She Can't Say No to the Greek Tycoon

Their business deal had been supposedly straightforward. Nicholas had made it clear that certain large sections of the ground were not to be developed and Carter had agreed to this without reservation. In fact he had heartily concurred that it would be almost sacrilege to destroy an area of such outstanding beauty. They had drawn up plans for a new hotel—plans that fitted the requirements. Then Nicholas had left Carter to oversee the project as he had business interests in the Far East that had needed urgent attention.

When he had returned a mere seven weeks later he had found the plans had been altered; the hotel hadn’t even been started, but the ground that he had expressly promised to keep as greenbelt had been bulldozed and ripped out, ready for contractors to lay the foundations of a new housing estate.

Nicholas hadn’t been able to believe what his eyes had told him and he would never forget returning home. The village where once his friends and family had welcomed him had been turned into a place filled with

hostile stares and words of reproach. They had blamed him and he had blamed himself—but mostly he had blamed Carter McKenzie for lying to him and for trying to steal the two things that mattered to him most—his honour and his family.

Even when angrily confronted, Carter had just shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’ve done you a favour. We will make much more money out of the deal now.’

‘Money wasn’t the main issue,’ Nicholas had ground out furiously. ‘You stood to make a hefty profit on the deal that we agreed. But instead you’ve decimated land, burnt ancient olive and lemon groves that went back generations and were important for a whole community.’

‘Money is always the main issue,’ Carter had sneered. ‘I did what you didn’t have the guts to do. You should be thanking me.’

‘I gave my word to the community that this wouldn’t happen,’ Nicholas had said quietly. ‘You know that.’ Carter had merely laughed.

Remembering that laughter strengthened Nicholas’s resolve now. At the time the only thing he could do to put things right was to buy Carter out and luckily he’d been able to afford to do that as his Far Eastern hotels came on line.

But of course that had been Carter’s plan all along. Their mutual acquaintance in banking had informed him that if Nicholas’s gamble in the Far East paid off he would be a millionaire. Carter had then taken a calculated risk that Nicholas would be successful and deliberately he had started to destroy the land. Then he had sat back and waited, knowing that in order to reclaim the land Nicholas would have to buy him out. It had almost amounted to legalized blackmail and it had galled Nicholas to pay, but to reclaim the land before the builders moved in there had been no alternative.

However Nicholas had always sworn that one day he would make Carter McKenzie pay. He had watched from afar as he’d continued to go through life walking over people—extorting money. The man was without morals or principle. His son Michael was the same and so was his daughter.

He ran a hand through his hair and forced himself to look at the facts and forget the heat of their lovemaking, the warmth of her embrace. She was as guilty as her father, tainted by association, complicit in a major swindle only last year. He couldn’t forget that—couldn’t allow himself to be swayed from what he had to do.

There was a knock at the door. It was room service and he let them in and then watched as they laid out a selection of dinner dishes under the covered hotplates out on the terrace.

‘Thanks.’ He tipped them, closed the door behind them, then went to see what was keeping Cat.

The bedroom was deserted and he could hear the shower running in the bathroom.

He began thinking again about how pleasurable their love-making had been. And then he found himself thinking back to earlier in the evening, remembering the way she had looked at him when they had stood side by side on the jetty waiting for the water taxi. He had imagined she looked pure—like a girl afraid to trust, afraid of her emotions.

But that had just been a trick of the moonlight—hadn’t it?

For a moment he thought back to the earlier events in this suite, analysing—dissecting.

Surely Cat hadn’t been a virgin?

No! He shook his head as he remembered how she had saucily turned the tables to torment him—kneeling before him, kissing him, her eyes flashing with provocative fire.

Then later, as he had carried her through to the bedroom, she had been sensationally wild, there had been nothing timorous or even mildly restrained about her responses. Except when he had first entered her—she had cried out. The memory crystallized in his brain like a snapshot of time. Now that he thought about it, she had tensed enough for him to pull back slightly. Had he hurt her?

He sat down on the edge of the bed and felt shaken by the idea. Cat McKenzie couldn’t have been a virgin—could she? Confusion muddied his clear views of what she was.

His assessment of her as a conniving siren sat awkwardly alongside the fact that she might have been a virgin. With determination he stood up from the bed and headed for the bathroom.

‘Cat, can I come in?’ He knocked loudly on the door.

‘I’m in the shower. I’ll be out in a minute.’ Cat turned her head up to the water, allowing it to wash the tearstains from her face. She had to take charge of her emotions—she was stronger than this!

It was a shock when the door of the shower was wrenched open. Her vision was blurred from her tears and for a moment Nicholas was just a dark silhouette against the brightness of the room.

‘What on earth are you doing? I’d like some privacy, please. I told you I would be out in a moment.’

‘I have something to ask you.’

She frowned, trying to work out what it was about his tone of voice that was different. He sounded brusque yet … off balance, somehow.

‘Nicholas, go away!’ She pushed her wet hair back off her face with an unsteady hand and rubbed at her eyes and then, as the watery blur started to focus, she was aware that his gaze was raking over her naked body with unrelenting, almost punishing appraisal.