Proof 0f Their Forbidden Night (HQR Presents)

by Chantelle Shaw

  Forbidden, seduced...

  ...pregnant with his baby!

  Greek CEO Andreas Karelis knows seducing innocent Isla Stanford would be a huge mistake—she’s completely off-limits! But thrown together on an Aegean island paradise, neither can resist indulging in their illicit temptation...

  Long after she leaves, their sizzling encounter is seared on to Isla’s heart—because she’s carrying Andreas’s heir! Scarred by her own father’s rejection, Isla is determined to make Andreas claim his son. Meaning she must face a terrifying truth—she wants Andreas to claim her, too...

  “I should go.” Common sense dictated that Isla should leave but her feet refused to move. She should have run back to the villa the moment she spotted Andreas on the beach, Isla thought ruefully. Instead she had walked toward him, forgetting her loyalty to Stelios, compelled by a force, a need that was beyond her control.

  The truth was she was fascinated by him, and she swallowed audibly when he lifted his hand and smoothed a few damp strands of her hair off her face.

  “Stay until the storm has passed.” His voice was a low growl.

  Isla wasn’t sure if he meant the storm outside or the one that had simmered between them since they had been on the island. When he slowly lowered his head toward her, she couldn’t move, could hardly breathe. She wanted him to kiss her. There was no point pretending otherwise.

  Chantelle Shaw lives on the Kent coast and thinks up her stories while walking on the beach. She has been married for over thirty years and has six children. Her love affair with reading and writing Harlequin stories began as a teenager, and her first book was published in 2006. She likes strong-willed, slightly unusual characters. Chantelle also loves gardening, walking and wine!

  Books by Chantelle Shaw

  Harlequin Presents

  Acquired by Her Greek Boss

  Hired for Romano’s Pleasure

  The Virgin’s Sicilian Protector

  Reunited by a Shock Pregnancy

  Wed for the Spaniard’s Redemption

  Secret Heirs of Billionaires

  Wed for His Secret Heir

  Wedlocked!

  Trapped by Vialli’s Vows

  Bought by the Brazilian

  Mistress of His Revenge

  Master of Her Innocence

  The Saunderson Legacy

  The Secret He Must Claim

  The Throne He Must Take

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  Chantelle Shaw

  Proof of Their Forbidden Night

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  EXCERPT FROM THE GREEK'S DUTY-BOUND ROYAL BRIDE BY JULIA JAMES

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘WHAT DO YOU think of the news that Papa is engaged to the Ice Queen? Isla has hooked her claws into him, make no mistake.’

  Andreas Karelis came to an abrupt halt a few feet away from the helicopter which had brought him to his family’s privately owned island, Louloudi, and stared at his sister, who had run across the garden to meet him. Nefeli’s shrilly furious voice had risen above the whomp-whomp of the slowing rotor blades.

  From the air the island, partially covered with a cedar forest and olive groves, resembled an emerald set amid the azure Aegean Sea. Andreas’s happiest boyhood memories were of running free on Louloudi, away from his parents’ expectations of the Karelis heir. He owned houses in California and the French Riviera and a penthouse apartment in Athens, but Louloudi was the only place he thought of as home.

  ‘I have heard nothing from Stelios,’ he said curtly and his sister’s eyes widened. Usually Andreas kept a tight control over his feelings and no one, not even Nefeli, who was the only person he was at all close to, knew what he was thinking. But he disliked surprises, good or bad, and this was definitely the latter.

  ‘I thought Papa might have phoned you. He dropped the bombshell when I arrived.’ Nefeli tossed her dark curls over her shoulders. She was petite with a volatile temperament—the opposite of Andreas, who owed his tall, athletic build to his Californian maternal grandmother and had learned early in his childhood to suppress his emotions. It was a lesson he had mastered with astonishing success.

  ‘A press statement will be released tomorrow to formally announce Papa’s engagement to Isla, but he wanted to share the news with his family first. God!’ Nefeli’s voice went up another octave. ‘She’s his housekeeper, and young enough to be his daughter. What is Papa thinking?’

  Andreas gave a careless shrug to hide his violent dislike of his father’s matrimonial plans. The strength of his reaction surprised him, and he reminded himself that Stelios was free to do as he pleased. There was no fool like an old fool, especially a widowed, elderly billionaire in thrall to a beautiful young woman, he thought sardonically.

  A restlessness gripped him as he visualised the woman who was now apparently Stelios’s fiancée. Isla Stanford was undeniably beautiful. An English rose with her spun-gold hair and creamy skin. But she had an untouchable air that Andreas would usually find off-putting. He preferred women who were sexually confident, which was why he had found his intense awareness of Isla on the few occasions that he had met her so puzzling.

  ‘Papa has brought her to Louloudi and she is to attend my birthday party at the weekend,’ Nefeli said sulkily. She slipped her hand through her brother’s arm as they walked towards the villa. ‘You will have to do something, Andreas.’

  ‘What do you suggest?’ His trademark lazy drawl with its blend of cynical amusement disguised his thoughts but his restless feeling intensified when Nefeli spoke again.

  ‘Why don’t you seduce her? I’m sure you could quite easily. Women always fall at your feet, and when Papa realises that the Ice Queen had only pretended to be interested in him for his money, he’ll get rid of her and everything will return to normal.’

  By normal Nefeli presumably meant that Stelios would revert to behaving like a man in his late sixties who should be preparing for his retirement instead of lusting after a blonde bimbo who saw cash signs when she looked at him. Except that Isla was not your average bimbo. It would make life a lot easier if she was, Andreas brooded.

  ‘I don’t want to risk getting frostbite,’ he quipped. He swore silently. It wasn’t that he had any objection to his father taking another wife. Just not her. Not Isla. Why couldn’t the old man marry a woman of a similar age to him? A comfortably plump widow who would share Stelios’s twilight years, rather than an ice-cool blonde with intelligent grey eyes and a Mona Lisa smile that drove Andreas to distraction.

  His thoughts flew back to eighteen months ago when he had been summoned to the house in Kensington which his father had purchased shortly after his wife’s death, some six months earlier. Stelios’s decision to move to London had been a surprise, and after Andreas had handed his rain-spattered jacket to the butler and been shown into the drawing room, he’d intended to ask why his father had chosen to live in a country with such an infernal climate.

  But his mind went blank and his gaze was riveted on the woman sitting close to Stel
ios on the sofa. Too damned close, had been Andreas’s first thought, followed by a strong urge to snatch her away from his father’s side. She rose to her feet, as graceful and supple as a ballerina, and slipped her hand beneath Stelios’s arm when he stood up. Her solicitousness as she hovered protectively next to his father had irked Andreas.

  ‘Andreas, finally you have found the time to pay me a visit.’

  Stelios’s greeting held a note of criticism which Andreas had come to expect, and he gritted his teeth as he stepped forwards to kiss his father’s cheek. ‘It is good to see you looking well, Papa.’

  In fact his father looked tired, but Andreas barely noticed and his attention was on the woman. Who was she? Stelios’s personal assistant perhaps? Her appearance gave no clue to her role in Stelios’s life. She was wearing a white dress with three-quarter-length sleeves and a softly flared skirt that fell to just below her knees. A narrow black belt around her slender waist and black patent stiletto-heeled shoes were elegant accessories. Her hair was the colour of pale honey, drawn back from her face and tied in a ponytail that reached halfway down her back. She looked as demure as a nun, but the curve of her full lips and her high, firm breasts suggested an understated sensuality.

  Andreas couldn’t take his eyes off her and he gave a jolt when his father said drily, ‘Allow me to introduce my housekeeper, Miss Stanford. Isla, this is my son, Andreas.’

  ‘I’m pleased to meet you,’ she murmured.

  Her voice made Andreas think of a cool mountain stream and at that precise moment he would have gladly jumped into an ice bath to put out the fire raging inside him.

  ‘The pleasure is mine, Miss Stanford.’ He had intended to sound sardonic, but the word pleasure hovered in the air, infusing his greeting with sensual heat and something that sounded to his own ears like a challenge. He noticed the faint flush of rose pink that stained her cheeks like the sweep of an artist’s brush over a white canvas. Her eyes widened a fraction and Andreas glimpsed his confusion mirrored in those grey depths.

  There was another emotion too. He recognised a flash of awareness, before her long eyelashes that were a few shades darker than her hair swept down and shut him out. Time juddered to a standstill. In the silence Andreas heard the harsh rasp of his breath and the unevenness of hers, but when she met his gaze again her expression was unreadable.

  She turned to Stelios. ‘I’ll go and make tea.’

  ‘Thank you, my dear.’ A look passed between the old man and his housekeeper that Andreas could not decipher. Irritation swept through him. When the hell had his father, a lifelong coffee addict, started drinking tea?

  ‘I prefer coffee,’ he said abruptly, earning a frown from Stelios.

  ‘Of course.’ Isla Stanford gave a perfunctory smile that made Andreas long to ruffle her composure. He wanted, badly, to discover if there was heat beneath her ice and if her lips would fit the shape of his as perfectly as he imagined.

  She stepped past him and her elusive perfume teased his senses. He watched the sway of her hips as she walked across the room and heard himself blurt out, ‘Would you like some help?’

  ‘I can manage, thank you.’ She sounded amused. Pausing in the doorway, she glanced back at him and her brows arched as she gave him a speculative look that made him feel like a wet-behind-the-ears schoolboy. ‘Or don’t you trust that I can make Greek coffee, Andreas?’

  The way she spoke his name in her soft English accent had made him want to growl like a predatory beast. Andreas hadn’t trusted her, and every time he had met Isla on subsequent visits to his father in London his instincts warned him that she was trouble. Now the news of Stelios’s engagement to the woman his sister had christened the Ice Queen proved that those instincts had been right.

  He followed Nefeli into the house, where the marble-lined entrance hall was blessedly cool after the heat outside. Andreas had left California sixteen hours ago. Admittedly, travelling by private jet was not arduous but he was looking forward to a leisurely shower and a drink. He was about to ask the butler Dinos to bring a whisky and soda to his room when his sister turned to him.

  ‘You had better hurry up and get changed. You’re later than expected. Papa has arranged a formal dinner party this evening to celebrate his engagement to Isla.’ She grimaced. ‘I can’t believe he is planning to marry her. He’s making a fool of himself. Can’t you think of anything that might make Papa see sense?’

  Nefeli’s plea stayed in Andreas’s mind when he entered his private suite of rooms and quickly showered, before he donned black suit trousers, a snowy white shirt and a black dinner jacket. He would have preferred to pull on a pair of old denim shorts and a T-shirt and stroll down to the beach, but instead he had to sit through a dinner party to mark his father’s betrothal. Theos! He glowered at his reflection in the mirror and raked his fingers through his unruly dark hair that moments ago he’d attempted to tame with a comb.

  He could in fact think of something that might make his father question his relationship with his erstwhile housekeeper who was now his fiancée. What if he were to reveal how Isla had come apart in his arms when he’d kissed her in London a month ago? Would Stelios be so keen to marry her?

  Andreas’s jaw clenched at the memory of Isla’s wild response to him—the way she had opened her mouth beneath his and made a husky moan when he’d thrust his tongue between her lips. With a frown he acknowledged that he had kissed Isla to satisfy his curiosity, but she had tested his control in a way he hadn’t expected. So much so that he had cut his trip to England short and flown back to California the next day.

  Had Isla set her sights on a bigger prize? Stelios was the head of Karelis Corp—the family-owned business which operated the largest oil refinery in Europe. The company also ran the biggest chain of fuel stations in Greece and had interests in shipping and banking. Andreas was the heir to the Karelis business empire but he was in no rush to take over from his father. He had carved out a career as a champion rider in the World Superbike league until a serious accident had forced him to retire from motorbike racing.

  Forcing his thoughts back to the present, Andreas muttered a curse and strode out of his suite. He paused in the corridor outside his father’s private apartment and knocked on the door. If he could have a conversation with Stelios and his new fiancée before dinner, he might have a clearer understanding of the reason for their surprise engagement. There was no reply, and after waiting for a few seconds he opened the door and glanced around the sitting room. The door leading to the bedroom was closed and the idea that Stelios was in there with Isla evoked a corrosive feeling in the pit of Andreas’s stomach.

  The bedroom door opened and, before he had time to retreat, the butler walked through to the sitting room. ‘I thought that my father and Miss Stanford might be here,’ Andreas explained.

  ‘Kyrios Stelios is downstairs in the salon. He asked me to fetch his glasses.’ Dinos lifted his hand, in which he held a spectacles case. ‘Miss Stanford’s room is next door but she is down in the salon with your father.’

  So Stelios and Isla were not sharing a bedroom at the villa, Andreas mused as he descended the marble staircase. It struck him as unusual behaviour for a couple who had announced their intention to marry. The whole situation of the sudden engagement was odd, especially as his father hadn’t mentioned his marriage plans at their last meeting a month ago.

  It was not his concern if Stelios made a fool of himself over his pretty young housekeeper, Andreas told himself. If he admitted that passion had flared between him and Isla, his father might not believe him, or might accuse him of trying to make trouble. Their relationship had never been close, especially after Stelios had been forced to choose between his wife and family, and his mistress.

  Andreas had been twelve when his father had admitted that he’d been seeing another woman in England and intended to leave his marriage for her. Andreas’s mother had been devastated,
and Andreas had vowed that he would never speak to his father again unless he dumped his mistress and returned to his wife and children. He’d hoped that by taking his mother’s side he would win her love, but she had continued to treat him with the same disinterest that she’d always shown him. His father had remained married but from then on he had been cool towards Andreas.

  Helia Karelis had died two years ago from an overdose of her sleeping pills. A tragic accident, the coroner had recorded, but Andreas was sure his mother had known what she was doing when she’d swallowed a handful of pills, just as he was sure she had never got over her husband’s affair, even though it had happened many years ago. Her unhappiness with her marriage had proved to Andreas the folly of falling in love. He avoided emotional dramas in the same way that any sane person would take precautionary measures against coming into contact with the Ebola virus.

  As for Isla, Andreas shrugged his shoulders. He couldn’t explain why he had come on to her like a teenager on a first date in London. It wasn’t his style and he was confident that when he met her again he would see her for the gold-digger he suspected she was. The way she had responded to his kiss with a sweet ardency that had almost made him believe she was inexperienced must have been an act, he told himself.

  He strode into the salon where pre-dinner cocktails were being served and stopped dead in his tracks. The room was full of guests—various relatives and, curiously, considering the dinner party was supposed to be a family gathering, several high-ranking representatives from the oil industry were present as well as members of Karelis Corp’s board of directors. There was a low hum of chatter, the clink of glasses on silver trays carried by the serving staff. But Andreas only saw Isla and his blood thundered in his ears.

  This was a different Isla to the decorous housekeeper he had met on previous occasions at his father’s house in Kensington. Tonight she was a lady in red—a sultry siren in clingy scarlet velvet, with sparkling jewels around her throat that drew his attention to the pale upper slopes of her breasts above the plunging neckline of her dress. Her blonde hair was swept up into a chignon to expose the delicate line of her neck. The scarlet gloss on her lips emphasised their fullness.