Читать книгу Chosen by the Greek Tycoon: The Antonakos Marriage / At the Greek Tycoon's Bidding / The Greek's Bridal Purchase - Кэтти Уильямс, Kate Walker, Cathy Williams - Страница 11

‘WE HAVE some talking to do.’

Theo had no idea how he kept control over his voice. The coldly burning rage inside him would keep fighting to get away from his determination to rein it in, and the resulting conflict made his tone brutal and cold as a sword of ice.

He wanted to know just what the hell was going on. How the woman he had last seen in a London hotel room—the woman who had wanted only a one-night stand, no names, no information—had turned up on Helikos, at his father’s house, in his father’s pool.

Though he would be able to think much more clearly if she would just cover up.

‘Don’t you have a wrap or something? Something to put on.’

‘I—I’m not cold.’

‘It’s not your temperature I was thinking of!’

He knew he was glaring ferociously. The look in her eyes and the way that she took an instinctive step backwards, away from him, told him that. But he had been knocked off balance by the discovery of her in the pool and being close to her, like this, only made matters so much worse.

He had thought that his memories of her soft-skinned, naked body were arousing enough—in fact, he had tried to convince himself that he had exaggerated her appeal. No woman, no real, living, breathing woman, could have been as physically appealing as his recollections told him she had been. But those recollections had been nothing but the truth.

Less than the truth, in fact. Because the memories had none of the warm, physical presence of this woman. And though the white swimming costume might be modest when compared with the skimpy bikinis worn by so many on the Greek beaches, its subtle sexuality was doing devastating things to his heart rate and his ability to think. The stretchy material clung to the swell of her breasts and hips, the thin straps revealing the peachy skin and soft curves of her shoulders, while the cutaway shape made her legs seem endlessly elegant. Just to think of those long legs curled around his waist, squeezing tight as she gave herself up to the throes of her orgasm, threatened to blow his mind into tiny, spinning splinters that were impossible to form into any coherent thoughts.

‘We might both be able to talk more rationally if you were more—respectably dressed.’

That softly curved mouth took on a mutinous set that wasn’t quite matched by the fiare of something in her eyes. Not anger, but something wild and defiant, clashing with his dark glare until he almost felt he could see sparks in the air between them.

‘And you think that your clothing is so much more decorous?’ she flashed back, lacing the words with an unexpected sting.

‘Is that a way of saying that you don’t trust yourself to keep your hands off me?’ Theo said scornfully. ‘Because you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t believe you. You had no trouble tearing yourself away from my bed that night…’

‘That night was a mistake and one I’ve regretted ever since.’

‘Not as much as I have, lady. I don’t happen to go in for one-night stands and if I’d known you were going to disappear like that, I’d have had more than second thoughts about the whole situation. And then when I find you swimming in my father’s pool—’

‘I never tried to deceive you in any way. I told you exactly what…’

Her voice died abruptly as she realised just what he had said. All colour fied from her cheeks, leaving her looking white as a ghost.

‘Your father’s—!’

She actually glanced back at the pool and then back to his face, her grey eyes wide with shock and disbelief.

‘Did you say…?’

This couldn’t be real! It couldn’t be happening, Skye thought in desperation. Please let it not be happening. Please let it be a dream—a nightmare from which she could wake.

He couldn’t have said my father’s pool. Because that would make him Cyril’s son. The son of the man she had to marry. The son of the man who held the fate of her whole family in his hands and who could destroy their hope of a future if he chose.

She actually caught a tiny part of her arm in her fingers and pinched hard, praying it might bring her out of the horror. But, of course, nothing happened. She was still standing there, bathed in the Greek sunlight, with the only sound that of a faint ripple of the water in the pool where a breeze hit it.

And Anton was standing beside her, big and dark and dangerous-looking.

‘But you said your name was Anton.’

She flung the accusation into his cold, set face, but his expression didn’t change and he continued to regard her with a stony lack of expression.

Anton…Antonakos. Suddenly the truth fell into place with a shock that made her head spin.

‘You lied to me!’

His shrug was a swift, careless dismissal of the charge.

‘I was economical with the truth. I find it’s often the best policy until I get to know someone’s real motives.’

The cold, slashing look he flung at her left her in no doubt that she had been included in the group of people whose motives he considered suspect. The ice in it seemed to take away all the heat of the sun so that her skin crawled with goose-bumps and it was all she could do to suppress an instinctive shiver. Reaching for the towel she had left on the wooden lounger earlier, she pulled it round her, knotting it securely over her breasts, under her armpits.

Covered, she felt a little more confident until he spoke again.

‘And, as I recall, you were the one who insisted we kept to one name only.’

He was right, of course, and the knowledge of it didn’t make her feel any better. Dear God, what sort of malign fate had brought her together with this man on that night? How had she had the appalling bad luck to walk into the one bar where Cyril’s son had been sitting on his own?

And what had he been doing in London? All she knew about Cyril and his son was that they had not been on the best of terms for some time. So did this man know…?

The terrible reality of the whole truth she had been keeping from him made her stomach heave nauseously.

‘Mine was at least my real one,’ she said, taking the risk of stepping a little further into the danger zone. ‘I’m Skye Marston.’

There was no flicker of anything in the opaque-eyed stare that he turned on her. So was it possible that his father hadn’t told him?

‘Theodore Antonakos,’ he returned, totally deadpan. ‘Usually known as Theo.’

The look that scoured over her made her feel as if it had scraped away a much-needed layer of skin, so that in spite of the bulky protection of the towel wrapped around her she felt exposed and naked to his cold scrutiny.

‘So now what?’ the man she now had to call Theo drawled with lazy mockery. ‘Do we shake hands formally and really do everything totally back to front?’

‘I think we’ll take the handshake as read,’ Skye returned stiffly. The idea of even touching him frankly terrified her. She just could not forget the burn of his skin on hers, the caressing touch of those long, powerful hands that could turn as gentle as the patting paws of a kitten when he chose or be as demanding as blazing fire. ‘We’ve already done that bit.’

‘And more,’ he returned dryly, and the wicked gleam deep in those brilliant black eyes told her that he remembered every moment of it.

As did she.

That night was etched onto her brain in images of fire. It had been bad enough when it was just a memory. But now, with the man himself an actual physical force before her, not just an image in her mind, she felt as if her thoughts might go up in flames as a result.

‘I’d rather forget about that.’

The tension in every inch of her body had affected her mouth too, and the words came out so tight and clipped they could hardly have been more stilted. Her voice sounded like some second-rate actress trying to speak like an upper-class Englishwoman, and strangling the sounds as she did so.

Evidently Theo thought so too, as his wide, mobile mouth twitched uncontrollably at her words. But every last trace of humour was erased from it when he spoke, and his eyes had turned to black ice under heavy, hooded lids.

‘I’m sure you would, but I have to tell you that I don’t feel the same.’

Provocatively he reached out a lazy hand and trailed his fingers along her throat and across the top of the white towel, coming to a deliberate halt by the knot that held it closed.

‘The truth is that the experience is one I would very much like to repeat.’

The bronzed fingertips moved to the edge of her shoulder, then back again, and it was all Skye could do to control the instinctive squirm of response that would have betrayed her feelings.

The instant peaking and hardening of her breasts was something she could do nothing about. A heat that had nothing to do with the sun, licked along her veins, making the towel seem too heavy, the clinging white swimming costume too restricting to wear underneath it. But she could only be thankful that the thick padding hid her intimate reaction from those probing black eyes.

‘Then I’m afraid you’ll have a long wait. I told you it was a one-night thing only.’

‘You also told me that we would never know each other’s names. Never meet again.’

He paused just long enough for the shocking impact of those words to hit home hard with the realisation that both of them had now been disproved.

‘And I told you that I never do one-night stands. It’s a personal rule I have.’

‘Well, then, it’s a rule that you’re just going to have to break this time. Because I have no intention of renewing our—acquaintance in any way. One night was more than enough for me and that’s the way I want things to stay.’

‘Is that so?’

His arms folded across his chest, Theo looked her up and down with coldly contemptuous black eyes.

‘Well, let’s see.’

Before Skye had a moment to realise just what was in his thoughts, he had moved forward, taking her chin in one powerful hand and wrenching her face up towards his. She had just one split second in which to recognise the ruthless intent in his eyes, but not long enough to voice the protest that formed in her mind.

Her mouth was still opening to try and speak as his came down, hard and determined, crushing the objection straight back down her throat.

As a kiss, it was cruel and passionless, but as an act of punishment for rejecting his demand out of hand, it was perfect. There was nothing of affection or warmth in it, only a cold-blooded determination to show her who was in control here.

But it didn’t stay that way.

Because something happened in the moment that their lips touched. Something that charged the atmosphere, changed the truth of that kiss into something very new and very different.

From something meant to control and be controlled, in the space of a heartbeat it fiared into something totally out of control. Heat burned; hunger woke and demanded appeasement; need broke free of all restraint.

Skye swayed forwards, melting against Theo’s hard form, and his arms came out to enclose her, imprison her along the length of him. Skin seemed to blend with skin, arms, legs, bodies entangled. Their heartbeats lurched, quickened, raced, thudding in time with each other, drowning out all other sounds beyond the pulse of molten blood in their veins. Their only breathing was the quickly snatched gasps of urgent passion, grabbed at frantically to avoid oblivion, but allowing for only the briefest moments away from the clinging, teasing, openly demanding mouth of the other.

‘Skye—beauty—agape mou…’

Theo’s voice was thick and rough with lust, his hands as clumsy as they tugged at the barrier of soft towelling that came between them, pulling the insecure knot loose in seconds, the white folds tumbling to the ground at their feet.

‘You may have had enough but I have not. I want this—’

Skye’s mouth opened under his in a gasp of shocked delight as his hand skimmed over her straining body, heat searing through the white Lycra, inflaming her hunger even more.

‘And I want this…’

That searching hand found the swell of one breast where the betraying nipple pulsed against the restraint of the clinging material, his thumb catching and circling the hardened bud, making her moan aloud in wild expression of her need.

‘Oh, yes, this.’

It was a low, dark undertone, with fiendish laughter running through it. Laughter that darkened even further as his urgent fingers tugged at the strap of her costume, wrenching it down over her shoulder, imprisoning her arm against her side and exposing the white slope of her upper breast.

While the hard warmth of his hand supported the soft weight, his hungry mouth sought the exposed flesh, kissing, licking, even nipping lightly at the smooth skin until Skye flung back her head and moaned aloud.

‘This is what I want,’ he muttered harshly against her. ‘And it’s what you want too. What we both want more than all the world. It’s what’s between us, lady. You can’t fight it, and neither can I.’

The only response Skye could manage was a wild, indeterminate sound that could have been either acceptance or denial, but clearly Theo took it as acceptance.

‘Come with me, my lovely. Come with me now…’

‘No!’

Skye had no idea just what it was that jolted her out of the heated fantasy into which she’d fallen. She didn’t know if it was some faint, unexpected sound that intruded in her mental delirium, or the way that Theo’s mouth had left her breast or the sudden cooling touch of a tiny breeze that wafted its way across her exposed skin. She only knew that some unexpected sneaking coldness had slipped into her mind, dousing the heat that raged, stunning her into shocked realisation of just what she was doing.

‘I said no!’

Desperation gave her a strength she hadn’t known she possessed so that she could push him away, hard, the force of the movement driving him almost to the edge of the pool. But he recovered in a second, whirling back to face her, black eyes glittering in cold rage.

‘What do you mean—?’

‘Oh, come on!’

The frantic tattoo her heart was beating at the thought of the narrow escape she had just had, the shivering sensation brought by the realisation of how close she had come to total disaster, made Skye’s voice range up and down in panic, but at least she sounded strong enough and determined enough to make him stop and listen to her.

‘What part of no don’t you understand? You may be Greek, Kyrios Antonakos, but your English isn’t as bad as that. You know exactly what I meant!’

‘I know what you said,’ Theo flung back venomously. ‘But that isn’t exactly what you meant. And I don’t need to know any English at all to differentiate between the two. I have other ways of interpreting that.’

‘Other ways?’

For a moment Skye simply gaped in blank confusion, but then he gave a slow, deliberate glance from those polished jet eyes, away from her face and dropping down to rest on her still-exposed breast—and the betraying tightness of the pouting nipple, blatant evidence to anyone who wanted to look of the hunger he had roused in her. A hunger that was still clawing at her insides, making it almost impossible to think beyond the burning sense of need.

But she had to think. She had to stop feeling and force her mind to concentrate on what really mattered. She had almost ruined everything. Almost destroyed her chances of rescuing her family from the total disaster that faced them. The man before her, tall and strong, with the sunlight playing on the silken black hair, the bronzed skin of his face and chest, might be everything she most wanted in the world right now, but she had to force that weak, indulgent feeling from her mind and think.

And what she had to think was that this must not, could not, happen.

If she wanted to save her family, then Theo Antonakos was forbidden to her.

And so she wrenched up the dangling strap of the swimming costume, wincing in distress as the white Lycra scraped over the sensitised tip of her aching breast. Pulling the little clothing she had as high as it would go, she forced herself to face Theo’s cold-eyed fury with what she hoped looked like a degree of calm she was far from feeling.

‘I don’t give a damn about your “other ways”!’ she managed, the brutal control she was exerting over her voice making it sound high and tight, and absolutely cold with rejection. ‘The one thing you listen to is what I say! And what I say is no—got that? N-O. No! I’m saying no and I mean no.’

For one fearful second there was such a maelstrom of rage in his face, blazing in his eyes, that she actually feared he would ignore her and reach out, grab her once again. She had nerved herself for flight when she saw him recollect himself, shake his head faintly and impose a degree of control over his actions that she had to admire even as she welcomed it with a shaking rush of relief.

But if Theo had controlled his physical impulses, he had not yet restrained his tongue.

‘You say that now, sweetheart,’ he declared with brutal cynicism, ‘but that no was a long time coming. So tell me, my lovely, what was it that forced the rejection from you? Was it the thought that someone else might see us—your mama perhaps?’

‘Mama?’ Skye echoed blankly, unable to believe he had used the word. Had he really said…?

‘Because if that’s what it was, my angel, then I’m certain you don’t need to worry. I’m sure she’d be perfectly happy for us both.’

‘Happy?’

Just what was he talking about? Every word confused her even more. What had her mother to do with this? Did Theo know…?

‘Keep it in the family, so to speak. Your mother, my father—you and me.’

Your mother, my father…

Skye’s thoughts reeled sickeningly. He thought her mother was his father’s fiancée! He actually believed that she was here with her mother and that her mother was the one about to marry Cyril Antonakos!

‘Well?’

Skye’s silence, the stunned look on her face, puzzled Theo. Defiance he could understand; even anger would be perfectly explicable. But all the anger that had burned in her seemed to have fizzled out, subsiding like a damp squib that had never actually exploded.

And in a way that disappointed him.

He was spoiling for a fight. Had been ever since she had tried to claim that she didn’t want him any more. It stung his pride to hear her declare that, especially when a tension in the sexy body in the clinging white swimsuit and a particular light in the depths of those dove-grey eyes revealed the statement for the lie that it was.

She couldn’t have been more aware of him if she had been a nervous young deer who had come upon a hunting tiger in the middle of a clearing. She seemed unaware of the way that she was uneasily shifting her weight from one foot to another, her eyes warily watching his slightest move. Even the fine nostrils seemed to flare in apprehension every time he moved or spoke.

Like hell, she’d had enough of him! Just as there was no way that he had ever tired of her.

Anger and hurt pride had pushed him into action, making him pull her close. And her reaction had been everything that he had anticipated. Everything he had wanted. She had turned to flames in his arms, going up like the driest of kindling laid at the base of a fire, her passion so fierce that he had almost felt his skin might have melted in the heat of it. She had responded to his kiss with all the hunger and the desire that he’d dreamed of.

And he had been lost. Swamped by heat and desire; his body hardening in a second. He had lost all awareness of where he was.

He had thought that he had taken her along with him. Her responses had been everything he could have wanted, her kisses adding fuel to the fires blazing within him. He had been so sure that she was his. That once more he would have her in his bed—and that this time he would make sure it was for much longer than one night.

One night with her had already taught him that it was nowhere near long enough to sate himself on her body. One night had only made him realise what hunger really was and how much he wanted this woman in his bed. Finding her here like this, after his vain search for her in London, had been such an unexpected thrill and he was prepared to do whatever it took to keep her here.

The fight, the tension between them had only added to the electrical current of desire that sparked his appetite for her. And her sudden rejection of him, the way she had pulled away, had left him fiercely frustrated, his aroused body ready to take the satisfaction it needed.

Now she had just backed down.

Apparently with nothing to say, she was simply staring at him as if he had suddenly grown an extra head, her big eyes wide and clouded with something that looked like shock.

‘Well?’ he repeated. ‘What do you say?’

‘I…’ she began, but her voice trailed off, dying into silence once again.

Theo’s hands clamped tight shut at his sides, struggling to resist the urge to shake her from this trance she seemed to have fallen into.

‘Skye!’

But as he spoke another voice came from the direction of the house, breaking into what he had been about to say and silencing him too.

‘Theo! There you are! Amalthea said you had arrived.’

Taken by surprise, Theo muttered a dark curse under his breath. His father’s appearance was the last thing he wanted right now.

After five years’ estrangement, not speaking, not even sending letters, this first meeting with Cyril was going to be awkward enough without anyone else there. The presence of someone else—and just who that someone was—was a complication he could do without.

‘Pateras.’

A sudden movement drew his eyes from the dark, heavyset man now approaching and back to Skye. She had snatched up the white towel from the ground and was once more knotting it hastily round her body. Such unexpected modesty on her part frankly surprised him. And so did her sudden loss of colour. Every trace of blood had ebbed from her cheeks, leaving her looking strained and almost ill, the wide grey eyes huge pools above the ashen cheeks.

‘Skye?’

It came out on an undertone of concern, keeping the lowvoiced question from his father’s hearing. Theo knew better than most that the older man could be difficult and autocratic in his business dealings and with other men. But with women—particularly young, attractive women—he was usually a practised charmer, unlikely to cause such a panicstricken reaction in any member of the opposite sex.

So was there some tension between his father and Skye Marston that he knew nothing about? It was going to make for an awkward relationship between Cyril and his about-to-be stepdaughter if that was the case.

But Skye had already turned away from him and was watching Cyril’s approach, her face hidden so that he couldn’t read any further changes in her expression.

‘So you two have met already.’

If there was something wrong, then clearly Cyril wasn’t aware of it as he directed a smile straight into Skye’s face. His greeting of his son was more restrained, his expression several degrees short of warm, but he took the hand that Theo offered him and shook it hard.

‘Good to have you back under my roof again, boy.’

That ‘boy’ grated as Theo was sure it was supposed to. His father had never accepted that he had grown up long ago. That had been one of the reasons for their estrangement.

But he had promised himself that this time he would really try to keep the peace.

‘I couldn’t miss the wedding,’ he said, unable to erase the stiffness from his tone.

‘Of course not. And you had to meet your new step-mother—which I see you’ve already done.’

Already done?

Thoughts spinning, Theo tried to force the words to make sense, but failed completely. There was no logic to them—not unless…

Hell—no! His mind revolted at the thought. He refused to accept the way he was thinking. It was impossible—had to be.

But his father’s arm had gone around Skye’s waist, and he was turning her round to face his son. ‘Still, I’ll do the formal introductions now.’

No! Theo wanted to shout it at the top of his voice to drown out what was coming. He wanted to put his hands over his father’s mouth to stop him speaking—anything—stem the flow of words that seemed to be leading inexorably to the most appalling conclusion.

It couldn’t be—Theos, let it not be possible.

But Skye’s cheeks seemed to have grown even paler. And her huge light grey eyes looked anywhere but into his face as his father continued blithely with his announcement, totally unaware of the impact it was having.

‘Theo, I want you to meet Skye Marston, soon to be Skye Antonakos. Your new stepmother-to-be and, of course, my fiancée.’