Jacqueline Baird - Mediterranean Tycoons

‘If you want to lash out at anyone, Kouvaris, try me.’

Marcus’s hand shot out and he grabbed Ted by the collar and slammed him back against the wall. ‘Don’t tempt me,’ he snarled. He wanted to smash the man’s face to a pulp and he didn’t question the reason.

‘You’re a fool, Kouvaris,’ Ted grated in a high-pitched voice, nearly choking and clutching at Marcus’s hands.

‘I can beat the hell out of you, any day, in any way,’ Marcus raged, his violence controlled by a thread.

‘I know,’ Ted shot back. ‘That’s why I lied and said I’d slept with Eloise. I saw the way you looked at Eloise the first time I met you,’ he stated cynically. ‘And I saw the way the girl in the bar looked at you, when the night before she had been all over me. I was drunk, I was jealous and I lied. Rejected by a wife and a bar-girl, I was damned if I was going to make it easy for you to get Eloise. Lousy, I know, but that’s the truth.’

The two men stared at each other. Ted’s face red and Marcus’s grey beneath his tan, only his eyes blazing black with rage.

For a long moment Eloise simply stared at the scene before, all her energy concentrated on fighting the awful pain she was trying to hide. But as she watched the pain dissolved into a quite different emotion.

They were like two stags at bay, both ruthless powerful men, leaders of the pack. She recognised the angry acknowledgement between them—the old giving way to the young, but not without a fight—and a slow-burning anger ignited in her breast.

This was her home, her life. Pride stiffened her spine. She didn’t have to justify her actions to any man, certainly not the two egotistical male chauvinists before her, who were scrapping like two dogs over a bone. And in her living room!

‘Right, that’s it! Cut it out,’ she yelled. ‘And both of you can get out.’

Marcus shot her a look of outraged incredulity. She was ordering him out… He was the injured party in this debacle.

She met his gaze, her green eyes sparking fire, and she might have laughed if she hadn’t been so angry, Marcus looked so put out! ‘Let him go,’ she snapped.

Slowly, Marcus released his iron grip on Ted’s collar and some of the rage faded from his eyes. She was standing tall and proud, her luscious body bristling with tension. She was beautiful when she was angry. She was beautiful any time, and lost in passion beneath him she was paradise. Whether she and Ted were telling the truth or not, was he prepared to give up all that simmering sexuality? The tightening in his groin answered for him. Hell, no—not yet.

Marcus glanced back at Ted. ‘I think it’s time you left,’ he grated through his teeth. ‘Eloise is mine.’ His narrowed eyes fixed on Ted, his great body tense and towering threateningly over his rival. ‘You understand?’

‘Do you?’ Ted murmured dryly, shaking his head. He walked past Marcus. And, for sheer devilment, stopped and dropped a light kiss on Eloise’s cheek. ‘So long and good luck, and if you ever need me get in touch.’

‘You’re pushing your luck,’ Marcus growled, taking a step towards him.

‘No.’ Ted grinned back and, picking up the gift-wrapped bottle of perfume from the table where he had placed it earlier, he waved it in front of Marcus’s face. ‘I never trust to luck. I have a hot date tomorrow night, and I know how to treat a lady, unlike some.’ Laughing, he strolled out of the apartment.

Her legs trembling, Eloise sat down on the nearest sofa. ‘I think you’d better leave.’ Marcus had claimed her as his, as though she was an inanimate object, instead of an intelligent woman with thoughts and feelings. Well, he could go to hell, for all she cared. She had had enough.

‘No,’ Marcus bit out, crossing the space between them in one lithe stride. ‘I cancelled my plans for the next few days to see you, and I haven’t changed my mind.’

He looked down at Eloise. Maybe she was innocent where Ted was concerned. Ted had been very drunk in New York, and bitching at losing his wife and a ton of money. He vaguely remembered Ted introducing him to the blonde bimbo, and then she had been all over Marcus like a rash, so much so he had been quite rude to get rid of her.

As for the rest—his dark eyes roamed over Eloise. She was watching him, her green eyes cool, her luscious mouth held in a grim line. The red-gold tumble of her hair falling over her silky-smooth shoulders, so proud, so brave, and he was yelling at her like a loony.

If he was honest, he doubted she’d ever been involved with her mother’s scam. He’d seen the company books, and discovered the company had been set up nine months after Chloe’s death. Harry had told him the initial finance was from Eloise’s inheritance from her late mother’s estate. Eloise had bought the premises. Realistically, Eloise should be the major shareholder, and yet according to the records they were three equal partners, all drawing the same salary. If Eloise was a gold-digger, as he had thought, then she had a very funny way of going about it. Katy and Harry would not have a business if it were not for Eloise.

She was probably innocent of all he had accused her of, and incredibly generous to those she considered friends. Marcus suddenly realised he wanted to be in that company, to bask in Eloise’s approval. He’d known a lot of women in his life, some almost as beautiful and with the same luscious curves as Eloise—well, no, not quite as perfect, but some a lot more sexually aggressive in bed. But he also knew with absolute certainty none had come close to affecting him the way she did.

If he’d ever caught any other woman he was involved with alone with another man, he would have walked out the door and out of the woman’s life without a second thought. It scared the hell out of him that he couldn’t do that with Eloise.

Since the day he’d first met her as a young girl, she’d never really left his mind and, after the last weeks together, the happiest in all his thirty-four years, she had become an obsession. An obsession that had made him act out of character, and dash back early from the USA, his business incomplete, simply to see her. She was a fever in his blood, and he intended to keep her until the fever burnt out. A secret obsession Eloise need never be aware of, but he would have to watch her more carefully in the future. Innocent or not, there would be no more Teds… He would take her home tomorrow, he concluded arrogantly.

Marcus was still here and he still wanted her. Eloise did not know whether to laugh or cry. She could hear her heart thudding in shock, an erratic rhythm against her breastbone. Marcus must be able to hear it in the tense silence, but she dared not look at him; instead, she asked the one vital question.

‘So, now do you believe I never had an affair with Ted?’ Her eyes focused on the floor. It suddenly seemed imperative to her that Marcus showed some tiny bit of faith in her.

‘It’s not important. Forget it; I have.’

Her head came back at that, her eyes fixing on his in bitter resentment. She loved him but right at this moment she hated him. He didn’t trust her an inch and never would, but still she decided to give him one last chance. The final test, she told herself.

‘You saw the perfume Ted had bought. I told you we met by accident,’ she said through tight lips. ‘I told you Ted had lied and he confirmed it.’

One ebony brow arched in sardonic amusement. ‘So you did,’ he mused as he sank down on the sofa beside her. He was too close and her pulse leapt at his nearness.

‘Will anything convince you?’ she asked flatly. ‘Spelling it out in blood, maybe?’

Marcus ran a comprehensive eye over her and, reaching out, he let his long fingers tangle in her silky red hair. ‘If you want to convince me—’ his voice deepened ‘—feel free to try.’