The Cozakis Bride

'You'll be a laughing stock,' Nik remarked with formi­dable cool.

Frowning in bewilderment, Olympia twisted her head back round to look at him again. 'What are you talking about? A laughing stock?'

'If I fly you back to London and dump you back at your grandfather's feet, many of our wedding guests will be shocked, but an equal number will simply be amused.'

For an electrified instant Olympia just stared and stared up into those dark, deep-set challenging eyes while her lips slowly parted company.

'Although I contrived to keep the media away from our wedding by various stratagems, such an unusual development will make headlines all round the world. Your mother and your grandfather will be aghast, but they will also appreciate that I am quite within my rights to return a bride who refuses to consummate our marriage.'

Olympia could not credit the evidence of her own ears Her wide-eyed stare expanded to take in the hard, clean line of his sculpted mouth. He had not raised his voice and he revealed not one atom of anger. He simply spoke as a malt describing an inevitable event.

'You c-can't be serious,' she stammered, in incredulous denial of the picture such a threat imposed on her. Their guests would still be partying late into the evening, and as host, Spyros would naturally remain to the end of the festivities.

'Why shouldn't I be?' Nik enquired with supreme calm 'You're trying to take me for a fool within hours of our wedding. We made a deal and you're trying to back out on it. You picked the wrong guy.'

That assurance rang like a death knell over Olympia. Freedom yawned in the guise of the helicopter now being readied for take-off again. But freedom at what price?

'I wouldn't allow you to humiliate me like that,' she stated between clenched teeth of fury.

'I would carry you in kicking and screaming—'

'You're out of your mind...it would be medieval to stage a scene like that in front of our guests!' Olympia countered outraged condemnation. 'You wouldn't dare! What would I have to lose? If you break the terms of our deal, all bets are off for me as well. I'm Greek. I'm better at winning than losing,' Nik shared gently.

A band of tension was tightening like a vice round Olympia's pounding temples. Her imagination, never so active until Nik had come back into her life again, was currently sum­moning up the barbaric image of Nik delivering her back to her family like a reject while a transfixed and titillated au­dience looked on. He wouldn't dare, she repeated inwardly, but, meeting the ruthless challenge of his hard dark eyes, she is no longer so sure.

‘This is all crazy,' Olympia protested, abandoning fury in favour of a last-ditch appeal for rational, reasonable behav­iour. 'So I stay on board this yacht and we pretend everything is normal in our marriage. Who is to know any different?'

'I don't have much time for cheats,' Nik murmured with measured derision.

Olympia paled. 'You're not being fair—' 'When did I say I'd play fair?' '

'You forced me into agreeing to your terms for this mar­riage,' she reminded him tautly. 'You blackmailed me by threatening to tell my mother about—'

'I know...' His stunning eyes shimmered, giving him a coolly reflective aspect. 'But count your own sins first. You came to me and you begged me to marry you.'

'I didn't beg!'

'You begged,' Nik repeated dryly.

An enormous tide of pain and frustration welled up inside Olympia. 'It doesn't have to be like this between us!'

'I like it this way,' Nik contradicted without hesitation, lean, hard-boned face set in implacable lines.

Olympia studied the helicopter, knowing it might as well be a thousand miles out of her reach. Slowly she turned away from that view and moved back into the main saloon. She parted her lips to speak again, and the words she had to say threatened to choke her. 'I'd like to see my room,' she framed woodenly.

Nik pressed a service button. A steward answered the call Her thoughts in turmoil, Olympia followed in the steward's wake.

Her first impressions of the level of luxury on board Aurora were upgraded with every step she took. She saw a gymnasium and a library and a gleaming swimming pool The state room she was shown into was exquisitely deco-rated. Two other doors connected with it. Dismissing the steward, she glanced at the gorgeous flower arrangement and the champagne bucket and grimaced.

She checked out the dressing room and was relieved to discover that only her own clothes hung in the wardrobes At least Nik wasn't expecting to share the room with her! She walked through to. the bathroom. Initially awed by the marble fittings, it took her a second or two to notice that there appeared to be something written on the mirror above. the double vanity unit.

With a frown she drew closer.

'COMPETE IF YOU CAN!' was printed in crude letters across the highly polished reflective surface.

Compete with what! What on earth...?

Her bemused gaze fell on the glossy magazine spread open to one side. A full-page photograph of a gorgeous blonde in a provocative pose met her bemused eyes. 'Gisele Bonner' ran the scribe beneath. Olympia jerked in actual physical shock. Her brain gave her one brief message: wipe the mirror, put the magazine in the bin unread. She ignored the message

Stomach flipping a sick somersault, Olympia focused on the picture. In a strappy, very short dress that barely covered her behind, never mind much else, Gisele's lithe, golden and perfect body showed to full advantage. She had incredibly long legs, huge baby-blue eyes set above exotically slanted cheekbones, and the sort of mouth cosmetic firms used to sell very expensive lipstick. Her straight strawberry-blonde hair fell like a sheet of polished silk to her elegant bony shoulders.

Olympia backed away from the magazine as if she had been burnt. Don't look, don't read, screeched her brain, but she couldn't control her overwhelming need to know what was written on the opposite page. It was an article on Gisele Bonner, famous catwalk model and long-term 'companion' of Greek tycoon Nik Cozakis. She was thirty-two years old and had sworn that sh

e would never marry because she loved her freedom and couldn't stand children.

With a shaking Hand, Olympia reached out and turned the page. Faced with a photo of Gisele curved round Nik like a boa constrictor at the Cannes Film Festival, Olympia wished she hadn't both An audible gasp sounded behind her. Startled, she whirled round. A youthful maid stood in the doorway, her attention welded to what was written on the mirror, her hand flying up to her mouth in apparent dismay. She started to speak in a flood of anxious, apologetic Greek, afraid, it seemed, that she was to receive the blame for. that taunting message.

Hurrying forward, she swiped at the mirror with a towel, smearing the printed words, rubbing fiercely to clear them from view. With a soothing but stilted phrase of very basic Greek, Olympia retreated back into the state room. Why did she feel so sick? She could not understand why she felt so sick, so savaged!

As the maid scurried out, clutching the magazine, Olympia sighed. So Gisele had connections on board Aurora. Some member of the crew must have been bribed to plant the magazine and the message. Olympia frowned then, as she recalled Katerina's crack about Gisele earlier that day. Was it possible that it could have been Katerina, rather than Gisele, who had wanted to taunt Nik's bride on her wedding night?

Compete if you can! Only what normal flesh and blood woman would even try to compete with a female that gorgeous?

Thankfully, Olympia was not the competitive type. Her tremulous mouth compressed; Nik's former mistress was no business of hers. Refusing to waste any more time wondering who might have been responsible for that petty but nasty message, Olympia sat down jerkily in front of the dressing table. Her head ached from the weight of her hair. With im­patient hands she began yanking out the pins which anchored the upswept style she had fixed it in earlier that day. Lifting a silver brush, she straightened out the tangles with a force that left her eyes watering.