Heiress's Defiance

by Lynn Raye Harris

  And he’d been lost when she’d knocked on the guest-room door. She couldn’t forget that.

  But this … this was beyond comprehension.

  “I want to leave. Now.”

  “You may leave anytime you wish, Lucilla. But I’m asking you to stay.”

  She folded her arms around her body, feeling exposed and alone and confused. “Why would I do that? It’s obvious I can’t trust you. You’ve abducted me!”

  He didn’t look apologetic. “You threatened my entire career—not to mention the life I’ve carefully built in the wake of everything that nearly destroyed me.”

  “But I didn’t. I said I wouldn’t tell anyone. I promised to shred the report!”

  It was his turn to look angry. “And I should believe you? You were willing to expose me to the shareholders of the Chatsfield if I did not do what you wanted. How do I know you won’t come after me later, when you feel I’ve caused you some new slight?”

  “I would never do such a thing.” She spoke stiffly, but his laugh was bitter.

  “Of course not. When I go to work for some other company, when that company ends up threatening yours, you will not use what you know to make me, once again, back off, no?” He moved closer to her, his big body vibrating with anger and indignation, and she felt chastised when she was supposed to be furious. “How could I let you possess such lifealtering information without forcing you to confront the circumstances of my past? If you still wish to destroy me, then by all means. But you will not do it without knowing what it is you have chosen to destroy. You owe me that much.”

  “I owe you nothing.” Her voice was a whisper. Just saying the words made her throat hurt. But why did she owe him? He’d done nothing for her. And he’d drugged her.

  One dark eyebrow arched. “No? Have you not seen the size of my severance package, Lucilla mou? If I leave, as you so vibrantly wish me to do, the company owes me quite a lot. Not as much as if you were to fire me outright, but enough to make you feel the pinch. Stay with me here, do as I ask and I won’t take a penny. This will be what you owe me, and you will have paid it in full.”

  She swallowed. She hadn’t considered his severance package. And she should have. A mistake on her part, but then her father would not have promised him more than they could afford. Except it would mean they’d have to make sacrifices in other areas of the business for a while.

  But if she stayed, if she did as he asked, she’d walk away owing him nothing. It was a small price to pay. And yet he’d abducted her. She couldn’t forget that.

  “Why did you not ask me this in London?” she said tightly. “Why did you feel the need to bring me here against my will?”

  He looked at her as if she were too stupid to understand the bigger picture. And she almost felt she was. Her brain didn’t work the way his did. She wasn’t capable of so much … deception. In her world, people acted honorably.

  “If I had proposed this to you in London, you would have laughed. You believed you held the ace and you would not have compromised.”

  “I did hold the ace. Clearly, or you would not have gone to such lengths.”

  His smile was grim. “Touché, Lucilla. You begin to understand how the game is played. Yes, you held the ace and you were not inclined to listen to anything I had to say.”

  She became aware, as his gaze dropped down over her body, that she was standing here in her underwear and a T-shirt with no bra. Her nipples, traitors that they were, pressed against the thin cotton. She tightened her grip on herself and stood there with as much grace as she could.

  “You drugged me.”

  “I did. It is a harmless drug, only meant to make you sleep. Which you have done.”

  “You undressed me,” she accused. “You could have done anything to me.”

  He looked disgusted and she felt a pinch in her heart. “First, I am not so desperate as to take advantage of drugged women—especially not women I’ve already had, and with their permission, I might add. And second, I did not undress you. The housekeeper did, with the help of her daughter.”

  Lucilla darted a gaze around the room, expecting people to appear at any minute while she stood here so exposed.

  “They have gone home for the day. She only came to open the house up and help me with you.”

  She relaxed only marginally. “How long have I been here?”

  “We arrived in the early hours of the morning. It is noon now.”

  “You’ve missed the shareholders’ meeting.”

  He shrugged. “Rescheduled at the last moment, I am afraid. Inconvenient for everyone, but unavoidable. They will get over it.”

  “And where are we supposed to be?”

  “On our tour, of course. We are viewing potential properties for new investment.”

  She glanced out the window at the harbor again. “Which island is this?”

  “It’s on your shirt, I believe.”

  “I thought you were from Athens.”

  “That was later. Before that, I was from Kefalonia. Which I would think you would know, considering you spent so much to find out.”

  She swallowed. “The report only told me what you did and that you went to juvenile detention for it.”

  “I see.”

  Her stomach rumbled and a wave of dizziness passed over her. She reached for the back of a chair to steady herself. Christos was looking at her with narrowed eyes.

  “You need to eat.” He came forward and took her arm. She tried to yank free from his grip but he only held her tighter. “Be a sensible girl and don’t fight me, Lucilla.”

  He led her back upstairs to the bedroom and ushered her over to the table. She didn’t want to do a damn thing he said, but she was very hungry. She lifted the lid on the plate to reveal eggs, toast and ham. Christos poured a cup of coffee from a silver pot and added cream. It ought to surprise her that he knew how she liked her coffee, but she found that it did not. He was, she’d realized, very observant.

  “Will I fall asleep again if I drink this?” she flung at him when he set it in front of her.

  “No.”

  She took the cup in her hands and lifted the fragrant brew to her nose. It smelled right. “You’ll understand if I don’t quite believe you. This is my first abduction, after all.”

  “Mine, too,” he said, and she almost wanted to laugh at the way he said it. But she didn’t.

  “Why was the door locked?”

  “Because I didn’t want you wandering outside before I had a chance to talk to you. It won’t be locked again.”

  “The phone doesn’t work.”

  “Not at all.”

  “Where’s my mobile?”

  “I have it.”

  “I want it back.

  “Eat, Lucilla. Think about my proposal. You can have your phone back when you’ve given me an answer.”

  “And if the answer is no?”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Then get prepared to open up the bank vaults, glykia mou. Because I will demand my full severance.”

  “I could just threaten to release the information I have.”

  “You could. But that wouldn’t stop you from owing me a severance package. Destroy me, and I’ll respond in kind.” He waved a hand at the view out the windows. “Eat. Enjoy. Come and see me when you’ve considered your options.”

  He turned and walked out and she sat there staring at the door he’d left wide open. Then she dug into the food and ate like she was starving.

  Christos was not especially happy with himself at the moment. He stood on the terrace, gazing at the sea below, and feeling as if someone had turned him inside out. He did not often return to Kefalonia, though he’d bought this house here as a reminder of all that he’d achieved. The fisherman’s son was now rich enough to buy his own island if he wanted it, but he remembered happier days here when he was little. Before his father had moved him and his mother to Athens and tried to find different work.

  He’d spent years not caring what anyone thoug
ht of him, years keeping his soul very carefully guarded from any who sought to get close. Not that Lucilla had tried to get close to him, but something had happened that night in her apartment. Something very out of the ordinary. He wasn’t in love, certainly not, but he was drawn to her in ways he’d never been drawn to another person.

  And that had made him act in ways that were utterly uncharacteristic and somehow still shocking at the same time. No, he’d never abducted a soul—but there weren’t many avenues of action he’d closed himself off from in his determination to win, other than illegal ones, of course.

  He might be ruthless, but he’d only once reacted out of emotion instead of careful consideration. That had cost him four years of his life in which he’d vowed to never let emotion get the best of him ever again.

  “I accept your proposition.”

  He turned and found Lucilla in the entry to the terrace, her long hair damp and hanging down her back, her face scrubbed free of all makeup—and somehow so breathtakingly innocent because of it. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a silky tank from the collection of clothing he’d had sent over from Athens. They fit her perfectly.

  “I am glad to hear it.”

  She shrugged as she came out to join him. “I didn’t think I had much choice, really. It costs me nothing to let you show me what you wish to show me. But you are still leaving the Chatsfield, Christos.”

  “As you wish.”

  She stepped up to him then, and before he could determine what she intended, she lashed out and slapped him across the face. Hard.

  His head snapped back, his cheek stinging. He clenched his fists at his sides. The one thing he would never do was hit a woman, no matter the inducement. And yet no one had hit him in many years now. It was shocking to feel the weight of a blow on his flesh once more.

  “That’s for drugging me.” Her eyes flashed hot, the golden flecks in them deepening to amber. “How dare you think that was okay?”

  He reacted to the emotions boiling from her—and inside him, if he were to admit it—and yanked her into his arms. Then he crushed her mouth beneath his, punishing her with his kiss. Except who was he really punishing, he wondered, as the feel of her mouth against his sent a lightning bolt of longing straight down his spine and into his cock.

  He held her tightly and kissed her hard, so hard his heart hammered in his chest and his brain began to beat the refrain that he had to stop or lose control. She wasn’t pushing him away, surprisingly—her fists wrapped into his shirt and pulled him closer, as if she, too, couldn’t get enough of this melding of mouths.

  Somehow he found the strength to end the kiss, before he went beyond the boundaries of control. Before he shoved her down on the floor and took her hard and fast.

  He shoved her away and she let him go as if burned. Her color was high, her lips bruised and reddened and slick. Her eyes flashed with desire and confusion. And then she brought the back of her hand up and very deliberately wiped her mouth, as if she were wiping away any trace of their kiss. As if it had been repellant to her.

  “That,” he said, his voice hard and low, “was for slapping me.”

  She stood there breathing hard for a moment. And then she stepped away from him as if nothing had happened.

  “Well, now that we’ve got that out of the way.” Her voice was light, breezy, but there was also a tremor in it and a red-hot bolt of possessiveness shot through him to know she was not unaffected. She walked over to the edge of the infinity pool and gazed beyond it to the sea and harbor below. “Thank you for the clothing,” she said over her shoulder. “I’m no longer surprised that you seem to know my tastes in anything. Or, apparently, my size.”

  “I pay attention to details, Lucilla. Nothing more.”

  She spun to look at him, her eyes flashing with something other than anger this time. Hurt, maybe? Confusion? She masked it, however. “Well, you are very good indeed. I couldn’t say what you like to eat or drink, or what size shoe you wear, if my life depended on it.”

  “Then you don’t pay much attention to details, do you? You had dinner with me once. You must know what I ate that night.”

  Her cheeks glowed and he knew she was remembering more than the food. “Yes, I know that much. One meal, at least.”

  “Tonight you will know another. And if you wish to know my shoe size, you only need ask.”

  “I can’t see why I need to know.”

  He shrugged. “You brought it up, not I.”

  “I was trying to prove a point.”

  “You do know things about me, Lucilla. Far more personal things than shoe size.” He watched her chin lift, watched as the breeze off the sea blew a lock of hair across her face. She raked it back, but she didn’t look at him.

  “As you are so fond of saying, I had no choice. I will do whatever it takes to protect my legacy, Christos.”

  He almost laughed. “And I was not talking about the report.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  SHE WAS ACUTELY aware of how her heart thumped against her chest, of the inexorable slide of her blood through her veins and of the throbbing response in her sex as his voice stroked over her nerve endings. Yes, she knew personal things about him that had nothing to do with the report.

  His taste. His touch. The sounds he made when she took him in her mouth and pleasured him. The way he gasped her name in her ear, his breath hot and moist, as he pumped his seed into her. She knew his scents, his texture, his taste—and she could think of nothing else now that he’d reminded her.

  “That was a mistake,” she said, her throat tight. She couldn’t forget that he’d nearly killed a man. And that he’d drugged her and hauled her to Greece while she couldn’t protest. He’d taken away her choice, and she was furious with him.

  “Perhaps, but nevertheless. It was a mistake you felt no compunction in repeating several times that night.” His gaze stripped her bare in a way that she was learning only he could. “You know what it feels like to have me inside you, to scream my name when you come and to beg me for more. You enjoyed it, glykia mou. Do not pretend otherwise.”

  “It was just sex,” she said. “It means nothing.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Of this I am aware. But I will not let you lie to yourself about what happened. Sex, yes. But repeatedly, and with as much heat and ecstasy as I promised you that first night in your office.”

  She swallowed. Oh, yes, there had been heat and ecstasy aplenty. And, dammit, she would kill for more of the same. Even now her body was languid from his kiss. Aching, wanting. Her lips stung with the force of that kiss, but she knew his did, too. It would be impossible not to. She’d never kissed anyone with that much anger and violence boiling beneath the surface before. It almost frightened her. It most certainly intrigued her.

  She wanted more. No.

  Before she could frame a suitably nonchalant reply, he walked past her and into the house. She watched him go over to a desk, open it and pull something out. Then he came back and held it out to her.

  “Your phone.”

  She took it, starting when his fingers brushed over hers. She hadn’t really thought he would give it back so easily and she clutched the phone in her fingers as another feeling moved through her: confusion.

  “I’m surprised you trust me enough to return it.”

  “I trust no one, Lucilla. But you will not go back on your word.”

  “And what if I lied just to get my phone back? I could call for help.”

  His eyes gleamed. “You could. But I think you’re smarter than that. You care too much about your empire to risk any of its capital when you have a far easier way out. Though it may rankle you to stay, you will do so.”

  She didn’t want to respect that brain of his, or to agree with his assessment. But she did. She usually did, damn him.

  “I will,” she said. “Now what am I here for?”

  Because she wanted it done and over before these chaotic feelings roiling inside her spilled out.

  His
gaze was enigmatic. “Tonight, we will have dinner in the village.”

  “You didn’t bring me all the way to Greece for dinner, Christos.”

  He reached out, almost as if he couldn’t help it, and dragged a finger over her cheek. She did not recoil, though a part of her knew she should. It was a triumph simply to stand there and not lean into his touch when she so desperately wanted to do so.

  “Patience, Lucillitsa. You must learn patience.”

  More than that, she realized, she needed to learn how to stop this flame that writhed in her soul at the simplest of his touches.

  Lucilla went to her room—a very spacious and well-appointed room—and worked on her computer, which Christos had also returned. The emails about the aborted shareholders’ meeting were fast and furious, but mostly everyone accepted the delay and got on with their business. She had a few emails from Antonio, asking if she’d uncovered anything useful, and a couple of reports on events happening in the coming week. Perhaps the most surprising thing was the announcement that Sophie, Christos’s assistant, needed to take extended leave for personal reasons. Jessie had assured her in an email, cc’ing Christos, that she was happy to cover in Sophie’s absence, until the situation could be firmly resolved.

  Lucilla had set everything up so that it should run smoothly without her, even when her absence was unexpected. It chafed to be here when she hadn’t expected to be—and yet the beauty of the land outside the windows also called to her. She hadn’t taken a vacation in so long, and the lemon-scented air was driving her crazy. She found a bikini in among the things Christos had bought for her and thought about putting it on and heading out to the pool.

  Before she could do so, she heard a splash and she went out on the balcony and looked at the pool below. Christos cut through the water so gracefully that she found herself mesmerized. He reached one end, did a flip turn and then propelled himself back to the other side. He kept swimming, back and forth, back and forth, until she wondered how much longer he could last. Eventually, he swam over to the infinity edge and propped his elbows on it, gazing out at the landscape and sea beyond. He didn’t seem to realize she was watching, and she let herself look at him as long as she wanted.