Bound to the Greek

Bound to the Greek
Kate Hewitt

New bride at Blackwood Manor? Having spent her childhood in care, Ashley Jones has no one. She desperately needs her new live-in job as an author’s assistant. But she is filled with trepidation when she arrives at isolated Blackwood Manor and meets the formidable Jack Marchant.Ashley thinks she is just a drab nobody…but her heart goes out to anguished, tortured Jack. She has no idea what troubles him. But one day a private kiss becomes a passionate affair…an affair that is as secret as it is forbidden…The Powerful and the Pure When Beauty tames the brooding Beast…

His heart ached with remembered pain. His body ached with unfulfilled desire.

What was he doing? Why couldn’t he just leave Eleanor Langley alone?

Ever since Eleanor had come back into his life—ever since he’d realised she was telling the truth—he hadn’t been able to stop thinking of her. Thinking about the what-ifs, wondering if life could give them a second chance.

Jace stopped in his tracks. A second chance at what? At love?

Did he really want that?

The last ten years he’d been hardening his heart against love, against any messy emotion. He’d focused on his business, building an empire instead of a dynasty.

And yet now… Now he wanted more. He wanted Eleanor.

Ellie.

About the Author

KATE HEWITT discovered her first Mills & Boon® romance on a trip to England when she was thirteen, and she’s continued to read them ever since. She wrote her first story at the age of five, simply because her older brother had written one and she thought she could do it too. That story was one sentence long—fortunately they’ve become a bit more detailed as she’s grown older. She has written plays, short stories, and magazine serials for many years, but writing romance remains her first love. Besides writing, she enjoys reading, travelling, and learning to knit.

After marrying the man of her dreams—her older brother’s childhood friend—she lived in England for six years, and now resides in Connecticut with her husband, her three young children, and the possibility of one day getting a dog. Kate loves to hear from readers—you can contact her through her website: www.kate-hewitt.com

BOUND TO

THE GREEK

KATE HEWITT

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

To all the lost little ones, including mine.

CHAPTER ONE

‘COME right this way, Mr Zervas. You’re going to meet with Eleanor, our top planner.’

Jace Zervas stilled his stride for no more than a second as the word reverberated through him. Eleanor. He hadn’t heard that name in ten years, hadn’t let himself think it.

Of course, it had to be a coincidence. There were certainly more Eleanors in the United States—in New York City—than the one who had broken his heart.

The assistant who had led him through the elegantly sparse lobby with its designer sofas and modern art now stopped in front of a door of tinted glass, gave a perfunctory knock, then pushed it open.

‘Eleanor? I’d like to introduce you to—’

Jace didn’t hear the rest. For as the woman in the office swung round to face him, his mind buzzed, blanked. It was Eleanor.

His Eleanor. Ellie.

He knew she was as surprised as he was that he was here, that they were here, face to face. Although her expression didn’t really change, he was aware of the slight widening of her eyes, the parting of her lips.

Then she drew herself up, gave him a professional smile that managed to irritate him with its coolness, and said, ‘Thank you, Jill. That will be all.’

The assistant, surely aware of the current that crackled through the air, glanced speculatively between them. Jace ignored her, his gaze fixed on Eleanor Langley, so utterly, appallingly different from the Ellie he’d once known. ‘Shall I bring coffee?’

A tiny pause. ‘Certainly. Thank you.’

The assistant left, the door clicked shut, and Jace’s mind kicked back into gear.

Of course he should have expected this might happen. He’d known Ellie was from New York, and her mother was an event planner. Why shouldn’t she have followed the same career path?

Because the Ellie you knew hated her mother’s career, her mother’s world. The Ellie you knew—or at least thought you knew—wanted to open a bakery.

Clearly much had happened in the last ten years.

‘You’ve changed.’ He didn’t mean to say it, yet it was impossible not to notice it. The Ellie he’d known ten years ago had looked nothing like the shiny, polished woman in front of him.

His Ellie had been relaxed, natural, fun, so different from this woman with her tailored black power suit, her highlighted hair barely brushing her cheekbones in an elegant chestnut bob. Her hazel eyes, once warm and golden, now seemed darker, sharper, and were narrowed into assessing slits. As she moved back around to her desk Jace saw her shoes: black three-inch stilettos. His Ellie had never worn heels. His Ellie had never worn black.

Yet why was he even thinking this way? His Ellie hadn’t been his at all. He’d realised that all too terribly when he’d last seen her… when she’d lied to him in the worst way possible. When he’d walked away without another word.

Eleanor Langley stared down at the burnished surface of her desk and took a deep breath. She needed the moment to regain her poise and control. She’d never expected this moment to happen, although she’d fantasised about it many times over the last decade. Coming face to face with Jace Zervas. Telling him just what she thought of him and his cowardly creeping away.

She’d envisioned herself slapping his face, telling him to go to hell, or, in her more dignified moments, sweeping him with one simple, disdainful glance.

She had not pictured herself trembling, both inside and out, unable to think of a single thing to say.

Stop. She’d worked too hard for too long to let this moment defeat her. Taking another breath, Eleanor lifted her head and settled her gaze coolly on the man in front of her.

‘Of course I’ve changed. It’s been ten years.’ She paused, letting her gaze sweep over him, although she had a feeling it wasn’t as disdainful as she might have wished. ‘You’ve changed too, Jace.’ It felt strange to have his name on her lips. She never spoke of him. She tried not to think of him.

He had changed; his ink-black hair was now streaked with grey at the temples and his face looked leaner, longer. Harder. Eleanor noticed new lines from nose to mouth, and the faint fanning of crow’s feet by his eyes. Somehow those lines didn’t age him so much as give him an air of dignity and experience. They even emphasised the steely grey of his eyes with their silvery glints. And his body hadn’t changed at all, it seemed: still long, lithe, and powerful. The grey silk suit he wore only emphasised his muscular shoulders and trim hips; he wore it, as he had the cashmere sweatshirts and faded jeans of his college days, with ease and grace.

He looked, she thought a bit resentfully, great. But then, she reminded herself, so did she. She spent a lot of time and effort making sure she looked great; in her job a professional and even glamorous appearance was a must. She was grateful for it now. The last thing she wanted was to be at a disadvantage. She straightened, smiled even, and flicked her hair back from her face in one quick movement. ‘So you’re my two o’clock.’

Jace smiled back, faintly, but his eyes were hard. He looked almost angry. Eleanor had no idea what he had to be angry about; he was the one who had left. If anyone should be angry—She stopped that thought before her resentful mind gave it wings. She wasn’t angry. She was over it. Over him. She no longer cared any more, at all, about Jace Zervas.

She turned to her planner, still open on her desk, and trailed one glossily manicured finger down the day’s appointments. ‘You’re here on behalf of Atrikides Holdings?’ she asked. ‘It says Leandro Atrikides was supposed to have been coming.’ She looked up, eyebrows arched. ‘Change of plans?’

‘Something like that,’ Jace agreed, his voice taut. He sat down in one of the leather armchairs in front of her desk and crossed one leg over the other.

‘Well.’ She made herself smile and sat down behind her desk, hands neatly folded. ‘How can I help?’

Jace’s lips tightened, and Eleanor wondered if that was going to be it. Ten years of anger, bitterness, and overwhelming heartache reduced to nothing in a single sentence. How can I help? Yet what other choice was there? She didn’t want to rake over the past; it would be messy and uncomfortable and far too painful. She wanted to pretend the past didn’t exist, and so she would. She’d treat Jace Zervas like a regular client, even though he was far from one, and she hardly wanted to help him. She didn’t even want to talk to the man for another second.

The sane thing, of course, would be to respectfully request a colleague to take Jace as her client, and step away from what could only be an explosive situation. Or if not explosive, then at least angrily simmering. She could see it in the hard steel of his eyes. She could feel it bubbling in herself.