Margaret Mayo - Bought For Marriage

It had been more than good. It had been out of this world. But did Dione want to admit that? What would she be letting herself in for?

“I never knew that making love could be so enervating,” she confessed with a wry smile.

Theo’s skin glistened in the light from one of the floor lamps, and even in repose he looked imposing. Naked or dressed, aroused or relaxed, he was one hell of an exciting male. She had never thought that when she’d agreed to marry him—had never expected that within a few short days she would be begging him to make love to her.

She had thought that the next twelve months were going to be hell; instead it looked as though she was going to enjoy them!

MARGARET MAYO is a hopeless romantic who loves writing and falls in love with every one of her heroes. It was never her ambition to become an author, although she always loved reading, even to the extent of reading comics out loud to her twin brother when she was eight years old.

She was born in Staffordshire, England, and has lived in the same part of the country ever since. She left school to become a secretary, taking a break to have her two children, Adrian and Tina. Once they were at school she started back to work and planned to further her career by becoming a bilingual secretary. Unfortunately she couldn’t speak any languages other than her native English, so she began evening classes. It was at this time that she got the idea for a romantic short story. Margaret, and her mother before her, had always read romances, and to actually be writing one excited her beyond measure. She forgot the languages and now has more than seventy novels to her credit.

Before she became a successful author, Margaret was extremely shy and found it difficult to talk to strangers. For research purposes she forced herself to speak to people from all walks of life, and now says her shyness has gone forever—to a certain degree. She is still happier pouring her thoughts out on paper.

~ FORCED TO MARRY ~

Margaret Mayo

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CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EPILOGUE

‘THEO TSARDIKOS? You expect me to go and beg him for money?’ Dione stared at her father in disbelief. ‘I can’t do it.’

Theodossus Tsardikos was a man to be reckoned with. His name was revered throughout the whole of Greece, and maybe the world for all she knew. He was her father’s sworn enemy. He ran a very successful and very luxurious worldwide hotel chain; only the rich and famous could afford to stay there.

Yannis had once tried to persuade Theo to let him franchise his restaurants inside the hotels—the suggestion had been received with raw contempt. Theo made no secret of his dislike of Yannis Keristari. And Dione couldn’t blame him.

Yannis slumped back against his pillow. ‘Then this will be the end of me.’

‘I think,’ said Phrosini, with a worried glance at her husband before looking pleadingly at her stepdaughter, ‘that your father meant you to think about it. Let’s go home. We’ll come back later and talk about this.’

As they left his hospital room Dione glanced over her shoulder at the man who had been such a big controlling influence on her life and found it hard to believe that he was asking her to do this. She’d done most things; she’d been the best daughter she could under the circumstances, but begging for money? From his archenemy? How insulting could he be?

Her mind flew back twenty-four hours to when she’d received the phone call from a distraught Phrosini saying he was ill and was asking for her.

‘Of course I’ll come. I’ll be on the next available flight.’

Dione turned to her mother, an anxious expression on her lovely face. ‘I need to return home. Father’s in hospital; he’s had a heart attack.’

Jeannie’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh, dear! Naturally you must go. I’ll tell Chris for you. I do hope Yannis will be OK.’

A magnanimous thought after the way he had treated her, decided Dione. But that was her mother; she rarely thought ill of anyone. She was quiet and undemanding and Dione privately thought that she let people walk all over her. Not that she would ever tell her parent that; she loved her too dearly.

To her dismay there were no available seats on flights to Athens until the next day, but at least it gave her the opportunity to tell Chris herself.

‘I’ll come with you,’ he said at once when he saw her that evening. ‘I can’t let my fiancée go through this alone.’

He’d said it so proudly that Dione felt guilty. She had been planning to take Chris to Greece to meet her father, to get his approval for their wedding, but not under these circumstances. The shock of discovering that she was going to marry an Englishman would probably kill her father altogether.

Yannis was Greek through and through. Very proud, very traditional, and it was his ambition that Dione should marry one of his own kind. Dione, though, had other ideas. She wanted to escape her father’s domineering nature and the only way she could do it, as far as she could see, was to marry and settle in England.

She had met Christopher Donovan on one of her frequent visits to the UK and when he proposed she had thought about it long and hard before finally accepting. It wasn’t that she didn’t love Chris, she did, but it was his love for her that she wasn’t so sure about.

He had gone out with her on the rebound from a previous relationship and assured her that it was all over. But she had heard from a third party only the other day that the girl still hankered after him and that he had been seen with her. She had tackled Chris and he had looked startled at first, and then said that there was no truth in it.

‘I think it would be best if I went alone,’ she said to him now. ‘My father’s too ill to meet strangers.’

‘You’re probably right,’ he agreed. ‘You will phone me?’

‘Naturally.’

The plane landed at Athens Airport and Dione strode through the arrivals lounge, a stunningly attractive woman in a cream trouser suit teamed with a chocolate-coloured top. Her long blue-black hair brushed her shoulders sensuously with each step that she took in her high-heeled sandals, causing many a male head to turn.

Dione was oblivious. She headed for the taxi rank, not expecting anyone to meet her, but surprised and pleased to see her stepmother.

‘Phrosini, how nice of you! I didn’t anticipate this.’ She hugged the woman warmly, easily falling into her second language. ‘Shouldn’t you be with Father? How is he? Is he any better?’