determined.

He frowned. Now what?

‘There’s something you have to know!’

The words burst from her, and he realised with a deepening of his frown that she was in a state of extreme agitation and nervousness.

He levelled his gaze at her. She seemed to be steeling herself after her dramatic outburst. ‘And that is...?’ he prompted.

He watched her take a gulping breath. Her cheeks seemed pale now—as pale as chalk. Not a trace of the colour that had so unflatteringly rushed there whenever he’d looked at her before.

‘Mr Vasilikos, there’s no easy way to tell you this, and for that I’m sorry, but you’ve had a completely wasted journey. Whatever my stepmother has led you to believe, Haughton is not for sale. And it never will be!’

CHAPTER THREE

MAX STILLED. THEN deliberately he let his gaze rest on her. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, and he made no effort to make his voice sound anything less than the way he intended it to sound—quelling—‘you might like to explain what you mean by that.’

Ellen swallowed, had to force herself to speak. To say what she had to say. ‘I own a third of Haughton and I have no wish to sell.’

Somehow she’d got the words out—but her heart was thumping like a hammer inside her. Ever since she’d rushed from the dining room, emotions storming, she’d been trying to nerve herself to find Max Vasilikos, get him away from Pauline and Chloe and tell him what she had to tell him. And now she’d done it—and he was not, it was obvious, taking it kindly.

His expression had steeled, and the dark brows were snapping together now. For a moment Ellen quailed. Up till now Max Vasilikos had, she realised belatedly, been playing the role of courteous, amenable guest. Now he was very different. A tough, powerful businessman who was hearing something he did not want to hear.

As she’d delivered her bombshell something had flickered in Max’s mind at what she’d said, but it wasn’t relevant for the moment.

His gaze rested on her. ‘Why not?’

He saw her swallow again.

‘What relevance does that question have?’

Max’s expression changed. A moment ago it had looked formidable. Now there was a cynical cast to it. ‘Perhaps you are holding out for a higher price,’ he said.

Ellen’s lips pressed together. ‘I don’t wish to sell Haughton—and I shan’t.’

He looked at her for a moment. He looked neither quelling nor cynical. He seemed to be studying her, but she suddenly had the feeling that he’d retreated behind a mask.

‘You do realise, do you not, that as only part-owner of this property if any of the other part-owners wish to sell they have the legal right to force such a sale?’

There was no colour in her face. Her cheekbones had whitened. Something moved in her eyes. Some deep emotion. He saw her jaw tense, her knuckles whiten over the chair-back.

‘That would take months. I’d drag it out as long as I could. No purchaser would want that kind of costly delay.’

She would make that delay as long as possible, fight as hard as possible. I won’t roll over and give in!

She felt sick with tension. Max Vasilikos’s gaze rested on her implacably. Then, abruptly, his expression changed. His long lashes dipped down over his deep, dark and entirely inscrutable eyes.

‘Well, be that as it may, Miss Mountford, I intend to view the rest of the property while I am here.’

She saw his glance go around the kitchen again, in an approving fashion.

‘This is very pleasing,’ he said. ‘It’s been left in its original state and is all the better for it.’

Ellen blinked. To go from defying him to agreeing with him confused her completely. ‘My stepmother wasn’t interested in doing up the kitchen quarters,’ she said.

Max’s eyes glinted. ‘A lucky escape, then,’ he said dryly.

There was a distinctly conspiratorial note to his voice, and Ellen’s confusion deepened.

‘You don’t like the decor in the main house?’ she heard herself saying, astonished. Surely property developers loved that full-blown interior-designed look?

Max smiled. ‘Taste is subjective, and your stepmother’s tastes are not mine. I prefer something less...contrived.’

‘She’s had it photographed for a posh interiors magazine!’ Ellen exclaimed derisively, before she could stop herself.

‘Yes, it would be ideal for such a publication,’ he returned lightly. ‘Tell me, is there anything left of the original furnishings and furniture?’

A bleak, empty look filled Ellen’s face. ‘Some of it was put up in the attics,’ she said.

Any antiques or objets d’art of value that Pauline had not cared for had been sold—like the painting from the dining room and others she’d needed to dispose of so she and Chloe could go jaunting off on their expensive holidays.

‘That’s good to hear.’ He nodded, making a mental note to have the attic contents checked at some point. There were art valuations to get done, too, before the final sales contract was signed.

For signed it would be. His eyes rested now on the female who was so obdurately standing in the way of his intentions. Whatever her reasons, he would set them aside. Somehow she would be brought to heel. In all his years of negotiation, one thing he’d learnt for sure—there was always a way to get a deal signed and sealed. Always.

He wanted this place. Wanted it badly. More than he had ever thought to want any property... He wanted to make a home here.

He smiled again at the woman who thought so unwisely—so futilely!—to balk him of what he wanted. ‘Well, I shall continue on my way, Miss Mountford. I’ll see myself out—’

And he was gone, striding from the kitchen and down to the back door.

Ellen watched him go, her heart thumping heavily still, a feeling of sickness inside her. She heard the back door close as he went out. Words burned in her head, emotions churning.

Please let him leave! Leave and—and never come back!

Let him buy somewhere else—anywhere else. But leave me my home...oh, leave me my home!

* * *

Max stood in the shade of a tall beech tree overlooking the lake and took in the vista. It was good—all good. Everything about this place was good. He’d explored the outbuildings, realised they’d need work, but nothing too much, and mentally designated some of the old stables for his cars. He might keep some as stabling, too. He didn’t ride, but maybe his children would like ponies one day.

He gave a half-laugh. Here he was, imagining children here before he’d even found the woman who would give them to him. Well, he’d have plenty of volunteers, that was for sure—not that he was keen on any of his current acquaintance. And his time with Tyla had been enjoyable, but their ways had parted. No, the woman he would bring here as his bride would be quite, quite different from the self-absorbed, vanity-driven film star bent on storming Hollywood. His chosen bride would be someone who would love this place as he would come to love it—love him, love their children...

He shook his head to clear his thoughts—he was running ahead of himself! First he had to buy this place. He frowned. The tripartite ownership structure should have been disclosed to him at the outset, not be delivered by bombshell. His frown deepened.

Well, that was a problem to ponder for later. Right now, he wanted to finish exploring the grounds beyond the formal gardens surrounding the house. He could see that a pathway ran through the long, unmown grass beside the sheltering woodland, around the perimeter of the reed-edged lake. He would walk along it and take a look at what he could see was a little folly on the far side.

My kids would love playing there—and we’d have picnics there in the summer. Maybe barbecues in the evening. Maybe swimming in the lake? I’ll get a pool put in as well, of course—probably indoors, with a glass roof, given the English climate...

His thoughts ran on as he emerged from the shelter of the woodland. Then abruptly they cleared. He stared. There was someone over by the folly, leaning against the stonework. He watched as she straightened, and then set off along the path towards him. She was in running gear, he could see that from this distance, but not who it was. He frowned. If neighbours had got into the habit of using the place as a running track he’d better know about it—

Slowly he walked forward on an interception course. But as the runner approached him he felt the breath leave his body. Incredulity scissored through him.

It couldn’t be! It just couldn’t!

It could not be the sad, overweight, badly dressed frumpy female he’d pitied—impossible for it to be Ellen Mountford. Just impossible.

But it was her.

As the figure drew closer, its long, loping gait effortless and confident, his eyes were nailed to it. Tall, long-legged, with dark hair streaming behind like a flag, and a body...a body that was a total knockout—

It was impossible to tear his stunned gaze from her. From her strong, lithe body, perfectly contoured in a sports bra that moulded generous breasts, exposing not an inch of fat over bare, taut-waisted abs, with matching running shorts that hugged sleek hips, exposing the full length of her honed, toned quads.

Thee mou, she wasn’t fat—she was fit. In both senses of the word! Fit and fabulous!

Every thought about her completely rearranged itself in his head. He could not take his eyes from her. He was in shock—and also something very different from shock. Something that sent the blood surging in his body.

Thanks to the sight of hers...

Greek words escaped his lips. Something about not believing his eyes, his senses, and something that was extreme appreciation of her fantastic physique. Then another thought was uppermost. How did she hide that body from me? At not one single point had there been the slightest indication of what she was hiding—and he hadn’t noticed. Not for a moment, not for an instant! How had she done it?

But he knew—she’d done it by disguising that fantastic, honed, sleek, fit body of hers in those appalling clothes. In that unspeakable purple tracksuit that had turned her into some kind of inflated dummy, and that shapeless, ill-fitting grey skirt and even more shapeless and ill-fitting white blouse whose tightness of sleeve had had nothing whatsoever to do with her arms being fat—but had simply been because her biceps and triceps were honed, compacted muscle. He could see that now, as she approached more closely.

He stepped out from amongst the trees. ‘Hello, there,’ he said.

His greeting was affable, and pleasantly voiced, and it stopped her dead in her tracks as if a concrete block had dropped down in front of her from the sky.

Something that was partly a shriek of shock, partly a gasp of air escaped from Ellen. She stared, aghast—Max Vasilikos was the last person she wanted to see!

The emotional stress of the day, the agitation from having had to commandeer him and tell him she would never agree to sell her share of Haughton, had overset her so much that the moment he’d closed the back door behind him she’d headed upstairs to change into her running gear. She’d had to get out of the house. Had to work off the stress and tension and the biting anxiety. A long, hard run would help.

She’d set off on the long route, down the drive and looping back through the woods, then into a field and back into the grounds, taking a breather by the folly before setting off around the lake, hoping against hope that by the time she got back to the house he and his flash car would have gone.

Instead here he was, appearing in front of her out of nowhere like the demon king in a pantomime!

A demon king in whose eyes was an expression that sent a wave of excruciating colour flooding through her.

She was agonisingly aware of her skimpy, revealing attire. Mercilessly revealing her muscular body. She lifted her chin, desperately fighting back her reaction. She would not be put out of countenance by him seeing her like this any more than she had been when he’d seen her plonked beside Chloe, and the dreadful contrast she’d made to her stepsister. It was a comparison that was hitting him again—she could see it as his eyes swept over her appraisingly.

‘I could see you were totally different from Chloe—but not like this!’ he exclaimed. ‘You couldn’t be more unalike—even sharing a surname, you’d never be taken for sisters in a thousand years.’

He shook his head in disbelief. Missing completely the sudden look of pain at his words in her eyes. Then he was speaking again.

‘I’m sorry—I shouldn’t be delaying you. Your muscles will seize up.’ He started to walk forward in the direction of the house, his pace rapid, with long strides. ‘Look,’ he went on, ‘keep going—but slow down to a jog so we can talk.’

He moved to one side of the path. She started up again, conscious that her heart was pounding far more quickly than the exertion of her run required. She found herself blinking. The casual cruelty of what he’d just said reverberated in her, but she must not let it show. With an effort, and still burningly conscious of her skimpy attire and perspiring body, of her hair held back only by a wide sweatband, of being bereft of the glasses she’d been wearing over lunch, she loped beside him.

‘What about?’ she returned. The thought came to her that maybe she could use this wretched encounter to convince him that there really was no point in his staying any longer—that buying Haughton was off the menu for him.

‘I’m making an offer for this place,’ he said, glancing at her. ‘It will be near the asking price...’ He trailed off.

Dismay lanced through her. ‘I still don’t want to sell my share,’ she replied grittily.

‘Your third...’ Max didn’t take his eyes from her ‘...will be well over a million pounds...’

‘I don’t care what it is. Mr Vasilikos—please understand—my share is not for sale at any price. I don’t want to sell.’

‘Why not?’ His brows snapped together.

‘What do you mean, why not?’ she riposted. ‘My reasons are my own—I don’t want to sell.’ She turned her face, making herself look at him. ‘That’s all there is to it. And I’ll make it as hard as I possibly can for you to complete a sale. I’ll fight it to the bitter end!’

Vehemence broke through in her voice and she could see it register with him. His eyebrows rose, and she knew he was about to say something—but she didn’t want to hear. Didn’t want to do anything but get away from him. Get back to the house, the sanctuary of her bedroom. Throw herself down on the bed and weep and weep. For what she feared most in the world would come true if this man went through with his threat!

She couldn’t bear it—she just couldn’t. She couldn’t bear to lose her home. The place she loved most in all the world. She couldn’t bear it.

With a burst of speed she shot forward, leaving him behind. Leaving behind Max Vasilikos, the man who wanted to wrench her home from her.

As he watched her power forward, accelerating away, Max let her go. But when she disappeared from sight across the lawns that crossed the front of the house his thoughts were full.

Why was Ellen Mountford so set on making difficulties for him? And why were his eyes following her fantastic figure until she was totally beyond his view? And why was he then regretting that she was beyond it?

The question was suddenly stronger in his head, knocking aside his concern about an easy purchase of the place he intended to buy, whatever obstacles one of its owners might put in his path.

* * *

When he reached the house Max went in search of his hostess. She was in the drawing room with her daughter, and both greeted him effusively, starting to ask him about his tour of the outbuildings and the grounds.

But he cut immediately to the chase.

‘Why was I not informed of the ownership structure of this property?’ he asked.

His voice was level, but there was a note in it that anyone who’d ever been in commercial negotiations with him would have taken as a warning not to try and outmanoeuvre him or prevaricate.

‘Your stepdaughter apprised me of the facts after lunch,’ he went on.

He kept his level gaze on Pauline. Beside her on the sofa, Chloe Mountford gave a little choke. An angry one. But her mother threw her a silencing look. Then she turned her face towards Max. She gave a little sigh.

‘Oh, dear, what has the poor girl told you, Mr Vasilikos?’ There was a note of apprehension in her voice.

‘That she does not wish to sell her share,’ he replied bluntly. ‘And that she is prepared to force you to resort to legal measures to make her do so. Which will, as you must be aware, be both costly and time-consuming.’

Pauline Mountford’s be-ringed fingers wound into each other. ‘I’m so sorry, Mr Vasilikos, that you have been exposed to...well, to this, unfortunate development. I had hoped we could reach a happy conclusion between ourselves and—’

Max cut across her, his tone decisive. ‘I make no bones that I want to buy this place,’ he said. ‘But I don’t want problems and I don’t want delays.’

‘We don’t either!’ agreed Chloe promptly. ‘Mummy, we’ve just got to stop Ellen ruining everything.’

He looked at the pair of them. ‘Do you know what is behind her reluctance to sell?’

Pauline sighed again, her face shadowing. ‘I believe,’ she said slowly, ‘that she is a very unhappy young woman. Poor Ellen has always found it very...difficult...to have us here.’

‘She’s hated us from the start,’ Chloe said tightly. ‘She’s never made us welcome.’

Pauline sighed once more. ‘Alas, I’m afraid it’s true. She was at a difficult age when Edward married me. And I fear it is all too common, sadly, for a daughter who has previously had the undivided attention of her father not to allow that he might seek to find happiness with someone else. I did my best...’ she sighed again ‘...and so did poor little Chloe—you did, darling, didn’t you? You made every effort to be friends, wanted her so much to be your new sister! But, well... I do not wish to speak ill of Ellen, but nothing—absolutely nothing that we did—could please her. She was, I fear, set on resenting us. It upset her father dreadfully. Too late, he realised how much he’d spoiled her, made her possessive and clinging. He could control her a little, though not a great deal, but now that he is gone...’ A little sob escaped her. ‘Well, she has become as you see her.’

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