Tycoon's Ring Of Convenience

Nikos settled himself into a seat in first class. His mood was good—very good. His decision to select Diana St Clair as the means of achieving his life’s second imperative goal might have been made impulsively, but he’d always trusted his instincts. They’d never failed him in business yet, enabling his rise to riches to be as meteoric as it had been steep.

A faint frown furrowed his brow as he accepted a glass of champagne from the attentive stewardess.

But marriage is not a business decision...

He shook the thought from him. His liaison with Nadya hadn’t been a business decision, but it had proved highly beneficial to both of them while it had lasted, with each of them gaining substantially from it. There was no reason why his time with Diana St Clair should not do likewise. As well as gaining the restoration of her home, she would gain an attentive husband and a very attentive lover.

What more could she—or he—want?

Certainly not love.

His mouth twisted. Love was of no interest to him. He’d never known it, did not want it. And nor, clearly, did Diana St Clair, or she would have sent him packing when he’d set out his proposal in front of her. But she hadn’t—and she would accept it, he knew, his expression changing to one of confident assurance.

What he was offering suited her perfectly. And not just as the means to save her home. On a much more personal level too. Oh, she might not yet realise that her inner ice maiden had finally met a challenge it could not freeze off, but when the time came—and come it would!—she would accept from him all the exquisite sensual pleasure that he would ensure she experienced, all the pleasure that he was so hotly anticipating for himself.

It would be his gift to her—opening the door for her to accept the admiration and desire of men at last. Frozen as she was within, he would ignite within her that flare of sensual awareness he’d seen so briefly, so revealingly in her eyes when he’d first looked upon her.

He would not hurry her—he would give her time to get used to him—but in the end... His smile deepened and he took a mouthful of champagne, easing his shoulders as an image of her pale, exquisite beauty formed in his mind’s eye, lingering over the fine-boned features, the silken line of her mouth.

In the end she would thaw.

And melt into his waiting arms.

* * *

Diana stared at the vast bouquet of exotic, highly scented lilies that sat on the Boule table in the hall, fragrancing the air. Then she stared down at the cheque she was holding in her slightly shaking hands, and the note accompanying it.

An advance, sent in good faith.

She stared at the numbers on the cheque. A quarter of a million pounds. She felt her lungs tighten. So much money—

With a stifled noise in her throat she marched back into her office. But the scent of the lilies was in her nostrils still. Beguiling. Enticing.

Can I do it? Marry Nikos Tramontes?

The cheque in her hand demanded an answer. Accept or reject it. Accept or reject the man who’d signed it.

The phone on her desk rang, startling her. It was her architect, politely, tactfully enquiring whether she was yet in a position to set a start date for the work that needed to be done. Work that could not start without Nikos to pay for it.

Her hand clenched, her signet ring with the St Clair crest on her little finger catching on the mahogany surface of the desk. Emotion bit into her, forcing a decision. The decision she had to make now. Could postpone no longer. If she did not restore Greymont it would decay into ruins or she would have to sell. Either way, it would be lost.

I can’t be the St Clair who loses Greymont. I can’t betray my father’s devotion and sacrifice. I can’t!

The offer that Nikos Tramontes had put in front of her was the best she could ever hope to find. It was a gift from heaven.

Nothing else can save Greymont.

She could feel her heart thumping in her chest, her mouth drying, suddenly, at the enormity of what she was doing.