The Greek Wedding She Never Had, page 5
Jace shrugged. ‘If you are serious about wanting to save him, come up to my office so that we can continue this discussion in private.’
He roamed his eyes over her flushed face and lingered on her scarlet-glossed lips. An idea of how he could fulfil his dying mother’s wish—as well as his father’s final plea—seeded in his mind and took root. ‘I am confident we can strike a deal that will give us both what we want,’ he told Eleanor.
‘Will you walk into my parlour?’ said the Spider to the Fly.
The line from the poem Eleanor had loved as a child popped into her head as Jace ushered her into his office. His secretary had been unable to disguise her curiosity when he had given instruction that he did not want to be disturbed for the rest of the afternoon. The snick of his office door closing made the butterflies in Eleanor’s stomach flutter harder.
He held out a chair and she sank down onto it, relieved she hadn’t stumbled in her four-inch heels that she was still getting used to. She grimaced when her skirt rode further up her thighs and tried to tug it down until she realised that Jace was watching her.
‘You have had a change of style,’ he murmured as he walked around his desk and lowered his long frame into the leather chair. ‘I approve of your new look.’
Eleanor felt herself blush and silently cursed her fair skin and lack of sophistication. If only Jace wasn’t so mesmerisingly sexy. His sculpted features were a work of art and the dark stubble shading his jaw accentuated his raw masculinity. A helpless longing swept through her as her gaze lingered on his mouth and she remembered the firm pressure of his lips on hers.
Although they had not had sex in the few months they had been dating, they’d indulged in heavy petting. Jace’s kisses had driven her wild with desire and her breasts had ached when he’d bared them and rubbed his thumbs over her swollen nipples. A tingling sensation in that area now made Eleanor glance down, and she was mortified to see the hard points of her nipples jutting beneath her dress.
She looked up again, and as her eyes met his across the desk the predatory gleam in the dark depths of his evoked a throb of response deep in her pelvis.
‘I’m sure you don’t want to waste your valuable time discussing my appearance,’ she said curtly, thinking of how he had kept her waiting. No doubt his intention had been to demonstrate that he had power over her, but she refused to be intimidated.
He leaned back in his chair and appraised her from between his narrowed gaze. ‘I assume the reason for your visit is to ask for more time to try to raise the money your brother owes me. My answer is no.’
‘I need three months to restructure the company’s finances, and I should be able to pay back at least part of Mark’s debt,’ she said urgently. ‘Surely you can wait three months?’
Jace’s eyes glittered. ‘I have waited for twenty years to take back what Kostas stole from my family.’
Eleanor stared at his hard-boned face and wondered how she had missed the ruthlessness beneath his charm a year ago. Love had blinded her, she acknowledged bitterly. Defeat tasted rancid in her mouth. ‘You want fifty per cent of the Pangalos,’ she muttered.
He nodded. ‘But the hotel is not all I want. I’ve raised the stakes.’
‘What else can you possibly want from me?’
‘Marriage.’ He met her stunned expression with a smile that bared his white teeth and reminded Eleanor of a wolf. ‘I want you to marry me.’
CHAPTER THREE
‘I MUST SAY that I preferred your first proposal,’ Eleanor said after she had stopped laughing. Because she was sure Jace was joking. Her stupid heart had leapt when he’d mentioned marriage, but she wasn’t the gullible idiot she’d been a year ago. ‘Paris was much more romantic,’ she mocked. ‘You even gave me a sparkly ring.’
Amusement and something like admiration gleamed in his dark eyes. ‘You can wear your engagement ring again once we have finalised the details of our marriage.’
The joke had gone far enough. Eleanor looked away from him, desperate to hide how much he had hurt her. ‘I wouldn’t marry you if the continuation of the human race depended on it.’
‘In that case you had better hope your brother likes prison food.’
‘Don’t threaten me.’ She curled her hands into fists in her lap as a mixture of fear and fury swept through her.
‘Face facts, Eleanor,’ he drawled. ‘I have the power to ruin Mark and force the Pangalos to be declared insolvent, meaning that lawyers will take charge of the hotel and sell off its assets to pay its creditors. I will be able to buy up the assets and I could end up owning a one hundred per cent share of the Pangalos.’
Eleanor had a business degree and knew the laws concerning a company going into liquidation. She felt sick. ‘Why didn’t you do that a year ago instead of going through the charade of asking me to marry you?’
He shrugged, drawing her attention to his broad shoulders sheathed in a superbly tailored charcoal-grey suit. Jace had once told her that he had started his working life as a labourer on a building site, and Eleanor guessed it was where he had developed his powerfully muscular physique.
‘Your brother hadn’t racked up huge debts for himself or the hotel a year ago,’ he drawled. ‘If we marry, the hotel will be deemed a marital asset and I will gain the fifty per cent share that my father originally owned before Kostas betrayed their friendship.’
‘Are you really so cold that you would marry for such a cynical reason?’ Eleanor muttered.
‘I certainly wouldn’t marry out of a misplaced sense of sentimentality.’ Jace grimaced. ‘However, my mother is a born romantic and she is desperate to see me happily married before she dies.’
Eleanor’s attention was caught by the undercurrent of emotion in his voice. ‘Is that likely to be soon?’
‘Doctors have given her six months to a year to live.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She bit her lip. ‘But why would us marrying make your mother happy? We don’t love each other.’
‘You accepted my proposal a year ago because you were in love with me,’ he reminded her.
She flushed, thinking of how easily she had been taken in by his calculated seduction. ‘I’m not in love with you any more, that’s for sure.’
‘Good,’ he said coolly. ‘It will make things much less complicated if we keep emotions out of our marriage.’
‘I’m not going to marry you, Jace.’ She stood up and looked frantically over to the door, keen to escape from this man who, even though she knew she would never mean anything to him, made her weak with longing to feel his lips on hers.
It was just her body’s physical response to his magnetism, Eleanor assured herself. Jace had uncovered a sensual side to her that she’d been unaware of. In the past year she’d tried to forget how he had aroused her desire. She hadn’t been remotely tempted to try to replicate the feeling with any other man. But five minutes in Jace’s company had turned her into a mass of molten need.
‘Why not?’ he demanded in that slightly cynical, slightly amused tone of voice that made her grind her teeth.
‘How can you ask that? There are a million reasons why I refuse to be your wife.’
‘I can think of two very good reasons why you should consider it. Your brother’s freedom and the Pangalos hotel,’ he listed, his brows lifting when she shook her head.
‘I’ll find the money to pay back Mark’s debts some other way that doesn’t involve a loveless marriage to a man I despise.’
‘We both know I am your brother’s only hope of salvation. Sit down, Eleanor, and hear me out.’
She sat, compelled by the intensity of his gaze and his sheer force of will.
‘What I am offering is a straightforward deal. Marry me and your brother’s slate is wiped clean, plus I will pay all the Pangalos’s outstanding bills. A prenuptial agreement will make us joint owners of the hotel and, after my mother dies, we will divorce and each receive a fifty per cent share of the business.’
‘It’s a crazy idea,’ Eleanor muttered. She’d be even crazier to contemplate agreeing to Jace’s suggestion.
‘There is one other thing. My mother must not find out that you are Kostas’s granddaughter. She knows nothing about you. Your mother took your English father’s name on their marriage and there is no reason why you would be associated with the name Pangalos.’
Eleanor frowned. ‘Are you saying you would want your mother to think we had married for conventional reasons? I’m sure you could convince her that you are in love. After all, you fooled me,’ she reminded him curtly. ‘But I loathe you, and I’ll never be able to pretend that you are the man of my dreams.’
She jumped up again and walked quickly towards the door. But Jace moved with the deadly speed of a panther and clamped his hand over hers on the door handle.
‘Is there a man in your life who is responsible for the change in your appearance? Do you dress to please a lover?’ His cool voice belied the blistering intensity in his gaze as he stared down at her from the advantage of his superior height.
‘I dress to please myself,’ she snapped. Her breath snagged in her throat as she breathed in his seductive male scent: spicy cologne mixed with something indefinable and uniquely Jace. ‘My private life is my own affair but if, for argument’s sake, I said that I have a boyfriend, you would presumably drop the idea of us marrying.’
‘Not necessarily. I foresee that we would both have a certain amount of freedom within the marriage, but I’d expect you to be discreet, as I will be.’
Tears stung Eleanor’s eyes, but she willed herself not to cry in front of Jace. She’d thought that he could not hurt her more than he’d already done, but she had been wrong. His detachment was a painful reminder that he had only pretended to desire her a year ago. But, in a strange way, knowing what he really thought of her would make her even more determined to ignore her sexual attraction to him—if she agreed to his outrageous marriage demand.
‘So I would be your wife in name only?’ she clarified.
‘The extent of our relationship will be up to you, and I will abide by your decision.’
In other words he could take her or leave her. She was mortified by the thought that if she indicated she wanted their marriage to include sex, Jace might force himself to make love to her.
‘I imagine your boyfriend was public school educated and has a job in the City, or perhaps he is a historian studying for a doctorate at one of Oxford University’s illustrious colleges,’ Jace drawled. ‘But a boy will not satisfy your passionate nature, omorfiá mou.’
‘You really are a jerk,’ she spat, scarlet-faced. ‘If you remember, I speak Greek and I know you don’t think much of my looks. Save your false flattery for someone who is foolish enough to believe a word that comes out of your mouth.’
She hated him with every fibre of her being, but her treacherous body hadn’t got the message. Eleanor could not prevent her gaze from focusing on his mouth, which he had used with such exquisite effect when he’d kissed her.
And not just on her lips. She remembered his mouth on her breasts, his wicked tongue teasing her nipples before he closed his lips around one turgid peak and then the other, making her tremble with needs that only Jace had ever aroused. Now she understood that his caresses had been part of his campaign to trick her into marriage, but even knowing the extent of his duplicity did not douse the fire inside her.
Jace’s eyes glittered with anger and something else that made Eleanor’s pulse accelerate when he released his grip on her fingers curled around the door handle and slid his hand beneath her chin.
‘Do you think I am pretending now?’ he growled. His free hand captured hers and held it against his chest so that she felt the hard thud of his heart.
The warmth of his body through his shirt evoked a flood of heat between her thighs. Her bra felt too tight, her nipples scraping against the lace cups. But she couldn’t—wouldn’t—surrender to his expert seduction again.
‘It was all a game to you,’ she choked.
‘This was real.’ His stark voice sent a shiver through her. She watched his head descend and knew she should move away from him. But another instinct as old as the story of Eve kept her standing there, waiting, willing him to close the gap between them and claim her mouth with his.
Her lips unconsciously parted and she heard his breathing quicken. The air was heavy with sexual tension. But could she believe the hunger in Jace’s eyes, or was it a continuation of the cruel game he’d started a year ago?
From outside, a clap of thunder shook the windows and shattered the fraught silence in the room. Eleanor blinked and realised that it was almost dark in Jace’s office. A sudden white flash of lightning momentarily illuminated his tall figure, but his expression was hidden from her and he was a stranger.
With a low cry, she snatched her hand from his silk shirt stretched across his chest. ‘I won’t marry you. I won’t. You can have fifty per cent of the Pangalos, and I’ll appoint a new manager to take Mark’s place so that I never have to see you again.’
This time when she grabbed the handle and opened the door, he did not try to stop her from leaving. She fought the urge to run along the corridor to the lift. When she stepped inside, before the doors closed, she looked back towards Jace’s office and felt no surprise that he had not followed her. All he wanted was part ownership of the Pangalos, but she would not sign over the deeds until she had it in black and white that he would cancel her brother’s debts.
* * *
To avoid the complicated one-way traffic system in Thessaloniki, Eleanor had parked her car a few streets away from Zagorakis Estates’ office building. Thunder rumbled overhead as she hurried along the pavement where café owners were scrambling to carry chairs and tables inside before the furniture was blown over by the ferocious wind. Towering dark clouds obliterated the sun and the sky had turned a strange sulphur-yellow colour.
The rain started with the suddenness of a tap being turned on, and within minutes she was soaked to the skin. Cursing her high heels, she kicked off her shoes and carried them in her hand as she ran along the street. A sleek silver sports car drew up alongside her and the window slid down. Eleanor glanced at Jace behind the wheel and ran faster.
‘Eleanor, get in the car.’ He swore and drove on past her, stopping at a junction directly in her path. He leaned across and opened the passenger door.
‘Go away!’ Eleanor shouted at him over the howl of the wind.
‘Theos! Get in the damned car!’
Hailstones mixed with the rain lashed her skin. She saw Jace’s thunderous expression and decided that it was safer to obey him.
‘Put your seatbelt on,’ he growled when she had shut the door. Shivering, Eleanor complied, and Jace drove off. The smell of rain from her clothes and dripping-wet hair permeated the car and, looking down, she saw that her dress was clinging to her breasts. Conscious of Jace glancing at her, she folded her arms in front of her to hide her jutting nipples. He muttered something beneath his breath and switched on the car’s heater.
‘My car is not far from here,’ she told him stiffly.
‘There are reports of flash flooding on the highway, and you can’t make the two-hour journey back to Sithonia in wet clothes. I’ll take you to my house so that you can dry off.’ Without giving her a chance to argue, he continued, ‘Why did you run off like that when the storm was about to break?’
Eleanor wondered if he was referring to the weather phenomenon or the tempest that had brewed between them in his office. ‘I can’t marry you,’ she muttered.
‘Is that because you have a romantic ideal of what marriage should be?’
Stung by his cynicism, she said defensively, ‘I believe in marrying for love. My grandparents were married for fifty years before Nanna Francine died. My parents were happily married, and the only thing that made their deaths more bearable was knowing they were together at the end.’
She was aware of Jace’s brooding gaze on her before he turned his attention back to the road. The driving conditions were terrible, and the windscreen wipers could hardly cope with the heavy rain.
‘I remember you mentioned that your parents died in an accident when you were a child.’
‘They were on a second honeymoon to celebrate their twentieth wedding anniversary. Someone noticed my mother get into difficulties while she was swimming in the sea. Dad went to help her, and they were both swept away by the strong current. Their bodies were found washed up on a beach two days later.’
‘It was tough to lose one parent when I was a teenager and I can only imagine how devastating it must have been when you were orphaned.’ The gruff sympathy in Jace’s voice curled around Eleanor’s heart.
‘Mark struggled the most to come to terms with what happened. He didn’t get on with my grandfather.’
‘But you did, presumably, and that’s why Kostas made you his heir.’
Eleanor sighed. ‘He was quite controlling, and my brother and sister were argumentative, so there were clashes. I think Pappoús liked me because I tended to agree with him to keep the peace.’
She had spent much of her childhood feeling that she was a disappointment to her parents because of her scoliosis. After they had died, she’d realised that she could win her grandfather’s approval and affection by being obedient and amenable.
Sometimes it felt as if she had spent her whole life trying to please people, Eleanor thought. It had not been her choice to be made her grandfather’s heir and have the responsibility of Gilpin Leisure thrust upon her. And now, to save the Pangalos and her brother, Jace had demanded that she must marry him. But it would be a fake marriage, just as their romance a year ago had been fake, on his side at least.
She was jolted from her thoughts when Jace drove through a set of cobalt-blue iron gates and stopped in front of a whitewashed villa, built in the Cycladic style synonymous with the architecture of the Aegean islands. Through the torrential rain, Eleanor saw that the house resembled a series of cubes with flat roofs and arched windows framed by shutters of brilliant blue.
