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.’
Wrong-footed by that unexpected salutation, Prudence went pink and worried that he assumed her visit meant surrender to his terms.
‘Would you like a tour of the building?’ Nik enquired smoothly, for it was her very first visit to his offices in Greece.
Prudence tensed. ‘Perhaps later. I came here because I have something important to tell-’
His slumberous gaze wandered from the moist fullness of her lips to the luscious curve of her breasts and back up again in an act of bold appreciation. ‘I like the dress-’
‘Please let me say what I have to say,’ Prudence cut in a touch unsteadily, liquid heat pooling in her pelvis and making her press her thighs together. It shook her that he could awaken desire in her so easily with a certain look or the dark resonance of his husky voice.
With a graceful movement of one hand that signified assent to her wish to talk, Nik leant back against his glass desk and regarded her with an intimidating level of expectancy.
‘I place a very high value on our marriage,’ Prudence told him stiffly.
‘That’s good.’
‘So if you don’t come back to me-’
Nik shifted long, graceful fingers. ‘But I haven’t gone anywhere-’
‘Don’t interrupt me. If you destroy our marriage I will allow Demakis International to destroy your company,’ Prudence completed tightly and she was holding herself so rigidly that her knees began wobbling.
Nik studied her in fulminating silence, dark eyes shorn of gold and gleaming, his big, powerful frame motionless and still apparently relaxed.
‘You think I won’t do it but I will!’ she swore shakily. ‘We were very happy together and money shouldn’t be allowed to come between us.’
‘I should have known what I was doing when I blackmailed a Demakis into making our marriage real. You learn fast, pethi mou.’
Prudence sucked in a steadying gust of oxygen, her nerves leaping like jumping beans. She had done it. She had threatened him just as he had once threatened her with the loss of all she held dear. But she was appalled at herself, sick inside, ashamed.
Dry-mouthed, she said, ‘So what do you say?’
‘Bring on the big guns.’
Her cheeks flamed, her tummy flipping. ‘That’s not a serious response.’
Nik continued to regard her levelly. ‘It is. Coercion doesn’t work with me. Do you think Theo didn’t try it?’
Her throat felt very tight. ‘So you’re saying…no?’
‘I’m saying no.’
She could feel the colour draining from her face. Suddenly the solid ground beneath her feet was vanishing, for she had backed herself into a corner from where there was nowhere else to go. But she lifted her head high, tilted her chin and shrugged as if his response was a matter of near indifference to her. Turning on her heel, she began to walk away.
‘But if you were to ask me to be with you of my own free will,’ Nik murmured almost roughly, ‘I think we could work something out very easily.’
Eyes glinting with tears, Prudence froze in her tracks.
‘I missed you last night,’ he added gruffly.
She gulped and drew in a long, slow, shaky breath before she spun back to face him again. ‘You…did?’
‘I’ve got incredibly accustomed to being married.’
‘Have you?’ There was a sob trapped in her throat. She had plunged from the heights down into the depths, and was now somewhere back in the middle, terrified of making assumptions.
‘I acted like a jerk yesterday. I let Theo get to me.’
Prudence was starting to breathe again. ‘I don’t blame you for being mad-’
‘There was a special delivery waiting for me when I arrived in the office this morning. There were two copies of that film-’
‘My goodness, Grandfather sent one to you as well?’
‘Watching it again, I retrieved my sense of humour, thespinis mou. I took so much care to keep our reconciliation private and it was crazy to do that. It should not have mattered to me that doing what I wanted meant that I was also doing what Theo Demakis wanted me to do,’ Nik imparted wryly.
‘That was always an obstacle between us.’
‘Ne…yes, when I was younger. But not any more. I like to think I’m grown up now.’ There was a rueful twist to his wide, sensual mouth. ‘Although I felt distinctly boyish last night when my romantic attempt to make a surprise visit on my wife was rudely concluded by a bunch of slavering, attacking dogs and over-zealous security guards.’
Her soft blue eyes widened in astonishment as she recalled the late-night disturbance at the Demakis villa which had sent the dogs crazy, and she gasped, ‘That was you last night?’
‘That was me,’ Nik confirmed.
She unfroze and launched herself forward to close her hands over his. ‘Why didn’t you say who you were?’
‘It wouldn’t have been cool-’
‘I so wanted you to come,’ Prudence framed in a wobbly voice. ‘If I’d known that you were out there, so close to me-’
‘I had a very important meeting first thing today…then I was planning to drive over and make a conventional entrance-’
‘If only I’d known that…I need never have come here-’
‘But what a joy it is to me to know that you would fight for me, too, pethi mou,’ Nik slotted in, drawing her closer with lean, strong hands, his classic bronzed features taut and serious.
‘A joy?’
Dark golden eyes looked down in
to hers with a light that warmed her. ‘There is something that I should have said a long time ago, something I have never said to any other woman. I love you…’
Her full pink lips parted. ‘You mean it?’
‘More than anything. For the space of a moment yesterday I let my pride rule me and I acted like a jerk, but I never stopped loving you…and I don’t believe I ever could.’
She was so tense she could barely inhale as she looked up at him, desperately striving to see the proof of his words in his lean, darkly handsome face. And there it was in his beautiful eyes: all the depth of emotion, affection and sincerity that she could ever have dreamt of seeing there. He found her mouth and the passion that never failed to ignite blazed but this time it was laced with a new deep trust and affection that was no longer concealed.
‘Let’s get out of here…’ Nik said raggedly, linking her hand to his.
The city traffic was horrendous but it didn’t bother them too much, because they were too busy kissing to notice.
‘When did you fall for me?’ she finally asked, when she had to push him away to get some breath back into her lungs and held him at bay with a staying hand.
‘I don’t know…I honestly don’t,’ Nik groaned, contenting his need for constant physical contact by lifting her hand to his mouth and lazily sucking on one finger at a time. ‘We were friends first. But there was always the barrier of not knowing what had gone wrong between us on our wedding night and that kept it strictly platonic-’
‘I so wish I’d talked to you now…but I was hurt and embarrassed and I honestly did think you’d got drunk because you were so unhappy at having to marry me-’
‘No…I was not at all unhappy. In fact, at the altar I was struggling to suppress a lust-fuelled fantasy about exactly how I would unveil my virginal bride’s lush body,’ Nik confessed, making her soft blue eyes widen in shock, and then laughing at her expression. ‘Sometimes you are so innocent…’