The Greek's Million-Dollar Baby Bargain

The dark eyes washed over her leisurely, keeping the breath stifled in her lungs, the muscles of her throat constricted. Her heart was giving slow, ponderous slugs as everything seemed to slow down, inside and out. The traffic noise faded, everything faded except the pulse in the hollow of her neck, the tightness of her lungs. She tried to fight it, tried to draw breath—but she couldn’t. Could only go on sitting there as his eyes came back to her—reading her reaction.

He smiled.

It was not a nice smile, but it made a pool of heat flush all the way through Ann’s body. He watched the heat flood through her as if it were a visible wave, his dark eyes veiled as they looked over her, through her.

The air in the taxi was thick, tangible. She felt his hand lift from her shoulder and reach a little further. Then the pad of his index finger was touching her cheek, drawing down it like a knife blade. Her eyes were locked on his—she could not break away.

She shivered.

The hand dropped, and rested again innocuously on the back of the taxi seat. But it had done its damage. She felt his touch sear her cheek as if his hand were still there. As if his touch had burnt into her skin…

‘I will tell you how it will be, Miss Turner,’ Nikos Theakis informed her, as though he were having a normal conversation with her. His voice had become flat and unemotional. All trace of his awareness of her as a female had vanished, as if a light had been switched off. ‘There will be no more Theakis money for you. You have had your pay off. If you have squandered it, that is your misfortune. You will have no opportunity to take advantage of my mother’s generosity and sentimental kind-heart-edness.’ His voice flattened even more, and the dark eyes beheld her opaquely. ‘Accordingly, there will be no little holiday for you on Sospiris. No continuation of this touching reunion with the child you sold for a million pounds so that you could buy yourself a worthless lifestyle for a few years. No further contact with my nephew or my family at all. Do you understand me?’

Ann bit her lip. She longed to yell back at him but what was the point? She already knew she could not accept Mrs Theakis’s invitation—it was impossible, impossible. She did not need Nikos Theakis telling her that, ordering her to stay away from Ari.

Seeing Ari again like this, out of the blue, had been a miracle—a wonderful gift. But that was all it was. Oh, now that Mrs Theakis had met her perhaps Ann would finally be allowed to write to Ari, send him presents, even occasionally see him—but she could never be part of his life. She knew that—accepted that. Had long ago accepted that.

So all she said now was a tight lipped, ‘Yes, I understand, Mr Theakis.’

‘That is as well,’ he said curtly, lifting his hand to rap on the cabby’s glass. ‘I see we understand each other. Make sure it stays that way, Miss Turner.’

Then the taxi was stopping, and Nikos Theakis was climbing out, having pressed a twenty-pound note into the cabby’s hand and told him to take his remaining passenger wherever the fare warranted. Then, briefly, he turned his attention back to Ann.

‘Stay away from my family.’

Then he strode off into the London crowd, and Ann could see him no more.

For the second time in four years Nikos Theakis had walked out of her life.

He would walk back in far more swiftly.

CHAPTER TWO

ANN HAD JUST returned to her flat with a bagful of groceries. She had heard nothing more from Ari’s grandmother, though she had posted a polite thank-you letter to the hotel, thanking her for lunch and for her kindness in letting her have such precious time with Ari. It saddened her profoundly that she would never know him as she longed to, but at least she knew now that he was having the happiest of childhoods, with a doting grandmother and, she forced herself to acknowledge, an uncle who clearly held his nephew in affection, despite his harsh condemnation of his mother and aunt.

She gained the kitchen and started to unpack the groceries. The front doorbell rang. Frowning slightly, for she was not expecting anyone, Ann trotted down the narrow hallway and cautiously opened the door.

But not cautiously enough. Like an action replay from four years ago, Nikos Theakis strode inside.

‘We,’ he announced balefully to an open-mouthed Ann, ‘shall speak.’

‘You want me to do what?’ she demanded, staring down at Nikos Theakis disbelievingly. He was sitting in the armchair by the window of the living room, and his expensive, bespoke tailored presence was as dominatingly incongruous as it had been four years ago.

‘Spend a month in Greece, at my mother’s house on Sospiris,’ repeated the man who’d told her to stay away from his family.

‘Why?’ she asked bluntly, folding her arms defensively over her chest. She was wearing jeans today, and the top she was wearing with them suddenly seemed to be showing off her figure voluptuously. Nikos Theakis’ gaze had swept over her as he’d walked in and sat himself down without a by-your-leave, and she had not liked it.

But then there was nothing about Nikos Theakis she liked. Least of all the way he was speaking to her now.

He was angry. That was obvious. It was suppressed anger, but anger all the same, leashed on a tight rein. It had not stopped him flicking his gaze over her in a way that had brought a flush to her cheek—a flush that had nothing to do with the fact that she not expected to set eyes on him again and did not want to anyway. Even if her insides had given a sudden gulp as she’d rested her eyes on him…on his tall, powerful frame…the hard, handsome face and those night dark eyes.

Then all other thoughts had vanished from her head as he had dropped his bombshell.

‘You are to come to Sospiris because,’ he bit out, ‘my mother insists! And,’ he ground out even more bitingly, ‘as her doctor informs me that her heart condition will be exacerbated by any emotional upset, I have no option but to concede to her wishes. Well?’ he demanded, tight lipped. ‘What are you waiting for? Start packing.’

Ann crushed her arms more tightly over her chest.

As if in an action replay from four years ago, Ann watched him reach into his suit jacket, take out his leather-bound chequebook, hook one leg over his knee to create a writing platform, and fill out a cheque with his gold fountain pen. He presented it to her with a contemptuous flourish.

‘The fee, Miss Turner, for your very expensive and valuable time.’

His opinion of her cut through his voice.

Numbly she took the piece of paper he proffered her. The zeros blurred, then resolved themselves. She gave a faint sigh of shock and her eyes widened.

‘Ten thousand pounds, Miss Turner.’ Nikos Theakis’ hatefully sarcastic voice floated over her head somewhere. ‘Now, that is what I call an expenses-paid holiday…’

Slowly, Ann shifted her gaze so that she met his eyes. The expression in them could have incinerated her on the spot. Answering emotion seared her breast. With one part of her she wanted to rip the cheque into a dozen pieces and throw them in his cold, contemptuous face. And with another she felt a gush of excited anticipation at seeing her nephew again, combined with the sudden rush of realisation that she held ten thousand pounds in her hands. A fortune—and one that she knew exactly how to spend.

Just the way she had spent her last cheque from Nikos Theakis.

A smile of sweet pleasure broke across her face. ‘Why, Mr Theakis,’ she said saccharinely, knowing just how angry she could make him, and how satisfying that would be to her insulted soul, ‘how very, very generous of you. I believe I shall start packing straight away.’

As she turned away, heading for the stairs, a word slithered out of the sculpted, sensual mouth. She couldn’t tell what it was, because it was Greek. But it was enunciated with such deadly venom that she did not request a translation.

For a moment Ann stood transfixed, as if he’d struck her physically, not just verbally. Then, back stiffening, she gave a tiny, indifferent shrug of her shoulders and walked out of the room to begin her packing.

* * *

Ann craned her neck as the helicopter swooped in to land on the helipad behind the Theakis villa. Set in a huge, landscaped Mediterranean garden, on the tiny private island of Sospiris, the villa was breathtakingly beautiful—gleaming white, its walls and terraces splashed with bougainvillea, the vivid hues of an azure swimming pool competing with the even more azure hues of the Aegean all around. As they disembarked, she gazed around her, revelling not just in the beauty of the surroundings, but in the balmy warmth after the chill British spring.

Nikos Theakis watched her reaction as she stared about her, visibly delighted. ‘Worth getting your greedy little claws into, Miss Turner?’ he murmured.

Ann ignored him, as she had done her best to do all the way from London on the private jet that had flown them to the Greek mainland. He had returned the favour, occupying himself with his laptop and a pile of what she had assumed were business documents.

But if Nikos Theakis made it crystal clear she was here very nearly over his dead body, the warmth of his mother’s greeting almost equalled the exuberance of her grandson’s, who had swooped on his newly discovered aunt with a fierce hug from so little a body. As she crouched down to return his embrace, Ann’s eyes misted.

Oh, Carla—if you could see your son now. How happy heis, how much he is part of the family you wanted for him. And this would have been Carla’s home too—she would have been bringing her son up here, in this beautiful villa, married to Andreas, in the perfect life that her sister had so longed for. Instead a grave had been waiting for her, and for the man she’d so wanted to marry…

Anguish crushed Ann, then resolutely she put it aside. The past was gone—it could not be undone. Only the present was left, and the future that was Carla’s and Andreas’ son.

* * *

Nikos watched Ann Turner entering the salon that one of the house staff was ushering her into. He had seen nothing of her since he had handed her over to his mother on their arrival at the villa that afternoon, taking refuge from his grim mood by incarcerating himself in his study. Work, at least, had taken his mind off the unwelcome presence of a woman he wished to perdition, but who had, instead, succeeded in further insinuating himself into his family. Now, however, he was face to face with her again. His gaze surveyed her impassively. But impassiveness was not the hallmark of his mood. Resentment and grim anger were. And another thing he resented, even more than her presence.

Her impact on him as a woman.

His mouth tightened as he watched her approach his mother. Damn the girl—why did she have to look like that? Why couldn’t she still look the way she had four years ago? Why did she have to be wand slender, with that incredible hair swept back off her face, her classically beautiful features set off by an aqua knee-length dress in some fine jersey material that skimmed her lissom body, making her look both subtly alluring and yet not obviously so. Why did he have to wonder what it might be like to sift his fingers through that long hair, inconveniently restrained in a velvet tie? Why did he have to speculate whether her breasts, scarcely outlined in the discreetly styled dress, would repay his personal investigation?