The Greek's Virgin Bride

'That you and he have hatched some idea of me...me mar­rying... marrying you?' She could hardly get the words out.

'Yes.' Nikos's voice was terse. Dear God, what an unholy mess! 'I had thought,' he went on, openly sarcastic, 'that you had just obtained irrefutable corroboration from your grandfa­ther?'

Her face hardened.

'That bastard!'

Nikos's expression iced. He had no love for Coustakis—he doubted if anyone in the world did, now that his poor besotted wife was dead!—and certainly he should not have hit her, but Andrea must be stupid indeed if she did not realise that her grandfather would not tolerate her shouting defiance at him, let alone in front of another male, and her selected husband to boot! Yiorgos Coustakis would never permit himself to lose face in front of the man he had accepted would run the empire he had amassed. Moreover, whatever his faults, Andrea should be mindful of the fact that it was Yiorgos's money that kept her in her luxurious Mestyle, and that she owed him courtesy, if nothing else.

'You will not use such language.'

'Or what?' she spat. 'You'll take a whip to me like he told you to?'

Nikos swore. He wanted out, right now. He wanted to be miles from here, away from this madhouse! The thought of Xanthe Palloupis hovered tantalisingly in his mind. She would be soft, and warm, and soothing, and cosseting. She would sit him down and make him comfortable, and relaxed, and speak only when he wanted her to speak, and never say a word oth­erwise, would know instinctively, from long practice, what he wanted, what he did not want...

But he. wasn't with Xanthe; he was listening to this red­headed hot-head spitting venom.

'You certainly need something to stop you behaving like a foul-mouthed spoilt brat!' he barked back at her.

She got to her feet. 'I suggest you leave, Mr Vassilis,' she said. 'And I also suggest, next time you get around to thinking of marrying someone, you have the courtesy to ask her first before announcing a done deal! However much you want to get your greedy hands on Coustakis Industries, I'm not available—especially not to some pretty-boy fortune-hunter like you!'

She slammed the brandy glass down on the sideboard, not caring that the liquid slopped on to the marquetry surface, spun on her heel and stormed out of the room, clattering up the marble staircase to get to her room as soon as she could.

Behind her, Nikos's face was rigid with fury. Ten seconds later he was out of the house and gunning his Ferrari down the driveway as if possessed by demons.

Andrea's fingers were trembling as she punched the buttons on the mobile phone Tony had leant her. Reaction had set in with a vengeance, and she felt as weak as a kitten.

The conversation was brief and to the point—if for no other reason than she did not want to run up Tony's phone bill more than she had to.

'Tony—it hasn't worked out. I'm going to have to come home. Tomorrow. Don't worry.' She swallowed, not daring to let herself start on what had happened. 'It's nothing drastic, but I'm just going to come home anyway. OK?' She paused frac­tionally. 'Look, if you don't hear from me from Athens airport tomorrow, go on yellow alert, will you? And if I don't show up at Heathrow—or, worse, don't phone tomorrow evening— go to red, OK? I've met my beloved grandfather and he's—' she swallowed '—running to type.'

After she'd hung up, desperately grateful not only to have heard Tony's familiar calming voice, but also just to have been reminded that a sane, reasonable world existed outside the con­fines of this palatial madhouse, Andrea realised her hands were still trembling.

How she managed to get any sleep at all that night she didn't know. She awoke late in the morning, with a jolt, woken by Zoe gently shaking her shoulder. Her grandfather, it seemed, wished to see her. Immediately.

Oh, does he? Well, as it happens, I want to see him as well! To order a car to take me to the airport!

He was in his bedchamber, Andrea discovered as, grim- faced, hastily dressed in a cheap blouse and cotton trousers of her own, she followed the maid along the corridor. With clammy hands she walked into the room.

Her grandfather was sitting up, propped on an array of pil­lows, ensconced in a huge tester bed that would not have looked out of place in Versailles. He did not look well, Andrea registered, and for the first time she realised that he was an old man not in the best of health.

I’ll do this civilly, she thought. I can manage that if I try.

She approached the foot of the bed. Dark, hooded eyes bored into her. Yiorgos Coustakis might be confined to his bed, but the power he could wield had not lessened an iota.

'So,' he said heavily, 'you are worse than I ever feared. Insolent beyond belief! I should have taken you from your slut of a mother and raised you myself! You would have learned proper respect from the back of my hand!'

Every good intention vanished from Andrea's breast in­stantly. She felt the fury surge in her veins. But this time she would not lose control.

Instead she simply stood there, looking at the man who had

fathered her father. It seemed unbelievable that they should be related in any way.

'Silent at last! A pity you could not have held that helh'sh tongue of yours last night, instead of showing yourself up so abominably in front of your husband!'

'Nikos Vassilis is not my husband, and he never will be,' replied Andrea. Her anger was like ice running in her blood.

Yiorgos Coustakis made a rasping sound in his throat.