The Antonakos Marriage
Kate Walker

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

THEO ANTONAKOS was not in the least impressed to learn that he was about to get a new stepmother.

He had never come to terms with his father’s reputation with women. He’d lost count of the number of lovers who had drifted through the older man’s life since his own mother’s death and become, for a time, surrogate materas to him while he was growing up. Not one of them had stayed, though three of them had become Cyril’s wife for a while, usually a very brief time.

Now it seemed that the fifth Mrs Antonakos was about to make her appearance. Quite frankly, Theo didn’t hold out much expectation that she would last any longer than any of her predecessors, but she was indirectly responsible for the restlessness and the unsettled mood that were eating at him tonight.

He reached for his glass of wine and drained the rich red liquid from the bottom of it, slamming the glass back down on the table top with a crash that revealed the turmoil of his inner feelings.

He usually loved London’s bustling vibrancy, the sense of people going places, living busy lives. The crowded streets, the lights, the hum of cars, reminded him of his home in Athens, the city life he had there, the cut and thrust of the business world that made every day a challenge he enjoyed.

But when it was dark and damp and cold as it was now on this October evening, then he wished he were anywhere but here. He missed the heat of the Greek sun on his back, the lazy lap of the ocean against the rocks of the island his family owned. He missed the sound of his native language. He missed his family. Hell, he missed home.

It had started with the letter that had arrived that morning.

One look at the stamp with the familiar Greek script had jarred him awake with a speed and roughness that had made his head spin. He hadn’t even needed to check the postmark, or the rough, almost illegible scrawl of the address. He had known immediately just who it was from.

His father had broken his long silence and had written at last.

‘Oh, come on, Red, lighten up. Sit down and have a drink with us!’

The rough-edged, slightly slurred comment followed by a chorus of laughter drifted over to him from across the other side of the bar, making him glance in that direction. A couple of youths were lounging around a table, beer bottles littering the polished surface.

But it was the woman with them who caught his attention. Caught and held it.

He couldn’t see her face because she had her back to him. But what he could see was stunning. Physically, sexually stunning in a way that made desire twist, sharp and hot, in his gut in immediate reaction.

Long hair in a glorious, burnished red gold cascaded down the slender length of her back, gleaming with coppery highlights even under the shaded lamps of the bar. She was tall and shapely: narrow shoulders, neat hips, a pert, tight bottom under the clinging skirt of her black dress.

Skirt? His faint laugh denied the description. That wasn’t a skirt, it was a pelmet—little more than an extended belt, leaving exposed the slim, elegant length of her legs in sheerest black nylon, right down to the point where her feet were pushed into the polished, ridiculously high-heeled shoes.

‘Anything you like, sweetheart…’

There was something about her that compelled him to watch her.

And he had been without a woman too long. That was the real reason he was interested. Ever since Eva had walked out three months ago, there had been no female company in his life.

He could have had plenty—he knew without false modesty that his dark looks attracted female attention and interest. Add to that the appeal of the wealth that came from both his family background and the results of his own efforts, and he rarely had to spend a night alone unless he wanted to.

But lately that knowledge hadn’t satisfied him. He was edgy, wanted more.

Not with Eva, though. That was why they’d argued and why she’d walked. Eva had thought that she was onto a good thing. She had had wedding bells and gold rings in her dreams, and he had had to disillusion her about that pretty forcefully. As a result, she’d left. Eva wasn’t the kind of girl to stay around when she knew she wasn’t going to get what she wanted.

And if he was honest with himself, he really hadn’t missed her.

‘No, really, no thanks.’

Her voice fell into one of those sudden lapses into silence in which even the quietest voice sounded clear and audible in the stillness of the room.

And what a voice! It was low and sensual, surprisingly husky for a woman. It made him imagine hearing that voice whispering to him in the deep, warm darkness of a king-size bed. His mouth dried, his body tightened just to think of it. But the next moment, the sexy mood vanished, the erotic thoughts driven away by a dramatic change in her tone.

‘I said no, thank you.’

Theo was on his feet before he was even aware of having reacted. There had been an edge to her words, a note of unease, of total rejection of the position in which she found herself. She wasn’t happy, it was obvious.

Half a dozen long, forceful strides took him across the room to come up close behind her. Neither she nor the men she was talking to had even noticed him.

Skye Marston knew that she was in trouble.

In fact, she had known it from three heartbeats into the conversation she had foolishly started with these two. She should never have stopped, never responded to their casually friendly greeting on her way into the room.

Their apparently casually friendly greeting.

She had come into the bar on a whim. It had looked crowded, brightly lit and warm, in contrast to the cold wind and driving rain of the street outside. And she had wanted desperately to be with people. She had spent too much time on her own, and being on her own left her vulnerable to her unhappy thoughts.

Was it really less than a month since her father had broken down and admitted that his money problems were far worse than he had let on? That in an attempt to deal with them, he had made a real mess of things by ‘borrowing’ from his boss, Greek millionaire Cyril Antonakos, the owner of the hotels he managed—and, even worse, he had now been found out. He faced a lengthy prison sentence if charges were pressed.

‘I can’t go to jail, Skye!’ he had wept. ‘Not now, not with your mother so ill! It would kill her. She just can’t manage without me. You have to help me!’

‘I’ll do anything I can, Dad.’ Skye had reacted instinctively, knowing there was nothing else she could say.

Her mother’s heart condition had been a cause of great concern for some time, but lately her condition had deteriorated. Now it seemed that if the next operation she had didn’t succeed, her only hope was a transplant. ‘Anything at all—though I don’t know what help I can be!’

But her father had known. Cyril Antonakos had already proposed a way out of the terrible trap in which Andrew Marston found himself. And Skye had listened in horror as he had revealed just how vital she was to their scheme. Cyril wanted an heir. To achieve that end, obviously he needed a wife and, as his last marriage had ended in an acrimonious divorce, he had selected Skye as the potential mother of his child. If she married him, gave him the heir he craved, he wouldn’t prosecute.

In order to save Andrew Marston from imprisonment, she was being asked to marry a man older than her father.

And tomorrow she had to give him her answer.

That was why she was here tonight. That was why she was out on her own, spending her one last night of freedom in the impersonal bright lights and busy streets of London. She could only pray that those bright lights—and the crowded bars—were enough to distract her from what tomorrow would bring.

Not giving herself time to reconsider, she had swung into the wide doorway, struggling with the big glass doors, pushing her way through the crowd, trying to reach the bar.

And immediately she had felt that she had made a mistake.

The bar was warm and bright, true. It was also very busy. And everyone there seemed to know someone else. No one was on their own, without anyone else to talk to, to smile at.

And even if they had been alone, she told herself, no one else could ever be quite so lonely, quite so isolated as she felt right now.

She had been about to turn round and go back out when she had spotted the one other person who, like her, was on his own.

Should she—could she—make herself go up and talk to him? That had been her plan from the start. To meet someone and talk to them, so, hopefully, driving away this appalling sense of isolation and loss, melting the cruel block of ice that seemed to surround her world, and giving her some moments of freedom and relaxation before the world closed in on her again.

But this man didn’t look the type who could fulfil that hope for her. He was too big, too dark, too dangerous-looking. His long body lounged in the chair, apparently at ease, but there was an air of menace, of carefully leashed power, about him that made her heart kick inside her chest, so that she caught her breath in shock. His black-haired head was turned away from her, and hooded eyes stared down into a glass half-filled with red wine.

It was almost as if she had come across a sleek, honed hunting cat crouching in wait in some small, shaded jungle clearing. Just seeing him slowed her steps to a halt, making her hesitate and rethink.

And that was when the call from the nearest table had distracted her.

‘Hello, darling. Looking for someone?’

If she hadn’t been so diverted by the appearance of the dark-haired man in the corner, so desperate for company and distraction, Skye would have simply switched on an automatic smile, murmured something about having ‘just spotted them, thank you,’ and moved on. But her steps had already slowed, she had stopped beside the table, and somehow she couldn’t find the words to extricate herself.

And they clearly thought that she was with them for the evening—and more. Their smiles, the hot, lascivious way their eyes travelled over her, made her feel uneasy. She might have been looking for a last chance to spend her time as a free, single twenty-two-year-old, but this was not what she’d had in mind.

She tried to turn down the offers of a drink with what she hoped was an apologetic smile, an expression of regret, but she could see that they weren’t appeased. The blond was growing noticeably aggressive, and when she tried to step back and move away she found that his black-haired friend had grabbed her arm and was gripping it in a bruisingly tight hold.

‘So what’s wrong—aren’t we good enough for you?’

‘No—really—I—I’m waiting for someone.’

‘Like who?’ Frank disbelief sounded roughly in his voice.

‘My—my boyfriend. He said—he’d meet me here.’

The blond made an elaborate play of looking around the room, searching for the imaginary boyfriend.

‘Then I think you’ve been stood up, Red. He’s clearly not coming for you.’

The grip on her arm tightened cruelly, pulling her closer so that she had to bend slightly to adjust to the tug on her wrist.

‘He—he’s just late.’

‘Do you know what I think, Red?’

It was a mocking whisper, a malicious gleam lighting in his eyes.

‘I think he’s not coming. In fact, I have this suspicion that you’re telling me lies—that this lover of yours just doesn’t exist.’

‘Oh, but he does.’

Skye jumped like a startled cat as the words came from behind her. The deep, gorgeously accented, sexy male voice was the last thing she had ever anticipated. It was the fantasy she might have wished for—the dream lover turning up to rescue her from the awkward, uncomfortable situation in which she found herself.

But this was no fantasy. The startled gaze of her tormentors had gone from her face to somewhere behind the back of her head, shock and consternation showing in their eyes. The controlling grip on her wrist had loosened, letting her pull free. ‘Oh!’

The soft cry of shock was pushed from her as a pair of tightly muscled arms slid round her waist from behind. A hard, powerful frame was pressed up against her back, its heat and strength reaching right through the material of her jacket, to her skin, her bones—seeming to scorch her soul.

She felt safe, protected, surrounded by this unknown man. His warmth and strength enclosed her, the sound of his breathing tantalised her ears, and the scent of his skin filled her nostrils.

‘Sorry I’m late, darling,’ the husky voice murmured against her neck. ‘You know how these meetings drag on. But I’m here now.’

‘Mmm.’

It was all she could manage and she didn’t care if it sounded more like a sigh of sensual response than any coherent answer.

Her body was tingling all over, burning in instant response to just this unknown man’s touch. She couldn’t see his face—the only parts of his body that were visible to her were the hands that were clasped around her waist.

And they were intensely masculine hands. Big and square and capable-looking. They dwarfed her own smaller, slimmer fingers as they closed warmly over them. No rings. The only adornment was a sleek platinum watch on one wrist, just above an immaculate white shirt cuff, the steel-grey of an elegant and expensive jacket.

‘Forgive me?’

‘Oh, yes!’

How could she say anything else? She would have agreed to anything, accepted anything from him. It was impossible to think straight, and what tiny fragments of thoughts still lingered inside her head were totally shattered, blasted into oblivion by what he did next.

She sensed movement behind her, just out of sight. Felt the brush of silky hair against her cheek, then suddenly there was the press of warm lips against the back of her neck. Her breath caught in her throat; her heart thudded hard against her ribcage, and her head went back against a strong, supportive shoulder, her eyes half closing in sensual response.

‘Hey!’

The stranger’s voice was soft, faintly reproving, edged with a disturbing laughter.

‘Not here, darling,’ he went on wickedly. ‘Better wait until we get home!’

Home! She wasn’t going home with this man…

That brought her back to the present in the blink of an eyelid, her head coming up again sharply, her mouth opening on a gasp of protest. But the protest never had a chance to form because the man behind her spoke again before she had a chance to say a word.

‘Time to go, sweetheart. Say goodbye to your friends.’

It was the way he said friends that alerted her. She had been in danger of giving away their pretence. If she had voiced her protest, she would have made it clear to the men at the table that her rescuer was not the lover she had claimed him as.

‘Goodbye, guys! Th-thanks for keeping me company.’

Just who was this man who had come to her rescue so unexpectedly? The question raged in her mind as she made herself turn, ready to walk off with him, struggling to look as if this were something she did every day.

He slid his hand into hers, lacing his strong fingers with hers, holding her in a way that felt light and gentle, but which she was sure would be even harder to break away from than the dark-haired man’s hold had been.

‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’

He was tall, and strongly built, that much she could tell from the swift, sidelong glances she slanted in his direction, not daring to actually turn and stare. In the shadowy light of the bar, his face was turned from her, eyes fixed on the doorway towards which his determined strides were taking them. She could only let herself be pulled along in his wake, wanting to be well away from her earlier tormentors before she did what she knew she was going to have to do and put the brakes on sharply, saying, ‘This far and no further.’

‘Hang on a minute…’ she tried, but he either didn’t hear or pretended not to. His ruthless path through the bar didn’t falter, and where she had struggled through the crowds on her way in, now they just seemed to part smoothly to let him through.

The next moment they were at the door and moving down the steps into the street.

‘Now hang on!’

She dug her heels in as she spoke, mentally slamming on the brakes and praying that his strength and power wouldn’t just drag her over, tumbling ignominiously down the stone stairs after him.

‘That’s far enough!’

This time her voice reached him. Either that, or the pull on his hand was enough to drag him to a halt. He stopped abruptly, then whirled round, coming to face her, and she saw his features for the first time in the full glow of the light of the street lamps.

She’d seen them before. Seen that strong-boned, forcefully arrogant face. The jet-black, deep-set eyes above slashing cheekbones, the long, straight sweep of a nose, and the fall of rich, thick hair, darker than the night’s shadows around him.

‘You!’

The word escaped on a cry of shock as she recognised the man she had seen at the other side of the bar. The only other person who had been on his own in the busy, noisy room.

The man she had not dared to risk approaching because some intuitive sense of fear had held her back. Her instincts had sprung straight to red alert, flashing warning signs before her eyes and shrieking, ‘Danger—keep away! Don’t touch!’ even before she had had a chance to think why. She just knew that something deep and primitive inside her had made her feel that he was someone to be treated with the intense caution with which she might approach a prowling jungle cat if she came face to face with it out hunting.

And seen up close he looked even more so. More dangerous; more devastating. More blatantly masculine. More shockingly attractive—and yet even his undeniable sexual appeal had a worrying core of threat at the bottom of it.

This wasn’t the sort of man she usually encountered. He was nothing like the men she had known at home and in the office, the few, friendly dates she had ever been out on. He was beyond her experience, beyond her knowledge—and very definitely beyond her control.

Those instincts were working overtime again—and this time they were yelling at her that she was completely out of her depth with this man.

And if she wasn’t very much mistaken, she had just jumped right out of the frying-pan and straight into the very heart of the fire.

CHAPTER TWO

‘ME?’

THEO’S response to Skye’s shocked exclamation was as calm and relaxed as he could make it, though any real control was the last thing he felt capable of.

He should never have touched her.

His body still burned at the thought of it; his brain had almost melted in the burn of the fierce, erotic heat that had flooded every inch of his body, making him hard and hungry in a second. He still ached from the sudden ebbing of the blazing tide, the effect of the cold night air that had hit him as soon as they had left the bar.

He should never have touched her, but what he hadn’t anticipated was the way that she had responded to him.

He’d thought she felt it too.

If she hadn’t, then what the hell had she meant by the way she’d reacted—resting her head against his shoulder, leaning back into him?

But now she was behaving as if she thought he was a demon from hell and not at all the person she’d been hoping for

‘You were expecting someone else?’

‘N-no—not exactly,’ she stammered. ‘I—it’s just—I never thought that you’d be the one to come to my rescue. I should thank you,’ she added, too belatedly to smooth his very ruffled feelings.

‘Think nothing of it.’

A wave of his hand dismissed her stumbling thanks. Theo was well aware of the way that the frustrated demands of his aroused body were distorting his mood, making him feel bad-tempered and edgy. And what made a bad mood infinitely worse was the way that, seeing her face full on now, in the light from the doorway, he found that the promise suggested by her back, her profile, indoors, was more than fulfilled by the reality.

She was gorgeous. A pale, oval face. Stunning light coloured eyes, with incredibly thick, lush lashes. A full, soft mouth seemed just made for kisses, and the thoughts that imagining that mouth on his own skin triggered off were so X-rated that he was glad of the shadows in the street, the darkness of the evening, that hid his response from her.

‘And I should introduce myself.’

Her hand came out, stiffly formal.

‘I’m—Skye…’

The hesitation before her name and the way that she didn’t add a surname told him she didn’t want to trust him with the full details of her identity. Fair enough, that was fine with him.

‘Anton,’ he growled, knowing he was forced to take her hand, but making the contact as brief and brusque as possible before letting it drop.

He didn’t want a repeat of the cruelly demanding sensations he’d experienced before, especially when it seemed that this Skye was determined to be on her way as soon as possible and there was no chance of taking things any further.

‘Anton.’

The way that she echoed the name he had given her made him wonder if she really knew, or suspected, it was not genuine.

He didn’t give a damn one way or another. Even here, in England, the Antonakos name—and, more importantly, the Antonakos fortune—was so well known that the realisation he was a member of that family was enough to create an interest where there wasn’t one, to put a speculative light in the eye of anyone he met.

And, in his experience, women were the worst offenders. Along with the name Antonakos, they saw the prospect of a meal ticket for life; a future of luxury and ease, if they could just play their cards right.

As he was not at all sure what sort of cards this Skye, whoever she was, was about to play; he preferred to keep his own—and the truth of his identity—very close to his chest.

Not that she seemed in the least interested right now. Those pale eyes were scanning the street, looking up and down the road.

‘Are you looking for someone?’

Suspicion made him voice it. Damn it, had he got this all wrong from the start? He cursed under his breath at the way that thought made him feel. He didn’t want her to have been really waiting for anyone. He had assumed that the lover she had claimed was imaginary—had wanted him not to exist.

The truth was that he wanted this woman for himself, and right now he was prepared to do whatever it took to get her.

‘Was that boyfriend you mentioned real after all?’

‘Oh, no.’

The shake of her head sent the red-gold fall of her hair flying around her face, tiny drops of rain shimmering in its depths from the drizzle that was falling.

‘No, I made him up in the hope they would let me go. I wasn’t looking for anyone—just a taxi.’

‘I can give you a lift anywhere you want to go.’

‘A taxi will be fine.’ It was the vocal equivalent of several steps backwards and away from him. No physical action could have put more of a distance between them.

A black cab was approaching and she lifted a hand to hail it, but too late. It swept past in a spray of water from the puddles filling the gutter, spattering her skirt and legs with mud.

‘I can give you a lift anywhere you want to go.’

The way he repeated his exact words of just moments before brought Skye’s eyes to his face in a rush. Meeting the glittering darkness of his gaze, seeing the way that the muscles of his jaw were drawn tight, she knew a sinking sense of realisation.

She’d insulted him with her refusal. He was angry too, something that told her how much her rejection had meant to him.

‘I—was trying to be sensible,’ she managed.

‘Isn’t it a little late for that now?’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Well, the situation you got yourself into back there—’ His dark head nodded towards the noisy, smoky bar. ‘That was hardly the action of a sensible person.’

The deliberate emphasis on the repeated word goaded her, as she was sure it was meant to do, sparking her temper and bringing her chin up, eyes flashing angry fire.

‘I didn’t exactly ask for that!’ she snapped. ‘It just happened!’

‘I only offered you a lift in my car.’

The resignation in his tone had a hard edge to it, one that warned her of the way his temper was fraying at the edges.

‘I’m sor—’ she began, but he ignored her and rushed on angrily.

‘I was brought up never to let a woman risk being on her own, if I could do anything to help her.’

‘Then get me a taxi—please.’

She prayed he wouldn’t argue further. She was rapidly losing her grip on her self-control as it was.

‘No.’

It was cold and hard and unyielding, and it chilled her blood just to hear it.

Out of the frying-pan and into the fire. The ominous phrase that had slipped into her head in the first moments they had been outside now pounded round and round inside her skull until she felt as if her mind would explode.

‘You don’t need a taxi. I will take you wherever you want to go.’

Skye’s eyes closed on a shudder of horror as she tried to imagine just how that scenario would play out. She didn’t even want to think of her father’s reaction if she was to arrive home in a strange car—with an unknown man. Even less did she want to imagine the way her prospective fiancé would view that situation.

Oh, why had she ever thought she could do this? Why had she let herself believe that she could fling herself into one night of liberty just to try and put a temporary barrier between herself and the future that lay ahead of her?

Why had she ever imagined that she could have one night in which she lived the same sort of life as her friends, as other young women her age? One night of total freedom, of irresponsibility, of reckless abandon before the walls of restraint and restriction closed round her once and for all?

She had never been able to live that way even when she had had her freedom—the freedom of youth. So why had she ever thought she could do it now, just for tonight? She had been out of her depth from the start—and she was sinking in deeper with every second that passed.

‘I’ll get one myself, then.’

She swung away from him violently, knowing in her heart that she was really running from herself, not from him. But she was closer to the edge of the pavement than she thought. Her heel caught on the kerb, twisted awkwardly and went from beneath her. She would have gone flying off the footpath, falling headlong onto the wet tarmac, into the middle of the road and the path of the oncoming cars, if the man beside her hadn’t reacted with instinctive speed.

‘Skye—look out!’

In the blink of an eye he was beside her, reaching out and catching her before her stumble became a fall. She was held tight, hauled up into arms that felt like tempered steel as they tensed, took her weight and then pulled her back to safety.

Safety? Or right back into the heart of danger?

Skye had no way of knowing and her head was whirling too much in the aftermath of the shock of her near fall to be able to think clearly.

The position she was in didn’t help either. Anton had spun her round as he caught her up so that now she was clamped tight against him, enfolded in his arms, with her body crushed against the hard length of his, her head on his chest, her cheek above the heavy, heated thud of his heart, the sound of his pulse in her ears.

And it was all happening again.

Just as it had when he had come up behind her in the bar, so now her blood was heating in urgent response to his closeness, her heart racing in time with the fierce beat of his. She was surrounded by him, held in the heat and hardness of his grip, the clean, male scent of his body surrounding her, melting her thoughts inside her head.

It felt like coming home.

It felt as if she had always been there. As if this was truly where she belonged. Where she most wanted to be in all the world. And with the instinctive cuddling movement of a small creature seeking comfort from the cold, hard world outside, she snuggled closer, burying her face in his shirt front, her hands sliding under his jacket, her arms going round the narrow waist.

She felt his grip tighten even more, and his dark head bent, his face coming so close to hers that the faint roughness of the beginnings of evening growth of beard rubbed lightly against the delicate skin of her cheek. She sensed—unbelievingly—the warm caress of his mouth on her neck, at the base of her ear, and heard his deep sigh as he whispered harshly against the delicate lobe.

‘Skye, don’t go—stay! I want you to stay.’

‘What?’

Had he really said what she thought she had heard? She couldn’t believe it. It couldn’t be true. It had to be her ears deceiving her or the voice of her own hungry longings sounding inside her head, telling her what she most wanted to hear.

But she couldn’t have heard it. Men like this Anton didn’t suddenly beg girls like her to stay with them, not on such brief acquaintance.

Had he really said…?

Tilting her head, she tried to look up into his face, to read the answer there, but even as she moved his dark head came down towards hers. His mouth closed over hers and captured it in a searing, blazing kiss that sent a sensation like a lightning bolt fizzing through her body, right down to the tips of her toes.

This couldn’t be happening, was the one brief thought that Skye managed before her brain short-circuited and thinking became impossible. Before it was replaced only by feeling.

His mouth was pure enticement, pure sinful seduction. His kiss worked a spell on her that had her melting against him, into him, losing herself in the feeling of becoming part of him. Her lips parted, encouraging the heated invasion of his tongue, her sighing moan a sound of pure surrender, all that was female in her responding to the darkly elemental male in him. Something rich and dark and deeply sensual uncoiled way down low in her body and set up a heavy, honeyed pounding between her thighs.

The sounds and the lights of the street became nothing but a blur in the back of her mind as the strength of his hold lifted her up onto her toes, almost off her feet. Powerful hands thrust into the fall of hair, sweeping it back from around her face as hard fingers dug into her skull. The rain came down harder, colder, but she was lost and oblivious to it, adrift in a heated world where nothing else could reach her.

In the distance someone wolf-whistled, and slowly, reluctantly, they drew apart, breath coming heavily, eyes wide, expressions slightly dazed as they met each other’s gaze and acknowledged the primitive fires they had lit between them.

‘I…’ Skye began, but her voice broke in the middle, failing her completely as the reality of what had happened to her hit home like a savage blow to her head.

This was what it was all about. This was what male-female relationships really meant. What those words like desire and passion and hunger had had hidden behind them, unrecognised by her until now.

Now.

The single word sounded like a knell inside her head, deadening her thoughts and bringing the cruel sting of tears to her eyes.

Now, when it was too late. When a malevolent fate had stepped in and decided her future for her.

When she knew that these delights, this sort of happiness, were to be denied to her for ever. She had learned the truth too late, only to have it snatched away from her in the same moment that she discovered it. And with no chance of anything more.

Except for tonight, a tiny voice whispered in her mind, bringing with it dreams and hopes of the sort that she had never allowed into her thoughts before. Dreams that made her shiver just to contemplate them.

Dreams that were here, now, within her reach, and all she had to do was to stretch out a hand and grasp them, make them hers, for tonight; for one night only.

‘Skye?’ the man called Anton questioned softly, making her realise how long she had been standing there, silent, distant, locked in the shadowed, ominous darkness of her thoughts.

The heat of his body still enclosed her, His hold had loosened, but she still pressed up against the powerful length of his body, feeling the hard ridge against her stomach that spoke of the desire that had been in his kiss. The same desire that had been in hers. That still throbbed along every nerve pathway, pulsed in her blood.

He had wanted her every bit as she had wanted him—he still did.

But she had only met him tonight.

‘I won’t hurt you.’ His voice was low and husky with need. So low and husky that it shocked her to think that she could ever have such an effect on any man—least of all this man. This tall, darkly imposing, devastating man.

‘I promise you, you’ll be safe with me. I swear…’

Her heart slammed against the wall of her ribcage, jerky and uneven, coming close to panic at just the thought of what she was considering. But the ache of need still suffused her own body and wouldn’t let her go.

If only this had happened sooner. If only she had met this Anton before…

But no. That was to wish for the impossible. Her fate had been sealed and she had no alternative but to go down the path that had been chosen for her. The path she had agreed to.

The path she had had no choice but to agree to.

From tomorrow, everything would change. From tomorrow her life would no longer be her own.

Skye’s teeth dug down hard into the softness of her bottom lip, scoring sharp little crescents into the delicate pink flesh.

Tomorrow.

Last week she had prayed that she could run away. She had dreamed of it, longed for it, hoped for a chance. But there was no chance. Too many people depended on her. If she had had any doubts about that, then the latest news only this week of how dangerous her mother’s heart condition really was had destroyed them for ever. She couldn’t run away and leave them all in the lurch.

But there was tonight.

Tonight she could run away—at least temporarily—from everything that was weighing her down. She could escape into a world of fantasy and sensual delight. A world that was so unreal she couldn’t really believe it was happening to her. A world in which, for once in her life—for the one and only time—just for a few short hours, she could experience the full heights of passion and the fierce sensuality that she had tasted so briefly just a few moments before.

One of the hardest things to accept about this marriage to Cyril Antonakos was the fact that her unwanted wedding night would be her first experience of sex. She was still a virgin and had never known any man who could make her feel enough to want to change that situation.

Until now.

Now she couldn’t bear the thought that a man nearing sixty would be her first, her only lover—when there was this man who only had to touch her and she felt as if she were going up in flames.

She could have tonight.

I promise you, you’ll be safe with me. I swear…

He didn’t even have to know her name. And tomorrow, as in some modern-day Cinderella story, reality would close in around her once again.

But she would have had tonight.

If only she could bring herself to answer him. If only she could find the courage to say…

‘Skye?’

Her name was rough on his tongue now, raw impatience and that devastating accent turning it into something new and strange. A sound she didn’t recognise as the name she heard every day.

‘Are you ever going to answer me?’

Skye tried. Swallowing hard to ease the dryness of her throat, she fought for the control, the strength she needed.

But then his long-fingered hand came under her chin, lifting it so that her face came up to meet his, her grey eyes meeting and locking with the deep, deep blackness of his. Drowning in their darkness.

He bent his head slowly and his mouth took hers. This time his kiss had none of the fierce, wild passion of moments before; instead it was soft and slow and heartbreakingly tender. It seemed to draw her soul out of her body, melt her bones, so that she was trembling against him, needing the potent strength of his body to support her so that she didn’t fall to the ground.

‘So tell me, my beauty,’ he whispered in a voice that was as dark and rich as the black velvet night sky above them. ‘Will you go or will you stay?’

My beauty, Skye thought hazily.

No one, not even her mother, had ever called her beautiful. Or made her feel it the way his kiss made her feel right now, here in this cold, rain-spattered street.

And suddenly there was only one answer to give him. Only one answer she could give him.

She had to have tonight. She might regret it in the morning, when reality hit her in the face. But the one thing she was sure of was that she could never regret it as much as she would bitterly regret saying no.

And so she lifted her head and kissed him back, putting her answer into the caress, but knowing she had to speak it too.

‘Oh, yes,’ she breathed softly, confidently. ‘Yes, of course I’ll stay. But on one condition…’

CHAPTER THREE

THEO flicked on the light and surveyed the room before him with a critical eye, frowning as he did so.

‘Are you sure that this is what you want?’

He supposed that the room was all right, as hotel rooms went. It was at least clean and reasonably sized, with a comfortable-looking bed, and the usual furniture and fittings. Through a door off to one side was the tiny en suite bathroom, severely tiled in plain, cold white, with toiletries, towels and bath robes all in the same non-colour.

It was all totally soulless, functional but impersonal, and therefore unwelcoming. And not at all the sort of place he would have thought that he would end up in tonight.

But then, nothing tonight had gone the way he had expected it.

He had certainly never anticipated ending up in an anonymous hotel room with a woman who stirred every single one of his most primitive senses, but whose first name was the only thing he knew about her.

‘We’re strangers,’ she had said, ‘and I want to keep it that way. You don’t know me and I don’t know you—that’s the way it has to be.’

No way! That was his first response. He actually stiffened, half turned to walk away, but she was still so close to him, he still had his arms around her, and the hot blood racing through his veins, the hungry need that clamoured at his senses, blurred his thoughts.

He couldn’t let her go.

He had known that in the moment that he had seen her turn to hail a taxi to take her away and out of his life. And if she went now, then she would be gone for ever. He would have no way of tracking her down. She would disappear into the night and he would never see her again; never know anything more about her.

‘You ask a lot, lady,’ he managed, his voice husky and rough.

She didn’t show any sign of reconsidering. Her light-coloured gaze held his unwaveringly, and her soft mouth firmed to a determined line.

‘It’s that or nothing,’ she said, reaching up a slim hand to smooth it across the front of his shirt, and the small movement brought a waft of her scent up to his nostrils, tantalising his senses and drying his mouth.

Beneath the caress of her fingers, his skin burned and his heart kicked savagely, making his pulse throb, his senses swim.

‘That or nothing,’ she repeated and he knew that he could never live with ‘nothing’. He would always curse himself if he let this woman get away from him now.

‘Whatever you want, lady,’ he said, knowing it was nothing less than the truth. ‘Whatever you want.’

And what she wanted was this.

For tonight at least.

Well, he would let her get away with it for tonight—after all, she wasn’t the only one who had been a little…economical with the truth. But tomorrow always came.

Tomorrow he would be asking a lot of questions. And he’d want some very definite answers to all of them.

Meanwhile, he’d spend tonight convincing her that it wasn’t ‘that or nothing’ at all.

‘Skye?’ he questioned now when the woman who had come into the room just behind him didn’t answer. ‘What is it? Have you changed your mind about tonight? Do you want to go back on this—renege on what we agreed?’

Did she?

Did she want to back out of the deal? Was that what she wanted?

They were the questions Skye had been asking herself ever since they’d come upstairs. No—before that. The truth was that her courage and conviction had been seeping away from the moment that she had agreed to stay with him.

It was obvious that she’d shocked him to the core with her blunt announcement that if she stayed then he must never ask her her full name, and never give her his.

She’d thought that he was going to walk away when she’d said that. Certainly his expression had seemed to promise that he was going to reject her outrageous proposition out of hand. His whole face had closed off, shutters seeming to come down behind the brilliant black eyes, until every one of his features had appeared to be carved in cold, unyielding marble.

But then he had blinked once, very slowly, and nodded his dark head.

‘No,’ she said now, miserably aware of the way that her own inner tension made her voice sound tight and hard, coldly distant. ‘No, I’m not reneging on anything. It’s just…’

Just that I’m no good at this.

The words were burning on her tongue, but she swallowed them back hastily, closing her eyes against the terrible anxiety she was feeling. She couldn’t say them, not here, not now, not in this situation. Her stomach muscles were tying themselves into tight, painful knots, twisting each nerve harder and harder with every heartbeat.

‘Just what?’

His voice sounded disturbingly close and when her eyes flew open again it was to find that he had taken several long strides forward. He was standing right in front of her, so near that if she just lifted her hand she could touch him without even stretching out her fingers.

And she wanted to touch him. The tips of her fingers tingled with the remembrance of the way his skin, his hair had felt to their touch. Her palms felt again the heat of the muscles beneath his shirt, sensed the thudding of his heart under the strong bones of his chest.

If she slicked her tongue along her lips, she could still taste him, clean, musky, intensely masculine, making her heart skip a beat. And she wanted that taste, those sensations all over again. She wanted to lose herself in that wonderful, sizzling feeling that flooded her senses, swamping her mind and leaving her incapable of thought, knowing only need.

She wanted this man.

‘Just what?’ he prompted again, more roughly this time.

I want you to hold me—to make me forget…

‘Just that I wish you would kiss me again.’

‘Oh, that!’

It was edged with laughter, threaded through with a knowing triumph.

‘You only had to ask.’

He was already moving forward, taking her in his arms, drawing her close to him with the confidence of a man who was sure of his appeal; who had no doubt that he was wanted.

‘So tell me, sweetheart…’

A caressing hand slid under her chin, lifting her face to his, and his glittering black eyes locked with her cloudy grey ones, holding her gaze, keeping her so still that even her heartbeat seemed to freeze.

‘Where shall I kiss you? Here?’

The warm pressure of his mouth on her forehead was like a butterfly landing, light, delicate, there and gone again so swiftly that she barely even noticed it was there until she felt its loss. And when she did, her lips parted on a sigh of melancholy delight.

‘Or here…?’

This time he caressed her cheek, dropping a kiss just below her temple, on the left and then again on the right, making her breathing deepen, her senses start to stir.

‘Or perhaps here…?’

Softly, deliberately, he kissed her eyes shut, his lips lingering on the lids just long enough to seal them closed. At least, that was the way it felt to Skye, who found herself locked into a world of sensual darkness where every other sense seemed heightened and sharply sensitised to everything about him.

She could hear each breath he took, low and steady, matching the beat of his heart. His scent was on the air around her, that warm, clean, male essence, subtly blended with the tang of lime and spice in his cologne. When he took her hands in his, the heat seared across her skin like an electric current making her fingers curl in instant response, her breath catch sharply in her throat.

And it was all happening again.

She was melting inside, all the tension seeping out of her body so that she almost expected to see it pool on the floor at her feet. The honeyed pulse of desire was starting through her veins once more, sending the waves of yearning along the path of every nerve and setting them alight with need.

‘That will do for a start,’ she managed, amazed at her own boldness. A daring that was bolstered by the darkness behind her closed lids.

She couldn’t see the man who held her, couldn’t look into the darkness of his eyes and read anything—or nothing—from them. She could only feel, enclosed in her own private, secret world of sensations she had never known before, but now wanted to experience so much more.

She wanted to plunge into them like a swimmer diving straight into the deepest pool, letting the waters crash over her head and submerge her completely. Wanted to know it all. Wanted to snatch at things greedily and hungrily, grabbing them to her and swallowing them whole.

But Anton seemed determined to take things slowly. When she made a tiny movement of impatience he hushed her softly, smoothing the sound from her lips with a gentle finger.

‘Not so fast, my lovely. We have all night.’

All night…

It had a wonderful sound. A sound that seemed to promise hours that would stretch out and out in a never-ending way, delivering pleasure for as long as she could stand it. But at the same time, Skye knew just how quickly those hours would fly by. How soon they would be over.

She had this one chance to know the sensuous delights that instinct told her were ahead of her. She couldn’t waste them.

She wouldn’t waste them. Already her body was on fire with anticipation and longing and she was trembling in his arms, grateful for the security of his hold that was all that kept her upright.

‘Anton…’

His name was a moan of need on her lips and she felt as well as heard the soft laughter that shook his powerful frame.

‘I know, sweetheart,’ he told her and the new thickness in his voice revealed only too clearly just how much he did know. ‘I know the way you’re feeling—but, believe me, this will be worth taking slowly. It will be worth waiting for. Just go with me on this—let me show you…’

He was kissing her again now, his mouth taking a burning trail from her temple, down to her jaw before it captured her lips again. The touch of his mouth on her skin, the magic it could work, was threatening her ability to think. But there was one vital, practical matter she had to think of because the possible consequences if she didn’t were too horrific even to consider.

She had just this one night; she couldn’t risk the nightmare of any physical legacy that might result from it. That would destroy her and her family at a single stroke.

‘Do you…?’

It was a struggle to get the words out and not succumb to the erotic enticement that his lips were promising. But she had to say it. The woman he thought she was would never let it go unmentioned.

‘Have you any—protection?’

‘Of course.’

He didn’t even miss a beat. The response came as his caressing lips moved lower, found another pleasure spot Skye hadn’t even known existed.

‘The hotel shop stocks everything.’

‘Oh, yes.’

She hoped she sounded more assured than she felt. She had had a desperate attack of nerves when he had approached Reception to register and with a muttered excuse had disappeared into the nearest Ladies to hide for a moment. By the time she had emerged, cheeks flushed brightly, he had been waiting for her by the bank of lifts, the room key in his hand.

‘So now you can relax and know I’ll take care of you.’

There was such a darkly sensuous undertone in that remark that it made her toes curl inside her shiny patent leather shoes. Suddenly wanting to be rid of even such minor restrictions, she kicked off the high-heeled pumps and relaxed into Anton’s hold, abandoning herself to the moment. His arms almost lifted her off her feet, taking her up and hard against him so that she shivered at the feel of the hard ridge that marked the arousal he had no intention of hiding.

She flung her arms up around his neck, linking her fingers in the silky strands of the black hair as she gave herself up to the kiss. It was hard and hot and hungry and it fuelled an answering need inside her until she was burning up with it, swimming on a heated flood tide of passion.

Skye had never known her body to feel so alive before. Her heart was thudding, her head spinning. Her breasts felt swollen and, oh, so sensitive, the tight buds of her nipples stinging sharply.

She was swung off her feet, lifted from the floor and carried the short distance to the bed. Laying her down gently on the blue and green quilted covering, he kept his mouth on hers while his wickedly enticing hands found the fastenings of her dress, dispensing with the buttons in moments, the delicate lace of her bra no protection at all from his burning gaze.

Or the touch of those knowing hands.

At the sensation of the heat of his palms on her breasts, stroking delicately over the peach-coloured lace, catching and rolling the hardened nipples between strong fingers, Skye’s eyes flew open, meeting the glittering black gaze of the man above her.

‘An—’ she began, but he silenced her once more, kissing the exclamation from her trembling mouth.

‘Close your eyes,’ he commanded against her lips. ‘Close them and keep them shut.’

He caught her uncertain, anxious gaze and lifted his head to kiss her eyelids closed again, returning her to the warm velvet darkness once more.

‘Don’t look, just feel.’

How could she do anything else when already those tormenting hands were easing her bra from her, tracing hot, erotic patterns across her breasts, circling the peaks, making the nipples strain against their touch?

‘Feel this…’ he muttered with another tormenting caress across the sensitised skin, trailing fiery paths that sent shock waves of sensation pulsing through her.

The gentleness was not enough. She wanted—needed—more! Blindly reaching for him, she closed her hands over his powerful shoulders, pulling him down towards her, crushing her lips to his.

‘Help me—show me…’ she began against his mouth, only realising just in time what she had almost given away, revealing herself to him more than she truly wanted to.

She didn’t want him to realise—or even to suspect—her innocence. What would a man as sophisticated and worldly as this Anton seemed want with an innocent fresh up from the country—a real country bumpkin who had never known how it felt to make love with a man? An innocent whose lack of experience would no doubt make him laugh or shake his head in disbelief.

This man didn’t want an untutored lover. He must be used to women as knowing and as experienced as he clearly was. She would die of embarrassment if he realised how far from experienced she was.

‘Show me how to please you,’ she amended hastily, hoping she had caught the betraying words soon enough.

‘You’re doing okay all by yourself,’ was the muttered response and the raw edge to his voice made her heart jerk in unexpected sensual triumph.

Perhaps with her eyes closed she could be the woman he would want. With her eyes closed she felt less inhibited, less self-conscious. With her eyes closed she could indulge her need to reach out and touch, to let her hands close over the tight muscles of his shoulders and arms under the fine linen of his shirt.

When had he shrugged off his jacket?

Even working blind, her fingers had no problem dealing with the buttons down the front of his shirt, and within moments her searching hands had found the hot, hair-roughened skin of his chest. It felt so warm to her touch, the tingling excitement tantalising her, driving her to explore further—much to Anton’s delight, to judge by his groan of response.

‘Quite okay…’

‘You’re not doing badly either.’

Somehow she managed to find just the right, casual tone. She was stunned to realise that he had slipped her clothing from her without any of the awkward tugging and pulling she had anticipated. The air of the overheated hotel room was warm on her exposed flesh, and, keeping her eyes closed, she managed not to blush hotly at the realisation that those dark, deep-set eyes were now fixed on her near naked body.

But she couldn’t ignore the fact of his touch. Her heart leapt at the first brush of hard fingers on delicate skin and it was all she could do not to curl up into a defensive ball and, muttering, ‘Oh, don’t,’ try to hide away from him.

The sensation only lasted a moment. A couple of heart-shuddering seconds later she was relaxing into the wonderful sensations his caresses woke in her. Her hungry senses stirred, thrilled, cried out for more. And the whimpering cries that were all she could manage spoke to him only too clearly of her need.

The stroking hands grew harder, urgent, more demanding. And as she writhed beneath his touch his mouth moved over her too, kissing his way along her shoulder, down to the slope of her breast, catching the already aching nipple between his lips and tugging hard.

Skye’s only response was a high, wordless sound of wonder as her breath stilled in her throat and her body arched against his in urgent invitation.

‘Please…’

It was all she could manage, though she had no idea whether she was begging for more of the sharply sensual caress—or for him to stop before she fainted away completely from a pleasure that was so intense it was almost a pain. Burning sensations of delight sizzled through her, making her head spin, and the spiralling delight took all her ability to think from her.

Those wickedly tormenting hands were heading lower, stroking up the soft inner flesh of her thighs, slipping under the waist of the peach silk knickers that were somehow her only item of clothing, easing the flimsy garment away from her body.

All the embarrassment she had thought that she would feel at being exposed in this way was swept away on a molten tide of hunger. This was what she wanted; what she needed. This was…

Her mind splintered in an explosion of erotic delight as that tormenting touch reached the most sensitive spot of her femininity. The tantalising caress had her gasping in uncontrolled response, moving convulsively, stretching to press herself against that arousing fingertip. Wave after wave of heated pleasure throbbed through her, leaving her weak and abandoned, adrift on the aftershocks of a pleasure she had never known existed.

And in that moment Anton covered her body with his own, fitting his heavy, muscled legs between the splayed whiteness of her thighs, pushing them wide. The hot power of his erection sought the warm, slick darkness of her innermost core, and there was no time for hesitation or for fear. No time to suffer second thoughts or worry about her inexperience.

The actual moment of possession was so swift, so sure, thrusting deep into her already yearning body that only the faintest sting of pain, of protest from the stretching of tender tissues, gave any indication that this was the first experience of an unknown sensation. For just a brief heartbeat her eyes flew open wide, staring up into the dark, intent face above her in stunned bewilderment, blurring into a wild kaleidoscope of misty colour. Dazed grey gaze locked with passion-glazed black and the rest of the world went completely out of focus.

But then he began to move, deep and strong within her; each thrust piling sensation upon sensation, fire upon fire, until she thought her mind would surely melt in the inferno of pleasure that assailed her.

Her eyes fell closed again, the better to enjoy the stunning sensations rippling through her body. Her head went back against the pillows, her mouth slightly open to enable her to catch the breaths that seemed to have abandoned her needy lungs, her whole system going into shutdown, into primitive total concentration on the one vital core of her being.

She was being taken up and up again, lifted higher, higher, higher—climbing towards the peak she hadn’t known existed, but had somehow, intuitively, instinctively, been reaching for. And in the instant that at last she reached it she toppled over the edge, no longer inside her body but floating high and free on a wild explosion of starlight, tumbling into complete oblivion, into the blank unconsciousness of total ecstasy.

A heartbeat later, Theo joined her, his harsh cry of fulfilment the last sound before he too lost all consciousness of the world apart from this woman whose body enclosed his so hotly, and the ragged, thudding beat of his own heart.

It was an unconsciousness from which he barely surfaced long into the night. There were times when his senses struggled to the surface of the erotic stupor into which he had fallen, and almost regained the knowledge of reality and where he was.

Almost.

Because each time he came close to waking, each time he stirred and reached out a hand or moved a sensually aching limb, he encountered the soft, warm shape of the woman beside him. And each time he touched her it was like connecting with a live electric current. The wildfire magic flared again, rousing them both from the depths of sleep, making them hungry again, setting their pulses pounding, their breath rasping. Bringing them together in a wild, fierce coupling that once again obliterated thought or any sense beyond the primitive demands of their bodies and the appetites that only each other could appease.

Until in the end a total exhaustion claimed them, dropping him down into a sleep so deep, so all-enclosing, that he didn’t even stir when, just as dawn was breaking, Skye managed to drag herself from the depths of oblivion and forced her reluctant body to slip from the bed.

She couldn’t even look at the sleeping man as she pulled on her clothes with more haste than finesse though she was painfully, agonisingly aware of his dark head, the powerfully carved features still resting on the softness of the pillows. She didn’t want to leave. Tears stung her eyes at the thought of the moment that she would step outside the door of this small room—this small, uninteresting, anonymous room that had come to seem like a tiny piece of heaven to her. She would have to walk out that door, out of the glorious dream she had known for one night, and back into the cold, cruel world of life.

Reality would close around her once again and this very special time would just be a memory.

She didn’t even dare press the kiss she hungered for on his sleeping face for fear that even the lightest touch would wake him. That those deep, dark eyes—the eyes she had lost herself in last night—would fly open and look straight into hers. She could almost see the frown that would crease the space between the black, arched brows, hear his softly accented voice demanding to know where she was going.

She couldn’t face that. It would destroy her even to try.

Another day; another time. The words echoed like a lament inside her head.

If they had met another day, another time, then perhaps they might have had a future. She might have been able to—

No!

Fiercely she caught back her wayward thoughts, knowing they would weaken her resolve, tie her already leaden feet to the ground if she let them into her head.

She had to go—now—as fast as she could. Not even troubling to pull on tights over her bare legs, she forced her feet into her shoes, snatched up her jacket and bag, and fled towards the door.

There was a long desperate moment of panic as the handle squeaked, the hinges creaked, but then she was out and easing the door shut, allowing herself only a moment for a gasping sigh of relief before she fled down the carpeted corridor, heading for the lift.

Had she forgotten anything? Left a betraying clue behind?

A desperate check of her belongings confirmed she had everything with her—a fact that should have reassured her, but it didn’t.

Because the truth was that what she had left behind was a vital part of her soul.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘WE’LL be landing in five minutes, sir.’

‘Thank you.’

Theo acknowledged his pilot’s words with a nod. He hadn’t even needed them, really. His own eyes had told him just how close they were getting to Helikos, the small dot in the ocean that was his father’s private island.

The island that had been home to Theo himself, all the time he had been growing up.

Then, when he had been just a boy, and had returned home from the long weeks away at the exclusive English boarding-school he had detested but which his father had been determined would turn him into a gentleman, he had recognised every tiny landmark on the flight from Athens airport. He had almost hung out of the helicopter cockpit to spot each change in the scene beneath them, the dozens of other, tiny, uninhabited islands that marked the familiar route to his beloved family home.

And when Helikos had finally come into view, at first as just a small dot on the horizon, he had always let out a great cheer to celebrate that, at last, for him, the holidays had begun.

But this time there was no excited thudding of his heart, no resounding cheer on his lips. Instead he viewed the approaching coastline with a dour, cynical expression, watching it come nearer with a complicated mix of emotions in his soul. He was heading back to Helikos after an absence of five long years, but the island was no longer truly home to him. The split with his father had seen to that. And now there was the new wife to consider, too. Theo scowled as the sound of the engine changed subtly, indicating that the pilot was beginning their descent. Another complication he could well do without. Though, from the little information he had had about her, this marriage was clearly not a love match. More like a business deal.

‘I don’t think you’ll find the island much changed.’

It was the pilot again, interrupting his thoughts as his voice came through the earphones both men wore.

‘I doubt if it’s changed in the least.’

Theo kept his eyes on the dark mass of land set in the brilliant sea. He was not in the mood for conversation; in fact he was not in the mood to be here at all. He most definitely was not in the mood for meeting his father’s latest floozy and trying to be polite to her. Cyril Antonakos was not known for choosing the most intelligent of female companions, and unless his father had changed dramatically in the past five years, then tonight’s dinner when he was to meet the brand-new Antonakos bride-to-be was going to be a long endurance test.

All the more so because his mind would be anywhere but here on Helikos.

From the moment that he had woken to find the space in the bed beside him cold, the room empty, he hadn’t been able to get the mysterious Skye out of his thoughts. He had spent the last week hunting for traces of the woman who had shared that one amazing night with him, but, with so little to go on, he had had a frustrating lack of success. He would do better, he knew, to forget the whole thing and put her out of his mind.

But in one brief night she had got completely under his skin and he couldn’t forget about her. Even when he slept, his dreams were filled with hot, erotic images of the night they had spent together. He would dream that he held her close, her slender, smooth-skinned limbs entangled with his, her Titian hair spread across the pillows, over his face, her perfume driving him wild.

And then he’d wake with his heart racing, his breath coming in raw, uneven gasps, his body slicked with sweat as if he had actually been making love to her in reality and not just in his mind. But of course none of it was real—none of it except the burning ache in his groin, the throb of unappeased hunger through every nerve.

If he could, he would have made some excuse and not come here. But the division between him and his father had gone on quite long enough. If Cyril was prepared to offer an olive branch, however half-hearted, then he, Theo, would meet him more than part way.

The house was just as he remembered it. High on a cliff above the sea, the huge white building sprawled over a large plot of land on two levels, each with its own vast veranda giving an amazing view of the ocean. A wide arched gateway to one side led to a stone-flagged patio, the oval swimming pool, and a small pool house that doubled as a guest house.

As Theo approached the door was pulled open and a small, plump, dark-haired figure hurried towards him.

‘Master Theo! Welcome! It’s wonderful to have you back!’

‘Amalthea…’

Theo submitted to the exuberant embrace of the tiny woman who had been his nurse as he grew up, and, because his mother had died when he was small, the closest person to a mother he had ever known.

‘Where am I staying? Have you put me in my old room?’

Amalthea’s dark eyes clouded as she shook her greying head.

‘Your father told me to put you in the pool house.’

So the olive branch was not quite as definite as he had thought, Theo told himself with a twist of sardonic resignation. His father was a hard man to like—a difficult man to love. He took offence easily and held onto grudges for a long, long time. It seemed that being invited here for the old man’s wedding was only the start of things. There wasn’t any sign of the fatted calf being prepared for the return of the prodigal son.

‘Who’s in my room?’

Surely the guests hadn’t started to arrive just yet? The wedding wasn’t taking place until the end of the month.

‘The new Kyria Antonakos.’

‘My father’s fiancée?’

So his father and the bride-to-be didn’t share a room already. That was a surprise.

‘What’s she like?’

Amalthea rolled her eyes in an expression of disapproval that she could only get away with in front of Theo.

‘Not at all his usual sort. But she is very beautiful.’

‘They’re always beautiful,’ Theo commented cynically. ‘That’s why he chooses them. Is my father at home now?’

‘He had to go to the village,’ Amalthea told him. ‘But he’ll be back this evening in time for dinner. His fiancée is at home. Would you want to—’

‘Oh, no,’ Theo put in swiftly, before she could even form the suggestion. ‘Dinner time will be soon enough.’

That way he could get both awkward encounters over and done with in the same time. Perhaps making polite small talk with The Fiancée would be easier than trying to carry on any sort of a conversation with his parent.

‘My bags will have been taken to the pool house. I’ll unpack and settle in—maybe have a swim.’

He stretched slowly, easing muscles cramped tight after the journey from London.

‘It’s good to be home.’

So this was to be home.

Skye turned away from the window with its panoramic view of the sea and sank back down onto the bed with a sigh, digging her teeth into her lower lip in an attempt to force back the tears that were threatening.

She was always on the edge of tears these days. Always only just managing to subdue the panic that gripped her when she contemplated what lay ahead of her. She still couldn’t quite take it all in. Still couldn’t believe that this was to be her future.

But sitting here brooding wasn’t going to change that. She really ought to come out of the bedroom at some point soon, and get to know the rest of the house better. She was going to live here, after all.

That thought only added to her sense of desolate unreality. This house, beautiful as it was, just didn’t seem anything like the home she had left in the damp and green countryside of Suffolk, the small village where she had grown up.

She supposed she would get used to it in time. She had to get used to it; she had no choice.

Skye rubbed the back of her hand across her eyes, brushing away the tears. When she’d phoned home earlier, her father had told her that her mother had been taken into hospital again. Claire Marston needed yet another operation, and soon. And her doctors had said that it was vital she was kept quiet. Any stress at all could be fatal.

It was a terrible, bitter irony, one that brought a taste like the burn of acid into her mouth, to think that she had always dreamed of visiting Greece, of seeing the cluster of the Sporades Islands, perhaps holidaying there. She had dreamed of the sunshine, the sea, the white houses she had seen in photographs. And now she had achieved her dream, but it had turned into a terrible nightmare; one from which even waking wouldn’t mean that she could escape.

Now she had the sun. It had been shining all day. And, there, beyond her window, was the sea, an almost unbelievable bright and sparkling turquoise in colour. She lived in one of the white houses—a huge white house. And she hated it.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.