It was purely convenient...

...until their scorching wedding night!

When self-made billionaire Nikos meets socialite Diana, he’s instantly intrigued by her ice-cool facade. Her determination to save her family home provides Nikos with the perfect opportunity to propose a temporary marriage. But during their honeymoon, Nikos awakens Diana’s simmering desire, and the heat between them blazes into overwhelming passion! Now Nikos can’t deny he craves more from his not-so-convenient wife...

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. ‘Rivalled only by the lush tropical heat of the Caribbean—palms swaying by a silver sand beach lapped by turquoise water… What more could lovers want?’

Also by Julia James

The Dark Side of Desire

Painted the Other Woman

Securing the Greek’s Legacy

The Forbidden Touch of Sanguardo

Captivated by the Greek

A Tycoon to Be Reckoned With

A Cinderella for the Greek

The Greek’s Secret Son

Mistress to Wife miniseries

Claiming His Scandalous Love-Child

Carrying His Scandalous Heir

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Tycoon’s Ring of Convenience

Julia James

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07240-3

TYCOON’S RING OF CONVENIENCE

© 2018 Julia James

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

For JW and CE—with thanks.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

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

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

THE WOMAN IN the looking glass was beautiful. Fair hair, drawn back into an elegant chignon from a fine-boned face, luminous grey eyes enhanced with expensive cosmetics, lips outlined with subtle colour. At the lobes of her ears and around her throat pearls shimmered.

For several long moments she continued to stare, unblinking. Then abruptly she got to her feet and turned, the long skirts of her evening gown swishing as she headed to the bedroom door. She could delay no longer. Nikos did not care to be kept waiting.

Into her head, in the bleak reality of her life now, came the words of a saying that was constantly there.

‘“Take what you want,” says God. “Take it and pay for it.”’

She swallowed as she headed downstairs to her waiting husband. Well, she had taken what she’d wanted. And she was paying for it. Oh, how she was paying for it...

Six months previously

‘You do realise, Diana, that with probate now completed and your financial situation clearly impossible, you have no option but to sell.’

Diana felt her hands clench in her lap, but did not reply.

The St Clair family lawyer went on. ‘It won’t reach top price, obviously, because of its poor condition, but you should clear enough to enable you to live pretty decently. I’ll contact the agents and set the wheels in motion.’

Gerald Langley smiled in a way that she supposed he thought encouraging.

‘I suggest that you take a holiday. I know it’s been a very difficult time for you. Your father’s accident, his progressive decline after his injuries—and then his death—’

He might have saved his breath. A stony expression had tautened Diana’s face. ‘I’m not selling.’

Gerald frowned at the obduracy in her voice. ‘Diana, you must face facts,’ he retorted, his impatience audible. ‘You may have sufficient income from shares and other investments to cope with the normal running and maintenance costs of Greymont, or even to find the capital for the repairs your father thought were necessary, but this latest structural survey you commissioned after he died shows that the repairs urgently needed—that cannot be deferred or delayed—are far more extensive than anyone realised. You simply do not have the funds for it—not after death duties. Let alone for the decorative work on the interior. Nor are there any art masterpieces you can sell—your grandfather disposed of most of them to pay his own death duties, and your father sold everything else to pay his.’

He drew a breath,

‘So, outside of an extremely unlikely lottery win,’ he said, and there was a trace of condescension now, ‘your only other option would be to find some extremely rich man with exceptionally deep pockets and marry him.’

He let his bland gaze rest on her for a second, then resumed his original thread.

‘As I say, I will get in touch with the agents, and—’

His expression changed to one of surprise. His client was getting to her feet.

‘Please don’t trouble yourself, Gerald.’ Diana’s voice was as clipped as his. She picked up her handbag and made her way to the office door.

Behind her she heard Gerald standing up. ‘Diana—what are you doing? There is a great deal more to discuss.’

She paused, turning with her hand on the door handle. Her gaze on him was unblinking. But behind her expressionless face emotions were scything through her. She would never consent to losing her beloved home. Never! It meant everything to her. To sell it would be a betrayal of her centuries-old ancestry and a betrayal of her father, of the sacrifice he’d made for her.

Greymont, she knew with another stabbing emotion, had provided the vital security and stability she’d needed so much as a child, coping with the trauma of her mother’s desertion of her father, of herself... Whatever it might take to keep Greymont, she would do it.

Whatever it took.

There was no trace of those vehement emotions as she spoke. ‘There is nothing more to discuss, Gerald. And as for what I am going to do—isn’t it obvious?’

She paused minutely, then said it.

‘I’m going to find an extremely rich man to marry.’

* * *

Nikos Tramontes stood on the balcony of his bedroom in his luxurious villa on the Cote d’Azur, flexing his broad shoulders, looking down at Nadya, who was swimming languorously in the pool below.

Once he had enjoyed watching her—for Nadya Serensky was one of the most outstandingly beautiful of the current batch of celebrity supermodels, and Nikos had enjoyed being the man with exclusive access to her. It had sent a clear signal to the world that he had arrived—had acquired the huge wealth that a woman like Nadya required in her favoured men.

But now, two years on, her charms were wearing thin, and no amount of her pointing out what a fantastic couple they made—she with her trademark flaming red hair, him with his six-foot frame to match hers, and the darkly saturnine looks that drew as many female eyes as her spectacular looks drew male eyes—could make them less stale. Worse, she was now hinting—blatantly and persistently—that they should marry.

Even if he had not been growing tired of her, there would be no point marrying Nadya—it would bring him nothing that he did not already have with her.

Now he wanted more than her flame-haired beauty, her celebrity status. He wanted to move on in his life, yet again. Achieve his next goal.

Nadya had been a trophy mistress, celebrating his arrival in the plutocracy of the world—but now what he wanted was a trophy wife. A wife who would complete what he had sought all his life.

His expression darkened, as it always did when his thoughts turned to memories. His acquisition of vast wealth and all the trappings that went with it—from this villa on exclusive Cap Pierre to having one of the world’s most beautiful and famous faces in his bed, and all the other myriad luxuries of his life—had been only the first step in his transformation from being the unwanted, misbegotten ‘embarrassing inconvenience’ of his despised parents.

Parents who had conceived him in the selfish carelessness of an adulterous affair, discarding him the moment he was born, farming him out to foster parents—denying he had anything to do with them.

Well, he would prove them wrong. Prove that he could achieve by his own efforts what they had denied him.

Making himself rich—vastly so—had proved him to be the son of his philandering Greek shipping magnate father, with as much spending power as the man who had disowned him. And his marriage, he had determined, would prove himself the son of his aristocratic, adulterous French mother, enabling him to move in the same elite social circles as she, even though he was nothing more than her unwanted bastard.

Abruptly he turned away, heading back inside. Such thoughts, such memories, were always toxic—always bitter.

Down below, Nadya emerged from the water, realised Nikos was no longer watching her and, with an angry pout, seized her wrap and glowered up at the deserted balcony.

* * *

Diana sat trying not to look bored as the after-dinner speaker droned on about capital markets and fiscal policies—matters she knew nothing about and cared less. But she was attending this City livery company’s formal dinner in one of London’s most historic buildings simply because her partner here was an old acquaintance—Toby Masterson. And he was someone she was considering marrying.

For Toby was rich—very rich—having inherited a merchant bank. Which meant he could amply fund Greymont’s restoration. He was also someone she would never fall in love with—and that was good. Diana’s clear grey eyes shadowed. Good because love was dangerous. It destroyed people’s happiness, ruined lives.

It had destroyed her father’s happiness when her mother had deserted her doting husband for a billionaire Australian media mogul, never to be seen again. At the age of ten Diana had learnt the danger of loving someone who might not return that love—whether it was the mother who’d abandoned her without a thought, or a man who might break her heart by not loving her, as her mother had broken her father’s heart.

She knew, sadly, how protective it had made him over her. She had lost her mother—he would not let her lose the home she loved so much, her beloved Greymont, the one place where she had felt safe after her mother’s desertion. Life could change traumatically—the mother she’d loved had abandoned her—but Greymont was a constant, there for ever. Her home for ever.

Guilt tinged her expression now. Her father had sacrificed his own chance of finding happiness in a second marriage in order to ensure that there would never be a son to take precedence over her, to ensure that she would inherit Greymont.

Yet if she were to pass Greymont on to her own children she must one day marry—and, whilst she would not risk her heart in love, surely she could find a man with whom she could be on friendly terms, sufficiently compatible to make enduring a lifetime with him not unpleasant, with both of them dedicated to preserving Greymont?

A nip of anxiety caught at her expression. The trouble was, she’d always assumed she would have plenty of time to select such a man. But now, with the dire financial situation she was facing, she needed a rich husband fast. Which meant she could not afford to be fussy.

Her eyes rested on Toby as he listened to the speaker and she felt her heart sink. Toby Masterson was amiable and good-natured—but, oh, he was desperately, desperately dull. And, whilst she would never risk marrying a man she might fall in love with, she did at least want a man with whom the business of conceiving a child would not be...repulsive.

She gave a silent shudder at the thought of Toby’s overweight body against hers, his pudgy features next to hers, trying not to be cruel, but knowing it would be gruelling for her to endure his clumsy embraces...

Could I endure that for years and years—decades?

The question hovered in her head, twisting and cringing.

She pulled her gaze away, not wanting to think such thoughts. Snapped her eyes out across the lofty banqueting hall, filled with damask-covered tables and a sea of city-folk in dinner jackets and women in evening gowns.

And suddenly, instead of a faceless mass of men in DJs, she saw that one of them had resolved into a single individual, at a table a little way away, sitting on the far side of it. A man whose dark, heavy-lidded gaze was fixed on her.

* * *

Nikos lounged back in his chair, long fingers curved around his brandy glass, indifferent to the after-dinner speaker who was telling him things about capital markets and fiscal policies that he knew already. Instead, his thoughts were about his personal life.

Who would he choose as his trophy wife? The woman who, now that he had achieved a vast wealth to rival that of his despised father, would be his means to achieve entry into the socially elite world of his aristocratic but heartless mother. Proving to himself, and to the world, and above all to the parents who had never cared about him, that their unwanted offspring had done fine—just fine—without them.

His brow furrowed. Marriage was supposed to be lifelong, but did he want that—even with a trophy wife? His affair with Nadya had lasted two years before boredom had set in. Would he want any longer in a marriage? Once he had got what a trophy wife offered him—his place in her world—he could do without her very well.

Certainly there would be no question of love in the relationship, for that was an emotion quite unknown to him. He had never loved Nadya, nor she him—they had merely been useful to each other. The foster couple paid to raise him had not loved him. They had not been unkind, merely uninterested, and he had no contact with them now. As for his birth parents... His mouth twisted, his eyes hardening. Had they considered their sordid adulterous affair to be about love?

He snapped his mind away. Went back to considering the question of his future trophy wife. First, though, he had to sever relations with Nadya, currently in New York at a fashion show. He would tell her tactfully, thanking her for the time they’d had together—which had been good, as he was the first to acknowledge—before she flew back. He would bestow upon her a lavish farewell gift—her favourite emeralds—and wish her well. Doubtless she was prepared for this moment, and would have his successor selected already.

Just as he was now planning to select the next woman in his life.

He eased his shoulders back in the chair, taking another mouthful of his cognac. He was here in London on business, attending this City function specifically for networking, and he let his dark gaze flicker out over the throng of diners, identifying those he wished to approach once the tedious after-dinner speaker was finally done.

He was on the point of lowering his brandy glass, when he halted. His gaze abruptly zeroed in on one face. A woman sitting a few tables away.

Until now his view of her had been obscured, but as other diners shifted to face the after-dinner speaker she had become visible.

His gaze narrowed assessingly. She was extraordinarily beautiful, in a style utterly removed from the fiery, dramatic features of Nadya. This woman was blonde, the hair drawn back into a French pleat as pale as her alabaster complexion, her face fine-boned, her eyes clear, wide-set, her perfect mouth enhanced with lip-gloss. She looked remote, her beauty frozen.

One phrase slid across his mind.

Ice maiden.

Another followed.

Look, but don’t touch.

And immediately, instantly, that was exactly what Nikos wanted to do. To cross over to her, curve his long fingers around that alabaster face and tilt it up to his, to feel the cool satin of her pale skin beneath the searching tips of his fingers, to glide his thumbs sensually across that luscious mouth, to see those pale, expressionless eyes flare with sudden reaction, feel her iced glaze melt beneath his touch.

The intensity of the impulse scythed through him. His grip around his brandy glass tightened. Decision seared within him. A trophy wife might be next on his list of life ambitions, but that did not mean he had to seek her out immediately. He had been with Nadya for two years—no reason not to enjoy a more temporary liaison before seeking his bride.

And he had just seen the ideal woman for that role.

Ideal.

* * *

With an effort, Diana sheared her gaze away, heard the speech finally ending.

‘Phew!’ Toby exclaimed, throwing Diana a look of apology. ‘Sorry to make you endure all that,’ he said.

She gave a polite smile, but in her mental vision was the face of the man who had been looking at her across the tables. The image was burning in her head.

Darkly tanned, strong features, sable hair feathering his broad forehead, high cheekbones, a blade of a nose and a mouth with a sculpted contour that somehow disturbed her—but, oh, not nearly so much as the heavy-lidded dark, dark eyes that had rested on her.

Eyes that she still felt watching her, even though she was not looking at him. Did not want to. Didn’t dare to.

She felt her heart give a sudden extra beat, as if a shot of pure adrenaline had been injected into her bloodstream. Something that she was supremely unused to—unused to handling. She was accustomed to men looking at her—but not to the way she had reacted to this man.

Urgently she made her eyes cling to Toby. Familiar, amiable Toby, with his pudgy face and portly figure. In comparison with the man who’d been looking at her, poor Toby seemed pudgier and portlier than ever. Her eyes slid away, her heart sinking. She was feeling bad about what she was contemplating. Could she really be considering marrying him just because he was rich?

Guilt smote her that she should feel that way about him, but there it was. Had seeing that darkly disturbingly good-looking man just now made her realise how impossible it would be for her to marry a man like Toby? But if not Toby then who? Who could save Greymont for her?

Where can I find him? And how soon?

It was proving harder than she’d so desperately hoped, and time was running out...

* * *

Speeches finally over, the atmosphere in the banqueting hall lightened, and there was a sense of general movement amongst the tables as diners started to mingle. Nikos was talking to his host, a City acquaintance, and casually bringing the subject around to the woman who had so piqued his interest. The ice maiden...

He nodded in her direction. ‘Who’s the blonde?’ he asked laconically.

‘I don’t know her myself,’ came the reply, ‘but the man she’s with is Toby Masterson—Masterson Dubrett, merchant bankers. Want an introduction?’

‘Why not?’ said Nikos.

There had been nothing in his brief perusal to indicate that the blonde’s dinner partner was anything more to her—an impression confirmed as he was introduced.

‘Toby Masterson—Nikos Tramontes of Tramontes Financials. Fingers in many pies—some of them might interest you and vice versa,’ his host said briefly, and left them to it, heading off to talk elsewhere.

For a few minutes Nikos exchanged the kind of anodyne business talk that would interest a London merchant banker, and then he glanced at Toby Masterson’s guest.

The ice maiden was not looking at him. Quite deliberately not looking at him. He was glad of it. Women who came on to him bored him. Nadya had played hard to get—she knew her own value as one of the world’s most beautiful women, and was courted by many men. But he did not think the ice maiden was playing any such game—her reserve was genuine.

It made him all the more interested in her.

Expectantly he glanced at Toby Masterson, who dutifully performed the required introduction.

‘Diana,’ he said genially, ‘this is Nikos Tramontes.’

She was forced to look at him, though her grey eyes were expressionless. Carefully expressionless.

‘How do you do, Mr Tramontes?’ she intoned in a cool voice. She spoke with the familiar tones of the English upper class, and only the briefest smile of courtesy indented her mouth.

Nikos gave her an equally brief courtesy smile. ‘How do you do, Ms...?’ He glanced at Masterson for her surname.

‘St Clair,’ Masterson supplied.

‘Ms St Clair,’ he said, his glance going back to the ice maiden.

Her face was still expressionless, but in the depths of her clear grey eyes he was sure he saw a sudden veiling, as if she were guarding herself from his perusal of her. That was good—it showed him that despite her glacial expression she was responsive to him.

Satisfied, he turned his attention back to Toby Masterson, moving their conversation on to the EU, the latest manoeuvres from Brussels, and thence on to the current state of the Greek economy.

‘Does it impact you?’ Toby Masterson was asking.

Nikos shook his head. ‘Despite my name, I’m based in Monaco. I’ve a villa on Cap Pierre.’ He glanced at Diana St Clair. ‘What of you, Ms St Clair? Do you care for the South of France?’

It was a direct question, and she had to answer it. Had to look at him, engage eye contact.

‘I seldom go abroad,’ she replied.

Her tone still held that persistent note of not wanting to converse, and he watched her reach for her liqueur glass, raise it to her lips as if to give her something to do—something to enable her not to answer more fully. Yet her hand trembled very, very slightly as she replaced her glass, and satisfaction again bit in Nikos. The permafrost was not as deep as she wanted to convey.

‘That’s not surprising,’ Masterson supplied jovially. ‘The St Clairs have a spectacular place in the country to enjoy—Hampshire, isn’t it? Greymont?’ he checked. ‘Eighteenth-century stately pile,’ he elaborated.

Do they, indeed? thought Nikos. He looked at her with sudden deeper interest.

‘Do you know Hampshire?’ Toby Masterson was asking now.

‘Not at all,’ said Nikos, keeping his eyes on Diana St Clair. ‘Greymont? Is that right?’

For the first time he saw an expression in her eyes. A flash that seemed to spear him with the intensity of the emotion behind it. It made him certain that behind the ice was a very, very different woman. A woman capable of passion.

Then it was gone, and the frost was back in her eyes. But it had left a residue. A residue that just for a moment he thought was bleakness.

‘Yes,’ she murmured.

He made a mental note. He would have a full dossier on her by tomorrow—Ms Diana St Clair of Greymont, Hampshire. What kind of place was it? What kind of family were the St Clairs? And just what further interest might Ms Diana St Clair have for him other than presenting him with so delectable a challenge to his seductive powers to melt an ice maiden?

His eyes flickered over her consideringly. Exquisitely beautiful and waiting to be melted into his arms, his bed... But could there be yet more to his interest in her? Could she be a candidate for something more than a fleeting affair?

Well, his investigations would reveal that.

For now, however, he had whetted his appetite—and he knew with absolute certainty that he had made the impact on her that he had intended, though she was striving not to let it show.

He turned his attention back to Masterson, taking his leave with a casual suggestion of some potential mutual business interest at an indeterminate future date.

As he strolled away his mood was good—very good indeed. With or without any deeper interest in her, the ice maiden was on the way to becoming his. But on what terms he had yet to decide.

He let his thoughts turn to how he might make his next move on her...

CHAPTER TWO

DIANA THREW HERSELF back in the taxi and heaved a sigh of pent-up relief. Safe at last.

Safe from Nikos Tramontes. From his powerfully unsettling impact on her. An impact she was not used to experiencing.

It had disturbed her profoundly. She had done her best to freeze him out, but a man that good-looking would not be accustomed to rebuff—would be used to getting his own way with women.

Well, not with me! Because I have no intention of having anything to do with him.

She shook her head, as if to clear his so disturbing image from her mind’s eye. She had far more to worry about. She knew now, resignedly, that she could not face marrying Toby—but what other solution could save her beloved home?

Anxiety pressed at her—and over the next two days in London it worsened. Her bank declined to advance the level of loan required, the auction houses confirmed there was nothing left to sell to raise such a sum. So it was with little enthusiasm that she took a call from Toby.

‘But it’s Covent Garden. And I know you love opera.’

The plaintive note in Toby’s voice made Diana feel bad. She owed him a gentle let-down. Reluctantly she acquiesced to his invitation—a corporate jolly for a performance of Verdi’s Don Carlo.

But when she arrived at the Opera House she wished she had refused.

‘You remember Nikos Tramontes, don’t you?’ Toby greeted her. ‘He’s our host tonight.’

Diana forced a mechanical smile to her face, concealing her dismay. With her own problems uppermost in her mind, she’d managed to start forgetting him, and the discomforting impact he’d had on her, but now suddenly he was here, as powerfully, disturbingly attractive as before.

Then she was being introduced to the other couple present. Diana recognised the man who had brought Nikos Tramontes over to their table. With him was his wife, who promptly took advantage of the three men starting to talk business to draw Diana aside.

‘My, my,’ she said conspiratorially, throwing an openly appraising look back at Nikos Tramontes, ‘he is most definitely a handsome brute. No wonder he’s been able to hold on to Nadya Serensky for so long. That and all his money, of course.’

Diana looked blank, and Louise Melmott promptly enlightened her.

‘Nadya Serensky. You know—that stunning redheaded supermodel. They’re quite an item.’

It was welcome news to Diana. Perhaps she’d only been imagining that Nikos Tramontes had eyed her up at the livery dinner.

Maybe it’s just me, overreacting.

Overreacting because it was so strange to encounter a man who could have such a powerfully disturbing physical impact on her. Yes, that must be it. She tried to think, as she sipped her champagne in the Crush Room, if she had ever reacted so strongly as that to any other man, and came up blank. But then, of course, she didn’t react to men. Had schooled herself all her life not to.

The men she’d dated over the years had been good-looking, but they had always left her cold. A tepid goodnight kiss had been the most any of them had ever received. Only with one, while at university, had she resolved to see if it were possible to have a full relationship without excessive passion of any kind.

She had found that it was—for herself. But eventually not for her boyfriend. He’d found her lack of enthusiasm off-putting and had left her for another woman. It hadn’t bothered her—had only confirmed how right she was to guard her heart. Losing it was so dangerous. A policy of celibacy was much wiser, much safer.

Anxiety bit at her. Except such a policy would hardly find her a husband rich enough to save Greymont. If she was truly still contemplating so drastic a solution.

With an inward sigh she pulled her mind away. Tomorrow she would be heading back to Greymont to go through her finances again, get the latest grim estimates for the most essential work. But for now, tonight, she would enjoy her evening at Covent Garden—a night off from her worries.

And she would not worry, either, about the presence of the oh-so-disturbing Nikos Tramontes. If he had a famous supermodel to amuse him then he would not be interested in any other women. Including herself.

As they made their way to their box she felt her anticipation rising. The orchestra was tuning up, elegant well-heeled people were taking their seats, and up in the gods the less well-heeled were packed like sardines.

Diana looked up at them slightly ruefully. The world would see her as an extremely privileged person—and she was; she knew that—but owning Greymont came with heavy responsibilities. Prime of which was stopping it from actually falling down.

But, no, she wouldn’t think of her fears for Greymont. She would enjoy the evening.

‘Allow me.’

Nikos Tramontes’s deep, faintly accented voice beside her made her start. He drew her chair back, allowing her to take her seat, which she did with a rustling of her skirts as he seated himself behind her. Louise Melmott sat beside her at the front of the box.

His eyes rested on the perfect profile of the woman whose presence here tonight he had specifically engineered in order to pursue his interest in her. An interest that the dossier he had ordered to be compiled on her had indicated he must show. Because she might very well indeed prove suitable for far more than a mere fleeting seduction.

Diana St Clair, it seemed, was possessed of more than the exquisite glacial beauty that had so caught his attention the other evening. She was also possessed of exactly the right background and attributes to suit his purposes. Best of all about Ms Diana St Clair was her inheritance—her eighteenth-century country estate—and the fact that it was her inheritance, bringing with it all the elite social background that such ownership conferred.

An old county family—not titled, but anciently armigerous—possessing crests and coats of arms and all the heraldic flourishes that went with that status. With landed property and position, centuries of intermarriage with other such families, including the peerage. A complex web of kinship and connection running like a web across the upper classes, binding them together, impenetrable to outsiders.

Except by one means only...

Marriage.

His eyes rested on her, their expression veiled. Would Diana St Clair be his trophy wife?

It was a tempting prospect. As tempting as Diana St Clair herself.

He sat back to enjoy further contemplation of this woman who might achieve what he now most wanted from life.

* * *

To Diana’s relief, the dramatic sweep of Verdi’s music carried her away, despite her burning consciousness that Nikos Tramontes was sitting so close to her, and as she surfaced for the first interval it was to be ushered with his other guests back to the Crush Room for the first course of their champagne supper.

The conversation was led mainly by Louise Melmott, who knew the opera and its doubtful relationship to actual history.

‘The real Don Carlos of Spain was probably insane,’ the other woman said cheerfully, as they helped themselves to the delicacies on offer. ‘And there’s no evidence he was in love with his father the King’s, wife!’

‘I can see why Verdi rewrote history,’ Diana observed. ‘A tragic, thwarted love affair sounds far more romantically operatic.’

She was doing her best to be a good guest—especially since she knew Toby had no interest in opera, so she needed to emphasise her own enthusiasm.

‘Elisabeth de Valois was another man’s wife. There is nothing romantic about adultery.’

Nikos Tramontes’s voice was harsh, and Diana looked at him in surprise.

‘Well, opera is hardly realistic—and surely for a woman like the poor Queen, trapped in a loveless marriage, especially when she’d thought she was going to be married to the King’s son, not the King himself—surely one can only feel pity for her plight?’

Dark eyes rested on her. ‘Can one?’

Was there sarcasm in the way he replied? Diana felt herself colouring slightly. She had only intended a fairly light remark.

The conversation moved on, but Diana felt stung. As if she’d voted personally in favour of adultery. She felt Nikos Tramontes’s eyes resting on her, their expression masked. There seemed to be a brooding quality about him suddenly, at odds with the urbane, self-assured manner he’d demonstrated so far.

Well, it was nothing to do with her—and nor was Nikos Tramontes. She would not be seeing him again after this evening.

It was to her distinct annoyance, therefore, that when the long opera finally ended and she had bade goodnight to Toby, making sure she told him she was heading back to Hampshire the next day, she discovered that somehow Nikos Tramontes was at her side as she left the Opera House. It was a mild but damp night, and his car was clearly hovering at the kerb.

‘Allow me to offer you a lift,’ he said. His voice was smooth.

Diana stiffened. ‘Thank you, but a taxi will be fine.’

‘You won’t find one closer than the Strand, and it is about to rain,’ he returned blandly.

Then he was guiding her forward, opening the rear passenger door for her. Annoyed, but finding it hard to object without making an issue of it, Diana got in. Reluctantly she gave the name of the hotel she and her father had always used on their rare visits to the capital, and the car moved off.

In the confines of the back seat, separated from the driver by a glass divide, Nikos Tramontes seemed even more uncomfortably close than he had in the opera box. His long legs stretched out into the footwell.

‘I’m glad you enjoyed this evening,’ he began. He paused minutely. ‘Perhaps you’d like to come with me to another performance some time? Unless you’ve seen all this season’s productions already?’

There was nothing more than mild enquiry in his bland voice, but Diana felt herself tense. Dismay filled her. He was making a move on her after all, despite the presence in his life of Nadya Serensky. Her hopes that her disturbing reaction to him were not returned plummeted.

‘I’m afraid not,’ she said, giving a quick shake of her head.

‘You haven’t seen them all?’ he queried.

She shook her head again, making herself look at him. His face was half shadowed in the dim interior, with the only light coming from the street lights and shop windows as they made their way along the Strand towards Trafalgar Square.

‘That isn’t what I meant,’ she said. She made her voice firm.

His response was to lift an eyebrow. ‘Masterson?’ he challenged laconically.

She gave a quick shake of her head. ‘No, but...’

‘Yes?’ he prompted, as she trailed off.

Diana took a breath, clasping her hands in her lap. She made her voice composed, but decisive. ‘I spend very little time in London, Mr Tramontes, and because of that it would be...pointless to accept any...ah...further invitation from you. For whatever purpose.’

She said no more. It struck her that for him to have sounded so very disapproving of a fictional case of adultery in the plot of Don Carlos was more than a little hypocritical of him, given that he’d just asked her out. Clearly he was not averse to playing away himself, she thought acidly.

She saw him ease his shoulders back into the soft leather of his seat. Saw a sardonic smile tilt at his mouth. Caught a sudden scent of his aftershave, felt the closeness of his presence.

‘Do you know my purpose?’ he murmured, with a quizzical, faintly mocking look in his dark eyes.

She pressed her mouth tightly. ‘I don’t need to, Mr Tramontes. I’m simply making it clear that since I don’t spend much time in London I won’t have any opportunities to go to the opera, whomever I might go with.’

‘You’re returning to Hampshire?’

She nodded. ‘Yes. Indefinitely. I don’t know when I shall be next in town,’ she said, wanting to make crystal-clear her unavailability.

He seemed to accept her answer. ‘I quite understand,’ he said easily.

She felt a sense of relief go through her. He was backing off—she could tell. For all that, she still felt a level of agitation that was unsettling. It came simply from his physical closeness. She was aware that her heart rate had quickened. It was unnerving...

Then, thankfully, the car was turning off Piccadilly and drawing up outside the hotel where she was staying. The doorman came forward to open her door and she was soon climbing out, trying not to hurry. Making her voice composed once more.

‘Goodnight, Mr Tramontes. Thank you so much for a memorable evening at the opera, and thank you for this lift now.’

She disappeared inside the haven of the hotel.

From the car, Nikos watched her go. It was the kind of old-fashioned but upmarket hotel that well-bred provincials patronised when forced to come to town, and doubtless the St Clairs had been patronising it for generations.

His eyes narrowed slightly as his car moved off, heading back to his own hotel—far more fashionable and flashy than Diana St Clair’s. Had she turned down his invitation on account of Nadya? He’d heard Louise Melmott say her name. If so, that was all to the good. It showed him that Diana St Clair was...particular about the men she associated with.

He had not cared for her apparent tolerance of the adultery in the plot of Don Carlos, but it did not seem that she carried that over into real life. It was essential that she did not.

No wife of mine will indulge in adultery—no wife of mine, however upper crust her background, will be anything like my mother! Anything at all—

Wife? Was he truly thinking of Diana St Clair in such a light?

And, if he were, what might persuade her to agree?

What could thaw that chilly reserve of hers?

What will make her receptive to me?

Whatever it was, he would find it—and use it.

He sat back, considering his thoughts, as his car merged into the late-night London traffic.

* * *

Greymont was as beautiful as ever—especially in the sunshine, which helped to disguise how the stonework was crumbling and the damp was getting in. The lead roof that needed replacing was invisible behind the parapet, and—

A wave of deep emotion swept through Diana. How could Gerald possibly imagine she might actually sell Greymont? It meant more to her than anything in the world. Anything or anyone. St Clairs had lived here for three hundred years, made their home here—of course she could not sell it. Each generation held it in trust for the next.

Her eyes shadowed. Her father had entrusted it to her, had ensured—at the price of putting aside any hopes of his own for a happier, less heart-sore second marriage—that she inherited. She had lost her mother—he had ensured she should not lose her home as well.

So for her to give it up now, to let it go to strangers, would be an unforgivable betrayal of his devotion to her, his trust in her. She could not do it. Whatever she had to do—she would do it. She must.

As she walked indoors, her footsteps echoing on the marble floor, she looked at the sweeping staircase soaring to the upper floors, at the delicate Adam mouldings in the alcoves and the equally delicate painted ceilings—both in need of attention—and the white marble fireplace, chipped now, in too many places. A few remaining family portraits by undistinguished artists were on the walls ascending the staircase, all as familiar to her as her own body.

Upstairs in her bedroom, she crossed to the window, throwing open the sash to gaze out over the gardens and the park beyond. An air of unkemptness might prevail, but the level lawns, the ornamental stone basin with its now non-functioning fountain, the pathways and the pergolas, marching away to where the ha-ha divided the formal gardens from the park, were all as lovely as they always had been. As dear and precious.

A fierce sense of protectiveness filled her. She breathed deeply of the fresh country air, then slid the window shut, noticing that it was sticking more than ever, its paint flaking—another sign of damp getting in. She could see another patch of damp on her ceiling too, and frowned.

Whilst her father had been so ill not even routine maintenance work had been done on the house, let alone anything more intensive. It would have disturbed him too much with noise and dust, and the structural survey she’d commissioned after he’d died had revealed problems even worse than she had feared or her father had envisaged.

A new roof, dozens of sash windows in need of extensive repair or replacement, rotting floorboards, collapsing chimneys, the ingress of damp, electrical rewiring, re-plumbing, new central heating needed—the list went on and on. And then there was all the decorative work, from repainting ceilings to mending tapestries to conserving curtains and upholstery.

More and yet more to do.

And that was before she considered the work that the outbuildings needed! Bowing walls, slate roofs deteriorating, cobbles to reset... A never-ending round. Even before a start was made on the overgrown gardens.

She felt her shoulders sag. So much to be done—all costing so, so much. She gave a sigh, starting to unpack her suitcase. Staff had been reduced to the minimum—the Hudsons, and the cleaners up from the village, plus a gardener and his assistant. It was just as well that her father had preferred a very quiet life, even if that had contributed to his wife’s discontent. And he had become increasingly reclusive after her desertion.

It had suited Diana, though, and she’d been happy to help him write the St Clair family history, acting as secretary for his correspondence with the network of family connections, sharing his daily walks through the park, being the chatelaine of Greymont in her mother’s absence.

Any socialising had been with other families like theirs in the county, such as their neighbours, Sir John Bartlett and his wife, her father’s closest friends. She herself had been more active, visiting old school and university friends around the country as they gradually married and started families, meeting up with them in London from time to time. But she was no party animal, preferring dinner parties, or going to the theatre and opera, either with girlfriends or those carefully selected men she allowed to squire her around—those who accepted she was not interested in romance and was completely unresponsive to all men.

Into her head, with sudden flaring memory, stabbed the image of the one man who had disproved that comforting theory.

Angrily, she pushed it away. It was irrelevant, her ridiculous reaction to Nikos Tramontes! She would never be seeing him again—and she had far more urgent matters to worry about.

Taking a breath, anxiety clenching her stomach, she went downstairs and settled at her father’s desk in the library. In her absence mail had accumulated, and with a resigned sigh she started to open it. None of it would be good news, she knew that—more unaffordable estimates for the essential repairs to Greymont. She felt her heart squeeze, and fear bite in her throat.

Somehow she had to get the money she needed.

But not by marrying Toby Masterson. She could not bring herself to spend the rest of her life with him.

She felt a prickle of shame. It had not been fair even to think of him merely as a solution to her problems.

Wearily, she reached for her writing pad. She’d have to pen a careful letter—thanking him for taking her out in London, implying that that was all there was to it.

As she made a start, though, it was quite another face that intruded into her inner vision, quite different from Toby’s pudgy features. A face that was dramatic in its looks, with dark eyes that set her pulse beating faster—

She pushed it from her. Even if Nikos Tramontes were not involved with his supermodel girlfriend, all a man like that would be after would be some kind of dalliance—something to amuse him, entertain him while he was in London.

And what use is that to me?

None. None at all.

* * *

Nikos slowly made his way along the avenue of chestnut trees, avoiding the many potholes as Greymont gradually came into view.

With a white stucco eighteenth-century façade, a central block with symmetrical wings thrown out, its aspect was open, but set on a slight elevation, with extensive gardens and grounds seamlessly blending into farmland. The whole was framed by ornamental woodland. A classic stately home of the English upper classes.

Memory jabbed at him, cruel and stabbing. Of another home of another nation’s upper class. A chateau deep in the heart of Normandy, built of creamy Caen stone, with turrets at the corners in the French style.

He’d driven up to the front doors. Had been received.

But not welcomed.

‘You will have to leave. My husband will be home soon. He must not find you here—’

There had been no warmth in the voice, no embrace from the elegant, couture-clad figure, no opening of her arms to him. Nothing but rejection.

‘That is all you have to say to me?’

That had been his question, his demand.

Her lips had tightened. ‘You must leave,’ she’d said again, not answering his question.

He had swept a glance around the room, with its immaculate décor, its priceless seventeenth-century landscapes on the walls, the exquisite Louis Quinze furniture. This was what she had chosen. This was what she had valued. And she had been perfectly willing, to pay the price demanded for it. The price he had paid for it.

Bitterness had filled him then—and an even stronger emotion that he would not name, would deny with steely resolve that he had ever felt. It filled him again now, a sudden acid rush in his veins.

With an effort, he let it drain out of him as he drew his powerful car to a momentary halt, the better to survey the scene before him.

Yes—what he was seeing satisfied him. More than satisfied him. Greymont, the ancestral home of the St Clairs, and all that came with it would serve his purpose excellently. But it was not just the physical possession he wanted—that was not what this visit was about. Had he wished. he could easily have purchased such a place for himself, but that would not have given him what he was set upon achieving.

His smile tightened. He knew just how to achieve what he wanted. What would make Diana St Clair receptive to him. Knew exactly what she wanted most—needed most. And he would offer it to her. On a plate.

His gaze still fixed on his goal, he headed towards it.

CHAPTER THREE

‘MR TRAMONTES?’

Diana stared blankly as Hudson conveyed the information about her totally unexpected visitor. What on earth was Nikos Tramontes doing here at Greymont?

Bemused, and with an uneasy flutter in her stomach, she walked into the library. She found her uninvited guest perusing the walls of leather-bound books, and as he turned at her entrance she felt an unwelcome jolt to her heart-rate.

It had been a week since she’d left London, but seeing his tall, commanding figure again instantly brought back the evening she’d spent at Covent Garden. Unlike on the two previous occasions she’d set eyes on him, this time he was in a suit, and the dark charcoal of the material, the pristine white of his shirt, and the discreet navy blue tie, made him every bit as eye-catching as he had been in evening dress.

It annoyed her that she should feel that sudden kick in her pulse again as she approached. She fought to suppress it, and failed.

‘Ms St Clair.’ He strode forward, reaching out his hand.

Numbly, she let him take hers and give it a quick, businesslike shake.

‘I’m sorry to call unannounced,’ he went on, his manner still businesslike, ‘but there is a matter I would like to discuss with you that will be of mutual benefit to us both.’

He looked at her, his expression expectant.

Blankly, she went and sat down on the well-worn leather sofa by the fireplace, and watched him move to do likewise. He took her father’s armchair, and a slight bristle of resentment went through her. She leant over to ring the ancient bell-pull beside the mantel and, when Hudson duly appeared, asked for coffee to be served.

When they were left alone again, she looked directly at her unexpected visitor. ‘I really can’t imagine, Mr Tramontes, that there is anything that could be of mutual benefit to us.’

Surely, for heaven’s sake, he was not going to try and proposition her again? She devoutly hoped not.

He smiled, crossing one long leg over the other. It was a proprietorial gesture, and it put her hackles up. The entrance of Hudson with the coffee tray was a welcome diversion, and she busied herself pouring them both a cup, only glancing at Nikos Tramontes to ask how he took his coffee.

‘Black, no sugar,’ he said briskly, and took the cup she proffered.

But he did not drink from it. Instead, he swept his gaze around the high-ceilinged, book-lined room, then brought it back to Diana.

‘This is an exceptionally fine house you have, Ms St Clair,’ he said. ‘I can see why you won’t sell.’

She started, whole body tensing. What on earth? How dared Nikos Tramontes make such a remark to her. It was none of his business.

He saw her expression and gave a smile that had a caustic twist to it. ‘It wasn’t that hard,’ he said gently, not letting her drop her outraged gaze, ‘to discover the circumstances of your inheritance. And I have eyes in my head. I may not be that familiar with English country houses, but a pot-holed drive, masonry that is crumbling below the roofline, grounds that could do with several more gardeners...’

He took a mouthful of coffee, setting the cup aside on the table her father had used to lay his daily newspaper on. Looked at her directly again.

‘It makes sense of your interest in Toby Masterson,’ he told her. ‘A man with a merchant bank at his disposal.’

Again, outrage seethed in Diana—even more fiercely. Her voice was icy. ‘Mr Tramontes, I really think—’

He held up a hand to silence her. As if, she thought stormily, she was some unruly office junior.

‘Hear me out,’ he said.

He paused a moment, studying her. She was dressed casually, in dark green well-cut trousers and a paler green sweater, with her hair caught back in a clip, no jewellery, and no make-up he could discern—a world away from the muted elegance of her evening dress. But her pale, breathtaking beauty still had the same immediate powerful impact on him as it had when she’d first caught his eye. Her current unconcealed outrage only accentuated his response.

‘I understand your predicament,’ he said.

There was sympathy in his voice, and it made her suspicious. Her expression was shuttered, her mouth set. Her own coffee completely ignored.

‘And I have a potential solution for you,’ he went on.

His eyes never left her face, and there was something in their long-lashed dark regard that made it difficult to meet them. But meet them she did—even if it took an effort to appear as composed as she wanted to be.

He took her silence for assent, and continued.

‘What I am about to put to you, Ms St Clair, is a solution that will be a familiar one to you, with your ancestry. I’m sure that not a few of your forebears opted for a similar solution. Though these days, fortunately, the solution can be a lot less...perhaps irreversible is the correct term.’

He reached for his coffee again. Took a leisurely mouthful and replaced the cup. Looked at her once more. She had neutralised her expression, but that was to be expected. Once he had put his cards on the table she would either have him shown the door—or she would agree to what he wanted.

‘You wish—extremely understandably—to retain your family property. However, it’s quite evident that a very substantial sum of money is going to be required—a sum that, as I’m sure you are punishingly aware, given the current level of death duties and the exceptionally high cost of conservation work on listed historic houses, is going to stretch you. Very possibly beyond your limits. Certainly beyond your comfort zone.’

Her expression was stony, giving nothing away. That didn’t bother him. It made him think how statuesque her beauty was. How much it appealed to him. The contrast of her chilly ice maiden impassivity with Nadya’s hot-blooded outbursts was entirely in Diana St Clair’s favour. She was as unlike Nadya as a woman could be—and not, he thought with satisfaction, just in respect of the ice maiden quality, but in so much more—all of which was supremely useful to him.

‘As I say, you’ve clearly already considered—and rejected—Toby Masterson as a solution to your problem, but now I invite you to consider an alternative candidate.’

He paused. A deliberate, telling pause. His eyes held hers like hooks.

‘Myself,’ he said.

Diana’s intake of breath was audible. It scraped through her throat and seemed to dry her lungs to ashes.

‘Are you mad?’ came from her.

‘Not in the least,’ was his unruffled reply. ‘This is what I propose.’ His mouth tightened a moment, then he went on. ‘I should make it clear immediately, however, that my relationship with Nadya Serensky is at an end. She was a woman I wanted two years ago—now I want something, and someone, quite different. You, Ms St Clair, suit my requirements perfectly. And I,’ he continued, ignoring the mounting look of disbelief on her face, ‘suit your requirements perfectly, too.’

She opened her mouth to speak, to protest, but no words came. What words could possibly come in response to such a brazen, unbelievable announcement? He was continuing to talk in that same cool manner, as if he were discussing the weather, and she could only listen to what he said. Even while she stared at him blankly.

‘What I want now, at this stage of my life,’ he was saying—perfectly calmly, perfectly casually, ‘is a wife. Nadya was quite unsuitable for that role. You, however...’

His dark eyes rested on her, unreadable and opaque, and yet somehow seeing right into her, she felt with a hollowing of her stomach.

‘You are perfect for that part. As I,’ he finished, ‘am perfect for you.’

She could only stare, frozen with disbelief. And with another emotion that was trying to snake around her stunned mind.

‘We would each,’ he said, ‘provide the other with what we currently want.’ He glanced once more around the library, then back to her. ‘I want to be part of the world you inhabit—the world of country houses like this, and those who were born to them. Oh, I could quite easily buy such a house, but that would not serve my purpose. I would be an outsider. A parvenu.’

His voice was edged, and he felt the familiar wash of bitterness in his veins, but she was simply staring at him, with a stunned expression on her beautiful face.

‘That will not do for me,’ he said. ‘What I want, therefore, is a wife from that world, who will make me a part of it by marrying her, so that I am accepted.’ Again, his voice tightened as he continued. ‘As for what you would gain...’ His expression changed. ‘I am easily able to afford the work that needs to be done to ensure the fabric of this magnificent edifice is repaired and restored to the condition it should enjoy. So you see...’ he gave his faint smile ‘...how suitable we are for each other?’

She found her voice—belatedly—her words faint as she forced them out.

‘I cannot believe you are serious. We have met precisely twice. You’re a complete stranger to me. And I to you.’

He gave the slightest shrug of his broad shoulders. ‘That can easily be remedied. I am perfectly prepared for our engagement to provide sufficient time to set you at your ease with me.’

He reached to take up his coffee cup again, levelled his unreadable gaze on her.

‘I am not suggesting,’ he continued, ‘a lifetime together. Two years at the most—possibly less. Sufficient for each of us to get what we want from the other. That is, after all, one of the distinct advantages of our times—unlike your forebears, who might have made similar mutually advantageous matches, we are free to dissolve our marriage of our own volition and go our separate ways thereafter.’

He took another draught of his coffee, finishing it and setting down the cup. He looked directly at her.

‘Well? What is your answer?’

She swallowed. There was a maelstrom in her head: thoughts and counter-thoughts, conflicting emotions. Swirling about chaotically. This couldn’t be real, could it? This almost complete stranger, sitting here suggesting they marry?

Marry so I can save Greymont—

She felt a hollowing inside her. That had been exactly what she herself had contemplated—had told Gerald Langley that she would do. She had seriously contemplated it with Toby, then balked at making a life-long commitment to a man she would never otherwise have considered marrying.

But Nikos Tramontes only wants two years.

Two brief years of her life.

Sharply, she looked at him.

‘You say no longer than two years?’

He nodded, concealing an inner sense of triumph. That she had asked the question showed she was giving his offer serious consideration. That she was tempted.

‘I think that will suffice, don’t you?’

It would for him—he was confident of that. Not just because when they parted he would be secure in the social position that marriage to her would give him, but because he knew from his liaison with Nadya that he was unlikely to be bored with the woman in his life before then. For two years, therefore, having Diana St Clair in his life, his bed, would be perfectly acceptable.

He let his gaze rest on her, absorbing her pristine beauty, the pallor in her cheeks from her reaction to his proposition. She was still looking dazed, but no longer outraged. Again, triumph surged in him. He knew he was most definitely drawing her in.

‘Well?’ he prompted.

‘I need time,’ she said weakly. ‘I can’t just—’ She broke off, unable to say more, feeling as if a tornado had just scooped her up and whirled her about.

‘Of course,’ Nikos conceded smoothly.

He got to his feet. His six-foot-plus height seemed to overpower her.

‘Think it over. I’m flying to Zurich tomorrow, but I will be back in the UK at the end of next week. You can give me your answer then. In the meantime, if you have any further questions feel free to text or email me.’

She watched him extract a business card and lay it on her father’s desk before turning back to her.

Suddenly, he smiled. ‘Don’t look so shocked, Diana. It could work perfectly for both of us. A marriage of convenience—people made them all the time in the past. They still do, even if they don’t admit it.’

He turned on his heel, leaving her sitting staring after him as he left the room. She heard his swift footsteps, the front door opening and closing again. The sound of a car starting. Her heart was pounding like a hammer inside her. And it wasn’t just because of the bombshell he’d dropped in her lap.

When he smiles and calls me by my name...

She felt her pulse give a quiver, and deep inside her she felt danger roil. For reasons she could not understand Nikos Tramontes, of all the men she had ever known, seemed to possess an ability to...to disturb her. To make her hyper-aware of his masculinity. Of her own femininity. She didn’t know where it was coming from, or why—she only knew it was dangerous.

I don’t want to react to him like that—I don’t want to!

Her features contorted. Nikos Tramontes had walked into her life out of nowhere and put down in front of her what could be the best hope she had of getting exactly what she wanted—the means to save Greymont. As easily and as painlessly as it was possible to do so outside of a lottery win.

Yes, he was a complete stranger—but, as he’d said, they could get to know each other during their engagement. Yes, his announcement had initially shocked her. But, as he’d also said, such marriages for mutual advantage had been perfectly unexceptional to her ancestors. And theirs would be brief—a year or two at most. Not the life-long commitment that Toby would have required...

And yet for all that she heard a voice wail in her head.

Why can’t he look like Toby? Overweight and pug-faced! That would be so, so much better! So much safer.

So much safer than the dangerous quickening of her blood that came whenever she thought of Nikos Tramontes.

Deliberately, she silenced her fear. Dismissing it. There was no need for such anxieties. None! That quickening of her blood was irrelevant—completely irrelevant. It had nothing to do with what Nikos Tramontes was offering her.

The formality of a marriage of convenience, for outward show only—a dispassionate, temporary union to provide him with an assured entrée into her world and her with the means to preserve her inheritance. Nothing else—nothing that had anything to do with that quickening of her pulse.

It was because she owned Greymont and came with the social position and connections he wanted to acquire that he was interested in her. Nothing more than that. Oh, he would want her to grace his arm, be an ornament for him—that was understandable. But that would be in public. In private their relationship would be cordial, but fundamentally, she reassured herself, it would be little more than a business arrangement at heart. He got a society wife—she got Greymont restored. Mutually beneficial.

We would be associates. That’s a good word for it.

With a little start she realised she was giving his extraordinary proposition serious consideration.

Her mind reeled again.

Could she really do this? Accept his offer—use it to save Greymont?

It was all she could think about as the days went by. Days spent in visits from the architect, and from the specialist companies that would undertake the careful restoration and conservation work on Greymont that would have to be carried out in accordance to the strict building regulations for historic listed buildings, adding to the complexity—and the cost.

With every passing day she could feel the temptation to accept what Nikos was offering her coiling itself like a serpent around her. Tightening its grip with every coil.

* * *

Nikos settled himself into a seat in first class. His mood was good—very good. His decision to select Diana St Clair as the means of achieving his life’s second imperative goal might have been made impulsively, but he’d always trusted his instincts. They’d never failed him in business yet, enabling his rise to riches to be as meteoric as it had been steep.

A faint frown furrowed his brow as he accepted a glass of champagne from the attentive stewardess.

But marriage is not a business decision...

He shook the thought from him. His liaison with Nadya hadn’t been a business decision, but it had proved highly beneficial to both of them while it had lasted, with each of them gaining substantially from it. There was no reason why his time with Diana St Clair should not do likewise. As well as gaining the restoration of her home, she would gain an attentive husband and a very attentive lover.

What more could she—or he—want?

Certainly not love.

His mouth twisted. Love was of no interest to him. He’d never known it, did not want it. And nor, clearly, did Diana St Clair, or she would have sent him packing when he’d set out his proposal in front of her. But she hadn’t—and she would accept it, he knew, his expression changing to one of confident assurance.

What he was offering suited her perfectly. And not just as the means to save her home. On a much more personal level too. Oh, she might not yet realise that her inner ice maiden had finally met a challenge it could not freeze off, but when the time came—and come it would!—she would accept from him all the exquisite sensual pleasure that he would ensure she experienced, all the pleasure that he was so hotly anticipating for himself.

It would be his gift to her—opening the door for her to accept the admiration and desire of men at last. Frozen as she was within, he would ignite within her that flare of sensual awareness he’d seen so briefly, so revealingly in her eyes when he’d first looked upon her.

He would not hurry her—he would give her time to get used to him—but in the end... His smile deepened and he took a mouthful of champagne, easing his shoulders as an image of her pale, exquisite beauty formed in his mind’s eye, lingering over the fine-boned features, the silken line of her mouth.

In the end she would thaw.

And melt into his waiting arms.

* * *

Diana stared at the vast bouquet of exotic, highly scented lilies that sat on the Boule table in the hall, fragrancing the air. Then she stared down at the cheque she was holding in her slightly shaking hands, and the note accompanying it.

An advance, sent in good faith.

She stared at the numbers on the cheque. A quarter of a million pounds. She felt her lungs tighten. So much money—

With a stifled noise in her throat she marched back into her office. But the scent of the lilies was in her nostrils still. Beguiling. Enticing.

Can I do it? Marry Nikos Tramontes?

The cheque in her hand demanded an answer. Accept or reject it. Accept or reject the man who’d signed it.

The phone on her desk rang, startling her. It was her architect, politely, tactfully enquiring whether she was yet in a position to set a start date for the work that needed to be done. Work that could not start without Nikos to pay for it.

Her hand clenched, her signet ring with the St Clair crest on her little finger catching on the mahogany surface of the desk. Emotion bit into her, forcing a decision. The decision she had to make now. Could postpone no longer. If she did not restore Greymont it would decay into ruins or she would have to sell. Either way, it would be lost.

I can’t be the St Clair who loses Greymont. I can’t betray my father’s devotion and sacrifice. I can’t!

The offer that Nikos Tramontes had put in front of her was the best she could ever hope to find. It was a gift from heaven.

Nothing else can save Greymont.

She could feel her heart thumping in her chest, her mouth drying, suddenly, at the enormity of what she was doing.

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