‘Please don’t put words into my mouth,’ he advised dryly. ‘And no business “just is” successful. It takes hard work on the part of someone to make it so.’
She eyed him curiously. ‘You sound as if you speak from experience?’
He shrugged. ‘My father and uncle were the ones to found Lyonedes Enterprises. My cousin and I have merely continued to add to that success.’
Gemini knew these two powerful men had done so much more than that. Lyonedes Enterprises was now one of the most financially strong and successful companies in the world.
‘My father also started and ran his own company,’ she said. ‘He liquidated it all when he retired at sixty.’
‘Because you had no interest in running your father’s company? Or because he had no son to continue it?’ Drakon prompted curiously.
Her smile faltered slightly. ‘Both, probably.’
Was that a note of sadness Drakon could hear in Gemini’s voice? Perhaps an underlying wistfulness for having grown up an only child? Having spent much of his life growing up with a boisterous younger cousin, Drakon could not even begin to imagine what that must have been like. His parents’ house had always seemed filled to overflowing with the two of them, and also many of their friends.
‘Unfortunately my talent always lay with flowers and other things that grow.’ She brightened. ‘Even as a small child I was obsessed with digging in the garden. To the point that my mother finally persuaded my father to give me my own bed in the garden—no doubt in an effort to stop me from digging up his prize roses!’ she added affectionately.
Just her talk of her parents was enough to reveal the deep love that had existed between them and Gemini—making Miles Bartholomew’s second marriage, to a woman not so much older than Gemini herself, even more difficult for her?
Drakon made a mental note to himself to thank his mother the next time he saw her for never having put Markos and himself through that same unpleasantness. Not that either of them would have been difficult if Karelia had decided to marry again after their father’s death; they both loved her far too much to wish her anything but happiness.
‘I imagine, as you’re the owner of a florist’s shop, it must be difficult for a man to send you flowers,’ he commented.
‘Not at all,’ Gemini assured him lightly. ‘Yellow roses are my favourites, if you ever feel the—’ She broke off abruptly, that delicate blush once again warming her cheeks. ‘Sorry. Of course you aren’t ever going to want to send me flowers.’ She grimaced, before turning away to stroll across to the windows that looked out over the illuminated London skyline. ‘This really is a magnificent view.’
Yes, it was. Except Drakon wasn’t looking at the London skyline but at Gemini herself.
He didn’t believe he had ever met another woman quite like her before. Beautiful, obviously accomplished as she ran a successful shop, and from all accounts a loving and loyal daughter to her father despite the less than harmonious relationship that existed between her and her stepmother. And she now felt such a sense of duty towards the home where she had spent her childhood, which had been in her family for over three hundred years, that she had even risked the possibility of Drakon having her arrested earlier this morning.
‘Do you play…?’
He smiled slightly as he saw she was looking across at the piano.
‘A little.’
‘And do you play well?’
‘Passably.’ He shrugged.
‘I’m sure that if you play even a little you do it very well indeed,’ she chided teasingly.
Drakon crossed the room to stand beside her. The softness of her perfume was an enticing mixture of flowers and beautiful woman. ‘Why do you say that?’ he prompted.
She smiled widely. ‘I don’t know you very well, but I already know enough about you to realise you’re the type of man who, if he chooses to do something, will never do it “passably” well!’ Once again that smile faltered and then disappeared as she seemed to realise exactly what she’d just said. And its obvious sexual implications…
Drakon chuckled huskily as that becoming blush once again coloured the ivory smoothness of her cheeks. ‘I will take that as a compliment…’
Gemini wasn’t at all comfortable with the sudden intimacy between them—an intimacy she knew she was completely responsible for creating with her thoughtless comment!
Was it because she hadn’t completely dispelled those earlier images of a naked Drakon Lyonedes emerging from the shower from her mind? Probably. She found it a little difficult to think of him in the abstract at all when he was standing beside her. So hot and immediate. As well as dark and dangerously attractive!
She moistened her lips. ‘Perhaps we should just concentrate on our business discussion?’
Those dark eyes narrowed, and his mouth was once again a thin and uncompromising line. ‘In that case I believe we must first dispense with your mistaken belief that I am currently involved in a personal relationship with your stepmother.’
Gemini turned, her eyes wide. ‘Mistaken…?’
‘Certainly.’ Drakon frowned. ‘I have always made a point of never mixing business with pleasure.’
‘But—’ She gave a slightly dazed shake of her head. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘It is simple enough, surely?’ He raised those arrogant dark brows. ‘I have no idea why you should have drawn such a conclusion, but I assure you my only connection to your stepmother is one of business. In the form of my purchase of Bartholomew House,’ he added, so that there should be absolutely no doubt as to his meaning.
Gemini stared up at him wordlessly. He looked sincere enough. In fact he looked more than sincere—his handsome face was now visibly showing an expression of extreme distaste at the mere suggestion that he might be involved in an affair with Angela…
But her stepmother had told her—
A lie…?
What possible reason could Angela have had to lie about being involved in an intimate relationship with Drakon?
Knowing the other woman as well as Gemini had come to know Angela since her father had died, she found the answer was suddenly all too obvious.
Gemini had tried so hard to like Angela when her father had first introduced her as the woman he intended to marry. Despite the vast age difference between Angela and Miles. Despite the fact that Gemini had believed her father was rushing too hastily into a second marriage. And in spite of the fact that Angela had given every appearance of being nothing more than a voluptuous blonde beauty attracted to Miles’s money rather than the man himself.
Yes, despite all those things Gemini had still tried to like and get along with the older woman. For her father’s sake, if for no other reason, because she’d known how much he had wanted his second wife and his daughter to be friends.
Whenever the two women had been in Miles’s company that had always appeared to be the case. It had only been when Gemini found herself alone with the other woman that Angela’s hostility had become so blatantly obvious, in the form of cutting remarks or long, uncomfortable silences.
It had quickly become obvious to Gemini that, other than Miles, the two women had absolutely nothing in common, and that even that common interest differed greatly in its intent. Angela had wanted and demanded all of Miles’s attention for herself. The existence of his twenty-something daughter had been more of an embarrassment than anything else. Whereas Gemini had just wanted to see her father happy again.
Angela asking her to move out of the house once she’d married Miles had certainly been no hardship to Gemini. She had only moved back into Bartholomew House after her mother died so that her father wouldn’t be left alone there with only his memories. It had been perfectly natural for her to move out again in order to leave the newly married couple to their privacy.
It was the fact that Angela had made the request without Miles’s knowledge and knowing full well that Gemini would never tell him what she had done that had been hard to bear. Angela h
ad made it obvious to Gemini that she resented any time father and daughter spent together—to the point that she’d ensured it rarely happened. It had been an attitude that was never visible whenever Miles was present. Angela’s behaviour then had been sickeningly kittenish as she’d continued to wrap her much older and totally smitten husband about her manicured, sexy little finger.
In the circumstances, was it any wonder that Angela had enjoyed implying to Gemini that she had managed to capture the interest of someone like Drakon Lyonedes—a man half Miles’s age and probably a dozen times richer?
Knowing Angela as well as she did, Gemini thought the other woman believed it was only a matter of time, anyway, until she made the fabricated affair into a reality. So what did it matter if she’d exaggerated the situation to Gemini now? And if it didn’t happen who was ever going to contradict Angela’s claims when the man himself was so utterly elusive?
Except Gemini had now met Drakon, and she felt extremely foolish for having believed the other woman’s boast about his being infatuated with her. Gemini had no doubt Angela was lying to her; Drakon Lyonedes wasn’t the type of man to be infatuated with any woman. Besides, being so arrogantly self-assured he obviously never felt the need to lie about any of his actions—least of all his involvement with a woman!
‘Am I right in assuming this information was given to you by your stepmother?’ he prompted harshly.
Gemini flinched at the disgust underlying his tone. ‘Perhaps I misunderstood her.’ She gave an uncomfortable lift of her shoulders. ‘I—She mentioned how…nice you were.’ Sexily gorgeous had been her exact words, actually, but Gemini really couldn’t bring herself to tell him that! ‘Maybe I just let my imagination take that a step further than Angela actually intended—’
‘I believe you assured me earlier that you do not lie?’ Drakon cut in.
She winced. ‘I try not to, no…’
‘Then do not do so now,’ he advised her coldly.
‘I believe I said I might have been mistaken,’ she said uncomfortably.
‘And do you really believe that?’
‘What I believe is that Angela was trying to hurt me by boasting of how quickly she had replaced my father in her bed,’ Gemini acknowledged shakily. ‘You must have thought I was completely off my head this morning when I started rambling on about the affair you were having with Angela.’ She offered him an embarrassed smile.
He gave a derisive snort. ‘Not completely, no.’
‘You’ve never been intimately involved with Angela, have you?’
‘No,’ he confirmed.
‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry!’
‘Here—drink some more of your wine.’ Drakon moved to pick up Gemini’s glass and handed it to her, inwardly seething at Angela Bartholomew and the lies she had told her stepdaughter. In order to hurt her? No doubt. For himself, Drakon took exception to any woman claiming to have a relationship with him that simply did not, never had and never would exist. Especially in the case of the voluptuous Angela Bartholomew.
Would he resent it quite as much if it had not been the intriguing and beautiful Gemini to whom that lie had been told?
Drakon didn’t even want to think about the implications of that question, let alone find an answer for it! ‘Not everything your stepmother told you about me was a lie. Lyonedes Enterprises is in the process of purchasing Bartholomew House and its grounds from her,’ he reminded her softly.
Gemini gave a pained frown. ‘I don’t understand why you would even want to own a big house and grounds in London when you have this wonderful apartment to stay in whenever you’re in England.’
Drakon drew in a sharp breath even as he stepped slightly away from her. ‘It is not my intention ever to live in Bartholomew House.’
She looked puzzled. ‘It isn’t?’
‘No.’
‘Then who is—? Perhaps I shouldn’t ask that.’ She shot him an awkward look. ‘Obviously you have your reasons for wanting to own a house in London.’
Drakon’s eyes narrowed at Gemini’s more than obvious assumption that those reasons probably involved a woman. ‘I believe I stated that Lyonedes Enterprises is in the process of completing the purchase of Bartholomew House?’ he reiterated firmly.
She frowned. ‘What does that mean, exactly?’
His jaw tightened. ‘Precisely what I said.’
She gave a confused shake of her head. ‘Are you going to open up more offices there, or something?’
Drakon’s mouth firmed as he sensed impending disaster. ‘Or something.’
Gemini looked at him searchingly, but as usual that dark and harshly handsome face revealed none of his inner thoughts or emotions. This man could have posed for the original Egyptian Sphinx, his expression was so damned inscrutable!
She swallowed before speaking. ‘Exactly what are you, as President of Lyonedes Enterprises, intending to do with Bartholomew House?’ She ensured the preciseness of her question didn’t allow for further prevarication on his part.
‘Perhaps we should have dinner first—’
‘Is that because you’re hungry? Or because I probably won’t want to eat once you’ve answered my question?’ Gemini prompted shrewdly.
‘The latter,’ he allowed grimly.
Her chin rose determinedly. ‘Drakon, will you please tell me what your intentions are with regard to Bartholomew House?’
He breathed deeply. ‘For the house itself? Very little.’ He gave a shrug of those broad shoulders. ‘For the land it stands upon? Extensive.’
Gemini continued to stare at him, her expression remaining blank even as her thoughts inwardly raced. Bartholomew House was a beautiful three-hundred-year-old four-storey mansion house, standing on half an acre of prime land in the very heart of fashionable London. Land that Drakon Lyonedes seemed to be implying was his main reason for the purchase.
If that was so, then what did he intend doing with the house that stood on that piece of land?
‘Oh, my God!’ Gemini gasped weakly even as she felt the colour draining from her cheeks. ‘You intend to have the house knocked down!’
Drakon scowled darkly as he heard the shocked accusation in her tone.
It was not an entirely incorrect accusation…
CHAPTER FOUR
‘PERHAPS you should sit down before you fall down!’ Drakon rasped harshly as he clasped the white-faced Gemini’s arm to steady her before gently guiding her across the room to sit down in one of the armchairs. Putting his hand at the back of her neck, he pushed her head down between her knees.
Just what he needed. An unconscious Gemini Bartholomew in his apartment!
‘Breathe deeply,’ he instructed gruffly. The hand he held against the slenderness of her nape revealed that she was shaking. Badly!
Breathe deeply? Gemini wasn’t sure how she could be expected to breathe at all when he had just revealed that his company intended destroying the house that had been in her family for hundreds of years! The same house where she had been born and had spent such a happy and carefree childhood…
‘Drink this.’
Gemini raised her head enough to see the full glass of white wine Drakon now held in front of her, reaching up to take it from him before downing the contents in one go. ‘Could I have some more, please?’ she breathed shakily.
‘I do not think—’
‘Drakon, please!’ Gemini rallied enough to look up at him pleadingly through the curtain of her hair.
He shrugged those broad shoulders before taking the empty glass from her shaking fingers and once again crossing over to the bar to refill it. ‘I merely wished to point out that your drinking too much wine will not change anything.’ He walked slowly back across the room.
Gemini’s hands shook as she pushed her hair back over her shoulders before taking the refilled glass from him. ‘I don’t think I particularly care about that at the moment.’
He raised dark brows. ‘Which, unfortunately, will not prevent you from suffering a ha
ngover tomorrow morning.’
She laid her head back against the chair, breathing deeply. ‘At this moment I’m more than happy to let tomorrow take care of itself!’ She frowned suddenly. ‘Are you even able to legally demolish a house as old Bartholomew?’
That square jaw tightened. ‘Not completely, no.’
‘What does that mean?’
He seemed to choose his words carefully. ‘It means that our plans for the redevelopment of the site have, by necessity, to incorporate the original house.’
Gemini’s heart sank. ‘Incorporate it how, precisely?’
He shrugged. ‘Plans have already been submitted and approved for the building of a hotel and conference centre.’
Gemini’s hand tightened about her wine glass as she felt a sudden wave of dizziness. ‘And no doubt Angela has known about these plans from the beginning?’
Drakon drew in a deep breath before turning and walking away, his back towards her as he looked out of one of the floor-to-ceiling windows. ‘I believe your stepmother was made fully aware of our intentions at the outset, yes…’
Gemini would just bet that she was! She was sure Angela had been aware of it and no doubt inwardly gloated about it! It wasn’t enough that she now owned the home that she knew full well Gemini had wanted for herself; the other woman was selling Bartholomew House to Lyonedes Enterprises knowing it was that company’s intention to totally change, if not obliterate, the house and grounds as Gemini knew them…
‘Intentions that I assure you I would have done everything in my power to block if I had known of them!’ she cried.
‘No doubt.’
‘It would appear that I’m only just in time to present you with my own offer.’
Drakon’s eyes narrowed as he turned slowly, allowing none of the regret he felt at seeing Gemini so pale and obviously distressed to show in the deliberate blandness of his expression. Which didn’t mean that at that moment he wouldn’t have liked to strangle Angela Bartholomew with his bare hands for being the initial cause of that distress!
He’d had no idea of the rift that existed between the two Bartholomew women when he’d entered into negotiations for the family house and grounds. Not that it would ultimately have made the slightest difference to those negotiations—but he usually made a point of being aware of any extraneous circumstances in his company’s dealings.
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