Читать книгу By Request Collection Part 2 - Шантель Шоу, Natalie Anderson - Страница 30

WELL, THAT WAS her well and truly dismissed.

Finding herself in the corridor outside the study door without quite realising how she had got there, Sadie did not quite know whether to explode in fury or to burst into shocked, bewildered tears. She was quite capable of both, and the resulting combination was so volatile that any one tiny incident would be enough to spark it off.

For a moment she actually considered spinning round, marching back into the room and confronting Nikos over what he had said. Snatching the phone receiver from his hand and tossing it well out of reach if she had to. She even half turned, ready to do just that. But the thought of the danger she might put herself in—and her mother and George—as a result stayed her movement and kept her feet moving right in the direction that was safest: away from the office and back up to the safety of her bedroom, moving as quickly as she could for fear that she might meet some member of staff which, in her present dishevelled and disreputable state, would be just the worst thing possible.

It couldn’t be more obvious just what she had been up to. Her crumpled dress was still gaping over her exposed breasts and her underwear barely existed. Looking down at the totally destroyed knickers she held in her hand, she couldn’t suppress a shudder of revulsion at the sight of them and the thought of just how they had got into that appalling mess.

And she had only herself to blame.

‘All right.’ She could hear her own voice in her thoughts, husky and inviting—seductively so. ‘Let’s deal with what there is between us.’

And of course Nikos had taken her at her word. Who could blame him? She’d handed herself to him on a plate, without a care or thought for the consequences.

Reaching her bedroom, she hurried inside and slammed the door shut, leaning back against it as the last of her mental strength deserted her, leaving her shaking and distraught.

She hadn’t even had the sense to insist that he use a condom! She had made every possible mistake in the book. The sort of thing that even her twenty-year-old self had managed to handle so much better in the past. So she had no right to complain if Nikos had treated her like the easy conquest he obviously believed her to be.

The easy conquest she had let herself be.

With a cry of disgust and horror, Sadie flung the ruined knickers into the wastepaper bin, not caring that one part of them fell far short, fluttering down on to the deep gold carpet like a wounded and dying bird. A moment later the dress and bra followed them, tossed aside in total revulsion. She couldn’t wait to get out of them as soon as possible. Just the thought of ever wearing them again made her stomach heave.

Take a shower, Nikos had said. He was damn right. She would take a shower. She needed to wash the scent of him from her body, the taste of him from her mouth. If only she could erase her memories as easily, she told herself as she stood under a hot shower, letting the water pound down on her head, sluice over her skin. She scrubbed every inch of her body, shampooed her hair twice, but she still couldn’t get rid of the feeling of having been used and then discarded without a second thought.

‘Damn him!’

Finally having to get out of the shower, before she reduced her skin to the state of a prune, Sadie rubbed at her hair with a towel, ruffling it impossibly.

‘Damn, damn, damn him!’

She was strongly tempted to put on fresh clothes, stamp back down to the study—but to do so would reveal to Nikos just how much his behaviour had upset her. That and the fact that as long as she didn’t push things to the ultimate extreme then her mother and George were still safe in Thorn Trees. If she made one mistake, took a wrong step, then she had little doubt that Nikos would carry out his threat to have them thrown out of their home and on to the streets.

Or would he do that anyway? The frantic movements of Sadie’s hands stopped and she stared at herself in the mirror, looking anxiously at her face where the flush of colour from the heat of the shower was now fading rapidly from her cheeks. Just what did Nikos plan to do next?

He had got her here under false pretences, claiming that he needed her to plan and organise his wedding. But there had been no wedding to organise at all. It had been nothing but a deceit from start to finish. So had this really been his plan? To get her back into his bed—not that she had actually been in his bed, she acknowledged grimly. She had fallen right into his hands like a ripe plum the first time he had kissed her in his London office and that must have given him the cue he had needed—if in fact he’d needed any such thing—to go ahead with the scheme that she now saw was his ultimate attack on her family and his personal revenge on her.

‘But there must be some arrangement we can come to! Surely there’s something I can do—anything…’ Her own words came back to haunt her, making hot colour flood every inch of her body. She could see just how that had sounded—and how Nikos would naturally have interpreted it.

‘And exactly what sort of services did you have in mind?’ he had come back at her. ‘What exactly are you offering…?’

She’d denied it furiously at the time, but obviously she had put a seed in his mind and he had determined that the real price of letting her stay in Thorn Trees was to be paid in kind.

If she had any sense, she’d be out of here—fast. She had her passport. She might just be able to afford a plane ticket home on the little that was left on her credit card—she hoped.

If she had any sense, or any choice. Because she could be in no doubt as to what would happen if she did run out on Nikos now. Just the thought of her mother being thrown out of her home after the delight of thinking that she had been given a reprieve made the tears burn at the back of Sadie’s eyes. She couldn’t even call the police and tell them how Nikos had kidnapped her. As he had pointed out, he had used no sort of force, and she had come with him only too willingly.

And if they heard about what had just happened in Nikos’s office…

She was trapped, but that didn’t mean she had to sit back and take whatever Nikos tossed her way. A quick glance at the clock revealed how much time had gone by since he had bundled her—as ‘no one important’—so unceremoniously out of his office. Any minute now, she was sure that he would be coming looking for her.

She didn’t want him to come here and think that she had been sitting waiting for him. Sitting on the bed waiting for him. What she wanted him to think was that she didn’t care. That the words he’d said had had no effect on her.

Take a shower he’d said—or have a swim.

She’d do that. Moving hastily to one of the drawers in the wardrobe, she pulled out the swimming costume she had tossed into her case at the very last minute, never really expecting that she would ever have a chance to wear it, and hurried herself into it. When Nikos came to find her, she wouldn’t be here. She would be in the pool—swimming and relaxing in the sun, without a care in the world. And not sparing a single thought for the heated scene in the office.

It almost worked. The warmth of the sun beating down on her head, the cool clarity of the water, the regular physical activity of the strokes up and down the pool soothed her jangled nerves. She actually managed to empty her head of the anxious thoughts that preyed on her mind and focus only on what she was doing. Until the moment that a dark shape blotted out the sun and there was a splash, a brief glimpse of a powerful form slicing into the pool in a perfect dive. A few seconds later, Nikos surfaced, dashing water from his face, tossing back his wet hair as he trod water beside her.

‘So this is where you’ve been hiding yourself.’

‘Hardly hiding,’ Sadie managed with careful insouciance. ‘It’s a hot day and I didn’t want to waste the luxury of having a pool at my disposal.’

She prayed that he would take the ragged edge to her voice as being the result of the exertion of her swimming and not what it truly was—an uncontrollable response to his closeness. To the sight of the powerful chest and shoulders that showed above the surface of the water, black body hair slicked against the tanned skin under which the strong muscles flexed and bunched as he balanced carefully, keeping himself from going under.

‘After all, it’s not every day I see a pool like this. And I do love swimming.’

In spite of her effort to control it, a note of longing slid into her voice. For years now there had been no time for this sort of relaxation, not even in the local public pool. Her mother’s illness and the need to look after George had taken up any free time she had from running the business.

‘You should have stayed with me.’

Nikos pushed both hands through the darkness of his hair that lay sleek and black, plastered to the strong shape of his skull by the weight of the water. Drops of moisture still lay along the broad slash of his cheekbones, sparkling in the sunlight as he turned towards her.

‘You should have stayed with me, glikia mou,’ he returned sardonically. ‘Then you could have swum in a pool like this every single day.’

‘Not if I’d married you when it was originally planned—five years ago.’

The memory of the way that Nikos had trapped her, making her believe that he was going to marry someone else, made her voice sharp. No matter how much she tried to push it out of her mind that telling phrase, ‘The one woman I have ever planned on marrying is you’ just would not be pushed away. She knew he didn’t mean it—how could he mean it?—but still her brain just wouldn’t let it go. And she was forced to face up to the appalling possibility that in a moment of weakness, of longing for it to be so, she had let that lying declaration influence her earlier, when he had kissed her.

Was it possible that she had actually let herself believe that he meant it? And that that was the reason—part of the reason—why she had given in so easily—too easily—to his passionate seduction?

‘You weren’t in such good financial shape then, were you? Or why else would you have come after me in the first place?’

One corner of Nikos’s sensual mouth quirked up into a half smile. Seeing it, Sadie couldn’t help but remember the sexual devastation that mouth had worked on her hungry body when he had kissed every inch of her while she had lain, aroused and yearning, on the polished surface of his office desk. The heat that raced through her veins at the memory had no chance at all of being cooled by the lapping water of the pool.

‘Didn’t what happened earlier give you the answer to that?’ he drawled softly, the wicked gleam in his eyes heightened by the glare of the sun. ‘Surely that would have shown you that you have no need at all of false modesty?’

‘There’s nothing false about it,’ Sadie flashed back. ‘Or modest. I’m simply being realistic and honest—and I wish that you would do me the courtesy of being the same. The fact is that if I had not been Edwin Carteret’s daughter and the heiress to his fortune then there is no way you would ever have sought me out at the start.’

‘I—’ Nikos began, but she had seen the look in his eyes, the subtle change in his expression, and knew that, in spite of the way that he tried to hide it, he was thinking through his response very carefully, planning exactly what to say.

‘Honesty, Nikos. You owe me at least that.’

For a long moment his golden eyes locked with hers and she could almost hear his clever, ruthless brain working through the possibilities and coming to a decision.

‘Honestly, then…’ he said at last. ‘The answer is no. If you had not been your father’s daughter, then I would never have sought you out in the first place.’

If he had reached out and grabbed her hard by the shoulders, wrenching her towards him and pushing her down hard underneath the cool water, then he couldn’t have caused more of a shock to her heart. But, be honest with yourself too, Sadie reproached her foolish mind. Did you really think there would be any other answer? Hoping for a different response was such a foolish weakness. A wishful fantasy that could never be achieved.

‘And, yes, I lied to you—or at least kept from you the fact that the Konstantos finances were not in the best possible shape. But who can blame me when I already had overwhelming evidence of the way your father was working to bring the corporation down?’

‘You could have confided in me. Trusted me.’

‘Trust!’ Nikos scorned, throwing back his dark head in a laugh that seemed to turn the air around them into ice and then splinter it into a million tiny pieces. ‘You dare talk to me about trust when all the time you were part of the whole conspiracy your father had set up. When I was fighting for my life—for my family’s life—you were there, just waiting to stab me in the back.’

That was more than Sadie could take. In the past she had been forced to play along with her father’s wicked plans, forced to keep silent about everything that was going on in order to keep her mother and her as yet unborn baby brother safe. Now that part of the problem, at least, was all over. Her father was dead; he couldn’t hurt anyone any more.

‘If I hadn’t done what I did, then you would have lost your fight.’

‘What?’

Nikos’s intent stare from swiftly narrowed eyes made her wish that she could duck down into the water to escape it. But she’d embarked on telling at least this part of the truth. She couldn’t back down now. She doubted that Nikos would let her do it even if she tried.

‘And just what is that supposed to mean?’

Dredging up her courage, Sadie faced him across the clear sparkling surface of the water. Pride stiffened her spine and brought her chin up defiantly.

‘You talk about fighting for your family’s life, but it was really just to preserve some part of the family fortune.’

She’d missed something there. The sudden hard blink of those amazing eyes told her that she wasn’t actually in possession of all the facts. Once again Nikos had adjusted his expression, so that the one he showed to her was a carefully assumed mask, a polished veneer that hid reality behind it. But she couldn’t stop to think about what it might mean. So far Nikos had seemed to hold the upper hand, but in this at least there was something he didn’t know and she was determined to make sure he knew it.

‘And if I hadn’t done what I did then you would have lost everything. As it was, you were at least left with the Atlantis.’

As she named the one rather run-down hotel that was all her father had let Nikos and his family keep from their ruined estates, she knew that she had hit home. If her words had been a slap in his face, then he couldn’t have reacted more strongly. His whole body stilled in the water, his face freezing into a hard, set façade that gave away nothing of what he was thinking.

‘And what do you know about the Atlantis?’

But the sense of injustice that had buoyed her up until now had abruptly deserted Sadie, taking all her courage with it. She couldn’t take any more, couldn’t face that ruthlessly probing look, the way that his amazing eyes seemed to burn right into her.

‘Enough,’ was all she could manage, and at the sight of his frown, the way that his mouth opened to demand more of an answer, her nerve broke completely and she made a swift dive into the water, kicking out her legs and turning to swim away, heading for the far side of the pool as fast as she could.

But of course Nikos came after her, his stronger stroke and more powerful muscles driving him through the water so that he came up behind her fast, long arms reaching out to grab at her. He caught her just as she was about to scramble up the ladder on to the side, hauling her back against him and twisting her round in his arms so that she was forced to face him.

‘Explain,’ he snarled, issuing an order with no doubt at all that it would be obeyed.

But Sadie’s throat seemed to have closed up over the words she needed and she couldn’t get them out. She could only shake her head in despair, sending her soaking wet hair flying so that drops of water spun off and landed on Nikos’s face, close to his eyes. He dashed them away with a brusque movement of his head, refusing to let go of her arms in order to brush them aside. Instead his grip around her arms tightened and he gave her a rough little shake, pushing her to give him the answer he wanted.

‘Explain,’ he said again, and to her astonishment just a little of the attacking quality had gone out of his voice. ‘What you are saying doesn’t make sense. When your father set out to bring down the Konstantos Corporation, he damn nearly succeeded. In fact, we thought that he had done just that—taken everything. It was only later—after…’

Again he made a slight adjustment, as if there was something he was covering up, hiding from her.

‘Afterwards that I discovered Carteret had not quite managed to take everything. There was one little piece of the company left—something that had either been too small or, in his mind, not important enough to bother with…’

As he paused to stare into her eyes, Sadie found the strength to fill in the gap.

‘The Atlantis.’

Nikos nodded sombrely, his eyes never leaving her face. But she felt the way his hard grip on her arms had eased and knew it meant his mood had changed.

‘And you can only know about this because you were somehow involved in making sure that it was still ours. That it was the one thing your father didn’t get his hands on.’

It was a statement not a question. His tone of voice and the dark-eyed look was levelled on her face told her that he already knew the answer but he wanted her to confirm it.

‘Yes.’

As she nodded her head in response, she suddenly felt a rush of pride and determination come back to bring new strength to her mind and body.

‘Yes, I was involved. I could have saved the island for you—my father actually gave me the choice, and I considered it at first—but at the time I felt choosing the one small hotel that was the other thing he had been prepared to concede might actually be more practical help than the sentimental attachment you had to Icaros. And I was right, wasn’t I?’

Nikos nodded slowly, his expression unreadable, bronze eyes clouded and hooded, hiding his real feelings from her.

‘You were right.’

‘Of course I was right—and bloody stupid at the same time. I knew you and so I chose the Atlantis, giving you at least a small business—something to keep you and the Konstantos Corporation one step away from complete bankruptcy. I chose that and I gave you a small start on the path to building your fortune back up again. Of course I didn’t know how quickly and easily you would do it. Or how you would then use all that you’d gained—all the money, all the power—to turn the tables on me and my family. To have your revenge—’

‘My revenge on your father,’ Nikos put in, but she was too caught up in what she was saying, fighting too hard against the tide of pain and bitter memories that threatened to swamp her, to hear what he was saying or to understand the tone in which he’d said it.

‘And then when you’d succeeded in getting back everything you’d ever lost—and more—when you’d finished taking your revenge on my father—when he was dead and free from your cruel quest for vengeance—that was when Fate really dealt you an ace card. Because when you moved to take possession of Thorn Trees you just thought that you were going to throw us out. That you would kick us out of the family home and never see any of the damn Carterets any more. But of course I had to go and turn up in your office, begging for a chance to stay in the house—offering to do anything. And that…’

Her voice cracked on the words so that she had to struggle to go on.

‘And that was when you decided you could have it all. The money, the businesses, the house—and the ultimate satisfaction: your final, personal revenge on me.’

Nikos’s hands had fallen from her arms, setting her free, and so now, unable to bear the closeness to him any longer, she pulled away, swallowing hard to fight against the tears clogging her throat.

‘Well, you got what you wanted, Nikos—every last little bit of it. Two days ago you said that you weren’t satisfied—that the revenge you’d taken hadn’t been enough. Well, I hope to hell you’re satisfied now—you damn well ought to be, because to be honest there’s nothing left for you to take!’

She had to get away. Had to. If she stayed any longer then she was going to give herself away completely. Eyes stinging, vision blurred, she somehow managed to find the ladder out of the pool and scrambled up it.

‘No!’

But Nikos was only seconds behind her, vaulting out of the water and coming after her. He quickly caught up with her, grabbing her arm again to whirl her round to face him.

‘No, you’re wrong. Revenge doesn’t come into it any more.’

‘It doesn’t?’

‘No. It may have started that way but along the way things changed.’

‘Changed how?’

Nikos’s mouth twisted slightly, and just for a moment that clear golden gaze didn’t quite meet hers.

‘Along the way I abandoned revenge for something far more basic.’

Sadie frowned her confusion.

‘Basic? So tell me what is more “basic” than revenge?’

Nikos didn’t answer. But then he didn’t have to. Looking into his eyes, Sadie saw just what he meant. It was written there, clear and plain to see.

What was a more basic drive than revenge? There was just one answer. Lust. Physical desire. Sexual passion. That was what had driven him from the start and what was still behind everything he did. An intense, searing physical need that obliterated everything else, burning it up in its heat. She recognised that, and understood it. Because didn’t she feel the same whenever he touched her? Hadn’t she just been so driven out of her mind with the same overwhelming hunger that she had let him take her on the desk in his office without a hint of a thought?

‘So…’ Her throat was painfully dry, cracking on the single word. ‘So the whole story of a fiancée?’

‘I told you. It was a pretence from start to finish. It had to be.’

Nikos dropped his head, resting his forehead on Sadie’s so that his eyes burned into her from mere inches away.

‘How could there be someone else when I never got you out of my head? You ruined me for any other woman. You got under my skin and I never got rid of you.’

‘No—no one else?’

That was so much more than she had ever anticipated that her head swam under the impact of it.

‘How could I kiss you like this…?’

His mouth took hers, slow and sensual, heating her blood in an instant and making her sway unsteadily on her feet.

‘…if there was anyone else? How could I touch you…?’

If his kiss had been a sensual assault then his caress, the way his hands swept over her body, was like throwing a lighted match on to bone-dry tinder, making her skin flame in a second, setting her pulse racing between one uneven breath and another.

‘And how could I ever think of taking another woman to my bed when the only one I ever wanted is right here…?’

The one woman I have ever planned on marrying is you.

The words that Nikos had spoken in his office came back to tempt and torment her. Tempting because she so wanted them to be true. Tormenting because she could scarcely begin to imagine that he could actually mean them.

And yet when she had insisted that he tell her about his imaginary fiancée—oh, dear heaven—he had also said: She is the only woman I have ever wanted to marry.

Was the world really spinning round her as she felt it was? Had she been out in the sun too long? Or was it really possible…? Could she believe a word he was saying?

But then Nikos took her lips again and she suddenly knew with a sense of total conviction that deep down she really didn’t care. All she needed, all she ever wanted most in the world, was right here before her in the shape of this man. The man she had fallen for five years before. And she had never managed to recover from that infatuation ever since.

She was sinking deep into the spell of sensuality he was weaving, definitely going down for the third time. But at the same time a tiny, barely audible voice of instinct was whispering inside her head that there was something wrong, something missing, but she couldn’t begin to think what. And quite frankly she didn’t even want to try.

His hands were hot on her body, smoothing over the tingling flesh exposed by her plain black swimming costume. The stretchy material had almost totally dried in the sun, but the heat of the day was as nothing when compared with the flames that were flaring inside, burning her up with the yearning need that he could create so easily. One broad palm cupped her breast, the thumb stroking wickedly erotic circles over her nipple so that she shuddered in uncontrolled response, feeling that she might actually collapse into a molten pool right at his feet. Against her stomach she could feel the hard ridge of his erection, and moist heat flooded between her legs in response.

‘So…’

Nervously, she slicked her tongue over her lips to moisten them enough to get the words she needed out of her mouth.

‘So—when we first met—would you have married me?’

‘Hell, yes. I’d have done anything to get you into my bed.’

That scorching, exciting mouth was doing amazing things to her. Tracing a burning path down her throat, over the exposed slope of her breast. When it caught one pouting nipple into its moist heat, suckling it through the black material of her costume, she cried aloud in response to the stinging pleasure-pain that sizzled through every nerve, destroying thought, leaving only space in her mind for the throbbing need she couldn’t deny.

‘Do you doubt it?’ Nikos questioned against her skin, his breath on the question feathering over the moistened nipple, making it burn with even greater need.

‘No…’

It was a moan of response and she shook her head vigorously, well past the point of being able to think about doubting anything. Her world was made up of just three things—herself, this man, and the wild sexual hunger that was blazing between them.

‘Then come with me now—come back to my bed, glikia mou, and let me show you exactly what I mean.’

She meant to answer, Sadie told herself. She had to answer—because there was only one possible response she could give him. But she wasn’t completely sure whether the wild, fervent yes that was burning in her thoughts had actually translated itself into sound or not.

But obviously it had—or it just didn’t matter and the way that she returned his kiss gave Nikos the answer he’d been waiting for. Because he didn’t ask any more questions or hesitate for a second. Instead he swung her up off her feet and into his arms and carried her out of the blazing sun into the coolness of the house and up the stairs, heading for his bedroom.