The Santorini Marriage Bargain

What did she know about him? Nothing. Not even his name. Clearly he felt at fault for knocking her down or she wouldn’t be here now. But who was he? The effort of thinking proved too much, and she closed her eyes and kept them shut until the car stopped and he killed the engine.

She dared to look about her and saw a tall imposing building. But it wasn’t a house, it was a hotel. Alarm bells rang in her head. What purpose did he use it for? Did he make a habit of picking up helpless females?

‘You live in a hotel?’ she questioned, unaware that nervousness sounded in her voice, or that her eyes had widened dramatically, their normal pale blue darkening to almost navy. She could feel her heart pitter-pattering in her chest and she felt strangely dizzy.

The man smiled. ‘In the penthouse suite. Come—’ he held out his hand ‘—let me take you up. I can assure you that you will be perfectly safe. My main aim is to make sure that you have suffered no ill effects. I hold myself completely responsible, of course.’

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ declared Rhianne at once. ‘I didn’t look where I was going.’

One dark brow lifted, reminding her of her emphatic declaration that he was the one to blame. Nevertheless his voice remained perfectly calm. ‘But I should have seen you and made allowances. Let us not talk about this now. Let us go inside and get you that cup of tea. Then you can tell me what it is that was troubling you to such an extent that you didn’t see me.’

About to retort that there was nothing bothering her, Rhianne changed her mind. He was probably testing her, trying to find out what was wrong. She had no intention of sharing her problems with a stranger.

As they walked into the hotel, his hand on her elbow, Rhianne couldn’t help wondering whether she was doing the right thing. He hadn’t a clue what was going on in her mind. She wasn’t after tea and sympathy. In fact she ought not to be here at all. In a state of panic she pulled away from him and would have ran had he not grabbed her arm.

‘You’re in no fit state to be going anywhere on your own,’ he insisted, his voice deep and gruff and very firm. ‘If it’s me you’re afraid of I can arrange for a female member of staff to be in attendance. I can, however, assure you that it won’t be necessary.’

His dark eyes looked deeply into hers, and all Rhianne saw was sincerity. She felt faintly foolish and drew in a deep, unsteady breath. ‘That won’t be necessary.’ There were no other words she could find that wouldn’t make her look more idiotic than she already felt.

Today had to be the worst day of her life, and receiving kindness from a total stranger when she’d been so badly let down made her feel both grateful and weepy at the same time. Which was not something she was accustomed to. She rarely cried; she’d had the sort of family life that needed strength of character, and she’d always prided herself that she could handle anything.

Now this man was seeing her at her lowest ebb. It did her pride no good at all, and she felt distinctly uneasy as the lift swept them up to his penthouse suite. She stood with her back to the mirrored walls, her hands pressed against it. She could see a dozen images of both herself and the handsome man, each one receding into the distance. She looked absolutely petrified, her auburn hair tousled, her eyes wide with aftershock and fear.

‘Is this your permanent home?’ she enquired in an effort to break the silence. She honestly couldn’t see why anyone would choose to live in a hotel, but he had called it home—so? ‘Or are you here on business?’

‘It’s both. Business is what’s keeping me here, and this suite suits me very well. It has everything I could possibly need.’

He had an aura of great wealth—it was in the way he dressed, the way he held himself, his total control and confidence. But there was more than that. Even in her distraught state, Rhianne could see that he was a charmer. She guessed that he probably charmed the hide off every woman he met. He was handsome, suave, good-looking, with a twinkle in his brown eyes that, if she hadn’t been in the state she was in, might have affected her senses.

At the moment she was immune to any man, good-looking or not. Rich and powerful or not. She wanted no man in her life for a very long time.

So what was she doing here? Why had she let him persuade her to accompany him? What could he do for her? She wasn’t seriously injured, there had been no need for him to make such an offer. And she didn’t even know his name. She was accompanying a complete stranger to his suite in a hotel. How foolish was that?

As though he had zoomed in on her thoughts, her companion held out his hand. ‘I think it’s about time we introduced ourselves. I’m Zarek Diakos. And you are—?’

Rhianne smiled weakly. Zarek Diakos! It sounded Greek, and she couldn’t help wondering what business had brought him to England. ‘I’m Rhianne Pickering,’ she said quietly.

The lift stopped, and the doors silently opened. ‘Well, Rhianne Pickering. Welcome to my humble abode.’

Nervously she stepped out on to a deep-piled carpet, and he led the way through to a living room that was the size of the whole apartment she shared with her friend. She wasn’t even aware that her mouth had fallen open. There were valuable paintings on the walls, Venetian mirrors, hand-cut crystal chandeliers. Luxury beyond compare.

‘You’re renting this?’ she asked, unaware that her voice was no more than a breathy whisper.

Zarek shrugged. ‘You think it’s a little ostentatious perhaps? You get what you pay for in my experience. I can afford it, so why not surround myself with beautiful things? I work hard all day; it is a pleasure to come home.’

There it was again, the word home. Rhianne could never imagine calling a place like this home. How could he relax here? There was not a thing out of place. It was a showpiece. Supposedly that was what money did for you. You lost track of home comforts, bought into a lifestyle that suited your image.

She couldn’t imagine living anywhere like this, not even for a holiday. How could anyone get comfortable on those overstuffed armchairs? You wouldn’t even want to kick off your shoes and leave them lying around for fear of offending the room’s intrinsic sense of order.

‘Please, sit down,’ invited Zarek. ‘I’ll ring for tea.’

Rhianne perched on the edge of a chair, and, when he had finished issuing his order, Zarek joined her. ‘So, tell me how you’re really feeling?’

‘Bruised,’ she answered on a reflective sigh. ‘But other than that I’m OK. I don’t really need to be here.’

‘You were lucky I wasn’t driving any faster. You might not have got away with such slight injury. Would you care to tell me what it was that made you walk out into the road like that?’

‘I was deep in thought, that’s all.’

‘Some thoughts,’ he said, his brows rising as though he didn’t believe her simple explanation. ‘Would it have anything to do with the fact that you didn’t want me to take you home? Were you running away?’

‘Running away?’ echoed Rhianne indignantly. He was too astute for words. ‘Why would I want to do that?’

‘It’s the impression you give.’

Rhianne dropped her head into her hands. ‘I have a raging headache. Do you have any aspirin?’

Immediately he sprang to his feet.

It had the desired effect. It stopped him asking any more questions. But her reprieve was short-lived. A glass of water and the tablets appeared as if by magic. He handed them to her and stood over her until she had taken them. ‘Would you like to lie down?’ he enquired.

Lie down? On a bed? In his private suite? A worst-case scenario raced through Rhianne’s head. ‘No, I’ll be all right,’ she answered firmly.

‘I could send for a physician.’

‘I said I’ll be all right,’ she said even more emphatically, shooting sparks of fire from her brilliant blue eyes. ‘But I would like to use your bathroom.’

‘Of course, why did I not think of it?’ He crossed the room and opened a door.

Inside Rhianne could see a bed, but nothing else. A four-poster bed! Her heart slammed against her ribcage. She was treading on dangerous territory here.

‘The bathroom is to the right.’

It was as if he had read her thoughts, but there was nothing at all on his handsome face to suggest that he had anything other than her well-being in mind. In fact he was deadly serious. Serious or not, though, Zarek Diakos was a dangerous man.

He was as sexy as sin, and she wouldn’t have been human if she hadn’t felt some reaction to him. Thick dark brows hovered over brown eyes that were seriously striking. Long lashes guarded them. His nose was as straight as a die, very imperial-looking, and his lips were full and wide and mobile. At this very moment they were closed, but she knew that he had beautiful even white teeth.

His hair was thick and dark and touched his collar; his square jaw was darkly shadowed as though he already needed another shave. He was all man; even his body was beautiful. He had taken off his jacket and carefully hung it on a coat hanger in the entrance hall, and through the fine cotton of his shirt Rhianne observed a tangle of dark hair.

Angus had no chest hairs. His body was smooth and clear and—angrily Rhianne dashed all thoughts of him out of her mind. He no longer deserved a place in her memories. She ran through to the bathroom.

Zarek guessed that here was a woman who had more on her mind than the few bruises she had suffered. He went cold every time he thought about what the consequences of the accident could have been. Thank goodness he’d reacted quickly. She had walked out in front of him as though she had had a death wish, and he didn’t know how he’d managed to stop without seriously injuring her.

He had a feeling that reaction hadn’t yet set in. She didn’t realise how dangerously close she had come to being killed. She was an attractive woman with rich auburn hair that curled and waved down over her shoulders, and fantastic blue eyes. It was a shame they were shadowed, and he didn’t think it was all to do with the near miss. Something was clearly disturbing her, and he wanted to find out what it was.

Perhaps she would relax shortly and begin to talk. It would do her good. Not that he’d ever been in this position before, but he felt deep down in his gut that she seriously needed to get something off her chest. She had emphatically declared that she didn’t want to go home, so it was something that had happened there that was troubling her. And who was he? Sherlock Holmes? He had no idea what was wrong. He was clutching at straws, trying to work something out that had nothing to do with him.

Except that it had. He had knocked Rhianne over and he felt responsible. He even wondered again whether he ought to take her to hospital, get her checked out. Perhaps he should.