The Cozakis Bride

Olympia stared fixedly at the desk lamp, outraged resentment and sheer hatred clawing at her. She wanted to toss the remains of her drink in his arrogant face and then hit him so hard, he wouldn’t pick himself up for a month. Ten years on, having been judged and found guilty for a sin she had not committed, why should she admit the agonies that he had put her through that night? Why should she further humiliate herself with that kind of honesty? Where did he get off asking her such questions? He darned well hadn’t asked her them at the time! Nor had there been any reference to the possibility that she might have seen him carrying on with another girl!

‘Or…what?’ she prompted in a hissing undertone.

‘Or…’ Nik responded without the smallest audible hint of discomfiture. ‘Did you go out to my car with him either because you thought you could get away with not being seen or because—’

‘I went out to your car with him because I fancied him like mad!’ Olympia suddenly erupted, provoked beyond bearing by his sardonic probing, her sea-jade eyes hot with defiance and loathing.

Dark eyes with a single light of gold held to her flushed and furious face. His outrageously long, lush lashes lowered, leaving only the dark glimmer of his gaze visible.

Her tummy clenched and she trembled, an odd coldness spreading inside her, as she met those dark, dark eyes. She spun away, shocked at the gross lie she had thrown at him, shocked that even ten years on her own desire for revenge could still burst back into being and send her off the edge into an insane response, for at the exact same moment she recalled exactly why she had come to Nik’s office.

‘You’re just toying with me for your own amusement!’ Olympia flung him an agitated glance of condemnation. ‘You’re going to say no, of course you’re going to say no…I really don’t know why I bothered coming here tonight!’

‘You were desperate,’ Nik reminded her with dulcet cool.

‘Well, why don’t you just say no?’ Olympia was beyond all pretence now, and she didn’t care that she sounded childish. He was winding her up and making a fool of her. She couldn’t wait to get away from him.

Nik rose lithely upright. ‘No need to get so rattled, Olympia,’ he mocked. ‘Why don’t you take that baggy cardy off and sit down?’

Her hot face got even hotter. She was boiling alive in her jacket, but she folded her arms.

Nik laughed with a sudden amusement that she found even more unnerving.

‘What’s so funny?’ she demanded sharply.

‘You always seemed so quiet. I awarded you all these qualities that you never actually possessed.’ His expressive mouth twisted with derision. ‘But now I’m seeing the real Olympia Manoulis. Hot-tempered, stubborn and reckless to the point of self-destruction.’

‘These are hardly normal circumstances. Don’t presume to know anything about me…because you don’t!’ Olympia slung back at him defensively.

‘But if you don’t take the ugly cardy off, I’m going to rip it off,’ Nik spelt out softly.

Olympia backed off a startled step. Only now was it dawning on her that she had never really known Nik Cozakis either. Clashing with brilliant dark eyes, she watched him extend a lean brown hand to receive the jacket, and suddenly it didn’t seem worth arguing about any more. Tight-mouthed, she peeled it off and tossed it to him. ‘You like throwing your weight around, don’t you? I should’ve remembered that.’

Ignoring that comment, Nik cast the jacket on a nearby chair. ‘Now sit down, so that you can hear my terms for marriage.’

Her eyes opened very wide and she froze.

‘Né…yes. What you want is within reach, but you may yet choose not to pay the price.’

‘The price…?’ Thrown by that smooth acknowledgement that he was seriously considering her proposition, Olympia backed hurriedly down into the armchair closest.

‘All good things come at a price…haven’t you learnt that yet?’ Nik murmured in a voice as smooth and rich as honey.

All of a sudden she couldn’t concentrate. Having forgotten to keep Nik out of focus, she collided head-on with amber-gold eyes. It was like being suddenly dropped from a height. Such beautiful lying eyes, she thought helplessly, curling her taut fingers into the fabric of her skirt. A quivering, insidious warmth snaked up between her thighs, making her tense, jerk her lashes down and freeze, no longer under any illusion about what was happening to her. As she felt her breasts stir and swell, their soft peaks pinch into straining sensitivity, she was aghast. A tidal wave of embarrassment surged up over her. Already her heart was banging as if she had run a race.

‘Olympia…?’

She crossed her arms and lifted her head again with pronounced reluctance. Nik was over by the window at a comfortable distance. He was planning to agree; he was going to marry her. She was home and dry, she reminded herself. What did it matter if her stupid body still reacted to him? He was really gorgeous, really, really gorgeous. It was a chemical response, nothing more. So she didn’t like it, in fact she hated that out-of-control feeling, but it wasn’t as if she would be seeing much of him in the future.

‘You’re in shock…I’m surprised,’ Nik admitted. ‘You seemed so confident last week that you could win my agreement.’

‘You weren’t very encouraging,’ she pointed out unevenly, no longer looking anywhere near him. It might just be a chemical response but she didn’t want to encourage it.

‘I thought your proposition over at length. I feel I should warn you that I tend to be ruthless when I negotiate…’

‘Tell me something I didn’t expect.’

‘I have certain conditions you would have to agree to. And there is no room for negotiation at all,’ Nik imparted gently.

‘Just tell me what you want,’ Olympia urged.

‘You sign a pre-nuptial contract—’

‘Of course.’

‘You sign over everything to me on our wedding day—’

‘Apart from a small—’

‘Everything,’ Nik slotted in immovably. ‘I’ll give you an allowance.’

She glanced up in surprise and dismay. ‘But that’s not—’

‘You’ll just have to trust me.’

‘I want to buy a house for my mother.’

‘Naturally I will not see your mother suffer in any way. If you marry me, I promise you that she will live in comfort for the rest of her life,’ Nik asserted. ‘I will regard her as I would regard a member of my own family and I will treat her accordingly.’

It was a more than generous offer, and she was impressed and pleased that there was no lack of respect in the manner in which he referred to her mother.

‘Your grandfather was born seventy-four years ago,’ Nik pointed out, as if he could see what she was thinking. ‘He’s from a very different generation. Your birth outside the bonds of marriage was a source of enormous shame and grief to him.’

Fierce loyalty to her mother stiffened Olympia. ‘I know that, but—’

‘No, you don’t know it, or even begin to understand it,’ Nik incised with sudden grimness. ‘Your mother brought you up to be British. She made no attempt to teach you what it was to be Greek. She stayed well away from the Greek community here in London. I am not judging her for that, but don’t tell me that you understand our culture because you do not.’

Lips compressed, Olympia cloaked her unimpressed gaze.

‘Greek men have always set great value on a woman’s virtue—’

‘We’re getting off the subject,’ Olympia said in curt interruption, tensing at the recollection of the names he had called her. In retrospect, she recognised that she now felt sensitive to his low opinion of her morals, and she wondered why on earth that should be.

Just as quickly, she marvelled at her stupidity in allowing him to demand, unchallenged, that she sign away any claim on the Manoulis empire and trustingly depend on his generosity. ‘What you said about me signing away everything—’

‘Non-negotiable,’ Nik interrupted with gleaming dark eyes. ‘Take it or leave it.’

Olympia breathed in deep. ‘I don’t care about the money—’