is he?’ she had asked straight off, after giving the kind of description that had probably sounded like something that leapt off the page of one of the torrid romances that she had then been so fond of.
‘Nik Andreakis...’ Max had surveyed her glowing face with cool, narrowed eyes.
‘He’s been here absolutely ages,’ she had burbled. ‘Don’t you think we should ask him to stay to dinner?’
‘He appears to have been quite a hit.’
‘Is he married?’
And Nik had duly been invited—her fault, entirely her fault. Her father had come down to make his apologies and then left them alone and Nik had spent all the time before dinner asking her about herself. He had had no need to wonder whether she was over the age of consent. She had told him exactly what age she was...and he had visibly winced...
The following day he had taken her out for a drive but Max had been very dubious about it and she’d suspected that Nik had been made embarrassingly aware of the fact that her father was extremely protective of her.
‘I think your father may have you dusted for fingerprints when you go home, so I won’t kiss you,’ he had said drily. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here with you. You’re far too young for me.’
And she had been hurt, terribly hurt in the week that followed, when he’d neither phoned nor visited. Max had been coolly amused by her misery and had wryly told her not to wear her heart on her sleeve.
‘Andreakis can have just about any woman he wants,’ he had volunteered. ‘But I don’t want him around you unless he’s got marriage in mind.’
‘And did you tell him that?’ she had gasped in horror.
‘You may not value yourself but I do,’ her father had retorted crushingly. ‘I sent you to the finest schools to ensure that you could take your place in any company. I want you to marry well, Leah. A sordid little fling with Andreakis is not on your agenda. And you can be assured that he won’t offer anything more unless it’s profitable.’
Nik had shown up unexpectedly the second week, moody and almost aggressive in his attitude towards her. He had stayed to dinner again. Max had been in an unusually good mood but quiet, very quiet, watching them both, adding little to the conversation.
Two days after that her father had called her into his library and calmly informed her that he owned a considerable number of shares in a shipping line called Petrakis International, shares which Nik was extremely keen to acquire.
‘So I offered them to him gratis as a wedding present,’ Max had smoothly concluded.
Leah had been appalled and deeply upset. Yes, she had been crazy about Nik but that her father should have coolly approached him and offered him a bribe to marry her had made her feel sick with humiliation.
‘Nik’s Greek. He understands these kinds of arrangements,’ Max had assured her witheringly. ‘And I suggest that you understand that a man as tough as Nik Andreakis wouldn’t even consider marriage unless it was financially advantageous. Those shares could be your dowry. The choice is yours. Do you want him or don’t you?’
She had run out of the room, choked with the sobs of her distress. The next morning Max had informed her quite unemotionally of his heart condition. He had said that he didn’t know how long he had left and he was very worried about what would happen to her if he died in the near future. Leah had been shattered by the news.
He had praised Nik to the skies. Nik might be something of a rough diamond by virtue of his hard upbringing but he would treat her with respect and honour as his wife. Such marriage arrangements were common in Greece. If she married Nik she would be safe, secure for the...for the rest of her life. As that phrase returned to haunt her, Leah searched her ashen reflection in the bedroom mirror.
‘But he doesn’t love me!’ she had protested.
Max had looked at her with icy contempt. ‘He wants you...’
‘Not as much as he wants those blasted shares,’ she had whispered strickenly.
‘It’s up to you what you make of the marriage. I’m giving you the chance to marry the man you love...’
Leah came fully back to the present and clasped her cold hands together. I’m giving you Nik Andreakis on a silver platter, Max might as well have said. She shuddered with distaste, despising her own naïveté. Nik had been delivered to her handcuffed and chained by blackmail and even Max hadn’t pretended that love had anything to do with it. Where had her intelligence been?
A knock sounded on the door. It was a servant announcing dinner. Leah was shaken. Could it really be that time already? Paul phoned her at eight every evening. He knew she never went out at night. Would Petros have told him that she was in Paris? She lifted the phone by the bed and dialled the number of his apartment. The call was answered almost immediately.
‘Where the hell are you?’ Paul demanded sharply. ‘Petros told me that Mr and Mrs Andreakis were “unavailable”. What the heck is that supposed to mean?’
‘We had to fly to Paris—’
‘We?’ he interrupted, an octave higher.
‘Look, there was a problem with Max’s estate and I had to be with him,’ Leah framed tautly. ‘I’ll be home tomorrow, darling. I love you.’
‘What sort of a problem?’ Paul sounded very edgy.
‘Nothing important,’ she said breathlessly. No way did she intend to unload the sordid revelations Nik had forced her to endure on Paul. At least not on the phone...and not yet, she adjusted, reminding herself that a strong relationship needed to be based on honesty and trust.
‘Good...so is he taking you out to see the joys of Paris?’ Paul mocked.
‘Nik...take me out? You’ve got to be kidding.’ She forced a laugh, relieved that he wasn’t angry any more. ‘I miss you so much. I haven’t stopped thinking about you for a second.’
‘Tomorrow can’t come soon enough,’ he swore.
‘I can’t wait...but I can’t use Charlie’s again,’ she abruptly recalled, her nervous tension rocketing as she wondered frantically how she was going to ditch Boyce, short of swinging out of her bedroom window on a rope like Tarzan’s Jane.
Charlie had had a point, she acknowledged unhappily. She wasn’t cut out for this game of sneaking around. She so badly wanted everything to be above board. No matter how much her intelligence told her that she was not a married woman except on paper—which she told herself on a very regular basis—her conscience reminded her that she had taken her vows in a church and had meant them at the time she made them.
‘Why not ask him for the divorce? Use the opportunity,’ Paul suggested meaningfully. ‘Stop being such a coward. The guy is totally indifferent to you. Why should he care?’
A tiny sound sent Leah’s head flying up. A surge of bone-chilling horror paralysed her to the spot—but not before she dropped the phone with a clatter.
She had forgotten to close the door again. Nik stood there, as incredibly still and silent as a centuries-old statue. Literally traumatised by the sight, Leah stared back at him with very wide sapphire-blue eyes as if he had just dropped down through the ceiling without warning.
Nik...she tried to say lightly, but when she opened her dry mouth no sound emerged at all.
‘Dinner...’ he murmured smoothly, and smiled. ‘But finish your call first.’
Reaching down, she fumbled for the phone. ‘Bye,’ she said, and cut the connection.
CHAPTER THREE
HER HEART hammering wildly behind her breastbone, Leah watched Nik swing on his heel and depart and then all her muscles gave and she was ready