The Greek Tycoon's Wife (16 page)

‘You slept with Tom?'

‘You look annoyed, Nikos,' she observed mildly—actually he looked incandescent with rage. ‘A little bit perverse, don't you think? Wasn't I supposed to sleep with Tom?' She shook her head and pretended bewilderment. ‘I mean, you went to such great lengths to smooth things over for me it seemed the least I could do.'

‘Do not speak like a tart…'

‘Why not? You treat me like one.'

‘If you speak to me like that you must expect to face the consequences…Katerina,' he warned her.

‘I'm trembling…' Every time you touch me.
‘Male arrogance,' she told him, shaking her head in disbelief, ‘is always a reliable form of entertainment. Good luck to you if you can convince Tom to take your leftovers off your hands. Unfortunately this particular reject doesn't want to be passed around like a piece of merchandise. I don't need you or anyone else to make excuses for me! I'm prepared to live with the consequences of my actions…' Would he? That was the big question.

Nikos strode over to the other side of the room, his hand pressed to his pleated brow. He swung back, a strange expression on his face. ‘You said that if you married Tom you would think of another man when your husband made love to you…' he quoted with deadly accuracy.

I knew it was too good to be true that he hadn't noticed that one.
‘I don't remember what I said.'

‘I do. Would this man by any chance be me, Katerina?' he charged huskily.

‘You really do think a lot of yourself, don't you?'

‘As I am the only man who has made love to you,' he reminded her with a palpable air of smug male complacency, ‘it seems a logical conclusion.'

‘How do you know I wasn't thinking of someone else when you were making love to me?'

Nikos threw back his head and laughed, perfectly secure in the knowledge,
and with good reason
, that in the bedroom he could wipe the thought of every other man from a woman's mind.

Her shoulders slumped in defeat.

‘Oh, all right, then, I wasn't.'

‘Before we go any farther I think we should establish why you are here.' Katie found that, now the moment had arrived, she couldn't say it—she just couldn't…
You're
scared of his reaction,
she accused herself.
You're a coward.
‘I repeat, why are you here? I demand an answer.'

Demand was the word that did it. Katie saw red. ‘That's your problem, you don't ask nicely,' she taunted angrily.

Nikos's face darkened. An errant muscle in his lean cheek jerked as his jaw tightened to breaking-point. Katie watched these danger signs with a strange sense of objectivity. Another little push and he would snap. Briefly she recklessly toyed with the idea of supplying the requisite pressure, but sense prevailed.

‘All right, if you must know Caitlin invited me.'

Nikos shook his head. ‘
What…?
No,' he said positively. ‘That is not possible, you do not know Caitlin.'

‘I do now. We met quite recently. She told me why you married me,' she added casually.

Nikos stiffened. ‘She should not have done that.'

‘No, you should have.'

‘I don't suppose she told you that my brother engineered her plight?' He saw Katie's confusion and nodded. ‘No, she would not. Dimitri, my brother, always resented Caitlin—he didn't like to share our father with anyone.'

‘Including you?'

Nikos looked at her sharply. ‘Including me,' he agreed slowly. ‘He was too clever to come right out and bad-mouth Caitlin, but he had a way of implying things…'

‘And if you imply often enough people start to wonder…?'

‘You've got the picture. As for the companies that suddenly called in her loans—he'd hidden his tracks well, but Dimitri was behind that too.'

Katie shuddered; the dead brother sounded a sinister person.

‘So you see my brother created the problem.'

‘And you felt it was your duty to make right what your brother had broken, no matter what it cost you.' Katie sighed. She was beginning to see the sort of man Nikos
was: a man with strong principles who would protect those he loved no matter what the cost to himself.

‘I think you too know about duty? And paying your brother's debts?'

Katie gasped and went pale. ‘How?'

Nikos shrugged. ‘It is always easy to track money if you know where to look. As for the rest, I could only theorise.'

Katie closed her eyes—he knew.

‘Your brother was very young.'

Katie blinked back tears and nodded. Nikos was looking at her not with scorn as she had feared, but with warmth and compassion.

‘He couldn't live with knowing what he'd done,' she admitted. She discovered it was actually a relief after all these years to be able to speak of it with someone, especially someone who didn't seem to be judging Peter.

‘And he left you all alone to fix the harm he had done. My poor Katerina…'

‘I don't want your pity, Nikos.'

‘That isn't what I want to give you.'

She waited with bated breath for him to expand on this infuriatingly ambiguous statement. When he remained silent she said the first thing that came into her head.

‘And your father is a dear, isn't he?' Actually calling Spyros Lakis a ‘dear' was a bit like calling a lion cute, but despite all her preconceptions she had warmed to the strong, silent man who was clearly besotted by his wife.

Nikos was regarding her with an expression of reluctant fascination. ‘You have met my father?' The significance of her presence appeared to finally hit him. ‘You are a guest here, on the yacht?'

‘Well, I'm not a stowaway.' Katie placed her hands on her slim hips and stuck her chin out. ‘And I'm not leaving!' she declared belligerently. ‘I'm here as a guest of your parents whether you like it or not and I'll go when they ask me to leave and not before.'

‘Did I say I wanted you to go?'

‘No, but—'

‘But nothing.' Nikos folded his arms across his chest. ‘What crazy scheme has Caitlin got you involved in?'

He clearly knew his stepmother pretty well. ‘She is unhappy about your plans to marry this…Livia. She asked me not to sign the papers to give her time to…'

‘Interfere,' Nikos supplied drily.

Katie was deeply confused by his sudden relaxed almost mellow attitude. He hadn't struck her as the sort of man who took people interfering in his life lightly.

‘So you didn't sign the papers.' His eyes narrowed. ‘But that doesn't explain your presence here.'

Katie grimaced. ‘I wanted to see how the other half live,' she responded flippantly.

‘And is it the way you imagined?'

‘I feel a little out of my depth,' she admitted.

Nikos reached across and ran his finger over her rounded chin. ‘You have nothing to prove to anyone. Remember that,' he instructed, looking deep into her startled face. ‘Now why did you really come?'

‘I think Caitlin thought I might be able to…
distract
you.'

There was a long, nerve-stretching silence.

‘Very delicately put,' Nikos observed slowly.

‘Don't worry, I didn't agree. Don't panic.' Pretty ironic advice considering he looked cool and collected and she was about ready to fall to pieces. ‘I'm not here to seduce you, Nikos.'

‘I feel better already,' he revealed with no discernible inflection in his deep, dry voice.

‘You're a grown man quite capable of deciding who you want to spend the rest of your life with.'

‘Rest of my life?' An odd expression flickered across his stony countenance.

‘Well, that's what marriage is about, isn't it?' she said crossly. ‘You must have thought about that.'

‘As you no doubt did when you accepted Tom's proposal,' he countered slyly.

Lips tight, Katie flicked back her long silky hair and fixed him with an unfriendly look. ‘You can marry who you like, but it might not be so easy after…you know…'

‘I know what?'

An irritated grunt emerged from her lips. Even the most besotted and liberal of girlfriends was not likely to view her future husband passionately kissing a strange woman with equanimity. A dreamy, distracted expression drifted into her eyes…it was passionate wasn't it…?

‘Well, don't you think that maybe it would be a good idea for you to go and explain to Livia about the…you know…
kissing thing
?' Her eyes, stinging with tears, slid from his.

Virtue might be its own reward but she had yet to see the proof. Katie cursed the wretched sense of fair play that made her act as an advocate for the enemy.

‘And say what exactly?' His predatory expression made her stomach flip. ‘That I saw you, and could think of nothing but tasting you, feeling your body beneath me…'

‘Nikos?' she gasped.

‘Do not look at me like that,
yineka mou
or I shall not be responsible,' he warned huskily. ‘I will not explain to Livia because she did not see me kiss you.'

‘I saw…'

‘Not Livia.' Nikos dismissed the blonde with a click of his fingers. ‘Even if she had seen me I would still not explain. Livia and I decided we would not suit after all,' he revealed smoothly.

‘I'm sorry.'

He grinned. ‘You are a delightful but most unconvincing liar. Now tell me, if you are not here to seduce me…a bitter blow,' he admitted solemnly, ‘why are you here?'

‘It's just there's something I thought you should know…'

‘Something so important that you had to tell me face to face?'

Katie nodded.

‘It can't be that bad.'

‘You'll probably think it is.' She felt it only fair to warn him. ‘I just thought you might want to know that you're going to be a father.'

He froze.
‘Father…?'
he repeated in a strangled voice. ‘Might!' he added in an even stranger tone.

‘Nikos!' she wailed, deeply alarmed by the grey tinge of his skin. ‘Maybe you should sit down.'

‘I'm not the one who is pregnant,' he gritted back.

Katie was relieved to see he had recovered some of his colour. ‘I didn't mean to blurt it out like that, honestly. And before you say anything I'm not here to ask for anything,' she added fiercely. ‘I just thought that you should know about the baby.'

‘You are carrying my child.' His eyes dropped to her flat belly.
‘Theos…!'
He clasped a hand to his head. ‘Why did I not think of this?' His face hardened with self-reproach that Katie read as anger.

‘I'm really sorry, but…'

‘You are sure?'

Katie jerked back, her expression indignant. ‘Of course I'm sure! Do you really think I'd have said anything if I wasn't?'

Nikos, who appeared to be deep in thought, nodded absently, not seeming to notice her resentment.

‘And you have seen a doctor, of course.'

‘Not yet,' she admitted. ‘But I did two tests and they're accurate,' she added in face of his accusing expression.

‘I will arrange for us to see a doctor first thing tomorrow.'

‘He'll only say the same thing, Nikos.' He was clearly still clinging to the hope that she was mistaken, she thought, irrationally saddened by his attitude.

‘I don't doubt it, but the sooner you receive proper medical care the better.'

‘I'm not ill, I'm pregnant.'

‘With my child, Katerina…' He dragged a hand shakily through his hair. ‘My child is growing inside you,' he groaned wonderingly.

‘You're not angry…?'

He looked at her as if she were mad.
‘Angry?'

‘Well, this is hardly the sort of news that you want to celebrate.'

‘Is that the way you feel?' he demanded tautly.

Katie felt it was significant he'd avoided answering her question. ‘Well,' she admitted, wryly, ‘I was pretty freaked when I realised.'

‘You were alone,' Nikos recognised in a strained undertone.

‘But now I kind of like the idea,' she explained with a self-conscious smile. ‘It must have something to do with maternal instincts and all that,' she added, a defensive note creeping into her voice.

Nikos nodded. ‘I “kind of like the idea” too.'

‘That's nice of you,' she replied with a watery smile. ‘It really is.' She sniffed. ‘But you don't have to pretend.'

An expression of extreme exasperation crossed Nikos's face. ‘I am not being kind or pretending. And I do not wish to hear you speak again of our baby as if it is some unwanted burden. Do you think me so incapable of the same feelings you claim for yourself?'

Katie shook her head, bewildered by the deep emotions throbbing in his voice. ‘You want this baby?' She gasped.

‘Did I not say so?'

‘No, as a matter of fact you didn't.'

A brief smile flickered across his face. ‘Well, for the record, I am happy. Did you tell Caitlin?'

Katie shook her head. ‘I didn't, but she might suspect,' she admitted.

Nikos nodded. ‘Do you want a big wedding?'

K
ATIE'S
knees sagged and Nikos, his eyes fixed with alarm on her milk-pale face, scooped her up as if she were a child, and, ignoring her weak protests, placed her down on a sofa.

Katie would have sat up if a firm hand on her chest had not prevented her. ‘I'm fine.'

‘You have clearly been overexerting yourself,' he accused. ‘You weigh nothing.'

‘I'm being careful, I'm not stupid. It's just that…for a minute there I thought you said
wedding
!' From some hidden reserve she dredged a weak laugh.

‘Naturally we will get married—anything else is unacceptable.'

‘We are married,' she reminded him.

‘Maybe on paper,' he admitted with a dismissive grimace. ‘But I want to do the thing properly this time…a priest, a church…'

‘People do not get married because they are having a baby, Nikos.'
They get married because they love one another,
she thought bleakly. It had not escaped her notice that love was a subject that Nikos was steering clear of. A loveless marriage, could she bear it? What was the alternative?

‘Here they do,' he corrected her drily. ‘I am Greek and so is my father. He is a proud man, and strong traditionalist—he would not accept a civil ceremony,' he explained glibly. ‘If I produced a bastard he would disown me and he would die of shame…possibly literally. You know, of course,' he added, ‘that he had two severe heart attacks a few years ago, and has undergone bypass surgery.'

‘So what you're saying is that if I don't marry you I'll be responsible for your father's death?'

Nikos gave a fatalistic shrug.

‘No undue pressure, then,' she breathed shakily.

‘And our child might be considered an outcast,' he added brutally.

‘That's so cruel!' Katie found it impossible to match his pragmatic manner.

Nikos brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. ‘I do not make the rules.'

‘But you live by them,' she accused.

His finger trailed lightly down the soft curve of her jaw. ‘You will marry me…?'

Katie turned her cheek into his cupped palm and gave a sigh. ‘It would be a disaster,' she predicted, blinking as her eyes filled with hot tears—Nikos hated tears.

She started when his finger found a single drop of salty moisture on her cheek. He touched it and then he raised his damp finger to his lips and touched his tongue to it.

Katie's insides melted like warm honey as she stared transfixed by the earthy, erotic spectacle.

He framed her face with his hands. ‘I will not make you cry,' he promised fiercely.

The emotions she heard in his deep voice moved her once more to tears.

‘You already make me break my promise,' he chided huskily. ‘I think I shall have to kiss you better? Unless you have a better idea.'

Katie sniffed, trying not to listen to the voice in her head that was calling her a weak fool.
What happened to proudly confronting him with your true feelings, Katie…?

‘I don't,' she admitted with a sniff.

 

The driver who was sitting in the back of the air-conditioned limo jumped out startled when he saw her approach.

‘I'm sorry, I understood you would not need the car for another hour.'

‘I won't need it at all,' she told him sunnily. ‘I need to go into the city. Don't worry, I'll catch a bus and go from there to meet Mr Lakis.'

‘Catch a bus?'
the driver echoed with as much horrified shock as if she'd just announced her intention of robbing a bank.

‘Could you tell me where this is?' she asked, showing the address written on the note she'd discovered when she'd returned to her stateroom earlier that morning. ‘Is this place far from where I'm to meet Mr Lakis?'

The driver confirmed it was in fact within walking distance, so Katie set off with mixed feelings for her assignation.

The short note had revealed its author to be the silver-haired man who had been watching her so intently. He had apologised for offending her and gone on to explain he had been a friend of her mother and he recognised her from the snapshots of her Eleri had sent him when she was a child.

Katie was eager to meet someone who had known her mother; the details she had of Eleri's earlier life were meagre. It didn't even cross her mind to refuse the suggestion that she meet this man in a café before lunch. She could meet him and then go on to meet Nikos as arranged.

She reached the café a little before the arranged time; the silver-haired stranger who had identified himself as Vasilis Atmatzidis was sitting in a corner, and he rose to his feet when he saw her.

‘Mr Atmatzidis…?' she said, holding out her hand.

‘Vasilis,' he said, taking her hand and raising it with old-fashioned gallantry to his lips.

Katie looked at him curiously. Despite the silver hair she judged him to be in his early to mid forties. Slim and a little above average height, he was extremely good-looking.

‘I think I annoyed you last night,' he said after ordering
coffee for them both. ‘I was just so surprised to see you there of all places…'

‘I wondered why you seemed familiar,' Katie said suddenly. ‘You were at the funeral, weren't you?' Her memories of the day were pretty confused but she did recall a well-dressed stranger who nobody had seemed to know who had stood at the back of the church and left without speaking to anyone. ‘And it must have been you who sent the flowers with the card written in Greek.'

Vasilis nodded. ‘I thought of approaching you, but Eleri always said that you got upset if she mentioned anything about her life in Greece.'

‘I got angry. They treated my mother terribly.'

The older man sighed. ‘Your grandfather was a proud, stubborn man,' he admitted. ‘He missed her terribly, you know.'

‘Well, I hope he suffered as much as she did,' Katie responded honestly. She was not inclined to forgive and forget. ‘How did you know my mother?'

‘I was the man she was meant to marry.'

Katie's eyes went round with astonishment. ‘
You!
And you stayed friends…?'

‘I valued your mother's friendship and once my heart and pride healed we corresponded regularly, and several times when I came to London we met up. She was always eager for news of old friends.'

‘I think she was homesick sometimes,' Katie said quietly.

‘Perhaps, but she never regretted her decision; she loved your father very much.'

Katie felt the prick of tears behind her eyelids. ‘Tell me about her,' she asked huskily. ‘Tell me about what she was like when she was young.'

Vasilis was an entertaining raconteur and soon Katie was laughing out loud as, with a roguish gleam in his eyes, he recalled some hair-raising exploits.

‘I don't believe she did that!' Katie exclaimed after he recounted one particular episode.

‘It's true,' he promised. ‘I swear.' The laughter died from his eyes as they swept over her face. ‘You know, when you laugh you look like her.'

Impulsively Katie caught his hand and squeezed. ‘Did you ever marry?'

‘No, he never married.'

Katie started at the sound of a very familiar voice. ‘Nikos!' Her welcoming smile faded as she encountered the shimmering hostility in Nikos's rigid face.

Dismayed and alarmed, she watched as he took a swaggering step forward and wedged his thigh up against her chair so that even had she wanted to leave she couldn't have.

‘And the reason Vasilis has never married,' he continued loudly, ‘is that he is a womaniser, who prefers quantity to quality.'

The look he gave the other man made Katie cringe on his behalf. Anyone would think from the way he was acting he wanted to pick a fight.

‘You two know one another, I take it,' Katie said drily. She still didn't have the faintest idea why Nikos was acting so obnoxiously.

‘Oh, yes,' Vasilis agreed. ‘I've known Nikos since he was a baby.'

‘Playing the experience card is calculated risk, Vasilis. There's always the danger that the lady in question will realise that you're old enough to be her father.' The older man's appreciative laughter seemed to infuriate Nikos even more. ‘We are leaving, Katerina.'

‘I'm not going anywhere with you until you apologise to Vasilis. Honestly,' she said to the older man, ‘I don't know what's got into him.'

Nikos inhaled through quivering nostrils and released a flood of Greek for the older man's benefit. Katie might not
have been able to understand a word of it, but it didn't sound as if it was anything friendly. Halfway through the diatribe Vasilis's mocking smile faded. He looked from Katie to Nikos with startled incredulity.

‘You are married, Katie?' he asked when Nikos had subsided into silent hostility.

‘Sort of,' she admitted. ‘It's a long story.'

‘
Sort of
was enough to get you pregnant,' Nikos reminded her.

‘I thought you didn't want the world to know before you told your parents.'

‘Don't worry, your secret is safe with me,' Vasilis promised, getting to his feet. He bowed to Katie. ‘Until we meet next time, my dear.'

‘I'd like that.' Katie smiled, turning her back pointedly on Nikos. You couldn't really blame the older man for leaving—Nikos did look pretty scary.

Not that she was scared. On the surface this seemed a foolish response, but when she analysed it she realised that she knew deep down that Nikos would never hurt her. Whatever else changed in her life this wouldn't; she would always be safe with him.

‘If there's a next time,' Nikos informed Vasilis with a belligerent growl, ‘I'll break your damned neck. Just keep away from my wife!'

Vasilis seemed to take this threat in good part. Katie was less tolerant.

‘How could you?'
she breathed wrathfully as the other man left.

Nikos pulled a wad of notes from his pocket and slammed them on the table. ‘Let's get out of here.'

‘I'm not going anywhere with you.'

‘You can leave on your own two feet or slung over my shoulder. The choice,' he announced generously, ‘is yours.'

Katie examined his grim face; she decided he wasn't bluffing. ‘I'm going because I want to.'

‘Of course you are.'

‘And I hate you.'

‘We'll discuss your feelings for me later.'

 

The fifteen-minute journey to his apartment building was completed in silence, the sort of silence that made the air-conditioning redundant.

If Nikos's temper had cooled by the time the door of his apartment had closed her own had peaked.

‘I accept that there was no deception on your part and I am prepared to make allowances for your inexperience, but you have to promise me never again to go anywhere near Vasilis.'

‘I will do no such thing and how dare you tell me who I may and may not have as a friend? You behaved like a thug,' she condemned severely. ‘I've never been so embarrassed in my life!'

Nikos surveyed her angry, flushed face with outraged eyes. ‘I behaved…' His chest swelled. ‘I behaved with incredible restraint considering the provocation!' he bellowed. ‘If I'd done to that
man
what I wanted to you might have room for complaint. How did you expect me to act? I come back early and find my wife has gone off to meet the most notorious womaniser in the country and she hasn't even had the decency to hide it from me. My own chauffeur told me!'

‘Fine, next time I have an assignation I'll lie my head off. Will that make you happy?'

Nikos grabbed her by the shoulders and jerked her to him. ‘There won't be a next time,' he ground. ‘Because I'm not going to let you out of my sight.
Theos!
' he groaned. ‘Why are you doing this to me?'

Her soft heart couldn't take the sort of anguish she recognised in his face. ‘I went to meet Vasilis because he knew my mother.'

‘Is that what he told you?' Nikos laughed harshly. ‘Look,
I know women find him attractive and he's a very plausible guy, but—'

‘No,
really
, he knew my mother. He was to be married to her, but she ran away with my father.'

‘No, that can't be right. Vasilis was betrothed to the Kapsis girl.'

‘My mother.'

Nikos looked dumbfounded. ‘Your mother was Michalis Kapsis's daughter…?'

Katie nodded. ‘Her family disowned her when she married my father. He wasn't good enough for them,' she recalled bitterly.

‘And you have never had any contact with them?'

Katie shook her head.

‘This is extraordinary—
Theos
!' he exclaimed suddenly. ‘This Greek you taunted me with—the one you lived with—it was your mother,' he breathed.

Katie nodded.

‘You are half Greek.'

‘I've been trying all my life to forget that…'

Nikos pulled her into the circle of his arms and Katie laid her head against his chest. The hand that stroked her hair suddenly stilled.

‘I made a total fool of myself.'

‘Yes, you did.' She lifted her head. ‘Why did you, Nikos?' Her eyes widened in astonishment as he blushed—he actually blushed!

‘Well, I wanted to protect you as any husband would—' He broke off and took a deep breath. ‘No, I acted like that because I was insane with jealousy.'

‘You were jealous?'

‘I am jealous of every man who looks at you. I love you,
pethu mou
, I've known it since that first night, but I wouldn't admit it even to myself. I was so sick at the thought of you going back to Tom that I invited him up to the room. It was despicable and everything you said was
right…that's why I tried to make things right between you, I thought I would do the noble thing. I told myself that you being happy was what mattered and if you were happy with Tom then so be it. I think noble is overrated. I went through seven sorts of hell thinking of you with him,' he said hoarsely.