Bond Of Hatred

Bond Of Hatred
LYNNE GRAHAM

Sleeping with the enemy?Sarah Hartwell’s sister died in childbirth leaving a son she’s determined to protect him. So when Greek tycoon Alex Terzakis comes to claim his brother’s child Sarah stands firm in the face of his dizzying wealth and power. In a final, desperate attempt to get rid of Alex she gives him an ultimatum: if he wants the baby he’ll have to marry her!Believing Sarah is a gold-digger and expecting her to name a price for the child Alex is surprised by the beauty’s proposal…but astounds her by accepting. Yet Alex refuses to have a marriage in name only… he will claim his bride!

is one of Mills & Boon’s most popular and bestselling novelists. Her writing was an instant success with readers worldwide. Since her first book, Bittersweet Passion, was published in 1987, she has gone from strength to strength and now has over ninety titles, which have sold more than thirty-five million copies, to her name.

In this special collection, we offer readers a chance to revisit favourite books or enjoy that rare treasure—a book by a favourite writer—they may have missed. In every case, seduction and passion with a gorgeous, irresistible man are guaranteed!

LYNNE GRAHAM was born in Northern Ireland and has been a keen Mills & Boon

reader since her teens. She is very happily married, with an understanding husband who has learned to cook since she started to write! Her five children keep her on her toes. She has a very large dog, which knocks everything over, a very small terrier, which barks a lot, and two cats. When time allows, Lynne is a keen gardener.

Bond of Hatred

Lynne Graham

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

CHAPTER ONE

SARAH stood still as a statue at the glass viewing window. Her wide emerald eyes were burning. Every muscle in her body was rigid with tension. Every muscle ached. Only the most fierce self-discipline held back her exhaustion. It had been a long night and a devastating dawn. And every minute, every agonising hour of it was etched into her soul. The nurse wheeled over her nephew’s cot and displayed him with a wide smile.

She probably didn’t know, Sarah thought numbly. She looked back at the nurse, her fine-boned face ashen and strained, her facial muscles frozen into a mask. The nurse stopped smiling but Sarah didn’t notice. Her attention had locked into her nephew. He had a shock of black hair and a pair of furious dark eyes.

There was nothing of Callie in him. He was Mediterranean-dark, his foreign ancestry clearly apparent. He was screaming. He looked so unhappy. She wondered if on some strange wavelength he knew that his mother was dead. Dead. She flinched inwardly away from the word and began to walk up the corridor on legs that didn’t feel strong enough to support her.

Women didn’t die in childbirth these days. Or so she had believed. And Callie hadn’t even been a woman in her sister’s opinion. At eighteen, Callie had been on the shady boundary line between child and adult. A golden girl with beauty, intelligence and everything to live for...until Damon Terzakis had come into her life and laid it to waste. An immense bitterness gripped Sarah. The emotion was so intense, it literally frightened her.

‘Miss Hartwell...’

The sound of that voice halted her in her tracks. That dark, accented drawl cut into her like a razor. She shuddered. Slowly she raised her head. He stood several feel away. A male few would overlook. He had to be at least six feet three. His superbly tailored dark grey suit outlined broad, muscular shoulders and long, lean legs. The fabric and the cut alone screamed expense. He had the lethal, inborn grace of a wild animal and the intimidating and instinctive authority of a man born to command.

Sarah stared in disbelief as he extended a lean brown hand. The long fingers, she noticed absently, were beautifully shaped. ‘Please permit me to offer my most sincere condolences on your sister’s tragic death,’ he murmured in a taut undertone.

Sarah took a quick backward step, repulsed by the threat of any form of bodily contact. ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded shakily.

‘You left an urgent message with my secretary,’ he reminded her.

‘Callie made me phone, but I didn’t ask for you to come, Mr Terzakis,’ Sarah breathed jerkily. ‘I asked for your brother.’

‘Damon is in Greece.’ Alexis Terzakis watched her with impassive eyes as dark as a winter’s night. ‘I have already informed him of your sister’s death. He is most deeply distressed,’ he asserted.

A hysterical laugh escaped Sarah. ‘Really?’ she gasped incredulously.

‘I would like to see my nephew,’ Alexis responded, ignoring her response with supreme cool.

‘No!’ Sarah gritted, her slight body stiffening with a sudden rush of raw aggression that came from fathoms deep down inside her. She hated and detested Alex Terzakis more than any man alive. Her hatred had festered over many months. Now it was like a cancer inside her, eating away until it consumed every other emotion.

‘Your right is no greater than mine—’

‘Right?’ Sarah echoed half an octave higher. ‘You dare to talk about rights after what you did to Callie? You have no rights over Callie’s child, no rights whatsoever! You sicken me!’

‘You are distraught,’ Alex Terzakis informed her with apparent calm, but she was not fooled. A dark line of blood had risen over his high cheekbones and his mouth had flattened into a pale line.

People did not speak to Alex Terzakis in such a tone. He was fabulously rich and terrifyingly powerful. His minions bowed and scraped. His family walked in awe of him. His word was law. He did not expect opposition. The media had published several bloodcurdling stories about what happened to those foolish enough to challenge Alex Terzakis in business. But Sarah had no fear of him. Sarah would have given twenty years of her life to have the power to hurt Alex Terzakis as he had hurt her sister.

‘You murdered her...you killed her with unkindness. I hope you’re satisfied now!’ Sarah shot back at him with raw venom.

‘Miss Hartwell.’ A strong hand caught her wrist as she attempted to walk past him.

‘Let go of me, you swine!’ Sarah hissed in outrage.

‘Were it not for the fact that I am capable of making allowances for your understandable grief, I would demand an apology,’ Alex slashed down at her from his imposing height, tiger’s eyes raking her enraged face. ‘But this is not the place for such a confrontation. Compose yourself before I lose my temper!’

Sarah was shivering as though she were caught in a force-ten gale. Outright fury controlled her as he retained that bruising hold on her wrist. She lifted her free hand and hit blindly up at that dark, arrogant face with all her strength. He released her with an incredulous growl, a lean hand flying up to one sculpted cheekbone.

Sarah staggered back. ‘Don’t ever come near me again!’ she slung wildly, dimly shocked by that raw surge of uncharacteristic violence. She could not remember ever striking another human being before. Even as a child she had been a pacifist.

For a split-second, she collided with splintering golden eyes, incandescent with disbelief. And then she tore her gaze from his and forced herself to walk straight-backed down the corridor and out of the hospital.

She was in shock, so deep in shock that she didn’t even know where she was going. Callie was dead. She could not yet accept that. Their parents had died in a car crash when Sarah was seventeen. There had been no money. Callie had only been eleven.

‘Look after Callie,’ her mother had moaned repeatedly in Intensive Care. Mary Hartwell had still been fretting about her youngest child when she’d breathed her last.

Sarah had left school, given up all hope of any further education and concentrated on her sister’s needs. She had persuaded her father’s cousin Gina to let them live with her. With Gina in the background, the social services had allowed Sarah to keep her sister. Sarah had worked as a waitress. Every day she had come home to cook and clean and tidy up after Gina, who had regarded her as unpaid domestic help and had, in addition, taken almost every penny of her meagre wages.

As soon as she was eighteen, Sarah had found other accommodation. She had done her utmost to give Callie a secure and loving home. She had made her sister her number one priority. And Callie had thrived. A golden girl with the long-legged lithe good looks of a Californian blonde. Smart into the bargain, Sarah observed with helpless pride. It hadn’t been easy to keep her lively extrovert sister’s mind on the necessity of studying to get on in the world.

But Sarah had managed it. Callie had passed her A levels and gone on to university to study languages. Sarah had been as proud as any mother could have been. She had taken on another job part-time in the evenings so that Callie wouldn’t be short of money. Everything had been going so well before Damon Terzakis had entered her sister’s life.

‘I’ve met this truly fabulous Greek!’ Callie had gushed down the phone. ‘He’s incredibly handsome and rich and crazy about me...’

‘Sounds too good to be true,’ Sarah had murmured tautly, disconcerted by Callie’s excitement. Callie’s boyfriends normally came and went without Callie enthusing about any of them. A beauty from her early teens, Callie had taken young men very much in her stride.

‘I’ll bring him over to meet you some time soon,’ Callie had promised.

But weeks had passed before Sarah had finally met Damon. He had been twenty-five, boyishly good-looking and full of careless charm. His lustrous brown eyes had helplessly followed Callie’s every move. He had talked to Sarah as though she were Callie’s mother rather than her sister, painstakingly courteous and deferential. By the end of the evening, Sarah had felt like a middle-aged matron of at least fifty.

Damon had gone out of his way to stress that his intentions were serious. Reaching for Callie’s hand, he had said, ‘I love your sister very much and I want to marry her.’

Behind her polite smile, Sarah had ironically been appalled. She had considered Callie far too young to make such a commitment. She had worried that Callie would abandon her studies outright or, at the very least, allow romance to take over to the detriment of her work. But Sarah had been too sensible to allow her feelings to show. One hint of opposition and Callie was likely to rebel. Her sister was headstrong and opinionated. Only tact and diplomacy were likely to win Sarah a hearing.

‘Of course marriage,’ Damon had stated smoothly, ‘it would be in the future.’

Sarah had rewarded him with a beaming smile. ‘I think that’s very sensible,’ she had said. ‘Both of you have all the time in the world.’

‘Don’t talk platitudes,’ Callie had snapped, withdrawing her hand from Damon’s abruptly.

‘But we have already discussed this, Callie mou,’ Damon had protested and, turning his attention back to Sarah, he had added, ‘Our love must be seen to have stood the test of time if I am to have any hope of winning my brother’s consent to our marriage.’