by Lynne Graham
Skilled at handling difficult patients, Dottie had come to nurse Trixie at a time when Prudence was struggling to cope. Within weeks, Dottie and her husband had become keen volunteers at the sanctuary. But soon after Trixie’s death, Sam had had a stroke and Dottie had been unable to work. The kindly couple had got into financial difficulty through no fault of their own and that was when Prudence had extended a helping hand. Her generosity had been repaid a hundred times over and Sam’s health had improved steadily but the older man would never recover full mobility. The Trents would be utterly devastated if they lost their home for a second time.
Prudence got back to the farm just in time for the estate agent’s visit. When he told her what he believed the property would fetch on the open market, she was appalled: it was an amount as far out of her reach as the stars. Even so, she made an appointment with her bank for the following day so that she could find out if there was any way she could borrow the money. She was informed that she had no assets to offer as security and that she did not earn enough to meet the payments. The loan officer at the building society she approached was equally deflating.
Her heart sank and her pride cringed as it slowly and painfully dawned on her that the only person she could turn to for help was Nik. Before she could lose her nerve, she rang him.
‘I need to see you…urgently!’ she confided in a rush.
His lean, strong face etched in forbidding lines, Nik surveyed the newspaper spread out on his desk and the grainy photo of his wife holding hands with her very good friend, Leo. ‘In relation to what?’
Prudence worried at her lower lip. ‘I’ve had a bit of a shock. I’m in a serious fix. Would you consider giving me a loan? You’d probably have to stretch the payments over about a hundred years,’ she warned him apprehensively.
‘Explain…’ Interest had sparked like a hot flame in his brooding dark gaze.
‘If I can’t buy Craighill, the sanctuary will have to close and I don’t know where the animals will go…You see, I don’t have the right to live there that I thought I had. Grandfather is selling the farm over my head,’ she told him unevenly.
Nik sprang upright and his smile was colder than ice. Thank you, Theo. Homeless animals-just what he needed as a lever; he was back on track again. He absorbed the remainder of her explanation without interruption. ‘OK. I can fly down tomorrow morning but it’ll be very early.’
Nik’s helicopter landed at seven.
Her heart thumping fast behind her breastbone, Prudence watched him stride towards her. Two sleepless nights in succession had lowered her resistance level to his sensational dark good looks. Lean, bronzed features serious, he didn’t smile, however, and that spooked her. Even had she not been painfully aware of just how much was riding on his response to her request, his demeanour would have warned her that success was by no means a foregone conclusion. A little frisson of apprehension slivered through her tense frame.
‘Would you like coffee?’
‘No, thanks. I can only stay half an hour. I have to be in Athens by early afternoon,’ Nik drawled smoothly, looking at the way her pink top defined the luscious swell of her breasts, remembering, then hastily shutting down on that imagery as his body reacted with extraordinary enthusiasm. He didn’t look back at her until he felt colder than ice.
‘Right…well…you might as well see this…’ Prudence handed the eviction notice to him and started talking very fast about what the solicitor had told her the day before.
‘You explained the situation yesterday.’
‘I don’t understand how my own grandfather can do this to me,’ she confessed unhappily.
‘Theo’s a bad loser…as I fall into the same category, it would be unwise for me to pass comment.’
Prudence collided unwarily with a look from Nik that was as dark and cool as the sky at midnight. ‘But you wouldn’t be callous and cruel like that!’
‘Let’s treat this as a business transaction,’ Nik suggested.
Prudence went pink and accepted the return of the papers she had pressed on him. ‘The bank won’t give me a loan.’
‘Of course they won’t. The very fact that you had to approach them, rather than me, would look bad.’
Prudence heaved a sigh. ‘Yes, I did get that message. My solicitor seemed to assume I would just be able to buy the farm-’
‘Which, of course, you would have been able to do…had you ever accepted the allowance I tried to give you-’
‘But I don’t want you to give me money,’ Prudence pointed out hastily. ‘That would be wrong. I want to borrow it from you-’
‘You said that the property is on the market for seven hundred thousand pounds. Nobody in their right mind would saddle you with a debt you have no current prospect of repaying-’
‘If you gave me a long enough time-’
‘No,’ Nik incised without hesitation. ‘I won’t do it.’
Bemused, for he had so frequently made generous offers of financial assistance over the years, Prudence frowned. ‘Then…what will you do?’
‘This is painful,’ Nik told her drily. ‘Let me be frank. Unless you agree to stay as my wife, I won’t do anything.’
In shock, Prudence stared across the room at him. ‘You don’t mean that…’
‘This is why I refuse to criticise Theo…we are both strong men who like our own way and we don’t do failure well.’
‘Nik…you’re not like my grandfather.’
‘I’m willing to employ pressure and coercion to make you do what I want,’ Nik pointed out drily.
Prudence shook her head slowly, surely. ‘No, you wouldn’t…’
Chilling dark eyes met hers with unflinching challenge. ‘What would you know? You’ve never crossed me before. I told you that I didn’t want a divorce.’
‘I’ve always been able to depend on you,’ Prudence reminded him doggedly.
‘Not this time. Our interests are in conflict-’
‘What about Dottie and Sam?’
Nik executed a tiny fluid shrug and surveyed her steadily.
‘All the animals?’ Prudence asked with shattered incredulity. ‘Many of them are too old or difficult to be rehomed.’
‘I know.’
‘You would sacrifice the animals?’
‘No, you will. There will be no sacrifices if you decide to remain my wife.’
Prudence lifted her hand and raked her fingers through the heavy fall of her chestnut-brown hair. Her hand was not quite steady. She was starting to recall the reality that she had never managed to match Nik’s public image with the male she knew privately. Or the male that she believed that she had known and understood. He was quite correct: she had never crossed him-well, not until she had asked for a divorce that he did not want. His ruthless reputation in business was legendary. He was not exactly a pussycat with the other women in his life either. He might have treated her and the women in his family with indulgence, but beyond that select circle Nik was most famous for being cold and unfeeling.
She clenched her hands tight. ‘I owe Dottie and Sam a lot. I promised them a secure home, and Sam’s health will suffer if he’s subjected to more stress. And although the animals here might not be human beings…if anything was to happen to them I think I would die of guilt and a broken heart…’
‘So stop fighting me and every little problem will vanish,’ Nik advised softly. ‘As long as you are my wife, I will take care of you and your enemies will be mine.’
Gooseflesh prickled at the nape of her neck. His eyes were as dark as windows at night, his dark, rich drawl strikingly detached. She fought off the hollow sensation of fear in her belly. ‘I could put off the divorce-’
‘No, all or nothing-’
‘Well, it wouldn’t matter now whether I divorced you or not, would it?’ Prudence threw back with a bitterness that was new to her experience. ‘I’m certainly not going to be having a child without some degree of financial stability. I hope I have more sense. If I drop the div
orce, will you be satisfied? Will you loan me the money then?’
‘All or nothing,’ Nik reminded her lazily. ‘I want my wife in my bed, where she belongs…’
Her cheeks fired pink. Her hands screwed up into fists. She regarded him with furious disbelief. ‘Rot in hell!’
His lush black lashes were low over his stunning dark golden eyes. ‘I’m an old-fashioned guy,’ he murmured with insolent cool. ‘I’d have had you there a lot sooner, had I known that the wedding night was a non-event.’
‘It was too late even then-’
‘I don’t think so. I’m told I have remarkable powers of persuasion. Had I not been haunted by the fear that I had put myself beyond the pale, you wouldn’t have been calling the independent shots all these years,’ Nik delivered, lean, powerful features stamped with forbidding strength. ‘You’re my wife and I have never thought of you as anything else-’
‘A poor thing…but my own?’ she misquoted hotly.
‘Mine…that’s the one part you got right. What is mine stays mine-’
‘I will not be your wife…ever!’
‘Your decision.’ Nik strolled out of the room and it was a split-second before Prudence unfroze and chased after him.
‘You can’t leave me like this!’ she wailed.
Nik tilted his arrogant dark head back, brilliant eyes gleaming. ‘I can do whatever I want to do.’
‘If you don’t take back what you’ve suggested, I’ll never forgive you for it…’
‘That’s a risk I’m prepared to take.’
‘I could take you to court and claim alimony from you, and you would be forced to give me some financial help,’ she protested.
‘But the legal process would move very, very slowly and you don’t have the time to wait,’ Nik countered with cool clarity.
Her shoulders slumped. ‘So you think it’s OK to kick me when I’m already down?’
Ice in his hard gaze, Nik studied her, his beautifully sculpted mouth grim. ‘You’re the only woman I’ve ever asked to marry me. To listen to you speak of our marriage as though it is some form of abuse is intolerable. I treated you with honour-’
‘This is not honour I’m dealing with!’
Nik reached into his pocket and withdrew a piece of paper. He tossed it down on the hall table. ‘If you want to be treated with honour, behave like a wife!’ he launched at her lethally.
Prudence stared down, transfixed, at the newspaper photo of her with Leo in the London restaurant. That snatched picture had actually appeared in print? Leo would be equally appalled by that development. She was astonished, too, at how misleading an impression a photo could give. There she was, seemingly holding hands with Leo, and her tears were not visible. She simply appeared to be looking at her companion with intense interest. Her lips parted on the hail of words that would have assured Nik that Leo was truly only a friend. Then she remembered the scrapbooks of Nik’s love affairs and her heart hardened to the consistency of a granite rock. Folding her lush mouth firmly shut, she said nothing. So Nik didn’t like it when the tables were turned? Tough!
Nik waited for her to utter a denial and an explanation. He knew she would not lie to him. When the rushing silence continued, he felt strangely light-headed and hollow and thinking was suddenly a challenge. And then bang, those weird sensations were gone, and in their place was a primitive corrosive anger that made it impossible for him even to look at her.
‘You have twenty-four hours to make a decision-’
‘Twenty-four hours?’ she echoed in consternation.
‘You don’t understand, do you?’ Nik swung lithely back to face her again, lean, strong face hard with resolve, dark eyes chilling. ‘Even if I come to the rescue, Craighill Farm will no longer be your home. You can’t stay here.’
Prudence frowned uncertainly. ‘Even if you come to the rescue? But you said-’
‘Think it through.’ His dark drawl was abrasive. ‘Theo will not let me buy this place for you. He’ll be waiting for me to try. He won’t sell to me and he’s too devious to fall for a fake buyer. I have to find you and your dependants somewhere else to live.’
Prudence was struggling to get her head around the extremely unpalatable facts he was spelling out. ‘Somewhere else? For all of us?’ she exclaimed. ‘But that would be impossible-’
‘A tall order in this time-frame, but not impossible. If I throw enough money and personnel at the problem, I can do it. I will do it for you.’
Disturbingly conscious of his sheer height and breadth, Prudence was very tense. He was so close she could have touched him and she was appalled by the strength of her craving to do exactly that. She had suffered too many shocks recently, and at the back of her mind had still dwelt the comforting conviction that Nik would pull off a miracle and make everything perfect again. Now he was telling her that no, that wasn’t possible and the situation was even worse than she appreciated. Even with his support she would still have to move out of Craighill Farm. Her head was starting to ache, pointless thoughts whirling round in ever-decreasing circles. But one thought remained crystal-clear.
‘If you force me to be your wife on those terms, you’ll lose my trust forever,’ she warned him fiercely.
Nik rested dark golden eyes of challenge on her. ‘Sometimes there isn’t a choice. Just as this is the only way I have of ensuring that our marriage has a future. You now know that you’ll accept my offer, because it’s the only one on the table.’
Prudence studied the wall and trembled with temper and resentment. But she gritted her teeth together to bite back hasty words of defiance. As usual he was right on target. He was her only option and there was no time to waste.
‘All right, so for what it’s worth and even though it’s very hard to see what you could possibly get out of such an arrangement…I’ll…be…your…wife.’ Forced out, her gritty words of surrender ricocheted off her tongue like individual bullets.
His big, powerful frame tensing at the return of that strange light-headed sensation, Nik was startled into questioning if he had caught some virus. His eyes narrowing, he kept his entire attention pinned to her and breathed in slow and deep. ‘You will never regret it.’
‘I hate you now…is that really what you want?’
Nik cast a flashing glance through the open doorway behind her through which he could see the crisp white and pink linen on her bed. His taut body throbbed with sexual heat and hunger: he knew exactly what he wanted. She didn’t hate him, she couldn’t hate him; he refused to accept that. His smouldering dark golden gaze shimmied down over her mutinous face to rest on her luscious mouth, then travelled from there to the tantalising fullness of her pouting breasts, where he lingered before passing on with assurance to the highly feminine swell of her hips below her small waist.
‘Don’t you dare look me over like I’m something on a butcher’s block!’ Prudence launched at him in a tempest of fury and mortification.
‘You’re my wife…it’s allowed. I also now know what a fantastic body you work so hard to hide beneath those clothes. I want you and I’m not ashamed to admit it.’ Nik scored a lean forefinger along the ripe curve of her lower lip and watched her shiver as though she were standing up to storm-force winds. ‘How long are you planning to make me wait?’
Prudence reddened to the roots of her hair. On a level she was reluctant to explore she was sinfully willing to hear that she could be an ongoing object of desire for him. ‘Stop it,’ she told him primly.
‘I can’t.’
Prudence could feel her own weakness rising like a tide inside her. She wanted him, too, she acknowledged; she wanted him to an indecent degree. Rage and self-loathing tearing at her like vengeful claws, Prudence dragged her gaze from the earthy desire in his, forced her trembling legs to move in the direction of the door and then yanked it open. ‘I will start behaving as a wife when I am in my new home and not before then.’
‘You’re kidding me…’ Nik breathed in a raw undertone of rampant inc
redulity.
Prudence could feel something that felt uncommonly like a power current leaping through her. He really did lust after her, she conceded in astonishment. It was incomprehensible to her, but the high-voltage charge of his white-hot sexuality was focused on her like a blowtorch. He wasn’t used to anything other than instant gratification either. Waiting would indeed be a new and challenging experience for him.
Prudence drew herself up to her full insignificant height, feeling very much taller than she usually did. ‘No, I’m not kidding you.’
Nik surveyed her with smouldering disbelief. ‘We made a deal-’
‘When you’ve fulfilled your part of the bargain by finding us all somewhere else to live, I will fulfil mine,’ Prudence stated tautly.
His strong jaw line hardened. ‘Do you doubt my ability to keep my promise?’
Prudence jerked a stiff shoulder. ‘No, but I’m being forced into this and I won’t pretend otherwise. I won’t behave like your wife until I have to. I don’t even feel married-’
‘But you will, I assure you,’ Nik sliced in, soft and low and lethal, his Greek accent feathering over every syllable with purring exactitude. ‘Give me time.’
In shock at the agreement she had given, Prudence stared into space for a long time after he had gone. That was that, then. She was finally going to get to be Mrs Angelis years after she had stopped weaving dreams round the idea. This time around, however, she had few illusions. Even so, the discovery that Theo Demakis and Nik Angelis were brothers under the skin had shattered Prudence. Only now was it dawning on her that Nik must always have been tough and unemotional. Indeed, those very qualities might well have persuaded her grandfather that Nik Angelis would make the right kind of son-in-law. She had just learnt the hard way that, when it came to getting what he wanted, Nik was as ruthless and cold-blooded as his reputation implied.
But perhaps Nik needed to learn that a wife was not as easily controlled as an employee or an inanimate object, she reflected tautly. Perhaps he needed to learn that she could fight back and be every bit as strong and dispassionate as any man could be. In fact, if she played her cards right, Nik might even be glad to give her a divorce by the time she had finished with him…