The Greek Tycoon's Reluctant Bride

Across the table Edward Jameson cut his fried egg into precise squares. Even though he spent half a year on his yacht in various European harbours, he still insisted on a full English breakfast to start his morning. Now he looked up, raising his eyebrows. Underneath shaggy white brows his pale blue eyes glinted shrewdly, full of easy humour.

‘Spiros Paranoussis? Why should I know anything of him at all?’

Demos smiled and shrugged. ‘Because I know enough to know he’s a banker in Athens, and you know everyone in finance in this city—as well as in most others in Europe.’

Edward smiled faintly and inclined his head. ‘Spiros Paranoussis…’ he mused. ‘Yes, he’s a banker. Second generation, current CEO of Attica Finance. Solid businessman, although rather uninspired. He hasn’t made much money, but he’s kept what he has.’

Demos nodded thoughtfully, his gaze on the expanse of blue-green sea that stretched to a cloudless horizon. He took another sip of coffee, aware of Edward’s speculative gaze.

The older man had been a mentor to him for twenty years, ever since Demos had loitered longingly by his yacht, eager, desperate for work. Jameson had employed him, and later helped him win a scholarship to study marine architecture. He would have given him much more, but Demos had refused. He would pay his own way, earn his own money, provide for his own family. And so he had, for as long as he’d been allowed.

‘As far as I know,’ Edward remarked mildly, ‘he is not the kind of man to be interested in yachts.’

Demos smiled. ‘No?’

Edward waited, too shrewd and too polite to ask Demos directly why he was fishing for information about Paranoussis.

‘And his family?’ Demos asked after a moment. ‘What do you know about them?’

Edward’s mouth tightened imperceptibly. ‘His wife died ten years ago, or round about that. He has one daughter. I met her once or twice, back when she was a child. Pretty girl, quiet and well-behaved. Although from what I’ve heard she’s now a bit of a liability.’

‘How so?’

Edward shrugged. ‘Wild, reckless, always getting herself in the tabloids.’

Demos nodded thoughtfully. In some ways he was surprised he hadn’t seen or heard of Althea before last night. He undoubtedly frequented Athens’s nightspots, although in general he preferred more discreet venues. He didn’t read the tabloids, however, and he realised with a wry grimace that he was probably considered too old for Althea’s crowd.

‘How old would the daughter be now?’

‘Twenty-two? Twenty-three?’ Edward leaned forward, his curiosity piqued. ‘Why do you ask, Demos? What is your interest in her?’

‘I met her last night.’

‘Met?’

Demos chuckled. ‘Yes, met. That’s all. And I wondered.’ Yet it was more than that, Demos knew. A lot more. He was not about to tell Edward the truth. That he’d met her and wanted her. That she intrigued him, challenged him, fascinated him in a way no other woman had.

And he wasn’t even sure why.

Edward returned to his breakfast. ‘I would usually warn you off colleagues’ daughters,’ he said wearily, ‘knowing your reputation with women. But this time I won’t bother. I’m not sure a girl like Althea Paranoussis has a heart to break—or at any rate a reputation that needs guarding.’

It was a more polite way of saying what Angelos had said last night, and Demos was surprised by his instinct to defend Althea from her accusers. What little he knew of her supported such statements. He thought of Angelos’s easy familiarity with her, with her body, and suppressed a grimace of distaste. Althea didn’t need defending. Perhaps she didn’t even deserve it.

And yet…

‘Although,’ Edward continued thoughtfully, ‘I’ve heard from various business associates that Paranoussis wants to see his daughter married.’

‘Married?’ Demos repeated, nearly spluttering over his coffee. He thought of his conversation with her last night; she was determined to stay clear of marriage. A free spirit—just what he wanted.

Edward sipped his coffee. ‘Marriage would steady her as well as the family’s reputation.’

‘Is it that bad?’ Demos asked. Most rich young girls were spoiled and shallow, at least in his experience. Surely Althea’s brand of entertainment was no worse than theirs?

‘Perhaps not to you,’ Edward replied with a little shrug, ‘but Attica Finance is a conservative organisation. Spiros wants to see his daughter taken care of.’

‘And out of the way?’

‘Out of trouble, perhaps.’ Edward paused, his fork suspended halfway to his mouth. ‘Does it matter so much to you, Demos? She’s just a girl.’

Just a girl. Edward’s tone was casually dismissive, yet Demos was shrewd enough to see the flicker of suppressed interest in Edward’s eyes.

He leaned back in his chair. ‘I don’t know how much it matters,’ he finally said, choosing to be candid. ‘I just met her.’

‘She might suit you,’ Edward replied. His eyes sparkled with both mischief and possibility. ‘Like you, she wants to have a good time. Socially she has all the connections…’

‘I don’t need connections.’

Edward’s little shrug was a silent eloquent reminder of his background, Demos knew. The son of a grocer, with his mother now married to a butcher and still living in a working class suburb of Piraeus. No matter how his life looked now, he’d always know where he’d come from.

‘Think about it,’ Edward said lightly, and began to butter his toast. ‘Paranoussis would be willing to arrange something…see her taken care of, as I said. And a man like you—wealthy, industrious—would impress him suitably.’

Demos smiled. ‘You want me to marry her?’ His voice had a lilt of disbelief.

‘Do you plan ever to marry?’ Edward asked, and Demos considered the question.

‘Perhaps. Eventually,’ he said at last.

‘The party circuit grows old, my friend,’ Edward said, a weary world of experience in his voice, and Demos nodded in agreement.

He was already feeling it. But marriage…?

That was another proposition altogether—and not a very welcome one. Yet even as he dismissed it his mind turned over the possibility. He’d always supposed he would need to marry at some point. He pictured Althea in the role of his wife and found it surprisingly invigorating. She wouldn’t be an innocent, irritating little miss; she’d be fiery and spirited…in bed as well as out of it. His lips curved in a smile of imaginative appreciation.

‘I imagine Althea will be married off within the year,’ Edward continued with a shrug. ‘Or sooner, if she continues to push her father. He’s had enough.’

Demos’s gaze snapped back to Edward’s. ‘He can hardly force her—’

‘Can’t he?’ Edward arched one eyebrow, ever shrewd. ‘She could be cut off without a cent, or an opportunity to earn one.’

‘She’s educated—’

‘Actually, she isn’t. She was expelled from school at seventeen, for bad behaviour.’

Demos sat back, considering. Althea might not have an education, but she was surely intelligent. She would survive if her father actually did make good on his threat and cut her off.

Anyway, he dismissed with a little shrug, Paranoussis was most likely just threatening Althea in an attempt to curb her behaviour. It had nothing to do with him; all he wanted was to see her again.

And, he acknowledged, his lips curving wryly, a bit more than that…