Greek Tycoon, Inexperienced Mistress

It had been immediately evident that her reference to paranoia had gone down like a brick thrown through his front window, since he’d pushed back his big wide shoulders and, his aggressive jawline clenched, fixed his dark-as-treacle eyes on her. ‘Who tipped you off about my presence here today?’

Her very blue eyes had widened. ‘Nobody, I swear. I’m just an ordinary trespasser in the woods—one of your tenants, actually—and I would like to get out of the river and go home now.’

‘You’re a tenant?’ Atreus had queried harshly. ‘So, you’re trespassing in spite of the estate office’s request that you respect my privacy?’

‘I live at The Lodge. If I’d known you were at home I’d never have dared,’ she’d admitted truthfully, trying and failing to suppress a shiver, because she had only been able to bear the cold water while she was free to move around and jump up and down to keep warm. ‘Now, please be a gentleman and return to your…er…walk.’

‘The creed of the gentleman is long dead.’ He’d produced a mobile phone. ‘I’m calling Security to deal with you.’

And that was when Lindy had really lost her head with him. ‘How much of a bastard do you have to be? I’ve said sorry. What more can I do or say? I’m a woman standing naked in freezing water and you’re threatening to muster more men to see me like this?’ she’d shouted at him in horror. ‘I’m very cold, and I want my clothes!’

Hard, dark and unrepentant eyes had rested on her hot, angry face. ’I’m not preventing you from retrieving them.’

And she hadn’t been able to wait any longer. By that stage her feet had been so cold she’d been in pain, and she hadn’t been able to bear to stand there at his mercy any more. Utterly mortified, and inflamed by his intransigence, she’d waded out without looking anywhere near him. He’d not turned his back as any half-decent man would have done either. He’d stayed where he was and he hadn’t apologised. The very fact that no man had ever seen her naked before had made the ordeal that much more painful for her. Unbearably conscious of her bare breasts, and the all too great expanse of the rest of her, almost sick with embarrassment, she’d had to struggle with the difficulty of dragging her jeans and T-shirt over her wet skin. Naturally she hadn’t extended the time of her exposure by trying either to dry herself or put on her bra and knickers first.

She’d run all the way back to The Lodge, where she’d sat shell-shocked and tearful over the indignity of the ordeal he had put her through. Forty-eight hours later Atreus Dionides had sent her a superb bouquet of expensive flowers with a card that had contained an apology and the suggestion that she call him to arrange a dinner date. She had not been able to credit his nerve. His insolent invitation had simply sent her into paroxysms of frustrated rage.

Lindy was, after all, quite friendly with his housekeeper, Phoebe Carstairs, and as such was already reasonably well acquainted with his reputation as a womaniser. Phoebe had yet to see her wealthy employer with the same woman twice. According to Phoebe, Atreus liked dainty blondes in very high heels, and they all fawned over him like groupies and slept with him the first night they arrived. Lindy had read between the lines: Atreus was accustomed to a diet of flattery, awe and easy sex, with women capable of amusing him only for a single weekend.

Lindy was not and never would be that kind of a woman. Furthermore, how dared he even suggest that she would want to lay eyes on him again after the brutal, callous way he had treated her? He had shown the true colours of his character by the river. On the surface he might well be everything the newspaper had suggested—a phenomenally brilliant businessman who had taken a failing family company and transformed it into a contemporary Goliath which dominated the world shipping markets. And he was breathtakingly handsome and extraordinarily rich and privileged. But below that lustrous, classically beautiful surface he was a hatefully cold and unfeeling guy, with no manners and a considerable contempt for women. If Lindy had to wait a lifetime to see Atreus Dionides again it would be too soon.

But in fact she was to see Atreus again much sooner than she expected—and in circumstances that would prevent her from expressing her antipathy in the manner she would have liked.

Her bedroom was the only room in her compact gatehouse which provided her with a view of Chantry House. All she could actually see was the west wing of the extensive property, and at present that was not a pretty view because for many weeks that part of the building had been shrouded in unsightly scaffolding while it was being converted into staff accommodation. It was a clear night, without clouds, and when Lindy was closing the curtains shortly before midnight she immediately noticed a puff of smoke issuing from the roof. A frown line dividing her brow, she stared until she saw another, floating up slowly into the night sky. There was no chimney, and nobody living there yet either. She snatched in a dismayed breath, her fingers biting into the curtain as she peered out at the house. She was striving to crush back the bone-deep terror of fire that was already bringing her out in a cold sweat. Could it really be a fire? A suspicion of an orange glow behind a formerly blank window unfroze her from her position. She immediately reached for the phone to call the emergency services.