Passionate Playboys: The Demetrios Bridal Bargain / The Magnate's Indecent Proposal / Hot Nights with a Playboy

‘You will have to pass on my apologies. I’m expected in Scotland.’

A dark mottled colour rose up the older man’s neck until his face was suffused with angry colour. Mathieu watched the effect of his words with clinical detachment.

The truth of it was he had returned just over a year ago at his stepmother’s request, not his father’s. ‘Give it a year, Mathieu,’ she begged. ‘Your father needs you, though he’d never admit it.’

Mathieu was reluctant to shatter the illusion that he cared what his father needed, especially when she added, ‘And when I am gone he will need you even more. The company and the family,’ she reflected with a rueful roll of her eyes as she spoke of the Demetrios clan. ‘They both need a strong hand at the helm. He was grooming your brother for the role …’

A memory had surfaced in Mathieu’s head—Alexander sliding his small hand in his and saying earnestly, ‘I want to be just like you when I am older, Mathieu, even if it means Father doesn’t like me.’

‘Alex would have done it well,’ Mathieu lied.

Mia smiled and shook her head. ‘I appreciate your loyalty, but we both know that isn’t true. Alex hated business. He tried, of course, to please his father, but …’ She shrugged. ‘One day Andreos would have had to accept that Alex would never take his place, but sadly for us all that day never came.’

As Mathieu moved to enfold her in a comforting embrace, hiding his shock at the fragility of her birdlike frame, she grasped his hand tight and said fiercely, ‘Promise me, Mathieu, to help him even if he doesn’t want your help.’

So Mathieu had promised, and he had stayed after his promise to her had been fulfilled, not out of a sense of duty, but because against all the odds he was enjoying what he was doing.

‘You ingrate, you will do as I say or … or …’ Andreos raised his clenched fists from his sides and glared at the younger man with every appearance of loathing.

Mathieu, his calmness increasing in direct proportion to his father’s furious incoherence, raised a satirical brow. ‘You will disinherit me?’ he suggested.

‘And do not think I won’t.’

‘That is your decision.’

‘You expect me to believe you don’t care?’ Andreos let out a loud bellow of scornful laughter and shook his head. ‘That you don’t care about losing an empire worth billions?’

‘I don’t ask you to believe anything,’ Mathieu responded calmly. ‘Your empire is yours to give to whom you wish. I know you wanted to give it to Alex—’

‘Don’t you dare say his name. He was worth ten of you.’

Mathieu continued seamlessly in the same even voice as though there had been no interruption. ‘That is no longer possible. Alex is dead.’ An image of his half-brother’s smiling face flashed into his head and for a moment his sense of loss was so acute that he could not speak.

Alex, the indulged and adored only son, could have, should have, resented the bastard older brother who had suddenly appeared like a cuckoo in the gold-lined nest. But he had not. Alex’s disposition had been as sunny and generous as his smile.

‘I am the only son you have left,’ he said bleakly. ‘You wish to mould me into someone you think is fit to carry on your line.’ Mathieu’s smile revealed his total lack of regard for the illustrious family name he had inherited in his mid-teens. He had deliberately chosen to use his mother’s name when he began his racing career to distance himself from that name.

‘Well, I think we owe one another some honesty. I am not interested in your name, your line … your empire. I have a name of my own, and I am not some malleable child, Father. I was moulded, for better or worse, into what I am today a long time ago.’

The ruddy colour on the older man’s cheeks deepened to an alarming purple. ‘It is not my fault I did not know you existed … your mother … I brought you into my home after her death.’

Like a surgical knife Mathieu’s deep, clear voice cut across the older man’s blustering protest. ‘Her name was Felicite, and you will not speak of my mother. You lost that right years ago.’

The older man’s jaw dropped. He was not accustomed to being on the receiving end of commands. Nor was he used to seeing the glow of passion in the eyes of the son he had not known existed until he was fifteen years old.

‘I gave you everything …’

Except love. ‘I am not the son you want.’ Mathieu gave a philosophical shrug. ‘And you are not the father I would have chosen. But the fact is,’ he continued calmly, ‘I am the only son you have.’

The older Greek flinched as though struck and Mathieu added in a softer voice, ‘We both wish it otherwise.’

Anger flared in the older man’s eyes. ‘Wish it otherwise?’ he echoed, his lips twisted in a scornful grimace. ‘Your brother being killed as he was left you the sole heir … yes, your tears were most apparent at the time,’ he observed bitterly.

This was a subject they had tiptoed along the edge of many times and this time, like the others, it was Mathieu who drew back, though emotion surfaced and flared for a moment like silver fire in his heavy-lidded eyes before he responded with a moderate, ‘We both wish it otherwise but this is the situation we find ourselves in. I suggest we both learn to live with it.’

‘How dare you speak to me this way?’

Mathieu had learnt the hard way that showing emotion gave people the upper hand, but for once his iron control slipped and his emotions spilled out. ‘You mean not like the puppet dancing to your tune?’

Andreos visibly recoiled from the blaze of fury written in every line of his son’s patrician features. ‘I have given you everything.’

‘And everything you gave was given out of a sense of reluctant duty. You tolerate me only because it was Mia’s dying wish. Has it not occurred to you … Father, that my actions are similarly constrained?’

It was clear from the older man’s expression that he had not.

‘She was always kind to me even though my very existence must have caused her pain.’ He sucked in air through his flared nostrils and fought to regain his control. ‘And it is only in respect of her wishes that I did not leave after her death.’

Both men were silent as they simultaneously recalled the last painful months of her life, which Mia had endured with cheerful dignity that had humbled those who had been lucky enough to be around her.

‘As far as I am concerned the only thing you ever had going for you was the fact that a woman like that could love you. She must have seen something in you that I have not.’

‘I will be leaving for Scotland tomorrow. You must do as you wish, Father …’

CHAPTER TWO

HER family’s and friends’ opinions were unanimous; Rose had lost her mind. Only a total lunatic, they reasoned, would leave a comfortable life in the capital where she had friends, family and a stimulating job she enjoyed to bury herself miles away from anything that remotely resembled civilisation, not to mention any place that served a halfway decent coffee.

Her twin sister had been particularly vocal in her opposition. In fact, initially Rebecca had been unable to believe her twin was serious about the move. Then, faced with the black-and-white reality of her sister’s letter of resignation, she had stopped being amused and adopted a firm manner.

‘This is a massive overreaction, Rose. You fell in love with your boss.’ She lifted her slender shoulders in a so-what shrug. ‘Who hasn’t?’

Rose winced at the casual reference to Steven Latimer, protesting, ‘Becky!’ as her twin, who did dramatic with style, ripped up the letter and held out her hands as though her action settled the matter.

And Rose could see why she might think so. It was a classic case of someone believing their own press. Since they were children, people had been calling the more flamboyant Rebecca the dominant twin. It was probably only Rebecca’s husband, Nick, who recognised the true dynamics of the twins’ relationship.

‘Sure, Rose gives in to Becky, but haven’t you noticed it’s only on the little things?’ the shrewd New Yorker had observed. ‘Things that don’t actually matter. When it comes to something important, that she cares about, Rose could give a mule lessons in stubborn, though you don’t realise it because she says no with such a sweet smile.’ He had flashed his sister-in-law one of his own laconic smiles and winked.

At that moment—Rebecca had dragged him along to convince Rose of the error of her ways—he earned himself a black look by observing when appealed to for support by his wife that it was pretty much up to Rose what she did.

Rose would have been more grateful if he hadn’t added, for the record, that, yes, he did think that Steven Latimer was a lower form of human life.

Rose glared at her brother-in-law and picked up a piece of torn paper from the floor. ‘All I have to do is print out another copy, Becky.’

‘Is this about Latimer, Rosie?’ Nick interrupted. ‘Are you leaving because he is putting pressure on you? Because you don’t have to put up with it, honey. Nowadays employers take a very dim view of sexual harassment.’

Rose shook her head firmly. ‘Steven isn’t like that, Nick. He’s a very honourable man.’

‘I wonder if your marvellous Steven would be quite so honourable if his wife wasn’t the boss’s daughter?’