The Cozakis Bride

'We're getting off the subject,' Olympia said in curt inter­ruption, tensing at the recollection of the names he had called her. In retrospect, she recognised that she now felt sensitive to his low opinion of her morals, and she wondered why on earth that should be.

Just as quickly, she marvelled at her stupidity in allowing him to demand, unchallenged, that she sign away any claim on the Manoulis empire and trustingly depend on his gen­erosity. 'What you said about me signing away everything—'

'Non-negotiable,' Nik interrupted with gleaming dark eyes. 'Take it or leave it.'

Olympia breathed in deep. 'I don't care about the money—'

'If you don't care, why are you arguing?'

She didn't trust him. But she did nonetheless trust the promise he had made about her mother, and that was all that mattered, she reminded herself. After all, she would be living with her mother and looking after her. Why had she argued?

Nik shot her a sardonic appraisal. 'Do you think I would keep my wife in penury?'

She flushed. 'No.'

He glanced down at the slim gold watch on his wrist and then back at her. 'This is progressing very slowly, Olympia. May I move on?'

She nodded.

'Your belief that we could marry and separate immediately after the ceremony is ridiculous. Your grandfather would not accept a charade of that nature, and nor would I be prepared to deceive him in that way.'

She tensed. 'So what are you suggesting?'

'You will have to live in one of my homes...for a while, at least.'

She focused her mind on her mother's needs and gave him another reluctant nod.

'You give me a son and heir.'

Olympia blinked, lips falling slightly apart.

'Yes, you did hear that.' Nik surveyed her shocked face with cynical cool. 'I need a son and heir, and if I have to marry you, I might as well make the most of the opportunity.

'You've got to be joking!' Olympia gasped, so taken aback by that calm announcement she could barely vocalise.

Nik elevated a black brow. ‘The son and heir is also non-negotiable. And, unless I change my mind at some future date, a daughter will not be an acceptable substitute. Sorry if that sounds sexist, but there are still a lot of daughters out there who do not want to be leaders in industry!'

Olympia sat in the armchair staring at him as if he had taken leave of his wits. 'You hate me, you can't possibly w-want to—'

'Wouldn't faze me in the slightest, Olympia. You may be damaged goods, but I'm not over-sensitive when it comes to practicality,' Nik delivered, running slumberous dark eyes over her as if he was already stripping off her clothes piece by piece. 'And as I have no respect for you whatsoever, con­ceiving a child should be fun.'

'You'd have to make me!' Olympia breathed in growing outrage.

Nik winced and regarded her with semi-screened eyes. 'Oh, I don't think so...I think you'll cling and beg me to stay with you like all my other women do. I'm a hell of a good lay, believe me. You'll enjoy yourself.'

Olympia jerked up out of her chair, so shattered by that speech she was at screaming point. 'You invited me here to try and humiliate me—'

'Trying doesn't come into it. Sit down, Olympia, because I haven't finished yet.'

Olympia threw him a look of fierce disgust. 'Get lost!'

She stalked over to the chair where he had tossed her jacket and snatched it up.

'If I were you, I wouldn't push me,' Nik drawled in a soft undertone that danced down her rigid spine like a gypsy's curse. 'I've got you where I want you.'

'No way!' she launched at him, in such a temper that if he had come any closer she would have swung a fist at him with pleasure.

'Does your mother know about the sordid little encounter in the car park that concluded your visit to Greece ten years ago?'

Olympia's feet welded to the carpet. Her face drained of colour as if he had pulled a switch. So appalled was she by that question she just stared into space, her stomach knotting with instant nausea.

'Lesson one, Olympia,' Nik murmured with soft, sibilant clarity. 'When I say I've got you where I want you... listen!’

CHAPTER THREE

Nik Cozakis strolled across his enormous office and gently eased the jacket from Olympia's loosened grasp to cast it aside again.

He closed his hand over hers and guided her back to the armchair. Positioning her in front of it, he gave her a gentle push downward, and her knees bent without her volition. She sank down in slow motion but settled heavily as a stone. 'You wouldn't...you couldn't approach my mother...' Nik hunkered down in front of her with innate athletic grace. Level now with her, he scanned her ashen face and appalled eyes. 'Oh what a dark, dark day it was for you when you walked into my office, Olympia...' he murmured with silken satisfaction.

Olympia was now in so much shock she was shaking. You don't know what my mother knows—'

'What do you think I've spent the last week having done? I've had enquiries made,' Nik told her levelly. 'Your mother was very friendly with your next-door neighbour at your last address, and she was a very talkative woman.'

'Mrs Barnes wouldn't remember—I mean, you couldn't possibly...' Olympia was stammering helplessly now, so horrified by the threat he had made she could barely string two coherent thoughts together.

'Unfortunately for you, the lady remembered very well, for the simple reason that your disappointment that summer ten years ago has long been an ongoing source of regret to your mother, Irini, and a subject to which she often referred.'

'No—'

'You came home to loads of tea and sympathy, you little liar,' Nik framed with slashing scorn, his dark, deep drawl flaming through her like a cutting steel knife. 'You lied your head off about why our engagement was broken!'

Transfixed, Olympia gasped strickenly. 'It wasn't all lies, j-just a few evasions...I mean, I never did what you thought I did in that car park anyway, so why would I mention it?'

Nik shook his arrogant dark head at that claim and sighed, 'You're getting just a little desperate here, and really there's no need.'

'No need? After what you just—?'

'If you do as you're told, you have nothing to be afraid of. I will take your sordid little secret to the grave with me,' Nik promised evenly. 'Hand on my heart, I would really hate to be a prime mover in distressing your mother.'

'Then don't!'

Nik vaulted fluidly upright again and spread lean brown hands wide. 'I'm afraid there's a problem there...'

'What problem?' Olympia rushed in to demand jerkily.

'I have a powerful personal need for revenge,' Nik admit­ted, without a shadow of discomfiture.

'Revenge?' Olympia stressed with incredulity.

'You dishonoured me ten years ago. Philotimo...Or do you not even know what that word means?' he derided.

Olympia had turned even paler. Philotimo could not be translated into one simple English word. It stood for all the attributes that made a man feel like a real man in Greece. His pride, his honesty, his respect for himself and for others.

'I see that your mother educated you to some degree about our culture,' Nik noted. 'I wish to avenge my honour. You shamed me before my family and my friends.'

'Nik...I—'

'I could just about bear you surviving in misery some­where in the world as long as I never had to see you or think about you,' Nik extended gently. ‘Then you came into my office and asked me if I was a man or a mouse and I found out which...just as you're going to find out by the time I'm finished with you.'