Mediterranean Tycoons: Masterful & Married: Marriage At His Convenience / Aristides' Convenient Wife / The Billionaire's Blackmailed Bride. JACQUELINE BAIRD
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was from a firm of lawyers in New York, the lawyers dealing with the estate of the late Spiro Karadines. It was dated eleven days ago. Spiro had died the day before, apparently, and it was informing her of the time and place of his funeral in Greece, and a legal document in the usual lawyer speak that ‘Amber Jackson may learn something to her advantage’. Amber didn’t think so… Spiro was trouble…
A sad, reminiscent smile curved her wide mouth. It was four years since she’d last seen him, and they had not parted on the best of terms.
She had gone to New York for the grand opening of his art gallery. Spiro had been so excited as he had shown Amber around the exhibition. It had been incredible, or perhaps unbelievable was a better word, Amber had thought privately. Spiro had told her the artists whose work was on display were all up and coming in the modern art world. To Amber’s untrained eyes it looked more as if they had been and gone… Gone crazy…
‘Are you sure about this stuff?’ she had asked Spiro, recoiling from a massive red and green painting that appeared to be bits of body parts.
‘Yes, don’t worry, in half an hour people will be fighting over these paintings. Trust me!’
Her smooth brow pleated in a frown as she fiddled with the letter on her desk. She’d trusted Spiro when he had assured her that if she gave him the money from the sale of the loft apartment to start his art gallery, he would never tell Lucas, and return it with interest when he came into his inheritance a year later. He had persuaded her that charity could wait, and, being honest, Amber admitted she had thought it was poetic justice, letting Spiro have the money as it was Karadines money after all. He had also told her Lucas would not be at the opening. Spiro had lied on both counts…
Although it had been over a year since she’d last seen Lucas, the gut-wrenching pain she had felt when she’d turned around from viewing the ‘Body Parts’ painting to find him, and Christina his wife, his pregnant wife, standing behind her had been almost unbearable.
She’d glanced at Spiro, and seen the devilment in his eyes, and known he had done it deliberately. Shifting her gaze to the couple, she’d made the obligatory greeting portraying a sophistication she had not felt. She’d even managed to congratulate the pair on their forthcoming happy event. But she’d been shaken so badly she’d had to clasp her hands behind her back to hide their trembling.
But Lucas had had no such problem. His eyes had slid over her with cool insolence, stripping away the stylish green silk sheath dress she’d worn to the flesh beneath, but Amber had forced herself to withstand his scrutiny, and done some scrutinising of her own. Thick dark hair had curled down over the collar of his impeccably tailored light linen suit, he’d been leaner than he had been the last time she had seen him, his features slightly more fine drawn, but as devastatingly attractive as ever, until he’d spoken.
‘It seems congratulations are in order for you too, Amber. Spiro tells me you are his partner and put up most of the money for this little venture,’ Lucas said smoothly. ‘A remarkable achievement for a young woman. Your passion…’ his hesitation was deliberate ‘…for finance must be truly exceptional,’ he opined with mocking cynicism.
Amber felt the colour burn up under her skin. Lucas wasn’t referring only to her passion for business. He obviously knew where the money had come from and for a moment she felt like strangling Spiro. But instead she forced herself to look at Lucas. ‘Luckily I seem to have a gift for it.’ Amber stared at him, deliberately holding his eyes. ‘But I’ll never be in your league. Men have a certain ruthlessness…’ and it was her turn to pause ‘…in business, women find hard to emulate.’
‘Not all women,’ Lucas said flatly, and Amber surprised what looked very much like a flicker of regret in his dark eyes before he turned his attention to his wife, and began a conversation in Greek, ignoring Amber completely.
Instead of being insulted Amber was glad to escape the attention of Lucas; breathing an inward sigh of relief, she turned away. It hurt her more than she wanted to admit to see the two of them so close, and she was going to have a very serious talk to her so-called partner. Spiro was talking animatedly to a guest in the now crowded gallery. He could wait!
Spying Tim, she’d begun to walk towards him when suddenly someone grabbed her bare arm. The tingling sensation of the long fingers on her bare flesh was electric. Lucas…
‘What?’ Amber snapped.
‘Will you follow Christina to the rest room, make sure she is all right?’ he asked, his expression one of deep concern, the worry in his dark eyes there for all to see as they tracked his wife heading for the powder room.
Amber did see. His request reinforced what she had tried to deny. Amazing for such a predatory male, Lucas, a man who was ruthless in the business world, a man whom she’d thought incapable of love, was actually madly in love with his wife.
‘She is pregnant, not sick.’ Amber shrugged off his hand and stalked away without looking back. Listening to Christina rhapsodising about Lucas and the soon-to-be family was the last thing she needed. Lucas was a fantastic lover, and, once Christina had discovered the wonder to be found in her husband’s arms, she had to have fallen in love with him, even if she had not been at the beginning.
After a furious row with Spiro, Amber left New York the next day, and she had not seen or spoken to Spiro since. As for the money she had given him, she had written that off long ago.
With the benefit of hindsight Amber had come to realise that Lucas had been right about Spiro. She should never have given him the money, because within a week of the gallery opening Tim and Spiro had split up. Spiro had been having an affair with the artist of ‘Body Parts’.
Tim had returned to England, and back to his home in Northumbria. Six months later he had received a brief note, not from Spiro, but from a New York clinic telling him to get himself tested. Spiro had been HIV positive, as had been the artist lover who had somehow forgotten to mention the fact!
Restlessly Amber swivelled around in her chair, and stared out of the plate-glass window of her office, not really seeing what was beyond. She felt guilty and half blamed herself for Spiro’s illness. If she hadn’t given him the money, he would not have gone to New York, and it might never have happened.
Tim was a successful wildlife artist living and working from his home in the north and perfectly healthy. He had told her over and over again, it was not her fault Spiro had done what he had. Tim firmly believed Amber and himself had both fallen victims to the charm of the Karadines men; it was that simple, and they had both had a lucky escape.
Swivelling back to face her desk, Amber picked up the telephone and dialled Tim’s number in Thropton. He had a right to know Spiro was dead.
The conversation was not as difficult as she had expected. Tim was quite philosophical about it: the past was past—so they had lost a good friend, but in reality they had lost him years ago.
‘You’re right, Tim…’ Suddenly her office door swung open and someone walked in unannounced. Amber lifted her head. Recognition was instant, her golden eyes widening in shock. ‘I’ll see you soon, love,’ she finished her conversation, and replaced the receiver.
She was thankful she was sitting down because she doubted her legs would support her. Lucas Karadines… She didn’t dare meet his cold black eyes, and, carefully taking deep breaths, she sought to calm her suddenly erratic pulse. She should have expected this as soon as she had read the line ‘something to her advantage’ she realised too late.
He was standing in the middle of her office as though he owned the place. Amber’s first thought was that Lucas at forty-one looked little different than he had done when they had first met. His body beneath the conservatively tailored charcoal-grey suit was still lithe and firm, his face was still handsome, but the harsh symmetry of bones and flesh mirrored a cold bitterness that she had never noticed before. He looked lean and as predatory as ever, but he looked older, harder than she would have expected for a happily married man, was her second thought. The lines bracketing his mouth were deeper, the hair at his temples liberally streaked with silver. But