The Greek's Million-Dollar Baby Bargain. Julia James
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her chest.
As if in an action replay from four years ago, Ann watched him reach into his suit jacket, take out his leather-bound chequebook, hook one leg over his knee to create a writing platform, and fill out a cheque with his gold fountain pen. He presented it to her with a contemptuous flourish.
‘The fee, Miss Turner, for your very expensive and valuable time.’
His opinion of her cut through his voice.
Numbly she took the piece of paper he proffered her. The zeros blurred, then resolved themselves. She gave a faint sigh of shock and her eyes widened.
‘Ten thousand pounds, Miss Turner.’ Nikos Theakis’ hatefully sarcastic voice floated over her head somewhere. ‘Now, that is what I call an expenses-paid holiday…’
Slowly, Ann shifted her gaze so that she met his eyes. The expression in them could have incinerated her on the spot. Answering emotion seared her breast. With one part of her she wanted to rip the cheque into a dozen pieces and throw them in his cold, contemptuous face. And with another she felt a gush of excited anticipation at seeing her nephew again, combined with the sudden rush of realisation that she held ten thousand pounds in her hands. A fortune—and one that she knew exactly how to spend.
Just the way she had spent her last cheque from Nikos Theakis.
A smile of sweet pleasure broke across her face. ‘Why, Mr Theakis,’ she said saccharinely, knowing just how angry she could make him, and how satisfying that would be to her insulted soul, ‘how very, very generous of you. I believe I shall start packing straight away.’
As she turned away, heading for the stairs, a word slithered out of the sculpted, sensual mouth. She couldn’t tell what it was, because it was Greek. But it was enunciated with such deadly venom that she did not request a translation.
For a moment Ann stood transfixed, as if he’d struck her physically, not just verbally. Then, back stiffening, she gave a tiny, indifferent shrug of her shoulders and walked out of the room to begin her packing.
* * *
Ann craned her neck as the helicopter swooped in to land on the helipad behind the Theakis villa. Set in a huge, landscaped Mediterranean garden, on the tiny private island of Sospiris, the villa was breathtakingly beautiful—gleaming white, its walls and terraces splashed with bougainvillea, the vivid hues of an azure swimming pool competing with the even more azure hues of the Aegean all around. As they disembarked, she gazed around her, revelling not just in the beauty of the surroundings, but in the balmy warmth after the chill British spring.
Nikos Theakis watched her reaction as she stared about her, visibly delighted. ‘Worth getting your greedy little claws into, Miss Turner?’ he murmured.
Ann ignored him, as she had done her best to do all the way from London on the private jet that had flown them to the Greek mainland. He had returned the favour, occupying himself with his laptop and a pile of what she had assumed were business documents.
But if Nikos Theakis made it crystal clear she was here very nearly over his dead body, the warmth of his mother’s greeting almost equalled the exuberance of her grandson’s, who had swooped on his newly discovered aunt with a fierce hug from so little a body. As she crouched down to return his embrace, Ann’s eyes misted.
Oh, Carla—if you could see your son now. How happy he is, how much he is part of the family you wanted for him. And this would have been Carla’s home too—she would have been bringing her son up here, in this beautiful villa, married to Andreas, in the perfect life that her sister had so longed for. Instead a grave had been waiting for her, and for the man she’d so wanted to marry…
Anguish crushed Ann, then resolutely she put it aside. The past was gone—it could not be undone. Only the present was left, and the future that was Carla’s and Andreas’ son.
* * *
Nikos watched Ann Turner entering the salon that one of the house staff was ushering her into. He had seen nothing of her since he had handed her over to his mother on their arrival at the villa that afternoon, taking refuge from his grim mood by incarcerating himself in his study. Work, at least, had taken his mind off the unwelcome presence of a woman he wished to perdition, but who had, instead, succeeded in further insinuating himself into his family. Now, however, he was face to face with her again. His gaze surveyed her impassively. But impassiveness was not the hallmark of his mood. Resentment and grim anger were. And another thing he resented, even more than her presence.
Her impact on him as a woman.
His mouth tightened as he watched her approach his mother. Damn the girl—why did she have to look like that? Why couldn’t she still look the way she had four years ago? Why did she have to be wand slender, with that incredible hair swept back off her face, her classically beautiful features set off by an aqua knee-length dress in some fine jersey material that skimmed her lissom body, making her look both subtly alluring and yet not obviously so. Why did he have to wonder what it might be like to sift his fingers through that long hair, inconveniently restrained in a velvet tie? Why did he have to speculate whether her breasts, scarcely outlined in the discreetly styled dress, would repay his personal investigation?
Forcibly, he dragged his eyes away from her towards his mother. She was smiling graciously at her guest, holding out a hand to invite her to join her on the sofa for pre-dinner drinks. Nikos felt his mood worsen. Watching his mother smile, bestow her kindness, her favour, on so worthless an object, galled him bitterly—yet there was nothing he could do about it. Not without hurting his mother, shocking her with the squalid truth about Ari’s aunt.
No, like it or not—and he did not—he would have to endure this farce, and make sure it ended as swiftly as possible, with the least opportunity for Ann Turner to get her greedy little claws yet deeper into both his coffers and his family.
She was greeting his mother prettily now, in halting phrasebook Greek, which set Nikos’ teeth on edge but drew a warm smile of approval from his mother. Then she was taking the place indicated to her, and smiling her thanks as one of the staff offered her a drink. Moodily, Nikos seized his martini from the manservant’s tray. He felt in need of its strengthening powers tonight.
‘So, my dear child,’ his mother was saying to her guest, ‘I hope you have had an enjoyable afternoon with little Ari? Was I wrong to let him monopolise you so much on your very arrival? But he has been so eager for you to come.’
Ann smiled warmly. ‘I’ve had a wonderful time! He is such a lovely little boy, Kyria Theakis,’ she said spontaneously. ‘Thank you—thank you so much for all you have done for him…’
Her voice threatened to break, and she fell silent.
‘My dear,’ said Sophia Theakis, reaching out her small hand to touch Ann’s. ‘He is our own precious child, is he not? We love him for himself—and for the memory he brings of those we have loved and who are no more.’
As tears pricked in Ann’s eyes she felt her hand squeezed briefly, comfortingly. She blinked, looking away—straight into a pair of hard, dark eyes. Nikos Theakis’ scathing gaze as he beheld this affecting scene.
Her own gaze hardened in response. She would not let this obnoxious man judge her—condemn her. She turned away, back to Mrs Theakis.
‘Now,’ Ari’s grandmother went on, ‘you must allow me to introduce my dear cousin, Eupheme, who is so very kind as to keep me company and take charge of the beautiful garden we have here which she created for us all.’
Another woman of late middle-age—who had, Ann realised, just entered by a different door on the other side of the room—came forward now. Ann stood up and waited as Mrs Theakis performed the introductions. Again, Ann murmured in phrasebook Greek. It drew a kind smile from her hostess’s companion, and an answer in Greek, which was swiftly translated for her by Mrs Theakis, who added that Cousin Eupheme spoke little English.
The topic of the conversation returned to Ari, and Ann was more than happy for it to do so, turning