In a nifty move that left us all gasping yesterday, Greek tycoon Anton Pallis closed in on the new Kanellis heiress with a speed that left us in no doubt as to where the future prospects of the Kanellis fortune lie. If he’s not going to get the money by deed of succession, he’s determined to get control of it another way. If that means taking control of Zoe Kanellis at the same time, then why not? She’s young, she’s beautiful and, as the hot clinch shows, she’s already fallen for the handsome Greek to the point he had to carry her onto their flight to Greece. Next step wedding bells? Well, business is business, after all.
‘So much for you protecting us,’ Zoe whispered finally, while he continued to stand there like the grim reaper, doing and saying nothing at all. ‘Even they think you are a gold-digger.’
‘So it would seem,’ he responded impassively.
‘While I’m the brainless blonde bimbo who falls into your arms like a ripe plum.’ Impassive did not do it for Zoe; in sheer, angry frustration she ripped the page out of the newspaper with tight trembling fingers then screwed it into a tight ball and stood up, full of intent.
‘I wouldn’t if I were you,’ Anton drawled. ‘I will allow you to be angry with me and with them.’ He flicked a glance at her clenched fist. ‘Hurling missiles at me, however, is likely to earn a response.’
‘But this is all your fault!’ She hurled a verbal missile at him instead, the newspaper page still crushed in her fist while the rest of the rag lay in a spread of pages at her feet. ‘If you hadn’t—’
‘Kissed you?’
‘Kidnapped me and Toby. None of this would have happened!’
‘I love it that I seem to be the only one who lost their head in that clinch, agape mou,’ he said dryly. ‘While you were beating me off with a large stick, of course.’
Zoe remembered the kiss then. The hot, hungry urgency with which she’d fallen into it, the way she’d clung to him. ‘I was hysterical.’
‘Or something.’
‘I was hysterical!’ she repeated furiously. ‘You took advantage! In fact, you haven’t stopped taking advantage of me since you forced your way in through my front door.’
‘Forced? I recall no use of force.’
‘Well, you wouldn’t, being so damned arrogant,’ she muttered, turning away from his annoyingly controlled stance. ‘So what happens next?’ She instantly turned back to lance at him. ‘Do you deny all charges and demand a retraction and an apology?’
‘Dear God, no. That would only make the story run on.’
‘Then why have you come back here to face me with this?’ She would have been much happier left in blind ignorance.
‘Because your grandfather has seen the article,’ he said with such laconic calm Zoe shot up her chin to stare at him, only to realise her big mistake.
Until that second she had been studiously not looking directly into his face. It had been a case of plain and simple self-defence. Having to come in here and deal with the man she had all but begged to make love to her the night before had taken courage, in the form of mental blindness like he was an out-of-focus shape lurking in the shadows.
Only he wasn’t in the shadows. He was standing with the morning sun streaming in through the window to one side of him, throwing his staggering physical attraction into totally unfair relief: the black hair, the dark suit, the clean shaven skin. His overwhelming height and that other vital ingredient that made her lungs feel hot and her throat close up as she took it in—his sexuality, made all the more raw and rampant now that it was cloaked in all the daunting sophistication of his clothes and the impassive mask he had in place.
But she’d seen him naked. She’d felt him tremble in her arms. She knew how it felt to have him deep inside her and she’d witnessed how he felt when he’d lost all of that cool civility to the wild throws of orgasmic relief.
Heat flooded up her neck and into her cheekbones; she had a horrible feeling her eyes had turned black. He was stunningly, staggeringly beautiful. Even the sun loved him so much she found herself wondering how he would look standing there with no clothes on.
‘So, why should that be of interest to me?’ She threw the words at him, loaded down with an angst that came directly from what she was fighting against inside herself.
He arched a black satin eyebrow. ‘Even you cannot be that indifferent to a sick old man’s feelings.’
‘I don’t understand why he should have any feelings about the article one way or another,’ Zoe responded. ‘It isn’t any of his business what we were doing.’
He narrowed his eyes, and Zoe felt that awful fizz of awareness tingle her skin. He knew what she had been thinking a moment ago, she was sure of it.
‘At least you admit you were doing it too,’ was all that he said.
Unable to deny it, Zoe made herself stay silent. It was tougher though to make herself remain still when he decided to stride around the desk then squat down to gather up the rest of the newspaper where it lay on the floor after sliding off her lap when she’d jumped to her feet. The paper collected up, he rose to his full height again and placed it on the desk. When he reached out and took hold of her clenched fist, she almost bit through her tongue in an effort to control the urge not to jerk back from him.
Gently prising open her fingers, he took the balled-up sheet of newspaper from her and tossed it onto the desk as well. ‘OK,’ he said, still holding her hand. ‘If the histrionics are over, let’s see if we can talk this through calmly like adults.’
The implication that she was behaving like a child did not go down well, especially when Zoe knew it was partially the truth. ‘I don’t want to discuss my grandfather,’ she stated, trying to inch her hand back without it looking like she was desperate to do it.
‘However, I do,’ Anton countered. ‘But first, tell me how you are feeling today.’
That made her snatch her hand back. It also drove all the heat back into her cheeks. ‘If you’re referring to last night, then please don’t bother. I’m fine. You’re fine.’ She turned around and started walking for the door. ‘I will leave you to deal with Theo,’ she announced over her shoulder.
‘Are you absolutely sure you want me to do that?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’ Zoe gave a firm nod as she reached for the door knob.
‘Right,’ Anton said as she pulled the door open. ‘We will be married here on this island next week, then.’
CHAPTER NINE
ZOE froze like a statue. She didn’t breathe or blink.
‘In truth, I confess that I’m relieved you are being so sensible about this. I expected one hell of a fight from you, but I am not about to spoil the moment. It is so good to know you are willing to trust me again.’
His smoothly delivered speech hinted only at sarcasm, but it still slid like a shiver down her spine. Zoe slowly closed the door again. When she turned round to face him he was lounging back against the desk, elegant jacket elbowed back from his elegant shirt, elegant hands resting in his trouser pockets, elegant long legs stretched out in front of him.
‘You’re having me on,’ she said jerkily.
Not a single hint of humour—mocking or otherwise—showed in his darkly handsome, poker-faced expression. ‘I am truly surprised how people’s lives can alter with a blink of an eye,’ he mused curiously, ‘For there we both were, getting on with our independent lives with little chance of the two of us ever meeting face to face. Then I agree to do a favour for Theo and—’ he glanced at the face of his solid gold wristwatch ‘—twenty-four hours later, almost to the minute, and here we are lovers already and planning our forthcoming marriage.’
‘We are planning nothing.’ Zoe drew her fingers into her palms at her sides. ‘And we already did the marriage thing last night, if you recall,’ she slung back. ‘I let you off the hook. Take my advice, fly away in your jet plane again and stay off the hook.’
With that she turned back to the door again.
‘But I don’t want to stay off the hook,’ he t
raded, as smooth as rich cream. ‘I want us to marry in haste before the tabloids get wind of it. Don’t walk out of that door, Zoe,’ he warned then, very seriously. ‘This is far from finished just because you prefer it to be. We have other people to consider.’
‘If you’re talking about Theo …’
‘And your brother,’ he tagged on. ‘Plus all the other people out there who are reliant on the Kanellis and Pallis business empires remaining healthy and strong.’
Now he was injecting something new into this discussion that trickled a slither of ice down Zoe’s back. ‘What other people?’ she questioned warily.
‘Our shareholders,’ he provided. ‘Our subsidiary companies that rely on us for their business, and the thousands of individuals we employ between us across the globe. With Theo living in seclusion on his island, I have been the face of both companies for the last two years. I drive them, I keep them stable and strong.
She was listening even though she still faced the door, Anton noted grimly. Zoe Kanellis might want to hate everything her Greek grandfather represented, but she couldn’t bring herself to ignore what he was saying to her about everyone else involved.
‘During my two-year reign, it has been taken as a given that I would inherit from Theo one day, therefore it went without needing to be said that I must have a vested interest in maintaining his business fortunes. Then your story broke and both Pallis and Kanellis stock did a swan-dive into the pits of alarm. Panic hit the volatile stock markets. They feared the appearance of Theo’s relatives was about to put me out in the cold.’
‘And has it?’ The question was jerked from her but she still did not turn round to look at him.
‘That is for Theo to decide.’ Anton shrugged off that side of this discussion because it wasn’t important right now. ‘The thing is, Zoe, when that article and its photographs appeared this morning our stock-price shot back up the market rankings like it had been rocket-propelled. Everyone loves a good, solid merger, and what could be more solid than a merger of marriage between you and I?’
Altering his stance, and his mood, Anton straightened up from the desk and began walking towards her. She looked like a trapped bird hovering helplessly in front of a solid object, he observed, holding on to his grim intent that he was not about to let her fly away from this. He laid his hands on her shoulders and felt her quiver and stiffen as he turned her around. That she did not shrug him off, though, told him that her natural intelligence had already started to scan the wider picture he had just mapped out. Without either of them saying a word, he guided her back to the chair by the desk and invited her to sit down again.
‘So this is about business.’ Tossing her head, Zoe refused to sit. If they were negotiating terms then she preferred to stand while they thrashed it out. ‘I have become a Kanellis asset that you need to use to keep both companies flying up there in the stratosphere?’
‘It affects me too, agape mou.’
‘Don’t call me that.’ Who did he think he was? ‘I am not your darling and I have no wish to be.’
‘And to think I used to believe myself to be quite a catch.’
Ignoring his attempt at sardonic self-mockery, she said, ‘I still don’t see why I need to be involved in this in any way. All you have to do is get Theo to announce you as his heir and the rest will take care of itself.’
‘But Theo won’t announce me as his heir because I am not. You and your brother are.’
Stunned by that claim, Zoe stared at him. ‘We can’t be. He didn’t know we even existed until three weeks ago! And I don’t want to be his heir to anything and neither does Toby!’
‘You’re sure about that?’ Resting back against the desk again, Anton held her sparkling, defiant gaze. ‘I think you are failing your brother if you make that kind of decision for him before he is old enough to decide for himself.
‘And the thing is, Zoe,’ he speared home grimly, ‘Whether you want it or not, you are now responsible for the good health and wellbeing of the Kanellis name and all that responsibility entails. So you had better think fast about what you want do about it, because if it ever gets out there that you want nothing to do with your grandfather then the rocket ship will crash and burn—make no mistake about it—and it will probably take me down with it as it goes.’
‘People aren’t that stupid as to crush two companies on my say so,’ Zoe protested, frowning as she did, though, because she wasn’t absolutely sure about it.
‘The stock market is all about risk and intuition. They do not like uncertainty. Theo’s health is failing. Everybody knows this, though we try our best to keep speculation down to rumour rather than hard fact. While no one thought to question my place in his life, everything ran along smoothly. Now the market is reacting like a heart-attack victim, peaking up then shooting down depending on what snippet of information leaks out. A marriage between you and me would calm the problem.’
The grim picture he was painting her was so frighteningly bleak, Zoe gave in and lowered herself into the chair. She might want to feel nothing about any of this but it wasn’t quite working out like that. She did not follow the stock markets—why would she? She’d never had more than a spare fifty pounds to spend at any one time in her entire life. Until recently, her only concern about money had been the growing size of her student loan and how she was ever going to pay it off. However, she would have had to be living on another planet not to have heard all about the unstable nature of the world’s stock markets ever since the big crash.
Were they really still so sensitive that they could rip two global businesses apart on mere speculation and rumour, or be soothed by a simple thing like a marriage between Anton and herself?
The trammelling pressure of uncertainty held her silent as she stared down at her hands twisted together on her lap. She thought about her father next, and her fierce sense of loyalty to him. Would he have wanted her to do this thing? Her instincts said no. Her instincts reminded her of the countless times she had watched him arrive home from work looking ready to drop on his feet. He’d worked two jobs to earn them a decent living, his week days filled with the grease and grime as a car mechanic, his weekends filled with waiting on tables at a local restaurant. Yet not once had she heard him even whisper the seed of an idea that he wanted to return to his old life here in Greece.
And how many nights had he stretched out on the sofa in front of the TV and barely move again until it was time for bed? How many weekends had her mother spent quietly on her own while her husband had served other people with a smile he probably forced onto his tired face? And how many years had Theo Kanellis spent being waited on by men like my dad? she tagged on bitterly. The private islands, the yachts, the planes.
‘Your father’s death hit Theo very hard,’ Anton inserted quietly, choosing his next words with care. ‘He has weeks not months to live, Zoe. Try to dig deep inside yourself and see if you really want a fading old man tormented by regrets watch his empire fall into tatters while the life fades from him.’
‘Now that,’ she whispered thickly, ‘Was emotional black mail.’
A white handkerchief arrived on her lap. ‘It is a very emotional time.’
‘There’s not much emotional input in a marriage of convenience,’ she said, picking up the handkerchief and using it to dab the corners of her eyes. ‘But, as the article said, business is business after all.’
Anton took a few moments to rerun that last remark a couple of times before he spoke again. ‘Is that a yes?’ he asked for confirmation. ‘You will marry me?’
Well, it wasn’t a no, Zoe thought with a sniff. ‘You’re going to appear a real money-grabbing monster.’
‘I am Greek,’ he countered. ‘We make business deals of this nature all the time.’
Did she detect a note of rueful satire in his voice just then? Glancing up at him, she saw he just looked relaxed as if they’d been chatting about the weather. When had he suddenly become indifferent to being labelled a gold-digger?
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‘Of course, I will attempt to redeem my character,’ he murmured thoughtfully then. ‘I will have it put about that I leaked the information about who your father was, in an effort to bring the family feud to an end.’
‘No way will you do that!’ Zoe shot back to her feet. ‘Don’t you dare bring my father into this!’
‘Because he deserved to be recognised as Theo’s son,’
he continued as if she hadn’t interrupted. ‘I will let it be known that I feel guilty that I had not brought the situation to a head a lot sooner, then maybe father and son could have had a chance to reconcile before—’
‘But you didn’t know before!’ Zoe jumped in quickly before he could finish what he had been about to say. She didn’t want to hear it. She never wanted to hear that word in relation to either of her parents. She even shut her eyes tightly in an effort to shut the whole painfully wretched thought out of her head.
‘You cannot know that for certain.’ He was relentless in the face of her obvious distress. ‘Nobody knows what I knew about Leander Kanellis before—the accident,’ he changed the last part when she sucked in a painful breath.
No, Zoe accepted, she didn’t know that. While he had been playing Theo’s adopted son, he could easily have been keeping a covert eye on Theo’s real son and family, just in case they became a problem for him.
He could read her like an open book, Anton observed grimly. She was now seeing him as the heartlessly manipulating, lying cheat with the seduction of Theo’s granddaughter in mind long before the two of them had even met up.
‘It may be a good idea if we agree that you and I met months ago—somewhere away from London. We will fill in the details later,’ he persisted, nailing her to the rug beneath her feet with the depths to which she now perceived he was willing to deceive. ‘It will be a classic case of love at first sight. When we discovered we were—otherwise connected—things became complicated.’
The Kanellis Scandal Page 12