The Abby Green Modern Collection

He shrugged like he didn’t much care and Kallie felt impotent, wanted to walk around and slap the look of smug superiority off his face. It held all the arrogance of his forebears.

‘The fact of the matter is that your uncle has come to me for help…for a loan, if you will.’

Kallie sagged back against her chair. Oh, Alexei, what have you done? Her uncle had never been the brains behind Demarchis Shipping. That had been her father, until…Her mind slammed down on painful memories.

‘Look, Alexandros, what do you want? Surely…surely this can’t be because of what happened all those years ago?’

‘Why not, Kallie? Do you think that what you did wasn’t so bad after all? That time might have diminished it? You tried to seduce me and when it didn’t go your way, in a fit of spoilt pique you lashed out. You singlehandedly stopped a marriage from taking place—’

‘But, Alexandros.’ Panic was making her insides liquefy. ‘Surely Pia would have given you the benefit of the doubt, let you explain? I’m sure you could have convinced her that it meant nothing, was nothing…’ she had to stop for a second when her heart clenched in remembered pain ‘…if she loved you…’

Her remark caught him on the raw, caught him in a place he’d shut off long ago.

‘You’re priceless. Love? It was never about love, Kallie, it was a business arrangement. A merger between two families. Needless to say the merger never happened as soon as they lost faith in my ability to do the job. Thanks to your revealing titbits…’ The rage rose up again. ‘Theos, Kallie…’

She was speechless. She’d always assumed that he had loved Pia. And even though she hadn’t leaked the kiss-and-tell story to the paper, and had had nothing to do with the damning photo, she’d always felt guilty for trying to seduce Alexandros when he’d only wanted to be friends.

Her vulnerability and pathetic weakness for this man still made her blood boil. She opened her mouth, about to proclaim her innocence, and stopped. Eleni. And it wasn’t just Eleni. Even if he knew, Kallie was still in her own way responsible, too. She couldn’t say a thing…angrily impotent at the way she was trapped, she put down her napkin and went to stand but he reached across the table and caught her hand.

The feel of her smooth warm skin, the frantic pulse beating like a trapped bird, called to Alexandros, scrambled his brain for a second. He had to fight for control and remember what he was there to do.

‘I’m not finished with you, Kallie. In fact, we haven’t even started.’

She pulled her hand away, uncaring if people were looking. ‘There’s nothing starting here, Alexandros. I’m leaving.’

His voice was low and lethal. ‘No. You’re not. If you stand up, so help me, I will pick you up and carry you out of here over my shoulder. Don’t think that I won’t. So we can do this here and now, or we can cause a furore of interest, give the paparazzi outside something to photograph and do it back in my apartment.’

She had been in the act of standing and sat down again slowly. She knew without a doubt that she didn’t want to be alone with him and that he wouldn’t hesitate to do exactly what he’d said.

When she had sat back down he continued agreeably, as though discussing the weather. ‘As I was saying, your uncle is in need of a substantial loan. A loan to keep Demarchis Shipping afloat…literally. This puts me in an interesting position, wouldn’t you say?’ He didn’t wait for her answer. ‘I was quite prepared to do business with Alexei, as it suits my needs, too, but now things are intriguingly different. Needless to say, it won’t make the slightest bit of difference to me should I choose not to help him. But it would make all the difference in the world to him…and your family.’

The lines in his face were unbearably harsh and Kallie quailed at how time and circumstances had turned this man into such a lethal combination of sheer ruthlessness and icy cool. And at the part she had unwittingly played.

He continued unflinchingly, ‘He’s a tough old dog, but he’s exhausted every other avenue and, as he told me himself, I’m his last hope…’

Kallie was stung with guilt that she hadn’t known, that her uncle hadn’t confided in her. That she could somehow be instrumental in potentially doing damage to her family hurt her unbearably. Yet still, even through this, she was so aware of Alexandros across the table that she felt dizzy with his presence.

‘How have they not told me—I mean, how is this possible?’

She suddenly looked very young and lost and alone to Alexandros. Her eyes were huge, shimmering, blue and green. And he felt something twist in his chest before he ruthlessly quashed it back down.

‘Who knows? By selling your shares so promptly, by coming here to Paris, moving away from the UK—your mother’s own home, and your father’s adopted home—perhaps Alexei and your family thought you were taking a stand away from them, weren’t interested in their problems.’

It killed her that he could deduce this, but she hadn’t. And the familiar wave of grief washed through her. She lifted pain-filled eyes to his, speaking without thinking. ‘It wasn’t like that. It just became too much. After the funeral, the business was all they could talk about. All they ever talked about. My father had as good as taken his own life, and my mother’s with him and no one wanted to talk about that. It was Demarchis Shipping this, Demarchis Shipping that…’ She broke off when her voice caught and she desperately blinked back the sting of tears, hating that he might see any hint of vulnerability.

She strenuously fought to hide the brightness from his narrowed gaze and only looked back when she felt more under control. He had an intense look on his face. And then it was gone. Replaced with that implacability again. She hardened her own jaw.

The emotion that had softened her features could have been a figment of Alexandros’s imagination and he felt himself flounder slightly. This wasn’t going exactly how he’d imagined it. He wanted to reach over and run the pad of his thumb across her cheeks, down to her lips…cup her delicate jaw. He was fast losing the thread of why they were there. All he wanted was to stop talking and take her to bed. Spread her underneath him. The speed with which this woman had taken over his senses shocked him.

Kallie felt anger boil up at the unfairness of it all. All she had done had been to bare her heart and soul to this man. And he had crushed that into the dust. Before the story had even erupted. She jabbed a finger towards him. ‘Look, Alexandros, I can’t undo the past any more than you can, with all your money. And I wasn’t alone out there that night. I may have…initiated things. I tried to tell my parents, to explain…but they wouldn’t listen.’

He held up a hand, derision on his face. ‘Please. It’s a bit late to try and tell me that you defended my honour when you cold-bloodedly arranged for the photo and the breathless story in the papers—that shows a level of premeditation on a par with the most corrupt politician. But…’ he silenced her protest with a look ‘…there is one way that Alexei need never know about this, one way that I will give him his loan, help him out of this situation he’s become embroiled in.’

She flushed at yet another indication of how much he knew and focused on how she could avert a disaster within her family. ‘How’s that?’

‘You, Kallie.’

And then before his words could sink into her head, which felt like it might explode, he asked her abruptly, ‘Do you remember my uncle Dimitri?’

She nodded, her brain still scrambled, trying to make sense of everything.

‘He died a month ago.’

‘I didn’t hear that he was unwell. I’m sorry,’ she said stiffly, wondering where this was going.

He shrugged, his face closed, belying the fact that he had loved Dimitri like a father. Something he would have credited Kallie with knowing…once.

‘It was sudden.’ His black gaze fixed on Kallie. ‘It’s part of the reason I’ve asked you here.’

Along with the burning desire that holds you in a grip so tight you have to shift in your seat every two seconds.

A pulse beat at his temple.

Kallie’s face felt rigid. She couldn’t help the sarcastic response. ‘Well, I was wondering…You were hardly calling to reminisce about old times.’

Shut up, Kallie!

He didn’t seem to notice her self-flagellating turmoil. The waiter appeared, removing their plates. Kallie refused dessert, ordering a coffee, Alexandros asked for a liqueur. He waited until his drink arrived before fixing her with that intense gaze again. He wasn’t going to make this easy. Kallie’s full armour was erected against him.

‘I have to admit that bumping into you was a shock…but also perfect timing, a certain kind of serendipity, if you will.’

She looked at him warily. ‘Timing, for what exactly?’

He looked at her across the table. He clenched his jaw and refused to let his gaze drop to that shadowy line of her cleavage, the gem on the end of that same pendant swaying back and forth, kissing her skin. Skin that looked soft and…He clenched his jaw even harder and focused with effort.

Think of what you need. Focus on business. This is business. And revenge…Nothing else.

Alexandros valiantly concentrated on that and not on Kallie’s all too grown-up charms. There’d be time for that later, he vowed.

‘I need a convenient wife, and you, Kallie, I’ve decided, are going to oblige me.’

Kallie looked at him dumbly, shock washing through her body.

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_3df58b84-6a2c-5424-822c-0172bd5da736)

‘I’M SORRY?’

‘You should be, Kallie. It’s time to start atoning for what you did seven years ago. I bet you never thought it would catch up with you. I have to admit, I hadn’t planned on doing anything, I was quite happy to settle for never crossing your path again, but bumping into you the other night, together with a slightly…’ His mouth twisted as he looked for words. ‘Unfortunate set of circumstances that I’m in, has all been very fortuitous.’