The Greek Tycoon's Unexpected Wife

Tessa refused to give in to the exhaustion that threatened to swamp her now she’d finally arrived. She pushed her shoulders back, lifted her chin and prepared to wait.

Just a little longer, and then it would be over. Then she could rest.

She surveyed the blank white wall in front of her. The bare table, the empty chair. What was this room used for? It looked like an interrogation cell.

She shivered as a flash of memory burst upon her. Of another small, windowless room. Not so pristine, or so quiet. The paint on those walls had long since peeled away, leaving the slapdash structure of mortar and cheap bricks visible. The floor was gritty underfoot and littered with debris.

And the smell. Her nostrils flared as she remembered.

That room had been rank with the scent of fear. Fear and pain.

Resolutely she turned her mind back to the present. She was half a world away, literally, from that place. And that room no longer existed, had long since been bulldozed into rubble.

The trouble was that memories couldn’t be destroyed as easily as buildings.

She took a deep breath and automatically reached for her talisman on its chain. Its weight was comforting between her breasts. It had seen her through hard times, a promise of hope in times of need and despair.

And now she’d come to give it back. She didn’t need it any more.

It had been a shock to discover its real owner was very much alive. She must have sat, statue-still, for long minutes as she’d stared at the magazine, right into the face of the man who’d haunted her for the last four years. The airport lounge had receded to a peripheral blur as she took in his unmistakable features. His arrogant air of assured power.

‘The golden couple: Stavros Denakis and Angela Christophorou. Will it be wedding rings for two?’ So the caption had run.

The photo above it had shown a glamorous couple entering a nightclub. She was gorgeous, model-chic in a figure-moulding silver dress that revealed a fashionable amount of superb cleavage. And an even more stunning amount of diamond jewellery.

Yet she was overshadowed by the presence of the man beside her, tall and powerfully built, his face severe and not a little intimidating as he stared right into the camera. A man with a purpose. With power. With the sort of magnetism a woman couldn’t ignore.

Tessa swallowed against the lump of emotion that clogged her throat. She still remembered the surprisingly comforting touch of his hand, enclosing hers. The brush of his lips, fleeting but hot, like a brand against her own. The way his charcoal eyes had darkened almost to black as he’d stared down at her.

Amazing that she could remember such minute detail after all this time, even down to the tremor of excitement that had skittered down her spine at his scrutiny.

But then, he was the man who’d saved her life.

Every minute they’d spent together was emblazoned in her mind. Through the intervening years she’d revisited that time so often, drawing strength from the recollection of his formidable will-power, his unhesitating, almost casual acceptance of the need to help her.

The memory of the man himself had been a far more potent talisman than the piece of jewellery he’d left behind.

The sound of footsteps, rapid and purposeful, broke across her thoughts and she stiffened in her seat, preparing herself to face him.

The lock clicked and the door swung open and there he was. Stavros Denakis.

Her eyes widened as she took him in. He was bigger than she remembered, so powerfully built across the shoulders that he filled the doorway. She watched his hand clench white-knuckled on the door knob and his chest expand as he drew in a deep breath.

His face might have been sculpted in stone, the flesh tight over a magnificent bone structure. There was a flash of white as his lips drew back for an instant in an expression of shock. His eyes bored into her, dark and doubting. They narrowed as they swept from her head to her waist—all he could see of her behind the table.

Tessa felt that scrutiny like a physical touch and tilted her chin up, her eyes meeting his.

Recognition flared through her. It wasn’t just the sight of him but the way she responded to his presence—the quickened pulse, the breathless constriction of her chest, the tell-tale quiver of excitement as she looked up at him.

She’d know this man in the dark, blindfolded.

He’d affected her like that the first time they’d met. Why should she be surprised to discover that hadn’t changed?

He strode forward and came to a halt just in front of the small table.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded in English. His voice was deep, a mere whisper, but with the sort of authority that guaranteed an answer.

‘Tessa Marlowe.’ She swallowed against the sudden dryness in her mouth.

He jerked his head up abruptly in clear rejection. For a moment there was silence between them, broken only by the sound of her shallow breathing. Then he leaned forward, planting both fists on the table before her. His head loomed close to hers and she stiffened against the urge to retreat, shrink back in her chair.

She breathed deep, searching for calm. But instead another sensation ricocheted through her. The subtle, tantalising scent of him evoked something unmistakable, a female awareness that circled and curled in on itself, deep in the pit of her belly.

‘Don’t you remember me?’ she whispered, her voice hoarse with stress.

His eyes looked obsidian-black now, slitted and gleaming between long lashes.

There was no recognition there. No welcome. Only doubt. And fury.

‘Who are you?’ he said again.

‘I told you. I’m Tessa Marlowe.’

He slammed his palm against the table. ‘No! Tessa Marlowe died four years ago.’

The air seemed to crackle, the tension between them sucking the oxygen from her lungs.

She’d expected surprise, astonishment, but not this anger that welled from him in waves. The force of it pinned her against the hard back of her seat.

She gathered her strength and spoke, surprised to hear her voice so calm and cool. ‘You’re mistaken. I was injured, unconscious. But that’s all.’

He gazed at her, unblinking. ‘Prove it.’

She fumbled at the neckline of her T-shirt. Drew the familiar chain up till she felt it in her hand: the ring she’d protected and cherished all these years.

For a moment she hesitated, held it close in her clenched fist. Then she dragged it out, holding the chain at full length away from her, its burden resting in her open palm.

He watched her intently, didn’t even blink. A sizzle of energy jagged between them and she wondered why she hadn’t heard the sound of a thunderclap to accompany it.

Then he flicked his eyes from hers and down to the prize she held in her hand.

Released from his thrall, she sagged in her seat, exhausted by the assault this man made on her senses.

She heard the hiss of his indrawn breath and knew that at last he believed.

Stavros stared, unbelieving, at the ring in the centre of her slender palm.

He’d recognise it anywhere, had known it all his life. The heavy circlet of gold, worn but still solid. Its centrepiece engraved in ancient times with tiny, exquisite carvings of a hunter in a chariot facing a lion at bay. It had been designed for use untold generations ago as a seal—the unique identifying mark of a man of power.