A Breathless Bride. Fiona Brand
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and he had never flinched from making hard choices. Two years ago, severing all connection with Sienna and the once pampered and aristocratic Ambrosi family had been one of those choices.
Sliding dark glasses onto the bridge of his nose, Constantine crossed his arms over his chest and studied the pure line of Sienna’s profile, the luscious combination of creamy skin and dark eyes, her soft pale mouth.
Until he had been handed an investigative report he had commissioned on Ambrosi Pearls and had discovered that Sienna had been linked on at least three occasions with Alex Panopoulos, a wealthy retailer.
He still remembered the moment of disorientation, the grim fury when he’d considered that Panopoulos could be Sienna’s lover.
He had soon eliminated that scenario.
According to the very efficient private eye employed by the security firm, Panopoulos was actively hunting but the Greek hadn’t yet managed to snare either of the Ambrosi girls.
Sienna registered Constantine’s impatience as she ended her conversation with Carla, who had been concerned that she had been caught up in the media frenzy in the parking lot.
Constantine lifted a brow. “Where do we talk? Your place or mine?”
Sienna dropped her phone back into her purse. After the tense moments in the car and the sensual shock of Constantine invading her space, she couldn’t hide her dismay at the thought of Constantine’s apartment. Two years ago they had spent a lot of time there. It had also been the scene of their breakup.
The thought of Constantine in the sanctuary of her own small place was equally unacceptable. “Not the apartments.”
“I don’t have the apartment anymore. I own a house along the coast.”
“I thought you liked living in town.”
“I changed my mind.”
Just like he had about her. Instantly and unequivocally.
He opened the door of her small soft-top convertible. Feeling as edgy as a cat, her stomach tight with nerves, she slipped into the driver’s seat, carefully avoiding any physical contact. “Carla’s taken Mom to a family lunch at Aunt Via’s apartment, so they’ll be occupied for the next couple of hours. I can meet you at my parent’s beach house at Pier Point. That’s where I’ve been staying since Dad died.”
Constantine closed her door. Bracing his hands on the window frame, he leaned down, maintaining eye contact. “That explains why you haven’t been at your apartment, although not why you haven’t been returning my calls at work.”
“If you wanted to get hold of me that badly you should have rung my mother.”
“I got through twice,” he said grimly. “Both times I got Carla.”
Sienna could feel her cheeks heating. After Sienna’s breakup with Constantine, Carla had become fiercely protective. Constantine hadn’t gotten through, because Carla would have made it her mission to stop him.
“Sorry about that,” she said, without any trace of sympathy in her voice. “Carla said there had been a couple of crank calls, then the press started bothering Mom in the evenings, so we went to stay at the beach house.”
Constantine had also left a number of messages at work, which, when she had been in the office at all, Sienna had ignored. She had been feverishly trying to unravel her father’s twisted affairs. Calling Constantine had ranked right up there with chatting to disgruntled creditors or having a cozy discussion with IRD about the payments Ambrosi Pearls had failed to make.
“If Pier Point is hostile territory, maybe we should meet on neutral ground?”
Was that a hint of amusement in his voice?
No, whatever it was Constantine was feeling, it wasn’t amusement. There had been a definite predatory edge to him. She had seen a liquid silver flash of it at the gravesite, then been burned by it again in the parking lot.
The foreboding that had gripped her at the cemetery returned, playing havoc with her pulse again.
Suddenly shaky with a combination of exhaustion and nerves, she started the car and busied herself with fastening her seat belt. “The beach house is far enough out of town that the press isn’t likely to be staking it out. If this conversation is taking the direction I think it is, we’d better meet there.”
“Tell me,” he said curtly. “What direction, exactly, do you think this conversation will take?”
“A conversation with Constantine Atraeus?” Her smile was as tightly strung as her nerves. “Now let me see … Two options—sex or money. Since it can’t possibly be sex, my vote’s on the money.”
Three
Money was the burning agenda, but as Sienna drove into Pier Point, with Constantine following close enough behind to make her feel herded, she wasn’t entirely sure about the sex.
Earlier, in the Audi, Constantine’s muscular heat engulfing her, she had been sharply aware of his sexual intent. He had wanted her and he hadn’t been shy about letting her know. The moment had been underscored by an unnerving flash of déjà vu.
The first time Constantine had kissed her had been in his car. He had cupped her chin and lowered his mouth to hers, and despite her determination to keep her distance, she had wound her arms around his neck, angled her jaw and leaned into the kiss. Even though she had only known him for a few hours she had been swept off her feet. She hadn’t been able to resist him, and he had known it.
Shaking off the too-vivid recollection, she signaled and turned her small sports car into her mother’s driveway. Barely an hour after the unpleasant clash across her father’s grave, those kinds of memories shouldn’t register. The fact that Constantine wanted her meant little more than that he was a man with a normal, healthy libido. In the past two years he had been linked with a number of wealthy, beautiful women, each one a serious contender for the position of Mrs. Constantine Atraeus.
He turned into the driveway directly behind her. As Sienna accelerated up the small, steep curve, the sense of being pursued increased. She used her remote to close the electronic gates at the bottom of the drive, just in case the press had followed. After parking, she grabbed her handbag and walked across the paved courtyard that fronted the old cliff-top house.
Constantine was already out of his car. She noticed that in the interim he’d rolled his sleeves up, baring tanned, muscled forearms. She unlocked the front door and as he loomed over her in the bare, sun-washed hall, her stomach, already tense, did another annoying little flip.
He indicated she precede him. She couldn’t fault his manners, but that didn’t change the fact that with Constantine padding behind her like a large, hunting cat, she felt like prey.
“What happened to the furniture?”
The foreign intonation in his deep voice set her on edge all over again. Suddenly, business agenda or not, it seemed unbearably intimate to be alone with him in the quiet stillness of the almost empty house.
Sienna skimmed blank walls that had once held a collection of paintings, including an exquisitely rendered Degas. “Sold, along with all the valuable artwork my grandfather collected.”
She threw him a tight smile. “Auctioned, along with every piece of real jewelry Mom, Carla and I owned—including the pearls. Now isn’t that a joke? We own a pearl house, but we can’t afford our own products.”
She pushed open the ornate double doors to her father’s study and stood aside as Constantine walked into the room, which held only a desk and a couple of chairs.
His gaze skimmed bare floorboards and the ranks of empty built-in mahogany bookshelves, which had once housed a rare book collection. She logged the moment he finally comprehended what a sham their lives had become. They sold pearls to the wealthy and projected sleek, rich-list prosperity for the sake of the company,