The Greek's Virgin Bride

He’d clawed his way up off the streets, fighting tooth and nail, pushing poverty behind him deal by nerve-racking deal, until now, at thirty-four, it was as if he had never been that unwanted, fatherless boy running wild in the alleyways.

The journey had been long, and tough, but he had made it—and the fruits of his triumph were sweet indeed.

Now he stood poised on the edge of his greatest triumph—getting hold of the mighty Coustakis Industries.

‘I was thinking,’ he said, keeping his face blank, ‘of a share-swap.’

He had it all planned. He would reverse Vassilis Inc into the far larger Coustakis empire, and take the lot in a cashless exchange of shares. Oh, Old Man Coustakis would need a lot of personal financial sweeteners, he knew that, but Nikos had that covered too. He knew the old man wanted out, that his health—deny it officially as he would—was not good. But he knew Yiorgos Coustakis would never cede control of his business without a top-dollar face-saving deal—he’d go out like a lion, with a final roar, not like an old wolf driven from the pack.

That didn’t bother Nikos—when his time came to quit he’d drive a hard bargain too, just to keep his successor on his toes.

But what Coustakis had just thrown at him had winded him like a blow to the gut. Marry his granddaughter to get hold of the company? Nikos hadn’t even known the old man had a granddaughter!

Inside, behind the mask that was the carefully schooled expression on his face, Nikos had to tip his hat to the old man. He could still catch his rivals out—even a rival who was posing as a friendly merger partner.

‘You can have the share-swap—on your wedding day.’

Yiorgos’s reply was flat. Nikos kept his silence. Behind his composed appearance his mind was teeming. Racing.

‘Well?’ Yiorgos prompted him.

‘I’ll think about it,’ returned Nikos. His voice was cool.

He turned to go.

‘Walk out the door and the deal is off. Permanently.’

Nikos stopped. He rested his eyes on the man seated at the desk. He wasn’t bluffing. Nikos knew that. Everyone knew Old Man Coustakis never bluffed.

‘You sign now, or not at all.’

Nikos’s slate-grey eyes—a legacy from his unknown father, as was his un-Greek height of well over six feet—met with Coustakis’s black ones. For a long, timeless moment, they held. Then slowly, unflinchingly, Nikos Vassilis walked back to the desk, picked up the gold pen Yiorgos Coustakis silently handed him, and signed the document lying there.

Without a word, he set down the pen and walked out.

On his brief journey down to ground level in the plush executive lift in the Coustakis HQ, Nikos tried in vain to rein in his thoughts.

Exultation ran side by side with anger—exultation that his longed-for goal was now within his grasp, anger that he had been outmanoeuvred by the wiliest fox he knew.

He straightened his shoulders. Who cared if Coustakis had driven a bargain he hadn’t even seen coming? No one could have. The man played his cards closer to his chest than anyone Nikos knew—himself included. And if he could suddenly produce a granddaughter out of thin air that no one had ever heard of till now, well, what did it matter to him, Nikos Vassilis, who was going to get what he’d wanted all his life—a safe, secure, glittering place at the very top of the greasy pole he’d been climbing all his life?

That the unknown granddaughter fated to be his wife was a complete stranger was an irrelevance compared with taking over the Coustakis empire.

He knew what mattered in his life. What had always mattered.

And Old Man Coustakis—and his granddaughter—held the key to his dreams.

Nikos was not about to turn it down.

CHAPTER ONE

ANDREA could hear her mother coughing wheezily in the kitchen as she made breakfast. Her face tensed. It was getting worse, that cough. Kim had been asthmatic all her life, Andrea knew, but for the last eighteen months the bronchitis she’d got the winter before had never been shaken off, and her lungs were weaker than ever.

The doctor had been sympathetic but, apart from keeping Kim on her medication, all he’d advised was spending the winter in a warmer, drier climate. Andrea had smiled with grim politeness, and not bothered to tell him that he might as well have said she should take her mother to the moon. They barely had enough to cover their living expenses as it was, let alone to go gallivanting off abroad.

A clunk through the letterbox of the council flat she’d lived in all her life told Andrea that the post had arrived. She hurried off to get it before her mother could get to the door. The post only brought bills, and every bill brought more worries. Already her mother was fretting about how they would be able to pay for heating in the coming winter.

Andrea glanced at the post as she scooped it off the worn carpet by the front door. Two bills, some junk mail, and a thick cream-coloured envelope with her name typed on it. She frowned. Now what? An eviction order? A debt reminder? Something unpleasant from the council? Or the bank?

She ripped her thumbnail down the back and yanked open the paper inside, unfolding it. She caught a glimpse of some ornate heading, and a neatly typed paragraph—‘Dear Ms Fraser….’

As she read, Andrea’s body slowly froze. Twice she re-read the brief missive. Then, with a contortion of blind rage on her face, she screwed the letter into a ball and hurled it with all her force at the door. It bounced, and lay on the carpet.

Andrea had heard the phrase ‘red-misting’—now she knew first-hand what it meant.

Bastard!

She felt her hands fist in anger at her side. Then, with a deep, controlling breath, she made herself open her palms, bend down, and pick up the letter. She must not let Kim find it.

All that day the contents of the letter, jammed into the bottom of her bag, burned at her, the terse paragraph it contained repeating itself over and over again in Andrea’s head.

You are required to attend Mr Coustakis at the end of next week. Your airline ticket will be at Heathrow for you to collect on Friday morning. Consult the enclosed itinerary for your check-in time. You will be met at Athens airport. You should phone the number below to acknowledge receipt of this communication by five p.m. tomorrow.

It was simply signed ‘For Mr Coustakis’.

Dark emotions flowed through Andrea. ‘Mr Coustakis’s.’ Aka Yiorgos Coustakis. Founder and owner of Coustakis Industries, worth hundreds of millions of pounds. A man Andrea loathed with every atom of her being.

Her grandfather.

Not that Yiorgos Coustakis had ever acknowledged the relationship. Memory of another letter leapt in Andrea’s mind. That one had been written directly to her mother. It had been brief, too, and to the point. It had informed Kim Fraser, in a single, damning sentence, that any further attempt to communicate with Mr Coustakis would result in legal action being taken against her. That had been ten years ago. Yiorgos Coustakis had made it damningly clear that his granddaughter simply didn’t exist as far as he was concerned.

Now, out of the blue, she had been summoned to his presence.

Andrea’s mouth tightened. Did he really think she would meekly pack her bags and check in for a flight to Athens next Friday? Darkness shadowed her eyes. Yiorgos Coustakis could drop dead before she showed up!

A second letter arrived the next day, again from the London office of Coustakis Industries. Its contents were even terser.

Dear Ms Fraser,

You failed to communicate your receipt of the letter dated two days ago. Please do so immediately.

Like the first letter, Andrea took it into work—Kim must definitely not see it. She had suffered far too much from the father of the man she had loved so desperately—so briefly. A sick feeling sloshed in Andrea’s stomach. How could anyone have treated her gentle, sensitive mother so brutally? But Yiorgos Coustakis had—and had relished it.

Andrea typed a suitable reply, keeping it as barely civil as the letters she had received. She owed nothing to the sender. Not even civility. Nothing but hatred.

With reference to your recent correspondence, you should note that any further letters to me will continue to be ignored.

She printed it out and signed it with her bare name—hard and uncompromising.