The Konstantos Marriage Demand. Kate Walker

to control the sudden waver in her composure, the instinctive tightening of her mouth at the faint shiver that ran down her spine.

      She had to remember that she no longer belonged here. That she wasn’t on her home territory but in Nikos’s domain. This was where he belonged now, where he ruled like some king of ancient Greece, absolute monarch of all he surveyed.

      Absolute monarch—and possibly a tyrant too? She didn’t know what Nikos was like as a boss, but he had to be a ruthless and highly efficient one. It had only taken him five short years to turn round the fortunes of the Konstantos Corporation from the weakened position in which his father’s wild gambling on the stock exchange had left it. He’d turned the tables on her father, exacting a brutal revenge for the way Edwin had treated him in the past.

      ‘I’m sorry…’

      Carefully she adjusted her pace so that she was no longer leading but had made space for Nikos to walk alongside her, take the lead if he preferred. But he didn’t take advantage of the change. Instead he stayed just behind her, a dark, looming shape at her right shoulder. Impossible to see. Impossible to judge his mood.

      He was so close that she could almost feel the heat of his body reaching out to her. The scent of some cool, crisp aftershave tantalised her nostrils with thoughts of the ozone tang of the clear blue sea off the shores of the private island that the Konstantos family had once owned. That island had been part of the property empire Edwin had taken from them, so she supposed that it must now be once more back in Nikos’s hands—unless her father had sold it on to someone else.

      Her conscience gave an uncomfortable little twist at the thought, knowing how much Nikos had loved that island. It had meant as much to him as Thorn Trees, the old house that had been part of her family for so long, meant to her mother. So surely he would understand why she had come here today.

      ‘Here…’

      The touch of Nikos’s hand on her arm to bring her to a halt outside a door was soft and swift, barely there and then gone again, but all the same the faint brush of his fingers against her elbow sizzled right the way through to her skin underneath the fine navy wool, making her almost stumble in reaction. She had known that touch in the past, had felt it so intimately on her body, on her hungry flesh without any barrier of clothes. She’d felt his touch, his caress, his kiss along every yearning inch of her, and now, like a violin fine-tuned to a maestro’s hand, she felt herself quiver deep inside in shivering response as much to her memories as to the heat of his hand that barely reached her in reality.

      ‘I know!’

      Unease pushed the words from her, as she faked impatience and irritation as an excuse to snatch her arm away from his hand as she twisted the door handle with unnecessary force and wrenched it open.

      ‘Of course you do.’ Nikos’s response was darkly cynical, the rough edge to his voice a warning that she had overstepped the mark as he reached a long arm across her shoulder and pushed at the door. ‘But allow me…’

      Could the words be any more pointed? Could he make it any plainer that he was emphasising the fact that he owned this place now? That he, and not she, was in the position of power. Very definitely in charge.

      And she would do well to remember that, Sadie told herself, pulling her scurrying thoughts back under control, forcing herself to take a couple of deep, calming breaths and remind herself just why she was here. She needed Nikos on her side and she would be foolish to anger and alienate him before she had even had a chance to put her case.

      ‘Thank you.’

      Somehow she managed to make it polite, careful. Not quite the polite, submissive murmur she suspected would be more politic, but politic was beyond her. Her heart was pounding, ragged and uneven, so that her breath was jerky and raw. Tension, she told herself. Pure, unadulterated tension. She was nervous about what was coming, fearful about what she had to say and the way he might receive it.

      It couldn’t be anything else, she told herself. It had to be that, could only be that. She wasn’t going to let it be anything else that was affecting her in this way. But with the heady scent of clean male skin in her nostrils, the brush of his hand along her neck as he reached for the door, the memory of those long ago sensual touches and caresses coming so very close to the surface of her mind, she knew that something else was knocking her dangerously off balance. Something she didn’t want to look at too closely for fear of what she might find.

      ‘Come in.’

      Nikos was still keeping to that excessively polite tone, the one that warned her that she was in the presence of real danger. That she was trapped with a dark and menacing predator, one that had simply been biding its time before it decided to turn and pounce. And once inside this office, in the privacy that he had declared he was determined on, with no one close at hand to hear or to intervene should she need them, that surely would be the moment that he finally resolved to attack.

      That thought made her legs suddenly weak as cotton wool beneath her as she stumbled into the room, coming halfway across the office before they gave up completely and brought her to nervous halt, not knowing what to do next. And as she stood there, her thoughts whirling, trying to find some way of beginning, an opening that would start her off on the path to saying what she had come to say, the words to ask for what she needed so badly, she felt Nikos brush past her. He strode towards the big desk that dominated the room, his movements brusque and controlled, his long body held taut with some ruthlessly restrained emotion. And it was as he swung round to face her that she saw the dark expression etched onto his stunning features and felt her heart lurch painfully just once, before it plummeted downwards to somewhere beneath the soles of her neat patent court shoes.

      Anger. The whole set of his face was tight with icy fury, his golden eyes blazing with it. Away from public scrutiny, from everyone else who might see them together, hear what he had to say, he had thrown off the careful veneer of civilised, cultured politeness. The real Nikos—dark, primitive and very, very angry—was exposed in total clarity, without any pretence to mute the shocking impact of the rage that gripped him. A rage that was directed straight at her.

      The predator had decided to pounce—and this time he was very definitely going in for the kill.

      Chapter Two

      ‘YOU LIED!’ NIKOS said, flinging the accusation at her almost as soon as the door had swung closed behind her, shutting them in together. ‘You lied about who you were—gave a false name.’

      ‘Of course I did!’

      Sadie prayed that the control she was forcing into her voice kept it steady. She hoped that she had at least held it down so that it didn’t go soaring up too high under the influence of the panic that was tying her insides into tight, painful knots.

      ‘I had to. What else could I do? If I’d given my real name then there’s no way you would have ever agreed to see me, would you?’

      ‘You’re damn right I wouldn’t. You wouldn’t have got across the threshold. But the fact remains that you are here—and that you lied in order to get here. Which means that you have something you want to say. Something that is important enough for you to use that lie in order to get to say it. So what is that, I wonder?’

      The look he turned on her seemed to sear right through her, the blaze of his eyes so intense that Sadie almost expected to see her clothes scorch and burn along the path that it traced over her body.

      Nikos was behind his desk, and he leaned forward to stab one long finger down on a button by his phone. Sadie heard a woman’s voice, faintly blurred by the nervous buzzing in her head, respond almost immediately.

      ‘No calls.’ It was a command, and clearly one he meant to have obeyed. ‘And no interruptions. I am not to be disturbed until I say.’

      And if the secretary or PA goes against those instruction, then she’s a braver woman than I am, Sadie told herself. But the next moment any other thoughts fled from her mind as Nikos nodded his satisfaction and turned his attention back to her.