Bought By The Greek Tycoon. JACQUELINE BAIRD

you to marry me is out of the question, I take it?’ Luke asked, progressing straight to plan B with a hint of amusement in his tone.

      ‘You’ve got that right! I wouldn’t marry a lecherous, womanising swine like you if you were the last man on earth!’ Jemma shot back furiously. She lifted her hands to push him away, but as she flattened her palms on his chest she knew she had made a big mistake. His dark head jerked back and all trace of amusement vanished as his eyes, now glittering with silver shards of icy fury, bored into hers.

      ‘If that is your opinion of me, then I have nothing to lose, have I?’ he snarled, and two strong arms wrapped around her and hauled her hard against his powerful frame. His dark head swooped suddenly and his sensuous mouth captured hers with a driving passion that owed more to an urge to dominate than to desire.

      With her arms pinned to her side, trapped in the cradle of his thighs, she was helpless to escape. She tried to turn her head away from his, but with a speed that overwhelmed her one hand slid up her back and grasped the thick swathe of hair at her nape, holding her immobile beneath his furious onslaught. She felt the fierce tension in every inch of his body, and the thrusting strength of his arousal against her belly. Then, shockingly, as his tongue plundered the moist interior of her mouth, a responding surge of awareness sizzled through her, taking her breath away.

      This was what she had tried to banish from her mind for twelve months…what she had been afraid of… The total seduction of her senses… But she was tempted; heat pooled in her pelvis and, helpless to control her traitorous body, she involuntarily swayed into him. Sensing her surrender, he gentled, his tongue teasing and licking with an erotic expertise that sent her already racing pulse into overdrive.

      ‘God, Jemma!’ he husked against her mouth, one hand slipping up to stroke across her breasts, his fingers grazing the burgeoning nipples through the soft cotton of her top. ‘Or Mimie—whatever you call yourself. I’ve never forgotten the last time you were in my arms, and I want you again—badly.’ His dark head lifted and he fixed her with a piercing silver gaze. ‘Say yes.’

      It was Luke calling her Mimie that shocked Jemma brutally back from the brink of shameful compliance. Only Alan had ever called her Mimie. When Aunt Mary had introduced her to Alan as ‘my niece Jemima’, Alan had declared it was a bit of a mouthful and so he would call her Mimie—and he had, until the day he died. To hear it on Luke’s tongue now seemed like the worst kind of betrayal.

      ‘Don’t you dare call me Mimie!’ she yelled, and with a frantic shove that knocked him back on his heels she wriggled free from his hold. On shaking legs she spun across the kitchen to put the width of the breakfast table between them. Flushed and furious, and with her heart pounding madly, she grasped the back of one of the pine chairs to steady herself.

      Luke turned around and leant casually back against the bench. He saw her white-knuckled grip on the chair, the anger and the fear in her huge eyes, and cursed under his breath. He should never have pounced on her so fiercely. But she had enraged him with her estimation of his character and he had completely lost control, which was most unlike him.

      ‘A simple “no” would have done, Jemma,’ he drawled. Why she objected to the name Mimie he was determined to discover. But now was not the time. ‘I’ve never had to pressure a woman into bed and I don’t intend to start with you, so you can relax your grip on the chair and get me that drink you offered.’

      ‘The drink I offered?’ Jemma echoed in an incredulous tone, the nerve of the man astounding her. ‘Are you crazy? I want you out of my house now.’

      ‘Now, is that any way to treat a guest?’ Luke straightened and strolled forward. ‘Think what your father would say if he heard his daughter had behaved with such an appalling lack of manners to the grandson of one of his major shareholders. Then there’s Jan as well, as you were so kind to point out.’ He stopped beside her, his grey eyes narrowing on her flushed face.

      ‘My father…Jan…?’ Jemma repeated. What was he going on about? And why did she have the uneasy feeling there was a threat in there somewhere?

      ‘Jan is under the impression—along with everyone else—that you’re one step removed from a saint and have lived the life of a nun since the death of your husband. So, as for you not telling her about our one-night stand—that you would cut out your tongue rather than tell her, I believe you said—well, I have no such qualms. I will quite happily tell the whole world I made love to you last year. Though it might spoil your grieving widow act somewhat.’

      His callous comment hurt her deeply—her grief was not an act. Jemma missed her late husband every day; she missed his kindness, his comfort, his conversation, and the sense of absolute love and security that Alan had provided. Yet this arrogant, conceited jerk, who had probably never loved anyone in his life, had the nerve to mock her loss.

      Luke’s deriding of her grief transformed her hurt into a cold, defiant anger. Releasing her grip on the chair, slowly Jemma turned and squared her shoulders. ‘You would do that? You would deliberately upset Jan in that way? Now, why doesn’t that surprise me?’ she jeered, giving a disgusted shake of her head. Not waiting for his response, she added, ‘Follow me and I’ll get you that drink.’ Completely ignoring him, she walked out of the kitchen and opened the door into the living room, knowing exactly what he would see.