The Greek Tycoon's Mistress
In her stomach, fear coiled like a snake.
She had surfaced earlier that day to discover, through her drugged and groggy senses, that she was lying on a bed in a cool, shady room. Although there were few furnishings, it was very luxurious. The large double bed she’d been lying on was covered by an exquisite hand-stitched quilt, and the furniture was dark wood with an antique patina.
Her terror had been absolute. She’d fought for memory.
There was a car. I was pushed inside. Everything went black…
Fear had crammed in her throat. She’d staggered to her feet, lurching towards French windows dimmed with wooden slatted blinds. She had pulled them open. Beyond was a terrace, flooded with sunlight much brighter than it could ever be in England at this time of year. And the scent of flowers was wrong for England—heady and pungent, coming from fragrant blooms tumbling out of ceramic pots. She had lifted her eyes further forward. Beyond the terrace was vegetation—Mediterranean vegetation—and beyond she’d glimpsed bright azure sea.
The house she had emerged from seemed to be built as a long, low series of rooms, one after another, their French windows all closed. Then, suddenly, those of the room at the end of the terrace, where it ended in a vine-shaded patio, had opened, and an elderly woman had come out. She was dressed in black and carrying a bucket and mop.
She’d seen Leandra and nodded her head, smiling. She had set her things down and made some gestures with her hands, clearly ushering Leandra into the room.
Suddenly it had dawned on Leandra where she must be.
Greece! I’m in Greece!
And if she were in Greece, there could be only one reason why…
Demos. This had something to do with Demos Atrides. It had to—it just had to.
Emotions had coursed through her. One, she knew, was relief. At the back of her mind a dark, hideous fear had been lurking, that she had been abducted and taken away to be white slaved to the Middle East, or worse…
But why had Demos brought her here? And by such extreme means? She wanted answers—fast!
‘Demos?’ she croaked.
But the woman only smiled and nodded, and made those movements with her hands again. With chilling realisation Leandra understood. The woman was deaf; she was signing.
A bubble of hysteria beaded in Leandra’s throat. There was no way she could communicate in sign language with a deaf Greek woman! Then, as a wave of faintness washed over her, the woman was taking her arm and gently guiding her inside the room, sitting her down on a large, soft sofa in front of an empty stone fireplace.
Leandra shut her eyes in confusion and faintness, only to open them again a few minutes later when the woman brought in a tray of food. Hunger clawed in her stomach, and she fell to, swiftly devouring the delicious freshly made bread and soup, washing it down with hot coffee.
A magazine on the lower shelf of the coffee table caught her eye. It was a fashion magazine in Cyrillic. More relief washed through her. She was definitely in Greece and this must definitely have something to do with Demos! But where was he?
She combed the villa. It wasn’t large, and it didn’t take long to realise the only person in it other than herself was the elderly housekeeper. Fighting back fear, Leandra headed off outside. Demos had to be somewhere!
The grounds consisted of an attractively landscaped Mediterranean-style garden, with no lawn but a lot of little stone-paved paths and beautifully tended plants and shrubs. Olive trees were dotted here and there, perhaps remnants of an original olive grove. Instinctively she headed towards the sea, making her way down a little stone path until she emerged some few minutes later on to the edge of a perfect crescent beach.
Leandra stopped dead. It was absolutely exquisite! Gentle waves broke on golden sand. On either side of the beach the land curved protectively, white gleaming limestone brilliant in the sun.
Looking back, she glanced towards the little villa, half hidden by the olive trees.
It was a gem of a place! Very private, very rustic, but with a simplicity that caught at the heart as much as the eye.
But of Demos there was no sign.
Apart from the housekeeper the only other human being was an elderly man watering plants, who must be her husband—and from the way he would only sign to her Leandra realised that he too was deaf.
Her face tightened and she felt fear claw at her again. Instinctively she skirted around the villa, determined to make her way to a public highway and thence to a village or taverna with a phone she could call London from and find out what on earth was going on! At least she had her purse with her, and somewhere she must be able to change money.
She halted dead. She could see no entrance to the villa, no drive leading to a public roadway. Nothing.
The grounds just seemed to stretch on, rising slightly as the contours of the land led gently upwards. She found a pathway and set off. Maybe she could cut across land and find a road further inland. There must be some sort of traffic passing, however remote this villa was. Judging by the absolute silence—not the hint of a sound of traffic, even from far away—it must be pretty remote, Leandra found herself thinking worriedly.
Resolutely she went on, gaining the top of the rise. She paused and looked down. There, below, nestled close to the beach, was the little villa. Beyond it she could see a flat, bare area of ground, the modern metal-framed hangar and windsock declaring it to be a helipad. Just below the helipad was a small cove, with a stone jetty and boathouse, but no sign of a boat. To the front of the villa was the beach, a secret jewel. She swept her eye past the beach, bringing it round to the opposite direction. The sea went with her.
She went on sweeping her head round—and still the sea was visible.
As she completed her three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn Leandra felt her insides dissolve.
There was sea visible in every direction.
As she stilled, like a statue frozen in disbelief, the truth hit her.
She was on an island.
Theo closed the throttle and cut the rotors. He’d landed. Finally.
As he shut down the controls with routine expertise he glanced out of the helicopter, sliding off his headphones as he did so.
The girl was there waiting for him.
He’d seen her running towards the helipad as he’d made his descent, alerted by the racket the rotors made which was audible all over the island, he knew.
He glowered balefully in her direction. What an infernal mess this was! Cheaper than paying the girl to leave Demos? Theo snorted. It was going to cost an arm and a leg to sweeten her after her ordeal! And if she chose to press charges…
Sweat pricked beneath the collar of Theo’s business suit. He wanted a shower, and a long, cold beer.
He slid the door back and stepped out on to the ground. There was no way he was flying back to Athens tonight. The chopper would need refuelling, for a start, and night was coming on. Besides, he was tired.
Tired physically and mentally.
And his temper was on a knife-edge.
He just hoped the girl wasn’t the hysterical type. She must have been frightened by what had happened to her, he found himself thinking as he slid the door to and headed across to her. She was standing very still.
Theo hoped she wasn’t going to start weeping and wailing all over him.
He hated that in a woman.
As he drew closer, walking with his customary rapid stride, it dawned on him that if he hadn’t known it was Leandra Ross standing there he’d never have recognised her.
The clinging sex kitten was gone. Her lush, slender body, which had been so lavishly on show the other evening, was now almost completely concealed by a sweatshirt and jeans. Her glorious blond hair was pinned haphazardly on her head and her face was completely free of make-up. Yet she was still a stunner.
As he approached he felt his body responding. She had an unconscious grace, standing there, so very motionless—poised almost, he thought, like a nymph of mythical Greece, sighted by Apollo, or Dionysus, or any one of the Olympians in a mood for dalliance, deciding whether to flee from the approaching god or yield to his desire…
Again, just as it had at the gala, the vision that leapt in his mind was vivid. He saw her caught by his restraining arms, drawn close against him, so soft against his hardness, pressing her pliant body against him…
Brusquely he quelled the thought. It was an irrelevance. She was simply a complication—a deadly, dangerous complication now, thanks to Milo!—and she had to be neutralised as soon as possible. That was all.
He stopped in front of her.
CHAPTER THREE
LEANDRA was staring at him as if transfixed.
After hours of staring out to sea, up into the heavens, desperate to spot something, anything, heading towards the island, the approach of a helicopter had sent her hurtling down towards the helipad. Until its noisy rotors had cut through the silence the only sounds she’d heard had been the old man hammering intermittently as he mended an outhouse roof and his wife emerging from what must be their living quarters behind the villa to hang up washing.
Then, as Leandra had watched the machine land, a new terror had filled her. The helicopter bore no markings, no Atrides logo.
Oh, God, suppose this isn’t anything to do with Demos! Suppose I really have been white-slaved!
She’d felt weak with horror.
Then, as the door of the helicopter had slid back and the occupant had emerged, her eyes had lit on a figure she knew all too well.
Theo Atrides, immaculate in a business suit that must have been handmade for him, his night-dark eyes veiled by a pair of aviator sunglasses, had shut the helicopter door with effortless ease and started to walk towards her.
Something had started to simmer inside her.
He looked so cool, so composed, so immaculate—so imposing. So damn calm that Leandra had felt her emotions boil up inside her as if the lid had just been taken off a pressure cooker heated in a furnace.
He’d kept on coming closer. His face set, his eyes hidden by the impenetrable sunglasses that half her mind registered, made him look so ludicrously sexy that she wanted to scream!
And if it hadn’t been the sight of Theo Atrides heading towards her as if he could melt butter as he walked that made her want to scream, then something had. Something powerful, and black, and overwhelming, and absolutely, totally raging!
She had been through so much—terrified out of her mind—and now here he was, just sauntering towards her looking like a million dollars.
He stopped in front of her. And the lid flew right off the pressure cooker.
With a frenzied strength she hadn’t even known she was capable of Leandra found her hands lifting and starting to pummel, insanely, at the broad chest, thumping and pounding as if she were possessed by all the devils in hell.
Her voice was yelling. She could hear it. Yelling right at Theo Atrides, letting out all the terror and anger and bewilderment and outrage she was feeling—had been feeling all day, since she had surfaced to realise that someone, someone, had kidnapped her right off the streets of London, drugged her out cold, and dumped her down a thousand miles away.
And that someone hadn’t been kindly, troubled Demos at all! It had been his overbearing, arrogant, contemptible cousin, who’d looked at her as if she was dirt. He was the one who’d done this to her! And she knew why! To get rid of her! That was why! To make sure Demos couldn’t hide behind her, so he could drag him back to marry Sofia!
How dared he? How dared he?
Then, abruptly, her hands were seized and held away from him. ‘Be silent!’
Her face contorted even more. ‘I will not be silent! You kidnapped me and I’ll see you in gaol!’
‘I said, be silent, you virago! Be silent and I will explain!’
Theo looked down at her, his hands like vices around her wrists to immobilise her.
She was a she-devil, a maniac!
Her eyes were flashing like swords trying to pierce him and her chest was heaving raggedly, the breath choking and panting in her throat. Her face was contorted with fury.
And he had thought she might wail and weep!
But at least she had stopped yelling at him. With a hard, heavy command he impelled her to step backwards, increasing the distance between them but still prudently holding on to her wrists all the while.
‘Let me go!’ she spat at him, writhing against his implacable hold.
‘Only if you listen to me!’
Breath shuddering, she gasped, still venomous, ‘What’s to tell, Mr Atrides? You kidnapped me and I’ll see you in gaol!’
He swore again. ‘I did not kidnap you. I am not responsible for your presence here, which—’ he gave a heavy intake of breath again ‘—I regret as much as you. Believe me!’ he finished crushingly.
He eyed her balefully as she stood there, panting and dishevelled, face twisted like a demon. This was all he needed—a virago flying at him! The perfect end to an intolerable day!
‘Now,’ he went on, his voice commanding her as if she were the most junior minion in his employ, ‘if your hysteria is finally spent, listen to me!’
Heart still pounding in her chest, every limb trembling, jerkily she nodded.
He let her go. Her eyes flashed. ‘Well, go on,’ she ground out, breath still painful. ‘You said you’d explain to me! Go on. I’d love to hear you explain away what you’ve done to me, Mr Oh-So-Almighty Theo Atrides! And then you can tell it to the police!’
His face darkened at her hostile, vicious tone. No one spoke to him like that! His body stiffened, growing taller and even more imposing, Leandra felt, suddenly shrinking her to about a centimetre high.
‘You will not speak to me in that tone,’ he informed her coldly, every inch the head of the Atrides Corporation and a man held in respect by all who crossed his path.
It was the wrong attitude to take. The pressure cooker inside her head might have blown its lid, but there was still a whole lot of anger boiling away in the depths!
‘Try saying that to the judge sentencing you for criminal abduction and false imprisonment!’ she bit back, her chest still heaving with emotion.
He flashed a hand upward imperiously.
‘Be silent! I had no part in this debacle, I assure you! And if you will finally condescend to listen to me I will explain what has happened.’
He glanced past her. ‘But not here.’ He glared balefully down at her. ‘It has been a tiring day. I will speak to you in twenty minutes on the terrace. Be there.’
Then he was striding away towards the villa, leaving behind a fuming, shattered Leandra.
Slowly her hands fell to her sides. She could not credit what she had just heard him say.
He dismissed me, she thought incredulously. He kidnapped me, imprisoned me, and now he’s just walked away.
Unbelievable, she thought. Unbelievable!
Twenty minutes later he walked out on to the patio where Leandra sat at an ironwork table, nerves still shot to pieces. Suddenly she had something else to make her breathing ragged. Her eyes fastened on Theo Atrides and could not move.
Dear God, but he was devastating!
He had obviously had a shower. His dark hair was still damp, gleaming like ebony, and he had changed out of his business suit into casual trousers, immaculately cut, and a polo shirt with a top designer logo discreetly on the pocket. His sunglasses had been discarded and now Leandra could get the full glory of those powerful, hooded eyes surveying her as he approached.
Just as he reached the table and sat down opposite her the elderly housekeeper emerged from the living room immediately behind the patio, carrying a tray with a glass of beer on it and a pot of filter coffee.
Theo nodded at her, signing a brief response which made her smile and nod before backing away.
‘Agathias is deaf,’ said Theo, draining a generous portion of his beer as if he needed it, indicating to Leandra that she should help herself to coffee. ‘So is her husband Yiorgos.’
‘So I discovered,’ Leandra said repressively. ‘How very convenient to hire gaolers who can’t hear their prisoners demanding to be released!’
The night-dark eyes flashed at her.
‘As a non-hearing couple, especially of their generation, they find it easier not to be always amongst hearing people. This island they look after for me is a haven for them. But they will return to stay with their family on the mainland when the weather worsens in winter. And they are not, Ms Ross, my hired gaolers!’
‘You just admitted this was your island!’ Leandra shot back.
‘Yes,’ said Theo heavily, ‘this is my island. But Agathias and Yiorgos are not here to be gaolers, only caretakers. All they know about you is that you were carried in from the helicopter insensible.’ His jaw tightened. ‘I’m afraid Agathias assumed you were drunk.’
An outraged expression formed on Leandra’s face.
‘Drunk?’ she said furiously. ‘I was drugged, Mr Atrides! Abducted from Edgware Road and forcibly knocked out! Don’t even think of making out that I was drunk!’
‘Of course I don’t think you were drunk! I know perfectly well what happened to you.’
Her eyes widened, her expression instantly accusing.
‘My God, so it was you who did it! It was you all along!’
A rasp sounded in his throat. ‘No! I had nothing to do with this, Ms Ross. Absolutely nothing!’
She looked across the table at him, lips thinning.
‘Oh? Then who, pray, is responsible? Do tell me!’ she enquired venomously.
For a long moment he just looked at her.
‘It was my grandfather,’ he said quietly.
She started. ‘Your grandfather? Is he completely mad?’
Theo sighed sharply and reached for his beer again. ‘Not mad, no. But old, Ms Ross, nearing the end of his life.’
He looked at her directly. She looked nothing like the way she had at the gala, hanging on to Demos’s sleeve!
The memory, which also sent an unwanted kick through his system, reminded him of why he was here. The only reason he was here. To separate her from Demos—and not he reprimanded himself grimly, to wonder how it was that her eyes could shift from amber to gold, then back to amber…
‘My grandfather is determined not to die before he sees my cousin marry. Demos must surely have told you that he will shortly be marrying a Greek girl?’
He watched her face closely as he spoke. Had Demos told her, or was she wallowing in ignorance of the fact that their affair was going to hit a brick wall any time now?
For her part, Leandra was wondering how best to react. It had just dawned on her that she was going to have to stay in character as Demos’s mistress—or completely destroy the whole charade. She thought fast. If she had been Demos’s mistress, would he have told her about Sofia?
She gave a little shrug. ‘I know his family want him to marry,’ she returned. ‘But that’s up to Demos, isn’t it?’
Her answer was a clear provocation, and Theo took it as such. He ignored her jibe and ploughed on.
‘My grandfather is an old, sick man, Ms Ross, who has had much grief in his life. In his…urgency…to hasten the wedding he…’ Theo chose his words carefully, as if he were conducting a press interview with news-hungry journalists ‘…may have overstepped the mark in this instance.’
Leandra felt a spurt of anger. Overstepped the mark? Abducting and imprisoning her was ‘overstepping the mark’?
‘He had me kidnapped!’ she threw at him fiercely.
Theo’s face was unreadable. In his time he’d struck deals worth billions—and he knew how to conceal his feelings when he had to.
‘That’s a very harsh word, Ms Ross,’ he said temporisingly.
‘It’s a very true one!’ she whipped back.
He drank some more of his beer, giving himself time before making his next move. Leandra watched him, eyes narrowed.
‘Ms Ross—’ Theo moved in again ‘—I freely admit there has been a gross error committed. You have, most inadvertently, been subjected to an experience which has, I don’t doubt, been very distressing…’
Right now, he thought privately, she looked about as distressed as a hangman—eyeing him up as her next customer!
Compunction filled him. She had every right to be angry, he knew. Milo had behaved unforgivably. But he had to persuade her not to press charges.
To that end he was prepared to offer her very substantial compensation—providing she also agreed to end her liaison with Demos. Then, at last, he could get Leandra Ross out of his hair and out of his life!
He opened his mouth to start working towards the offer he was prepared to make.
She pre-empted him totally.
‘I don’t care, Mr Atrides, who gave the orders to bring me here! I just want out. OK? As in out right now. Tonight.’ Her demand was crisp, clear, and very insistent.
His expression hardened instantly.
‘That’s impossible, I’m afraid,’ he said immediately.
The amber eyes flashed. He wished she wouldn’t do that. It distracted him, and he needed his wits about him now. He didn’t need to know how anger made her eyes glitter like gold.
Her riposte came swiftly.
‘You flew yourself in, now you can fly me out. Simple.’
‘Not simple at all,’ he retorted dismissively. ‘The helicopter needs refuelling, it’s getting too late to fly, I haven’t checked out the weather forecast, or logged a return flight with Athens air traffic control, and finally—’ he held up a hand decisively ‘—I am in no mood whatsoever to go anywhere else today!’
Leandra’s face whitened and her fingers gripped convulsively at the table surface. ‘But I’ve got to get away from here! I’ve got to! I absolutely demand that you fly me back to Athens immediately and put me on a plane to London!’
There was a note of panic in her voice, beneath the peremptory order, but Theo ignored it. He was in no mood to do anything other than keep to his firm intention of staying right where he was. He pushed away his empty glass and got to his feet.
‘I do not respond to orders—or pleading. No one is going anywhere tonight, and that is final! Now, if you will excuse me, I must contact my office. Please feel free to enjoy the facilities of my island.’ An ironic gleam showed in his eyes. ‘You may roam at will—be my guest.’
He strolled off, oblivious to the choking sound of Leandra Ross spitting with fury behind him at his parting jibe.
‘Agathias will serve dinner in an hour,’ he threw over his shoulder. ‘Do not be late.’
He disappeared inside the villa and Leandra was left fuming disbelievingly. She was going to be stuck here all night with the insufferable Theo Atrides!
The prospect appalled her.
Changing for dinner did not take Leandra long. After showering in the en suite bathroom in her bedroom she could not face putting on the clothes she had worn for nearly two days. But the only other garment she could find was a thin, silky wrap hanging on the back of the bathroom door. Her lips compressed. Presumably it had been left by a former female visitor to the island.
It was pretty obvious to her now just what this island was all about! This must be where Theo Atrides took his high-profile celebrity lovers when they wanted to get away from the flashbulbs of the paparazzi. With only an elderly deaf couple to look after them, they could be as private as they liked.
She tugged the belt of the wrap tight. Well, Theo Atrides’s glittering sex-life was nothing to do with her. His only use was to airlift her back to Athens.
Unfortunately, if she didn’t want to starve, it looked as if she was going to have to put up with his company for dinner. Defiantly she padded down the corridor on bare feet and into the dining room which opened, she discovered, off the living room.