after the way she had treated him, but it was a start. And it all increased his sense of power.
As Kate passed the mug to him he deliberately let his hand touch hers, acknowledging the frisson between them with a quirk of dark brows before Kate jerked her hand away.
Yes, he was enjoying this.
‘So, are these now the sole premises of the Kandy Kate empire?’ He briefly glanced around him, his tone light and casual, but no less cutting for that.
‘They are.’
Kate moved back behind the desk, reluctantly sitting down and folding her arms across her chest. She wore a black ribbed jumper with a scoop neck, the sleeves pushed up, and Nikos could see she had lost weight. But the clingy material still accentuated her shape nicely. She looked sober, chic...sexy.
‘This office is perfectly adequate.’
‘I’m sure it is.’ Nikos gave a small nod of agreement. ‘With the state of the Kandy Kate empire at the moment I imagine you could run it from a phone booth. After all, how much room do you need to go bankrupt?’
‘Kandy Kate is not going bankrupt!’ Kate was on her feet in a second, green eyes flashing.
‘No?’ Nikos tempered her fire with infuriating calm. ‘Well, that’s not what I’ve heard.’
‘Well, you’ve heard wrong.’
She tossed her head, turning away from him, her face in profile. Nikos stared at the straight line of her nose, the fine sweep of her jaw. Why had he never noticed her jawline before? He’d thought he was all too familiar with every inch of Kate’s body.
During the weeks they had spent together he had made it his mission to explore every delicious inch of her with his fingers, his lips, his tongue. Making love to Kate had been the most erotic experience of his life—a shared wonder that neither of them had been able to get enough of, as if they had both been taken over by an insatiable craving.
On reflection, he hadn’t made love to her, he had made love with her. A symphony of sexual pleasures that had ruined him for any other woman.
And he cursed her for it.
He had cursed her when he’d arrived back in Crete after being all but banished from her home. When the very thought of her name had been enough to solidify his blood. He had cursed her during the intervening years when, no matter how attractive a woman might be, how charming and how available, they’d all seemed about as sexy as a block of wood to Nikos after the intense earthly pleasures he had shared with Kate O’Connor. Even drinking himself into oblivion hadn’t helped—just made his self-disgust second only to the disgust he’d felt for his ex-fiancée.
And he still cursed her now.
Nikos hadn’t realised just how much until he’d gazed at her haughty profile and realised that time, far from diminishing his desire for Kate, had merely held it in cold storage, frozen, ready to be thawed by one fiery glance from those dark green eyes.
He took a mouthful of coffee, slamming the brakes on thoughts which were taking him in very unwanted directions—directions that had nothing to do with his carefully calculated plans. He needed to focus on what he was here to do.
‘So, Kandy Kate’s not in trouble then?’ The venom in his voice was held just under the surface. ‘The reports that your sales have plummeted, your suppliers are threatening legal action, your staff are not getting paid...’ he leant forward, idly picking up a sheaf of papers, scanning a few lines before letting them drop ‘...all totally untrue?’
‘Yes.’ Kate pointedly straightened the papers, then held them to her chest. ‘Well, wildly exaggerated anyway.’ She refused to meet his eye.
‘Is that right?’ Nikos continued. ‘So the fact that your share prices plummeted means nothing either? Your shareholders are perfectly happy to have received no dividends in the past twelve months and to have seen their investments dwindle to a pittance?’
‘As a matter of fact...’ she jutted out her chin ‘...share prices have increased considerably recently. Confidence in the brand is growing.’
‘Really?’ Nikos queried amiably. ‘Or is it that someone is about to make a hostile takeover?’
Kate bit down on her lip, the nip against her soft pink pout stirring Nikos somewhere deep and low.
‘Well, either way it’s none of your concern. In fact I would like you to leave. Immediately.’
She moved the few steps to the door to usher him out but Nikos was too quick for her, barring her way with his broad shoulders and towering height.
‘Well, that’s just where you’re wrong. It is my concern. Or at least it very soon will be.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ Kate stopped stock-still.
‘I’m sure you can work it out for yourself, Kate.’ Nikos smiled at her. ‘You’re a bright girl.’
‘You...?’ Her hand flew to tug at her earlobe. ‘You mean it’s you who has been buying up the shares?’
He rested his arm against the doorjamb. He wasn’t going to reply. He would make her squirm while his silence spoke for him.
‘But why? Why would you do such a thing?’
‘Because I think Kandy Kate is an interesting proposition.’ He casually slid his hand down the doorframe and into the pocket of his trousers. ‘Handled correctly, I’m confident it will prove to be a good investment.’
‘“A good investment”?’ Kate challenged. ‘I don’t believe you. Why would you think that?’
Nikos gave a short laugh. ‘No wonder your business is in such dire straits if you have so little faith in it.’
‘I have plenty of faith in Kandy Kate, thank you very much. It’s you I have no faith in.’
‘Ah, yes, of course.’ His eyes gleamed darkly. ‘I almost forgot.’
‘Well, I haven’t.’
He could see that Kate was slowly clawing her way to safer ground. He would let her rest there for a while before bringing her straight back down.
‘And there was me thinking you’d be grateful to find an investor. Even one such as myself.’
‘You are not an investor,’ Kate flew at him. ‘You have gone behind my back and purchased Kandy Kate shares at a rock-bottom price with the intention of taking over the company. You said it yourself—this is a hostile takeover.’
‘It doesn’t have to be hostile.’ Lowering his voice, Nikos fixed her with a glittering stare, reaching forward to take hold of her chin when she tried to turn her face away. ‘In fact, if we put our minds to it, I suspect we could make it very friendly indeed.’
‘In your dreams, Nikos.’ Kate jerked her head away from his light grip. ‘If you think I could ever be friendly with you again, in any capacity, then you are very much mistaken.’
Nikos watched as she tucked herself behind the safety of her desk, giving her a moment before he spoke again. ‘Well, we’ll see about that, won’t we?’ He sat back down opposite her. ‘And, since you’ve brought up the matter of dreams, then, yes, I admit it—you have featured in mine quite largely.’ He flexed his fingers to inspect his manicured nails. ‘All those long, lonely nights in an empty bed, with nothing but memories to keep me company...what’s a man to do...?’ He looked up, spearing Kate with his gaze, registering the deep flush that had stained her cheeks, tinging the rim of her neat ears. ‘Maybe it has been the same for you?’
‘Get out!’ On her feet again, Kate pointed to the door, her extended arm visibly shaking.
‘No.’ Nikos matched her stance, his voice a harsh command,