CHAPTER ONE

      IN THE penthouse boardroom of the vast Christou shipping empire, Alexei Christou swung round in his chair and leaned back to gaze at the ceiling as the beautiful brunette who knelt before him began to unzip his trousers.

      ‘Mmm,’ he murmured. ‘Omorfo.’

      A sigh of pleasure escaped from his lips, and he had just settled back to enjoy the ministrations of the ever-eager woman when the telephone began to ring. His mouth hardened with disbelief and fury and he tried ignoring it, thinking that the interruption might just go away. But it didn’t go anywhere. Infuriatingly, it just rang and rang, and he snatched it up in anger.

      ‘Ne? What the hell is going on?’ he bit out. ‘I told you that under no circumstances was I to be disturbed!’

      He heard his male assistant give a nervous cough. ‘Forgive me, Kyrios Christou, for making this one exception—but in the circumstances I thought—’

      ‘What is it?’ hissed Alexei, deadly as a snake.

      ‘I have your … er … wife on the phone.’

      There was a pause.

      ‘My wife?’ echoed Alexei softly, and the brunette jerked her head up from his lap to stare at him.

      ‘Ne, kyrios. What would you like me to tell her?’

      That she was a heartless, unfaithful bitch? That she was the biggest mistake he had ever made in his life and Alexei was not a man who tolerated mistakes in anyone—least of all himself?

      His eyes narrowed. This was no doubt a follow-up call to the letter he had received from England—so it wasn’t completely out of the blue. But even so, to hear from someone who had been out of your life for seven long years was a pretty strange sensation. Someone who had ripped through his heart and body and soul. A woman who had ensnared him and then betrayed him. His attention now fully engaged, he gave a cruel smile which would have filled his many business rivals with abject fear.

      He held his hand up in a silent command for the brunette to stop what she was doing. Temporarily. It might not be the wisest thing in the world to be orgasming into her mouth while talking to his estranged wife—though in view of the way she had betrayed him might it not be a fitting revenge? His black eyes glittered. With ice for a heart—would she even care?

      But