‘In recent months I’ve often needed to work so late I’ve found it easier to stay over at the office.’

‘Oh.’ Ariadne seized on the potential escape hatch and said eagerly, ‘Well, if you’d rather do that tonight, don’t you worry about me. I can look after myself.’

Sebastian’s brows shot up and his eyes gleamed. ‘But it’s your wedding night, Ariadne.’

She flashed him a brilliant smile. ‘I know—but, heavens, I’m not so hung up on all those old traditions. If you need to go somewhere and do things, go right ahead.’

His brows drew together, and he said silkily, ‘There are some traditions that shouldn’t be ignored.’

Praise for Anna Cleary:

‘Anna Cleary’s TAKEN BY THE MAVERICK MILLIONAIRE is a fast-paced story that begins with dislike at first sight and turns to unexpected passion. Trust and love have to play catch-up in this emotionfilled journey.’

—RT Book Reviews

‘MY TALL DARK GREEK BOSS is a fresh, sassy and sizzling contemporary romance…Anna Cleary is a talented storyteller who combines richly drawn characters, explosive chemistry, red-hot sensuality and dramatic emotional intensity in an irresistible romance that is absolutely impossible to put down!’

—Cataromance

‘Anna Cleary’s AT THE BOSS’S BECK AND CALL is simply outstanding! Liberally spiced with wonderful characterisation, wicked repartee, spicy love scenes, brilliant dialogue and a believable conflict, AT THE BOSS’S BECK AND CALL is a dazzling tale of secrets, new beginnings and passionate romance that will keep you riveted from the first page till the last and hold you in thrall until the final full stop!’

—Cataromance

Look out for more fabulous stories from Anna, coming soon in Mills & Boon® Modern Heat™!

Wedding Night
With A Stranger

by

Anna Cleary

www.millsandboon.co.uk

As a child, Anna Cleary loved reading so much that during the midnight hours she was forced to read with a torch under the bedcovers, to lull the suspicions of her sleep-obsessed parents. From an early age she dreamed of writing her own books. She saw herself in a stone cottage by the sea, wearing a velvet smoking jacket and sipping sherry, like Somerset Maugham.

In real life she became a schoolteacher, and her greatest pleasure was teaching children to write beautiful stories.

A little while ago, she and one of her friends made a pact to each write the first chapter of a romance novel in their holidays. From writing her very first line Anna was hooked, and she gave up teaching to become a full-time writer. She now lives in Queensland, with a deeply sensitive and intelligent cat. She prefers champagne to sherry, and loves music, books, fourlegged people, trees, movies and restaurants.

Recent books by the same author:

AT THE BOSS’S BECK AND CALL

UNTAMED BILLIONAIRE, UNDRESSED VIRGIN

TAKEN BY THE MAVERICK MILLIONAIRE

MY TALL DARK GREEK BOSS

CHAPTER ONE

ARIADNE leaned over the balcony rail and contemplated plunging into the sea. Serve Sebastian Nikosto right if she was found floating face down. He’d have to look elsewhere for a bride. But though summer heat shimmered on the afternoon air, Sydney Harbour looked deep and chill, and she edged back. Knowing her parents had died in those restless waters didn’t make them any more appealing. She could be eaten by sharks!

The view was spectacular, she supposed, even after the heartstopping beauty of Naxos, but it all felt remote to her. Her joy in coming back to Australia had withered. She felt as alien as she ever had in any foreign place. Incredible to think she was born here.

She turned back into her hotel suite and sank onto the bed’s luxurious coverlet, reaching listlessly for the tour brochure that had sucked her in. The Katherine Gorge. Uluru. How thrilled she’d been, how excited. The sad joke was there never had been any such pleasures intended for her. She was here to be chained to the bed of a stranger.

Unless she ran. The minuscule hope reared again in her heart. This Sebastian Nikosto had failed to meet her plane. Maybe he’d changed his mind?

The phone rang and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Thea, ringing to apologise for the trick and tell her to come home? Explain about the mistake with the hotel booking?

It was Reception. ‘Good afternoon, Miss Giorgias, you have a visitor. A Mr Nikosto. Do you wish to meet him in the lobby, or shall I give him your room number?’

‘No.’ Her heart had jolted out of its niche but she gasped, ‘I’ll come down.’

With a shaking hand she replaced the phone. She would just have to tell Nikosto she was Ariadne Giorgias, an Australian citizen, not a commodity to be traded in some deal.

She struggled on with her jacket. Her face was paler than her blonde hair, her eyes the dark blue they looked when she was angry, or afraid.

Her legs felt numb. On the way down in the lift she tried to quell her nerves with some positive thinking. Courage was all that was needed. Australia was a civilised country. Women couldn’t be forced here. In fact, she was curious to see what sort of man would sink so low as to barter for a wife in the twenty-first century. Was he so old he was locked in the traditions of the past? So repulsive as to have no other choice?

Anyway, she was brave. She would refuse. After all, she was the notorious bride who’d left the heir to one of the richest fortunes in Greece standing at the altar. That had taken courage, though her uncle and aunt’s world had judged it differently.

Still, when she stepped out of the lift on the ground floor and saw the obese elderly man in baggy clothes standing near the reception desk, she felt the blood drain from her heart. How could they? How could they? Then, even as the opulent lobby with its long low lounges and glass-walled views of the city swayed sickeningly in her sight, the man hailed some people across the room and walked to join them.

Oh. So not him. That small relief, at least. For the moment.

Her anxious gaze roved the groups of travellers, busy hotel staff, people queuing at the desks, and lighted on another unaccompanied man, this one tall and lean, dressed in a dark suit. He was standing by the entrance with his back to her, phone to his ear, jacket switched back at one side while his free hand rested on his hip. He was pacing backwards and forwards with a lithe, coiled energy, occasionally gesticulating with apparent impatience.

He turned suddenly in her direction, then checked. Her nerves jumped. She could tell he’d caught sight of her because the lines of his tall frame tensed, and even from this distance she could see him frown. He said something into his phone, then snapped it shut and slipped it inside his jacket.

Despite her moment of bravado, her stomach clenched.

He hesitated a moment, then walked across the wide lobby towards her, his frown smoothing away. Too late though, because she’d already seen it. As he drew nearer she saw, with a growing sense of unreality, that he was good-looking. A sleek, beautiful male in the matchless Greek style, though he had that indefinable, characteristic bearing of an Australian man. Athletically built, even in a suit. Why would he ever need to order in a woman?

He wasn’t so old. Thirty-three or -four, nothing more than that. He might just be a nephew, or cousin. Perhaps she was mistaken, and he wasn’t the one.

He halted at a couple of metres distance.

‘You’re Ariadne Giorgias?’

His voice was deep and beautiful, but it was his eyes that held her. They were mesmerising, a dark glinting chocolate fringed by thick black lashes. They swept over her in a cool assessment, made cooler by the stern set of his mouth, but she could guess what they sought. Her breasts, her legs, her child-bearing hips. Would she be a sufficient trophy?

She felt the proud colour rise to her cheeks. Anger and humiliation made her voice scrape in her throat. ‘Yes. I’m Ariadne Giorgias. And you are…?’

Sebastian heard the stiff tone and his expectations received instant confirmation. So, Miss Ariadne Giorgias, child of the Giorgias shipbuilding dynasty and his potential wife, was as spoiled as she was rich. Despite his fury at the trap he found himself in, he felt a curious edge of anticipation as he examined her face for the first time. Whatever transpired, this might be the woman he married.

Her face was nothing like the one he’d once thought the ultimate in feminine beauty, but he could concede it had a symmetry. He could imagine how his sisters would have described it. Heart-shaped, with those cheekbones.

She had creamy skin with an almost satin translucence, and quite astonishing deep blue eyes, glittering now with some sort of emotion. Her full mouth was especially sensuous, somewhere between sweet and sulky. An alluring blend of sultriness and innocence, if he could believe that. A siren’s mouth.

She could have been worse. If a man was blackmailed into marriage, whatever the failings that had brought the woman to this point, she should at least look presentable.

He swept the rest of her with a judgemental gaze.

Her hair was a pale ash, paler than it had been in the photo the magnate had posted, though her dusky eyebrows and lashes gave away its true colour. He supposed she was beautiful, if a man happened to admire that particular style of beauty.

She was slightly smaller than he’d expected, though in her designer jeans and jacket her body appeared slim and, he had to admit, graceful, with pretty breasts, a waist so slender a man could span it with his hands, and sweetly flaring hips.

As far as he knew anything about women’s apparel she was dressed well, nothing flamboyant. Limited jewellery, though what she had was no doubt the finest money could buy.

He realised his pulse was pumping a little faster than the average. All right, so she was attractive with those eyes. She could afford to be. She seemed pale, perhaps she was nervous, but he cut any softer emotions that might have evoked.

She should be nervous. She’d be even more nervous when she understood the sort of man she’d had the gall to attempt to add to her acquisitions.

As the full picture sank in he found his eyes needing to return to her face.

His lungs tightened. Yes, certainly, it could have been worse.

‘Sebastian Nikosto,’ he said finally, making a belated move to extend his hand.

Ariadne kept hers at her side. Never to touch him, she resolved fiercely. Not if she could help it.

His brows twitched, and she knew he’d taken note of her small rebuff. But he stayed as smooth as glass. ‘Your uncle arranged that I should meet you and show you around Sydney.’

‘Oh,’ she said softly. ‘So it was you who was to meet me at the airport?’

His eyes glinted, then were almost immediately screened by his thick black lashes. ‘I apologise for not managing to be there. Tuesdays are always demanding for my office and I’m afraid I got caught up. Still…’ He smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. ‘I guessed you would be quite experienced in these matters.’ Somehow his voice was the more cutting for being so gentle. He spread his hands. ‘And here you are. Safe and sound, after all.’

What ‘matters’? With a pang she wondered what he’d heard about her. Would news of the wedding debacle have reached this distant shore? ‘Experienced’ was no innocuous word. Or did he assume she must be easy? Traded like a piece of livestock on a regular basis?

‘No harm done,’ he added.

Offhand, to say the least.

She thought of the morning she’d spent waiting for someone—any friendly face—at the airport, her agony of fear and indecision after the long trip and being tricked onto the plane. Praying that somehow, against all the odds, she’d misunderstood, and there would be a representative of the Nikosto family waiting with open arms to invite her into their warm family home. Worrying if she should take herself to the hotel, or run like the wind to some safe haven. Only what safe haven, when she was a stranger here?

The only vague knowledge she had of Australia, apart from her memories of her parents’ home, remote flashes of that first little primary school, was the beach house her parents had taken her to for a visit with some distant relative of her mother’s. She had no idea where it even was.

As an apology this didn’t even rate. Had he been so reluctant to interrupt designing his satellites, or whatever he did? These days, did men expect their mail-order brides to deliver themselves to the door?

‘I’m sorry you are dragged away from your work now,’ she said, equally gentle. ‘Perhaps you would prefer to postpone this meeting.’

One thick black brow elevated. ‘Not at all, Miss Giorgias. I am charmed to meet you now.’

The words were smooth, but uttered in a silky tone that conveyed a wall of ice inside that elegant dark navy suit and pale blue shirt, colours that perfectly enhanced the bronzed tones in his skin and his blue-black hair.

Then, paradoxically, as if her coldness had somehow stirred the male in him, his dark eyes made an involuntary flicker to her mouth, hooked there an instant too long.

She angled a little away, her blood pulsing, indignation struggling with her body’s involuntary response to the disturbance in the atmosphere surrounding his big masculine body. Testosterone, no doubt. It was only natural he’d be thinking about her in terms of sex.

She pulled the edges of her jacket a little closer. ‘I’m not sure what my uncle told you, Mr Nikosto, but I came out here for a holiday. Nothing more than that.’

He considered her with an unreadable expression, then blasted any pretensions of innocence she might try to place on the situation.

‘I’d have thought Pericles Giorgias would have been in a position to buy his niece a bridegroom from any of the grand houses in Europe, Ms Giorgias.’ His eyes swept over her again in a smouldering acknowledgement of her desirability. ‘I’m surprised to have been so—honoured. And flattered, of course.’

The words blistered her sensibilities. She saw his eyes flare with a dark, dangerous emotion that wasn’t anything like feeling flattered, or honoured, and shock jolted through her. The man was angry. Was she such a disappointment? She didn’t want him to want her, but the insult sank deep, just the same.

But she mustn’t let him see her as some toothless lioness. He’d better learn she could defend herself.

‘I’m surprised you could be bought, a man like you,’ she mocked, though her voice trembled.

His eyes flashed. ‘You’d better be sure you know what you’ve bargained for, Ms Giorgias. Tell me, once you have me shackled to your side, what do you hope to do with me then?’

She met his smouldering dark gaze, and tried to repress visions of lying naked beside him on some wide bed. Of being held in his arms, pressed against his lean, hard body, his dark eyes…But, she wouldn’t…And he couldn’t want to…She’d never…

She quickly thrust the images away. What could her uncle have promised on her behalf? With a helpless sense of shame, she scrambled to find some gloss to minimise the outrage Thio Peri had committed against her autonomy.

‘My uncle arranged this holiday simply so we could meet. That was all. Just so we could—meet. To see if we…To see if there would be any…’ She felt the hot tide of embarrassment rise through her chest and neck and all the way to her ears, and, furious at her weakness, added hoarsely, ‘There is no requirement for—for anything further. I’m a free woman. This is the modern world.’

His chiselled, sexy mouth made a faint disbelieving curl, then he said very politely, ‘Oh, right. Sure it is. But try to understand this, Miss Giorgias, I’m a serious guy. I’m not some racing-car celebrity or a prince with time on his hands between yacht races. I have a company to run. Some people choose to work, in case you haven’t heard. I won’t be able to devote myself to your entertainment twenty-four seven.’

He was so cold and unfriendly, all her hurt and tension, the fear and helplessness of the plane trip, the shock of the betrayal, wound her up to an emotional explosion. The fiery blood rushed to her head and she snapped, ‘I’d rather you didn’t devote yourself to me at all, Mr Nikosto.’

She felt the shock impact of her words, then all at once had a burning consciousness of his gaze on her clasped, trembling hands, and tried to shift them from view. Her loss of control had generated something, though, because she sensed a change in the air.

Sebastian stared, for the first time seeing the shadows under her fierce blue eyes, the rapid, vulnerable pulse in her tender throat. With a sudden lurch in his chest he had a flash of himself as a brute holding some delicate, threatened creature at bay.

A creature with sensitivities, nerves and anxieties. With soft silky breasts under her stiff little jacket. He couldn’t control the overpowering thought. A creature—a woman who might soon be his to undress.

If he signed that contract.

Her sulky mouth made a tremor, and against his will, against all the odds, his blood stirred. Hell, but she had a kissable mouth. An intensely kissable mouth.

Poised on an emotional tightrope, her defensive instincts up in arms, Ariadne sensed the tension emanating from him rock into a different sort of beat.

He drew in closer, bringing her the faintest trace of some pleasant masculine cologne, and her sexual receptors suddenly roared into awareness of his big, vibrant body. Behind that blue shirt there was a beating heart, flesh, blood and raw, muscled power.

‘Sebastian,’ he stated. ‘Look, er, Ariadne…It’s all right if I call you Ariadne?’

She gave a jerky shrug.

‘Whatever you choose to call your presence here, I’ve agreed to play my part in it. Unless you’d rather pass on the whole thing?’ His expression was suddenly grim, his eyes hard and challenging.

It was an ultimatum. Her heart skipped an alarmed beat. What if he phoned her uncle and told him she was being uncooperative? After the plane trick, she wouldn’t put it past Thio to refuse to help sort out the accommodation mix-up. It occurred to her then that the bungled hotel booking mightn’t even be a mistake.

With limited money, and no way of paying for thirty nights at Sydney prices, she might very well be forced to beg for this man’s generosity.

With a sinking heart she realised this could be exactly what they’d planned. Her uncle’s words came back to her with a chilling significance.

‘The Nikostos are good people,’ Peri Giorgios had asserted before she’d woken up to his ploy. ‘They’ll look after you. I’m guessing they’ll have you out of that hotel and into the Nikosto family villa in no time.’

The Nikosto family villa. Except it wasn’t the Nikosto family. It was one member of it. One angry, ice-cold member.

Until she could talk to her uncle and aunt again, get a clearer idea of where she stood money-wise, perhaps her best option was to pretend to play along.

She met Sebastian Nikosto’s dark eyes and crushed down her pride. ‘No. No, look.’ The words were as ashes on her tongue. ‘I’m—really very grateful for your kindness.’ Her voice cracked on the last one.

His heavy black lashes lowered. The faintest flush tinged his cheek as he said brusquely, ‘All right, then. So—dinner this evening? I’ll pick you up here at seven.’ His eyes flickered to her mouth. ‘Might as well—make a start.

CHAPTER TWO

ARIADNE walked fast, up and down the hotel suite’s sitting room until she’d nearly worn a furrow in the carpet. Then she strode furiously around straightening the pictures, shifting lamps to more pleasing positions, realigning the chairs.

Her uncle’s scheme had placed her in an impossible situation with that icy, smouldering man. What had he been offered to marry her? No wonder he had such a low opinion of her, but why, oh, why had he agreed if it enraged him so much?

Maybe, if she could have despised him more, she wouldn’t feel so ashamed. Ashamed of her uncle. Ashamed of herself and the mess she’d fallen into by thinking she was in love with that smooth-talking liar, Demetri Spiros.

Imagine if Sebastian Nikosto heard about the wedding scandal. Her uncle’s words on the subject had rung in her ears all the way to Sydney. ‘There isn’t a man in Greece who would touch you now with a very long pole.’

Surely her uncle must know that if she did ever marry someone, even someone ‘bought’—she flushed again in memory of Sebastian’s stinging words—the man would have to be told about the scandal.

Other things Sebastian had said returned to her now with scathing significance. Some people choose to work, in case you haven’t heard. As if he’d assumed she had no professional qualifications of her own. Did she look as if she’d spent her life as a useless ornament?

She kept rephrasing the things she’d said to him and turning them into what she should have said. Next time she saw him…Tonight, if she could bear to face him tonight, she’d set him straight about what sort of woman she was. And if he thought for a second, for an instant, that she would ever be available to him…

When the storm had calmed a little, she sat on the bed and forced herself to reason. In Athens it would be morning. Her uncle would be on his way to his office, her aunt engaged in either her beauty routine or instructing the housekeeper. Thea Leni was always affectionate and easy to deal with, though her compliance in the subterfuge to trick Ariadne onto the plane had been a painful shock. The hurt felt more savage every time she thought of it. Her loving aunt must have believed in her husband’s solution to the ‘Ariadne problem’, at least a bit.

She put her head in her hands, still unable to believe all that had happened. Had they intended it as a punishment? She’d believed in their kindness absolutely, ever since, after the accident, they’d brought her as a seven-year-old to her uncle’s house on Naxos. Though quite a lot older than her parents, they’d done all they could to replace them. In their old-fashioned way they’d loved her, protected her, even to the point of making her feel quite suffocated by the time she reached eighteen.

Why hadn’t she woken up sooner to this holiday idea? When had Thio Peri ever wanted her to leave Greece without them in the past? Everything she’d done, every step she’d taken from the time she was seven, had been done under his care and protection, as if she were the most precious individual on the planet.

Even when they’d sent her to boarding school in England, either Thea Leni or Thio Pericles himself had come personally at every half-day and holiday to collect her. Long after she’d returned to Athens to attend university, she’d been told that one of the gardeners employed at the school had in reality been her own personal security guard. Thio Peri had never stopped worrying that she might be kidnapped and held to ransom.

How ironic. Once she’d been their jewel, but since she’d let them down and caused the scandal she must have lost her lustre. In their traditional way of thinking they still believed a large part of family honour depended on the marriages their sons and daughters made, the grandchildren they could boast of.

It wasn’t too hard to understand. They’d never stopped grieving over their own childless state. They’d pinned all their hopes on her, their ‘adopted’ daughter, to provide the nearest thing to grandchildren they could ever achieve.

‘You’ll like the Nikostos,’ Thio Peri had enthused on another occasion, determined to lure her into the trap. ‘They’re good people. They’ll look after you. My father and old Sebastian talked in the taverna every night for fifty years. They were the best of good friends. You will be taken care of there every step of the way.’

Thea Leni had hugged her so tightly. She should have seen then that it all felt like goodbye. ‘It will do you so much good, toula. It’s time you visited your own country.’

‘I thought Greece was my country now,’ Ariadne had put in, grateful they were at last moving on after the months of recriminations. And, face it, a little nervous to be venturing so far on her own at long last.

‘And so it is. But it’s important to see the land of your birth. Admit it. You’ve lost your job, you’ve lost your flat, people are whispering about you…You need the break.’

They needed the break. She could see that now. From her. From the embarrassment she’d brought them.

It wasn’t until she was on the plane buckling her seat belt that she’d woken up.

‘Sebastian will meet you at the airport and show you around Sydney,’ her aunt had said at the very last.

Her uncle’s hearty laugh had followed her down the embarkation corridor. ‘Don’t come back without a ring on your finger and a man in your suitcase.’

She should certainly have known then. Sebastian’s name had hardly been mentioned until that moment. Still, it wasn’t until the hostess was preparing to embark on the safety rigmarole that a shattering possibility had dawned. In a sudden panic, Ariadne had whipped out her mobile and dialled.

‘Thio. Oh, oh, Thio.’ Her voice shaking with a fearful certainty. ‘This isn’t some sort of matchmaking thing, is it? I mean, you haven’t set something up with this Sebastian Nikosto, have you?’

Guilt always made her uncle bluster. ‘You should be grateful your aunt and I have taken matters into our hands for you, Ariadne.’

‘What? How do you mean?’

His voice crackled down the phone. ‘Sebastian Nikosto is a good person. A fine man.’

‘What? No, no, Thio, no. You must be joking. You can’t do this. This isn’t my choice…’

‘Choice.’ His voice rose in her ear. ‘You’ve had choices, and look what you did with them. Look at yourself. You’re nearly twenty-four years old. There isn’t a man in Greece—Europe—who will touch you. Now try to be a good girl and do the right thing. Be nice to Sebastian.’

‘But I don’t know him. And he’s old. You said he was old. This is a holiday. You promised—you said—’

Her tearful protests were interrupted.

‘Miss, miss.’ The flight attendant was hovering over her, something about turning off her mobile phone.

‘I can’t,’ she told the man. She, who had always hated a fuss and had turned herself inside out at times to avoid making trouble. ‘Sorry,’ she tried to explain to the anxious little guy. ‘I have to…’ She made a hurried gesture and turned back to the phone, her voice spiralling into a screech. ‘Thio Peri, this isn’t right. You can’t do this. This is against the law.’ Her uncle hung up on her and she tried furiously to redial.

‘Miss, please…’ The attendant held out his hand for the phone, insistence in his tone. Her neighbours were staring with avid interest. All heads were turned her way.

‘But this is an emergency,’ she said. Glancing around, she realised the plane was already taxiing. She panicked. ‘Oh, no, no. I have to get off.’

She dropped the phone, unbuckled her seat belt and tried to rise. Someone across the aisle dived for her phone.

The urgent voices. ‘Miss, sit down. Miss. Sit, please. You are endangering the passengers.’

People around her stared as she half stood, clinging to the seat in front of her, craning their necks to see the distressed woman. Then the plane accelerated for lift-off, and she plumped down involuntarily. She felt the wheels leave the ground, the air under the wings, and was flooded with despair. They would have to turn back. The pilot would have to be told.

When the white rooftops of Athens were falling away below two more attendants had arrived, concerned and more authoritative. ‘Is anything wrong, Miss Giorgias? Are you ill?’

‘It’s my—my uncle. He…’ Already they were out over the sea and heading up through clouds. ‘We have to go back. There’s been a mistake. Can you please tell the pilot?’

She took in their bemused expressions, the quick exchange of glances, and lurid images of the headlines flashed through her head. Ariadne Giorgias provokes airbus incident. Ariadne of Naxos in more trouble.

More scandal, more shame. More mockery of her name, using the coincidence of the ancient myth. She cringed from the thought of any further notoriety.

In the end she fastened her seat belt and apologised.

But she couldn’t just acquiesce. She might be stranded in a hotel room, in a strange city on the other side of the world with no one to turn to except a man who despised her, but she mustn’t give into panic. She had to keep her wits about her and find a solution.

First, though, she needed to be practical. She had expected many of her meals and all of her accommodation to have been paid in advance for the coming weeks, and her bank account was virtually empty except for the holiday money. Money for a little shopping, taxis, tips, day trips here and there. Holiday money. What a cruel laugh that was.

She took a deep, bracing breath and dialled Thea Leni’s private line at the Athens town house. This time she mustn’t lose control, as she had with the call from the plane.

‘Eleni Giorgias?’

Her aunt’s voice brought Ariadne a rush of emotion, but she controlled it. Thea sounded wary. Expecting the call, Ariadne guessed.

‘Thea. It’s me.’

‘Oh, toula, don’t…Don’t…Your uncle has arranged everything and it will be good. You will see. Are you…all right?’

Ariadne’s heart panged at the note of concern but she made herself ignore it. This wasn’t the time for tears. ‘There’s been a mistake in the hotel booking,’ she said in a low, rapid voice. ‘I find that I’m only booked for one night, and it hasn’t been paid for. The travel agent must have made an error. And when I met the tour director in the lobby my name wasn’t on his list. I thought Thio had paid in advance. And he was supposed to have paid the hotel for four weeks.’

There was a shocked silence. Then her aunt said, ‘Not paid for? But—but how…?’ Then her voice brightened. ‘Oh, I know what he’s thinking. Consider, toula, you won’t need to be in that hotel for long.’

The ruthlessness of the trick stabbed at Ariadne. Whatever had happened to chastity before marriage? ‘Oh, Thea, what are you asking me to do?’ This time there was no controlling her wail of anguish. ‘Are you expecting me to go straight into that man’s bed?’

Guilt, or perhaps shame, made her aunt’s voice shrill. ‘I’m not asking you to do anything except to give Sebastian a chance. He is a good man. He will marry you. He is rich, he has brains…Your uncle says he is a genius at what he does with the satellites. ’

‘He doesn’t want to, Aunt. He doesn’t want to marry me.’ She wound up to a higher pitch. ‘I’m not even cut out to be a wife.’

A gasp came down the line loud and clear, all the way from Athens. ‘Never say that, Ariadne.’ Her aunt was shocked to the foundations. ‘Where is your gratitude?’ she wailed. ‘You had a bridegroom who was willing and you stood him up at the altar rails and dishonoured the entire Giorgias and Spiros families. Your uncle’s oldest friends.’

Emotion welled up in Ariadne’s throat. She understood. After they’d taken so much care to keep her pure for her husband, in the eyes of their traditional world she’d been deflowered, dishonoured, and still had no husband to show for it. And what else was a woman for, in her aunt’s old-fashioned view, except to be a wife and mother?

‘I told you, Thea. He was unfaithful. You know it. He had a lover.’

Even from a hemisphere away she could hear her aunt’s world-weary sigh. ‘Oh, grow up, Ariadne. If you want to bear children you have to compromise, and put up with—things. Anyway, there is no use in all this arguing. Your uncle won’t change his mind.’

‘He has made a mistake, Aunt. This man won’t take an unwilling wife. If you met him you’d know. He’s not…He’s an Australian. He will walk away. Could you please…please, Thea, transfer enough money into my account for the hotel bill?’

She could hear tears in her aunt’s voice. ‘Toula, if it were up to me…of course I would. Listen, when you’re married all your money will be settled on you. Your uncle loves you. He thinks this is right. He only wants the best for you.’

‘He always thinks he knows best, and this isn’t best,’ she said fiercely. ‘And I won’t do it. Tell him there’s no way anyone will force Sebastian Nikosto to go through with marrying an unwilling woman.’

Her aunt was silent for a second. Then she said in a dry voice, ‘Oh, yes, he will. He certainly will go through with it. As I understand it, there’s nothing he wants more.’

‘What are you saying?’ Ariadne said, seized by an icy foreboding. ‘Why do you think that?’

‘Oh…’ Her aunt’s voice sounded weary, more distant somehow. ‘You know I don’t know about business, Ariadne. Your uncle says Sebastian knows he has everything to gain from this marriage, and everything to lose if he doesn’t choose it. His company will fail if he doesn’t marry you. Celestrial. Isn’t that what it’s called?’

Sebastian rang the bell of his parents’ house, then strode straight in. He should have been back in his office, combing through the departments for more ways to cut costs to avoid cutting people, but events had wrenched his unwilling attention in another direction.

Before he took another false step, he needed to do some research. There had to be some explanation of why he of all the eligible Greeks on the planet had been chosen as bridegroom to the niece of Peri Giorgias.

When Giorgias had thrown in that extra clause at the time the contract was all but finalised, the completed designs on the table, at first it had seemed nothing more than a bizarre joke. The cunning old fox had chosen his moment well. With Celestrial suddenly adrift in the recession, the market dwindling, the sly operator must have known if he pulled out then, Celestrial would make a significant loss in terms of the precious resources already used to develop the bid.

In the gut-wrenching moment when Sebastian had understood that the eccentric old magnate’s demand was deadly serious, he was faced with a grim choice. Accept the woman and save his company, guarantee the livelihoods of his workforce, or walk away and face the possible ruin of all he’d built.

But why him? Why not some rich lothario back in Hellas?

Angelika, his mother, and Danae, his married sister, were ensconced in the kitchen, arguing with the cook over the best method of preparing some delicacy. Angelika interrupted her tirade with hugs, and a multitude of solicitous enquiries concerning his diet and sleep patterns. Danae listened to all of it with an amused expression and an occasional solemn nod.

Sebastian shot his sister a glance. She might have been amused, but he was willing to bet she was soaking up the technique so she’d know how to suffocate her own sons when the time came for them to escape from her control.

‘Look at how thin you are,’ his mother wailed like a Greek mother. ‘What you need is a really good dinner. Maria, set him a place. I have a moussaka in the fridge I was saving for tomorrow’s lunch, but this is the bigger emergency. Danae, put it in a box and he can take it home with him. Show that woman how to feed a man.’

He held up his hand. ‘No, thanks, Maria.’ A really good dinner was his mother’s inevitable cure for any disorder from flu to insomnia. ‘I’m not staying.’ He waved away the proffered dish. ‘Put it back. I do have a full-time housekeeper, you know. And Agnes is very touchy about her cooking.’

His mother snorted her contempt. ‘Cooking? What cooking? The trouble with you, my son, you are too wrapped up in your satellites to see what’s in front of your nose.’

His nephews caught sight of him then and came running with a thousand urgent things they needed to tell him at once.

Sebastian listened as patiently as time would allow to all the recent details of their exuberant young lives, while Danae looked on, beaming with maternal pride.

Eventually, he detached himself with a laugh. ‘That’s enough,’ he said, ruffling the two four-year-old heads. He waited for a brief respite in the voluble trio of voices, then jumped in with a query of his own. ‘Is Yiayia here?’

His mother tilted her head in the direction of the hall. ‘In the orangery.’

Sebastian approached quietly, in case his grandmother was having a late afternoon nap. He needn’t have been concerned.

Dressed in her gardening smock, her hair coiled loosely into a bun, the small, frail woman was up and active, struggling to lift a terracotta pot onto a bench.

‘None of that,’ Sebastian said, striding forward and removing it from her worn hands. ‘You know what the doctor said, Yiayia.’

‘Oh, pouf. Doctors,’ his grandmother exclaimed while Sebastian positioned the pot in the miniature rainforest that was her pride and joy, adorning every available space. ‘What do they know?’

She peeled off her gloves and reached up, tilting her soft, lined cheek for his kiss.

Sebastian obliged, declining to argue, knowing she worshipped the members of the medical profession as though their words were piped direct from heaven.

‘Well, glikia-mou. Now, what are you about?’ She settled herself into a high-backed wicker chair draped with shawls, while Sebastian sat facing her.

Filtered by leaves both inside and out, the afternoon sun slanted through the glass walls, bathing the room in a greenish light.

Sebastian made himself relax, aware he was being examined by an almost supernaturally astute observer of human frailty. ‘Do you remember the Giorgias family?’

Her elderly brows lifted. ‘From Naxos?’ He nodded, and she said, ‘Of course. From when I was a child. There was always a Giorgias in our house. My father and their father were friends.’

‘Do you remember Pericles Giorgias?’

‘Ah.’ She gave a sage nod. ‘Of course I remember him. He was the one who inherited the shipyard, and the boats. He married Eleni Kyriades. He was such a generous man. It was he who helped your father when the stores nearly collapsed back in the eighties.’

Sebastian tensed. ‘How do you mean, he helped Papa? Are you sure?’

‘For sure I’m sure. When the banks wouldn’t help Pericles made your father a loan. To be repaid without interest over a very long time. No strings attached.’ She shook her head in wonderment. ‘Such a rare thing, generosity.’

Dismay speared through Sebastian. Such generosity was rare indeed. But there’d been strings attached, all right. Strings of honour. With grim comprehension he recognised the situation. The Nikostos were now under an obligation to the Giorgiases. For some reason Peri Giorgias required a favour, and he’d chosen to collect from the son of his debtor.

A son for a father. A favour for a favour.

He could almost hear the clang as the trap snapped shut around him. Chained to a stranger in wedlock.

In an attempt to break free from the vice sinking its teeth into his gut, he got up and paced the room. Another marriage was the last thing he’d ever intended. How could he dishonour Esther’s memory with some spoiled tycoon’s poppet?

‘There were other brothers too. Three. At least three.’ Yiayia’s gentle voice filtered through his reflections. ‘I remember the youngest, but the middle boys…’ The old lady sat back in her chair and closed her eyes. After a moment she said, ‘I remember young Andreas. He didn’t care for the family business. I think he was an artist. He came out here, and married an Australian girl. Oh, that was a terrible tragedy. Poor Andreas and his wife.’

In spite of his resistance to knowing anything about the Giorgias woman’s history, Sebastian’s attention was arrested, and he turned to watch his grandmother’s face. ‘What happened?’

‘A boat accident. Night-time on the harbour. You may not remember. Your parents, your grandfather and me, we all went to the funeral, but you’d have still been a boy. Only imagine a Greek being killed in a boating accident! They said it was a collision. Silly young people out skylarking. Andreas and his wife didn’t stand a chance.’

He frowned, unwilling to feel sympathy. Unwilling to feel. ‘They left children?’

His grandmother’s face lit up. ‘That’s right, there was a child. A girl, I think. I’m nearly sure the poor little thing was taken back to Greece with one of the brothers.’

Sebastian grimaced and resumed his chair. After a smouldering moment he made the curt acknowledgement, ‘Pericles.’

‘Ah.’

A pregnant silence fell.

Sebastian wondered if by admitting he knew that one fact, he’d given away something crucial. Sooner or later, if he went through with this charade, they would all have to know. What would they think of their brilliant son then, snagged like a greenhorn in a duty marriage? Forced up the aisle with a woman he hated?

A flash of the Giorgias woman’s drawn, anxious face at the last stirred a sudden unaccountable turmoil in his chest and he had to rescind the thought. No, he didn’t hate her, exactly. He just felt—angry. What man wouldn’t? To have his bride, his life, decided by someone else.

In the first flush of his outrage Sebastian had blamed—he allowed himself to use her name—Ariadne. He’d imagined her as a spoiled little despot, winding her doting uncle around her little finger. How had she come to choose him? Had he been listed in some cheap catalogue of eligible males?

Now, after hearing Yiayia’s words he began to see it was almost certainly instigated by Pericles himself.

His grandmother studied his face, her shrewd black eyes revealing nothing of her thoughts. After a long moment, she said, ‘You have met her? Andreas’s daughter?’

Sebastian hesitated, then shrugged and said without expression, ‘I have had that pleasure.’

The wise old eyes scanned his a moment longer, then closed, as if in meditation. ‘I don’t think Pericles and Eleni were blessed.’

Sebastian knew what she meant. Other people might be blessed with brains, beauty, talent, health or wealth, but to Yiayia children were the most worthwhile of life’s gifts, so blessings referred only to them.

‘They ’d have wanted to take on the little one,’ she continued. ‘I expect they’d have been overjoyed. Eleni had nothing much else to fill her heart. That Pericles liked the business. He was the right one to take over the shipping because he had an eye for money. Clever, but not always very smart. Andreas, now…A thoughtful boy, I think. Sensitive.’ She shook her head and clasped her lined hands in her lap. ‘Oh, that was a terrible shame. The young shouldn’t have to die.’

Was she thinking of Esther now? ‘No,’ he said shortly. ‘They shouldn’t.’

Again, her wrinkled lids drifted shut. She remained silent for so long Sebastian thought she must have nodded off to sleep. He was about to get up and cover her with one of her shawls when her eyes opened, as clear and focused as ever.

‘Is she beautiful?’

Sebastian’s gut tightened. Resistance hardened in him to the notion of Ariadne Giorgias’s beauty. He opened his mouth to growl something, but nothing would come. Anyway, the less said the better. Regardless of how he felt, whatever he said now could come back to haunt him.

‘Do women have to be beautiful, Yiayia?’ he hedged. ‘Wasn’t there an entire generation of women who rebelled against that notion?’

The old lady made an amused grimace. ‘They usually are, though, aren’t they, glikia-mou? To the men who love them. A man needs something lovely to rest his eyes on.’

Again, he guessed she was thinking of Esther. And it was true he’d loved her as much as it was possible for a man to love a woman. People in his family rarely made reference to her now, not wanting to remind him of the bad times, all the losing battles with hope after each bout of surgery, the radiation treatment, the nightmare of chemo.

Even after three years they were still exquisitely careful of his feelings, even Yiayia, tiptoeing around him on the subject, as if his marriage were a sacred area too painful for human footsteps.

Sometimes he wished they could forget about all that and remember his wife as the person she’d been. He still liked to think of those easy-going, happy days, before he and Esther were married, before he’d started Celestrial.

A stab of the old remorse speared through him. If only he’d spared her more of his time. In those early days of the company…

With an effort he thrust aside the useless self-recrimination, thoughts that still had the power to gut him. Too late for regrets, now he’d lost her.

No one would ever replace her in his heart, but often he was conscious of a hollowness that his work, exciting and challenging as it was, didn’t fill. He hardly spent any time at home now, even sleeping on the settee in his office at times. He could imagine his parents’ amazement if he ended up marrying this Greek woman, after they’d long since given up hope and become inured to the prospect of his ongoing singularity.

The reality was, he might as well admit it, one way or another a man still needed a woman. Somehow, against his will, against all that he held decent, meeting Ariadne Giorgias in the flesh had roused that sleeping dragon in him.

Though she wasn’t his choice, she was no less lovely than any of the women he knew. If he’d met her at some other point in time, he might even have felt attracted. But…

Resistance clenched inside him like a fist. He wasn’t the man to be coerced.

He became aware of Yiayia’s thoughtful scrutiny. What was it she’d asked? Beautiful. Was she?

‘She probably is,’ he conceded drily. ‘To anyone who cares for her type.’

‘What type is that?’ Yiayia enquired.

Defensive, scared, fragile. Pretty. Sexy.

CHAPTER THREE

MIDWAY through winding her hair into a coil, Ariadne’s hand stilled. What had Sebastian Nikosto meant by ‘a start’? And how much of a start? Surely he wouldn’t expect to kiss her. Or worse.

She remembered his cool, masculine mouth, the seductive blue-black shadow on his handsome jaw, and felt a rush in her blood. Panic, that was what it must have been, combined with a fiery inner disturbance to do with how little she’d eaten since she’d boarded the plane.

The man had revealed himself as a barracuda. Her feminine instincts told her he might want to try something, but she’d just have to hold him off. That shouldn’t be so hard, given how much he’d disliked her at first sight.

She’d managed to hold Demetri at bay for months, even though they’d been engaged and she’d believed herself in love. She made a wry grimace at herself. What a fool she’d been.

Afterwards, Thea had hinted that that might have been where she’d gone wrong with her ex-fiancé, but Ariadne knew better. It was because he’d had the mistress that Demetri hadn’t been concerned about making love to her.

And everyone knew that like or dislike didn’t necessarily have much to do with a man’s sexual desires. Take Demetri’s case. He’d made love to people he didn’t even know. And she’d been such a contemptible pushover, believing his lies every time, doubting the evidence her close friends had tried to give her. Making excuses for his lack of interest in her, because she’d wanted to believe it was all fine and everything was as it appeared. Until she’d gone for lunch at that Athens restaurant and seen him there with his girlfriend.

It had still taken her days to accept the reality, but she’d never be so naive again.

It would hardly make sense if Sebastian Nikosto wanted to kiss her, after the things he’d said, but nothing about this whole situation made sense. The more she puzzled over it, the more her confusion increased.

She felt as if she were locked in a nightmare. If only she could fall asleep she might wake up and find herself back in her bedroom in Naxos. Had Sebastian’s anger been with her, or with the deal he’d struck with her uncle? He’d made it sound as if the whole thing had been her idea.

Some aspects were so ironic, she’d have laughed if she hadn’t been in such distress.

Thio had probably thought she would suit an Australian Greek because of her Australian mother. Meanwhile, Sebastian Nikosto had taken one glance at her from across a room and had felt cheated. She’d never forget that frown, how it had speared through her like a red-hot needle.

Was it because she wasn’t attractive enough? Had her uncle explained to him that the woman he was throwing in to sweeten his pillow had blue eyes, not the dark shining beautiful eyes most Greek women took for granted as their heritage?

She stabbed a pin into her chignon. Whatever happened, she would die before she kissed a man who’d been paid to take her. No wonder he judged her with contempt. She must seem like the leftovers on the bargain rack in the Easter sales, thrown in as an added incentive. She was almost looking forward to meeting the man again and showing him his mistake. She truly was.

Despite all her bravado, the coward inside her was tempted not to keep the dinner engagement. What if she were to lie low in her room with a headache instead? In the morning, simply check out of the hotel and disappear from Nikosto’s life without a trace?

She would have to check out, anyway. She wasn’t sure what the price would be, but with the grand piano and all in the suite she guessed she wouldn’t be able to afford many nights here.

After the devastating conversation with Thea, desperation had inspired her with a survival plan. If she sold what little jewellery she’d brought and added the proceeds to her holiday money, provided she found somewhere cheaper to stay, she should have enough to get by on until she could find some sort of job. There must be art galleries in Australia. Under the terms of her father’s will, unless she married first she couldn’t inherit her money until she was twenty-five. All she had to do was to stay alive another fourteen months.

More and more throughout the afternoon her thoughts had returned to that beach house on the coast. She wondered if her mother’s auntie still lived there. Would she remember the little girl who’d come to stay nearly twenty years ago? Would she even be alive?

It was tempting to just cut all communication with Sebastian Nikosto and his accomplices in the crime right now. That was what the man deserved. What they all deserved, she thought fiercely. She should just vanish into thin air. Trouble was, if she did that he might raise some sort of alarm. She shuddered to think of how it would be if she were pursued by the Australian police. She could imagine the sneering headlines back in Greece.

Ariadne of Naxos goes missing in Australia. Has Ariadne been eaten by crocodiles?

Ariadne, lost in the outback.

And one that made her wince. The runaway bride runs again.

No, disappearing without saying goodbye could not be an option. And there was no one else who could fix her dilemma for her. She was on her own, in a strange country, and for the first time in her life there was no one else to rely on except herself and her own ingenuity.

She needed to go downstairs in that lift, face Sebastian Nikosto squarely, and tell him eye to eye that she would never marry him, under any circumstances, and that she never wanted to see him again.

A surge of nervous excitement flooded her veins. What if he was furious? She almost hoped he was. It would do her heart good to see him lose his cool control and spit with rage.

She highlighted her cheekbones with liberal application of blush, at the same time boosting her mental courage with some strong, healthy anger. Whatever he said to her this time, however cold and hostile he was, whatever bitter insults he fired at her in that silky voice, there was no way her pride could ever let him think she was afraid of him.

Let the barracuda do his worst. Make-up would be her shield.

She painted a generous swathe of eyeshadow across her lids. Even without it her eyes had appeared dark and stormy after the adrenaline-wired past thirty-six hours. Now they looked enormous, and with more adrenaline pumping into her bloodstream every second there was no disguising their feverish glitter. She smoothed some kohl underneath with her fingertip. Somehow the blue of her irises deepened.

The effect was atmospheric, almost gothic, and intensely satisfying. She felt as if she were in disguise. What to wear was more of a worry.

She hardly wanted to inflame the man’s desires. A burkha would have been her choice if she’d had one to hand, but pride wouldn’t allow her to appear like a woman in a state of panic, anyway. In the end she chose a black, heavily embroidered lace dress that glittered with the occasional sequin when she moved. Since the dress had only thin straps she added a feathery bolero to cover her shoulders. The lining ended a few inches short of the hem, revealing a see-through glimpse of thigh in certain lights, but with the feathers added she looked modest enough.

At last, dressed and ready for battle, her breathing nearly as fast as her galloping pulse rate, she surveyed her reflection.

Red lipstick, the only touch of colour. Black dress, feathers, purse. The sheerest of dusk-coloured silk stockings, and black, very high heels to lend her some much-needed height.

All black.

Well, he wanted his Greek woman, didn’t he?

Sebastian shaved with care, keeping an eye on the clock. Not that he felt any guilt over failing to meet the plane from Athens. Not exactly.

He was a busy guy. If he didn’t keep an eye on Celestrial, who knew how much of a tangle things could get into? He could hardly place himself at the beck and call of every heiress with a whim to make him her husband.

Still, manners dictated that tonight he should make the effort to be punctual. It didn’t have to be a late evening. He could buy her a decent dinner, smooth over the jagged hostilities of the first meeting, and be away by nine to get in some work.

He hoped Miss Giorgias was in a better frame of mind. She’d have been jet-lagged, of course, which would explain her waspish behaviour.

He splashed his face with water and reached for a towel, avoiding meeting his gaze in the mirror. He hadn’t really been so hard on her, had he? There was a lot more he could have said. Anyway, hadn’t she thanked him at the end for being kind?

He felt that uncomfortable twinge again and brushed it aside. For God’s sake, did he have to be a nursemaid simply because he’d agreed—under duress—to meet the woman and check out the possibilities?

He dried off his chest, dropped the towel into the hamper, then slapped on a little of the aftershave his sisters had given him. Lemon, sage and sandalwood, the label read. Guaranteed.

He made a rueful grimace. Guaranteed to soothe a princess?

As rarely happened to a man with his gaze fixed firmly on the stars, his eye fell on a green, moss-like growth around the base of the tap. How long had that been there? It was robust enough to have established quite a hold. Agnes must have missed it. More than once, by the look.

He supposed he could attend to it himself without threatening his gonads. He cast about for something to wipe it away with, and used the only thing readily available: one of yesterday’s socks. The sock made no appreciable difference, so he gave up.

With grander things to attend to, how could a guy be expected to attend to the demeaning sludge of housework?

He frowned into his wardrobe, then surrendered to necessity and chose an evening suit. Was the shirt clean? He checked that it had a recent laundry ticket attached. Lucky he’d remembered at some stage to remind Agnes to empty the washing hamper. It was only to be expected she’d forget things when he was hardly ever here.

Scrubbed, dressed and polished, he gave his overall appearance a cursory check. Looked at from a certain point of view, he supposed, the Giorgias woman had flown across the globe to nail him. Meet him, in her words. Might as well grit his teeth and make an effort to show her a little respect.

He was, after all, he supposed, an eligible guy. A single guy. Widower. He flinched inwardly as the loathsome word surfaced from the deep to strike him down with all its connotations of dust and ashes, funerals and long black days and nights that rang with emptiness.

He wiped those horrors from his mind and walked downstairs, a single man free and unencumbered.

At the hotel he tossed the car keys to the parking valet, then strolled into the lobby, conscious, despite everything, of a certain buzz of anticipation in his veins.

It was the hush of the evening, the city poised to leap into its nightlife, with neon lighting its every billboard and high-rise. Wherever he looked people were hurrying off to their evening engagements: guys with their girlfriends, couples holding hands. For once he felt like a man with somewhere to go other than the office.

Ms Ariadne Giorgias would’ve had an hour or two to rest, so hopefully she might be less prickly. He wondered what she’d be wearing. Something slinky? Some little designer number from one of the couture houses, exhibiting more skin than fabric?

The lobby was busy, but there was no sign of her. After his lapse this morning he would hardly be surprised if she kept him waiting as a punishment.

He strolled over to Reception and asked one of the clerks to phone up to her room.

The clerk had scarcely lifted the phone before Sebastian saw her. She was emerging from the lift along with some other people, but he singled her out at once. Unaccountably his lungs seized. Even after one brief meeting, he recognised the characteristic way she held herself. She walked with her head high, as though to ensnare every available ray of light in her hair, her slender, shapely body graceful and erect. He must certainly have been too long without a woman, because he found his gaze riveted to the sway of her feminine hips, and felt stirred at some deeply visceral level.

Whatever else she was, she was all woman.

The rushing sensation in his blood heightened.

She caught sight of him and her steps made an involuntary halt, then picked up again, and she advanced to meet him, her expression now cool and wary. That tiny, undeniable falter, though, resounded through him and struck his guilty heart like a blow.

A man didn’t have to be an aeronautical design genius to see that underneath the fantastic black dress, slim shapely legs and silky gleaming hair, Ms Ariadne Giorgias was scared. He suffered a jolting moment of self-insight.

Was this what he had become? A cold, angry man who frightened women?

Conscious of her nervous pulse, Ariadne steeled herself to the challenge, then plunged onwards. Sebastian Nikosto looked more handsome, if possible, in an evening suit with a charcoal shirt and a bronze-hued silk tie that found golden glimmers in the depths of his dark eyes. She conceded reluctantly that his colours were again excellent, though the tie was slightly skewed as if he hadn’t given it a final check.

Perhaps it was her imagination, but did his expression seem friendlier? Less—hostile?

His dark gaze swept her, and again she felt that roaring sensation, almost like excitement. There was a look in his eyes that made her too aware of her curves and the shortness of the dress. A million wild thoughts assailed her at the same time. Why, oh, why hadn’t she worn trousers?

While her fingers nearly succumbed to a mad itch to tweak that tie into place, her pulse was thudding in her ears so loudly she hardly took in what he said.

‘…Ariadne.’ The way he said her name made it sound as if it had been wrapped in dark chocolate. One of those liqueurs they gave you with coffee at the Litse in Athens.

‘Cheri Suisse.’ Her voice sounded overly husky. Oh, Theos, had she actually said that? Surely not. Where was the poise she so desperately needed?

It was another of those awkward moments when he would expect to clasp her hand, but this time he went one better. Before she could forestall it, he leaned forward and brushed her cheek with his lips.

It was so unexpected her heart nearly arrested. She felt the slight graze of his shadowed jaw on her skin, and the heady masculine scents, the powerful nearness of him swayed her senses.

Flustered, her cheek burning as if she’d been brushed with a flame, she had one coherent thought swirling over and over in her brain. Here was a man whose interest in her was purely financial. This wild fluttering inside, these uncontrollable sensations, needed to be crushed into extinction. At once.

‘I’m thinking we won’t go too far afield tonight, since you’re probably jet-lagged,’ he said, as smoothly as if he hadn’t been insulting her only a few short hours previously. ‘I know a little place not far from here. Do you like Italian?’

She drew a deep breath.

‘Listen, Sebastian…’ She raised her hands before her like a barricade. ‘I don’t want to marry you.’ He blinked, and before he could reply she added, a tremor in her voice, ‘So—so you might not wish to waste any more of your time. Thanks anyway for—for coming.’

‘What?’ He looked stunned.

‘Yep, that’s right.’ Wound up and swept by a massive charge of adrenaline, she gave him a cool smile. ‘As the song says, I’m holding out for the prince.’

Without waiting to watch him crumble into a heap of masculine rubble, she turned on her heel and swept towards the lifts, rather pleased with her exit line. Unfortunately for her grand moment, before she’d gone more than a couple of steps the persistent man recovered himself and caught up.

‘Well, er—hang on there a second.’ He moved around to block her path. He was shaking his head, amusement seeming now to have replaced his astonishment.

She had to wonder if he’d understood. Or was he so in need of the money, he felt driven to try some other way to talk her round?

‘That’s fine, Ariadne,’ he said. ‘That’s just fine. But whether we marry each other or not, we still have to eat dinner, don’t we?’

His lean handsome face broke into a smile that was far more dangerous than his earlier sternness and hostility. Charming little lines appeared like rays of warmth at the corners of his eyes and mouth, and crept insidiously through her defences to assault her too soft heart. Here she was, all geared to be brave, to foil his cold, cutting words with icy hauteur, and now he’d changed tack.

It was confusing. And unfair. She was so desperately in need of a friend, if she wasn’t careful, before she knew it she’d be forgiving him. Complying. The very word evoked a shudder.

Thank goodness Demetri’s legacy had died hard. She reminded herself that a man’s smiles came easily, and this one could hardly wipe away the distress she’d gone through since she’d boarded that plane. She needed to be strong, and, after so much humiliation, true to herself.

‘I’m not very hungry,’ she asserted coolly. ‘I’ll be happy enough just to order room service. Anyway, it was—interesting, meeting you.’

‘Oh.’ Perhaps he’d picked up on the edge in her voice, because he dropped his gaze and his smile faded. When he glanced up again she saw remorse in his eyes. ‘I deserve that. I know I wasn’t very welcoming earlier. You’d had a long flight and I…’ His deep voice was suddenly contrite. ‘I’m pretty ashamed of how I spoke to you this afternoon. I’d like to apologise properly, and explain, if you’ll give me the chance.’

His eyes had softened beneath his luxuriant black lashes to a rich, warm velvet. She had the ghost of an impression of what it might be like to be someone he admired. Someone he felt affectionate towards. He looked so sincere, her instincts, always weakly anxious to think the best of people, rushed to believe him.

She felt herself begin to melt, then just in time remembered all those occasions with Demetri and steeled her heart against him. Men could be such smooth liars. Especially if there was a financial incentive.

‘Apology noted,’ she said softly. ‘Goodbye, Mr Nikosto. Some other time, perhaps.’

Like some other life. Some other universe.

‘Oh, look, Ariadne…Are you sure I can’t tempt you to a little taste of Sydney nightlife? You look amazing in that dress. It’s a shame to waste it.’ His dark eyes flickered over her, a sensual glow in their depths. ‘We don’t have to go far. As it happens, this hotel is said to have one of Sydney’s finest seafood restaurants.’ With a lean hand he indicated the other side of the lobby. ‘Won’t you let me at least buy you a glass of wine? Break the ice?’

An olive branch was so tempting. She’d never been the vengeful type. His mouth relaxed in a smile, its warmth reflected in his eyes. With his sexy, deep-timbred voice seeping into her tissues like an intoxicant, the man was a powerhouse of persuasion.

She lowered her lashes to avoid his mesmerising gaze, her pulse drumming. Shouldn’t she have one drink with him? Even with the off-balance tie, he looked so darkly handsome in his evening suit. The beautiful cloth was so well cut, it enhanced his wide-shouldered, lean-hipped six-three to perfection. It was hard to imagine he was anything but what he appeared. Civilised, straight, honourable, decent…

Unfortunately, Thea’s information about his company’s need for a cash injection was still lodged in her oesophagus like a spike. The hurt pride and shame surrounding the notion of herself as a prize in a transaction welled inside her again.

‘No, thanks,’ she said hoarsely. ‘I think I’d prefer to go to bed early and read up on Australia.’

Sebastian felt a spurt of good-humoured frustration. How far did a man have to grovel to lighten the mood of this difficult and, the more he saw of her, really quite desirable woman?

He drank her in, admiring her black dress. Wasn’t it the classic dinner garb women wore? That feathery affair she’d added couldn’t conceal the shape of her breasts, the pretty valley dividing them. It was hardly a dress to be lounging in.

Unless of course it was lounging on a man’s bed, prior to being unzipped.

He had a sudden hot flash of smooth, satin breasts spilling into his hands, meltingly tender raspberries aching to be tasted, but he banished it. Still, the thought of them stayed there just below his awareness, like a wicked temptation, dreamed of but forbidden.

He cursed himself for having alienated her and making his situation more complicated than it needed to be. The irony wasn’t lost on him. He was the one who was reluctant to be married. Who’d have thought he’d have to end up fighting to win his unwanted bride for even the smallest dinner engagement?

In every corner of his being, instincts of determination and masculine self-respect gathered in momentum and roused his red blood cells to the challenge. He was reminded of one of his more complex satellite projects. The harder it had been to resolve, the more fired up he’d been to conquer it.

Added to that, he had a vested interest here. If he didn’t marry her, where did that leave his contract with Peri Giorgias? Now faced with the real danger of her slipping from his grasp, with a galvanising immediacy he suddenly realised how crucial it was for him to keep her. He could hardly expect to persuade her against her will, but his entire being grew charged with an urgency to win. This little tussle, at least.

‘Read up on Australia?’ he echoed, appealing to her with the rueful charm he’d known never to fail with women. ‘You’d prefer that to sharing an excellent dinner with a guy whose only desire is to make amends?’

Her glittering blue gaze met his without wavering. ‘Depends on the guy.’

Touché. The thrust was as unexpected as a punch in the gut.

‘Oh,’ he said, his insides reeling. ‘Right.’

Ariadne sensed the impact of her words and knew they’d hit home. She tensed, waiting for some blistering response. To give the barracuda his due, he controlled whatever it might have been.

He merely nodded. ‘Fine,’ he said with a shrug. ‘It’s your call.’ His eyes gleamed and his mouth hardened to a straight, determined line, but he raised his hand in a cool farewell gesture, ‘Enjoy your holiday, then, Miss Giorgias,’ and walked away.

As Ariadne watched his rigid, retreating back the sudden relief from tension made her knees feel wobbly. She let out the breath she hadn’t even realised she’d been holding. Spying a nearby ladies’ room, she made for it, and pushed her way into the blessed sanctuary for a moment of private self-congratulation.

Her first triumph of the day. She leaned up against the wash-basin console until her breathing calmed. In the mirror her eyes had a dark glitter, as though she’d been in a fight. In a way she had, she recognised, and she’d come off victorious.

He’d looked so shocked, as if he’d been savaged by a sheep. Serve him right for conniving with her uncle to snare her like a helpless little lamb. A fleeting image of the sincerity in his eyes when he apologised flashed into her mind, but she dismissed that.

Let him be sorry. Let him suffer.

For once she hadn’t succumbed to a man’s wiles. She’d carried out her plan, and felt better for it. Empowered. With relish, she watched herself in the mirror make a symbolic gesture of dusting off her hands.

Let Sebastian Nikosto know how it felt to be scorned.

Empowerment must have been good for the soul, because it no longer seemed necessary for her to spend the evening cowering in her room. In fact, her appetite came roaring back and she felt ravenous enough to eat a lion.

She swept from the washroom and sashayed in search of the restaurant. Guided by the chink of china and the unmistakable hum of a large number of people tucking in, she found the entrance without much trouble. She could hear the smoky voice of a singer performing some bluesy old love song, and delicious cooking smells wafted to her. Garlic, herbs and exotic spices mingled with the savoury aromas of char-grilling meats to taunt her empty stomach. All at once she felt nearly faint with hunger.

She approached the entrance, feeling glaringly conscious of not having an escort. At the host’s desk she paused. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, lowering her voice to avoid attracting too much attention. ‘A table for one, please.’

The portly head waiter raised close-set brown eyes to regard her, and arched his supercilious brows. ‘Name?’

‘Ariadne Giorgias.’

A subtle and strangely smug expression came over the man’s face. ‘Do you have a reservation, Miss Giorgias?’

‘Well, no.’ She smiled, and almost whispered, ‘I’m a guest in the hotel. I didn’t think a reservation would be required.’

‘I think you will find, madam,’ he said in crushing tones, making no effort to lower his voice to spare her embarrassment, ‘that in the finer hotels with restaurants of renown, a reservation is required.’

She flushed. ‘Oh. Sorry, I didn’t realise. The finer hotels I’ve stayed in before haven’t expected a reservation in their dining rooms.’

The man’s sceptical gaze clashed with hers. ‘And which hotels might they be, madam?’

‘Well…’ She thought back. ‘There was the Ritz in Paris. And the one in London. And the Dorchester. I’m sure The Waldorf in New York was very welcoming…’ Although, her uncle and aunt had been with her on those occasions. She supposed there wouldn’t be many head waiters who would refuse Peri Giorgias a table. ‘Oh, and there was the Gritti in Venice. Though I’m not so sure about that one now. Maybe we did have a reservation there.’

The man drew in a long breath and seemed to swell, while at the same time his lips thinned.

‘Madam,’ he stated, with austere emphasis, ‘this is the Park Hyatt in Sydney. Our rules may differ from those of the less moderne northern hemisphere establishments, but they are crucial if our guests wish to experience the continuing superbness of our cuisine.’ He gave her a moment to digest the information, then lowered his gaze and darted his plump fingers across the screen of his little computer, frowning and pursing his lips. ‘As it happens, madam is fortunate in that we do have one remaining table.’ He picked up a menu, tucked it under his capacious arm, and, pivoting on his heel, made a grand gesture. ‘If madam would follow me.’

He raised his hand, and another waiter materialised from somewhere, bearing a water carafe and a basket of freshly baked bread. Thankful for her stroke of luck in not being turned away, Ariadne followed the procession across the crowded room. Through the glass walls she received an impression of the harbour lights, vessels on the dark water, the hard glitter of the city rising up behind Circular Quay. The pale shells of the Opera House floated in luminous majesty, seemingly a stone’s throw from the terrace.

As she threaded her way among the tables, she couldn’t help noticing the small, delicious-looking morsels on the diners’ overlarge plates, and wondered anxiously if she should order double of everything.

She rounded a pillar after her guides and stopped short. Tucked into a corner between pillars and the step down to the terrace, was a small, round, vacant table, gorgeous with crystal, roses and pink and white linen. Right next to it, in fact, practically jammed against it, was another table, similarly adorned. Only this one wasn’t vacant.

To her intense shock, lounging back in its single chair, his long legs stretched casually before him, Sebastian Nikosto sat perusing a leather-bound menu.

The host pulled out her chair and waited. Sebastian glanced casually up at her from beneath his black brows. His eyes lit with a curious gleam, then he resumed brooding over his menu.

Momentarily thrown, but loath to betray it or start a distressing scene, she hesitated, then submitted herself to be seated. With chagrin she noticed that her chair was positioned to face Sebastian’s.

The head waiter deposited her napkin on her lap and presented her with her menu, while the other waiter fluttered to fill her water glass, offer her hot rolls.

She barely knew what she said to them. Questions clamoured in her head as Sebastian’s dark satanic presence dominated the space. Had the man somehow guessed she’d be coming here after all and arranged this with the restaurant staff?

But how could he have known? Did he have some sort of diabolical clairvoyance?

The head waiter retreated, along with his small entourage. Almost at once a wine waiter advanced, who hovered, exerting polite pressure for her to make a choice. Conscious that this was something she’d never had to do herself before, she opened the wine menu and skimmed page after page of unfamiliar Australian and New Zealand names, hypersensitive to the unnerving presence of her neighbour.

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