In the Greek's Bed
‘Much appreciated, Nik. Isn’t it, darling?’
Katie nodded. It pained her deeply to see Tom’s unsuspicious pleasure at the empty gesture. Normally an astute man, he couldn’t seem to see what was under his nose where Nikos Lakis was concerned. Maybe it was the glamour of his wealth that made Tom blind. As far as she was concerned, the man was a prize creep!
Nikos took the bottle from its bed of ice and personally popped the cork with an expert twist of his long brown fingers and a flick of his strong, supple wrist, but then he would be an expert at drinking champagne and making love to beautiful women, Katie thought sourly, for wasn’t that what playboys like him spent their time doing? The irony was that she had probably financed some of that champagne and those women! The realisation only made his attitude all the more hypocritically sanctimonious.
Her chin firmed in determination; they’d had a deal and he’d got his money’s worth for precious little effort on his part. She was damned if she was going to let him ruin her life just when it was going where she wanted it with his silent threats, and the first moment she got him alone she was going to tell him so.
The thought of being alone with him made her stomach flip. Katie was surprised to discover that excitement and disgust could sometimes feel much the same thing. Naturally, given the choice she’d never want to be alone with the hateful man, but under the circumstances there wasn’t an option.
‘To the happy couple.’
Katie, her eyes shining with belligerence, obediently sipped the expensive bubbles, not tasting a thing.
The meal was torture; Nikos’s cryptic remarks were so numerous that Katie was sure Tom would catch on. It took all her will-power not to react to his wind-ups. The intrusive chime of Tom’s mobile just as they reached the main course was for once something of a welcome break.
He apologised but took the call and spoke for several minutes to someone on the other end. From the way his expression darkened it wasn’t hard to tell it was bad news he was hearing.
‘I’ll be there in about thirty minutes,’ he said, before sliding his phone back into his pocket. ‘I’m really sorry, folks.’ His apologetic glance slid from Katie to Nikos and back again. ‘But I really have to go. That out-of-town development I’m working on has been nothing but trouble from the start. I’d heard there was going to be some sort of demonstration so I arranged for the bulldozers to move in tonight, but it seems the damned eco-warriors beat us to it.
‘And,’ he added gloomily, ‘they’re not alone. A local TV station has picked up on it.’ Looking grim, he folded his napkin and got to his feet. ‘Can you believe it? All this over a scrubby bit of bog land nobody has ever heard of. Now they’ve come up with rare weed…I ask you, a weed!’
Katie, who found she had some sympathy with the local businesses and residents who didn’t want the out-of-town development, kept a tactful silence.
‘Some people,’ he complained darkly, ‘can’t stand progress.’
‘The future, my friend, is green,’ Nikos observed.
Tom’s laughter suggested he considered his friend’s remark a joke. Katie, who wasn’t so sure, began to get to her feet.
Tom motioned her to sit down. ‘No, sweetheart, you finish your meal—no need for everyone to suffer. Nik will see you home?’ He looked enquiringly at the other man, who responded smooth as silk.
‘My pleasure.’
Katie’s stomach gave a horrid lurch. Only a determination not to give him the satisfaction enabled her to conceal her dismay.
‘Thanks, mate.’ Tom gave Nikos a thumbs-up signal. ‘You two enjoy your meal,’ he encouraged, bending down to kiss the top of Katie’s head.
‘Perhaps I could help,’ she said, speaking quickly. ‘I know Mark Rogers’s mother.’ Tom gave a growl at the mention of the leader of the local opposition to his project. ‘She’s a lovely woman, Tom, and she was saying that it’s the scale of the development and the lack of local consultation that has upset Mark and the others. Perhaps if—’
‘I appreciate the offer, Katie,’ Tom said, unable to hide his impatience. ‘But this is business. I’m sure Rogers’s mother is a nice woman, but you can’t reason with troublemakers like him—they just see it as weakness. I’ll ring you in the morning.’
Katie had told herself that that was just the way Tom was and it wasn’t something she could do anything about, but on this occasion as she watched his departure part of her wanted to call him back and confront him. Why are you acting like a prehistoric jerk? Why are you treating me like a brainless ornament? she wanted to demand.
She’d seen him work perfectly amicably with high-powered female executives. He’d come across as an enlightened new man on the occasions she’d heard him express admiration for females in top jobs. So why, when it came to his own fiancée, did he assume that anything remotely connected with his business was over her head?
Maybe it was his upbringing, she reflected, or maybe I just look dumb?
She gave a sigh as he reached the door and, turning back to the table, discovered that Nikos Lakis was watching her.
CHAPTER THREE
‘WHAT,’ Katie snapped testily, ‘are you looking at?’ There was entirely too much understanding in those disturbing eyes of Nikos’s for her comfort.
‘The dynamics of a loving relationship.’
The reply didn’t soothe her; she didn’t want those cold, clever eyes dissecting her relationship with Tom.
Maybe you’re afraid he’ll make you see something you don’t want to?
Katie turned her attention back to the food on her plate; it was hard to simulate interest in the beautifully prepared meal.
‘He’s going to ring you…so you’ve not moved in together…’ Nikos regarded her down-bent head speculatively from over the rim of his glass.
‘No, we haven’t.’
‘Shrewd and beautiful?’ he drawled admiringly. ‘No doubt your tactics have a lot to do with a confirmed bachelor like Tom popping the question. Living together inevitably makes a man less eager to commit to marriage.’
With unwarranted viciousness Katie speared an innocent butter-coated new potato with her fork; it made a poor substitute for what she longed to stab.
‘Seeing their beloved first thing in the morning rarely matches up to a man’s romantic fantasy,’ he observed in a superior, amused tone.
‘Like you’d know such a lot about romantic fantasy!’
Nikos didn’t seem offended by her gibe. ‘Oh, I wasn’t referring to myself; you’re right, I’m no romantic. I don’t expect or particularly want perfection in a woman and I was seventeen the last time I put one on a pedestal. Tom on the other hand…’ His arched brows rose.
Katie lifted her head from her prolonged contemplation of her food. ‘Tom does not put me on a pedestal!’ she retorted uneasily. ‘That’s a disgusting thing to say!’ Her nose wrinkled with distaste at the idea.
‘Disgusting…?’ His broad shoulders lifted. ‘An interesting choice of adjective.’ His upper lip curled in a cynical sneer. ‘I’d have thought that being worshipped was most women’s dream.’
‘Being loved is most women’s dream.’ Oh, God, I sound like a starry-eyed teenager… Her resolve stiffened as she stuck her chin out fully expecting his scorn—why should she be embarrassed by something that she believed? She wasn’t going to let some dyed-in-the-wool cynic make her feel self-conscious. After all, you couldn’t expect someone like Nikos Lakis to appreciate the difference between being loved for what you were and being loved for what someone wanted you to be.
Their eyes touched; hers were defiant, his were… Katie swallowed; then again maybe Nikos understood more than she thought. Uneasily she observed the subtle shift in his expression as he registered her loaded riposte.
Without saying anything he made her feel she’d just made some remarkably revealing comment.
‘Tom loves me,’ she gritted. ‘And he doesn’t care how I look in the morning. I suppose you look marvellous after a late night,’ she snarled.
The instant the words were off her tongue Katie knew they’d been a bad idea. It was like opening the floodgates of her imagination. Unwelcome images of tousled dark hair, slumberous, sexy eyes and hard, olive-toned flesh minus any form of clothing—Nikos Lakis definitely slept naked—flashed through her undisciplined mind. She sucked in air through her flared nostrils and then exhaled hard through her parted lips.
Thoughtfully Nikos watched the soft colour mount the smooth contours of her cheeks. ‘Actually I’ve not had any complaints as yet,’ he revealed softly.
The colour in her cheeks deepened. ‘Amazing what some women will put up with if they think they stand the chance of snagging a rich man,’ she grunted contemptuously.
‘I bow to your superior experience in such matters.’
It was the closest he’d come yet to an outright accusation of gold-digging. Katie’s fork fell from her grasp; she barely registered the noisy clatter of the metal on porcelain.
‘I wouldn’t kiss a man before he’s cleaned his teeth in the morning for any amount of money!’ she declared loudly enough to draw the amused attention of several diners close by who heard her forthright words.
For the first time she had the impression her response had perplexed Nikos. His glance slid to the undulations of her heaving bosom before returning to her angry face.
‘If you really mean that, I think you’ve been spending your nights with the wrong sort of man.’
Katie, her attention hopelessly held in thrall by the low, husky throb of his voice, watched as the heavy lids of his exotically slanted eyes dropped lower over his dark glittering gaze.
Elbows planted on the table, he leaned towards her, it seemed to Katie’s feverish mind that his closeness had cut them off from the rest of the room. Her senses were teased by the elusive male fragrance he used and the even more elusive but naturally occurring faintly musky male scent rising off his warm skin.
‘There is a special sort of pleasure in kissing someone and tasting the scent of your body on their lips…’ With each successive syllable his voice dropped lower until it was just a husky purr. The mesmeric drawl sent tiny shivers trickling through her body. ‘The intimacy awakens memories of the pleasures of the night before,’ he rasped.
The images that filled her brain sent a scalding hot flash of heat washing over Katie’s body, sending her core temperature off the scale. Katie tore her eyes from the dark ones of her tormentor. It would have been a lot less humiliating to pretend that it hadn’t happened…that Nikos Lakis hadn’t turned her into a mindless bundle of lustful longing with a bit of coarse sexual innuendo, but he had.
Forewarned is forearmed, she told herself without any particular conviction—there were some things even she, the eternal optimist, found hard to put a positive slant on.
‘Give me fluoride any day,’ she gritted stubbornly.
For a moment Nikos looked nonplussed by her response. Then a slow grin spread across his lean face. Katie found her eyes drawn to the brown flesh of his throat as, head back, he laughed. Presumably his skin would be that firm and golden elsewhere?
‘And you, Katerina…’
‘Me…?’ she squeaked, lifting a hand to cover the mortified colour in her cheeks. To be caught drooling was bad enough, but to be caught drooling over Nikos Lakis made her certifiably stupid!
‘Am I wrong to think that you feel some sympathy for these little flowers that Tom is going to cover with concrete?’ He leaned back in his seat and replaced his almost full wineglass on the table.
She was unable to match his mental agility; the abrupt change of subject escalated Katie’s growing mental confusion.
‘What?’ she asked, playing for time. It was unthinkably disloyal to voice her doubts on the subject to anyone, let alone this man. ‘I’m totally behind Tom.’
‘Even when you think he’s wrong. How loyal.’
‘Tom would never do anything illegal.’
‘Legally, I’m sure he wouldn’t do anything wrong.’
All thoughts of confronting Nikos and reminding him he had to honour his side of their bargain had long since vanished from her head. Katie just knew she’d explode or do something equally socially unacceptable if she spent another moment in this detestable man’s company!
‘How dare you? I’m not going to sit here and debate my fiancé’s morals with someone like you,’ she spat in a shaking voice as she rose to her feet. The abrupt but graceful motion sent the soft fabric of her dress hissing softly around her shapely ankles.
‘Not a pudding girl, then?’ The lazily mocking observation was addressed to her rigid slender back. Nikos spent the next few moments until she disappeared from view admiring the elegant line of her stiff spine and the gentle sway of her softly curved behind. The image, though quite delectable, brought a brooding frown to his face.
It wasn’t easy when every cell in her body was agonisingly aware of him, but Katie stubbornly refused to acknowledge the tall figure at her side as she stood in the foyer—nobody else felt similarly inhibited. She had never felt so conspicuous as she did standing next to someone that everyone seemed inclined to goggle at—so much for good old British reserve! For his part Nikos seemed genuinely oblivious to the intense interest he created.
It was only when he cancelled the request for a taxi she’d made to the uniformed figure who arrived all effusive apologies for his absence at the reception desk that Katie could no longer pretend he wasn’t there.
‘Go away,’ she spat. ‘Or I’ll call Security.’ Her fury was fed by the fact the receptionist was automatically obeying him despite her loud protest.
‘I’m taking you home; it is what Tom would expect.’
This struck Katie as the height of hypocrisy. ‘The same way he’d expect you to insult me every chance you get.’ If he thought she was getting in his car with him he was off his head—or I would be if I did, she thought, recalling uneasily the strange things that happened to her when she was in close physical proximity to him…
Her delicate feathery brows drew together. Something as shallow and superficial as sexual attraction ought in theory to be easy to control or at least ignore…
‘Is that what I’ve been doing?’
Katie lifted confused eyes to his. ‘I don’t know what you’ve been doing,’ she revealed shakily. She bit her lower lip and added in a hard, contemptuous voice, ‘I should have known you’d be the sort of man who’d drink and drive.’
Katie watched in reluctant fascination as the handsome face above her grew taut and forbidding… My Lord, he really is formidable, she thought, unable to tear her gaze free.
‘If you were half as observant as you like to think yourself you’d have noticed that, unlike you, I barely had a mouthful of wine,’ he announced austerely.
‘Are you calling me drunk?’ she demanded spikily.
Nikos muttered something inaudible but definitely not English or polite under his breath. ‘That at least would be some excuse,’ he gritted. ‘But I think your unreasonable behaviour is a result of an intractable, obstinate and shrewish disposition, not inebriation.’
‘I hate to disillusion you but not agreeing with you is not actually the accepted litmus test for pigheadedness. Just because women fall in with your wishes doesn’t mean they actually agree with you, or even think that pearls of wisdom fall from your tongue.’ Pausing to catch her breath, she delivered a breathless, snide laugh. ‘It just means you’ve got more money than they have. Privately they probably think you’re just as much of a pain as I do.’
Incredulity—maybe people didn’t speak to him that way?—metamorphosed into sizzled anger in his dramatic eyes and Katie wondered with a strange sense of objectivity if she might not have gone too far. It was almost as if she had a compulsion to push him, test him to his limits.
‘I can only assume,’ he replied in a voice with a chill factor straight from Siberia, ‘that Tom has been kept in ignorance of this charming aspect of your personality—he never struck me as a stupid man, but then I suppose a beautiful face will make the wisest man foolish,’ he concluded cynically.
It wasn’t the attack alone that made her eyes open wide in amazement, it was the inference that he thought she had a beautiful face… Her preoccupation with this discovery struck her as unhealthy. She’d never counted vanity as one of her sins…now pride and obstinacy were quite another matter!
‘Now be a good girl and let me take you home.’
His patronising drawl fanned the embers of her temper into hot flame. ‘Go jump in the lake!’ she bawled childishly up at him. As she was tall, Katie wasn’t accustomed to being forced to tilt her head back to look a man in the face. She silently seethed with discontent. It wasn’t fair, she reflected resentfully, that simply because the gene pool had made him so damned tall he immediately had an unfair advantage in any argument…
‘If you are still concerned that I have been drinking, don’t be,’ he continued sombrely. ‘I am very conscious that cars can be a lethal weapon—my elder brother was killed by a drunk driver.’
His frosty manner was not one that invited sympathy; despite this, Katie’s attitude tumbled abruptly from extreme hostility to aching pity. Notwithstanding his terse tone, she was convinced that behind that stony façade he was hurting.
She knew of course it was probable that the Peter factor had something to do with her response—up to this point they’d had nothing in common, but now she knew that they’d both lost their brothers in motor accidents. Though the circumstances were very different, she felt, quite illogically, that some tenuous link had sprung up between them—not enough to make them inseparable friends, but maybe it just made him seem a little more human, more fragile. Fragile…? She glanced up at his tough profile and shook her head; maybe that was taking it too far.
It was ironic, considering that she’d been trying to discover a weak spot in his defences all evening, that now she had actually found one all she wanted to do was kiss him better. Kiss…don’t go there, Katie. But of course she did.
Her active imagination had rapidly progressed beyond the kissing scene; by now things had got a lot further! Katie stopped herself; she was sure Nikos Lakis was the person in the universe least likely to need to be kissed better.
‘I’m sorry about your brother.’ I suppose I just don’t have the killer instinct.
Nikos’s dark, well-defined brows drew together as he watched those extraordinary sapphire-blue eyes fill until they glistened luminously with unshed tears. It struck him as bizarre that someone so hard-nosed and single-minded should have tears to spare for someone she had never even met.
This unexpected display of empathy was totally incompatible with the character of the woman that he had in his mental file marked ‘Katerina Forsythe’. Nikos scowled; he didn’t want her to be more complex than the two-dimensional character he had imagined. Mostly he considered himself pretty flexible and open to new ideas, but in this instance he was extremely resistant to revision.
‘And I’m sure you’re an excellent driver,’ she added generously. ‘But I’ve no intention—’
His deep, strangely abstracted voice cut softly across her rambling rejection. ‘I thought that day I first saw you that you were wearing tinted contact lenses, the colour of your eyes was so…extreme. But the colour is real, isn’t it?’ His expression took on an almost accusing cast as he gazed down into the clear blue of her widely spaced, darkly fringed eyes.
The total unexpectedness of his comment made her blink, or maybe the intensity of his regard had something to do with her need to break the contact? It surprised her that he’d even noticed what colour her eyes were, let alone given the shade any thought.
‘Of course it’s real.’ For some inexplicable reason her heart began to act as if she’d decided to sprint across the lobby.
Nikos cleared his throat and ran a long-fingered hand through his dark glossy hair. ‘It is a very unusual colour—almost violet. Did you inherit your colouring from your mother?’
The tight feeling in her chest made her voice sound unusually breathy when she replied. ‘No, my mother was very dark. It was Peter who inherited her colouring.’ Her expression softened as she thought of Eleri’s glossy jet-black hair and golden skin. ‘Dad was a blue-eyed, redheaded Scot.’
‘Was? Is he dead?’
‘They both are.’
‘So there is just you and…Peter? Or do you have other siblings?’
Katie shook her head. ‘No, it was just us two—and Peter, he died.’
‘Long ago?’
‘Seven years.’
He nodded, but did not comment further on what she’d told him.
Katie wasn’t quite sure why she had told him. Peter wasn’t a subject she discussed with anyone, though sometimes the weight of her secret made her long to share the burden with someone.
‘I know my presence disturbs you, Katerina…’
And then some! ‘Are you surprised? I wasn’t expecting Tom’s billionaire friend to turn out to be the penniless man I married seven years ago?’
If Nikos heard the unspoken question in her resentful observation he chose to ignore it. Katie was starting to get the idea he did that a lot.
‘If you put aside your animosity…’
Katie was unable to restrain her incredulous laughter; as if he were the soul of impartial reason! ‘I don’t think I’m the only person with an animosity issue here, mate.’
‘If you stop spitting and snarling for a minute you might recognise that we have things to talk about.’ His brows lifted to a quizzical angle. ‘Don’t you agree?’
Katie opened her mouth and then closed it again; she could hardly deny it. You couldn’t really meet up with a man you’d just requested a divorce from and not talk.
‘Now seems an excellent opportunity,’ he continued, his eyes observing the inner struggle very clearly revealed on her expressive face.
Katie swallowed and, without looking directly at him, nodded her consent.
CHAPTER FOUR
FOR someone who’d wanted to talk, Nikos showed precious little inclination to do so once they were in his car—predictably a low-slung luxurious sports car. In Katie’s present mood she’d have criticised his driving had the opportunity arisen, but it didn’t. He proved to be competent but not dangerously erratic as many men were when placed behind the wheel of a powerful car.
Other than ask directions as they’d left the hotel he had said nothing at all.
She cleared her dry throat, and swallowed; it seemed it was up to her to break the ice. She wondered what to say.
‘Why are you here?’
It wasn’t exactly slick, but you had to start somewhere.
‘When we spoke on the phone Tom could not stop talking about the woman of his dreams. I was naturally curious to see this paragon.’
Sarcastic beast. She eyed him with dislike. ‘And that was it?’ She gave a sceptical snort. ‘I don’t believe in coincidences.’
‘Neither did I until I opened my mail immediately after speaking to Tom. When I read Harvey’s letter relaying your request for a speedy dissolution of our union I realised why the name Katie Forsythe seemed so familiar. Katie…Katerina…I thought I’d check it out. I dropped in on Harvey on my way here and tried to get your address. Being an exemplary example of the legal profession and impervious to bribery, he refused…’
‘You didn’t try and bribe Harvey!’ Katie exclaimed in a scandalised tone.
Nikos spared her a fleeting glance that made her feel ridiculously gauche before he returned his attention to the narrow, ill-lit road. ‘It was much simpler and more rewarding to take a look at his laptop when he was called from the office.’