Lynne Graham - The Greek’s Chosen Wife

‘Oh…’ Prudence was initially silenced by that admission, for his sincerity was indisputable. As she looked up at him, her blue eyes shone over-bright. ‘You did? So did I,’ she confided gruffly.

‘Whenever you’re strong enough and you feel that the time is right, I want to try again, thespinis mou .’

She swallowed hard, happiness slanting through her like a burst of sunlight on a dull, overcast day. And what better day to celebrate the possibility of new life? she asked herself feverishly. ‘Grandfather would have been really pleased-’

‘I’m sure you’ll understand that I mean no disrespect when I say that Theo’s tyrannical wants and wishes were and are a matter of supreme indifference to me.’

‘Yes, you’re entitled to feel that way.’

‘How do you turn me on so hard and fast?’ Nik gritted, hauling her close with impatient hands and lowering his proud dark head to possess her luscious pink mouth with a driving sexual passion that made her knees go weak.

‘There’s just one thing I should mention,’ Prudence broke free to mumble through reddened lips.

‘Can’t it wait?’ His breath fanning her cheek, he let his teeth graze her full lower lip. When he dipped his tongue into the moist interior of her mouth in a powerfully erotic invitation she gripped both his arms to keep herself upright.

‘I think you’ll want to hear that you don’t have to worry about Demakis International destroying your company any more,’ she whispered with a sunny smile. ‘Am I right?’

‘I hate to disappoint you, pethi mou ,’ Nik husked, ‘but I’d pretty much worked that out for myself. The same day that Theo passed away the dirty-tricks campaign ground to a sudden halt. Such a battle made no economic sense.’

Feeling a little cut off but grateful for the news all the same, because she still could not get her head around the reality that she now owned Demakis International, Prudence muttered, ‘That’s great. I’m relieved.’

Nik scooped her up into his arms and carried her down the corridor into an imposing masculine bedroom furnished in contemporary style.

‘You know, I got quite a surprise when the will was read,’ she began. ‘Cassia had mentioned these German cousins-’

‘Everybody’s heard of them. Rich as Croesus, and as old as the hills.’ Nik stole a long, lingering, passionate kiss and slowly lowered her down on the bed. ‘Theo would have been wiser leaving his ill-gotten gains to some charitable endeavour.’

Prudence sat up on her knees. ‘Or…to me?’ she suggested uncertainly.

Nik laughed with rich appreciation. ‘You were never in the running. I don’t think I’d like a wife rich enough to buy and sell me ten times over.’

‘Are you absolutely sure of that?’

Nik stared down at her, lush black lashes of extraordinary length merely accentuating the depth and clarity of his clear gaze. ‘Why are we having this conversation? Were you disappointed at being left out of his will?’

‘No…because I wasn’t…left out, I mean.’

Nik frowned. ‘What did Theo leave you? Some family memento? I’m surprised he left you anything.’

‘He left me everything.’

Nik froze. ‘ Theos mou …you cannot be serious.’

‘Everything: the houses, the cars, the jewellery, the businesses, the jets, the yacht.’

Nik studied her in unconcealed shock and then he spread his powerful arms in a movement of acceptance, dark colour lying in a line along his superb cheekbones. ‘If you say it is so it must be so, but I can hardly credit it-’

‘Wait until you see the recording he made.’ Her announcement made, Prudence scrambled off the bed and pelted back to the lounge to remove the disc from her handbag.

Having followed her, Nik extended a hand and took it from her. ‘Theo filmed himself-’

Sudden misgivings assailed Prudence as she recalled some of the inflammatory things that her grandfather had said. ‘I don’t think you should watch it-’

‘Why not?’ Nik enquired almost lazily.

The tension in the air made her heartbeat speed up. She was appalled at how thoughtless she had been in bringing the recording to his notice. ‘You never got on with him-’

‘Neither did you…or the rest of the human race for that matter. What did he say about me?’

Prudence was rigid. ‘Why should you assume that he said anything?’

‘If Theo took the trouble to make a film, it was to gloat about how clever he was.’

‘Look, it’s mine and I would like it back…’ Awkwardly she stuck out her hand.

‘No…I insist on watching it.’ Nik shot her a wrathful glance of challenge.

And he did.

Prudence hovered in an agony of horror and shame. From the first cringe-making words, when Theo gloried in having made her an heiress who held her husband in the palm of her hand, she saw Nik turn white below his vibrant bronzed skin tone and she felt sick.

‘Nik…don’t let him get to you-’

Nik slashed a silencing hand through the air. She could feel the rage vibrating through him while her grandfather delineated his every move.

‘He’s right…I was a prize fool,’ Nik growled.

‘No, he’s wrong…you’re a very different man from him and I wouldn’t want you any other way. Please don’t watch any more of this.’

But he paid her no heed. His classic profile set granite-hard, he watched the film from start to finish and then replayed it to ensure that her interruptions had not caused him to miss a single poisonous word. Finally he swung back to her, his golden eyes glittering as dangerously as the heart of a furnace, aggressive energy written in every line of his lean, beautifully balanced body. ‘If you keep the money, I walk…’

Prudence just stared at him, certain she had misheard, misunderstood, mis-something, anything that could convince her that he was not serious. ‘You don’t mean that.’

‘You’re not going to miss what you’ve never had or what you never expected to possess, thespinis mou .’

‘That’s not the point. You’re just mad because Theo said all that stuff and it was offensive.’

‘Once you suggested that I might regard you as a financial asset. I will not be known as the husband of the Demakis heiress.’

‘Well, you are!’

‘Not if I choose not to be. Don’t tell me greed has got to you already,’ Nik breathed with ringing scorn.

‘I don’t have to justify myself to you. I’m a Demakis.’

Nik shot her a derisive appraisal.

‘I meant that Theo was my grandfather and that’s why he wanted me to inherit his estate. He acknowledged me. He may have waited until he died but he finally allowed me to feel like a member of his family and I’m not going to reject everything he spent his whole life working for,’ Prudence protested in a sudden feverish bout of self-defence.

‘Then you have a problem. I will be no woman’s kept man.’

‘Maybe you should wait until you get the offer to be one!’ Prudence shot at him, frantically blinking back tears. ‘I owned virtually nothing but the clothes I stood up in when we got married and I had to live with it-’

‘You lived with it so well, you fled to another country!’

‘How can you throw that at me again?’

‘Once a Greek husband, always a Greek husband, glikia mou .’

‘I’m going to be rich…and I’m going to enjoy every minute of it!’ Prudence told him defiantly.

‘But not with me…’

The words hung there in cold, confrontational challenge and she blenched. She was so furious with him that she felt light-headed with sheer rage.

‘So you don’t want to be married to the Demakis heiress? OK, if that’s how you feel, I’ll go back where you seem to think I belong!’ Pausing only to retrieve the DVD and tuck it back in her bag, Prudence walked out to the hall. Her overnight bag was sitting there. She lifted it. She gave him lots and lots of time to say something to stop her. Something like, Where are you going? or, Come back here, or even, Let’s talk about this tomorrow. The terrible silence roared in her ears like the quiet before a hurricane and perspiration dampened her short upper lip. The sound of the apartment door banging shut behind her shook her.