by Sun Chara
But just to be sure, she rummaged in her purse for her cell and called home, her matchbox-sized one-bedroom pad. “Mrs. Knightley, I may be a bit late tonight.” A pause. “Did anyone visit today?” A sigh of relief filtered from her mouth. “No? Okay.”
Michalis Leonadis did not know her secret. And he wouldn’t know. She pressed her lips tight, but her shoulders slumped. One day she’d have to tell him … and tell Amy about her father.
But not today.
Today was about leveling the playing field. She’d go and see why he was here, why he sought her out after a year’s silence. The battle lines had been drawn…the divorce would be final when he signed the papers. And he could do that from Greece via his solicitor.
She crinkled her brow. Did he think she’d take him to the cleaners? A brittle sound broke from her lips. Her eyes misted. She wanted nothing from him except what he’d already given her.
Bashing down the emotion, she steeled her nerves and walked across the atrium, each step a lead weight. She bypassed the crystal chandeliers, the needlepoint wall-hangings, the ornate furniture, the statues, and the opulent deco of this palatial Louis XVI historic hotel…but didn’t see them.
Knowledge was power. She must stack her arsenal to trump the powerful Greek she’d married.
Her past folly. She shook her shoulders. But it would not become her present, and certainly not her future. She fumbled in her step, and a smile feathered her mouth. Her future waited at home.
A moment later, she stood outside the near empty Le Bar. The fashion trendsetters would soon be descending to the delight of the cocktail waitresses waiting for customers and subsequent tips. Julia inhaled and exhaled several puffs of air, swiped her damp palms on her thighs, flicked a stray strand of hair off her shoulders and with her head held high marched into the intimately lit lounge. The melody from the pianist wrapped around her, soothing, but then turned abrasive.
She saw him.
A trickle of moisture between her breasts, her mouth went dry. He lounged at a table in the far corner of the room with drink in hand and clicked off a call on his phone.
Her heart thudded. Memories flooded her mind. Bittersweet, and she wished…but no, he’d destroyed everything they’d shared.
Destroyed her.
At that precise moment, he glanced her way, and the blue intensity of his eyes tacked her to the spot. Shockwaves ripped through her, rocking her world anew. She ground her teeth, determined not to feel anything for this man, except indifference.
The best defense was a good offense, so she stormed across the floor to his table. He at least had the good manners to stand up.
“Julia,” he said, the deep timbre of his voice jolting her senses.
“Michalis,” she murmured, her tone cool.
For a second or two neither one of them said anything, then he mocked a cough.
Resentment gnawed her insides. Not even a hello from him. This did not bode well.
“A drink?” he offered, motioning her to sit down.
“No thank you,” she murmured, standing her ground.
He sat back down, noted her defiance and waved to the waitress. “A sparkling water with lime.”
“You’ll have to drink it, Michalis.”
He hiked a brow, and sipped his bourbon on the rocks, his dark gaze glued on her. He only ever had one drink, max, of the hard stuff. Discipline. He always wanted to be in control of his faculties.
She smirked. In charge of everything and everyone. Including her. She wondered if the control tactics extended to his family. Then she blinked, realizing she knew very little about the man she married. It had been a whirlwind romance, a spur of the moment wedding at Our Lady Tourliani Monastery on Mykonos.
Emotion surged inside her, nearly suffocating her. She drew in a breath and exhaled a breath. A celebrity style wedding loomed on the horizon afterward he’d hinted. Under his magnetic spell, like a fool, she believed him. But no more. The magic had vaporized.
Then why are you quaking, and why is your heart pounding? She ignored the self-inflicted taunt, and at that moment, her stomach rumbled. Mortified, she slapped her hand over her abdomen.
“Hungry?” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“No.” She’d skipped lunch and dinner to ensure she fit into the gowns, but seeing him again had made her lose her appetite. A sliver of a grin brushed her mouth. Something good might come out of this after all—a few lost pounds.
“Something amusing?” he asked, tone dry.
She shook her head and plunged into the depths. “Why are you here?”
He snared her in his sights. “Sit down and I’ll tell you.”
Chapter 3
Julia collapsed onto the velvet chair and licked her lips, the cherry flavor of her lipstick spiking her taste-buds.
He shuttered his eyes, his jaw granite hard, and his grip on the tumbler tightened.
“Okay, I’m sitting,” she said, her tone defiant.
He remained silent and, swirling the liquid in his glass, kept her on tenterhooks. A delay maneuver? A control tactic?
Julia took the moment of reprieve to study him. A Ralph Lauren jacket framed his broad shoulders, the Trump original tie a contrast to the white shirt stretched across his chest. His chiseled features bespoke of his Greek ancestry, his skin tanned, his hands…strong, capable, tender…in the way he’d touched her, held her, stroked her…loved her. Anguish tore through her. She’d laid her head on his chest, the swirl of hair tickling her cheek, his heart thundering in her ear…but that had been a million years ago.
Before he—
A whimper built inside her, ready to burst from her mouth, but she couldn’t let him see he still affected her. Too dangerous for her mind, her emotions, her world. She must remain immune to his charm, his magnetism, and his potent sexuality. The whimper came out like a near snort, and he shot her a glacial look.
“I-I can’t stay,” she murmured.
“You’ll stay long enough.” He leaned back, hitched up a trouser leg and crossed one leg over the other.
Cool. Powerful. Wealthy.
She reached for the drink he’d ordered, took a sip and the fizz tickled her nose, the taste of lime fresh upon her tongue. Slowly she set it back on the table, controlling the temptation to hurl it in his face. But only just.
Impeccable in his suit, he exuded a debonair flair of the lifestyle of the wealthy and the beautiful. She’d been the opposite. Casual and ordinary in jeans, halter-top and sandals, her sunburned nose magnifying her freckles. Except when the fashion pros worked their magic, transforming her into a human mannequin, and every man’s fantasy.
“I deserve an answer, Michalis.” She foolishly imagined he’d been captivated by the real her, not the plastic copy, but obviously she’d been wrong. Plastic deteriorated. And so had their marriage.
Jitters sprang inside her, and she cupped the water glass with her hands, the condensation cooling her palms. If he so easily trampled on their marriage vows, he’d just as easily demolish her life again…for no other reason than daring to challenge him…daring to leave him…daring to keep a secret.
“You do deserve an answer,” he said, his tone cool, hard. “As I do.”
“What do you mean?” She bolted upright, letting go of the glass and gripping the arms of the chair.
“Hit a nerve, have I?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about?” she fired back, but didn’t quite meet his eyes.
“Perhaps this’ll refresh your memory, yineka mou.”
“Don’t call me that…I’m not your wife.” Not if he could betray her like he had, the image branded her brain cells.
“Technically, you are—” He leveled her with a look that rammed her ribs into her backbone, squashing her heart. “—until the divorce papers are signed.”
Her heart flipped, but then relief rushed through her. He didn’t know. He was here because of the divorce.
She squinted at him. “You co
uld’ve done that from Greece.”
“What, and not see your beautiful face again?” he mocked. “You can have your divorce, Julia.”
“Di-ivorce.” The word grated her tongue like gravel. “Y-yes.”
“But there is a penalty.”
Her head snapped up, and she caught the stern set of his jaw, skin stretched taut across his cheekbones, the set of his mouth. His mouth had taught her such passion, created such erotic delight in her. His lips on hers, on her breast and gliding down her body, suckling her navel, and then lower to— Heaven.
Hell.
He knew.
She blinked, eclipsing the sensual images and crushing the memory beneath the gauntlet he tossed. Her freedom would come at a cost.
“I can’t imagine what it is,” she breathed out, sarcasm lacing her words, as the tremors inside her picked up momentum.
He laughed, a dry sound that sent chills up her spine.
A premonition…an astronomical price to pay.
“You can have your divorce, Julia.” His eyes glittered an ice storm, and he shot straight into her heart. “In exchange for my daughter.”
“No!” She leaped up so fast, the glass tipped over, liquid sloshing over the side onto the table. She couldn’t care less.
“I’ll see you in court then.”
Blackness undulated before her eyes, her pulse vaulted into her throat and the wool of her sweater itched her damp-sweat skin. She couldn’t beat Michalis Leonadis in a court of law … he had the money, the power, the connections. A bleat of sound from her mouth, and she gnashed it away, pulling on her inner strength that had gotten her through the last year. “I’ll see you in hell first.”
“That could be arranged,” he muttered, his words flint hard.
“Wh-hat do you mean?”
“How long did you think you could keep this from me?” he baited, fury in his midnight blue eyes.
The eyes of a hunter cornering his prey… her.
“You dare keep my child from me, Julia?”
“I-I was going to tell—”
“Enough,” he bit out. “Now sit down before you make a scene.”
She sank in the chair and clasped her hands in her lap to stop their trembling, her mind whirling. “I won’t let you take her away from me, Michalis.”
He arched an aristocratic brow. “How do you propose to stop me?”
“I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“Poli kala…very well.” A cold smile. “You will return with me to Greece for one month.”
She shrank back in her chair, rejecting his words, but her heartbeat skipped and her body flamed with awareness. Shock—that must be it.
“Why?”
“Because I want to get to know my child,” he ground out. “And a three-month-old needs her mother.”
“Glad you recognize that fact.”
“And her father.”
As much as she resisted, Julia knew he was right, but couldn’t help bouncing back with, “Amy can get to know you when she’s older.”
“Amy,” he whispered, a flicker of tenderness in his eyes. “She’ll get to know me now.”
Her heart sank. “You can come and visit her here, Michalis.” She was clutching at straws.
“And have you disappear again?” He picked up his glass, tossed the last of his drink down his throat and slammed the glass on the table. “We have things to discuss…do.” His gaze traveled over her, pausing at her breasts which were rising and falling with the over exertion of her lungs, a notch lower to the apex of her thighs, then back up to her face, her eyes, her mouth.
“No, Michalis.”
“I will do what I please, when I please, how I please…with you.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I-I can’t Michalis,” she murmured, her voice breaking. “Not after you—”
“After I what, Julia?” he challenged, his words fueling white-hot anger.
“You made it clear you don’t want me.” She gripped her purse so hard, her fingers hurt. “And now I don’t want you.”
A shadow flittered across his eyes, and a muscle assaulted his jaw.
“You’re a necessity for the child,” he said, his tone reasonable. “While there you’ll also entertain me.”
“You can’t have me,” she bounded to her feet, finding her voice.
“I figured you might say that.” He signed the bill for the drinks to his room and stood, his eyes an ocean tempest.
Of course he’d be staying here, she thought, the extravagant rates would not dent his bank account. He was welcome to his money. All she wanted was her daughter. A ferocity rose up inside her. She’d never abandon her child like she’d been abandoned. The memory was like a scar on her psyche. Then to have Michalis do the same to her was—
“My solicitor will be in touch,” he bit out.
She blanched, a quake building inside her. There was no way she could fight him in court, she couldn’t afford it.
“You’ll have your divorce, Julia and I’ll have my daughter.”
“No, please,” she gasped.
“Then you will agree to my terms.”
She nodded, a void inside her. “A-a month, Michalis and not a day longer.” Not an hour, minute, second. A huff of a breath, then a grit of sound, and she whacked him with her gaze. “I’ll make every day I’m there hell for you.”
He chuckled, but it sounded lifeless, exactly how she felt. She took a step past him.
“I’ll send a car for you tomorrow at 8 a.m.”
She kept walking, shutting him from her thoughts.
“One more thing, Julia.”
She spun around, and her skin frosted. He stood there, tall, dark, remote. And sexy.
A lethal adversary.
To her heart…her mind…her life…her future.
“Don’t even think of skipping town tonight.” A cruel line carved his mouth. “I’ve security and—”
“You’re despicable.”
“Is that all?” He shrugged, but a nerve bashed his cheek. A moment of deliberation, and he delivered the blow that felled her. “You might have to explain to your daughter why your selfish actions nixed her billion-dollar inheritance.”
“Have you no honor?”
“You dare speak to me of honor?” he snarled. “You, who slunk out behind my back?”
Every fiber in her body quivered, the quake about to erupt inside her, and she blinked the blur from her eyes, easing the pressure. “You’d really use our child as a bargaining chip?” she murmured.
A lock of hair flopped over his brow, his Adam’s apple bopped, and his breath blasted from his nostrils like a snorting bull. “It’s your move, Julia.”
Her heart palpitated. By sleight of hand, he managed to immobilize her. She flexed her hands, breathed in and exhaled. If she was going to gain her freedom and secure her daughter’s financial future, she had to make a pact with this callous stranger before her. She’d be selling herself to him, and something seemed to die inside her.
“I won’t let you jeopardize her future, Michalis,” she fired, her words an ice blizzard.
“Then you’ll be there tomorrow, ready to warm my bed.”
Chapter 4
“Did you undress me, Michalis?” Julia, wearing a mid-thigh length robe and with tousled hair, stomped barefoot onto the terrace of the Leonadis villa overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.
“Did you want me to?” Amusement tugged at his mouth, and he set the newspaper he’d been reading on the table, his x-ray vision raking her head to toe.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She clutched the robe closer about her body, and he laughed. And that had her ire rising…as well as her temperature and heart rate.
“Is it?” He leaned back in his chair, his words a low rumble in his chest sent her emotions into a scramble.
“Answer me.” She slid her fingers in her long locks and shoved them off her forehead. “Did you…I mean did we…you…me—”
&nb
sp; “Yes and no.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Coffee?” He picked up the briki, the coffee pot, and motioned her to sit down for breakfast.
“Don’t change the subject.”
An impatient sigh filtered from his mouth, and he took his time refilling his cup, then hers. “You were exhausted after the flight and conked out after putting Amy to bed.” He raised the demitasse, took a long sip and reset it on the saucer. “Good coffee. You should have some.”
The man was maddening. Aggravating.
Hot. Sexy.
Dressed in designer slacks and an open necked shirt with a gold chain around his neck, he exuded a casual confidence.
Deceptive. The thought criss-crossed her mind, and a sound, almost a snort tickled her throat, and she gulped it down. Beneath his casual air coiled the strength and power of a puma which, once unleashed, tore up everything in its path. His unquenchable drive fueled him to succeed in everything he did.
In everything except their marriage.
The snort blasted from her then, and although she slapped her hand over her mouth to muffle the sound, it tainted the air between them.
He quirked a brow, and she lowered her lashes a fraction, glancing at his rolled up sleeves.
His forearms were smattered with dark hair, and his hands invoked memories—him holding her, touching her in her most intimate places, loving her. Erotic sensations frisked her body, and she crunched the feelings she’d just as soon forget between her teeth.
“I removed your shoes and outer clothing—made you more comfortable.”
“How thoughtful,” she said, her words dripping with sarcasm, her toes curling on the tile. Compared to him she looked and sounded like a shrew, and that compounded her resentment against him.
“I can be.”
“Where did you sleep?”
“Why, next to you.”
“No.”
“Mmm, yes.”
She wanted to smack the ‘gotcha’ look off his face, but instead, she leaned against the balustrade and gripped the twisted metal rods between her fingers. Jasmine leaves brushed her skin, and the white star-shaped flowers filled the air with exotic scent.