Susan Stephens - Bought - One Island, One Bride

TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

For Jenny, and The Team.

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

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THE only time he relaxed was when he was here on the island of Lefkis, but today was different…

Alexander Kosta, saviour of the island? The mayor speaking to the crowd was calling him that. It was better that than the truth, Alexander supposed. A ruthless tycoon who had identified an opportunity didn’t have quite the same ring to it.

His gaze strayed beyond the canvas-draped pavilion to the clear blue ocean beyond the harbour. He noted how the sea turned broody and emerald in the distance, and how the sugared-almond-coloured houses clustered round the perfect horseshoe bay had turned more vivid in the late-afternoon sunshine. The island of Lefkis was beautiful and unspoiled, and when it was put up for sale he had been ready.

He noticed everything, and today a young woman had distracted him. Standing in the prow of an old fishing boat, the only flaw in an otherwise picture-perfect panorama, she was glaring at him. He had given instructions for the harbour to be cleared of craft with shallow draft to make way for the super-yachts, but she was still there.

Ellie Foster, or Ellie Mendoras, as she called herself to honour her dead Greek father, had been chosen by the islanders to voice their objections to his vision of progress for Lefkis. But she didn’t know the history behind his purchase, and she clearly didn’t know what she was up against.

Perhaps he should be glad she had remained on her boat. The crowd was quiet, but if she joined them that would change. Charm was his weapon of choice in a situation like this, and he knew the dissenters would come round. The wealth he could bring to their island was irresistible.

He looked at the girl again. Her very presence was an insult. Dressed drably in what appeared to be a boiler suit, she couldn’t have drawn a sharper contrast to the glamour girls surrounding him. And could her scowl possibly deepen?

Everyone else was smiling at him…Everyone smiled at him all the time, now he came to think about it. Why wouldn’t they? The charisma of massive wealth worked its magic everywhere he went. Alexander Kosta was the success story everyone wanted a piece of. Born in a shack, he had learned at an early age that the only certainty in life was the food he put on the table, and the only love he could count on was the love that could be bought.

He could buy anything he wanted now, including an island. He had added Lefkis to his property portfolio as he might have added a vase he coveted from the estate of a man who in life had been both his greatest enemy and the greatest spur to his ambition. He envisaged a mini-Dubai springing up where once there had been bare rock and poverty. It was a wonder the island had survived beneath the heel of his predecessor, Demetrios Lindos.

The girl should thank him, Alexander thought, glancing at Ellie. The power-boat race was just the start of the improvements he intended to make. There would be hotels, luxury spas, shopping malls…Everyone would benefit, including the troublemaker on her old fishing boat.

Hearing a few locals murmur against his scheme, Alexander firmed his jaw. If they couldn’t see what he was trying to do—if she stopped them seeing what he was trying to do…

She was preparing to disembark. Although she was too far away for him to see her features clearly, the tilt of her chin told a story of its own. Did she really intend to confront him? She had some nerve. The world measured him by what he owned and what he could buy, and everyone listened when he spoke. She should be down on her knees rejoicing that he had arrived in time to save her tinpot island.

Alexander watched Ellie stride determinedly towards him down the quay. Her God-given certainty that she was on the side of the angels got right under his skin.

As if reading his mind, the crowd turned to look in the same direction. He could feel the tension rising as though everyone sensed a storm brewing. They settled again, reluctantly, and stared at him. They weren’t sure what to do. They’d had a taste of his generosity in the free food and entertainment he’d provided, and wanted more. In spite of the girl’s determination to disrupt the proceedings he judged them more than ready to listen to his plan.

She was nothing to him; a nobody. He shut her out. The crowd was warming to him. Sunlight bathed the scene, enhancing the colours of the bunting fluttering over his head. The wind had dropped, turning the ocean into a limpid lake. This was his island. This peaceful and lovely scene belonged to him now. Ellie Mendoras had made her first big mistake, because if she was looking for trouble, she’d found it.

Money-making was Alexander Kosta’s greatest skill in life. His only skill in life, Ellie told herself contemptuously as she marched down the quay. In spite of everything he had achieved, he wasn’t satisfied. He was still hungry for conquests, still searching for the next challenge; the next acquisition.

Well, he could keep his greedy hands off Lefkis. She had vowed to uproot and dislodge him before the tentacles of his empire had the chance to squeeze the life out of the island she loved.

But even as Ellie narrowed her eyes and dreamed of bringing the Greek tycoon to his knees, her heart rebelled and thundered a warning. She wasn’t brave. She had never put her head above the parapet before. She lived quietly on the island she loved, surrounded by the gentle people who had helped her heal after a terrible experience back in England had nearly destroyed her.

Which was precisely why she had to help those people now, Ellie determined, quickening her step. Maybe the islanders had mistaken her for her father, Iannis Mendoras, a true hero, but she wouldn’t let them down. Walking in the footsteps of a giant was impossible, but she wouldn’t disgrace her father’s name.

Alexander Kosta had drawn quite a crowd. The market square was packed, with visitors and with locals. She could see him clearly now.

And he took her breath away, Ellie admitted reluctantly. Her heart was throbbing at a ridiculous pace—and it wasn’t just Alexander’s good looks that had thrown her, but the power he exuded. She told herself that no one could have been prepared for that.

Ellie shied away from men after her experience back in England, and this Alexander Kosta was brazenly male. But now the locals were clustering at her elbows, urging her on. They depended on her and she couldn’t turn her back on them now…

Alexander’s face hardened as he finished his speech and the women, or birds of paradise, as he thought of them, clustered around him. The girls’ silk dresses fluttered in the breeze, raising a haze of exotic scent. His fabulous yacht, the Olympus, had brought out every woman of marriageable age irrespective of the fact that she might already be attached to some dupe who had been taken in by her porcelain smile and artificially inflated chest. He took a perverse pleasure in the games the birds of paradise played, but most of all he liked to see them falter when they realised how deeply he despised them.

As the crowd erupted into applause he shrugged the women off. He didn’t want their air kisses. He was more interested in glancing in triumph at the cliff-top where Demetrios Lindos’s grand old house was being demolished stone by stone. He would rebuild the house where his young wife had sold her body to an old man, but before he did that he would raze it to the ground and stand amongst the ashes.