‘You’ve bought a bank?’ she repeated in disbelief.

‘Yes, Alice. I own it. You want to know why I didn’t tell you that either? Habit, I guess—it’s become second nature to me to play down my wealth. It tends to attract the wrong kind of women.’

Didn’t he realise that she’d loved him when he’d had nothing—did that count for nothing?

‘You didn’t trust me enough to tell me something like that?’ she questioned slowly. ‘Like I really would have cared about your money?’

‘It was a misjudgement,’ he said heavily.

‘Too right it was, Kyros. One misjudgement too many.’

‘But now that this is all out in the open,’ he said slowly, ‘surely you can see the benefits of our marriage?’

‘You mean our bizarre mockery of a marriage?’

He shook his dark head impatiently. ‘Think about it, Alice. I need a woman in my life,’ he said deliberately. ‘And you fulfil my needs more than anyone else.’ His voice softened. ‘You always did. You get to enjoy all the things that my wealth can provide for you,’ he said. ‘Every day can be like it was yesterday. I have a boat we can sail—a plane we can fly. We can island-hop on one of my helicopters.’ His lips curved into a smile. ‘There will be no more scrimping and saving and making do—you shall have whatever you want, Alice.’

Except the thing which most eluded her—his love.

THE GREEK TYCOON’S CONVENIENT WIFE

BY

SHARON KENDRICK

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To all my lovely Wirdnam cousins,

especially Barbie, Christine and Jane.

CHAPTER ONE

SHE heard a car door slam, the crunch of gravel on the drive, and Alice tensed as the doorbell rang, sounding unnaturally loud as it echoed through the large house.

He was here.

Drawing a deep breath, she applied one final brush-stroke of Racy Red lipstick and then stepped back to survey her handiwork as a very different Alice stared back at her from the mirror.

Had fate stepped in to provide her with the kind of armour she suspected she might need to cope with seeing Kyros again? Normally, she would never have been wearing black satin—a dress so exquisitely fitted that it looked as if she had been poured into it. Nor silk stockings and a pair of killer heels, with their distinctive scarlet soles. The waterfall of glittering stones which dangled from her ears and lay clustered at her throat were not real, but at least they served a pur-pose—for surely their dazzle would distract her ex-lover from looking too closely into her eyes and seeing her troubled thoughts.

She wanted him to look at her and think: Alice looks wonderful, and she wanted him to look at her and think: What a fool I was to let her go. Wasn’t that what every woman would want in the same situation? That a man who had walked away from their love affair so carelessly because she wasn’t Greek should feel a pang of regret?

The doorbell rang again.

‘I’ve only just got out of the bath!’ yelled Kirsty from along the corridor, and Alice drew another breath. Please give me strength, she prayed as she went to answer it.

‘All right!’ she called. ‘I’m coming!’

Her progress downstairs in the too-high heels was slow but her heart was beating like a piston as she pulled open the front door and dazzling summer light flooded in to create an unmistakable silhouette of the man who was standing there. Alice’s mouth dried. Her thoughts had been spinning round and round ever since his phone call. She had tried to imagine what he might look like now—but nothing could have prepared her for the heart-stopping reality of seeing Kyros Pavlidis for the first time in ten years.

He stood in the doorway, almost filling it with his powerful frame. Black jeans and a black T-shirt moulded his hard body—the lean torso and the long, muscular legs.

Against the light she couldn’t see his expression—not at first—only the glitter in his jet-dark eyes. But as she became accustomed to the brightness every feature was revealed to her. The high slash of cheekbones, the aquiline nose—and the slightly forbidding mouth which so rarely softened. His face was as hard and as formidable as she remembered—but he was still devastatingly handsome.

She gripped the heavy oak of the door, afraid that she might crumple. Or show him that she still thought he was the most amazing man she had ever set eyes on. But hot on the heels of confusion came pride. Because this was the man who had hurt her. She had gone to him an innocent and been left a cynic who’d stopped believing in love. So remember that.

‘Hello, Kyros,’ she said calmly.

For a moment Kyros did not respond as fury, disbelief and pure sexual hunger flooded through his veins in quick succession. His assessment of her had been rapid. No wedding ring. No man hovering curiously in the background, monitoring the mystery caller. And the clothes of a whore!

His lips curved in a mixture of distaste and appreciation as he ran his eyes over a black satin dress that showed far too much of those long legs which used to wrap themselves so spectacularly around his neck. It clung to the swell of her breasts and shimmered down over that perfect derriere. How could she contemplate going out wearing something which would make every man with a pulse think what he was thinking right now? How much he wanted her.

‘Kalespera, Alice,’ he said softly as desire began to coil itself deep within him. ‘Did you forget to put your dress on—or are you simply moonlighting as a hooker?’

Despite the outrageous remark, it was the voice that was almost her undoing. She had heard it on the phone, but being coupled with the sight of him in the powerful and glowing flesh simply magnified its impact and Alice only just stopped her knees from buckling. That accent, she thought weakly. That sexy, incomparable Greek accent that took her straight back to a time which was strictly off limits.

‘I told you I was going to a party,’ she said, realising that already he was making her defend her behaviour!

‘In a pair of shoes that should never be worn outside the bedroom,’ he observed, his gaze flicking over the high, patent heels.

Alice gripped the door even tighter. ‘Listen, Kyros—trading insults with someone you haven’t seen for ten years isn’t really the traditional method of greeting in England—or had you forgotten such basic things as manners?’

But Kyros barely heard her—he just continued staring at her intently, as if his vision would suddenly clear and the woman he had been expecting would reappear. The Alice he had known had been pure and innocent, her hair hanging in a flaxen curtain to her waist—not piled up on top of her head in some sophisticated creation of loops and curls that made her look as if she should be working in a casino. She would be clad in a pretty cotton frock or some swirly little skirt and T-shirt. She’d certainly never have worn a dress so obviously sexy or revealing. He would never have allowed her to.

But his eyes gleamed as he was caught in the emerald crossfire of her eyes. ‘Okay, Alice—if it’s convention you want, then convention you shall have.’ He let his gaze drift over her, drinking in that glorious creamy flesh of hers. ‘Long time no see,’ he murmured sardonically. ‘Isn’t that what we should say after so many years?’

Alice felt shaken. His smooth fluency had always been such a foil to his very Greek buccaneering beauty—but that blatant undressing with his eyes had made her feel positively weak, and she wasn’t going to do weak. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d turn up,’ she said.

‘But I told you I’d be passing.’

‘Yes. Yes, I know you did.’ He would pop in, he had said, as if she was nothing but a careless afterthought—which she supposed she was. Had he deliberately highlighted the fact that he wasn’t putting himself out to come and see her? In case she got the wrong idea. He hadn’t even told her he’d be coming alone. She peered over his shoulder, as if expecting to see some exotic Grecian beauty following obediently behind him, but to her utter relief there was no one there.

It wasn’t exactly the warmest welcome he had ever received and Kyros raised his dark brows. In theory, he had known that she wouldn’t be standing there with open arms—but he was still macho enough to be surprised at her coolness. Was she perhaps worried about her parents and their reaction to seeing him? ‘Your mother and father are around?’

‘No. Dad took early retirement from the business and they’re having a new lease of life—they’re on holiday in the Maldives!’ Now why had she told him that?

Kyros’s eyes narrowed. It surprised him to think of a man as vital as her father being retired. ‘And you live here now?’ he questioned. ‘With your parents?’

Perhaps she was being hypersensitive—but now he was making her sound like some sad old spinster who had run home to her parents when her romantic dreams hadn’t quite worked out. Alice laughed. ‘No, of course I don’t live here. I have an apartment in London. I’ve come back for this party.’

‘And you’re still planning on going to it?’

Her lips fell open into a disbelieving ‘O.’ ‘You thought perhaps I’d cancel it once I knew you were coming?’

He gave a slow smile. ‘Why not?’

She wanted to be outraged at his arrogance but how could she be when a tiny part of her had been tempted to do just that? Hadn’t she felt an overwhelming urge to ask Kirsty to get ready at her own house—so that she’d be able to spend a little time alone with the black-eyed Greek she’d never really forgotten?

She’d told herself that it was normal to want to catch up on the lost years. That maybe it would help give her proper closure on their affair once and for all. But all that would have been a lie. There was only one reason why she wanted to spend time with Kyros—and it had nothing to do with talking and everything to do with his dark, sexual allure. ‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ she swallowed.

There was a pause. ‘Ah, but you never did disappoint me, Alice,’ he said softly. ‘Not then, and certainly not now—despite the showgirl appearance.’

He let his eyes drift over her and suddenly Alice wondered why the hell she hadn’t thrown on a silk kimono over the dress. It had been a rebellious gesture to answer the door like this—one intended to demonstrate that she might be almost thirty and unmarried but her figure was as slim and her legs as toned as they had been at university. Yet all it was managing to do was to make her feel vulnerable…naked beneath that candid appraisal which had followed on so quickly from his obvious initial disapproval.

But she couldn’t turn him away, not now. Not only would it make her look foolish, it would hint to Kyros that he still exerted some kind of power over her—and he didn’t, did he? Not anymore. And besides, Alice was curious. You didn’t spend years wondering and aching to know what had happened to the one man you’d ever loved, only to shut the door in his face.

So wasn’t this her opportunity to change the tape? To wipe the bad memories clean and replace them with new ones? To realise that Kyros was just a man and not a god, and that she had moved on. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if she could do all that?

She stepped back. ‘You’d better come in,’ she said.

‘At last,’ he murmured sardonically, and as he stepped into the house it felt like a kind of victory—as he looked around the large hallway which itself was as big as a room.

It was a cosy, English family home—with its books and cushions, its walls studded with paintings and photos and its scruffy, overstuffed sofa. He remembered the first time he had come here and how alien it had seemed—for he recalled envying such an environment, while feeling stifled by it at the same time.

He remembered the home-made cake which her mother had produced. The cups of faintly scented tea in cups so delicate that they were almost transparent. And the dog which had sat at his feet—its liquid brown eyes huge as it silently begged for food.

‘But you mustn’t give him any,’ Alice had giggled. ‘He’s a greedy pig!’

He had fed the dog, of course—as he suspected he had been supposed to all along, for everyone had laughed. Was that some kind of silent test he had passed? he wondered. Some crude initiation test to see whether the dark and macho Greek would be accepted into a family home which was light years away from the dysfunction of his own? For Alice had looked deep into his eyes and smiled and in that moment he had felt…

What?

Danger?

Oh, yes. Along with the certainty that he was getting in too deep—and the even greater certainty that he was much too young to settle down, and when he did it would never be with someone like Alice.

He stared at her now. Beneath the too-heavy makeup she still had the most beautiful pair of eyes he had ever seen on a woman—green and deep as a forest glade. He remembered the flow of her hair like a bright cascade—a waterfall of moonlight over her bare back. He felt the call of forgotten poetry and the hard stir to his groin and he sank down onto one of the battered sofas before it became a talking point.

‘So…what exactly are you doing in England?’ questioned Alice, quickly walking across to the other side of the room and away from his dangerous proximity.

He stretched his long legs out in front of him and watched with a curl of wry amusement as Alice perched herself self-consciously on a piece of furniture as far away from him as it was possible to be. That flash of bare thigh above her stocking top was quite something. ‘I’ve been to a wedding,’ he drawled.

It was the last thing she had expected him to say. Alice’s fingernails gripped the sofa. Kyros and weddings went as well together as water and electricity. And didn’t the very word sound uncomfortably intimate, especially to her, who had once—mistakenly as it turned out—rather hoped to marry him? What an idiot she had been. She stared at him. ‘Anyone I know?’

‘My twin brother Xandros.’

‘Xandros?’

‘You sound surprised.’

Alice shook her head in disbelief. ‘Surprise doesn’t come close to it. I thought your brother was a commitment-phobe—legendary for the number of lovers he had.’

‘So he was,’ he agreed, with a careless shrug. ‘But it seems that even the world’s most restless lovers can be tamed—for now he has met and married a woman called Rebecca—’

‘She’s not Greek?’ Alice interrupted quickly, with a sudden painful pounding of her heart.

‘No. She is English.’ Their eyes met. ‘Just like you.’

No, not like me at all, thought Alice trying not to allow the hurt to show. Kyros had done his best to convince her that their upbringings were too dissimilar for the relationship to work—and that the cultural differences would sound a death-knell to a shared future. Or maybe that had just been him alighting on the perfect excuse to finish a youthful romance that she’d had no desire to let go of. ‘I thought that you and your brother were estranged. That you didn’t speak anymore.’

Kyros raked a hand through his thick dark hair. It was true—he and Xandros had fought all their lives and eventually they had fallen out in dramatic style. His twin had left the island for America and had never returned, both brothers telling themselves it was for the best—and that was how the rift had been born. How black and white things could seem when you were eighteen years old—and then somehow life turned them grey and indistinct.

‘That was a long time ago,’ he said offhandedly. ‘Time heals—and both of us seem to have forgotten what the original row was about. So I thought, why not go to his wedding?’ It had meant a lot to Xandros, or so he had told him just before the ceremony, when he’d clasped Kyros in a fierce hug. His wincing face hidden from view, Kyros had submitted to this unheard of and unwanted display of emotion, telling himself that his brother was clearly overwrought with wedding plans.

‘And is he…. happy?’ questioned Alice.

‘Happy?’ Kyros’s mouth hardened. How foolish and predictable women could be—with their naïve supposition that happiness was a permanent state! Something which came ready-made and indestructible with the marriage certificate. Happiness was like a bubble—perfection itself until it popped and then it was gone, leaving no trace other than a faint memory.

Yet, undeniably, he had been slightly taken aback to observe his brother in the throes of a love affair. To see his tough twin unashamed of showing the world—and a woman—how much he adored her had filled Kyros with unease. It could not last—it rarely did—and such a weakness would come back to haunt him. As well as effectively slicing off a huge piece of his considerable fortune if they divorced.

‘Oh, everyone can be happy for a while,’ he said, his black eyes hardening into shards of jet as he looked at her. ‘Whether it will last, who knows? I doubt it.’

‘What a cynic you are,’ Alice observed wryly.

‘Or realist?’

Their eyes met in a long, unspoken moment until Kyros finally broke it—because the slow flicker of desire was threatening to catch fire. Her fingers were bare, yet he wanted to make sure—because the new breed of women in Western society often seemed to decline to wear a wedding band.

‘You don’t have a husband yourself, Alice?’

She shook her head. ‘No, I don’t.’

‘A boyfriend, then?’

‘Again, no.’

He smiled. ‘No one who could match up to me, ne?’

Had he read her mind? Damn him. That no man had ever captured her heart and her body in the way that Kyros had. ‘Certainly not in the ego department,’ she said drily.

He laughed, shifting his position on the sofa very slightly. ‘Nor any other department, I imagine,’ he murmured.

‘I really haven’t given it a lot of thought,’ she said, ignoring the blatantly sexual boast and praying that the lie would not show and that nothing in her expression would alert him to the sleepless nights she’d spent aching for him after he’d gone. It had taken a lot of time and a lot of work to reach a place where the thought of Kyros didn’t bring an involuntary catch to her throat—and she wasn’t going to throw it all away now. ‘Or rather, I haven’t given you a lot of thought.’

‘Really?’ he questioned sardonically.

‘The past is a place I don’t choose to visit often, Kyros—apparently it’s best left behind,’ she continued, though inside she was wondering how she could have forgotten his arrogance. His obvious belief that his memory should burn as bright as some eternal light. ‘We had an affair when we were both young. It ended. So what?’ She shrugged. ‘It happens to everyone.’

Kyros’s eyes narrowed first with disbelief, and then irritation. Was it possible that she was speaking the truth? That she could dismiss her ‘affair’ with him as if he were just some insipid ex-boyfriend?

Well, either she meant what she said, or she was trying to make a point—to show him she no longer cared. And either way she would take those words back, Kyros thought as the hard beat of desire made him want to take her there and then.

He had come here tonight on an impetuous and half-formed wish to see what had happened to her—but her throw-away remark was like hurling a bucket of petrol over the smouldering embers of a fire which had never quite died.

He wanted her.

Still wanted her.

And tonight he would have her. He would peel that tarty-looking dress from her body and bare the breasts he knew so well and he would take them into his mouth and suckle them. He would soon discover for himself how time had changed and refined the curves of her body and her secret feminine places.

His mouth dried. He would make her keep her shoes on. He would make love to her and finally slake his desire for her. Only this time he would walk away and he would finally be free—for there would be no lingering trace of her left in his mind or his body. He would shake off every last trace of her in one long and delicious night of sex.

‘Indeed, it does happen to everyone—for nobody’s experience is unique,’ he agreed softly, his gaze settling on the scarlet gleam of her lips. Like a snake uncoiling itself, he rose from the sofa with a fluid grace and began to walk across the room towards her. ‘So tell me about this party you’re going to tonight.’

Alice’s breathing began to quicken. ‘There’s… nothing much to tell.’

He thought of what a stir she would create in that outrageous outfit. He thought of all the times she had dressed for him. And undressed for him, and suddenly a great rush of jealousy washed over him—hot poison firing his blood. ‘Whose party is it?’

She registered the sudden animosity in his body language. ‘Kyros! You can’t just waltz back into my life after ten years and start interrogating me about who I associate with!’

‘Can’t I?’ He took a step closer. ‘And that still doesn’t answer my question, Alice.’

He was close enough now for her to be able to detect his raw, masculine heat—the shimmering aura of sexuality which always seemed to radiate from his powerful frame. For the first time she noticed the tiny lines which fanned out from the sides of the black eyes. The faint hint of silver at the sides of his thick ebony hair. The deepening of lines around the strong, firm mouth. ‘But I don’t have to answer your question.’

‘Whose party is it?’ he persisted softly, but at that moment there was the clip-clopping of heels on the stairs and a woman wearing a very tight silver catsuit walked into the room.

‘I can’t breathe in this thing!’ she was saying, holding a half-drunk glass of wine and smiling until she saw him, and then she stood stock-still, her face freezing like a cartoon character.

Kyros stared at her in utter disbelief. ‘Who the hell is this?’ he said.

Alice watched as Kirsty began to blink rapidly, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing—completely ignoring the fact that his greeting had been so rude and unwelcoming. It might have been comical if it hadn’t still inexplicably had the power to hurt—the sight of her best friend staring open-mouthed at Kyros as if some kind of god had just materialised.

‘Well, hel-lo,’ said Kirsty. ‘You must be—’

‘This is Kyros. Kyros, this is Kirsty,’ said Alice quickly. ‘You remember, I told you—Kyros and I knew each other at university.’

‘Er, that’s right,’ said Kirsty, her fingers unconsciously moving up to pat at her red hair. ‘But I had no idea that—’

That he was quite so stunning? Or that he was standing there in her parents’ sitting room—legs apart and hands resting arrogantly on his narrow hips as if he owned the place—looking at the two of them as if a couple of aliens had just landed?

‘Do you always go out dressed like this?’ he demanded.

Kirsty giggled. ‘Of course not—but the theme of the party is “Divine Decadence”. Didn’t Alice tell you?’

Black eyes fixed on Alice, sending several conflicting messages sparking at her from their ebony depths. ‘No,’ he said softly. ‘She omitted to mention that fact. I think she found it slightly amusing to allow me to carry on thinking that she enjoyed dressing like a lady of the night, didn’t you, Alice?’

‘I think I did,’ Alice agreed blandly, and smiled. ‘Kyros was just passing by on his way back from a wedding,’ she told Kirsty. ‘And he’s just leaving.’

‘Oh!’ Kirsty pouted. ‘What a pity.’

Kyros’s expression was lazy and complicit as he subjected the redhead to a slow smile. ‘Indeed it is—for I am rarely in this country.’

Alice saw the question coming from a mile off, but it was too late to field it because Kirsty was already asking it.

‘Well, why don’t you come, too?’

‘He can’t. It’s a themed party, remember?’ Alice snapped. ‘And Kyros isn’t dressed for it!’

‘Oh, I don’t know—he looks divinely decadent to me,’ gurgled Kirsty.

‘You think so?’ Kyros’s lips curved into a smile. ‘Well, I should like to come along if you are sure I will not be in the way? If you are sure that your host will not object, ne?’

He was peppering his words with Greek deliberately, thought Alice furiously, knowing damned well the effect they had on women—for hadn’t they once had that same effect on her? Just as he was dazzling Kirsty with one of his rare and brilliant smiles. Either way, her friend was shaking her head as if he had just suggested the most outlandish thing on earth.

‘Object—to you?’ Kirsty gave him a conspiratorial grin. ‘I don’t imagine you ever have much trouble getting into parties, Kyros! Anyway, it’s a pretty casual do. The more the merrier—and single men are always at a premium.’

Especially men like you, her eyes seemed to say and Alice bit her lip, furious now. Kirsty was managing to make them sound like a small pack of man-eating women! The kind who were pushing thirty and were desperate to get their hands on anything with testosterone. How could she?

It was true that she had convincingly told her friend that she’d got over Kyros years ago. But she’d mainly been getting in practice for when she came face-to-face with him herself. Surely Kirsty could have guessed that she didn’t want him anywhere near her?

But at least the party was local—a few short streets away. It would be all too easy to leave unnoticed once it got going—and she could lose herself in the crowd. Why, doubtless Kyros would quickly be surrounded by women and probably wouldn’t even notice her slip away.

‘Yes, you’re very welcome to join us, Kyros,’ Alice agreed indifferently, although her fast-pounding heart told a different story entirely.

Kyros felt the flare of desire mingled with curiosity as she deliberately turned away from him and he observed the stiff set of her back, which was at such odds with the delicious curve of her bottom. Was she really as immune to him as she appeared? Would he have to work very hard to get her into bed tonight?

But the prospect of such a sexual conquest as this thrilled him and it was a long time since a challenge had filled him with quite so much excitement.

CHAPTER TWO

THE party was in a big, old house whose garden spilled down to the river—and clearly no expense had been spared. It was already in full swing when they arrived, as waitresses wearing very little bobbed around with trays of exotic-looking cocktails. Fairy lights were threaded into the branches of the trees, giant torches flared on either side of a specially constructed walkway, and there was a huge marquee with loud music blasting from it.

‘I’m surprised the neighbours haven’t complained about the noise,’ said Alice as they stood at the edge of the marquee’s black and white dance floor and watched people dancing around with varying degrees of skill.

‘That’s because they’ve invited all the neighbours!’ giggled Kirsty. ‘Oh, look—there’s Giles—won’t be a minute, I must say hello!’

Alice could have screamed as she watched Kirsty wiggling her silver bottom before being swallowed up by the crowd. She might have objected to the way that her friend had been fawning over Kyros all the way over here, but the last thing she wanted was to be left alone with him.

Yet she wasn’t alone, she reminded herself—there must be over a hundred people here with more arriving by the minute—and what could possibly happen in full view of everyone, if she didn’t want it to?

‘Some party,’ murmured Kyros, looking around.

‘Yes.’ Alice saw someone she’d been at school with, and waved. ‘The couple holding it are both bankers—they’ve just bought this house and this is their housewarming. Let’s go and find them,’ she suggested.

He turned then, a flicker of irritation flaring in the depths of the ebony eyes. ‘But I don’t want to find anyone.’

‘Don’t you think that’s a little rude, Kyros?’

‘Not really.’ His mouth curved into a half-smile—the kind that usually warned people that it was pointless to waste their time arguing with him. ‘Look around—see for yourself. People are drinking enough to ensure they have headaches by midnight and the more adventurous have already started dancing. In other words, Alice, everyone is doing their own thing. No one knows me—and why should they want to?’

Alice grabbed a vicious-looking purple cocktail from a passing tray and drank a potent mouthful. ‘Oh, please don’t be disingenuous, Kyros. Despite the fact that you’re woefully underdressed compared to everyone else, every woman in the garden noticed you walking in and every man is watching you out of the corner of their eyes to see what you’ll do next. Or rather, where’re you’ll strike.’

‘Strike?’ he echoed.

‘Like a predator,’ she said, before she had time to think about the wisdom of her words.

‘Then let me put their minds at rest,’ he said softly, cupping her elbow within the palm of his hand. ‘I am not interested in any of the women here—except the one whose perfume is invading my senses. Is it rose?’ he questioned.

‘Jasmine,’ she said automatically as the cocktail fizzed its way round her bloodstream.

‘Ah, jasmine. Sweet and intoxicating.’ Just like her. His thumb began to idly stroke at the satin texture of her skin and he felt it prickle into goose-bumps beneath his touch. ‘What I want is a few uninterrupted moments alone with you—catching up as ex-lovers do. To see what the world has done to us both in the intervening years.’

‘I don’t think—’

‘Then don’t think,’ he drawled dismissively. ‘You’re curious. I’m curious.’ The pad of his thumb now traced a featherlight line down to her wrist where he could feel the thready flicker of her pulse and see the dark blue tracery of veins beneath the fair skin. ‘Very curious.’

Had he deliberately couched his words to sound like a sexual invitation? Probably. She wanted to tell him to stop touching her—just as she wanted to tell him to stop dipping his voice like that, so that it resembled rich, creamy chocolate which was gliding sweetly over her skin. But no words came—all that came was a terrible awareness of the aching emptiness inside her.

But maybe in a way, he was right. Maybe she needed to fill in the yawning gaps of her imagination with a few facts because he must have left scores of broken-hearted women behind. Women just like her. And wouldn’t it be good for her to hear that? To understand that what she had shared with him had not been unique or special. It might be painful—but if she could see their relationship as it really was, rather than what she had wanted it to be, then mightn’t that help take Kyros off the pedestal where he stubbornly seemed to stay, no matter how fervent her efforts to remove him?

‘Okay. Why not?’ she questioned carelessly, but quickly moved away from the temptation of his touch before beginning to walk away from the marquee.

The garden was long and they stopped by a quiet, shaded spot near to where the dark river water lapped against the bank—far away enough not to be bothered by stray guests or the insistent music, but Alice found that she was trembling, even though the summer air was thick and warm and scented with flowers.

He gestured to a bench which curled all the way round the trunk of a tree. ‘Let’s sit here.’

Though hard, the seat was oddly intimate and Alice was uncomfortably aware of how close his thigh lay to hers—and how she had to keep surreptitiously tugging at the hem of her satin dress to stop her stocking tops from showing.

‘Oh, don’t worry about it,’ he said lazily. ‘I have no objection to looking at your legs.’

‘Well, I do,’ she said, when he plucked the cocktail glass from her suddenly boneless fingers and put it on the grass nearby.

‘You don’t need that,’ he said flatly.

‘Says who?’

His mouth curved into a mocking smile. ‘I do.’

The gesture was both autocratic and yet thrilling—and Alice was appalled at herself for thinking so. Was it because he was Greek that he seemed so utterly masculine and in total command of the situation? That he could get away with the kind of domination she wouldn’t dream of tolerating from any other man—or was it simply because he was Kyros?

‘As high-handed as ever, I see,’ she observed.

‘Ah, but women like a man to take control.’ In the fading light, his eyes gleamed. ‘You always did,’ he added deliberately.

Especially in bed. The unspoken words seemed to filter their way through the gathering gloom towards her, pulling her back to a time of erotic awakening at Kyros’s hands.

When they’d met she had been a virgin—something which had delighted him. A woman’s virtue was the most precious gift that she could give to a man, he had assured her as he had removed the underwear from her trembling body with the dexterity of a man who had done so many times before.

With a passion which had dazed her, he had taught her everything he knew—and it seemed that his knowledge on this particular subject was encyclopaedic. Kyros was an expert in the art of love-making, ‘Because it is an art, agape mou,’ she recalled him murmuring as he had pulled her down onto his lap. How jealous she had been of all the women who had come before her—the women he had practised his art on. And what of the ones who had followed—what of those?

She wasn’t going to go there. They weren’t here to talk about intimacy—because that would only highlight unwanted emotions like envy and regret. Once again, she smoothed the hem of her dress.

‘I thought we’d already decided it was a little late in the day for fake modesty?’ he murmured.

‘Fake modesty will go once you ditch the caveman comments,’ she said, and he laughed. ‘So let’s have this catch-up you’re so keen on, Kyros. What exactly are you doing these days? Where are you living?’

‘On Kalfera. Where else?’

Alice had only ever seen photos of the stunning island where he and his twin brother had grown up and to her unworldly eyes it had looked like some kind of faraway paradise—with its sapphire seas and blazing white sands. Kyros had always spoken of returning there, but somehow she had thought that it might feel claustrophobic after London. She had thought that he might want to be free of its bitter memories. For hadn’t he once told her—on the one and only time she’d ever seen him slightly drunk—of the mother who had walked out on him and his twin brother when they were barely four years old?

And she remembered tentatively bringing up the subject another time—and the way he had shot her down in flames, telling her never to mention it again.

She watched him now—the shadows which caressed his sculpted cheekbones. ‘I thought you might find island life too small and insular—after all the freedom you enjoyed while you were studying.’

‘I choose to live on an island—that doesn’t mean I’m marooned on it,’ he said sarcastically. ‘I can move between the mainland and rest of Europe whenever it suits me.’

‘And how often is that?’

‘That depends. I have business interests which I’m growing, but Kalfera is where I most like to be. Life is very simple there—with a peace like nowhere else on earth. There’s nowhere like it,’ he finished softly, but then narrowed his eyes, shuttering them against further intrusion. So she still had that inquisitive way with her—and he had not brought her down here to this secluded spot for Alice to be interrogating him about his choice of home!

‘But that is enough about my unsophisticated life on a little Greek island,’ he murmured, leaning back against the tree trunk so that he could study the slim swell of her breasts. ‘I want to hear all about you.’

It occurred to Alice that he had actually told her very little about himself, other than where he was living. Had he made a success of the family business, she wondered—because hadn’t the company been struggling at some point? she recalled. Her eyes flicked over his jeans and T-shirt—not exactly the outfit of a rich man. Was it struggling still—and did that explain his reluctance to talk about it?

‘Oh, I’ve done okay,’ she said quietly. She didn’t want to boast—particularly if Kyros hadn’t made the dizzy and expected rise to the top—but neither did she want to play down her achievements. Even if her love life hadn’t been a success, at least Alice’s job was the one constant area she could be relatively proud of. ‘Enough to be able to support myself, anyway—and to own my own apartment.’

How long would it take to drive there? he wondered idly. In time for bed? ‘Doing what?’

‘I’m in marketing.’ She thought she saw his mouth curve and stupidly found herself rushing to her own defence! ‘It may sound a little dull, but it’s anything but—especially in the company I’ve joined. We sell health-care products—alternative therapy stuff—which is big business now. When I started out, things were on a downward spin—but we rethought our marketing strategies and it coincided with a change in people’s thinking, and…’ she shrugged, suddenly aware of the gleam in his black eyes ‘…now it’s on the upturn.’

‘Ah, Alice—how passionately you speak of this business. So you have become a career woman?’ he observed mockingly.

‘You make it sound like a fault.’

‘Do I? That is too strong an assessment—though nobody can deny that it is different for a woman. That if she puts her heart into her career, it leaves little room for anything else,’ he mused, glancing down at her bare fingers. ‘Particularly a family.’

Don’t take it personally, she told herself, but the taste of regret made her bite her lip. Just because you’ve never settled down and had children doesn’t mean you’re any kind of failure, she told herself firmly. ‘There’s still plenty of time for that,’ she returned, horribly aware that she might now be sounding even more defensive.

‘You think that women can have it all?’ he questioned.

‘I think men would like them to believe they can’t—but that they owe it to themselves to try.’

‘So you have become the arch-feminist in your silk stockings and suspenders,’ he observed drily, aware of the sudden kick of lust.

Now his black gaze was sliding down over her body, making her skin tingle with a growing kind of awareness. ‘I don’t remember you being quite so outrageously old-fashioned—even in the past,’ she returned. ‘Did you turn the clock back by a century when you returned to Kalfera?’

He stretched out his long legs in front of him and he saw her shift a little, as if her own position was uncomfortable. Was it? Well, it was pretty uncomfortable for him—but maybe that was because the inexorable build-up of desire was pulling tight across the heavy denim of his jeans. Would she notice? he wondered. What would she do if he put her hand there? Would she stroke him and then unzip him and take him into her mouth as she had done so many times in the past?

‘So have you missed me, agape mou?’ he murmured, cursing himself against the now exquisitely painful ache.

It was a long time since she had heard that particular term of affection—it was one of the first and few Greek phrases she had learned and now it took her by surprise. But more crucially, it took her back to a time and a place which she had sectioned off as being too dangerous—rather as you might wire-fence a crater you’d found lurking at the bottom of your garden.

Forgetting Kyros had been something she’d taught herself to do after he’d gone. It hadn’t been easy—but time had helped and so had practice. Yet seeing him here like this hurtled her back to a forgotten time and suddenly she found she had no defence against the flood of memories which washed over her.

They had met during her first month at college—at a party thrown to welcome the ‘freshers’. She had been eighteen and bright and eager to learn about anything life could throw at her and Kyros had been the pin-up Greek who was just starting his final year. Everyone had known Kyros—and he had been more exotic than anyone she’d ever met in the small town where she’d grown up.

His glowing olive skin, black hair and hard tall body were the dream package. And so too were his arrogance and unashamedly macho attitude. At a time when Englishmen had been trying to get in touch with their feelings, Kyros had been their dark antithesis and women had clustered around him like flies.

Alice remembered feeling slightly appalled at how obvious some of those women could be and he was rumoured to have slept with at least three of them. But she hadn’t paid him any attention—not because of some kind of sophisticated game-plan, because she hadn’t had the experience to play games. No, she had simply looked at him and decided that he was way out of her league, her experience, her world—everything, really.

Years later she would understand that men like Kyros were natural predators—that they liked the chase and they liked the new. It had been her freshness and innocence and her lack of interest in him which had drawn him to her—just as nature had programmed her to respond to his alpha qualities.

Physical attraction was one thing but Alice had fallen in love with him because, well, because he was Kyros and she couldn’t not have loved him. And for a time he had loved her too—or so he’d said. But love had not prevented him from walking away from her as clinically as he had. Leaving with a regretful shrug, which had done nothing to dull the pain of his words.

But you must have known I would return to take over the family business, agape mou. In time I shall no doubt marry a beautiful Greek girl who will produce at least five children—most of whom will be sons! And they in turn will take over the business from me one day. That is the way these things work.

No, she had not known at all—or rather, had not allowed herself. She had wanted their relationship to endure and she had cried—but at least she had stopped short of begging him not to go.

And once Alice had seen that his mind was made up, she had forced herself to allow herself a glimpse of her own future. And despite her heartache, she had allowed herself the first faint flare of hope. Soon she would have a degree with which to launch her career. She might no longer have Kyros, she had reasoned—but out there lay travel and fun and excitement for her to sample.

That her life had not materialised according to her dreams was nobody’s fault—let alone Kyros’s.

The memories cleared and Alice saw his ebony eyes gleaming in the moonlight as the music from the party drifted down the garden towards them. She swallowed. What had his question been? The one which had set off all those bitter-sweet thoughts about the past? Had she missed him? he had asked—with all the sensitivity of a steamroller. How could a man be so dense? In the beginning, she had missed him with the agony of someone who’d had one of their limbs cut off!

But worse than missing him had been the realisation that never again would she meet a man who came anywhere close to Kyros Pavlidis and the way he made her feel. She remembered understanding that with a painful kind of clarity and she had been proved absolutely right.

She would never tell him that, of course—his ego did not need such a boost—but neither could she deny having missed him at all, for surely it was impossible to tell an outright lie of that magnitude? It would make her sound like a fraud.

But she could choose how to tell him, for she was no longer a young, impressionable girl rocked by the urgent power of first love.

‘It was inevitable that I should miss you to some extent,’ she said. ‘We’d been an item for nearly a year. It went from full time to nothing.’ Still warmed by the cocktail, she even managed a fairly convincing smile. ‘I suppose what I found odd was the abruptness of it all. You never wrote, or phoned. You disappeared completely from my life. I never saw you or heard from you again.’ So that sometimes it had seemed like some strange and glorious dream.

His mouth curved into a hard, mocking line. ‘It was better that way,’ he said. ‘If we’d stayed friends…’ What? He might have been tempted to come back and to take her to bed and lose himself in her body over and over again? He had wanted—no, needed—to make a clean break with her. To forget his blonde lover—with her long legs and her emerald eyes.

But he had never forgotten her, he realised that now. Nor got her completely out of his system. He had buried his hunger for Alice—and he was only just discovering how deeply. And now? Just like a seed which had lain dormant all these years and been suddenly fed light and air and water, his desire for her was fizzing over like a warm glass of champagne, given life by the sight of her sitting like some goddess in the moonlight, her hair a silvery fall down her back.

‘We could never have stayed friends, Alice,’ he said harshly. ‘Ex-lovers don’t make good friends.’

‘No,’ she said, forcing a smile. ‘I guess you’re right.’

Her green eyes were unreadable in the dim light. He had expected—what? That she, of all people—having tasted the pleasures of his body—would respond to him as other women did? That she would be pouting and sending out silent signals that she wanted him? But Alice had not done that.

It was true that she was dressed like a siren—but she had not followed that up with any suggestiveness. And hadn’t that always been part of her attraction to him? Her cool blonde beauty hiding the rampant sensual fire beneath?

So what was he going to do about it? He was going to do what he always did—take what he wanted, and then walk away.

Reaching out his hand, he splayed his fingers over the base of her throat—just below the necklet of fake gemstones. He could feel her pulse skittering beneath the delicate skin, could see the way that her lips parted instinctively. In the fading light her eyes darkened.

‘Kyros…’

He pulled her into his arms and stared down at her, his features tense and black eyes bright with sexual hunger as they roved over her face. Alice knew in that moment that he was going to kiss her and that it would have been easier to have floated down to the end of the garden than to have resisted him. He knew that and she knew that. ‘You bastard,’ she whispered.

His laugh was soft as he trickled a careless finger over the pert bud of her satin-covered nipple and it tightened in response. ‘But you like that. You like your hard, tough, Greek macho man, don’t you, my beauty? It turns you on. It always did.’

‘Kyros—’ But any protest was lost then for he was crushing his lips down on hers and she was kissing him back as if her life depended on it.

Her fingers fluttered up as they sought the broad shoulders, pressing against the hard muscle and wanting to tear away the T-shirt and to touch the silk of the olive skin beneath. She sucked in a breath—his breath—and moaned his name into his mouth.

With an angry kind of curse he pulled her down from the bench onto a soft patch of grass and pressed his body hard into hers. He felt so…so…hard. But that was okay, Alice thought weakly—because at least it was honest. She didn’t want softness—she didn’t want anything that masqueraded as love. This was what her hungry body craved—this virile man who was kissing her more passionately than any other man could.

Locking her arms tight around him, she kissed him back with a wantonness which felt as if it had been building up since last time he had kissed her all those years ago.

‘Alice!’ He let out a groan as she wriggled beneath him—the touch of her so shockingly and instantly familiar, but this time tempered with the spice of absence. His mouth at her throat, he nudged his thigh insistently against hers and they opened for him immediately and Kyros groaned with a kind of stunned disbelief. Her desire was simple and straightforward. She would play no games. She never had. Her sexual appetite had been more than a match for his—had he somehow thought that time might change that?

Heart pounding like a piston in his chest, he skated his hand down the front of her dress—the siren call of her body urging him on as he rucked up the slippery fabric of her dress, stroking his hand along the cool silk of her thigh until it alighted on her panties, and then he slipped his finger inside her.

At that she gasped, her eyes snapping open, and even in the shadow of the evening he could see they were dense and black with desire just as he could feel her barely contained shiver of delight.

‘Kyros! Stop it. We…we can’t—’

His hand stilled. Alice—refusing him?

‘We can’t…stay here.’

In the moonlight he smiled as he moved against her heated flesh. ‘No?’

Alice groaned—her hungry body calling out to her—but some last shred of sanity made her shake her head. Because how the hell would it look if someone found them locked in an intimate embrace? Did she think so little of herself that she could allow such an easy seduction? ‘No,’ she moaned. ‘There are people at the other end of the garden.’

In the darkness, his mouth curved into a hard smile. That did not sound like a refusal—more like a delaying tactic. He eased back from her a little, recognising the need to quieten down his aroused body or there was the very real fear that he would be unable to walk.

He stood up, and held his hand out to her. ‘Get up,’ he demanded unevenly. ‘We’re going back to your house.’

Alice steadied her ragged breathing. ‘But…what will people think?’

‘I don’t care what people think, Alice.’

Warning bells went off in her head at his arrogant statement, reminding her that she was risking getting hurt all over again.

‘Well, I do,’ she said.

‘Not enough to stop me,’ he taunted softly, his hands now cupping her silky bottom and bringing her hard up against the cradle of his desire. ‘Is it enough to stop you, Alice?’

Say no. Say it’s wrong. Too soon. That any respect he may have had for you will be destroyed by this illadvised passion. Say no!

‘No,’ she admitted tremblingly as she imagined him deep inside her.

He caught her fingers in his and began moving purposefully down the garden. Alice could hear chatter and music, the tinkling of crockery on china, and little shrieks of laughter as they passed. How perfectly normal it all sounded, she thought—with a sudden pang. While she was sneaking away like a thief in the night with a man who had already hurt her.

Was she crazy? Yes, very probably. But by now they had slipped unnoticed out of the side gate and she found herself wondering whether he made a habit of this as he led her confidently through the streets—as if she were the stranger in her home town.

They walked in a breathless kind of silence and when they reached her parents’ house, he tipped her face up. ‘Is your friend due to sleep over here tonight?’

She shook her head.

‘Good.’

How clinical he was, she thought—and how well thought out his line of questioning as he took all the known factors into account, a bit like some hot-shot lawyer. But Alice could guess at his overriding concern. That he didn’t want to wait and didn’t want to be disturbed. The tautness in his hard body was as tight as a stretched bow and the crackling tension between them was almost palpable.

He drifted his fingertips along her cheek—as if he was using the power of touch to dissolve any last, lingering doubts. And, oh, didn’t it work a treat? But Alice was past caring whether the gesture had been cynically manipulative or not. To be honest, she was past caring about anything except how much she ached to be in his arms and his bed once more.

‘K-Kyros,’ she said shakily, her tongue snaking out to moisten her parchment-dry lips.

‘Let’s get inside,’ he said roughly.

CHAPTER THREE

ONCE inside, Kyros took command—turning to where Alice stood in the shadows of the hall, the ticking of the grandfather clock muffled by the loud thunder of her heart. And then he said something low and harsh in Greek, and pulled her into his arms—and suddenly this was serious.

His lips were hard, expert, seeking—and Alice swayed with the great tide of emotion which was rising up inside her as she kissed him back with a passion which seemed to have been on hold for the last ten years—and how sad was that? But Alice didn’t care. The urgent touch of his lips felt so right. His body seemed to fit so perfectly as it moulded against hers. His hands slid the black satin dress up over her bottom, moving luxuriously over the lace of her panties, and as she gave a little cry he suddenly drew back, staring down into her widened eyes.

‘If we don’t move from here, I’m going to rip this dress off and do it to you right here on the floor of this hall,’ he ground out.

The graphic words startled her. These were no sweet nothings he was murmuring, she realised—more a cold-blooded declaration of sexual intent. But his hands were undoing all the harshness of his words, making her shiver with desire as his fingers collided with bare flesh.

‘Is that what you want, Alice? To do it here?’

If it had been her own place she suspected the answer would have been yes—because that would have been easier, to have let passion carry them along in its mindless blur. But it wasn’t—it belonged to her parents—and what if one of the neighbours suddenly decided to call round for whatever reason? Unlikely—but terrifying. ‘N-no,’ she breathed. ‘Not here.’

‘Where?’ he demanded, his mouth on hers.

‘Up-upstairs.’

‘Show me.’

As they climbed the stairs Alice realised that there was time to stop this madness. Even as she pushed open the door of her old bedroom—now transformed into the creamy comfort of a guest room—she knew there was still time. But the moment he had kicked the door shut and taken her into his arms again to smother her with hard, passionate kisses Alice knew it was too late.

Kyros moaned as her mouth opened beneath his and his desire shot up to an explosive level—but then she had always possessed the power to turn his blood to fire. He knew everything there was to know about a woman’s body. How to make her cry with pleasure and weep with joy. How to tease and retreat—to play the sophisticated games of the bedroom, which only increased the levels of mutual delight.

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