The Greek Tycoon's Mistress. Julia James

for parts was fierce. Still, acting was what she had always wanted to do, and her very staid parents had been happy enough for her to work it out of her system—as they’d been sure she would within a few years.

      Her eyes shadowed, grief showing in them briefly. Their death in a coach crash on holiday had been so sudden, so brutal. Even now, nearly two years later, the memory was like a knife in her breast.

      Chris had been so kind to her, proving a true friend, taking her under his wing and looking after her while she was raw with grief and shock. No wonder she hadn’t hesitated when he had asked her for a favour for Demos.

      The blare of a car horn made her jump. The Edgware Road was clogged with traffic, and she was still quite some way from Demos’s Mayfair apartment. She made an inward grimace. She would miss that fabulous apartment all right! Going back to her tiny studio flat on a noisy road south of the Thames—all she could afford at London property prices, even with the legacy from her parents—was not something she was looking forward to. For the first time she could understand why women would agree to exchange their self-respect for such a luxurious lifestyle.

      Her amber eyes darkened. That was exactly the kind of woman Theo Atrides thought her—that much was obvious. The kind who latched on to men just because they were rich! Not for the first time she felt a stab of anger at him. Oh, she would love to see him eat his words! ‘Delicious morsel of female flesh’ indeed!

      She should not have recalled them to mind. For with them came an image of the man saying them—tall, powerful, those dark, heavy-lidded eyes making her stomach flip over slowly, oh, so slowly as her legs turned to jelly…

      Someone brushed past her on the crowded pavement. Automatically she moved to one side, and then, just at the same time, someone brushed her from that side as well. She glanced either way, frowning suddenly. London was safe enough on the whole, if you were sensible, but muggings happened all the time. She clutched at her shoulder bag more tightly, but even as she did so she felt her body crowded from both sides.

      It happened so quickly. One moment she was being hustled on the wide pavement and the next, in broad daylight, on a busy London road, two men had caught her by either elbow, pulled her forward and then, before she could scream, she was being thrust into the gaping interior of a huge black-windowed limousine that was suddenly there, pulled up at the kerb. The door slammed behind her. Her head was tilted forcibly back, a pad pressed over her nose and mouth. Her eyes flared in terror and then, as the drug sucked into her gasping lungs, fluttered helplessly shut as consciousness drained away.

      ‘Well, did he tell you how long I’ve got?’

      Milo’s voice was harsh, but Theo could hear the exhaustion in it. Milo was tough, but age was finally taking its toll.

      ‘Six, maybe nine months. A year if you are spectacularly fortunate.’

      Theo did not mince his words. He would not be thanked if he did.

      Milo’s eyes gleamed fiercely. ‘Hah! Long enough to see a great-grandson on the way!’

      Theo looked out of the window of the chauffeur-driven limo. They were nosing down Harley Street. Traffic was bad. Rush hour was all around them.

      He did not answer his grandfather. Instead, he said, ‘He wants to put you on a different drug regime. Says it could buy you time. He wants to start you straight away, but he’ll need to monitor you for a week or two to see how you respond. You don’t need to be in hospital. So I’ve taken the suite for another fortnight. I’ll stay with you, naturally.’

      His grandfather gave a rasp. ‘Not in that damned hotel, you won’t! And neither will I. We’ll stay at the apartment. I want to see more of Demos anyway!’

      Theo frowned. ‘The girl is still there. I haven’t had a chance to buy her off yet!’

      Milo gave a harsh laugh.

      ‘Save your money. She’s been dealt with.’

      Theo’s head swivelled.

      ‘I said I’d handle it—’

      ‘Well, I’ve saved you the trouble. And my way was a whole lot cheaper! And more certain.’

      ‘What do you mean?’ Theo’s words were slow, filled with foreboding. ‘What have you done?’

      Milo looked at his grandson with grim satisfaction.

      ‘She’s gone,’ he said. ‘She was in the way, so I had her removed.’

      Cold snaked down Theo’s spine.

      ‘What…exactly…have you done with her?’

      Milo gave another harsh bark of laughter.

      ‘Don’t look at me as if I’d had her murdered! She’s perfectly safe. Sunning herself on a beach.’

      Theo’s brows drew together.

      ‘She agreed to go on holiday?’ He sounded sceptical.

      ‘I didn’t waste time asking her. I just sent her!’

      The cold snaked down Theo’s spine again.

      ‘You sent her? How? Where?’

      ‘How? I had her picked up and packed off. I had a tail put on her when she left Demos’s apartment this morning. She was put in a car, kept quiet, driven to an airfield and that was that. Don’t look at me like that, boy! I’m not incapable yet! I know agencies who will do such things and be discreet about it!’

      But his grandson was staring at him with an appalled look on his face.

      ‘Are you telling me,’ he said, his voice hollow, ‘that you had her abducted?’

      Milo made a testy noise in his throat. ‘I had her removed! That’s all! She’s perfectly safe—I told you!’

      A word escaped Theo that was not in polite usage.

      ‘Where?’ he demanded urgently. ‘Where is she, Milo?’

      His grandfather gave his harsh laugh again.

      ‘So eager to find her?’ he jeered. ‘Maybe you do want to replace Demos between her legs!’

      Theo ignored the crude jibe. The cold had spread from his spine through every part of his body. Had Milo gone insane? Had he really had a British citizen abducted from the streets of London and flown out of the country?

      ‘Where is she?’

      Milo’s eyes flashed. ‘Don’t take that tone with me! She’s on that hideaway island of yours. The one you take your own pillow-friends to!’

      Theo’s eyes stabbed black fire.

      ‘What?’

      Milo gave another snort. ‘Hah, did you think I did not know of the place? Of course I knew! But if you want to keep a place like that to yourself, who am I to interfere? A man wants to be private when he communes with Eros. I respect that. So you see—’ he sounded well pleased with himself ‘—Demos’s little tart will be perfectly at home there. She can improve her tan and pretty herself up for her next protector. And by the time I let her off the island Demos and Sofia will be engaged!’

      He cast a triumphant look at his grandson, still staring at him appalled.

      ‘Cheaper than a pay-off, and far more certain.’

      ‘With only one slight downside.’ Theo’s voice was hollow. ‘Abduction is a criminal offence.’

      How Theo got through the next twenty-four hours he didn’t afterwards remember. Milo, utterly oblivious of what he had done, had had to be taken back to the hotel. Then Theo had to confront a frantic Demos who had realised, when he returned to his apartment from his office, that Leandra seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth.

      ‘Milo did what?’

      Demos had gone white.

      ‘She’s