The Balfour Legacy. Кэрол Мортимер

been beautifully scammed by an expert at it.’

      Mia laughed. ‘You mean there was no irresistible venture?’

      ‘No.’ Nikos smiled to himself, recalling what Oscar must have seen when he’d stared thoughtfully across the desk at the twenty-year-old hustler he had been back then. ‘Oscar fleeced me cold with a relaxed smoothness that can still make me squirm to recall it,’ he confessed.

      Yet, for all of it, Oscar Balfour had seen something in him that he’d liked.

      ‘Instead of slinging me out, humiliated and penniless, he offered to show me how to play the hustle from the right side of the law,’ he went on softly. ‘He was my saviour from a life of crime and probably regular imprisonment. Everything I am today I owe to him. He’s—special. Never underestimate him, agape mou, for Oscar never puts any plan into action unless he has a very sure idea what the outcome will be.’

      ‘You’re talking about you and me now, aren’t you?’ Mia frowned up at him.

      ‘Right down to the Brunel incident,’ he drawled sardonically.

      Mia widened her eyes. ‘No,’ she denied.

      ‘Brunel went overboard with his brief when he tipped you into that pool, and Oscar was angry. But it was Santino D’Lassio’s security people who tracked Brunel down and—urged the truth out of him. Oscar does not know that I know,’ he added. ‘I am keeping that piece of information to myself for a while longer.’

      ‘Don’t you dare hurt my father!’ Mia flared up instantly.

      Looking down at her, Nikos prompted dryly, ‘Not hating him so much now?’

      Mia shifted restlessly against him. ‘I don’t hate Oscar,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t even hate my mother…’ Her blue eyes shadowed over on the hollow ache she experienced. ‘I was hurting when I said all of those things in the car. Oscar has been good to me—kind, even when my arrival caused him so much trouble.’

      ‘Trouble you had a right to cause, Mia.’

      ‘That’s what he said to me,’ she whispered, feeling guilty now that she had maligned the man who’d tried his very best to make her feel welcome and wanted. ‘So,’ she said, ‘what was Oscar planning for you and me?’

      ‘Oh, the full works, I should imagine.’ Nikos smiled ruefully. ‘Throw you in my way every damn day. Wind me up with some macho protectiveness and jealousy to aim me in the direction he wanted me to go.’

      ‘Which was where?’

      ‘White lace and wedding bells,’ he enlightened. ‘But without the premature baby conception…I will have let him down there.’

      ‘You did not do so on your own,’ Mia pointed out. ‘I helped—a lot.’

      At last she made his strained mouth stretch into a real proper grin. Reaching up she traced that wide warm mouth with a finger. ‘You know what you need,’ she ventured softly, long black eyelashes hiding away the sparkle in her blue eyes. ‘You need a trial run sleeping with me in a bed for a whole night or two. I can live with no locks on the doors but I refuse to marry a man who insists on separate bedrooms because he thinks I will scare him into nightmares…’

      The way she put the last part froze Nikos for a second or two before he threw back his dark head and laughed. Then with a groan he crushed her up against him, and claimed the pouting invitation of her lush mouth.

      ‘Trial run coming up,’ he muttered a while later. ‘We will call Oscar tomorrow,’ he planned as he drew towards her bed. ‘If he doesn’t threaten to kill me for seducing his daughter, he can give you away at our wedding.’

      ‘And if he does threaten to kill you?’ Mia ran a possessive hand down the front of his body and watched him shudder.

      ‘I will warn him he will be making his daughter a widow because I’m still marrying you.’

      It was gruff and strong and very possessive, and Mia curved her body in even closer. ‘I love you, Nikos Theakis,’ she told him.

      ‘Well, keep on loving me, agape mou,’ he responded unsteadily. ‘I am about to risk dropping every protective guard I have in favour of loving you back by return.’

      He had said it—almost said it. Mia laughed in delight. Then, with more strength than she gave credence to, she twisted him around and tumbled them both down on the bed.

      ‘Show me, then,’ she invited.

      Nikos did not need telling twice.

      Two wonderful months later, Nikos strode into the bedroom he’d had refurbished to accommodate his wife’s hobby, as she liked to call it. Every one of their homes now had similar rooms, laid out like a fashion designer’s studio with all the time-saving gadgets known to the trade.

      ‘You’re supposed to be dressed by now—’ he frowned at Mia ‘—Santino and Nina D’Lassio will be here in half an hour and Tia Giulia is already downstairs with Oscar.’

      ‘Is it that late?’ Looking up from what she was doing, Mia felt the usual crash and burn take place inside her because he looked so deliciously gorgeous in a dinner suit—and, she tagged on possessively, every single bit of him belonged to her.

      ‘You are not wearing that,’ he said, his frown deepening as he spied the dress she had left hanging on an otherwise empty rail.

      ‘Oh, you don’t like it,’ Mia murmured in disappointment.

      ‘Are you joking?’ Striding over to the bright red slip of silk and plucking up the hanger so he could view it more thoroughly, he said, ‘It’s a Jessica Rabbit dress.’

      ‘Jessica who?’ Mia asked innocently.

      ‘Jessica Rabbit—the cartoon sex bomb and fantasy lover of every man with a healthy sex drive.’

      Pleased by that remark, Mia stood to reveal the gold silk under the slip she was wearing. ‘That’s OK, then,’ she said with relief.

      ‘You’re still not wearing it, Mia,’ Nikos said firmly. ‘Not in front of anyone but me anyway…’

      ‘But you just said it was every man’s fantasy!’ Taking it from him she placed the hanger back on the rail again. Then, because she knew he was trying to work out how the heck he was going to stop her when she usually ended up doing as she pleased anyway, she turned to send him a grin.

      ‘It’s for Sophie,’ she confided.

      ‘Sophie—?’ Nikos almost choked on the shock.

      ‘She asked me to make her a really sexy dress,’ she explained. ‘And you have just made my day by telling me I have achieved the ultimate.’

      ‘But—agape mou, you can’t put Sophie in a dress like that! She’s—’

      ‘Don’t you dare finish what you were about to say!’ Mia flared up in heated defence of her half-sister. ‘She is beautiful and nice!’

      ‘I was not about to—’

      ‘And she owns the most exquisite pocket Venus figure underneath those dreadful concealing garments she prefers to wear,’ Mia cut in furiously. ‘So she does not parade her figure as she should do, but that doesn’t mean she cannot be encouraged.’

      Absolutely not believing her but willing to accept he had just deeply offended his new wife on Sophie Balfour’s behalf, Nikos went for the diversion. ‘You’re so sexy when you’re sparked up and angry,’ he murmured, reaching out to draw her into his embrace.

      ‘Mmm, and you are one amazing kisser, signor,’ she sighed out when he finally let her up for air.

      ‘You’ve got no one else to compare me with,’ Nikos pointed out.

      ‘And you like to feel smug about that?’