The Greek's Penniless Cinderella

by Julia James

  This will work! And it will work infinitely better than the marriage I was prepared to undertake with Ariadne! Because what made me so reluctant about Ariadne was the prospect of a permanent marriage! Of tying myself to her...having children! Losing my freedom.

  But the marriage that was racing through his head now would be quite different! It would be win-win both for him and Stavros’s downtrodden English daughter!

  He set it out rapidly and concisely—frankly—in a cool, clear, businesslike manner.

  ‘We marry—without delay—so your father will finally give the go-ahead I’m seeking and commit to the merger. Thereafter it will take about half a year for the merger to be completed. There are legal aspects, financial checks, due diligence, staffing issues, regulatory conditions that must be met.’ He reeled off the list. ‘As well as organisational conditions that I want to put in place. These things are seldom simple and never speedy. So we stay married for the duration and then—and only then—when the merger is irreversible, and I have what I want...’

  His expression changed.

  ‘Then we simply divorce and go our separate ways. The payoff for me is that I get the merger I want—it’s ideal for my business—and you...’ He drew a breath. ‘You get a handsome divorce settlement from me by way of a thank-you for enabling me to get my business merger. You can pick up your life again—go back to England, do whatever you want.’

  He took another breath, levelling his eyes intently on her, making her understand what he was promising her.

  ‘You will never know poverty again.’

  His eyes didn’t let hers go. He was willing her to see what he was seeing. Willing her to agree. To say yes.

  And even as he waited for her reaction he knew, with a searing awareness that he had been trying to silence ever since his car had glided to a halt beside her bowed figure, storming away from the Coustakis mansion with her hopeless dreams in tatters, that there was a whole other reason why he had proposed what he had.

  His eyes rested on her...on the beauty that had been revealed to him...the beauty he could not now forget. Could not pass by...

  There was a truth about her he could not deny—a truth that had been blazing in him like a fire that could not be quenched. It was flaring again now, as she sat opposite him, gazing at him incredulously with those luminous wide-set grey-green eyes, so incredibly beautiful...

  I want her—I desire her. Since the moment she revealed her amazing beauty to me in all its radiance I have known that. I thought I had to ignore it, suppress it, because I refused to play Stavros’s infernal games! But if she can be persuaded to what I am urging her now... I can indulge in my desire for her! She can be mine!

  Six months, he’d said. Well, that was all his amours ever lasted anyway. After that they always burned out, became stale and tedious. No woman he’d desired had ever lasted longer and he preferred it that way—he freely admitted that.

  Six months would get him everything he wanted! It would guarantee a business merger that would double the Lakaris fortune, just as his father had intended, and, as a sweetener like no other, this stunningly beautiful woman he could not take his eyes from would be his for the duration.

  What more could he possibly want?

  The question was rhetorical—the answer was blazing in his head.

  All he needed was her agreement, and his eyes willed her to give him the answer he sought...

  * * *

  Rosalie heard what he was saying—heard his words, though she could scarcely credit them—but it was the last of them that was echoing in her head as he fell silent.

  ‘You will never know poverty again.’

  She swallowed. Looked about her. The swish restaurant they were lunching at was filled now with diners, all well heeled. Waiters hovered discreetly, taking orders for the delicious gourmet food that was the everyday fare of those who frequented places like this.

  She shifted position in her chair, feeling the soft fabric of the outfit she was wearing—remembered the price tag that had been on it. It would have been as impossible for her to buy on her cleaning wages as buying a villa in the Caribbean...

  Memory plunged through her of the last two days...the night she’d spent at that five-star London hotel, the luxury and the lavishness of it all. The fortune it had cost.

  Her eyes went back to the man sitting opposite her with his unreadable expression, waiting for her response.

  She looked at the superb cut of his business suit easing across his broad shoulders, the silk tie, the gold tiepin, the svelte look of sleek, expensive grooming about him...thought back to the low, lean car he’d driven her here in, with its famous logo on the bonnet and the deep soft leather bucket seats she’d sunk into. Thought back to the flight in first class she’d taken to Athens, the non-stop champagne, the hovering flight attendants, the very lap of luxury...

  She’d tasted that world—that luxury—glimpsed like a tantalising marsh-light what might have been hers had her father been the kind of father she’d woven such futile hopes and longings around...

  But because those hopes and longings had crashed and burned, all she could do now was go back to London—back to the life she had there...all she’d ever have.

  A sick feeling of dread and deep reluctance filled her.

  Can I face it? Can I truly face it? Once my anger and my hurt and my outrage have worn off? Once I’m back in that dump of a bedsit, listening to the addicts and the drunks in the other bedsits? Hearing the endless traffic in the street, smelling the damp in the walls...spending my days slogging to clean up other people’s filth and my nights trying to stay awake to study, because study is the only hope I have of escaping from the life my father’s callousness has condemned me to...

  The grim, bleak life she would be condemned to again.

  Unless...

  CHAPTER SIX

  SHE FELT HER hands clench in her lap. Made herself look at the man who had just said what he had said. His eyes were resting on her, his expression veiled. He was waiting for her to answer him.

  ‘So,’ Alexandros Lakaris said, his voice level, eyes resting on her still, ‘what do you say?’

  She couldn’t answer him. Not yet. Too much was in her head. He seemed to realise that, because his expression changed, became less intent. He was backing off. Giving her space.

  She saw him sit back, pour himself more coffee.

  ‘It’s a lot to take in—for both of us.’

  There was a smoothness in his voice now, and the slightest masking of the expression in his amazingly dark deep eyes. Eyes which she was all too aware she just wanted to go on gazing into, despite all the tumult in her beleaguered mind.

  How easy it would be, she found herself thinking, just to go on looking into them...letting all the stormy emotions twisting inside her subside, letting herself just fall into that dark, gold-flecked gaze...

  How tempting...

  But he was continuing, easing his shoulders, reaching for his refilled coffee cup. ‘So what I suggest is this. Don’t rush back to London just yet. Stay tonight, at the very least, in Athens. I’ll book you into a hotel at my expense,’ he emphasised, ‘because it’s only fair that you have enough time to think about your answer.’

  He drained his coffee and got to his feet, holding out his hand to her. ‘Come—let’s get some fresh air. A stroll by the sea will do us both good.’ His mouth twisted wryly. ‘It’s been a strenuous two days—and an emotional roller coaster for you.’

  She let him draw her up, because it seemed easier to do so, let him fold her hand into the crook of his arm and pat it with brief reassurance. He led her out of the restaurant, pausing only to settle the bill with a flick of a gold-trimmed credit card. Then they were out on the pavement, and he was guiding her across the road to the seafront.

  The warm sun was like a blessing on her, and she felt its benedict
ion on her confused, exhausted emotions as they strolled along.

  Alexandros Lakaris was pointing out a couple of islands visible out to sea, mentioning how the bay had once, in Athens’s Classical Golden Age, been the scene of the famous battle of Salamis against Persian invaders, telling her about Greece’s struggles so long ago.

  Rosalie listened, glad of the diversion from her turbid thoughts and emotions, finding herself interested in what he was saying. She knew so little about Greece, ancient or modern...

  But it’s my heritage—just as much as my English heritage! A heritage I’ve been denied. And even if my father is a man to deplore and be ashamed of, that doesn’t mean I have to reject everything about this side of me!

  She felt her gaze flick from the seascape to the man at her side, as they strolled along the promenade in the afternoon warmth. Strolling along as if they were already a couple...

  But it’s absurd what he’s suggested, isn’t it? Surely it is?

  Her thoughts swirled within her, impossible to make sense of. All she knew right now was that somehow, and she did not know how, it seemed to be so very easy, so very relaxed, to be walking along like this, in a leisurely fashion, with his tall figure beside her matching his steps to hers.

  He took them to the start of the marina.

  ‘Do you have a yacht?’ Rosalie heard herself asking, looking at all the boats bobbing on the water.

  He shook his head. ‘A dinghy,’ he said. ‘I keep it moored at Kallistris.’

  ‘Kallistris?’

  ‘My island.’

  Rosalie’s eyes widened. ‘Your island? You have an island? A whole island to yourself?’

  He looked amused. ‘It’s a very small island,’ he said. ‘But it is my favourite place on earth.’

  His expression changed and she lifted her eyes to his. There had been emotion in his voice—deep emotion.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ she heard herself say.

  They resumed their stroll, walking along the edge of the quay on old cobbles, near the water lapping and slapping against the hulls of the moored yachts.

  ‘It’s reachable by helicopter and I go there whenever I can,’ Alexandros Lakaris was saying.

  His voice warmed with fond affection—she could hear it. ‘There’s very little on it. Goats, mostly! And an old fisherman’s cottage by the beach, done up as a villa now. There’s a smallholding inland, where Panos and Maria live—they look after the place for me. It’s very peaceful.’

  ‘It sounds lovely,’ Rosalie said wistfully.

  A whole island all to yourself, set in this azure sea, beneath this golden sun... A world, a universe away from the squalid back streets of the East End.

  ‘So, what would you like to do now?’ Alexandros Lakaris was asking her as they reached the far side of the quay. ‘Shall we go for a drive? And then back into Athens?’

  She gave a nod. It was easier to let him make the decisions, easier to go with the flow.

  Maybe it would be sensible to spend one more night here. To at least think over what he’s thrown at me.

  Was it really as absurd as it sounded? When the alternative was so grim... When she’d had a brief, tantalising taste of the kind of luxurious life she could enjoy for months and months if she went with what he’d so extraordinarily suggested.

  And at the end of those months she could go back to England with the divorce settlement he was promising her after he’d got the merger he wanted.

  Into her head sprang visions of the kind of life she could lead if she did not have to go back to the bleak, exhausting slog she’d come from.

  I could get out of London! Move to the country or a beautiful cathedral town! Or even the seaside. Make a completely new life for myself! A life of my own choosing.

  The vision hovered in her head. So incredibly tempting...

  They reached the car and he opened the passenger door for her. As he did so, he paused, frowning, as if something had just struck him.

  ‘Where is your luggage? All the clothes you bought?’

  Rosalie’s face hardened as she got into her seat and he did likewise, gunning the powerful engine.

  ‘I left them,’ she said. ‘And I wish to God I didn’t have to wear this outfit either! I’ll be sending it back to him from London.’

  She heard Alexandros Lakaris say something in Greek. She thought he must be swearing, so perhaps that was just as well.

  ‘I’ll have them fetched for you,’ he said, his face grim with displeasure as he moved off into the roadway. He turned to her. ‘Would it persuade you to keep them if you knew that in fact it was me who paid for them? I was going to charge them to your father, but in the circumstances...’

  ‘I can’t accept them from you either!’ Rosalie exclaimed hotly. ‘How could you think I would?’

  ‘If you accept my proposal, then of course you can,’ he replied. ‘In fact,’ he went on, ‘you’ll need many more.’ He glanced across at her and there was that glint in his eye again. It did things to her that it shouldn’t. ‘As my wife,’ he said, ‘you would be superbly dressed...’

  She made a face, trying not to see herself let loose in yet more gorgeous designer departments. ‘Is that supposed to persuade me?’ she posed.

  ‘Will it?’ he countered.

  She shook her head. ‘I mustn’t let it,’ she answered in a low voice, looking down at her lap. She gave a sigh, then looked at him straight, took a breath. ‘Mr Lakaris, if—’

  He cut her off with a frown. ‘I think we have gone long beyond the stage of formal address,’ he said wryly. ‘My friends,’ he went on, ‘call me Xandros.’

  ‘Well, whatever I call you,’ she persisted, ‘I have to be absolutely sure that I’m not...not...letting you buy me things. Expensive clothes. Expensive hotel rooms. Expensive meals, come to that...’

  He frowned. ‘You were happy enough to buy clothes when you thought your father was paying.’

  ‘That’s different—he’s my father. But you’d be—’

  ‘Your husband,’ he supplied. ‘And you, as I set out at lunchtime, would be my wife,’ he went on, and there was a crispness in his voice that she could hear clearly. ‘A wife who is enabling me to make a lot of money, thanks to this merger!’ He glanced at her briefly. ‘Does that reassure you at all?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ she said uneasily.

  ‘Good,’ he replied decisively. ‘And now...’ he changed gear and the powerful car shot forward, before settling into a fast cruising speed along the highway ‘...let’s put all that aside for the time being. Tell me—how do you fancy driving out to Sounion? There’s an ancient temple there, and a dramatic headland. Let me show you something of Greece. If a couture wardrobe can’t tempt you to marry me, maybe Greece will!’

  She heard humour in his voice, and he threw her a slanting smile.

  His eyes went back to the road ahead, but Rosalie’s did not do likewise. That brief smile, crinkling his eyes and curving his sculpted mouth, had made her stomach flip.

  Her gaze focussed on his strong, perfectly carved profile, the fine blade of his nose, the chiselled jaw, the faint furrow of concentration on his broad brow as he overtook a lorry and then eased his square long-fingered hands on the steering wheel again. She took in the breadth of his shoulders, the long, lean length of him—the whole incredible package of honed masculinity that was Alexandros Lakaris—and she was unable to tear her gaze away.

  She was helpless to stop her father’s jibing words echoing in her head.

  ‘You’d be the envy of every woman in Athens!’

  Galling though it was, how could she deny the truth of that jibing taunt her father had lanced at her? For she knew, with a burning consciousness, that when it came to temptation Alexandros Lakaris, all six feet of drop-dead gorgeousness, was in a league of his own...

  She dragged her thoughts
away, her eyes away.

  If they married on the terms he’d set out—if!—then that factor, above all, was not a good reason.

  In her head his words hovered again—his promise to her.

  ‘You will never know poverty again...’

  Temptation like an overpowering wave swept over her. She could marry this incredible-looking man, enjoy his wealth, revel in the lifestyle that would have been hers had her father not been as callous, as heartless, as despicable as he was. And she could walk away at the end of it all with a passport to a better life for herself.

  I could do it! I really could do it!

  But would she? That was the question she must answer.

  And it hung in her head like a burning brand.

  * * *

  Xandros glanced expectantly towards the entrance to the hotel’s rooftop restaurant. He’d phoned through to Rosalie’s room and she was on her way. He was glad she had accepted his suggestion that they have dinner together tonight, glad she’d let him book her into this hotel in central Athens, and glad that she hadn’t insisted, after all, on him driving her to the airport so she could fly back to London.

  And he was glad, above all, that at least she hadn’t blown his proposal out of the water.

  Because the more he considered it, the more ideal it became. In his head he ran through all the reasons why one more time as he took a sip from the gin-based cocktail he’d been served as he waited for Rosalie.

  Just as he’d told her that afternoon, all the financial reasons stacked up irrefutably. And so did his own personal reasons. Reasons that, as he caught sight of her hovering a little hesitantly at the restaurant entrance, seared across his retinas.

  His gaze was riveted on her as she walked towards him, guided by the maître d’.

  A swift phone call to the Coustakis mansion as they’d headed back from Sounion at the end of the afternoon had resulted in her two new suitcases full of designer clothes being delivered to the hotel by the time they reached it. And clearly, in the hours since she’d checked in, she’d taken her pick of the contents.