Marriage …

Sander poured himself a stiff drink and tipped it back with scant appreciation. He knew that he was going to get very, very drunk before he went to see Tally the next day. He dared not mention her father’s visit.

Suppressing his anger on that issue, he reminded himself that, having been brutally honest with her when she told him about the baby, he now had fences to mend. He also had an honourable proposal to make in response to the most dishonourable act of blackmail …

THE VOLAKIS VOW

A marriage made of secrets …

An enthralling two-part story by bestselling author

Lynne Graham

This month:

THE MARRIAGE BETRAYAL

Tally Spencer, an ordinary girl with no experience of

relationships … Sander Volakis, an impossibly rich and

handsome Greek entrepreneur … Their worlds collide

in an explosion of attraction and passion. Sander’s

expecting to love her and leave her, but for Tally this is

love at first sight. Both are about to find that it’s not easy

to walk away … because Tally is expecting Sander’s baby and he is being blackmailed into making her his wife!

Next month, look out for:

BRIDE FOR REAL

Just when they thought their hasty marriage was

finished, Tally and Sander are drawn back together and

the passion between them is just as strong … But Sander

has hidden reasons for wanting his wife in his bed again,

and Tally also has secrets … and neither is prepared for what this tempestuous reunion will bring …

Available in July and August—

can you wait to find out what happens?

The Marriage Betrayal

Lynne Graham

www.millsandboon.co.uk

PROLOGUE

‘I DON’T do English country weekends,’ Sander Volakis informed his father without hesitation.

With difficulty, Petros Volakis mustered a diplomatic smile, wishing for the hundredth time since the death of his eldest son that he had devoted a little more time and attention to his awkward relationship with his younger one. After all, on the face of it, Lysander, known as Sander to his friends, was a son that any man would be proud to possess.

Extremely good-looking and athletic, Sander had a shrewd brain for business and his outstanding entrepreneurial skills had already ensured that even without family backing he excelled at making money. Unhappily, however, Sander also had a darker side to his passionate temperament and a wild streak that ran deep. He was obstinate as a rock, arrogant and fiercely independent, indeed very much an extrovert individualist in a family of unashamedly conservative people. Over the years clashes between father and son had proved inevitable because Sander went his own way … always. Parental disapproval had not deterred him. But with the death of Titos, Sander’s older brother, the need to build bridges had increased a thousandfold, Petros reflected heavily.

‘Eleni’s family deserve to see you visit their English home again as a guest,’ Petros argued. ‘It’s not their fault that your brother died in the car crash and that his fiancée survived—’

Sander elevated a contradictory brow, his lean darkly handsome features grim while a glow of disagreement burned bright in his dark gaze. ‘Eleni only just escaped a charge of careless driving—’

‘They went out in Eleni’s car, so she was at the wheel!’ Petros snapped back at his son, frustrated by his unforgiving attitude. ‘It was a snowy night and the roads were treacherous. Have a little compassion and make allowances for human error. Eleni was devastated by Titos’ death.’

Not so devastated that she had resisted the urge to flirt with his younger brother within weeks of Titos’ funeral, Sander recalled with cynical cool. But he kept that salient fact to himself, well aware that his parent would gallantly protest that Sander must have misinterpreted her signals. Although only six months had passed since Titos’ demise, Sander had already become bleakly aware that that tragic event had transformed his prospects in the eyes of his peers. As his shipping tycoon father’s only surviving heir, he was now viewed as a much bigger catch than when he’d been seen as a mere maverick businessman cut loose from the family apron strings.

‘Relations between our respective families will relax again if you accept the invitation to stay at the Ziakis home,’ Petros declared.

Sander gritted his even white teeth, resenting the request, for he had no desire to fill his late brother’s shoes in any way. He liked his life just as it was and wondered if his parents were cherishing the ludicrous hope that he might miraculously warm to Eleni and marry her because she was an equally good catch in shipping terms. He almost winced at so depressing a prospect. Eleni might be beautiful and accomplished, but at twenty five years of age Sander had not the smallest desire to marry or settle down with one woman and his headline-grabbing private life remained as varied and adventurous as he could make it.

‘I would really appreciate this, Sander,’ the older man declared in a grudging undertone that hinted at how hard he found it to ask for a favour.

Sander studied the older man, reluctantly noticing the lines of age that grief had indented more heavily on his face. He was disturbed by that pull on his conscience and loyalty. But he could not fill the hole that Titos had left in their family. Having been the indisputable favourite from birth, his older brother would be an impossible act to follow. Sander had always refused to compete with his sibling because when he was quite young he had noticed that it had annoyed their parents when he’d outshone their firstborn. But what the hell was one weekend if it made his parents content that the social mores they based their entire lives on had been respected? Sander asked himself in sudden exasperation.

‘All right, I’ll go … this once,’ he felt moved to add, afraid that he might be creating a precedent and setting himself up for other boring social occasions.

‘Thank you. Your mother will be relieved. You’re almost certain to meet friends at Westgrave Manor and no doubt useful business connections as well,’ Petros continued, conscious that his son’s primary need to forge his own power base and fortune were more likely to influence him than anything else.

In the wake of that uncomfortable meeting neither man was best pleased with the other. Driven now by a desire to do his duty, Sander proceeded to an upper floor in the Athens town house to visit his grieving mother, Eirene. On his way his mobile buzzed and he checked the number: Lina, his current lover; this was already her third call since he’d left London. He switched his phone to silent, resolving to ignore her and ditch her at the first chance he got. A sense of injustice dogged him, though. What was it that turned women from exciting lovers into all-too-predictable demanding stalker types in search of a commitment he had already made clear he wasn’t offering?

As usual, his mother lamented Titos’ death as if it had only just happened. Sander submitted to being wept over and reproached for his deficiencies in comparison to his perfect brother before finally beating the fastest possible retreat back to the airport and the freedom that he revelled in. He knew it would be quite a few months before he could make himself visit again; going home was always a downer in his view.

CHAPTER ONE

‘OF COURSE you should go and take the opportunity to get to know your sister better,’ Binkie pronounced, beaming at the prospect of Tally being treated to a luxury weekend in a stately home. ‘You could do with a break after all the studying you’ve been doing.’

Unsurprised that the older woman had taken only the most positive view of the invitation, Tally swallowed back the admission that her father’s phone call and request had come as an unwelcome surprise. She pushed her honey-blonde curls off her brow with a rueful hand, her green eyes wary. ‘It’s not quite that simple. I got the impression that my father only wants me to go so that I can police Cosima’s every move—’

‘My goodness,’ Binkie cut in with a frown of dismay. ‘Did he say so?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Well, then, aren’t you being a bit too imaginative?’ Binkie asked in gentle reproof, her kindly brown gaze resting on the younger woman’s troubled face. ‘Granted your father rarely gets in touch but why immediately assume the worst of his motives? Maybe he simply wants his two daughters to get to know each other.’

‘I’m twenty years old and Cosima’s seventeen—if that’s what he wants why would he have waited so long?’

Tally responded wryly because, after a lifetime of disappointments and hurtful rejections, she was a dyed in the wool cynic when it came to either of her parents.

Binkie sighed. ‘Perhaps he has seen the error of his ways. People can mellow as they get older.’

Reluctant to parade her bitterness in front of the woman who was the closest thing she had ever had to a loving mother, Tally stared a hole in the table because Binkie was always an optimist and Tally was reluctant to make yet another negative comment. Binkie or, to be more formal, Mrs Binkiewicz, a Polish widow, had looked after Tally since she’d been a baby and had soon graduated from childcare to taking care of her employer’s household as well. Anatole Karydas was a very wealthy and powerful Greek businessman who had done his best to ignore his eldest daughter’s existence from birth. He hated Tally’s mother, Crystal, with a passion and Tally had paid the price for that hostility. Crystal had been a well-known fashion model, engaged to Anatole at the time that she’d fallen pregnant …

‘Of course I planned it!’ Crystal had admitted in a rare moment of honesty. ‘Your father and I had been engaged for over a year, but his precious family didn’t like me and I could see that he was going cold on the idea of marrying me.’

As, in the midst of that delicate situation, Crystal had been caught cheating with another man, Tally could only feel that her father had had some excuse for his waning matrimonial enthusiasm. Indeed, her parents had such different outlooks on life that she did not see how they could ever have made each other happy. Anatole, unfortunately, had never been able to forgive or forget the stinging humiliation of her mother’s betrayal or the embarrassing interviews she had sold to magazines maligning him in the aftermath of their break-up. He had also questioned the paternity of the child that Crystal was carrying. Ultimately, Crystal had had to take her ex-fiancé to court to get an allowance with which to raise her daughter and although her father had eventually paid his dues Tally had reached eleven years of age before he finally agreed to meet her. By that stage, Anatole had long since married a Greek woman called Ariadne with whom he’d also had a daughter, Cosima. Tally had always been made to feel that she was on the outside looking in and surplus to paternal requirements.

In fact she could count on two hands the number of times she had met her reluctant father. Currently a student in her last year of a degree course in interior design, however, Tally was conscious that Anatole had paid for her education and she was grateful for that because her spendthrift mother never had a penny to spare at the end of the month.

‘You like Cosima,’ Binkie pointed out cheerfully. ‘You were really pleased when you were invited to her seventeenth birthday party last year.’

‘That was different. I was a guest,’ Tally pointed out ruefully. ‘But my father made it clear on the phone that he was asking me to accompany Cosima this weekend to keep her out of trouble. Apparently she’s been drinking and partying too much and seeing some man he disapproves of.’

‘She’s very young. Naturally your father’s con cerned.’

‘But I don’t see how I could make a difference. I doubt very much if she would listen to me. She’s much more sophisticated than I am and very headstrong.’

‘But it’s heartening that your father trusts you enough to ask you to help, and Cosima does like you …’

‘She won’t like me much if I try to interfere with her fun,’ Tally retorted wryly, but she was far from impervious to the sound good sense of Binkie’s reasoning.

In truth, after a couple of brief encounters, organised mainly to satisfy the younger woman’s lively curiosity, Tally was the one still intrigued by her beautiful ornamental half-sister, who regularly appeared in the gossip columns rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous. The two young women had nothing in common in looks or personality and lived in different worlds. Cosima was the much loved and indulged daughter of a very rich man. She wore designer clothes and jewellery and was only seen out at the most fashionable social venues. The tougher realities that had shaped Tally and formed her attitudes had never touched Cosima, who had been cocooned in privilege from the day she was born. Cosima had never had to deal with unpaid bills or bailiffs or a mother who, when the cupboards were bare, would buy a new dress instead of food. Only the roof over their heads remained safe because the terraced town house in London where Tally lived with her mother and Binkie was an investment property belonging to her father.

It was there that the limousine called just over a week later to collect Tally. Having handed the driver a small weekend bag to stow away, she scrambled into the rear seat where her half-sister subjected her to a pained appraisal. ‘You’re dressed all wrong,’ Cosima complained, viewing Tally’s colourful raincoat and jeans with a grimace.

‘I have a typical student wardrobe and two business suits bought for my work experience last year and that’s pretty much it,’ Tally told her frankly, studying Cosima who was an extremely pretty girl with long black hair and big brown eyes, her slim figure beautifully set off by a fashionable mini dress and perilously high heels. ‘You look like you’re about to go out on the town.’

‘Of course. Some of the most eligible young men of my generation will be staying at Westgrave this weekend,’ Cosima remarked and then her vivacious face split into a huge grin. ‘You should see your face! That was me quoting Dad. He’d love to marry me off to some filthy-rich guy so that he could stop worrying about me. But I’ve already got a man.’

‘Great. Who is he?’ Tally enquired with interest and the lively enthusiasm that was the mainspring of her personality. She was grateful the attention was off her clothing deficiencies, because that so-visible difference between them had embarrassed her.

‘His name’s Chaz and he’s a DJ.’ Cosima veiled her gaze, her reluctance to share any more personal facts palpable. ‘Are you seeing anyone?’

‘Not right now, no,’ Tally fielded, her face warming when she thought about how long it was since she had gone out on a date. But then she loathed it when men she barely knew tried to paw her and was even more turned off when the same men were drunk. Finding a comparatively sober male on a night out, she had learned, was a challenge.

Being raised by a devoutly religious and moral woman like Binkie had put Tally rather out of step with her contemporaries. But having lived through the constant turmoil caused by her mother’s colourful love life, Tally had embraced Binkie’s outlook with gusto. Although now in her forties, Crystal remained a very beautiful woman. But none of her relationships had lasted, most of them being based on the most superficial male attributes and desires. Standing on the sidelines of such shallow affairs, Tally had long since decided that she wanted something more than just lust, a good laugh or an open wallet from a man, and she told herself that she was quite happy to sleep alone until she found it.

Cosima answered her ringing mobile phone and babbled in a torrent of Greek. Tally, who had attended evening classes in the language for several years, only to have her self-conscious efforts dismissed as ‘an embarrassment’ by her critical father, sealed her ears to the content of her half-sister’s chatter, aware that the younger woman had assumed that she spoke no Greek at all.

The limo was purring down a wooded lane by the time that Cosima ceased chattering. She slid her phone back into her bag and shot Tally a guarded look. ‘You know I’m not planning to tell my friends who you are. I’m sorry if that offends you but that’s the way it is,’ she declared. ‘If Dad had wanted to acknowledge you as his daughter you would have been given his name. That you don’t have our name says it all really.’

In response to that deeply wounding little announcement, Tally lost colour and before Cosima could add anything else, she said hurriedly, ‘So, for your friends’ benefit, who am I?’

‘Well, obviously, you’re still Tally Spencer, because that won’t remind anyone of anything—I mean, these days people don’t even remember Dad was ever engaged to anyone but my mother. But I certainly wouldn’t want all that dirty washing brought out. I think it would be safest to say that you work for me.’

‘In what capacity?’ Tally enquired with a frown.

Cosima wrinkled her delicate little nose. ‘You could say you’re my personal assistant and that you do my shopping and look after invitations and things for me. Some of my friends have employees like that. You know you’re only here in the first place because Dad said I couldn’t come without you!’ she complained petulantly.

Tally went red and nodded, her own quick temper surging, only to be suppressed by her common sense and intrinsic sense of tolerance for more volatile personalities. Cosima didn’t intend to be rude or hurtful. She was simply rather spoilt and accustomed to being everyone’s darling and she had not been taught to regard Tally as a real sibling.

‘As an employee I’ll be excluded from any activities and I won’t be able to look out for you.’

‘Why would I want you looking out for me?’ Cosima asked her witheringly. ‘You’ll be totally out of your depth mixing with my friends.’

‘I’ll try hard not to get under your feet or embarrass you in any way but I did promise our father that I would take care of you and I like to keep my promises,’ Tally retorted, tilting her chin and merely widening her fine eyes when her half-sister spat out a very rude word in challenging response. ‘And if you’re not prepared to let me try and do that, I might as well go home now—’

‘What choice does that give me? Dad would be furious if I stayed here without you in tow. I can’t believe we’re related—you’re so boringly stuffy, Tally!’ Cosima hissed as the luxurious car came to a halt in front of a big Victorian mansion surrounded by acres of beautifully kept lawn. ‘Isn’t it ironic that you remind me of Dad?’

Tally said nothing, reluctant to fan the flames.

‘You look like him as well,’ Cosima slung in bitter addition, lashing out like the child she still was in so many ways. ‘You’ve got his nose and you’re small and chubby. Thank heaven I took after my mother!’

Chubby? Tally clenched her teeth on that cutting comment. She had the shape of an hour-glass, full of breast and hip, but she had a tiny waist and did not have a weight problem. Did she look chubby? She winced. Small? Well, that was true. She was five feet two inches tall. Climbing out of the car, she watched her taller, slender half-sister greeting the leggy glamorous brunette at the imposing front door.

‘Eleni Ziakis, our hostess. Tally Spencer, my personal assistant,’ she announced chirpily.

A bunch of giggling young girls surged round Cosima in the echoing hall and it was left to Tally to follow the housekeeper upstairs. When Cosima joined them a moment later and saw Tally opening her weekend bag on one of the pair of single divan beds that furnished the bedroom, the younger woman turned to the housekeeper to say imperiously, ‘I can’t share a room with someone … I never share!’

An awkward few minutes followed while the older woman explained that all the guest rooms had already been allocated and Tally was forced to proclaim her willingness to sleep on bare boards if necessary. She was eventually shown up to another floor and put in a room already occupied by a member of the household staff who looked furious at the intrusion of a stranger. Taking the hint that her presence was unwelcome, Tally didn’t bother taking the time to unpack and quickly removed herself again to rejoin her sibling.

As she walked along the corridor on Cosima’s floor a tall broad-shouldered figure with a shock of damp spiky black hair appeared in a doorway. Unintentionally she froze and did a double take because the man wore only a towel wrapped round his lean brown hips. What wasn’t covered by the towel was buff enough to make even Tally stare. He stood over six feet in height and enjoyed the wide shoulders, muscular chest and corrugated six-pack stomach of an athlete. He was, without a doubt, the most gorgeous-looking guy she had ever seen with sculpted cheekbones, skin the colour of dulled gold and a beautifully shaped sensual mouth. The fact that he needed a shave and that black stubble accentuated his stubborn jaw line merely enhanced his masculine sex appeal. Tally was startled to discover that she literally couldn’t take her eyes off him.

‘I’ve just flown in from abroad and I’m too hungry to wait for dinner. I’d like sandwiches and coffee,’ he announced, brilliant dark golden eyes arrowing over her expectantly and lingering, for he instantly noticed that she was an exceptionally pretty girl, even if she wasn’t quite in his usual style. ‘Would that be possible?’

‘I’m sure it would be, but …’

‘I can’t raise anyone on the house phone. I did try.’ A scorching smile slashed his handsome mouth, lending him more charismatic pull than any guy with his already stunning looks required.

‘I’m not on the staff here,’ Tally told him gently.

‘You’re not?’ Sander studied her and the longer he looked, the more he liked what he saw. She had a knockout quality of warmth and friendliness that he found hugely attractive.

Her mass of dark blonde corkscrew ringlets was very unusual. Her eyes were the colour of shamrocks, her nose was endearingly freckled and her lush sexy mouth looked as though it would be most at home laughing or smiling. Her skin was as flawless as newly whipped cream. She was very natural, not a word or a state he was used to attaching to the women he met, and that intrigued him. He could tell at a glance that she didn’t take herself too seriously because no woman of his acquaintance would have been caught dead in her ordinary jeans and khaki T-shirt combo. On the other hand, those unprepossessing garments encased a very shapely figure that went in at all the right places and came out wonderfully generously in others. His hooded dark gaze rested appreciatively on the ripe swell of her breasts below the fine cotton top. He liked a woman to look like a woman, not a skinny boy.

Beneath that speculative appraisal, Tally was getting breathless. ‘No, I’m not on the staff but I’m not exactly a guest either. I’m here to sort of look after one of the younger guests.’ Registering that her tongue was running on without the guidance of her brain, she fell silent and coloured hotly at the way in which his attention was locked onto her breasts. She hated it when men did that but somehow when he did it, it sent an arrow of heat shooting down into her pelvis and her nipples tightened and stiffened uncomfortably inside her bra.

‘Look, if I see a member of staff downstairs I’ll mention your request,’ Tally assured him.

‘I’m Sander Volakis,’ he informed her lazily, his keen eyes trained to her like a hawk on the hunt. She was different and he, having recently dispensed with his latest bed partner because of her strident demands for his attention, was definitely in the mood for something different in the female line. Someone more low-key and less spoiled, he reasoned, a woman who might appreciate his interest without endeavouring to turn a casual affair into the romance of the century. A woman who worked for a living in an ordinary capacity would make a refreshing change from the celebrity beauties and models he usually dated. If she had no interest in achieving her fifteen minutes of fame, she might also be more trustworthy and less likely to flog the story of their affair to some mucky tabloid publication, he reasoned broodingly, for he loathed that kind of exposure in his private life.

Tally nodded, not recognising the name but liking the fracturing edge of the foreign accent that roughened his deep dark drawl.

‘And you are?’ he prompted, noting her lack of response to his name and encouraged by the tantalising suspicion that she might know nothing about him. No preset expectations would make for a more laid-back affair.

Tally blinked in surprise at the question. ‘Tally … Tally Spencer.’

‘And Tally is short for?’

People didn’t usually bother to ask and with reluctance Tally admitted, inwardly squirming, ‘Tallulah.’

Sander grinned, his amusement unhidden. ‘Lysander,’ he traded mockingly as he withdrew into his room again. ‘What were our parents thinking of?’

So preoccupied was Tally after that tantalising encounter that she almost walked head first into a pillar on the imposing landing that lay several yards further on. Blinking rapidly to clear her head, she descended the stairs and laughed at the recollection of the way her brain had gone walkabout and she had gawped at him as if he had magically dropped down from the sky. Evidently she was more susceptible to a good-looking guy than she had ever had reason to suspect. She was less amused by the recollection of her body’s hormonal reaction to him—that just embarrassed and irritated her. No man had ever made her feel silly and all hot and shivery in his presence before. Lysander Volakis, Greek, named for a Spartan general and built like one, her brain added with defiant force. She passed on his request for sandwiches to a maid passing through the hall.

Tally found Cosima in a girlie, giggly huddle in one corner of a gracious reception room and it didn’t take her teenaged sister’s warning look for Tally to decide that she was too mature to join the group without casting a dampener over their mood. There were drinks glasses on the table but there was no way of knowing who was drinking what in such a gathering. But Tally wondered anxiously if her sibling was consuming alcohol and if her father turned a blind eye to his daughter doing it a year short of the legal age limit. Determined not to get on the wrong side of her sister, however, she went off to explore the house and grounds.

Eleni Ziakis, his late brother’s former fiancée, delivered Sander’s sandwiches and coffee to his bedroom with her own fair hands and then she lingered as if her legs had turned to stone. Indeed so intent was the talkative brunette on ensuring his comfort, hanging on his every word and assuring him of how very welcome he was in her home, that she killed his appetite. It was steadily turning into the weekend from hell, Sander decided grimly when he finally saw her off. Eleni’s parents were not present to act as hosts, there was a bunch of teenyboppers running about the place with Eleni’s kid sister, Kyra, and Sander had walked into two of his ex-girlfriends within minutes of his arrival. One he was quite happy to catch up with, but the other—Birgit Marceau—was a less welcome sight. Birgit, the moody and tempestuous daughter of a French construction magnate, had taken their brief affair the year before way too seriously and had dealt badly with the break-up. Although Sander knew that he had done nothing wrong, he always felt uncomfortable when Birgit’s limpid brown eyes followed him mournfully round the room.

Tally wiled away an hour or so exploring the grounds before she ended up at the stable block, meeting and greeting the various mounts. Offered the chance to ride a friendly mare the following morning, she had to pass because she had never learned. She would once she was earning enough money to cover lessons, she told herself firmly. Crystal had insisted on her daughter attending ballet classes that she hated for years, but had refused to allow a little girl she already saw as worryingly tomboyish take horse-riding lessons.

Having little interest in clothes, money and men, Tally had not much in common with her mother. Her determination to live within her financial means and her dream of some day running her own interior design business were foreign to Crystal, who hated budgets and expected the man in her life to keep her. Tally’s enthusiasm for life and new experiences and her sheer energy were equally strange to her indolent mother.

‘Where have you been?’ Cosima demanded when Tally walked back into the big front hall.

‘Out seeing the horses,’ Tally confided.

Drawing closer, Cosima wrinkled her dainty little nose with distaste. ‘I can smell them on you!’

‘I’ll take a shower before dinner,’ Tally said cheerfully and she headed for the stairs just as Sander strolled down them, looking impossibly cool in well cut chinos and an open shirt.

‘Tally, you’ve been out doors,’ Sander noted, registering that her hair had been whipped into a gloriously wild tangle of streaming curls and her cheeks had been stung pink by the breeze. She looked more vibrant, sensual and kissable than ever. He loved the fact that she wasn’t fussing with her appearance or trying to duck his notice because her appearance was less than perfect. He could not recall when a woman had last been so real in his radius and it was a powerful attractant.

‘Saying hello to the horses,’ Tally confided with her ready smile, colliding with dark golden eyes fringed by sooty black lashes and feeling positively dizzy. Close up he was absolutely breathtaking and her mouth ran dry and her knees felt weak.

‘Maybe now that you’ve had a break you could take care of Cosima’s ironing. I’m afraid the staff are very busy this evening,’ another female voice interposed loudly.

Tally turned in some surprise to regard her hostess, Eleni Ziakis. ‘I’m sorry but why would I do Cosima’s ironing? I’m not her maid.’

‘No, she’s not,’ Cosima was quick to agree, her discomfiture patent in the face of Tally’s polite bewilderment.

Sander recognised with impatience that Eleni had spotted his interest in Tally and he strode off before his presence could trigger any further baiting from that source. Women, he thought in exasperation; can’t live with them, can’t live without them. His keen gaze was welded by libidinous male instinct to the voluptuous sway of Tally’s beautifully rounded backside as she climbed the stairs and the ready pulse of arousal at his groin let him know that he had gone without sex long enough to be getting uncomfortable. Her exuberant smile had informed him, should he ever have doubted the fact, that his interest was reciprocated. He would not be sleeping alone that night, he decided hungrily.

‘When the heck did you get to know Sander Volakis?’ Cosima gasped in disbelief, curiosity having sent her upstairs in her half-sister’s wake.

‘I ran into him earlier and he introduced himself … it’s no big deal,’ Tally fielded lightly.

‘The way Eleni was watching the two of you, it was a very big deal to her!’ Cosima laughed. ‘She used to be engaged to Sander’s older brother, Titos, but he was killed in a car crash last winter. I think Eleni’s trying to keep her interest in the family but she’ll have her work cut out. Sander is a real womaniser!’

In the midst of struggling to conceal her interest in those titbits of information, Tally was betrayed into turning right round and saying, ‘Is he?’

‘He has a new woman every month. Don’t waste your time, Tally,’ Cosima warned her. ‘Everybody dreams of pulling Sander but you’ll never make the grade.’

Tally flushed, her freckles standing out clearly against her fair complexion. ‘I have no desire to make the grade,’ she lied, and the very fact that she knew she was lying affronted her as she had always believed that she had more sense than to be attracted to the sort of arrogant guy who scored women like goals on the football pitch and marked a notch his bed post accordingly.

‘I’m not trying to put you down but you’re so not his type. He goes for really beautiful women … models, actresses,’ Cosima told her, her brown eyes scanning Tally’s unconsciously disappointed face with a touch of condescending amusement. ‘He’s got quite a reputation …’

‘I’m not interested in Sander Volakis!’ Tally proclaimed in a tone of annoyance.

Cosima made no attempt to hide her amusement. ‘Well, I wouldn’t say no if I got the chance and Dad would back me all the way—Sander is what is known as “eligible”, which basically means that the girl who gets him to the altar will have done very, very well for herself indeed!’

‘I gather he’s rich,’ Tally remarked, irritating herself, for while pride made her want to drop the subject, the curiosity that needled her and drove her on was stronger still.

‘I heard he made his first million before he even left school and even before you take his business interests into account you have to consider the family fortune,’ Cosima responded in a suitably lowered tone, an avaricious gleam in her gaze. ‘They made it in shipping and business is thriving.’

Tally actually found herself feeling sorry for Sander Volakis. Evidently his wealth and his family’s made him a target for ambitious socialites and gold-diggers. It struck her as ironic that Cosima, who had never ever had to worry about the cost of anything, should be so very obsessed with what everyone was worth, but that was how it was. Her half-sister measured people and their importance purely in terms of cash and Tally was very much aware that her own lack of money increased her lowly status in Cosima’s eyes.

However, when Cosima showed off her pathetically crumpled evening outfit Tally took pity on the younger girl. Cosima had never wielded an iron in her life but was forced to agree to try when Tally offered to teach her how it was done. For the first time Tally felt like a real sister and the two young women ended up in paroxysms of giggles over Cosima’s clumsy amateurish efforts at the ironing board.

‘What are you wearing?’ Cosima finally thought to ask.

‘Nothing very exciting.’

‘I’d loan you something but …’ Cosima glanced at their combined reflections in the wardrobe mirror and nothing more needed to be said. Cosima was tall and very slim while Tally was small and curvy. They would never be able to share clothes.

‘I’m fine.’ Tally was accustomed to such remarks, having grown up in the shadow of her taller, thinner mother who had tried to put her on a diet at the age of nine. Binkie had had to utilise a lot of tact to persuade Crystal that no amount of dieting was likely to give Tally the same long lean lines as her mother.

She donned her dull black chain-store dress knowing that, in her sombre apparel, purchased purely because it was suitable for so many purposes, she would resemble a crow amongst a flock of exotic birds. For the first time she looked at her reflection and experienced a daunting pang of regret for attributes she did not have. What evil fate had given her corkscrew curls, freckles and breasts like melons instead of straight silky hair and petite feminine proportions? Binkie had tried to teach her charge that looks weren’t important but Tally knew she lived in a world where appearance always counted. It mattered when you went for an interview and it mattered even more when you wanted to attract a man.

Did she really want to attract a wealthy womaniser? Who are you trying to kid? Tally scolded herself for being so silly and superficial all the way downstairs as she trailed in her effervescent teenaged sister’s wake. She espied Sander at the far end of the table seated beside Eleni Ziakis, who wore an eye-catching white gown that bared one shoulder, and she tried not to take strength from the fact that he looked bored stiff. Cosima was no company at all while she giggled with her friends, exchanged confidential chat in whispered Greek and texted constantly on her phone. When the meal was over, it was announced that drinks would be served afterwards.

‘I’m going to have an early night.’ Cosima smothered a yawn with one hand and complained, ‘I’m really sleepy and there’s a big party here tomorrow.’

Tally was relieved to be released from her chaperoning duties. Thinking cheerfully about the paperback romance she had packed, she was crossing the hall towards the staircase when Sander intercepted her.

‘Tally …’

Tally spun round and tipped her head back, dark blonde curls spiralling back from her cheekbones where the ready colour of awareness ignited the minute she met intent dark golden eyes. ‘Yes?’

‘Let’s go out for a drink,’ he suggested lazily, his attention roaming inexorably from her bright beautiful eyes down to her generous mouth and the voluptuous breasts shaped by her dress.

‘I was thinking more of going to bed …’ she began, tempted almost beyond bearing to say yes there and then. However, when she caught the amused gleam of confidence in his stunning gaze betraying his appreciation of her unintentional double entendre, she grasped the fact that he was expecting her to spend the night with him. As she turned cold at the suspicion that he saw her as a very sure thing in that respect, she glimpsed Eleni Ziakis staring coldly at them from a doorway and her colour heightened even more.

Her light ‘Thanks but no thanks’ tripped off her tongue without hesitation.

Startled by the kind of refusal that so rarely came his way, Sander stared down at her with a searching frown.

Awkward with the resulting silence, Tally felt prompted to fill it with a reasonable excuse and said, ‘I’ve got a great book to read.’

Sander, glib of tongue though he was, had no answer for that and Tally, conscious of how silly that last comment had been and hot with mortification at her ineptitude, fled upstairs. Mercifully her reluctant room mate was nowhere to be seen and Tally climbed into bed with her book. The adventures of a heroine who seemed to attract an incredible number of different men, not one of whom she wanted, only irritated Tally and the mood she was now in and she put the book aside and doused the light. But sleep was not so easy to find, for her thoughts were running back and forth over Sander’s brief invitation, and questioning why she had turned him down flat and in a way that would ensure he would never ask her again.

His approaching her when there were so many beautiful young alternatives available had shocked her. She knew she didn’t fit in with the exclusive guests staying at Westwood Manor. She didn’t have the right clothes, the right accent, background or attitude. So why had he selected her for his invitation? Could it have been because he assumed that she would be flattered, impressed to death and a pushover in the sex stakes? Or was that her low self-esteem doing the talking instead of her brain?

After all, a rich, sophisticated, good-looking guy had asked her out and she had said no because she was unprepared, and because deep down inside she was so insecure that she had felt he had to have an ulterior and base motive for choosing her. That was pathetic and most likely nonsense, she told herself impatiently, thoroughly irritated by the manner in which she had reacted. She fell asleep wishing she had said yes, wishing it over and over again …

Tally awoke a short time later with a start to find the light on and her room mate noisily rummaging through a drawer. She sat up blinking and, as she did so, her attention fell on a dainty vanity case sitting behind the door. Dismay filled her because it was a designer piece that belonged to Cosima; her half-sister was bound to be looking for it. Checking her watch and registering that it was only midnight, Tally got up, pulled on her robe and grabbed the case, planning to slide it just inside Cosima’s bedroom on the floor below.

But when she gently opened the door a small way, she peered through the crack and saw the bedroom was still brightly lit and the bed unoccupied. Entering the room and setting the vanity case down on the dressing table, she noted that the bathroom was empty as well and she wondered where Cosima was. It was when she was walking back across the main landing that she thought she heard her sibling’s voice and that it sounded oddly shrill. Approaching the banister, she looked down into the hall below.

She was astonished to see that the massive front door was standing wide and that Sander Volakis was guiding her swaying sister towards the stairs. My goodness, had they been out somewhere together? I wouldn’t say no if I got the chance, her half-sister had admitted earlier. Had Cosima said yes where Tally had said no? But Tally had no time to consider those daunting questions as Cosima was noisily chattering in slurred and hiccuping Greek, her eye make-up smeared round her eyes and her short skirt rucked up to show too much thigh. It was clear that she had over-indulged in some substance and that, as a result, she could hardly walk. Appalled by what she was seeing, Tally hurried down the stairs to find out how the younger woman had got into such a state …

CHAPTER TWO

‘WHAT on earth have you done to her?’ Tally demanded angrily before she even reached the hall.

Sander Volakis shot her an outraged look from scorching golden eyes. ‘This is not a conversation you and I are going to have …’

Tally folded her arms and blocked his path. ‘I assure you that we are going to have that conversation, whether you want it or not. It looks as though Cosima’s been drinking. Are you aware that she’s only seventeen?’

‘Aren’t you the one who’s supposed to be looking after her?’ Sander slashed back in blatant condemnation. ‘Tonight, you’re doing a lousy job of it!’

Tally was mortified, her fair skin blossoming pink at that jibe, which hit her right where it hurt. Evidently Cosima had pulled the wool over her eyes earlier that evening by faking tiredness and assuring her that she was going straight to bed. Having got Tally off her case she had then, it seemed, gone out. With Sander? Something hideously raw and painful twisted inside Tally’s stomach as she tried to deal with that unwelcome thought. Eleni Ziakis joined them, took in the situation at a glance and stared with a raised brow at Tally, making her writhingly aware that she was only wearing a wrinkled nightie and robe. As Eleni’s kid sister appeared at her elbow, the brunette spoke quietly to her and then said, ‘Kyra will take Cosima straight up to bed. Clearly she’s been drinking. It’s really not a good idea to attract attention to her condition by causing a scene, Miss Spencer—’

Tally compressed her full pink mouth. ‘I wasn’t aware that I was causing a scene. I would simply like to know what happened.’

‘Cosima is in no fit state right now to tell you and I can assure you that her parents would prefer this matter to be kept private,’ Eleni pointed out drily as Kyra took charge of Cosima and coaxed her carefully upstairs.

Sander thrust open a door on the other side of the hall. ‘We’ll discuss it in here, Tally.’

Tally knew that she was being challenged and she reckoned that he was so sharp he was in danger of cutting himself. She recognised the angry passionate glow in his gaze and the trace of aggressive colour accentuating the angles of his superb cheekbones. He had taken offence as only a guy unaccustomed to censure could do and she suspected that he was, at heart, the owner of a temperament as volatile as a smouldering volcano. And a trait that previously she loathed in her impulsive and often contrary mother suddenly became a deep and abiding source of fascination.

‘This really isn’t necessary, Sander,’ Eleni Ziakis declared. ‘There is no need for you to make any sort of explanation to anyone. Miss Spencer is being stupid and offensive.’

‘I can handle this alone, thank you,’ Sander fielded smoothly, ushering Tally past him and shutting the door in the brunette’s face.

‘Where did you take Cosima tonight?’ Tally questioned shortly.

‘I didn’t take her anywhere. Why would I have?’ A scornful dark brow elevated at the idea. ‘To me, she’s a little girl. I believe she and a group of her friends booked a taxi to take them to the pub in the village. When I arrived there the barman was refusing to serve Cosima any more alcohol without proof of ID. She had a blazing argument with him before stalking out in a temper.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ Tally groaned when he had finished speaking. ‘She told me she was having an early night.’

‘How many teenagers do you know?’ Sander derided in disbelief. ‘An early night?’

‘All right, all right,’ Tally sighed, feeling very foolish for being so trusting. ‘So what happened after that?’

‘I had one drink and left the pub about an hour later. Driving back I came upon Cosima sitting on a wall about a mile out of the village. She was so drunk she could barely stand and although I really didn’t want to get involved I didn’t feel that I could just leave her there. She got into my car and started crying hysterically—apparently she had arranged to meet her boyfriend at the pub but he didn’t show up.’

Embarrassed colour was creeping up below Tally’s skin, making her feel hot and uncomfortable. As she shifted position Sander focused fully on her and his attention could only linger on the magnificent expanse of the cleavage revealed by her open robe and low-necked nightie, the lace-decorated edge of which was gradually sliding apart and performing a very poor job of hiding her superb breasts, which were high and full and round. Just looking at that magnificent swell of feminine flesh, he got hard as steel.

‘I had no idea Cosima had even gone out,’ Tally admitted, sucking in a sustaining breath in the silence that suddenly seemed deafening.

‘And if she did sneak out, you didn’t want it to be with me,’ Sander finished in shrewd silken addition.

At that crack, Tally literally froze as it hit her in the back like an unexpected bullet and left her reeling. For an instant she could not credit what he had dared to insinuate. ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to say,’ she framed, playing dumb with all her might.

‘You know exactly what I’m saying. I was looking at you when you first saw me with Cosima,’ Sander declared with supreme assurance, brilliant golden eyes astonishingly vivid below the heavy fringe of his black lashes. ‘You didn’t like it. You were angry with me more because you were jealous than because you thought I had been fooling around with Cosima!’

Tally went rigid, the colour in her cheeks seeping away as mortification crept through her like a freezing, debilitating fog. ‘That is totally ridiculous. I hardly know you—why on earth would I be jealous?’

‘You tell me.’ As Sander voiced that invitation an insolent smile crept across his beautiful wilful mouth. And it was beautiful, she thought in almost pained recognition, as truly beautiful as he was altogether. He was an almost perfect masculine specimen, so gorgeous she couldn’t stop looking and drinking him in like a life-enhancing elixir.

‘I know enough about women to know what I read in your eyes, glikia mou,’ he extended.

Her hands closed into tight angry fists. ‘You didn’t read anything in my eyes because there was nothing there to be read!’

‘Liar … liar,’ Sander rhymed smoothly and coolly enough to send a current of violent anger rushing through Tally’s small still figure. For the very first time in her life she was mad enough at a man to want to hit him and to understand why provocation made people lose control. He might as well have tossed a hand grenade into the once tranquil pool of her mood, for all of a sudden she was on edge and ready to fight to defend her pride.

‘You’re incredibly vain,’ Tally condemned furiously, watching him move closer with the same wariness with which she might have watched a lion strolling free of a cage. That lithe long-limbed grace of his simply enhanced his sex appeal so that in spite of her annoyance she found herself trapped into staring at him, studying his every move with an appetite for the visual that was new to her. ‘I don’t even like you.’

‘I don’t need you to like me,’ Sander murmured, his perceptive dark scrutiny welded to her wide green eyes as he basked in the unwilling hunger he saw etched there. ‘I only need you to want me.’

A prickling sensation touched the skin at the nape of Tally’s neck as if that keen look of his had actually touched her. Part of her wanted to run away, but an even greater part wanted to see the moment out and cap his every comment. She had the vague spooky suspicion that someone was walking over her grave and that she was getting a wake-up call to finally experience that something she had waited so very long to find. She might want to slap him, she might want to shout at him and punish him for his exceedingly arrogant assumptions, but all of those very basic promptings were outrageously entangled with a very powerful desire for him to kiss her … and for her to taste him. He exuded a masculine strength that drew her even as it awakened her hostility. A pool of heat was forming low in her stomach while her bra was starting to feel like a metal restraint over the straining curves of her breasts.

‘And you do want me,’ Sander Volakis pronounced with confidence, dark eyes flaring to hot gold as he searched her heart-shaped face because, for a moment while she sparred with him, he had wondered if just for once he could have got it wrong. She had, after all, turned him down when he’d asked her out earlier but now, seeing that familiar look of desire in her gaze, he was already wondering if that refusal could’ve been a feminine ploy to spur his interest with a false show of indifference. ‘Just as I want you, glikia mou.’

It was that roughened masculine admission that slashed through Tally’s angry defences like a cruelly efficient steel blade since, until that moment, no man had ever contrived to make Tally feel insanely attractive and sexy. But Sander Volakis achieved that miracle at one stroke. While he studied her with scorching intensity and with a hunger he couldn’t hide, excitement was lighting her up inside like a fantastic firework display and she smiled in delighted acknowledgement of an appeal she had not known she had.

In receipt of that encouraging smile he pulled her up against his lean, strongly built frame and brought his wide sensual mouth down on hers with demanding fervour. The skilled slide of his tongue between her parted lips sent a jolt of excruciating pleasure roaring through Tally like an electric shock but that initial sweetness was swiftly followed up by a fierce sense of unbearable craving. The kiss wasn’t enough, nowhere near enough to meet the hunger that had fired her every skin cell with yearning. As she made an unconscious sound of dissatisfaction, her fingers dug tautly into his broad shoulders and she strained against the hard muscular contours of his broad chest and long, powerful thighs, urgently needing that physical contact to satisfy the tingling sensitivity of her nipples and the gnawing ache stirring between her legs.

In answer, Sander wrapped his arms round her and crushed her ripe mouth beneath his again, revelling in the taste of her and the lush firm softness of her shapely body against him. He wanted to gather her up and carry her off to bed to sate the fierce hunger she roused in him. He laced long fingers into the mass of her blonde curls and tipped her head back, meshing with glorious green eyes enhanced by skin the colour of clotted cream. Once again he attempted to pinpoint the source of her powerful attraction. Was it the fearless honesty of those eyes, which met his with no hint of the coy suggestiveness and secrecy he was more accustomed to seeing? Or the wild sensuality with which she surrendered to his mouth and gave him back kiss for fiery kiss, stoking his desire to ever greater heights? In bed, he suspected, her passion would be a perfect spontaneous match for his own.

A mobile phone buzzed. Tally blinked like someone who having been hypnotised, was now being called back to awareness and immediately raised her hands to break free of his hold and step back from him, her sudden rigidity an instant rejection of the new intimacy they had established.

Perfectly attuned to her, Sander frowned as he switched his phone off. ‘Don’t be like that,’ he groaned.

Tally was hot and dizzy. Dismayed to see that her robe was hanging open, she wrapped it more securely round her and reknotted the sash. Her hands were trembling and she was breathing rapidly, her bemused thoughts in freefall but that fast she understood that what he had just made her feel was the biggest temptation she had ever withstood. And she knew that what they had both felt was almost frighteningly powerful. Her nipples were tight, hard and almost stinging in response and at the heart of her she was uncomfortably hot and damp with a desire that clawed at her every sense. The taste of him? He tasted so unbelievably good that she could only want more …

Sander extended a lean brown hand. ‘Come …’

‘No, don’t say it!’ Tally urged, backing off another defensive step, feeling ridiculously like a woman in danger of losing her immortal soul. ‘Goodnight, Sander.’

‘You’re not serious?’ Sander breathed incredulously as she reached the door.

‘Very serious.’ Her hand closed tightly round the door knob and she refused to take the chance to turn her head and look at him again. ‘I don’t want anything else to happen.’

As the door swung shut on her quick exit Sander swore in raw and angry disbelief below his breath. What was the matter with her? Was the cut and run response her concept of flirtation? He had never ever got so hot with a woman only to have her walk away from him, leaving him unsatisfied. Nor had he ever been so surprised by the power of a woman to attract him. The prospect of a cold shower to cool his urgently aroused body had zero attraction.

Tally went to check on Cosima and found her sound asleep on top of the bed. Slipping off her half-sister’s shoes, she arranged a throw over the younger girl and suppressed a sigh. She would not hold spite: tomorrow she would try harder to win Cosima’s trust and perhaps she would get the chance to persuade her sibling that she was not sharing her weekend with some kind of prison warder.

But as Tally crept into the room she was sharing and slid back below the duvet on her bed, she was most troubled on her own behalf. When it came to the male sex she had always believed that she was intelligent and sensible and she had, if she was honest, looked down on several of the impulsive romantic choices her mother, Crystal, had made over the years. Yes, she acknowledged shamefacedly, she had felt quite superior in that field, convinced that she would never do anything half so foolish, so possibly she had deserved to be shot down in flames for being smug and short-sighted.

She had thought she knew it all and learned that in truth she was no more sophisticated than a toddler when it came to men. One salient fact had escaped her. Until she had actually experienced a genuinely powerful attraction to a man, she had not known what she was talking about. In the space of twenty-four hours, Sander Volakis had taught her things about herself that she really hadn’t wanted to find out. Meeting Sander had proved to be a horribly humbling experience, she reflected ruefully. She had learned that just being near him could make her as giddy, hot and incapable of rational thought as an empty-headed adolescent. She had learned that she was human and fallible and capable of doing foolish things. She had also learned that refusing to give way to so strong a desire and practising self-denial could actually hurt.

Little wonder, then, that her mother had wrecked so many of her relationships by being unfaithful. Crystal Spencer had never said no to such an attraction when it came her way, had never put her current lover or indeed her child’s stability ahead of sexual temptation. Crystal had done as she liked, when she liked, and had often paid the price for it. But Tally had also paid a high price too.

On more than one occasion, a young Tally had become attached to one of her mother’s live-in boyfriends and that man’s subsequent sudden disappearance from her life had distressed and confused her. At a tender age she had decided that men weren’t reliable and that it was safer not to care for them. It was only when she was older, and with hindsight, that she’d had to admit it was her mother’s behaviour that had often destroyed those relationships.

In any case, getting involved with Sander Volakis would lead nowhere. At least, it would have led her upstairs to his bedroom tonight, she admonished herself, well aware of his intentions. And deferred pleasure was definitely not something Sander knew much about. They had kissed and both had liked it and wanted more, and Sander would’ve seen no reason why they shouldn’t immediately satisfy that desire. She had known exactly what was on his mind, had felt the urgency of his need against her and had recognised her own.

Maybe she was going to die a virgin, Tally thought in sudden horror, untouched by human hand and unwanted. Sander was too cool to chase her uphill and down dale in the hope that she might relent. Her sudden astounding desirability to a male of his looks and worldly status must just have been a fluke, one of those crazy inexplicable things.

Utterly crazy, she repeated doggedly to herself. They had nothing in common aside of the fact that she was Greek on her father’s side and Sander didn’t even know that because her father and his family were in no hurry to tell people who she was. She and Sander inhabited different worlds. By all accounts he was a wealthy highflying businessman while she was a student. How much did she even share with Cosima who came from that same exclusive world of privilege? Precious little, she acknowledged sadly.

Yet, wasn’t this supposed to be the stage of her life when she made mistakes and discovered who she really was? When she broke the rules and experimented? But jumping into bed with Sander Volakis would definitely be a big mistake. There would be no future with him and she would only get hurt. Did every relationship have to have a future? Did serious feelings always have to be involved? Was there no room for anything lighter and more temporary?

In her single bed, Tally tossed and turned and fought with herself. It wasn’t as though she wanted to fall in love and get married any time soon. It wasn’t as though she was daft enough to imagine that Sander even cherished any long-term intentions where she was concerned. Crystal Spencer’s daughter could not be that naïve for, as a teenager, she had often been mortified to meet some strange man at the breakfast table while her mother flirted happily with her overnight guest, impervious to her daughter’s embarrassment.

As it was dawn before Tally got to sleep, she awoke late. She was utterly disorientated when she was shaken to by Cosima the next day and discovered that it was already the afternoon.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ she mumbled, pushing her tumbled curls off her brow and sitting up. ‘How long have you been up?’

Her sibling was infuriatingly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for a young woman who had gone to bed under the influence of alcohol. ‘Long enough to play a couple of games of tennis this morning and then have lunch. Now the men are off on a shoot and we’re going shopping, so you had better get up—’

‘Shopping? Why?’ Tally responded, pushing back the duvet.

‘That question says it all, Tally. There is no such thing as why when it comes to shopping!’ Cosima told her. ‘There’s a big party here tonight and you can’t possibly wear that cheap LBD again, and I want something new as well.’

‘About last night …’ Tally began awkwardly.

‘Don’t preach,’ Cosima urged with a steely look. ‘But I do owe you an apology for this room—it’s a dive.’

Tally absorbed the younger woman’s grimace at the faded walls and worn furniture deemed suitable for staff rather than guests and laughed. ‘It’s not that bad. What happened to Chaz last night?’

Cosima stiffened defensively at that question about her boyfriend. ‘He didn’t turn up because he couldn’t—he got lost,’ she said with an air of defiance that suggested that some of her friends might already have been less than impressed by that excuse.

Tally found herself being hustled out of the mansion and into a customised Range Rover that belonged to one of her sister’s friends. As she had not had the chance to have anything to eat her stomach was growling with hunger. During the drive back to London she tried to get Cosima to talk about Chaz but her sibling was disappointingly reluctant to part with any information.

Westgrave Manor was buzzing with bustling staff and caterers when Tally returned in a cab, the other girls having kept late beauticians’ appointments at the local spa. Her father phoned and asked how the weekend was going. Tally told no tales but she did take the opportunity to ask what he had against her sister’s boyfriend.

‘Charles Roberts has drug convictions. He’s an unscrupulous character and I don’t want him anywhere near my daughter,’ Anatole Karydas admitted grimly.

Tally made use of Cosima’s en-suite bathroom as she had been told to do, showering and washing and drying her hair. This afternoon had been fun. Her sibling had insisted on buying her a new dress and, although the turquoise satin mini dress with the bejewelled neckline had a shorter hemline than Tally usually wore, she felt amazing in it, loving the bright zingy colour and the way it seemed to light up her face. She had no idea what it had cost and had no intention of asking. Sometimes she felt aged by the lowering awareness that she was generally more sensible than her mother and just for once she wanted to feel young and carefree without sweating the serious stuff.

Dinner was served as a buffet. Starving as she was, Tally helped herself to food and then when she saw Sander’s proud dark head from a distance she abandoned that plate lest he think she was a greedy pig and filled another plate with a more sparing selection. Like lightning, she felt the excitement of him even being in the same room and she could barely credit the immaturity of her reactions, but her heart was already beating so fast and so violently it felt as though it were lodged at the foot of her throat and she couldn’t eat.

A dark-haired young man smiled down at her and pressed a moisture-beaded glass into her hand. ‘Have some champagne. I don’t think we’ve met,’ he murmured pleasantly. ‘I’m Robert Miller …’

‘Tally Spencer … gosh, this is awkward.’ She laughed, struggling to maintain a grip on the glass, the plate and the cutlery, not to mention the evening bag dangling on her wrist.

He took the plate for her and urged her over to a table.

A surge of dark fury rippling through him and sending golden sparks flaring in his dark eyes, Sander watched the whizz-kid software designer, Robert Miller, moving in on Tally. She did look incredibly sexy in her turquoise dress, its jewelled neckline seductively showcasing the creamy upper slopes of her breasts while the hemline showed off a good deal more of her shapely legs than had been on display the night before. The tightening swelling at his groin set his even white teeth on edge because he usually enjoyed a firmer hold on his libido.

As Cosima moved past, clinging to the arm of a tall man with dirty-blond hair spiked up, Tally called her name. Her sibling came to a reluctant halt to perform an introduction. While Cosima announced that her boyfriend had a booking at a fashionable club later that evening, Tally was instantly wary of Chaz, with his calculating blue eyes and tight controlling grip on the younger woman. At least thirty years of age, he was much older than she had expected and far too mature for a seventeen-year-old, she thought worriedly.

‘I’ll be leaving with Chaz soon to go to the club and I probably won’t bother coming back here,’ the teenager spelt out. ‘But you mustn’t tell Dad …’

Her heart sinking, Tally lifted her chin. ‘I won’t lie to him, Cosima.’

Angry resentment blazed in her sibling’s eyes. ‘But you have to—’

‘I don’t have to do anything,’ Tally responded with gentle regret. ‘And neither do you. I think you should finish out the weekend here with your friends.’

The younger woman hissed something very rude and stalked away. Wincing, Tally turned back to her companion. ‘Sorry about that, but I’m supposed to be looking after her.’

‘I suspect she’s quite a handful,’ Robert remarked with the wry smile of a man able to take a smart-mouthed teenager very much in his stride, pulling out a chair for her to sit down. ‘Anatole Karydas’ kid, isn’t she? Do you work for him?’

Uncomfortable with that pretence insisted on by Cosima, Tally half turned her head away. ‘Sort of …’

The passage of her uneasy gaze screamed to a halt on Sander, who was watching her from the other side of the room. One glimpse of his lean, darkly handsome features made her gulp, drove her mind blank. Even at that distance his beautiful dark deep-set eyes could make her shiver with helpless awareness and tug her nipples into stinging tightness below her clothing. She had never felt like that before and the tingling pool of warm dampness gathering low in her body fascinated her as he awakened her sexuality as no other man ever had.

A waiter approached her with a glass on the tray. ‘Miss Karydas sent it over with her compliments.’

‘Oh …’ Tally skimmed a brief glance at the fancy colourful cocktail and looked around for her sibling but couldn’t see her. Was this Cosima’s way of apologising? The glass was set down in front of her.

‘If you don’t eat your food will get cold,’ Robert Miller drawled.

Dragging her attention from Sander Volakis demanded every atom of self-discipline Tally possessed. She loved to look at him and the temptation to stare at the sculpted masculine perfection of his face pulled at her with embarrassing persistence. She sat down, glanced at the food and realised her appetite had vanished. She took an exploratory sip of the drink she had been sent instead. It was very fruity and much more to her taste than alcohol usually was.

‘Tally …’ Sander murmured, casting a long dark shadow over the table with his brooding stance. ‘Robert …’

Glancing up to encounter shimmering golden eyes and sensing the angry dissatisfaction he was struggling to hide in the set quality of his smile and his clenched fingers, Tally began to stand up. It was a visceral reaction to the unspoken emotional demand in his gaze and her immediate awareness that he did not like seeing her in another man’s company. Sander was jealous. No man had ever been possessive of Tally before and, although for the first time in her life she was feeling her power as a woman, she discovered that she had not the smallest desire to use it on him.

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