The Cozakis Bride

But how could she have defended herself? Her supposed best friend, Katerina, had backed up Lukas's lying confession of having betrayed Nik with Olympia. Olympia had been sick to the heart, and so bitter after seeing Nik with that beautiful model that all she had cared about was hitting back. Revenge... Yes, Olympia understood both the concept and the craving. Her revenge, her punishment of Nik and her grandfather for misjudging her, had been allowing them to go on believing that she was the shameless little tramp they had already decided she was. Nik had been incandescent with stunned rage, his rampant ego severely dented by the shock­ing discovery that his plain and seemingly adoring fiancée could stray.

Only now did Olympia see how wrong she had been to try to punish them all with their own blind stupidity. Though she could not imagine even now how she could possibly have proved her innocence in the face of the lies that had been told, she knew that her frozen defiance that awful day must have contributed to that guilty verdict. And left Nik fired up with outrage and a desire for retribution that refused to dim even ten years on.

Well, he had given her a blasted good fright the previous evening, Olympia acknowledged. But in the light of day she was too practical, too down to earth to credit that he could have meant all that he had threatened. Giving him a son and heir, for goodness' sake! And what about that extraordinary kiss? The way he had just grabbed her? What point had he been trying to make? That he could kiss her and fantasise about some other infinitely more sexually appealing woman?

Bitterness black as bile consumed her. Of course Nik couldn't be serious...or could he be? He had taken her des­perate offer and twisted it into something so threatening her brain had gone into freefall. Having a baby with Nik—worse, going to bed with Nik...sheer madness!

In the midst of her feverish thoughts, Olympia glanced at her alarm clock and gasped. Why hadn't her mother woken her up? It was ten to twelve in the morning! Scrambling off the bed, she hurried out of her bedroom and skidded into the lounge, hearing too late the deep burst of masculine laughter that might have forewarned her that her mother had a male visitor.

Lodged one step into the room, clad only in a short faded nightdress, Olympia felt her generous mouth fall open, sea-jade eyes huge at the sight that greeted her. The coffee pot and the best china were out on the dining table. Irini Manoulis was squeezing Nik Cozakis's hand and wiping tears from her eyes. Eyes that were not sad but sparkling, as if an inner light had been relit.

Supremely elegant in a charcoal-grey business suit cut to fit like the proverbial glove, Nik surveyed Olympia with the most supernatural calm she had ever seen. It was as if he was a regular visitor to her shabby home, a lifelong friend of the family, totally at ease with her mother, who was chat­tering away at speed in Greek, showing more animation than Olympia had witnessed in years.

His dark deep-set eyes, raked with total cool over Olympia's stricken face. 'Smile, agape mou. I'm afraid that when I dis­covered that you were still in bed I was too impatient to wait any longer to share our good news with your mother.'

'Good...news?' Olympia repeated, like a not very lifelike robot.

Belatedly aware of her daughter's presence, and raising her brows in dismay at the nightdress, Irini Manoulis urged, 'Olympia...go and get dressed! Nik is taking us out to lunch.'

Olympia fell back through her bedroom door like a drunk and dropped down on her bed before her wobbling legs collapsed beneath her. Evidently Nik had come here to tell her mother that they were getting married. Nik was a foe worthy of Machiavelli. And just then, Olympia was fully conscious that she was not Nik's equal in the manipulative stakes.

Barely a step in her wake, her mother entered her room 'Nik's making the reservations on his portable phone... I need to get changed,' Irini Manoulis shared unsteadily, and then the older woman just flopped down beside her daughter and shook her greying head in an apparent daze. 'Oh, Olympia, I'm in shock...but in such happy shock I can't even reproach you for keeping so much from me. What a wonderful young man you are to have as a husband!'

And with that assurance Olympia received a heartfelt hug from her mother, and she sat there like a stalactite in a cave, frozen in time, registering that Nik had bricked up every po­tential escape route and trapped her with horrific speed and dexterity.

How long has Nik been here?' Olympia asked weakly. All morning...I would have woken you but we had so much to discuss.' Too excited, it seemed, to notice that her daughter appeared to be oddly silent, Irini drew back and clasped Olympia's hands emotively between her own. 'He invited me to live with you, but I said no... When I'm older, who knows? But young couples deserve their privacy, and if I ever return to Greece I would like my father to invite me. For now, London is my home.'

'What...what did Nik tell you?' Olympia studied her mother's workworn hands and gently patted them, struggling to reason, finding it all but impossible.

Irini cleared her throat. 'Everything, Olympia. Indeed he embarrassed me with his honesty, but I can truthfully say now that I have no reservations about you marrying him.'

'Really?'

Her mother sighed. 'I know how terribly hurt you were that night when you saw Nik with that other girl—'

Olympia's teeth ground together.

'You were both too young, Olympia. And the marriage was not to take place until Nik had finished university,' the older woman reminded her. 'A two-year engagement might test even the most decent young man—'

'We'd only been engaged two months,' Olympia heard herself interrupt.

An explosive surge of rage was rising inside her, threat­ening to choke her to death. How could Nik walk in cold and introduce himself to her trusting mother and contrive to wash himself clean of his past sins? It wasn't fair. It was disgusting, calculating, horrendous...

'Yes, but there was alcohol involved. Sometimes when you're young, control is difficult to maintain,' her mother muttered uncomfortably. 'Who knows that better than I? Men have strong appetites...'

Olympia caught her tongue between her teeth before it could blow that dated sexist whopper out of the water.

'Nik had been strictly warned by your grandfather that prior to your marriage there were to be no intimacies between you,' Irini Manoulis pointed out, as if she was telling Olympia something she already knew. 'After what I had done, your grandfather wanted no risk of your marriage hav­ing to be brought forward because of a pregnancy.'

In an effort to contain herself, Olympia sucked in oxygen in a long, dragging gasp. The level of Nik's sheer inventive-ness hit her like a punch in the stomach.

'It was right to protect you when you were so young.' Her mother sighed. 'But Nik was young too...'

And 'possessed of strong appetites', Olympia repeated, for her own benefit alone.

'Where's your ring?' her over-excited mother was already demanding.

Olympia got up and dug the diamond ring out of the drawer below the wardrobe.

'I told Nik that we had been burgled twice...he doesn't want us to spend one more night here.' Her mother's eyes shone with happy tears as she admired the beautiful diamond 'It's just like a fairytale...you and Nik. Just like a fairytale. Olympia.'

Ten minutes later Olympia emerged from her bedroom dressed in black trousers and a loose tunic top. Nik was in the lounge, still using his portable phone, talking in Greek Olympia studied him, her temper running hot as lava. Just like a fairytale indeed! There would be no going back now. It would break her poor mother's heart to have her hopes raised so high and then dashed.

‘I suppose you think you've been very, very clever,' Olympia condemned as Nik switched off his phone.

He swung round, dark deep-set eyes pinning to hers and flaring to gold enquiry, his jawline hardening. Her tummy muscles clenched, her heartbeat quickening. He let his keen gaze roam down the taut length of her, lingering on the thrust of her breasts that even her tunic top couldn't conceal, the swell of her hips, the apex of her thighs, down and down, and then slowly back up again. By that stage Oly

mpia's face was flaming and her teeth were practically chattering with rage. He looked at her as if she was something he already owned, a possession, something he had rights over when he had no rights!

'Irini's happy,' Nik murmured flatly. 'What on earth have you told her about us?' Nik loosed a soft, sardonic laugh. ‘The cover story de­manded a shrinking violet afraid to tell her mama that she was again seeing a man whom she had once believed had been less than faithful to her.' 'I will not give you a child—'

'You won't get a divorce until you do,' Nik countered, smooth as silk. 'It's your choice.'

Olympia tore her attention from him and covered her fu­rious face with unsteady hands. 'I really hate you—'

'Don't muddy the waters with emotions, Olympia. We made a deal—' 'You made a deal.'

'To suit my needs...why not?' Nik fenced back with the same unnerving cool. 'Now go back into your bedroom and put on something more festive. This is your mother's day, not yours. You can leave the talking to me, but you need to work on smiling and pretending to be happy.' 'And what if I don't?'

Nik slung her an impatient look. 'You will. You'll pretend for her sake.'

We made a deal. What madness had taken her over that she had imagined they might somehow get married and never live together without anyone even commenting on the fact? What had she been thinking of that first day when she had left her grandfather and came up with that wild idea? What had she imagined she would tell her mother in such circum­stances?

'I called Spyros last night,' Nik volunteered. 'He didn't ask a single question, but he said he was pleased and he thought that I would make you an excellent husband.'

'He probably hopes you're going to beat seven bells out of me every night!'