The Konstantos Marriage Demand

The Konstantos Marriage Demand
Kate Walker

The Greek’s ruthless reunion Sadie Carteret and Nikos Konstantos were once blissfully in love. They planned the wedding of the year, and that their union would create a powerful dynasty. But business and pleasure should never be mixed. Nikos was accused of scheming for Sadie’s money and title and was systematically destroyed by her family.The wedding was cancelled, the relationship in tatters. Now the ruthless billionaire has built himself back up from scratch. He will clear his name and demand what was rightfully his… Sadie must love, honour and…obey…

Excerpt

‘Sadie…’ Nikos said again, and at long last the finger that rested so lightly on her cheek moved softly.

And he bent his head to kiss her.

It felt as if it was the kiss she had been waiting for all her life. It was shocking, heart-stopping in its gentleness. Sadie’s fingers softened, her grip on the water glass loosening so that it fell to the floor. She vaguely heard the splash of water, the thud of the tumbler bouncing on the thick wool of the rug.

But after that she knew nothing else. Nothing but Nikos and the warmth of his body all around her. The strength of his arms as they gathered her close. The pressure of his mouth on hers and the magic it was working as he eased her lips open, slid his tongue along the edge and into the warm softness of her mouth.

She was drowning in a dark, heady world of sensuality, aware only of the responses of her body, following blindly where Nikos led. Her own hands lifted, arms winding around his neck, drawing his proud head down, taking the kiss into another dimension.

‘Nikos…’ She choked out his name, restless fingers clutching in his hair.

But the words died on her tongue, crushed back down her throat by the way that he suddenly stopped, his whole mood changing. The hands that had held her close were now moving her away from him, setting her aside with cold precision. And then, to her total consternation and horror, he pulled back the cuff of his shirt and checked his watch again.

‘Your time is almost up. You have just fifty seconds left,’ he declared with flat detachment, completely devoid of emotion. ‘Was there anything else you wanted to say before you leave?’

Kate Walker was born in Nottinghamshire, but as she grew up in Yorkshire she has always felt that her roots are there. She met her husband at university, and originally worked as a children’s librarian, but after the birth of her son she returned to her old childhood love of writing. When she’s not working, she divides her time between her family, their three cats, and her interests of embroidery, antiques, film and theatre, and, of course, reading. You can visit Kate at www.kate-walker.com

The Konstantos Marriage Demand

by

Kate Walker

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk/)

For Abby Green with thanks for the inspiration over Kir Royales in the Shelbourne and for sharing Delphi Lodge

Chapter One

IN SPITE OF the driving rain that lashed her face, stinging her eyes and almost blinding her, Sadie had no trouble finding her way to the offices where she had an appointment first thing that morning. From the moment that she left the tube station and turned right it was as if her feet were taking her automatically along the route she needed, with no need to look where she was going.

But then of course she had been this way so many times before. In other days, some time ago perhaps, but often enough to know her way without thinking. Of course then she had been heading in this direction in such very different circumstances. In those days she would have arrived in a taxi, or perhaps a chauffeur-driven car, with a uniformed driver sliding the limousine to the edge of the kerb and opening the door for her. Then, the offices towards which she was heading had belonged to her father as the head of Carteret Incorporated. Now they were the UK headquarters of the man who had set out to ruin her family in revenge for the way he had been treated.

And who had succeeded far more than he had ever dreamed.

Burning tears mingled with the sting of the rain as Sadie forced her feet towards the huge plate glass doors that marked the entrance to the elegant building, blinding her so that she almost stumbled across the threshold. Bitter acid swirled in her stomach as the doors slid open and she recognised the way that the words Konstantos Corporation were now etched in big gold letters on the glass where once she had been able to see her father’s name—her family name—displayed so clearly.

Would she ever be able to come back here and not think of her father, dead and in his grave for over six months, while the man who had hated him enough to take everything he possessed from him now lorded it over the company that her great-grandfather had built up from nothing into the multimillion corporation it now was?

‘No!’ Drawing on all the determination she possessed, Sadie shook her head, sending her sleek dark hair flying, her green eyes dark with resolve, as she stepped into the wide, marble-floored foyer. Her black patent high-heeled shoes made a clipped, decisive sound as she made her way across to the pale wood reception desk.

‘No!’ she muttered under her breath again.

No way was she going to let cruel memories of the past destroy her now. She couldn’t let them take away the hard-won strength she had drawn on to get herself here. The resolve that was holding her upright and, she prayed, stopping her legs from shaking, her knees from giving way beneath her. She had come here today because it was her last—her only chance. She had to brave the lion in his den and ask him—beg him—to give them this one small reprieve. Without it the thought of the consequences was impossible to bear. For herself, her mother and her small brother. She couldn’t let anything get in the way of that.

‘I have an appointment with Mr Konstantos,’ she told the smartly dressed young woman behind the reception desk. ‘With—Mr Nikos Konstantos.’

She prayed that no tremor in her voice gave away how difficult she had found it to say the name—his name. The name of the man she had once loved almost to the point of madness. The name she had once believed would be hers too for the rest of her life—until she had realised that she was just being used as a pawn in a very nasty power game. A cruel game of revenge and retribution. A settling of scores from wounds that had originally been inflicted long ago and had been many, bitter years festering viciously, until they had poisoned so many lives. Her own amongst them.

‘And your name is?’ the receptionist enquired.

‘Carter,’ Sadie supplied, hoping that the sudden dropping of her green eyes to examine some non-existent spot on one of her hands didn’t betray how difficult she had found it to come out with the lie. ‘S-Sandie Carter.’

She had had to resort to the subterfuge of a false name, she acknowledged inwardly, a nasty taste in her mouth at having been reduced to it. She knew only too well that if she had tried to gain an appointment with him under her real identity then Nikos Konstantos would never even have given her a moment’s consideration. Her request to see him would have been refused with cold-blooded arrogance and unyielding rejection. Her attempt to contact him would have been squashed dead under his arrogant heel before it had even struggled into life and she would be back where she had been at the start of this week: lost, desperate, penniless, and without a hope in the world.

She didn’t have much of a hope now, but at least the receptionist was checking through a list of names and times on her computer, smiling her satisfaction as she found the fictitious one that Sadie had given her, and making a swift click with her mouse as she checked it off.

‘You’re a little early…’

‘Not to worry—I can wait…’ Sadie put in hastily, knowing only too well that ‘a little early’ was a major understatement. She was way too early—by more than half an hour. But nervousness and a real fear that she might have backed out of this if she hadn’t left home just as soon as she was ready had pushed her out of the door well before the time needed for her journey.

‘No need,’ the other woman assured her. ‘Mr Konstantos’s first appointment cancelled, so he can see you straight away.’

‘Thank you,’Sadie managed, because it was all she could say.

She’d committed herself to this interview and she had to go through with it. But now that the time had come she felt sick at just the thought of confronting Nikos here, in what had once been her family’s offices. What had possessed her to do this? To think that she could cope with seeing Nikos for the first time in five years, and come back into the building that did so much to emphasise how far her family’s fortunes had fallen—both at the same time.

‘I think perhaps…’ she began again, her already shaky courage deserting her, meaning to say that she’d changed her mind—she had another appointment, or her mother had just called…anything to give her an excuse to leave, get out of here now. To run and hide before she had to come face to face with…

‘Mr Konstantos…’

The receptionist’s tone, her sudden change of expression, would have alerted Sadie to just what was happening even without the use of that emotive name. The other woman’s eyes had widened, her gaze going straight to a point over Sadie’s shoulder, behind her back. And the expression in it, as in the way she had said the name—that name—told Sadie without another word needing to be spoken just who had come up behind her, silent as a hunting jungle cat, and possibly just as deadly.

‘Has my ten-o’clock appointment arrived?’

‘She’s right here…’

The receptionist smiled as she indicated Sadie standing before her desk, and she clearly thought that Sadie would smile back. Smile and turn. Possibly say hello or some such.

But Sadie knew that she couldn’t move. Her legs seemed to have frozen to the spot. Her mind too had iced up, leaving her incapable of registering a single thought other than the fact that he was behind her.

That Nikos Konstantos was right behind her. And that at any moment he would see her and realise who she was.

It was the voice that had done it. Just those few words in those deep, sensually husky tones had short-circuited her brain waves, making it impossible to think of anything but the shivering sensations that ran up and down her spine. Once she had heard that voice whisper to her in the darkness, murmuring sounds of delight and promising her the very best—the world—the future. And, entranced by that sexy accent, lost in the world of sensuality that just being with him had always created around her, she had foolishly, naively believed in every word.

Every lying word.

‘Mrs Carter?’

Her silence had gone on too long. It had had the opposite effect to the one she had hoped for. What she had really wanted was to become invisible. Or for the beautiful marble floor to open up so that she could fall right through, out of sight. But instead, by standing still and silent, she had puzzled and confused the other woman so that she frowned in faint enquiry, making a slight nod of her head to draw Sadie’s attention to the man behind her.

A man who couldn’t possibly be unaware of the way she was standing there, stiff and awkward and with blatant disregard for normal polite behaviour.