Книга - Bedded by the Greek Billionaire

Bedded by the Greek Billionaire
Kate Walker


Step into a world of sophistication and glamour, where sinfully seductive heroes await you in luxurious international locations.Taken for passion…or ruthless retribution?As a naïve teenager, Jessica Marshall fell achingly in love with a gorgeous Greek – Angelos Rousakis. But her clumsy attempt at attracting his attention cost Angelos everything. Seven years later, Angelos Rousakis is back. Hard and powerful, he intends to claim what is his – and that includes Jessica! However, the once innocent girl now pretends that she feels nothing for Angelos…which only inflames his passion for her further…As Jessica falls for the sexy billionaire all over again, she cannot be sure. Is he back for passion…or retribution…?







‘Not just business,’ he said deeply. ‘Not just business, but pleasure as well.’

‘Pleasure?’ Jessica found that the word caught in her throat, choking her so that she couldn’t get it out. ‘What pleasure?’

Once again Angelos turned that frankly sceptical look on her face, his eyes lighting with total disbelief that she could possibly be so naïve.

‘What pleasure?’ he echoed softly, his voice becoming husky and rough on the word. ‘What pleasure could there be but sexual, agape mou? This would be both a business and a sexual partnership. That way we would have the very best of both worlds.’

‘A sexual partnership—you’re asking me to be your mistress!’

The bitterness that ate into her soul with the realisation that just for a few moments she had been fool enough to let herself think he was actually offering her a genuine partnership made her voice shake in shocked disgust.

‘What else?’ Angelos tossed at her. ‘You surely did not think that I was going to go down on one knee and ask you to marry me?’


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

You can visit Kate at www.kate-walker.com

Recent titles by the same author:

SPANISH BILLIONAIRE, INNOCENT WIFE

THE GREEK TYCOON’S UNWILLING WIFE

THE SICILIAN’S RED-HOT REVENGE

SICILIAN HUSBAND, BLACKMAILED BRIDE




BEDDED BY THE GREEK BILLIONAIRE


BY

KATE WALKER




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



BEDDED BY THE GREEK BILLIONAIRE


CHAPTER ONE

THE driving rain lashed against the windscreen of the car, obscuring the road and blurring the sign fixed to the low stone wall, but Angelos Rousakis needed no help or guidance in finding his way to the place he was looking for. The country lane that led to the Manor House hadn’t changed at all in the years since he had last seen it, and his hands were already moving on the steering wheel, ready for the turn, even before he glimpsed the gateway.

The savage downpour meant that he could only take the steep, curving driveway in low gear and at a crawling speed but that wasn’t something that troubled him. He had waited for this moment, planned for it, for so long that a few more moments didn’t matter. The truth was that he was enjoying the anticipation almost as much as he expected to enjoy putting his planning into operation, and as the big sandy-coloured house came into view the sense of grim satisfaction that had been with him ever since he had left Athens deepened and darkened at the thought of what was to come.

Inside that house Jessica Marshall was acting out her part as lady of the manor, unaware of the fact that her days in that role were strictly numbered—had, in fact, already come to an end. In a very short space of time the reality of her situation would hit home to her and he would be there to see her reaction as her world fell apart around her. The thought of that moment was something that made the long, tedious journey from the airport bearable, even in this appalling weather.

‘I think we’re ready now.’

Jessica spoke softly, stopping her stepfather’s butler just as he was about to leave the room after ushering in the latest black-coated, sombre-faced arrival.

‘Would you ask them to bring the cars around to the front of the house? Is there a problem?’ she added, blue eyes frowning slightly as Peters hesitated, looked a little concerned.

‘No problem, miss,’ the elderly man explained. ‘It’s just that I think it might be best to wait a little while yet—until everyone has arrived.’

‘Wait?’

Jessica pushed a hand through the soft fall of her chestnut hair as she looked round the room, struggling to remember just who had been invited today. She couldn’t think who, if anyone, was missing.

‘But everyone is here—aren’t they?’

Again there was that flash of a disturbing expression—one that crossed Peters’s face and was gone in a moment. But Jessica had seen it and the feeling that it left in its wake was one of unease, a niggling sense of something she didn’t know about—but felt that she should. Something that unnerved and worried her, setting her on edge like a nervous cat.

‘Not quite everyone, miss.’

‘But who…?’

Jessica glanced around the room, frowning as she completed another survey of the guests. Everyone there was elderly, like most of her stepfather’s friends, and she couldn’t think if someone was obviously missing from the list of people who should have been invited to Marty’s funeral.

‘I can’t think of anyone…’

‘There is one last…’ Peters hesitated over the right way to describe the person he meant. ‘A person I was told to expect,’ he finished awkwardly

‘Told by who?’

‘Mr Hilton—Mr Simeon Hilton.’

Her stepfather’s solicitor. So this person, whoever they might be, was known to Simeon Hilton. But why hadn’t Simeon told her about him—or her—when they had had their last discussion about the preparations?

‘I’ll ask…’ she began when the sound of a powerful car’s engine outside cut through her words, making her break off. The next moment the rich, purring sound had been silenced too as the car drew to a halt beyond the big bay window, just out of sight.

‘It looks as if our missing guest is here,’ she told Peters, whose attention had been caught as well. ‘I suggest you go and let them in now and we can get on our way to the church.’

And she could find out who the missing person was, she told herself as she smoothed back a wayward lock of her gleaming hair that had fallen loosely around her face once more, tucking it behind her ear in an attempt to secure it. She’d fastened most of it back for today, but it seemed that one bright lock was determined to escape.

The new arrival must be someone important, she reflected. Important enough for Simeon to have told Peters not to start without them. But if that was the case, then why hadn’t he mentioned this expected arrival to her when they had been going over the details of Marty’s funeral? She’d asked him to let her know if there was anyone she ought to take particular notice of.

Out in the hall she heard the big, heavy oak door creak open and the murmur of voices.

Male voices. So the mysterious arrival was a he after all. One small part of the problem solved.

There was something about the tone of the voice that responded to Peters’s greeting that grated on her, searing over nerves that were suddenly and unexpectedly drawn tight. Something unnervingly familiar that tugged on her senses and reminded her of…

Of what?

Of something just out of reach that she couldn’t focus on or grasp at. The thundering sound of the driving rain out beyond the open door had blurred the words and made them totally incomprehensible so that, try as she might, she couldn’t make them out. But they had stirred a memory she had thought was hidden deep. One that set her heart racing, brought her breath into her lungs in a sudden gasp, as she struggled with the clenching of her stomach in irrational response.

There was no way this visitor could be him, she reproved herself. And there was no reason to panic over nothing. The strain of the past week was getting to her. The shock of Marty’s sudden, devastating heart attack. The long, anxious night while he had lain in a coma. At least he hadn’t suffered, and he hadn’t lived long after that first attack, but all the same it had been a distressing, exhausting time. She wasn’t surprised that it was starting to catch up on her. But it had to be just that which was playing tricks on her mind.

Peters was coming back. As so many times before this afternoon, he paused in the doorway, clearing his throat slightly.

‘Mr Angelos Rousakis…’ he announced formally and the sound of the name she hadn’t even allowed herself to think of hit home like a blow to Jessica’s face, making her mind reel in shock.

Angelos Rousakis.

No!

It couldn’t be—it just couldn’t! She really had to be dreaming. Either that or the confusion of her thoughts had scrambled her brain so that she had got it wrong, hearing the name that was in her mind instead of…

The sight of the man who stepped into the doorway, taking Peters’s place as the older man moved aside, froze the thoughts in her head, wiping away her ability to think. She could only stand and stare, struggling to reject what she was seeing.

There was no reason at all why he should be here. No reason why he should return to the estate that he had left under such a cloud almost seven years before, just about shaking the dirt of the land from his feet as he’d vowed that he would never ever return.

But there was no denying the evidence of her eyes. The tall, powerful frame was too strong, too solid to be a figment of her imagination, the black-haired head held arrogantly high, the burning black eyes that swept round the room as if he was looking for something.

Or someone.

The sting of guilt and anxiety was so sharp that instinctively she shrank away a little, not daring to take a step back in case the movement drew attention to her, but unable still to control the instinctive response. But it seemed that the tiny movement was enough to catch his eye and that searching gaze focused sharply, his dark head turning in her direction as he took in her shaken face, the sudden loss of the colour that she could feel draining from her cheeks.

In that moment she felt like nothing so much as a small, cowering field mouse that had been spotted by a circling hawk and was now frozen to the spot, simply waiting for it to pounce.

It was as if the seven years since she had last seen him had been stripped away. She was eighteen all over again, burning with the deepest, hottest embarrassment of her life, and hearing a sneering, thickly accented voice saying, cold and clear, ‘Don’t delude yourself, child. I have no interest in you in that way at all. I don’t play with little girls.’

After that appalling last night, she had been so glad to know that he had gone, and she’d hoped never to see him again. So what sort of malign fate had brought the man she had once named the Black Angel back into her life at this terrible moment?

But there was no way she could ignore the new arrival. He was looking straight at her, that arrogant dark head slightly tilted to one side as if he was waiting for her to make the first move. As was everyone else in the room, she realised, suddenly becoming conscious of the eyes that were turned in her direction. Of course, as Marty’s only surviving family member, even if only by marriage, she was the one who had to greet every new arrival, as she had been doing for the past hour or so.

Somehow she made herself move forward, stiffening her back, her neck, so that the threatening weakness in her legs didn’t show. She was sure that the result was to make her look as if she was marching stiffly like a wooden toy as she crossed the worn gold- and burgundy-coloured carpet, the gathered crowd of friends and neighbours parting like the Red Sea as she moved towards the man in the doorway.

And all the way across the room he watched her come. Those dark, dangerous eyes were fixed on her face as she walked towards him, the burning gaze never flickering, the dark concentration so fierce that she almost felt it sear her skin where it landed.

What was he doing here? And why would he turn up now—at the worst possible moment?

‘Don’t come back!’ In the darkness of her mind she heard her own voice in an echo of the words that she had flung at him. ‘Don’t ever come back! I never ever want to see you again.’

And, ‘Don’t worry, darling,’ he’d said, the tone of the words turning the endearment into the exact opposite. ‘One taste of hell is enough for any man in his lifetime. I will not be fool enough to risk that again.’

And yet now here he was, big and dark and large as life. Larger than life when compared with the younger man he had been when she had last seen him. Those years had filled out his lean, rangy frame, giving him an image of solid power that seemed to fill the doorway in which he stood, blocking out the light from the hallway behind him.

For one sudden, terrifying moment she had a sense that he was blocking her way out too. Closing off her way of escape, making sure that she stayed trapped in the room. Her heart seemed to rise up into her throat, beating frantically so that she found it difficult to breathe, and for a moment the sight of his hard-boned, strongly carved face blurred before her eyes, fading into a hissing, whirling mist.

Not for the first time that morning she ardently wished that Chris had been able to be with her today. But her fiancé had an important business meeting in London, one that couldn’t be cancelled for anything, and so she had been denied the comfort and support of having him at her side through today’s ordeal. If she had known—or even dreamed—that Angelos Rousakis was going to reappear from whatever dark place he had crawled into seven years ago then she would have begged Chris to stay, no matter what. But then how could she ever have imagined that her shameful past would come back to haunt her in this way, in the form of this man?

What had he come for? Why was he here? She had always feared that one day he would turn up, dark and dangerous, seeking vengeance for the way he believed she’d treated him. The image of those gleaming black jet eyes, the expression in them promising burning retribution as he’d flung one last viciously contemptuous look in her direction had haunted her dreams for months afterwards. It had been a long time before the memory had faded and even now it could still come back to haunt her when she was tired or feeling low.

But then reality surfaced and she shook her head slightly, feeling the haze clear, the panic ebb away. Peters had announced Angelos Rousakis as he had every other person who was attending the funeral. The butler had been expecting him because Simeon Hilton had said that he was coming—even if he was the last person on earth that she had been thinking to meet. And that meant that he should be treated as any other guest today. Surely she could manage that even if she would not truly be able to breathe easily until he left the house—left England—and she knew he was out of her life again.

So—‘Mr Rousakis…’ She made herself say it, forced her voice to sound at least calm and indifferent so that if one hadn’t known that they had met in the past and the savage hostility that now burned between them, at least it couldn’t be guessed from her tone. ‘Thank you for coming.’

She forced herself to put out her hand too. Every last bit of training that her mother had instilled into her made her do it. Courtesy to guests was something Andrea had always insisted on and even now she couldn’t go against the rules that had been instilled into her. But it was all she could do not to flinch when the burn of his skin against her own actually scorched her palm, sending stinging sensations shooting along every nerve.

‘Miss Marshall…’

Seen up this close, he was even more imposing, more devastating than he had been in the moment that he had walked into the room. Even in the elegant heels she wore, she was still several inches below him in height, needing to tilt her head back to meet him eye to eye. His tanned olive skin seemed almost impossibly vibrant and alive in contrast to the early spring pallor of the rest of the guests. He was wearing black, like everyone else in the room, but he wore it like no one else in the room.

His clothes were of a far better quality than anything the newly employed stable hand she had known would ever have been able to afford all those years ago. The long black overcoat worn loose over a black shirt and beautifully tailored black suit hung from the width of his powerful shoulders with the dramatic effect of a cloak or a greatcoat worn by some swashbuckling Regency highwayman. The thunderous downpour outside had soaked into the fine material, making it even darker, even sleeker in patches. Raindrops from the same storm were scattered through the black silk of his hair, sparkling like diamonds against the polished jet strands that they clung to, and the moisture had even spiked the impossibly lush, thick lashes that fringed the ebony darkness of his eyes.

‘My sympathy on your loss.’

It sounded like the most polite of responses, at least on the surface, but there was a controlled savagery underlying his tone that caught on the tightness of her nerves and tugged hard, making her stomach muscles clench on a wave of panic. It sounded almost as if he was having to force himself to speak at all. But when she looked into his face all she saw was a calm civility, the smooth veneer of a public mask that hid whatever truth was in his mind.

He couldn’t hide it in his eyes though, and what she saw in their darkness made her shiver inwardly. Her own guilty memories added an extra uneasy layer to the tension that claimed her.

‘I believe that Mr Hilton let you know of my stepfather’s death…’

‘He did. He telephoned me as soon as he knew. I was away on business at the time or I would have been here sooner.’

The dark eyes still clashed with hers as he answered, their total lack of expression giving away nothing at all. He knew what she was doing; the faint half smile that curled the corners of the beautifully shaped mouth told her that. He knew that she was trying to probe into his reasons for being here, hunt out the hidden explanation for his sudden and unexpected appearance. Because there had to be one. He hadn’t just appeared out of the blue to pay his respects at her stepfather’s funeral.

Respect had been the last thing that this man had felt for Marty. A bitter hatred had been the only emotion that had flared between the two men. A hatred that her own foolish behaviour and unthinking actions had fed till breaking-point had been reached and the explosions that had resulted had almost destroyed them all.

No. Hastily she corrected herself. It hadn’t damaged Angelos at all. At least not emotionally, which was how it had devastated her. Emotionally, he had walked out of here scot-free, not even a mark on him. And he had left her to pick up the pieces of the life she had known.

Financially, it had been a very different matter. In that case, he had every reason to hate her as much as he had her stepfather—more—because she was the reason he had lost his job; the reason he had had to leave in the first place.

So now, ‘I don’t understand…’ she began, but at that precise moment Peters stepped forward again, clearing his throat in the way that he always did to draw attention to the fact that he had something to say.

‘The funeral director is ready, Miss Marshall. If you’d like to lead the way…’

‘But I…’

She couldn’t help herself. Her eyes went to Angelos Rousakis, still standing, dark and watchful, in the doorway. She had been thrown completely off balance by his sudden and unexpected arrival and she was unsure of how to proceed. It was as if the ground had suddenly shaken violently beneath her feet so that when it was still again nothing was in quite the same place as before and her sense of equilibrium had vanished with it. Instead, in its place was a terrible sense of unease and apprehension, all of it centred in the man before her.

‘You…’ she tried again but, even as she spoke, he was moving, standing aside with a controlled grace and leaving the doorway open before her.

‘You have things to attend to,’ he said softly, that note of control still keeping his voice low and smooth. The voice of perfect courtesy, perfect concern, if she didn’t look into his face, into the cold burn of his eyes. ‘We will talk later.’

Was she imagining things? Was it her uneasy conscience, her unhappy memories that made her hear his words as a dark promise, almost a threat, instead of a polite reassurance? Could no one else hear that ominous undertone that shaded the words, turned the effect of them into something like the trail of small, icy footprints across her skin, raising every tiny hair in a sense of desperate apprehension? And the cold, assessing glance from those deep set eyes that flashed just once at her face told her he was watching her every move, seeing the play of emotions across her face and understanding the reasons for it.

He knew that she would do anything rather than risk any sort of public scene here and now, in front of the upper class county set who had been Marty’s friends. That her need to make sure that this last thing she could do for her late stepfather was carried out with dignity and restraint would put a control on her tongue that she would rather die than break. And he was playing on that fact, coldly and deliberately.

‘Talk…!’

Just for a moment defiance flared and she flung him an angry glare, her tongue itching to tell him to leave, go now, and never come back again.

But almost immediately the remembrance of the fact that he had been invited—and invited by Marty’s lawyer—stilled the angry words. That control slammed back into place, her teeth snapping closed over what she had been about to say, and instead she gave a cold, disdainful nod, her eyes looking straight past him, out beyond the open door to where the undertaker’s hearse and cars now waited.

‘Later,’ was all she said as she moved forward, head high, her mouth set in a firm, determined line.

‘Later,’ Angelos Rousakis echoed softly as she swept past him, knowing it was a promise as much to himself as to her. His mouth twisted slightly as he watched her walk away from him, the slim back held stiffly straight like her gleaming head. ‘Oh, yes, we’ll talk later, Miss Marshall.’

Let her have her moment of triumph, her belief that she had got the upper hand in the situation—for now. He was quite content to stand back and watch, stand back and let her act out the role of lady of the manor, queen of all she surveyed, for a little while longer. After all, what was that English saying about the harder they fall…? And little Miss Marshall had a very hard fall coming soon.

Not so little, the most masculine part of his nature added in wry acknowledgement. Jessica Marshall had done a lot of growing up in the years since he had last seen her, and she’d done it in all the right ways—physically at least. The delicious promise of a lovely young girl had turned into the fully sensual beauty of a woman. She was taller, slimmer, but her body had rounded in all the right places, adding gentle curves at breasts and hips that raised his pulse to beat stronger, heavier, at the thought of what lay beneath the stark black tailored suit, the neat white blouse that was buttoned right up to the base of her delicate neck, concealing all but the fine skin of her throat.

Her face had lost the faint roundness of youth, the high cheekbones becoming stronger, more sharply defined in the pale oval of her face and the blue-grey of her eyes seemed lighter than ever before in contrast to the rich fall of the burnished chestnut hair and the deep rose tint of the softly curved mouth.

Just for a second the memory of what it had felt like to know the taste of that mouth, have those lips open under his, stabbed at him with erotic sharpness. But the recollection of what had happened afterwards was enough to throw the mental equivalent of a bucket of icy water over any suggestion of the flames that might have flared in his mind, hardening his resolve before it had a second’s chance to waver.

One thing that hadn’t changed about Jessica Marshall was the cold-eyed, disdainful, totally dismissive look she could turn on anyone she considered beneath her contempt. The ‘what is this piece of dirt under my feet?’ expression that she had just used on him was exactly as it had been before, only this time given extra power as a result of seven years’ more maturity, seven years more of having everything her own way.

Well, not any longer. She would find out soon enough why he was here and then the ice queen would struggle to retain that icy calm when everything around her became hotter than hell. Let her see if she could manage to hold on to her hauteur then.

But the other people in the room had started to move forward, following in Jessica’s wake. Outside, where the rain had finally started to ease, the first of a line of sleek black cars had drawn up by the open door. For now, Lady Jessica would have to wait; he had a funeral to go to.

The funeral of the father he had never known.

The father that Jessica Marshall had stolen away from him.


CHAPTER TWO

‘JESSICA, I need to talk to you.’

Simeon Hilton touched Jessica’s elbow to draw her attention away from the elderly lady she was helping into her coat.

‘It is important.’

‘But does it have to be now?’

Jessica cast a quick glance around the room that was now almost empty and gave a small sigh of relief. The ordeal of the day was almost over. Another few minutes and she had hoped to be able to kick off the elegant shoes that had been crippling her for hours, put her feet up and maybe actually enjoy a cup of tea instead of constantly having to snatch a sip here or there, putting it down and forgetting about it or simply holding it in her hand while the liquid inside grew cold as she struggled to make conversation with yet another person she barely knew.

‘Can’t it wait?’

‘I’m afraid not. It’s about Marty’s will.’

The solicitor was obviously on edge. His eyes wouldn’t quite meet hers and he shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other as he spoke, twisting something sharply in her nerves.

‘Is there something wrong? Simeon—what is it?’

‘I’d prefer to do this properly… In private.’

A wave of Simeon’s hand took in the room, indicating the last few remaining stragglers who were finally making their way towards the door. Angelos Rousakis was not amongst them, Jessica was irritated to see. Instead, he was standing at the far end of the room, staring out of the window at the garden where the rain was once more lashing down.

Just the sight of him sent a nervous thrill down her spine, one that she had grown accustomed to all through the church ceremony and again at the graveside, when she had fought with her tears as the coffin had been lowered into the ground. It was a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold, sneaking wind that had replaced the rain showers for a while. It had everything to do with the terrible sense of apprehension that shuddered over her skin every time she looked at him. She still had no idea at all why he was here, and he clearly was in no sort of a hurry to explain.

It was like waiting for a tiger to pounce. Like being stalked silently and intently by a big, powerful, dangerous predator and never ever knowing just when the beast would leap and she would feel the rake of its claws, the tear of its teeth.

She’d tried to convince herself that she was being over-imaginative. That for some reason, a reason she couldn’t manage to come up with herself right now, Angelos had felt obliged to come and pay his last respects to the man who had once, very briefly, been his employer seven years ago. But no matter how she tried, that line of reasoning just didn’t convince. For one thing, Angelos had never been the sort of man who felt obliged to do anything. Even as a much younger man, he had clearly been in control of his life and bowed to no one when it came to making decisions about it. And now, at thirty, he had so obviously made his way in the world and come so far from the man he had been that she couldn’t imagine him conceding anything to anyone.

Which meant that he was here for his own reasons and he was determined not to let her know what those were until he was good and ready.

Well, they’d have to wait until she’d spoken to Simeon now.

‘Just give me five minutes then…’

Another round of the room, shaking hands, saying goodbyes, filled in the time she’d asked for and soon everyone had left. Everyone except for Simeon, who was busy with some call on his mobile phone, and Angelos, who was still standing exactly where he had been before, hands pushed deep into the pockets of his superbly tailored trousers, his long legs slightly apart, feet in highly polished hand stitched boots planted firmly on the wooden floor, his attention fixed on the view beyond the window.

Seeing him like this, anyone would think that he was the owner of the Manor House, Jessica told herself irritably. He stood there like the lord of all he surveyed when really he was…

He was what?

The question stopped her dead. Her already reluctant steps towards the man at the window faltered to a halt as she remembered just how little she actually knew about Angelos Rousakis. And about the Angelos who had appeared here this afternoon she knew nothing at all. Wherever he had lived, whatever he had done, he had prospered, there was no doubt about that, but she knew nothing of his story, of his way of life.

Had he gone back to his native Greece when he had left here…?

The thought died in her head as, his attention caught by her presence, Angelos turned his head slowly and she met his black-eyed gaze head on.

She had managed to avoid doing this all day and now she knew why. Being fixed by that polished jet stare made her feel like a butterfly, trapped and pinned to a board, unable to move. His expression was calm, even bland, but behind the heavy, hooded lids burned something she couldn’t understand or explain—she only knew that she didn’t trust it for a moment.

‘Miss Marshall…’

His tone was calm too, the inclination of his dark head in acknowledgement of her just enough to be polite, but his expression still gave nothing away.

‘You have a spectacular view,’ she heard him continue with a strong sense of disbelief. Did he really think that she had approached him to chat casually, make light conversation?

‘I don’t believe I ever saw it the last time I was here.’

‘Things were…very different then…’ Jessica managed, her tongue tangling over the words. Because she had the feeling that, coming close to him like this, she had made a terrible mistake. And suddenly she knew just what she had been avoiding all day.

By dodging any contact with him all through the afternoon she had also managed to avoid looking at him—really looking at him. Looking at him up close. And, by doing so, she knew she had been trying to deny the potent impact that he had on her senses. He had a raw, masculine appeal that had reached out and grabbed her years before, when she had been only eighteen, fresh out of school and naïve as anything. And that appeal was still there, intensified, concentrated, enhanced by seven years of maturity, seven years of success, it seemed. If Angelos had once been her Black Angel, then now he was all that and more—a Black Archangel. The epitome of male power and strength and pure, distilled, masculine sex appeal.

It was the recognition of that that had had her on the run all afternoon, dodging any contact with him that might have forced her to face up to the truth sooner. The bitter memories of the past, the sense of apprehension about his reasons for being here, even the fact that she was engaged to be married—nothing could come between her and the fact that Angelos Rousakis was the most devastatingly sexy man she had ever encountered in her life.

‘We were different people.’

She flung the words at him, using the snappish tone as a defence, hoping to hide her inner confusion. He might show every sign of having prospered since she had last seen him, but it didn’t alter the fact that she had once cost him his employment, his only home. Honour demanded that she should acknowledge that but the words tangled up on her tongue as Angelos lifted a sardonically enquiring eyebrow.

‘Were we?’

‘Yes. Totally different.’

Suddenly Jessica had had more than enough of this mystery—more than enough of his unsettling presence with no explanation for it.

‘So perhaps you’ll explain just what you’re doing here. What is it you want?’

‘What do I want?’

Angelos made a pretence of actually considering the question, looking around him with a thoughtful, assessing expression on his stunning face.

‘Well, I wouldn’t mind a house like this for a start. I always thought it was amazing when I worked here—and that was before I’d ever seen inside.’

‘It’s not for sale!’

This time, tormented by unease, she’d spoken too quickly, snapped too hard. She’d given too much away and she knew by the way that those brilliant black eyes narrowed sharply that he’d caught every trace of the discomfort she was trying to hide from him. He’d caught it and, she was beginning to suspect, had a strong suspicion of just what was firing it.

‘Not to the likes of me, hmm?’ he questioned softly, the words coming low and deadly like a striking snake. ‘Is that it, Jessica? Is that what you mean? That the Manor House can only belong to some purebred Englishman with aristocratic blood in his veins? Not some former Athens street urchin who’s fit only to groom your thoroughbred mare, to clean the mud from her coat when you come back from a ride around the estate and then to polish the tack ready for your next ride?’

‘I never said…’ Jessica blustered, horrified that he should even believe her capable of any such thought. ‘I…’

But Angelos hadn’t finished with her.

‘Or was that disappointment in your tone?’

‘Disappointment?’

‘Did you think that I was going to say that I wanted you? That that was why I’d come back—because I couldn’t get you out of my mind? That from the moment I kissed you all those years ago, I have always wanted you, always dreamed of you, always determined to have you? And now that I’ve made my fortune, now that your stepfather can no longer come between us, I’ve come back to claim you, to take you as my bride?’

‘No! Never! No way!’

Her voice was high and shrill—too high and shrill, she read in his face—and with every note it rose higher, with every violent shake of her head in emphasis, she was betraying the way that he had got to her. The way that, just for a terrible, weak, unguarded moment, she had actually felt a small, shivering thrill at contemplating the possibility he had laid before her.

‘I can’t think of anything I’d want less!’

His swift smile caught her on the raw. It was cold, mirthless, icy—a flashing gesture of triumph, without a trace of warmth in it anywhere, and not the tiniest gleam of light in the dark depths in his eyes. Somehow she knew she’d fallen right into the trap that he’d set for her—a trap she hadn’t even noticed he’d been laying.

‘Don’t you think that would sound more valid if you’d pointed out that you’re engaged to be married?’

For a moment the cold question stole away any words from her mind. How had he…?

Of course—he’d spotted her ring. But the way he made her feel—the way he obviously intended to make her feel—was that he believed her fiancé should have been uppermost in her thoughts. Which he should, she acknowledged, a terrible sense of embarrassment and guilt running through her.

She should have refuted Angelos’s suggestion with a furious, I’m not interested in any man other than my fiancé! Chris’s name should have been the first on her lips.

And that, she felt, was the trap that Angelos had planned—had expected her to fall into. Just the thought made something icy-cold slither nastily down her spine.

‘So tell me, where is your fiancé today? I would have thought that he would want to be here to support you at this time.’

Jessica bridled at the note of condemnation in his voice. Once again she wished that Chris had been here to refute the other man’s obviously critical opinion of him, just as she had wished that Marty would see what she saw in her fiancé rather than always being suspicious of his motives.

‘He had urgent business that called him away. Otherwise he’d have been here like a shot. And he wouldn’t have left my side for a moment.’

‘To protect you from the unwanted attentions of former servants who don’t know their place?’ Angelos drawled cynically, every word riddled with disbelief. ‘Then it’s just as well that that’s not why I’m here.’

This, Jessica suspected, was her cue to ask him just why he was here, but it was a cue she had no intention of taking up. Quite frankly, by now she didn’t care what had brought him here today and she didn’t want to find out. All she wanted was for him to go, to take with him the desperate, uneasy, guilty, uncomfortable feelings he’d roused in her simply by walking back into her life, and leave her in peace.

And she hoped and prayed that she would never, ever see him again.

With an effort she switched back to the icy politeness she’d adopted in the first moments she’d seen him—was it really only a couple of hours ago?

‘Well, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Everyone’s gone home…’ She indicated the empty room with a wave of her hand, taking a step back and half turning, so that his path to the door was completely free, totally unobstructed. ‘And so should you.’

Once more those narrowed eyes seared over her face, then flicked away to look at the open door, before coming back to lock coldly with her uneasy blue gaze.

‘I think not,’ he said firmly, his tone making it plain that he was not prepared to tolerate any argument. ‘There’s no way I’m going anywhere.’

‘But…’

Jessica glanced swiftly round, looking for Peters, but the butler had disappeared. And she had to wonder whether the older man would be able to manage to eject the powerful Greek whose imposing shoulders spoke of an impressive strength. The way that Angelos’s powerful legs and feet were planted so firmly made her think of a commanding tree that would never be easily uprooted.

Her head felt as if it were spinning, but whether from panic or anger she had no way of knowing.

‘Mr Rousakis, I have to tell you to leave!’

‘Miss Marshall, you are not in a position to tell me to do anything,’ he tossed back, the bite of cold anger making her breath catch in her throat. ‘Not any more.’

‘I—’ Jessica began when she heard a soft step behind her.

‘Mr Rousakis…’ It was Simeon Hilton’s voice and when she spun round it was to find the lawyer standing close behind her. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you arrived. I trust you had a comfortable journey.’

To Jessica’s total consternation, Simeon was holding out his hand towards the Greek, a smile on his face.

‘Mr Rousakis was just leaving…’ she managed but much of the strength had gone out of her voice as her confidence started to seep away. She had forgotten that Simeon had told Peters to wait for Angelos. That he had been expecting him.

Beyond the window, the rain had stopped but the slow, ominous passage of a dark cloud across the face of the weak, struggling sun made her tremble in sudden uncertainty. There was something going on. There were undertones here that she didn’t understand.

‘Shall we get started?’

To her horror, Simeon was addressing Angelos, not her, and there was something in that that was more than just a bond between the two men in the room. Simeon’s approach was—respectful—professional.

‘I have all the papers in the library.’

‘But…’ Somehow Jessica found the strength to speak even though a growing sense of fear and apprehension was threatening to close off her throat. ‘But this is a private matter between you and me, Simeon.’

She’d got that wrong, she knew as soon as the words were out. She could read her mistake in Simeon’s face, in the coolly knowing expression in Angelos’s eyes. This was not just between herself and Simeon. Angelos was somehow involved, though she had no idea how and why.

‘Just what is going on?’

It was Angelos who answered her.

‘I suggest you join us in the library,’ he declared with cool arrogance. ‘You’ll find out everything there.’

And, without even a second glance at her face, he turned and walked from the room, Simeon at his side, their long strides taking them across the room, away from her, while she stood and stared in blank bewilderment. It was almost, Jessica thought anxiously, as if Angelos was the owner of the Manor House, when everyone knew that she was the nearest thing that Marty had had to living family. Forcing her legs to move, she hurried after them, the sound of her heels tapping on the polished floorboards beating out the same sort of staccato tattoo as the uneven, jerky beat of her heart.

‘I thought you wanted to talk to me about my—about Marty’s will!’ she declared as she burst through the door into the library after them. Her noisy arrival made Angelos glance up from the tray on a table set in the wide bay window where he was pouring himself a drink from the jug of water that stood there too. ‘That is surely none of Mr Rousakis’s business.’

‘It is now.’

Angelos’s tone was quiet but so definite it was almost like a slap in the face, making Jessica’s head go back sharply as he watched her.

She was definitely rattled now, he noted with grim satisfaction, seeing how her blue eyes had widened in her pale face. They were huge, dark pools above suddenly ashen cheeks and, though she tried to cover up her concern, he could see the anxiety that clouded her eyes. Even the sleek chestnut hair had tumbled from the clips that she had used to hold it back and was now falling loose around her neck, a stray strand catching on her cheek.

She looked so much more like a real woman than the ice queen who had greeted him on his arrival and who had just tried none too subtly to eject him from the house. But he knew that the image was nothing but an illusion. The lady of the manor mask might have deserted her at the moment but as soon as she gathered breath it would be back in place—temporarily at least. But he had news for her that would soon shatter her belief in the way her life was going to work out, the role she was destined to play. The plans she had.

He was going to enjoy stripping them from her once and for all.

‘Mr Rousakis needs to be here for this,’ the lawyer put in carefully, grimacing as he saw the glare that Jessica directed at him.

‘And are you going to explain why?’

‘Would you like a drink?’ Angelos inserted smoothly, lifting a bottle of wine from the tray.

The look she turned on him should have shrivelled him into dust where he stood—or, at least, he knew that was what she wished for. He took a particular satisfaction in not shrivelling at all but meeting her blazing eyes head-on.

‘Do I need one?’ she shot at him and he felt his mouth curl into a smile in response to her angry question. She looked like nothing so much as a small, elegant cat hissing and spitting at an unwelcome intruder into her territory.

The smile incensed her further, he noted as her teeth actually snapped together in an attempt to hold back the fury she wanted to let loose.

‘You might find it easier to relax.’

And, to emphasise the point, he flung himself down into one of the big, squashy tan leather chairs and leaned back, stretching out his legs in front of him and crossing them at the ankles. Taking a long swallow of the water he had poured, he allowed himself another small smile behind the glass.

She caught it of course. He heard her breath hiss in between her teeth in response as he nodded to the waiting lawyer, indicating that Hilton should go ahead.

‘Would you like to…?’ the other man began but Angelos shook his head firmly.

He knew that there was no likelihood that Lady Jessica would believe anything he told her. She would need the legal facts spelled out to her by someone she trusted, someone she had to believe. And that had to be Simeon Hilton.

Besides, he wanted his attention free to see exactly what happened to her face when the truth hit home.

‘You have the papers…’

With a wave of his hand he indicated the folders that Simeon had placed on the big leather-topped desk.

‘You’d better explain everything. Tell Miss Marshall the position she’s in.’

Tell Miss Marshall the position she’s in…

Jessica had no idea just why those words hit home to her as hard as they did. There was nothing in Angelos’s tone to upset her. The way he spoke was as casual and conversational as if he was simply passing the time of day with a couple of friends. Nothing to worry her in that.

No—it was the fact that there seemed to be nothing to worry her in his tone that set all her mental alarm bells ringing, bringing her warning nerves to red alert in the space of a single heartbeat. From being an intruder—a stranger who had turned up unannounced and uninvited to her stepfather’s funeral—he had slowly but surely morphed into someone who was far too much at ease, far too much in control for her peace of mind. From the moment that he had walked into the house he had gone his own way, no matter what she said or did. He had been a dark, watchful presence at the graveside, a silent, black-eyed observer at the reception afterwards. He looked almost…

The word slithered away from her as Simeon seated himself at the desk and shuffled through the files, picking one up and tapping it straight on the desktop, then clearing his throat carefully.

‘About Marty—your stepfather’s will…’ he said.

‘There can’t be any problem with that.’

In spite of her determination not to, Jessica found herself a chair and sank down into it. Something in the way that Simeon spoke, the way he looked at her over his reading glasses, suddenly took the strength from her legs. It was either sit down—fast—or risk them giving way beneath her and with Angelos’s cold dark eyes fixed so closely on her face, she was determined not to let that happen. At a time like this dignity was important, and if keeping her dignity meant conceding just a little then she was fine with that.

‘Marty had everything sorted out. He arranged everything just as he wanted it.’

Why wasn’t Simeon nodding? He should be nodding, surely? Smiling and nodding and saying that yes, that was right.

‘We came to see you two years ago—when I turned twenty-three—and he said that he wanted to leave everything to me. Wasn’t that legal, then?’

The shock in her voice was as much from the memory of how she had felt that day, made worse now by the worry and uncertainty about just what was going on.

She had never actually believed that Marty would leave her everything. They had always been close—her mother’s second husband, the only father she had ever known—and the warmth between them had grown as they’d clung together after Andrea’s death in a train crash. And of course he’d been there for her seven years ago, moving in to take action, rescuing her from the repercussions of her foolishness, dealing with things…Jessica’s eyes slid to the dark, silent man in the other chair and she shivered, just remembering when she’d come up against Angelos Rousakis all those years ago.

But she had always believed that there must be someone else who had a far better right to, a far greater demand on the Robbins estate—distant relatives, friends, charities—to whom he would bequeath his fortune rather than to her.

Marty had assured her there was no one else. He had been an only child of only children; any cousins, once twice or even three times removed, had died long ago and he had no descendants of his own.

‘Marie could never have children,’ he’d told her in a sorrowful recollection of his first marriage to a woman who had died of cancer at the early age of thirty-five. ‘And by the time I met your mother we were both past that. But you’ve been the daughter I always wanted. The only family I need.’

He had known how much she loved the house, and the land that went with it, he’d said. And he knew that she would care for it, look after it in just the way he’d wanted. She would keep the farms running, be a fair landlady to the tenants, and of course she had always adored the horses.

‘I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather leave it to.’

She’d been overwhelmed, overjoyed, and, knowing she could never thank him, she had set herself instead to learn everything she could about the estate, working with Marty so that she would know how to handle everything when the time came. She had hoped to have so much longer to do so. Jessica had dreamed of maybe taking over the estate when Marty retired, and neither of them had ever thought that the end would come so soon.

The thought that she would be able to carry things on as her stepfather had wished had been the only consolation she had had when the sudden heart attack had taken him when she had least expected it.

‘Yes, that was quite legal,’ Simeon assured her. ‘Then.’

‘Then?’

The single word, hastily added, snagged on a raw nerve and tugged. It made her sit up straighter, a frown drawing her brows together, all her attention focused on the man at the desk.

‘Did something happen? Did Marty change his will?’

Simeon shook his head. ‘He left everything just as it was. That was the problem.’

‘The problem…Simeon, you’re going to have to explain this to me—it’s not making any sense. Marty left everything to me—so what’s the problem?’

‘The problem is that by the time he died Marty didn’t have anything to leave—to you or to anyone else.’

‘He didn’t?’

Jessica was having to struggle to try to understand just what Simeon actually meant. His words sounded as if they were coming to her down a long, echoing tunnel so that they rang distortedly in her head. And the problem was desperately aggravated by her painful awareness of the way that Angelos was sitting silently still, observing everything.

It was as if he had a sharp wire attached to her, one that kept up a constant, steady tug on every nerve, drawing her attention to him. It was a tug she fought to resist. She was having a hard enough time coping with just what Simeon was telling her. If she looked into Angelos’s face, read what he was thinking there, then she would go to pieces at once. She just knew it.

And so she forced herself to keep her face turned towards the lawyer, praying that Angelos could read nothing of her mood, or her fears, from the profile she presented to him.

‘Just what are you saying?’

‘That over the last year—eighteen months—Marty started to gamble.’

‘He always liked a flutter on the horses!’ Jessica exclaimed. ‘It was the only hobby he had. He…’

Her voice failed her as she met Simeon’s eyes, saw the expression on his face.

‘This wasn’t any sort of hobby, Jessica,’ the lawyer told her sombrely and a cold hand squeezed her heart, stilling her completely. ‘And it wasn’t anything like the way he’d been betting before. He started betting more money than he’d ever done—more than was wise. At first he won, so I suppose that made him bet more and more. But then apparently he started losing—and he’d bet more to try to win back his losses.’

Oh, Marty! Jessica had known that something was troubling her stepfather. He’d changed, lost weight, started smoking again when he’d given up years before as a promise to Andrea. Jessica had tried to get him to talk but he’d always dismissed her concerns. Told her she was worrying unnecessarily. And she had to admit that, caught up with her romance with Chris and the excitement of his proposal, just lately she’d been preoccupied and hadn’t seen as much as she should have done.

‘How bad did it get?’

Did she have to ask? Didn’t she know the answer from the gravity of Simeon’s tone, the look in his eyes?

‘The worst. He lost everything—he would have had to move out, leave Manorfield for good, if someone hadn’t stepped in and bailed him out.’

‘Who?’

Jessica winced as she heard the way her voice croaked, the break in the middle of the short word. Again, did she have to ask? The cruel hand that had been squeezing her heart suddenly gave it a vicious, painful wrench as she felt rather than saw the sudden change in the attitude of the other man in the room and glimpsed out of the corner of her eye the way he straightened in his chair, uncrossed his legs.

‘Who bailed him out?’

‘I did.’

The answer came from Angelos as she had known it must. The terrible dark sense of inevitability that had reached out and enfolded her ever since Simeon had begun the story had deepened and tightened around her neck, it seemed, threatening to strangle her as it closed off all the air from her lungs. There could be no other possible answer really. No other reason why he was here and why Simeon had treated him with such courtesy, such respect.

It took an effort to turn her head and face him, to look straight at him when she had spent the last minutes desperately trying to do the exact opposite. She dreaded what she would see in his face, the triumph there must be in his eyes.

But in fact all she could see was a dark, opaque shadow, no features, no details visible at all. The late afternoon sun had actually come out so that Angelos was just a black figure silhouetted against the huge bay window with its leaded panes.

‘What did you do?’

‘I bought him out.’

Stark and flat, the statement still had the power to stab like a brutal sword, slashing through everything she had believed—everything she’d hoped was going to come true.

‘I bought him out—paid off all his debts, got the creditors off his back and gave him a breathing space.’

‘You bought him out? But you couldn’t—there’s no way… how…’

‘You shouldn’t live in the past, Princess,’ Angelos drawled softly, getting to his feet and crossing to the table to refill his glass. ‘People change. I am no longer the stable boy you thought you could have a sordid little fling with. In fact I never was.’

‘What…?’ Jessica began, but he ignored her interjection, cutting straight across her attempt to say something, ask just what he meant.

‘I am more than capable of buying out your stepfather and saving him from ruin three times over if I wanted to.’

‘You make it sound as if you did him a favour, but I can’t believe that. You’re not that sort of a philanthropist. You don’t do things out of generosity—selfless charity. There had to be something you got out of it too.’

‘Oh, there was. I can assure you that I got everything I wanted—everything and more.’

Now at last she could see his face in the light from the window and what she read there made her heart quail inside her chest. Her breathing snagged again as she met his cold eyed, harsh-faced expression and saw the way that his eyes burned with icy anger, with the darkest searing contempt she had ever seen.

‘And…and that was…?’ she managed, snatching in her breath on a raw painful gasp.

‘You’re standing in it, Princess.’

The long-fingered hand that held the glass gestured in an arc that took in the whole room, the long, polished wooden floor, the huge marble fireplace with another set of leather armchairs and chesterfields standing before it, the range of bookcases on every wall, crammed to the edges with reading matter. And then, with his eyes fixed on her face so she knew he saw every tiny flicker of reaction, every tremor that crossed her features, the wide-eyed stare of blank disbelief and shock, he gestured again so that this time the movement widened enough to encapsulate the whole of the house, the grounds beyond—and the miles and miles of Manorfield estate as well.

‘I’ve wanted Manorfield since the time I first saw it when I came here seven years ago. I was determined never to give up until it was mine. Marty’s gambling, his debts, played right into my hands. I bailed him out to the price of the estate.’

‘I don’t believe you—I won’t believe you. If you’d owned Manorfield then you’d have been here like a shot. Marty still lived here—he was still running the estate.’

‘Because I let him. Because it suited me. Marty was an older man—I wasn’t going to throw him out on the streets, even if he had been happy to treat me that way. And, besides, he knew what was needed here—he knew how to handle things. That also suited me. So I let him stay on.’

Angelos paused, took a slow sip of his drink and swallowed it down, his eyes still holding her shocked blue ones over the rim of the fine crystal glass.

‘If he’d lived longer, I’d have let him stay on a while. But not any more, Jessica. That concession was for Marty only—it ended when he died. Once that happened, Manorfield was mine and all mine. The will your stepfather made has no validity—none at all. There’s nothing for you to inherit, you see. He couldn’t leave you anything because he didn’t own anything—barely even the clothes that he stood up in. All the rest was mine.’

He paused, took another swallow of his drink and, as he did so, Jessica felt the first terrible tremors of shock, the trembling of her limbs that made her grateful for the fact that she was sitting down.

Tell Miss Marshall the position she’s in…

Tell Miss Marshall the position she’s in…

The words swung round and round in her head, gaining a terrible extra significance with each repetition. She knew now with a dreadful sense of inevitability just what was coming. And she knew that there was no way she could stop it.

She could only sit there and try to control her reactions as she waited for the axe to fall.

He took his time about it. And she knew that was because he was enjoying every moment of this.

‘The truth of the matter is, my dear Jessica, that you can’t inherit Manorfield or any part of it because I own it all—the house, the farms, every last single blade of grass. They are all mine. And you are left with precisely nothing. Not even a home. Because the Manor House is mine and I intend to live here from now on.’

‘No…’

Jessica could only sit and shake her head, struggling, wishing, hoping that by denying Angelos’s arrogant statement she could make it into a nightmare, make it unreal. This couldn’t be happening—it couldn’t…

But even when she looked at Simeon for help she knew that she was not going to get it. Marty’s solicitor was sitting at the desk, the papers in front of him, and the expression on his face, the way that he had done nothing to contradict Angelos’s coldhearted declaration left her without a single hope in her heart.

Everything that he had said was the truth. Every last appalling fact. And now she knew just why his arrival had filled her with such a sense of creeping dread. Why she had known as soon as he’d walked into the room that he was here to do something dreadful, something that would destroy every trace of her peace of mind.

The man she had called the Black Angel was back in her life—and it seemed that he had taken it over and turned it upside down. And it would never be the same again.


CHAPTER THREE

JESSICA sighed deeply, turned over for what felt like the millionth time that night and buried her face in the pillows.

‘Oh, that was horrible!’ she said aloud as she struggled to surface from the dark, clinging sleep that had held her. ‘Horrible!’

She had dreamed that the Black Angel was back in her life and that he…

She came fully awake in a rush, the total recollection of what had happened hitting her hard.

It hadn’t been a dream—a nightmare of the darkest, most terrible kind. It had all been appallingly, dreadfully real.

Twisting over and sitting up in the bed, she pushed her tangled hair back from her face and stared unseeingly at the opposite wall as she forced her reluctant mind to review all that had happened yesterday afternoon. She had thought that the day was going to be hard enough when she would have to say goodbye to Marty, but she had barely got through the ordeal of the funeral when the emotional grenade of Angelos’s announcement had exploded right in her face.

Angelos.

The thought of his name reminded her that somewhere in this house Angelos had spent his first night as owner of Manorfield. She had no idea where he’d slept; she had gone to bed, exhausted and miserable, leaving him to select a room that would be his. No doubt Peters or Trish Henderson, the housekeeper, would have made sure that that new owner had clean sheets and towels and all the comforts he needed. Jessica had been beyond that.

Quite frankly, Angelos could have slept on the floor for all she cared. It seemed that whenever he appeared in her life he brought chaos and destruction with him and yesterday’s announcement meant that everything she had dreamed of for her future had been snatched away from her. Then, when she had believed it just couldn’t get any worse, it had turned out that it could.

Jessica’s eyes clouded as she recalled how Simeon had gone into long, complicated details about exactly how much debt Marty had managed to run up in the last two crazy years of his life. The size of his debts had appalled her, leaving her mind reeling at the thought that anyone could gamble those sorts of amounts on any one race, let alone do it again and again and again.

The end result was that she was left with nothing. Angelos had not been exaggerating when he had declared that he now owned everything, right down to every last blade of grass. Everything that Marty had talked about leaving to her had been swallowed up by his gambling. Jessica told herself that she ought to be grateful that she at least had her clothes, because there was little else she did own.

And now Angelos had moved in. He had had his case in the car and, as soon as Simeon had left, he had brought it into the house, obviously meaning to set himself up as lord of the manor without a moment’s hesitation.

That was when Jessica had had enough. It had been the sight of that case that made her give into the need to escape and hide away in the sanctuary of her bedroom. There, at least, she was safe from the oppressive, intrusive presence of the Black Angel.

But for how long?

Throwing back the duvet, Jessica forced herself out of bed and went to the window. Usually the long smooth lawn that stretched away from the house towards the lake, with the shrubberies on either side, made her heart lift just to see it. Even in the dark days after Marty’s death she had still loved this view because it was something she felt she still shared with her stepfather and could go on remembering him by. But this morning everything was spoiled. The peaceful, beautiful scene no longer brought the accustomed sense of ease but instead added another twist of the knife in her already aching heart.

She had lost so much in the past years. First her mother, shockingly, then Marty, and now she had lost Manorfield—and with it her home. After today she would have nowhere to live. Angelos would surely want her out as soon as possible. He had planned on getting his hands on Manorfield. Now that he had, he wouldn’t want her around.

After all, hadn’t he made it plain that a large part of the cruel delight he’d taken in letting her know that he had acquired the estate was accentuated by the fact that he had taken it from her? And, by doing so, he had had his final revenge for the way she had treated him seven years before.

No, she was not going to dwell on the past. She would think of better things—more positive things. And there were those in her life. For one thing, Chris was coming back today. She was meeting him for lunch.

Just the thought lifted her heart, straightened her shoulders, made her feel she could face the day.

Face Angelos.

With Chris at her side she’d be able to face the future.

And part of that future was to get herself downstairs smartish. The last thing she wanted was for Angelos to think that she was hiding away in her room, sulking, or, even worse, afraid to come out and face him.

She’d face him all right. He might have walked back into her life and shattered it, taking so much that she had thought was in her future and grabbing it for himself. But it was only money, only property. She had other things to look forward to in her future. She was getting married in a month. And then she would be out of here—sooner if possible. Out of here and leaving the Black Angel far behind her.

So she was going to get dressed and go down and face him. Head on.

And she was going to look her best. She wasn’t going to let him see how much he had devastated her.

With her shoulders squared, jaw tight with resolve, Jessica headed for the shower.

He was in the study—in Marty’s study. She spotted him through the open door as she marched down the long curving staircase that led into the hall. He was sitting at the big oak desk, a pile of papers in front of him and his head bent over one file. A terrible, sour taste rose into Jessica’s mouth at the sight of this—this usurper—in the place where she had so often seen her stepfather. In Marty’s chair, at Marty’s desk.

The thought that perhaps in the last few months of the older man’s life he might have been sitting at that desk wrestling with the problems that his debts had forced on him, wondering how to cope—driven to accept Angelos’s help—made the bitter taste even worse so that it was almost like acid burning on her tongue.

And so, in spite of the fact that Angelos lifted his dark head as she walked past the door and tossed some sort of greeting her way, she carefully ignored him. Keeping her eyes fixed straight ahead, hands firmly in the pockets of the beige trousers she wore with a soft green shirt, she headed for the kitchen and a much wanted cup of coffee.

She would need a strong dose of caffeine in her system before she could face him. Without it, she knew she would hiss and spit if she had to speak to him face to face. So she headed straight for the old-fashioned whistling kettle, filling it and slamming it back down on to the stove as a way of expressing her feelings without speaking.

‘Coffee,’ she said aloud to herself, reaching for a mug from a hook.

‘I’ll have one of those.’

The voice from behind her made her jump, though deep down she knew she’d been expecting it. But, although every nerve in her body tightened and twisted at the knowledge of his presence, she clamped down hard on the jittery feeling that clutched at her stomach and forced her voice to stay calm as she responded.

‘You really shouldn’t sneak up on me like that when I’m in the kitchen.’ Damn it, her voice was calm—but it must be obvious that that was only achieved by the way she had clenched her teeth so tight that already her jaw was beginning to ache. ‘You’re lucky I didn’t drop this mug.’

‘It wouldn’t have mattered.’

She couldn’t see but she could well imagine the careless shrug with which he dismissed the piece of china she held in her hand. Her fingers tightened round the handle as she fought with the need to swing round and fling it at his arrogant head.

Instead she made herself turn slowly, reluctantly. Her skin was already shivering with awareness of his presence and the knowledge of the fact that he was so very close behind her only made that burning sensitivity so much worse. He had the appalling knack of seeming to fill a room, even one as big as the old-fashioned Manor House kitchen. It was as if his presence expanded to fill the space, dominating it, sucking all the oxygen from the atmosphere and leaving her gasping for breath. Overnight she had told herself that her imagination had to have been working overtime, that there was no way he could be so big, so powerful, so dark. His eyes couldn’t be so deep and brilliant, his hair such a glossy black.

But, standing before her now, with the elegant business suit discarded in favour of a coffee-coloured long-sleeved T-shirt and darker brown trousers, he was all that and more. She had once thought him devastating, totally destructive to her peace of mind. She had known so little then! The man he had become was a hundred—a thousand—times more dangerous.

‘It’s only a mug.’

‘And you can afford so many other mugs, of course.’

The look Angelos turned on her was one of total exasperation.

‘I don’t happen to think that a mug is worth making a fuss about.’

‘Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you? Or were you perhaps thinking that you’d expect me to pay for a replacement, seeing as you now own Manorfield and everything that’s in it, lock stock and barrel and I’m just here under sufferance?’

This time the look that flashed from those black eyes was brilliant with cold anger and she actually heard his teeth snap together as he too bit back the first response that had sprung to his mouth.

‘Don’t be damn stupid, Jessica. And stop trying to provoke an argument. It’s too early in the morning.’

‘So do I need to make an appointment to speak to you now? Or to argue with you at least? Well, perhaps you’ll tell me when it is the right time—because we have a lot to argue about.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. It doesn’t have to be this way.’

‘It doesn’t?’ Jessica scorned. ‘From where I’m standing, this is exactly how it has to be. After all, you moved in and stole everything…’

‘Not stole!’ Angelos stated with vicious emphasis. ‘I stole nothing. I came by everything legally.’

‘Oh, yes, perfectly legally. By throwing outrageous sums of money at it—and at a man who couldn’t say no.’

‘Your stepfather was deeply grateful for my assistance.’

‘Oh, I’ll just bet he was! Considering you had him cornered, with no possible other way out. You saw a way to get what you’d always wanted, at a price you could afford to pay, and so you moved in for the kill. You didn’t give a damn about the people you’d trampled on—the people Marty really wanted his estate to go to.’

‘You?’

He inserted it, swift and sharp as a stiletto in the ribs, and with it came just the same sort of burning pain, so that she had to fight against the wince of distress that would betray her. Somehow she managed to transform the involuntary hand movement that came up between them in a nervous, defensive gesture, into one that dismissed his slashing question, brushing it aside in angry impatience.

‘The people who mattered to Marty.’

What had she said now that had made his face change so much, turning the glittering jet ice of his eyes into a flame of pure savagery, with a burning hatred that made her take an involuntary step back, away from the danger zone?

‘You just used the wealth you had to snatch it away at the cheapest possible—’

‘You don’t know what it cost me,’ he snarled from between gritted teeth.

‘I have some idea of what the estate is worth.’

This time it was Angelos’s hand that came up between them in an expressive, angry gesture, long fingers spread wide, broad palm acting as a barrier between them.

‘I wasn’t talking about money.’

‘What else is there to talk about where this is concerned? What I’m wondering is where you got the money from.’

‘Where the hell a penniless stable boy got the cash to buy out your stepfather, hmm?’ Angelos questioned cynically, his beautiful mouth twisting in bitter scorn. ‘You clearly don’t think it could possibly have been acquired legally.’

‘I never said that!’

She tried to meet his accusing eyes squarely but her gaze skittered away from his at the memory of just how the ‘penniless stable boy’ she had believed him to be had ended up out on the streets because of her.

‘You didn’t have to say anything.’ Angelos gave the words a dangerous softness, one that made all the tiny hairs on her skin lift in a shivering response to some unseen but instinctively sensed peril. ‘It was there on your face, in your eyes. But you needn’t worry, my dear Jessica. Every euro I earned—every penny I paid for Manorfield—was worked for and earned legally. I wasn’t always a penniless stable hand—maybe the truth is that I was never a penniless one.’

‘What…?’

But at that moment the kettle boiled, the whistle sounding loud and shrill into the stunned silence that followed her shaken question. She had been so intent on the argument, on the man in front of her, that it brought her whirling round, snatching it up to silence the appalling sound before she quite realised what was happening.

‘You were making coffee,’ Angelos said pointedly when she simply stood, frozen to the spot.

The truth was that she no longer felt she could drink anything. So many feelings and emotions were knotted up in her throat that she felt sure she would choke. But even as she stood, her mind clouded with memories, her whirling thoughts refusing to be pushed into any coherent order, he stepped forward, eased the kettle from her clutching fingers and took it over to the scrubbed wooden worktop.

‘Very little milk, no sugar,’ he said, the totally matter of fact way of speaking making her mind spin again.

‘What?’

‘The way you like your coffee.’ He had replaced the kettle on the stove, but off the heat this time, taken down a cafetière from a shelf and was opening cupboards, obviously in search of coffee. ‘That is right isn’t it?’

‘You remember?’

‘Of course I remember.’

He had his back to her as he was spooning ground coffee into the glass pot, so she couldn’t see the expression on his face or have any guess at what was going through his mind. His tone was no help. It was flat and emotionless, giving nothing at all away.





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