Книга - A Breathless Bride

A Breathless Bride
Fiona Brand









“Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

“Not yet.”

The soft demand froze her in place. In that moment she registered that Constantine wasn’t just angry, he was furious.

She had seen him furious only once before—the day they had broken up—but on that occasion he had been icily cool and detached. The fact that his formidable control had finally slipped and he was clearly in danger of losing his temper ratcheted the tension up several notches.

A heady sense of anticipation gripped her. She had the feeling that for the first time she was going to see the real Constantine and not the controlled tycoon who had a calculator in place of a heart.

His gaze dropped to her mouth and she was suddenly unbearably aware that he intended to kiss her.


Dear Reader,

The idea for THE PEARL HOUSE miniseries had its beginnings with strong-willed Sienna Ambrosi, on a mission to keep the family’s luxury Sydney-based pearl business afloat. Pretty and resourceful, with a focused, perfectionist streak, she is just the kind of character I like; she never gives up. Already walking a financial tightrope, Sienna gets hit by a serious reversal by the name of Constantine Atraeus.

The Atraeus and Ambrosi families have a history, and so did Sienna and Constantine, until debt terminated their previous engagement.

It’s kind of ironic, then, that debt should bring them back together, although useful would be the term that Constantine would use. Underneath his ruthless exterior, he’s a nice guy with a sense of humor, and he has never forgotten Sienna. He had been trying to figure out an excuse to see her again when out of the blue her company literally dropped into his hands.

Now, if only she’d just see him, instead of his bottom line …

Fiona




About the Author


FIONA BRAND lives in the sunny Bay of Islands, New Zealand. Now that both of her sons are grown, she continues to love writing books and gardening. After a life-changing time in which she met Christ, she has undertaken study for a bachelor of theology and has become a member of The Order of St Luke, Christ’s healing ministry.




A Breathless

Bride

Fiona Brand





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


For the Lord. Thank you.

On finding one pearl of great value,

he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

—Matthew 13:46




One


With a wolf-cold gaze, Constantine Atraeus scanned the mourners attending Roberto Ambrosi’s funeral, restlessly seeking … and finding.

With her long blond hair and dark eyes, elegantly curved body and rich-list style, Roberto’s daughter Sienna stood out like an exotic bird among ravens.

His jaw compressing at the unmistakable evidence of her tears, Constantine shook off an unwilling surge of compassion. And memories. No matter how innocent Sienna looked, he couldn’t allow himself to forget that his ex-fiancée was the new CEO of her family’s failing pearl empire. She was first and foremost an Ambrosi. Descended from a once wealthy family, the Ambrosis were noted for two things: their luminous good looks and their focus on the bottom line.

In this case, his bottom line.

“Tell me you’re not going after her now.”

Constantine’s brother Lucas, still jet-lagged from a long-haul flight from Rome to Sydney, levered himself out of the Audi Constantine had used to pick up both of his brothers from the airport.

In the Sydney office for two days of meetings, Lucas was dressed for business, although he’d long since abandoned the jacket and tie. Zane, who was already out of the car and examining the funeral crowd, was dressed in black jeans and a black shirt, a pair of dark glasses making him look even more remote.

Lucas was edgily good-looking, so much so that the media dogged him unmercifully. Zane, who was technically their half brother, and who had spent time on the streets of L.A. as a teenager before their father had found him, simply looked dangerous. The outer packaging aside, Constantine was confident that when it came to protecting his family’s assets both of his brothers were sharks.

Constantine shrugged into the jacket he’d draped over the back of the driver’s seat as he watched Sienna accept condolences, his frustration edged by a surge of emotion that had nothing to do with temper.

Grimly, he considered that the physical attraction that had drawn him away from The Atraeus Group’s head office on Medinos, when his legal counsel could have handled the formalities, was clouding his judgment.

No, that wasn’t it. Two years ago Constantine had finally learned to separate sexual desire from business. He was no longer desperate.

This time if and when Sienna Ambrosi came to his bed, it would be on his terms, not hers.

“I’m not here to put flowers on Roberto’s grave.”

“Or allow her to grieve. Ever heard of tomorrow?” Lucas shrugged into his jacket and slammed the door of the Audi.

Constantine winced at Lucas’s treatment of the expensive car. Lucas hadn’t been old enough to remember the bad old days when the Atraeus family had been so poor they hadn’t been able to afford a car, but Constantine could. His father’s discovery of a rich gold mine on the Mediterranean island of Medinos hadn’t altered any of his childhood memories. He would never forget what it had felt like to have nothing. “When it comes to the Ambrosi family, tomorrow will be too late.” Resignation laced his tone as he eyed the press gathering like vultures at a feast. “Besides, it looks like the story has already been leaked. Bad timing or not, I want answers.”

And to take back the money Roberto Ambrosi had conned out of their dying father while Constantine had been out of the country.

Funeral or not, he would unravel the scam he had discovered just over a week ago. After days of unreturned calls and hours of staking out the apparently empty residences of the Ambrosi family, his patience was gone, as was the desire to finish this business discreetly.

Lucas fell into step beside Constantine as he started toward the dispersing mourners. Grimly, Constantine noted that Lucas’s attention was fixed on the younger Ambrosi daughter, Carla.

“Are you certain Sienna’s involved?”

Constantine didn’t bother to hide his incredulity.

Just what were the odds that the woman who had agreed to marry him two years ago, knowing that her father was leveraging an under-the-table deal with his, hadn’t known about Roberto’s latest scam? “She knows.”

“You know what Roberto was like—”

“More than willing to exploit a dying man.”

Constantine made brief eye contact with the two bodyguards who had accompanied them in a separate vehiele. The protection wasn’t his choice, but as the CEO of a multibillion-dollar corporation, he’d had to deal with more than his share of threats.

As they neared the graveside, Constantine noted the absence of male family members or escorts. The wealthy and powerful Ambrosi family, who had employed his grandfather as a gardener, now only consisted of Margaret—Roberto’s widow—the two daughters, Sienna and Carla, and a collection of elderly aunts and distant cousins.

As he halted at the edge of the mounded grave, the heavy cloud, which had been steadily building overhead, slid across the face of the midday sun and Sienna’s dark gaze finally locked with his. In that fractured moment, something close to joy flared, as if she had forgotten that two years ago, when it had come down to a choice between him or the money, she had gone for the cash.

For a long, drawn out moment, Constantine was held immobile by a shifting sense of déjà vu, a powerful moment of connection he had been certain he would never again feel.

Something kicked in his chest, an errant pulse of emotion, and instead of dragging his gaze away he allowed himself to be caught, entangled …

A split second later a humid gust of wind sent leaves flying. In the few moments it took Sienna to anchor the honeyed fall of her hair behind one ear, the dreamy incandescence that had ensnared him—fooled him—so completely two years ago was gone, replaced by stunned disbelief.

A kick of annoyance that, evidently, despite all of his unreturned calls, Sienna had failed to register his presence in Sydney, was edged by relief. For a moment there, he had almost lost it, but now they were both back on the same, familiar page.

Constantine terminated the eye contact and transferred his attention to the freshly mounded soil, now covered by lavish floral tributes. Reasserting his purpose, reminding himself.

Roberto Ambrosi had been a liar, a thief and a con man, but Constantine would give him his due: he had known when to make his exit.

Sienna, however, had no such avenue of escape.

Sienna’s heart slammed hard as Constantine closed the distance between them. Just for a few moments, exhausted by sadness and worn-out from fighting the overwhelming relief that she no longer had to cope with her father’s gambling addiction, she had let the grimness of the cemetery fade.

She’d trained herself to be a relentlessly positive thinker, but even for her, the wispy daydream had been unusually creative: a reinvention of the past, where love came first, instead of somewhere down a complex list of assets and agendas. Then she had turned and for a disorienting moment, the future she had once thought was hers—and which she had needed with a fierceness that still haunted her—had taken on dazzling life. Constantine.

The reality of his clean, powerful features—coal-black hair brushing broad shoulders and the faintly resinous male scent that never failed to make her heart pound—had shocked her back to reality.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded curtly. Since the embarrassing debacle two years ago, the Ambrosis and the Atraeuses had preserved an icy distance. Constantine was the last person she expected to see at her father’s funeral, and the least welcome.

Constantine’s fingers closed around hers. The warm, slightly rough, skin-on-skin contact sent a hot, tingling shock through her. She inhaled sharply and a hint of the cologne that had sent her spiraling into the past just seconds ago made her stomach clench.

Constantine was undeniably formidable and gorgeous. Once he had fascinated her to the point that she had broken her cardinal rule. She had stopped thinking in favor of feeling. Big mistake.

Constantine had been out of her league, period. He was too rich, too powerful and, as she had found out to her detriment, utterly focused on protecting his family’s business empire.

Bitterly, she reflected that the tabloids had it right. Ruthless in business, ditto in bed. The CEO of The Atraeus Group was a catch. Just don’t “bank” on a wedding.

He leaned forward, close enough that his cleanly shaven jaw almost brushed her cheek. For an electrifying moment she thought he was actually going to kiss her, then the remoteness of his expression wiped that thought from her mind.

“We need to talk.” His voice was deep and curt—a cosmopolitan mix of accents that revealed that, his Mediterranean heritage aside, he had been educated in the States. “Five minutes. In the parking lot.” Jerking her fingers free, Sienna stepped back, her high heels sinking into the soft ground.

Meet with the man who had proposed one week, then discarded her the next because he believed she was a calculating gold digger?

That would be when hell froze over.

“We don’t have anything to discuss.”

“Five minutes. Be there.”

Stomach tight, she stared at the long line of his back as he strolled away through the ranks of marble headstones. Peripherally she noticed Lucas and Zane, Constantine’s two brothers, flanking him. Two security guards kept onlookers and the reporters who inevitably hounded the Atraeus family at bay.

Tension hummed through her at the presence of both brothers and the security. The bodyguards were a reality check, underlining the huge gulf between her life and his.

She registered a brief touch on her arm. Her sister, Carla. With an effort of will, Sienna shook off the shock of Constantine’s presence and her own unsettling reactions. Her father’s sudden death and the messy financial fallout that followed had consumed every waking moment for the past few days. Despite that, all it had taken had been one fractured moment looking into Constantine’s gaze and she had forgotten where she was and why.

Carla frowned. “You look as white as a sheet. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” Desperate to regain her equilibrium, Sienna dug in her purse, found her compact and checked her makeup. After the tears in church and the humid heat, any trace of the light makeup she had applied that morning was gone. Her hair was tousled and her eyes were red-rimmed—the exact opposite of her usual cool, sophisticated façade.

Carla—who was far more typically Medinian than Sienna in appearance with glossy dark hair and stunning light blue eyes that stopped people in their tracks—watched the Atraeus brothers, an odd expression in her eyes. “What are they doing here? Please don’t tell me you’re seeing Constantine again.”

Sienna snapped the compact closed and dropped it into her purse. “Don’t worry, I’m not crazy.”

Just confused.

“Then what did they want?”

Carla’s clipped demand echoed Sienna’s question, although she couldn’t afford the luxury of either anger or passion. For the sake of her family and their company, she had to be controlled and unruffled, no matter how worried she felt. “Nothing.”

Constantine’s series of commands replayed itself in her mind. Another gust, this one laced with fat droplets of rain, snapped her numbed brain back into high gear. Suddenly she formed a connection that made her pulse pound and her stomach hollow out.

Oh, damn. She needed to think, and quickly.

Over the past three days, she had spent long hours sifting through her father’s private papers and financial records. She had found several mystifyingly large deposits she couldn’t match to any of the business figures. Money had come in over a two-month period. A very large amount. The money had been used to prop up Ambrosi Pearls’ flagging finances and cover her father’s ongoing gambling debts, but she had no idea of its source. At first she thought the money had to be winnings, but the similar amounts had confused her. Roberto Ambrosi had won large sums of money in the past, but the amounts had differed wildly.

Now Constantine wanted a conversation.

Desperate to deny the conclusion that was forming, and to distract Carla, who was still locked on the Atraeus brothers like a heat-seeking missile, she craned around, searching for their mother. “Mom needs help.”

Carla had also spotted the reporter chatting to Margaret Ambrosi, who was exhausted and still a little shaky from the sedatives the doctor had prescribed so she could sleep. “Oh, heck. I’ll get her. It’s time we left anyway. We were supposed to be at Aunt Via’s for lunch ten minutes ago.”

A private family lunch at the apartment of their father’s sister, Octavia, not a wake, which Sienna had decreed was an unnecessary luxury.

The last four days since her father had collapsed and died from a heart attack had been a roller-coaster ride, but that didn’t change the reality. The glory days of Ambrosi Pearls, when her grandfather had transferred the company from the disaster zone Medinos had become during World War II to Sydney, were long gone. She had to balance the need to bolster business confidence by giving the impression of wealth and stability against the fact that they were operating on a shoestring budget. Luckily, her father had had a small insurance policy, enough to cover basic funeral expenses, and she’d had the excuse of Margaret Ambrosi’s poor health to veto any socializing.

Her gaze narrowed. “Tell Via I’m not going to be able to make it for lunch. I’ll see you at home later on.”

After she had gotten rid of Constantine.

Constantine sent a brooding glance at the sky as he unlocked the Audi and settled in to wait for Sienna.

From the backseat Zane crossed his arms over his chest and coolly surveyed the media who were currently trying to bluff their way past Constantine’s security. “I can see she still really likes you.”

Constantine stifled his irritation. At twenty-four, Zane was several years his junior. Sometimes the chasm seemed much wider than six years. “This is business.” Not pleasure.

Lucas slid into the passenger-side seat. “Did you get a chance to discuss the loan with Roberto?”

The words before he died hung in the air.

Constantine dragged at his tie. “Why do you think he had the heart attack?”

Apparently Roberto had suffered from a heart condition.

Instead of showing up at Constantine’s house, as arranged for the meeting that he himself had requested, he had been seated at a blackjack table. When he hadn’t shown up, Constantine had made some calls and found out that Roberto had gone directly to the casino, apparently feverishly trying to win the money he needed.

Constantine had sent his personal assistant Tomas to collect Ambrosi, because going himself would have attracted unwanted media attention. Tomas had arrived to find that seconds after a substantial win the older man had become unwell. Tomas had called an ambulance. Minutes later Roberto had clutched at his chest and dropped like a stone.

Constantine almost had a heart attack himself when he had heard. Contrary to reports that he was ruthless and unfeeling, he had been happy to discuss options with Roberto, but it was not just about him. He had his family and the business to consider and Roberto Ambrosi had conned his father.

Lucas’s expression was thoughtful. “Does Sienna know that you arranged to meet with her father?”

“Not yet.”

“But she will.”

“Yep.” Constantine stripped off his tie, which suddenly felt like a noose, and yanked at the top two buttons of his shirt.

He wanted to engage Sienna’s attention, which was the whole point of him dealing with the problem directly.

It was a safe bet that, after practically killing her old man, he had it by now.

Thunder rumbled overhead. Sienna walked quickly toward her car, intending to grab the umbrella she had stashed on the backseat.

As she crossed the parking lot a van door slid open. A reporter stepped onto the steaming asphalt just ahead of her and lifted his camera. Automatically, her arm shot up, fending off the flash.

A second reporter joined the first. Spinning on her heel, Sienna changed direction, giving up on the notion of staying dry. Simultaneously, she became aware that another news van had just cruised into the parking lot.

This wasn’t part of the polite, restrained media representation that had been present at the beginning of the funeral. These people were predatory, focused, and no doubt drawn by the lure of Constantine and the chance to reinvent an old scandal.

The disbelief she’d felt as she’d met Constantine’s gaze across her father’s grave increased. How dare he come to the funeral? Did he plan to expose them all, most especially her mother, to another media circus?

With an ominous crash of thunder, the rain fell hard, soaking her. Fingers tightening on her purse, she lengthened her stride, breaking into a jog as she rounded the edge of a strip of shade trees that bisected the parking lot. She threw a glance over her shoulder, relieved that the rain had beaten the press back, at least temporarily. A split second later she collided with the solid barrier of a male chest. Constantine.

The hard, muscled imprint of his body burned through the wet silk of her dress as she clutched at a broad set of shoulders.

He jerked his head at a nearby towering oak. “This way. There are more reporters on the other side of the parking lot.”

His hand landed in the small of her back. Sienna controlled a small shiver as she felt the heat of his palm, and her heart lurched because she knew Constantine must have followed her with the intent of protecting her. “Thank you.”

She appreciated the protection, but that didn’t mean she was comfortable with the scenario.

He urged her beneath the shelter of the huge, gnarled oak. The thick, dark canopy of leaves kept the worst of the rain off, but droplets still splashed down, further soaking her hair and the shoulders of her dress.

She found a tissue in her purse and blotted moisture from her face. She didn’t bother trying to fix her makeup since there was likely to be very little of it left.

Within moments the rain slackened off and a thin shaft of sunlight penetrated the watery gloom, lighting up the parking lot and the grassy cemetery visible through the trees. Without warning the back of her nose burned and tears trickled down her face. Blindly, she groped for the tissue again.

“Here, use this.”

A large square of white linen was thrust into her hand. She sniffed and swallowed a watery, hiccupping sob.

A moment later she found herself wrapped close, her face pressed against Constantine’s shoulder, his palm hot against the damp skin at the base of her neck. After a moment of stiffness she gave in and accepted his comfort.

She had cried when she was alone, usually at night and in the privacy of her room so she wouldn’t upset her mother, who was still in a state of distressed shock. Most of the time, because she had been so frantically busy she’d managed to contain the grief, but every now and then something set her off.

At some point Constantine loosened his hold enough that she could blow her nose, but it seemed now that she’d started crying, she couldn’t stop and the tears kept flowing, although more quietly now. She remained locked in his arms, his palm massaging the hollow between her shoulder blades in a slow, soothing rhythm, the heat from his body driving out the damp chill. Drained by grief, she was happy to just be, and to soak in his hard warmth, the reassurance of his solid male power.

She became aware that the rain had finally stopped, leaving the parking lot wreathed in trailing wisps of steam. In a short while she would pull free and step back, but for the moment her head was thick and throbbing from the crying and she was too exhausted to move.

Constantine’s voice rumbled in her ear. “We need to leave. We can’t talk here.”

She shifted slightly and registered that at some point Constantine had become semi aroused.

For a moment memories crowded her, some blatantly sensual, others laced with hurt and scalding humiliation.

Oh, no, no way. She would not feel this.

Face burning, Sienna jerked free, her purse flying. Shoving wet hair out of her face, she bent to retrieve her purse and the few items that had scattered—lip gloss, compact, car keys.

Her keys. Great idea, because she was leaving now.

If Constantine wanted a conversation he would have to reschedule. There was no way she was staying around for more of the same media humiliation she’d suffered two years ago.

“Damn. Sienna …”

Was that a hint of softness in his eyes? His voice?

No. Couldn’t be.

When Constantine crouched down to help gather her things, she hurriedly shoveled the items into her bag. The rain had started up again, an annoying steamy drizzle, although that fact was now inconsequential because every part of her was soaked. Wet hair trailed down her cheeks, her dress felt like it had been glued on and there were puddles in her shoes.

Constantine hadn’t fared any better. His gray suit jacket was plastered to his shoulders, his white shirt transparent enough that the bronze color of his skin showed through.

She dragged her gaze from the mesmerizing sight. “Uh-uh. Sorry.” She shot to her feet. She was so not talking now. His transparent shirt had reminded her about her dress. It was black, so it wouldn’t reveal as much as white fabric when wet, but silk was silk and it was thin. “Your conversation will have to wait. As you can see, I’m wet.”

She spun on her heel, looking for an avenue of escape that didn’t contain reporters with microphones and cameras.

His arm snaked around her waist, pulling her back against the furnace heat of his body. “After four days of unreturned calls,” he growled into her ear, sending a hot shiver down her spine, “if you think I’m going to cool my heels for one more second, you can think again.”




Two


Infuriated by the intimacy of his hold and the torrent of unwanted sensation, Sienna pried at Constantine’s fingers. “Let. Me. Go.”

“No.” His gaze slid past hers.

Movement flickered at the periphery of Sienna’s vision, she heard a car door slam.

Constantine muttered something curt beneath his breath. Now that the torrential downpour was over, the media were emerging from their vehicles.

He spun her around in his arms. “I wasn’t going to do this. You deserve what’s coming.”

Her head jerked up, catching his jaw and sending a hot flash of pain through her skull, which infuriated her even more. “Like I did last time? Oh, very cool, Constantine. As if I’m some kind of hardened criminal just because I care about my family—”

Something infinitely more dangerous than the threat of unwanted media exposure stirred in his eyes. “Is that what you call it? Interesting concept.”

His level tone burned, more than the edgy heat that had invaded her body, or the castigating guilt that had eaten at her for the past two years. That maybe their split had been all her fault, and not just a convenient quick exit for a wealthy bachelor who had developed cold feet. That maybe she had committed a crime in not revealing how dysfunctional and debt-ridden her family was.

Her jaw tightened. “What did I ever do to truly hurt you, Constantine?”

Grim amusement curved his mouth. “If you’re looking for a declaration, you’re wasting your breath.”

“Don’t I know it.” She planted her palms on his chest and pushed.

He muttered a low, rough Medinian phrase. “Stay still.”

The Medinian language—an Italian dialect with Greek and Arabic influences—growled out in that deep velvet tone, sent a shock of awareness through her along with another hot tingling shiver.

Darn, darn, darn. Why did she have to like that?

Incensed that some crazy part of her was actually turned on by this, she kept up the pressure, her palms flattened against the solid muscle of his chest, maintaining the bare inch of space that existed between them.

An inch that wasn’t nearly enough given that explosive contact.

Maybe, just maybe, the press would construe this little tussle as Constantine comforting her instead of an undignified scuffle. “Who called the press?” She stabbed an icy glare at him. “You?”

He gave a short bark of laughter. “Cara, I pay people to keep them off.”

She warded off another one of those hot little jabs of response. “Don’t call me—”

“What?” he said. “Darling? Babe? Sweetheart?”

His long, lean fingers gripped her jaw, trapping her. He bent close enough that anyone watching would assume their embrace was intimate, that he was about to kiss her.

A bittersweet pang went through her. She could see the crystalline depths of his eyes, the tiny beads of water clinging to his long, black lashes, the red mark on his jaw where her head had caught him, and a potent recollection spun her back to the first time they had met, two years ago.

It had been dark but, just like now, it had been raining. Her forward vision impeded by an umbrella, she had jogged from a taxi to the front door of a restaurant when they had collided. That time she had ended up on the wet pavement. Her all-purpose little black dress had been shorter, tighter. Consequently the sexy little side split had torn and her umbrella and one shoe had gone missing in action.

Constantine had apologized and asked if anything was broken. Riveted by the low, sexy timbre of his voice as he had crouched down and fitted the shoe back on her foot, she’d had the dizzying conviction that when she had fallen she had landed in the middle of her favorite fairy tale and Prince Charming had never looked so good. She had replied, “No, of course not.”

Although, she had whimsically decided, when he left her heart could be broken.

The pressure of Constantine’s grip on her arms zapped her back to the present. A muscle pulsed along the side of his jaw and she was made abruptly aware that, his mystifying anger aside, Constantine was just as disturbed as she.

“Basta,” he growled. Enough.

Constantine jerked back from the soft curve of Sienna’s mouth and the heady desire that, despite all of his efforts, he had never been able to eradicate. “You’re wearing the same dress.”

“No,” she snapped back, informing him that in the confusion of the collision she had been as caught up by the past as he. “That was a cocktail dress.”

“It feels the same.” Wet and sleek and almost as sensual as her skin.

“Take your hands off me and you won’t have to feel a thing.”

Her voice was clipped and as cool as chipped ice, but the husky catch in her throat, her inability to entirely meet his gaze, told a different story.

He should let her go. She was clearly shaken. Lucas had been right—on the day of her father’s funeral he should show compassion. But despite the demands of common decency, Constantine was unwilling to allow her any leeway at all.

Two years ago Sienna Ambrosi had achieved what no other woman had done. She had fooled him utterly. Touching her now should be repugnant to him. Instead, he was riveted by the fierce challenge in her dark eyes and the soft, utterly feminine shape of her body pressed against his. And drawn to find out exactly how vulnerable she was toward him. “Not until I have what I came for.”

Her pupils dilated with shock, and any lingering uncertainty he might have entertained about her involvement in her father’s scam evaporated. She was in this up to her elegant neck. The confirmation was unexpectedly depressing.

She blushed. “If it’s a discussion you want, it will have to wait. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re both wet and this is my father’s funeral.” She shoved at his chest again.

His hold on her arms tightened reflexively. The sudden full-body contact sent another electrifying shock wave of heat through Constantine, and in that moment the list of what he wanted, and needed, expanded.

Two years ago passion had blindsided him to the point that he had looked past his parents’ stormy marital history and the tarnished reputation of the Ambrosi family in an attempt to grasp the mirage. He didn’t trust what he had felt then, and he trusted it even less now. But he knew one thing for sure: one night wouldn’t be enough.

Sienna threw a glance over her shoulder. “This media craziness is all your fault. If you hadn’t turned up, they wouldn’t have bothered with us.”

“Calm down.” Constantine studied the approaching reporters. “And unless you want to be on the six o’clock news, stay with me and keep quiet. I’ll do the talking.”

The two dark-suited men who had been flanking Constantine earlier materialized and strolled toward the reporters.

In that moment Sienna realized they had been joined by a television crew.

The barrage of questions started. “Ms. Ambrosi, is it true Ambrosi Pearls is facing bankruptcy?”

“Do you have any comment to make about your father allegedly conning money out of Lorenzo Atraeus?”

Several flashes went off, momentarily blinding her. An ultraslim, glamorous redhead darted beneath one of the bodyguard’s arms and shoved a mike in her face. Sienna recognized the reporter from one of the major news channels. “Ms. Ambrosi, can you tell us if charges have been brought?”

Shock made Sienna go first hot then cold. “Charges—?”

“Unless you want a defamations suit,” Constantine interjected smoothly, “I suggest you withdraw those questions. For the record Ambrosi Pearls and The Atraeus Group are engaged in negotiations over a business deal. Roberto Ambrosi’s death has complicated those negotiations. That’s all I’m prepared to say.”

“Constantine, is this just about business?” The redheaded reporter, who had been maneuvered out of reach by one of the bodyguards, arched a brow, her face vivid and charming. “If a merger of some kind is in the wind, what about a wedding?”

Constantine hurried Sienna toward a sleek black Audi that had slid to a halt just yards away. “No comment.”

Lucas climbed out of the driver’s seat and tossed the keys over the hood.

Constantine plucked the keys out of midair and opened the passenger-side door. When Sienna realized Constantine meant her to get into the car, with him, she stiffened. “I have my own—”

Constantine leaned close enough that his breath scorched the skin below her ear. “You can come with me or stay. It’s your choice. But if you stay you’re on your own with the media.”

A shudder of horror swept through her. “I’ll come.”

“In that case I’m going to need your car keys. One of my security team will collect your car and follow us. When we’re clear of the press, you can have your little sports car back.”

Suspicion flared. “How do you know I have a sports car?”

“Believe me, after the last few days there isn’t much I don’t know about you and your family.”

“Evidently, from the answers you gave the press, you know a lot more than I do.” She dug her keys out of her purse and handed them over. As badly as she resented it, Constantine’s suggestion made sense. If she had to return to the cemetery to pick up the car later on, it was an easy bet she’d run into more reporters and more questions she wasn’t equipped to answer.

Seconds later she was enclosed in the luxurious interior of the Audi, the tinted windows blocking out the media.

She reached for her seat belt. By the time she had it fastened, Constantine was accelerating away from the curb. Cool air from the air-conditioning unit flowed over her, raising gooseflesh on her damp skin.

Nerves strung taut at the intimacy of being enclosed in the cab of the Audi with Constantine, she reached into her purse and found her small traveling box of tissues. Pulling off a handful, she handed them to Constantine.

His gaze briefly connected with hers. “Grazie.”

She glanced away, her heart suddenly pounding. Hostilities were, temporarily at least, on hold. “You’re welcome.”

She pulled off more tissues and began blotting moisture from her face and arms. There was nothing she could do about her hair or her dress, or the fact that the backs of her legs were sticking to the very expensive leather seats.

She glanced in the rearview mirror. Her small sports car was right behind them, followed by the gleaming dark sedan, which contained the second of Constantine’s bodyguards and his brothers. “I see you still travel with a SWAT team.”

Constantine smoothly negotiated traffic. “They have their uses.”

She flashed him a cool look. There was no way she would thank him yet, not when it was clear that Constantine’s presence had attracted the press. Until he had showed up, neither she nor any member of her family had been harassed. She studied the clean line of his profile, the inky crescents of his lashes and the small scar high on one cheekbone. Unbidden, memories flickered—the dark bronze of his skin glowing in the morning light, the habit he’d had of sprawling across her bed, sheets twined around his hips, all long limbs and sleek muscle.

Hot color flooded her cheeks. Hastily she transferred her gaze to the traffic flowing around them. “Now that we’re alone you can tell me what that media assault was all about.” The very fact that Constantine had interceded on her behalf meant something was very wrong. “Conned? Charges? And what was that about negotiating a deal?”

With her background in commercial law, Sienna was Ambrosi Pearls’ legal counsel. At no point in the past two years had her father so much as mentioned The Atraeus Group, or any financial dealings. After the loan Roberto had tried to negotiate had fallen through, along with her engagement, the subject had literally been taboo.

Constantine braked for a set of lights. “There is a problem, but I’m not prepared to discuss it while I’m driving.”

While they waited in traffic her frustration mounted. “If you won’t discuss it …” her fingers sketched quotation marks in the air, “then at least tell me why, if Ambrosi Pearls is supposed to have done something so wrong, you’re helping me instead of throwing me to the media wolves?”

“In an instant replay of the way I treated you two years ago?”

The silky edge to his voice made her tense. “Yes.”

The lights turned green. Constantine accelerated through the intersection. “Because you’re in shock, and you’ve just lost your father.”

Something about the calmness of his manner sent a prickle of unease down her spine, sharpened all of her senses.

His ruthless business reputation aside, Constantine was known to be a philanthropist with a compassionate streak. He frequently gave massive sums to charities, but that compassion had never been directed toward either her or her family.

“I don’t believe you. There’s something else going on.” During the short conversation during which he had broken their engagement, Sienna had tried to make him understand the complications of her father’s skyrocketing gambling debts and the struggle she had simply to support her mother and keep Ambrosi Pearls afloat. That in the few stressful days she’d had before Constantine had discovered the deal, the logic of her father asking Lorenzo Atraeus for a loan had seemed viable.

She had wasted her breath.

Constantine had been too busy walking out the door to listen to the painful details of her family’s financial struggle.

“As you heard from the reporters, there is very definitely ‘something else going on.’ If you’ll recall, that was the reason our engagement ended.”

“My father proposed a business deal that your father wanted.”

“Reestablishing a pearl facility on Medinos was a proposal based on opportunism and nostalgia, not profit.”

Her anger flared at the opportunism crack. “And the bottom line is so much more important to you than honoring the past or creating something beautiful.”

“Farming pretty baubles in a prime coastal location slated for development as a resort didn’t make business sense then and it makes no sense now. The Atraeus Group has more lucrative business options than restoring Medinos’s pearl industry.”

“Options that don’t require any kind of history or sentiment. Like mining gold and building luxury hotels.”

His gaze briefly captured hers. “I don’t recall that you ever had any problem with the concept of making money. As I remember it, two years ago money came before ‘sentiment.’”

Sienna controlled the rush of guilty heat to her cheeks. “I refuse to apologize for a business deal I didn’t instigate.” Or for being weak enough to have felt an overwhelming relief that, finally, there could be an answer to her family’s crippling financial problems. “My only sin was not having the courage to tell you about the deal.”

She stared out of the passenger-side window as Constantine turned into the parking lot of a shopping mall. It was too late now to admit that she had been afraid the impending disgrace of her father’s gambling and financial problems would harm their engagement.

As it turned out, the very thing she had feared had happened. Constantine believed she had broken his trust, that her primary interest in him had always been monetary. “I apologized for not discussing the deal with you,” she said, hating the husky note in her voice, “but, quite frankly, that was something I would have assumed your father would have done.”

Constantine slotted the Audi into a space. She heard the snick as he released his seat belt. He turned in his seat and rested an arm along the back of hers, making her even more suffocatingly aware of his presence.

“Even knowing that my father’s lack of transparency indicated he was keeping the deal under wraps?”

A dark sedan slid into a space beside the Audi. One of Constantine’s bodyguards, with Lucas in the passenger seat and Zane in the rear. A flash of cream informed her that her sports car, driven by the second bodyguard, had just been parked in an adjacent space.

Feeling hemmed in by overlarge Medinian males, Sienna released her seat belt and reached for her purse. “I didn’t understand that you were so against the idea of reestablishing a pearl industry on Medinos.”

Stupidly, when she hadn’t been frightened that she would lose Constantine and burying her head in the sand, she had been too busy coping with the hectic media pressure their engagement had instigated.

Life in a fish tank hadn’t been fun.

“Just as I couldn’t understand why you failed to discuss the agreement, which just happened to have been drawn up the day following our engagement announcement.”

Her gaze snapped to his. “How many times do I have to say it? I had nothing to do with the loan. Think about it, Constantine. If I was that grasping and devious I would have waited until after we were married.”

A tense silence stretched, thickened. Now she really couldn’t breathe. Fumbling at the car door, she pushed it wide.

Constantine leaned across and hauled the door shut, pinning Sienna in place before she could scramble out. The uncharacteristic surge of temper that flowed through him at the deliberate taunt was fueled by the physical frustration that had been eating at him ever since he had decided he had to see her again.

The question of just why he had taken one look at Sienna two years ago and fallen in instant lust, he decided, no longer existed. It had ceased to be the instant he had glimpsed her silky blond head at the funeral. Even wet and bedraggled, her eyes red-rimmed from crying, Sienna was gorgeous in a fragile, exotic way that hooked into every male instinct he possessed.

The combination of delicacy paired with sensuality, in Anglo-Saxon terms, was crazy-making. He was at once caught between the desire to protect and cushion her from the slightest upset and the desire to take her to bed and make love to her until she surrendered utterly.

It was an unsettling fact that he would rather argue with Sienna than spend time with any other woman, no matter how gorgeous or focused on pleasing him she might be.

“Now that’s interesting. I assumed that the reason you stayed quiet about the loan was that your father needed the money too badly to wait.”

Her face went bone-white and he knew in that instant that he had gone too far.

Then, hot color burned along her cheekbones and the aura of haunted fragility evaporated. “Or maybe I was simply following orders?”

His gaze shifted to her pale mouth, the line of her throat as she swallowed. “No,” he said flatly.

Sienna had been Roberto’s precocious second-in-command for the past four years. She had run the family’s pearl house with consummate skill and focused ambition while her father had steadily gambled the profits away at various casinos. The last time she had taken an order from Roberto, she had been in the cradle. If she had a weakness, it was that she needed money.

His money.

And she still did.

She pulled in a jerky breath. He felt the rise and fall of her breasts against his arm, the feathery warmth along his jaw as she exhaled. The light, evocative scent she wore teased his nostrils as flash after flash of memory turned the air molten.

A tap on the passenger-side window broke the tension. One of his security guards.

Constantine released his hold on the door handle, his temper tightly controlled as he watched Sienna climb out and collect her car keys.

Levering himself out of the Audi into the now blistering heat of early afternoon, Constantine gave the guard his instructions. For the past four days he had seldom been without an escort but for the next hour he required absolute privacy.

Peeling out of his damp jacket, he tossed it behind the driver’s seat. He frowned as he noticed Lucas speaking with Sienna. From the brevity of the exchange he was aware that his brother had simply offered his condolences, but Sienna’s smile evoked an unsettling response.

The fact that Lucas was every inch a dangerous Atraeus male shouldn’t register, but after the charged few moments in the Audi, the knowledge of just how successful his brother was with women was distinctly unpalatable.

Constantine strolled toward Sienna as she slid her cell phone out of her purse and answered a call.

Lucas waylaid him with a brief jerk of his chin. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“Positive.”

“It didn’t look like a business discussion back at the cemetery, and it sure as hell didn’t look like a business discussion just then.”

Constantine knew his gaze was cold enough to freeze. “Just as long as you remember that Sienna Ambrosi is my business.”

Lucas lifted a brow. “Message received.”

Jaw tight, Constantine watched as Lucas climbed into the passenger-side seat of the dark sedan. He lifted a hand as the car cruised out of the parking lot. Maybe he hadn’t needed to warn Lucas off, but the instinct to do so had been knee-jerk and primitive. In that moment he had acknowledged one clear fact: for the foreseeable future, until he had gotten her out of his system, Sienna Ambrosi was his.

While he waited for Sienna to terminate her call, he grimly considered that fact, sifting through every nuance of the past hour. The tension that had gripped him from the moment he had laid eyes on Sienna at the funeral tightened another notch.

Constantine knew his own nature. He was focused, single-minded. When he fixed on a goal he achieved it. His absolute commitment to running the family business was both a necessity and a passion and he had never flinched from making hard choices. Two years ago, severing all connection with Sienna and the once pampered and aristocratic Ambrosi family had been one of those choices.

Sliding dark glasses onto the bridge of his nose, Constantine crossed his arms over his chest and studied the pure line of Sienna’s profile, the luscious combination of creamy skin and dark eyes, her soft pale mouth.

Until he had been handed an investigative report he had commissioned on Ambrosi Pearls and had discovered that Sienna had been linked on at least three occasions with Alex Panopoulos, a wealthy retailer.

He still remembered the moment of disorientation, the grim fury when he’d considered that Panopoulos could be Sienna’s lover.

He had soon eliminated that scenario.

According to the very efficient private eye employed by the security firm, Panopoulos was actively hunting but the Greek hadn’t yet managed to snare either of the Ambrosi girls.

Sienna registered Constantine’s impatience as she ended her conversation with Carla, who had been concerned that she had been caught up in the media frenzy in the parking lot.

Constantine lifted a brow. “Where do we talk? Your place or mine?”

Sienna dropped her phone back into her purse. After the tense moments in the car and the sensual shock of Constantine invading her space, she couldn’t hide her dismay at the thought of Constantine’s apartment. Two years ago they had spent a lot of time there. It had also been the scene of their breakup.

The thought of Constantine in the sanctuary of her own small place was equally unacceptable. “Not the apartments.”

“I don’t have the apartment anymore. I own a house along the coast.”

“I thought you liked living in town.”

“I changed my mind.”

Just like he had about her. Instantly and unequivocally.

He opened the door of her small soft-top convertible. Feeling as edgy as a cat, her stomach tight with nerves, she slipped into the driver’s seat, carefully avoiding any physical contact. “Carla’s taken Mom to a family lunch at Aunt Via’s apartment, so they’ll be occupied for the next couple of hours. I can meet you at my parent’s beach house at Pier Point. That’s where I’ve been staying since Dad died.”

Constantine closed her door. Bracing his hands on the window frame, he leaned down, maintaining eye contact. “That explains why you haven’t been at your apartment, although not why you haven’t been returning my calls at work.”

“If you wanted to get hold of me that badly you should have rung my mother.”

“I got through twice,” he said grimly. “Both times I got Carla.”

Sienna could feel her cheeks heating. After Sienna’s breakup with Constantine, Carla had become fiercely protective. Constantine hadn’t gotten through, because Carla would have made it her mission to stop him.

“Sorry about that,” she said, without any trace of sympathy in her voice. “Carla said there had been a couple of crank calls, then the press started bothering Mom in the evenings, so we went to stay at the beach house.”

Constantine had also left a number of messages at work, which, when she had been in the office at all, Sienna had ignored. She had been feverishly trying to unravel her father’s twisted affairs. Calling Constantine had ranked right up there with chatting to disgruntled creditors or having a cozy discussion with IRD about the payments Ambrosi Pearls had failed to make.

“If Pier Point is hostile territory, maybe we should meet on neutral ground?”

Was that a hint of amusement in his voice?

No, whatever it was Constantine was feeling, it wasn’t amusement. There had been a definite predatory edge to him. She had seen a liquid silver flash of it at the gravesite, then been burned by it again in the parking lot.

The foreboding that had gripped her at the cemetery returned, playing havoc with her pulse again.

Suddenly shaky with a combination of exhaustion and nerves, she started the car and busied herself with fastening her seat belt. “The beach house is far enough out of town that the press isn’t likely to be staking it out. If this conversation is taking the direction I think it is, we’d better meet there.”

“Tell me,” he said curtly. “What direction, exactly, do you think this conversation will take?”

“A conversation with Constantine Atraeus?” Her smile was as tightly strung as her nerves. “Now let me see … Two options—sex or money. Since it can’t possibly be sex, my vote’s on the money.”




Three


Money was the burning agenda, but as Sienna drove into Pier Point, with Constantine following close enough behind to make her feel herded, she wasn’t entirely sure about the sex.

Earlier, in the Audi, Constantine’s muscular heat engulfing her, she had been sharply aware of his sexual intent. He had wanted her and he hadn’t been shy about letting her know. The moment had been underscored by an unnerving flash of déjà vu.

The first time Constantine had kissed her had been in his car. He had cupped her chin and lowered his mouth to hers, and despite her determination to keep her distance, she had wound her arms around his neck, angled her jaw and leaned into the kiss. Even though she had only known him for a few hours she had been swept off her feet. She hadn’t been able to resist him, and he had known it.

Shaking off the too-vivid recollection, she signaled and turned her small sports car into her mother’s driveway. Barely an hour after the unpleasant clash across her father’s grave, those kinds of memories shouldn’t register. The fact that Constantine wanted her meant little more than that he was a man with a normal, healthy libido. In the past two years he had been linked with a number of wealthy, beautiful women, each one a serious contender for the position of Mrs. Constantine Atraeus.

He turned into the driveway directly behind her. As Sienna accelerated up the small, steep curve, the sense of being pursued increased. She used her remote to close the electronic gates at the bottom of the drive, just in case the press had followed. After parking, she grabbed her handbag and walked across the paved courtyard that fronted the old cliff-top house.

Constantine was already out of his car. She noticed that in the interim he’d rolled his sleeves up, baring tanned, muscled forearms. She unlocked the front door and as he loomed over her in the bare, sun-washed hall, her stomach, already tense, did another annoying little flip.

He indicated she precede him. She couldn’t fault his manners, but that didn’t change the fact that with Constantine padding behind her like a large, hunting cat, she felt like prey.

“What happened to the furniture?”

The foreign intonation in his deep voice set her on edge all over again. Suddenly, business agenda or not, it seemed unbearably intimate to be alone with him in the quiet stillness of the almost empty house.

Sienna skimmed blank walls that had once held a collection of paintings, including an exquisitely rendered Degas. “Sold, along with all the valuable artwork my grandfather collected.”

She threw him a tight smile. “Auctioned, along with every piece of real jewelry Mom, Carla and I owned—including the pearls. Now isn’t that a joke? We own a pearl house, but we can’t afford our own products.”

She pushed open the ornate double doors to her father’s study and stood aside as Constantine walked into the room, which held only a desk and a couple of chairs.

His gaze skimmed bare floorboards and the ranks of empty built-in mahogany bookshelves, which had once housed a rare book collection. She logged the moment he finally comprehended what a sham their lives had become. They sold pearls to the wealthy and projected sleek, rich-list prosperity for the sake of the company, but the struggle had emptied them out, leaving her mother, Carla and herself with nothing.

He surveyed the marks on the wall that indicated paintings had once hung there and the dangling ceiling fitting that had once held a chandelier. “What didn’t he sell to pay gambling debts?”

For a split second Sienna thought Constantine was taking a cheap shot, implying that both she and Carla had been up for auction, but she dismissed the notion. When he had broken their engagement his reasons had been clear-cut. After her father’s failed deal he had made it plain he could no longer trust her or the connection with her family. His stand had been tough and uncompromising, because he hadn’t allowed her a defense, but he had never at any time been malicious.

“We still have the house, and we’ve managed to keep the business running. It’s not much, but it’s a start. Ambrosi employs over one hundred people, some of whom have worked for us for decades. When it came down to keeping those people in work, selling possessions and family heirlooms wasn’t a difficult choice.”

Although she didn’t expect Constantine with his reputation for being coldly ruthless in business to agree. “Wait here,” she said stiffly, “I’ll get towels.”

Glad for a respite, she walked upstairs to her room. With swift movements she peeled off her ruined shoes, changed them for dry ones then checked her appearance in the dresser mirror. A small shock went through her when she noted the glitter of her eyes and the warm flush on her cheeks. With her creased dress and tousled hair, the look was disturbingly sensual.

Walking through to the bathroom, she towel-dried her hair, combed it and decided not to bother changing the dress, which was almost dry. She shouldn’t care whether Constantine thought she was attractive or not, and if she did, she needed to squash the notion. The sooner this conversation was over and he was gone, the better.

She collected a fresh towel from the linen closet and walked back downstairs.

Constantine turned from the breathtaking view of the Pacific Ocean as she entered the study, his light gaze locking briefly with hers.

Breath hitching at the sudden pounding of her heart, Sienna handed him the towel, taking care not to let their fingers brush. She indicated the view. “One of the few assets we haven’t yet had to sell, but only because Mom sold the town house this week. Although this place is mortgaged to the hilt.”

It would go, too. It was only a matter of time.

He ran the towel briefly over his hair before tossing it over the arm of a chair. “I didn’t know things had gotten this bad.”

But, she realized, he had known her father’s gambling had gotten out of hand. “Why should you? Ambrosi Pearls has nothing to do with either Medinos or The Atraeus Group.”

His expression didn’t alter, but suddenly any trace of compassion was gone. Good. Relief unfolded inside her. If anything could kill the skittish knowledge that not only was she on edge, she was sexually on edge, a straightforward business discussion would do it.

She indicated that Constantine take a seat and walked around to stand behind her father’s desk, underlining her role as Ambrosi Pearls’ CEO. “Not many people know the company’s financial position, and I would appreciate if you wouldn’t spread it around. With the papers speculating about losses, I’m having a tough time convincing some of our customers that Ambrosi is solid.”

Constantine ignored the chair in favor of standing directly opposite her, arms crossed over his chest, neutralizing her attempt at dominance.

Sienna averted her gaze from the way the damp fabric of his shirt clung to his shoulders, the sleek aura of male power that swirled around Constantine Atraeus like a cloak.

“It must have been difficult, trying to run a business with a gambler at the helm.”

As abruptly as if an internal switch had been thrown, Sienna’s temper boiled over. Finally, the issue he hadn’t wanted to talk about two years ago. “I don’t think you can understand at all. Did your father gamble?”

Constantine’s gaze narrowed. “Only in a good way.”

“Of course.” Lorenzo Atraeus had been an excellent businessman. “With good information and solid investment backing so he could make money, then more money. Unlike my father who consistently found ways to lose it, both in business and at the blackjack table.” Her heart was pounding; her blood pressure was probably off the register. “You don’t know what it’s like to lose and keep on losing because you can’t control someone in your family.”

“My family has some experience with loss.”

His expression was grim, his tone remote, reminding her that the Atraeus family had lived in poverty on Medinos for years, farming goats. Constantine’s grandfather had even worked for hers, until the Ambrosis had lost their original pearl business when it had been bombed during the war. But that had all been years ago. This was now.

She leaned forward, every muscle taut. “Running a business with a gambler at the helm hasn’t been easy.”

He spread his palms on the desk and suddenly they were nose to nose. “If it got that bad why didn’t you get out?”

And suddenly, the past was alive between them and she was taking a weird, giddy delight in fighting with Constantine. Maybe it was a reaction, a backlash to the grief and strain of the funeral, or the simple fact that she was sick of clamping down on her emotions and tired of hiding the truth. “And abandon my family and all the people who depend on our company for their livelihood?” She smiled tightly. “It was never an option, and I hope I never arrive at that point. Which brings us to the conversation you want so badly. How much do we owe?”

“Did you know that two months ago your father paid a visit to Medinos?”

Shock held her immobile. “No.”

“Are you aware that he had plans to start up a pearl industry there?”

“Not possible.” But blunt denial didn’t ease the cold dread forming in her stomach. “We barely have enough capital to operate in Sydney.” Her father had driven what had been a thriving business into the ground. “We’re in no position to expand.”

Something shifted in Constantine’s gaze, and for a fleeting second she had a sense that, like it or not, he had reached some kind of decision.

Constantine indicated a document he must have dropped on the desk while she’d been out of the room. Sienna studied the thick parchment. Her knees wobbled. A split second later she was sitting in her father’s old leather chair, fighting disbelief as she skimmed the text.

Not one loan but several. She had expected the first loan to date back to the first large deposit she had found in her father’s personal account several weeks ago, and she wasn’t disappointed.

She lifted her head to find Constantine still watching her. “Why did Lorenzo lend anything to my father? He knew he had a gambling problem.”

“My father was terminally ill and clearly not in his right mind. When he died a month ago, we knew there was a deficit. Unfortunately, the documents confirming the loans to your father weren’t located until five days ago.”

Her jaw clenched. “Why didn’t you stop him?”

“Believe me, if I had been there I would have, but I was out of the country at the time. To compound the issue, he bypassed the usual channels and retained an old friend, his retired legal counsel, to draw up the contracts.”

Constantine ran his fingers around his nape, his expression abruptly impatient. “I see you’re now beginning to understand the situation. Your father has been running Ambrosi Pearls and his gambling addiction on The Atraeus Group’s money. An amount he ‘borrowed’ from a dying man on the basis of a business he had no intention of setting up.”

Fraud.

Now the questions fired at her by the reporters made sense. “Is that what you told the press?”

“I think you know me better than that.”

She felt oddly relieved. It shouldn’t matter that Constantine hadn’t been the one who had leaked the story, but it did.

Someone, most likely an employee, would have sold the information to the press.

Sienna stared at the figure involved and felt her normal steely optimism and careful plans for Ambrosi Pearls dissolve.

Firming her chin, she stared out at the bright blue summer sky and the endless, hazy vista of the Pacific Ocean, and tried to regroup. There had to be a way out of this; she had wrangled the company out of plenty of tight spots before. All she had to do was think.

Small, disparate pieces of information clicked into place. Constantine not wanting to talk to her at the funeral or in the car, the way he had remained standing while she had read through the documents.

He had wanted to watch her reaction when she read the paperwork.

Her gaze snapped to his. “You thought I was part of this.”

Constantine’s expression didn’t alter.

Something in her plummeted. Sienna pushed to her feet. The loan documents cascaded to the floor; she barely noticed them. When Lorenzo Atraeus had died, he had left an enormous fortune based on a fabulously rich gold mine and a glittering retail and hotel empire to his three sons, Constantine, Lucas and Zane.

It shouldn’t be uppermost in her mind, but it suddenly struck her that if Ambrosi Pearls was in debt to The Atraeus Group, by definition—as majority shareholder—that meant Constantine.

Constantine’s gaze was oddly bleak. “Now you’re getting it. Unless you can come up with the money, I now own Ambrosi Pearls lock, stock and barrel.”




Four


The vibration of a cell phone broke the electrifying silence.

Constantine answered the call, relieved at the sudden release of tension, the excuse to step back from a situation that had spiraled out of control.

He had practically threatened Sienna, a tactic he had never before resorted to, even when dealing with slick, professional fraudsters. In light of the heart-pounding discovery that Sienna hadn’t known about her father’s latest scam, his behavior was inexcusable. He should have stepped back, reassessed, postponed the meeting.

Gotten a grip before he wrecked any chance that she might want him again.

Unfortunately, Sienna doing battle with him across the polished width of her father’s desk had put a kink in his strategy. Her cheeks had been flushed, her eyes fiery, shunting him back in time to hot, sultry nights and tangled sheets. It was hard to think tactically when all he wanted to do was kiss her.

She had never been this animated or passionate with him before, he realized. Even in bed he had always been grimly aware that she was holding back, that there was a part of her he couldn’t reach.

That she was more committed to Ambrosi Pearls than she had ever been to him.

To compound the problem, he had mentioned the bad old days when the Atraeus family had been dirt-poor. Given that he wanted Sienna back in his bed, the last thing he needed was for her to view him as the grandson of the gardener.

Jaw tight, he turned to stare out at the sea view as he spoke to his personal assistant. Tomas had been trying to reach him for the past hour. Constantine had been aware he had missed calls, something he seldom did, but for once, business hadn’t been first priority.

Another uncharacteristic lapse.

Constantine hung up and broodingly surveyed Sienna as she gathered the pages she had knocked onto the floor and stacked them in a precise pile on the desktop. Even with her dress crumpled and her makeup gone, she looked elegant and classy, the quintessential lady.

A car door slammed somewhere in the distance. The staccato of high heels on the walkway was followed by the sound of the front door opening.

Constantine caught the flare of desperation in Sienna’s gaze. Witnessing that moment of sheer panic was like a kick in the chest. He was here to right a wrong that had been done to his father, but Sienna was also trying to protect her family, most specifically her mother, from him. It was a sobering moment. “Don’t worry,” he said quietly. “I won’t tell her.”

Sienna stifled a surge of relief and just had time to send Constantine a grateful glance before Margaret Ambrosi stepped into the room, closely followed by Carla.

“What’s going on?” her mother demanded in the cool, clear tone that had gotten her through thirty years with a husband who had given her more heartache than joy. “And don’t try to fob me off, because I know something’s wrong.”

“Mrs. Ambrosi.” Constantine used a tone that was far gentler than any Sienna could ever remember him using with her. “My condolences. Sienna and I were just discussing the details of a business deal your husband initiated a few months ago.”

Carla’s jaw was set. “I don’t believe Dad would have transacted anything without—”

Margaret Ambrosi’s hand stayed her. “So that’s why Roberto made the trip to Europe. I should have known.”

Carla frowned. “He went to Paris and Frankfurt. He didn’t go near the Mediterranean.”

An emotion close to anger momentarily replaced the exhaustion etched on her mother’s face.

“Roberto left a day earlier because he wanted to stop off at Medinos first. He said he wanted to visit the site of the old pearl facility and find his grandparents’ graves. If anything should have warned me he was up to something that should have been it. Roberto didn’t have a sentimental bone in his body. He went to Medinos on business.”





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