Prudence eased round to look up at him in surprise at that quip. "Well, guess what? Ca.s.sia also admitted that she spiked your drink on our wedding day."
Nik raised a questioning black brow. "How did you get her to confess? Thumbscrews and a rack? "
"She couldn"t resist the urge to crow about it-"
His wide, sensual mouth hardened. "What a b.i.t.c.h," he murmured with contempt. "I suspected it but I didn"t think I"d ever know for sure."
"To be frank, I want to discuss something rather more important than Ca.s.sia..." Prudence ran possessive fingers down over the lapel of his beautifully cut jacket. "I understand that my grandfather spent the last few weeks of his life trying to put you out of business."
Nik stiffened and set her back a step to scan her oval face. "How did you find out?"
"You"d never believe it if I told you," Prudence sighed, thinking of the recording that had allowed Theo Demakis to speak from beyond the grave. "Obviously it"s true. But I can"t understand why you didn"t tell me yourself-"
Nik frowned. "Of course you can understand. You"re my wife. He was your grandfather. The situation would have upset you."
"Yes but-"
"I couldn"t allow that to happen. It was my duty to protect you."
"By keeping me in the dark for weeks on end? It actually makes me feel quite foolish. I"m not a little kid, Nik. I also feel that I"m an equal in this marriage, and that if you think it"s your job to protect me I think it"s my job to be supportive when times are tough."
"That"s sweet, thespinis mou." Nik dropped a kiss down on the crown of her head as though she was the child she had denied she was. He was so close she could smell the evocative scent of his skin and it sent a trail of sensual messages winging through her sensitised body. "But if I"d told you what was happening, it would have wrecked our honeymoon. Then you had the shock of the miscarriage to deal with. You would have fretted yourself to death. I couldn"t allow that."
"But I had a right to know-"
"I won"t apologise." He released the clip that restrained the chestnut fall of her hair at the back of her neck and encouraged the thick, silky strands at the front to curve round her flushed cheekbones. "If I had the same choice again, I would behave in the exact same way-"
"No, you wouldn"t-"
"We have a real marriage now. It was important that we spent time together in Italy and that nothing spoiled those weeks. Also, that you recovered fully from losing our baby-"
"But you shut me out of what was really happening in your life-"
Brown fingers turned up her chin, brilliant dark golden eyes colliding with hers. "You shut me out when you lost our child..."
"I did...didn"t I?" Prudence conceded, her throat thickening with tears.
"You were hurting and I wanted to help and you wouldn"t let me. I"d never thought of a child as something missing from my life," Nik admitted tautly. "But when I thought of you having my baby inside you, it blew me away. Right up until the last minute I prayed there would be a miracle and you wouldn"t lose our child."
"Oh..." Prudence was initially silenced by that admission, for his sincerity was indisputable. As she looked up at him, her blue eyes shone over-bright. "You did? So did I," she confided gruffly.
"Whenever you"re strong enough and you feel that the time is right, I want to try again, thespinis mou."
She swallowed hard, happiness slanting through her like a burst of sunlight on a dull, overcast day. And what better day to celebrate the possibility of new life? she asked herself feverishly. "Grandfather would have been really pleased-"
"I"m sure you"ll understand that I mean no disrespect when I say that Theo"s tyrannical wants and wishes were and are a matter of supreme indifference to me."
"Yes, you"re ent.i.tled to feel that way."
"How do you turn me on so hard and fast?" Nik gritted, hauling her close with impatient hands and lowering his proud dark head to possess her luscious pink mouth with a driving s.e.xual pa.s.sion that made her knees go weak.
"There"s just one thing I should mention," Prudence broke free to mumble through reddened lips.
"Can"t it wait?" His breath fanning her cheek, he let his teeth graze her full lower lip. When he dipped his tongue into the moist interior of her mouth in a powerfully erotic invitation she gripped both his arms to keep herself upright.
"I think you"ll want to hear that you don"t have to worry about Demakis International destroying your company any more," she whispered with a sunny smile. "Am I right?"
"I hate to disappoint you, pethi mou," Nik husked, "but I"d pretty much worked that out for myself. The same day that Theo pa.s.sed away the dirty-tricks campaign ground to a sudden halt. Such a battle made no economic sense."
Feeling a little cut off but grateful for the news all the same, because she still could not get her head around the reality that she now owned Demakis International, Prudence muttered, "That"s great. I"m relieved."
Nik scooped her up into his arms and carried her down the corridor into an imposing masculine bedroom furnished in contemporary style.
"You know, I got quite a surprise when the will was read," she began. "Ca.s.sia had mentioned these German cousins-"
"Everybody"s heard of them. Rich as Croesus, and as old as the hills." Nik stole a long, lingering, pa.s.sionate kiss and slowly lowered her down on the bed. "Theo would have been wiser leaving his ill-gotten gains to some charitable endeavour."
Prudence sat up on her knees. "Or...to me?" she suggested uncertainly.
Nik laughed with rich appreciation. "You were never in the running. I don"t think I"d like a wife rich enough to buy and sell me ten times over."
"Are you absolutely sure of that?"
Nik stared down at her, lush black lashes of extraordinary length merely accentuating the depth and clarity of his clear gaze. "Why are we having this conversation? Were you disappointed at being left out of his will?"
"No...because I wasn"t...left out, I mean."
Nik frowned. "What did Theo leave you? Some family memento? I"m surprised he left you anything."
"He left me everything."
Nik froze. "Theos mou...you cannot be serious."
"Everything: the houses, the cars, the jewellery, the businesses, the jets, the yacht."
Nik studied her in unconcealed shock and then he spread his powerful arms in a movement of acceptance, dark colour lying in a line along his superb cheekbones. "If you say it is so it must be so, but I can hardly credit it-"
"Wait until you see the recording he made." Her announcement made, Prudence scrambled off the bed and pelted back to the lounge to remove the disc from her handbag.
Having followed her, Nik extended a hand and took it from her. "Theo filmed himself-"
Sudden misgivings a.s.sailed Prudence as she recalled some of the inflammatory things that her grandfather had said. "I don"t think you should watch it-"
"Why not?" Nik enquired almost lazily.
The tension in the air made her heartbeat speed up. She was appalled at how thoughtless she had been in bringing the recording to his notice. "You never got on with him-"
"Neither did you...or the rest of the human race for that matter. What did he say about me?"
Prudence was rigid. "Why should you a.s.sume that he said anything?"
"If Theo took the trouble to make a film, it was to gloat about how clever he was."
"Look, it"s mine and I would like it back..." Awkwardly she stuck out her hand.
"No...I insist on watching it." Nik shot her a wrathful glance of challenge.
And he did.
Prudence hovered in an agony of horror and shame. From the first cringe-making words, when Theo gloried in having made her an heiress who held her husband in the palm of her hand, she saw Nik turn white below his vibrant bronzed skin tone and she felt sick.
"Nik...don"t let him get to you-"
Nik slashed a silencing hand through the air. She could feel the rage vibrating through him while her grandfather delineated his every move.
"He"s right...I was a prize fool," Nik growled.
"No, he"s wrong...you"re a very different man from him and I wouldn"t want you any other way.
Please don"t watch any more of this."
But he paid her no heed. His cla.s.sic profile set granite-hard, he watched the film from start to finish and then replayed it to ensure that her interruptions had not caused him to miss a single poisonous word. Finally he swung back to her, his golden eyes glittering as dangerously as the heart of a furnace, aggressive energy written in every line of his lean, beautifully balanced body. "If you keep the money, I walk..."
Prudence just stared at him, certain she had misheard, misunderstood, mis-something, anything that could convince her that he was not serious. "You don"t mean that."
"You"re not going to miss what you"ve never had or what you never expected to possess, thespinis mou."
"That"s not the point. You"re just mad because Theo said all that stuff and it was offensive."
"Once you suggested that I might regard you as a financial a.s.set. I will not be known as the husband of the Demakis heiress."
"Well, you are!"
"Not if I choose not to be. Don"t tell me greed has got to you already," Nik breathed with ringing scorn.
"I don"t have to justify myself to you. I"m a Demakis."
Nik shot her a derisive appraisal.
"I meant that Theo was my grandfather and that"s why he wanted me to inherit his estate. He acknowledged me. He may have waited until he died but he finally allowed me to feel like a member of his family and I"m not going to reject everything he spent his whole life working for," Prudence protested in a sudden feverish bout of self-defence.
"Then you have a problem. I will be no woman"s kept man."
"Maybe you should wait until you get the offer to be one!" Prudence shot at him, frantically blinking back tears. "I owned virtually nothing but the clothes I stood up in when we got married and I had to live with it-"
"You lived with it so well, you fled to another country!"
"How can you throw that at me again?"
"Once a Greek husband, always a Greek husband, glikia mou."
"I"m going to be rich...and I"m going to enjoy every minute of it!" Prudence told him defiantly.
"But not with me..."
The words hung there in cold, confrontational challenge and she blenched. She was so furious with him that she felt light-headed with sheer rage.
"So you don"t want to be married to the Demakis heiress? OK, if that"s how you feel, I"ll go back where you seem to think I belong!" Pausing only to retrieve the DVD and tuck it back in her bag, Prudence walked out to the hall. Her overnight bag was sitting there. She lifted it. She gave him lots and lots of time to say something to stop her. Something like, Where are you going? or, Come back here, or even, Let"s talk about this tomorrow. The terrible silence roared in her ears like the quiet before a hurricane and perspiration dampened her short upper lip. The sound of the apartment door banging shut behind her shook her.
She took a cab back to the Demakis villa and swanned in as though she had always lived there. The staff still on duty were a.s.sembled and formally introduced to her. The cook promised her a special supper calculated to tempt the most delicate appet.i.te and the housekeeper showed her into a magnificent bedroom suite with a balcony that overlooked the garden. She went for a shower and put on a light wrap.
Why was she feeling so devastated? She was furious with Nik and she had every right to be!
Supper arrived on a tray. Stress always made her want to eat but when she looked at that food and thought of never, ever being held in Nik"s arms again she felt sick with fear. She wanted Nik. She craved Nik. This was crazy. He had fought to keep her as his wife. He had forced her to stay as his wife and to live with him. He took marriage very seriously. He could not just suddenly decide to let her go solely because she had inherited a lot of money...could he?
Could he really be so diabolically unreasonable? He was stuffed full of macho reactions and ferocious pride. With reluctance she recalled his raw admission that, eight years earlier, he had been taunted about what a good financial catch she would be. What a prophetic warning that had been! Well, she already knew that Nik wasn"t after her money, she thought wretchedly. No decent male would want to be labelled a fortune hunter. She could understand that but she could not understand that he could be prepared to abandon her and their future together on the strength of a principle.
Dogs were barking frantically in the grounds that surrounded the villa. The sound of the commotion prompted her to walk out onto the balcony that overlooked the gardens. A security man came to apologise for the noise. He explained that a man had been seen climbing in over the wall, and that there had been a chase, but the intruder had got away.
Prudence got into bed and lay there getting madder and madder. But underneath the anger was a vast, spreading well of terrified insecurity and fear. She loved Nikolos Angelis to bits. She adored him. She had been so, so happy with him, but she had let a crack appear and a distance develop when she"d turned away from him after her miscarriage. That gulf had only lasted for a few weeks but it had strained their relationship and left a vulnerable spot. I lost a child, too, he had said. Maybe he was still angry about the way she had reacted. She should not have left the apartment in a temper; she should have stayed.
Exhaustion sent her to sleep in bursts. Around dawn an idea that at first seemed crazy came to her. She ran it round and round inside her head until it no longer seemed quite so off the wall. She could do to him what he had done to her. She could put pressure on him through his company. Why not? What did she have to lose? What was pride if it meant life without Nik?
The delicate, summery blue dress she put on had a neckline that dipped in a flattering V at back and front. She examined herself from all angles and was extra-careful with her make-up. He would be at his office in Athens. He was there a couple of days a month and she had planned to start accompanying him on the trips. Of late, she had developed an embarra.s.sing tendency to pine when he was out of sight and touch for longer than ten hours. All the barriers had come down and love had got a firm and increasingly desperate hold on her. But when Nik heard what she had to say, he would be surprised and she had not the slightest idea how he would react...
Before Prudence could go out, Ca.s.sia Morikis arrived at the gate and asked to see her. On the brink of turning down the request, Prudence changed her mind and received the beautiful blonde in the vast expanse of the formal drawing room. Encouraging her visitor to relax and feel at home was not on her mind.
Looking unusually subdued, Ca.s.sia fixed anxious brown eyes on her. "I"m sure you know why I"m here. I"m afraid I drank too much yesterday and I was very rude to you."
Prudence knew very well that the other woman must have panicked once she realised that Prudence was now her father"s employer. "Yes, you were."
"I hope you"ll accept my apologies," Ca.s.sia murmured plaintively. "I"m sure that Nik would want you to forgive me."
"Nik couldn"t care less. I told him who spiked his drink," Prudence countered drily, watching dismay and embarra.s.sment flare in the blonde"s gaze. "But I a.s.sure you that I won"t hold your behaviour against your father."
Minutes after Ca.s.sia"s hasty departure, Prudence left the villa, propelled by her determination...
CHAPTER TEN.
WHEN PRUDENCE ENTERED Nik"s cool contemporary office, her heart rate speeded up as if she was running a sprint.
As Nik"s stunning dark golden eyes collided with hers, an electric jolt of attraction flamed through her. His lean, darkly handsome face broke into a smile as he strode towards her. "You are very welcome, thespinis mou."