Photos of Constantine.
Reality became a distant memory. ‘Where did you get these?’ she asked dully.
‘Brent took them surreptitiously. At the Granchester. Honey—do you actually know this guy?’
And Jade did the most unprofessional thing in the world and burst into tears.
Maggie dumped a box of tissues in front of her and hurried away to the coffee machine, bringing back a steaming polystyrene beaker and adding something to it, before giving it to Jade.
‘Here. Drink this.’
Waiting until a shuddering sob had died away, Jade obeyed, immediately wincing. ‘What have you put in it?’
‘Brandy,’ said Maggie, who drank a bucket of the stuff every day. ‘Drink it. It’ll do you good.’
What it did do was increase her sense of being removed from reality, which Jade wasn’t sure was a good thing at all. Detached. As though what had just happened had happened to someone else. But then she felt the aching deep inside her, felt the tingling of her breasts where he’d bitten and suckled them, and she knew for sure that it had happened to her. Briefly, she closed her eyes.
She put the empty cup down on the desk and dabbed at her eyes. ‘Just who is he?’ she asked in a quiet voice.
Maggie’s eyes widened. ‘You mean you don’t know?’
‘Of course I don’t know—if I knew I wouldn’t be asking!’
‘Who did you think he was?’
Jade felt muzzy. ‘I met him on holiday. A gorgeous Greek guy I happened to fall for whose family run a restaurant.’
Maggie snorted. ‘Restaurant! He probably owns every damned restaurant in the entire Aegean!’
Jade looked up from sniffing into her tissue. ’Who is he?’ she repeated.
‘He is Constantine Sioulas.’
‘I know that.’
‘He owns the biggest shipping line in the world. In the millionaire class, he’s head and shoulders above the rest. For rich read billionaire.’
Jade blinked. ‘Ha, ha,’ she said, but Maggie’s face didn’t look as though she was joking. ‘He can’t do,’ she protested. ‘He wore jeans; drove the most beaten up old car I’ve ever seen in my life. He’s just an ordinary—’ But she bit the word back.
No. Not ordinary. No way in the world was Constantine ordinary.
But Maggie had obviously caught her drift. ‘He’s Greek. They’re all like that. No matter what they acquire—and believe me, Constantine Sioulas has acquired more than most—at heart they remain simple men with simple tastes. And simple appe- tites,’ she added knowingly.
Jade was more confused than ever. ‘Then why have I never heard of him; why didn’t I recognise him?’
‘Just because you work on a newspaper, it doesn’t mean to say you’ve heard of every tycoon in the world, particularly one who keeps his head down and his nose clean. You’re too young, for a start. Ten years ago when he was twenty, his father died and Constantine inherited—you’d have been about ten at the time, and in my experience ten-year-olds don’t read newspapers. The Press went crazy—here you had this young Greek god of a man who was absolutely rolling in it. He stood about a year of it, and then he began to guard his privacy, and the privacy of his family, as if it were Fort Knox. He’s always surrounded by at least one minder. He hasn’t been interviewed in years.’ Maggie chomped on her gum. ‘What’s he like, Jade?’
Jade’s head was spinning. How to describe Constantine? ‘He’s…’ What? Gentle? Ruthless? Both of these.
‘Good lover?’
Jade nodded without thinking; the brandy was now making her feel as though she’d like to lie down on her bed and sleep for a year. Or a hundred years, until, like Sleeping Beauty, the kiss of Constantine would awaken her.
‘And what would you say was the most impress- ive thing about Constantine?’
As the brandy seeped into her brain, Jade had the sudden overpowering compulsion to confide in her boss. ‘His strength,’ she said. ‘Oh, Maggie—I can’t tell you what he was like…’
‘Try, dear.’
Perhaps if I had a mother who didn’t spend her whole time criticising me, I could confide in her, instead of my hard-baked editor, she thought. Somewhere at the back of Jade’s mind, a warning bell rang, but there must have been more brandy in the cup than she’d thought, because the warning bell very quickly became indistinct.
‘He was so—charismatic. Sexy and strong and gentle and funny. We had a fantastic time. He even—asked me to marry him.’
The unshockable Maggie actually choked on her gum. ‘You are joking?’
‘Why would I joke about something like that?’ Although, as each minute passed, the idea did seem more and more bizarre.
‘Jade,’ Maggie’s voice was breathless. ‘Are you quite sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure! How could I be mistaken about something like that?’ Jade slammed her cup down on the desk. Her head was spinning and now she felt an unfamiliar lurching feeling in her stomach. ‘Maggie,’ she mumbled. ‘I don’t feel very well.’
‘I’m ordering you a cab to take you home right this minute.’
‘But I haven’t filed my piece on Russ Robson.’
‘Leave it,’ said Maggie uncharacteristically. ‘I’ll find another piece to fill it.’
Just what that piece was, Jade was to discover the next morning when the demented buzzing of the doorbell bounced into her disturbed dreams about Constantine, and she glanced at the bedside clock to discover that it was almost eight o’clock. And with consciousness, the ghastly events of yesterday re-entered her memory with painful clarity.
The doorbell shrilled yet again.
Pulling her dressing-gown on, Jade stumbled out of bed, looked in the mirror and winced. Who on earth was that at the door? She wasn’t expecting anyone, and Sandy, her television director flat- mate, was away filming for a fortnight.
Hope, foolish hope, stirred to life within her. What if it was Constantine?
And what if it was? After the way he’d treated her? Now that her mind had cleared from the ef- fects of Maggie’s brandy, common sense had pre- vailed. And if she saw the no-good brute just once more in her life, it would be once too often. If it was Constantine, she would tell him to go to the hell he deserved!
But it was not Constantine.
She opened the front door to mayhem. Flash- bulbs exploded in her face as photographers and journalists, some of whom she recognised, jostled on the doorstep like a disturbed ants’ nest.
‘Miss Meredith—this way!’
‘Over here, Jade!’
‘Hey, Jade—would you like to comment on the item in this morning’s Daily View?’
Another flashbulb temporarily blinded her with its lightning-blue flare.
‘What’s going on?’ said Jade, bewildered, then wished she’d never asked, because an early edition of the Daily View was held up in front of her nose. She became aware of two things. Constantine’s photo.
And hers.
Hers?
And then, she became aware of a third thing; of the headline—shockingly huge and clear and banner-like.
‘My Steamy Nights of Love with Greek Tycoon!’
Under her byline!
Jade snatched the newspaper. ‘Give me that!’ She slammed the door in their faces, and, hands shaking like crazy, carried the newspaper into the sitting- room.
It was worse than she could have possibly im- agined. It was a short piece, but to the point. And, apart from the headline, innocuous enough. But it would have repulsed even the strongest stomach with its opening sentence: ‘Dewy-eyed cub reporter Jade Meredith described how stunningly handsome Greek billionaire Constantine Sioulas popped the question on an idyllic Greek island…’
Jade dialled the office with trembling fingers and asked to be put through to Maggie, who didn’t even have the good grace to sound abashed.
‘How could you do this to me, Maggie?’
‘It’s a good story!’
‘But I trusted you!’<
br />
‘The more fool you, Jade.’ Maggie gave a shrill laugh. ‘You should know by now, dear—once a journalist, always a journalist!’
‘He’ll sue. He’ll sue you for every penny you’ve got.’
‘He can’t sue!’ Maggie’s voice was triumphant. ’I checked with our lawyer—and we’ve printed nothing that wasn’t true!’
Jade didn’t feel like enlightening Maggie that there had been no nights of love, merely a rather sordid episode in his hotel sitting-room. ‘Then I’ll sue. I didn’t write that.’
‘But all of it you said. And I have the tape to prove it.’
Jade listened in appalled silence. ‘You recorded me?’ she whispered.
‘Sure. It’s my job.’ In the background, Jade could hear the sound of someone speaking very quickly. ’Listen, Jade—I have to hang up now.’
Jade sat on the sofa for the rest of the morning, unable to eat or drink or move, feeling like a cor- nered fox while outside all the reporters bayed for her blood. She shut her eyes in horror. Yes, she’d been angry with Constantine’s cold-blooded pos- session of her yesterday, but not enough to do this. Never to do something like this. She looked down to find that she was still clutching the Daily View like a lifeline, and immediately dropped the news- paper on to the carpet as though it were contaminated.
My God, she thought—if Constantine had dis- liked her before, then his loathing would now know no bounds.
Her reverie was interrupted by the telephone. It was Maggie again.
‘Can you get in here right away, Jade?’ she said urgently. ‘I’m sending a couple of guys down to get you through the Press.’
And Jade did what she had been longing to do for almost a year, uncaring of the consequences. ’No, I can’t, Maggie. In fact I’m tendering my res- ignation. As of now, I no longer work for you.’
There was an odd and somewhat strained quality to the normally robust editor’s voice. ‘Jade—I advise you to get down here right away. I advise you very strongly indeed.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m not at liberty to say any more on the phone.’
Not at liberty? ‘Why?’ asked Jade acidly. ‘Has someone got a gun to your head.’
Maggie gave a strange, humourless laugh. ’Metaphorically speaking, yes. Can I expect you?’
Jade hesitated, her curiosity aroused by Maggie’s odd-sounding voice. Was it possible that Constantine was going to sue for libel, despite Maggie’s bravado. Oh, how she hoped so. That would show them that they couldn’t go around printing whatever they liked about people!
For the first time, Jade knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end of tabloid journalism. But she had never tricked anyone into giving her an in- terview—nor tape-recorded them without knowing.
‘Jade?’ came Maggie’s strained voice. ‘Are you still there?’
Jade looked around the room, realising that she couldn’t sit in her flat for the rest of her life regret- ting what had happened, could she? What the hell! ’Yes, Maggie, I’m still here,’ she answered coolly. Curiosity got the better of her. ‘Send someone over then, and I’ll come into the office. But I’m not confronting those vultures outside on my own.’ I used to be one of those vultures, she thought. But no longer, thank heavens.
She felt like some minor celebrity when two burly men duly elbowed their way through the waiting Press and into a car, and when she walked through the office the atmosphere was more hushed than usual. At the sight of Jade, all conversation was killed stone-dead.
Head held high, determined that they shouldn’t read any trace of emotion in her face, Jade walked towards Maggie Marchant’s door, tapped it and opened it to see that it was not the editor who sat behind the cluttered desk.
It was Constantine.
CHAPTER SIX
JADE could only stare in disbelief at Constantine, incongruously seated in her boss’s chair. He wore a suit; he looked impossibly elegant and un- reachable. And about as friendly as a range of craggy mountains.
His dark eyes flicked over her, and she found herself wishing that she hadn’t just thrown on the first items to hand, imagining his lips curling with disdain. But he surprised her. His face remained implacable; not a flicker of emotion whatsoever on the ruthlessly carved features as he took in her short, flared cotton skirt, worn with an old, closely fitting indigo shirt.
He switched his gaze to Maggie Marchant, who Jade now noticed was standing in one corner of the room, uncharacteristically silent and looking ter- ribly out of place. She found herself blinking in surprise—what on earth was happening?
‘Leave us,’ ordered Constantine.
Jade expected Maggie to reply with a torrent of abusive rhetoric, because no matter how rich and how powerful Constantine might be, in the offices of the Daily View Maggie ran a tight ship, with the proprietor giving her an astonishing amount of freedom to run the paper as she saw fit. But no outburst followed; instead Jade was treated to the unbelievable spectacle of Maggie nodding her head and slipping silently out of the office like a messen- ger-girl.
Little hairs on the back of her neck bristled as she scented danger—the threat of it was emanating from every pore of that impressive frame. She wanted to run and hide from him, from the danger and the ever-present and still powerful attraction she felt towards him. And what a fool you are, Jade Meredith, she thought in abject disgust as she began to turn away.
‘And where do you think you’re going?’ came a silky voice.
She injected steel into her voice. ‘As far away from you as possible!’
‘Perhaps to sell more details of our so-called affair?’ And then the mouth did curl. ‘I think not.’
A sense of fair play emerged as indignation righteously reared its head. It had been the same while she was at school—it was all very well being punished for something she had done, but not for something she hadn’t done. But she wasn’t going to crawl to him—she would give him the facts coolly and rationally. ‘I want you to know I didn’t write that story, Constantine!’ But to her own ears it sounded blurted and made up. ‘Honestly!’
He subjected her to a slow and contemptuous scrutiny. ‘If I were you, I would think very care- fully about using that particular word,’ he suggested icily. ‘It doesn’t go at all well with your track record.’
‘But I didn’t write it! I wouldn’t have had them print it in a million years—I’m just not the kind of person who goes around parading her private life in front of millions!’
He gave a soft, brutal laugh. ‘Oh, really?’ he mocked. ‘Then how did the paper know that I’d been your lover? Or that I’d asked you—’ and here he swore very softly and explicitly in Greek, and for the first time Jade was glad she didn’t understand the language ‘—to marry me?’ he fin- ished on a note of harsh incredulity, as if ques- tioning his sanity at the time of asking.
Oh, what was the use of trying to explain that she’d been trapped by a combination of her emotional state at being made love to and then dumped by him and the unexpected potency of brandy on an empty stomach? He’d never believe her in a million years, and even if he did, he’d never forgive her, not now. He was not, she recognised— a forgiving kind of man. ‘Are you planning to sue?’ she asked.
He ignored the question. ‘Sit,’ he ordered, indi- cating the chair in front of the desk with a cursory nod of the gleaming jet head.
And because the sheer emotion of seeing him sitting there after everything which had happened between them seemed to have reduced her legs to the consistency of jelly, Jade found herself sinking into the chair.
‘Are you going to sue?’ she repeated.
He gave an impatient nod of the dark head. ‘No, I am not going to sue,’ he gritted out tersely. ‘There is little point in suing since what was published was the truth—or pretty close to it.’ He leaned back in his chair, surveying her from hooded, hostile eyes. ‘On a technical point, the article was, of course- inaccurate.’ He closed his eyes and recited from memory. ‘ “My Ste
amy Nights of Love with Greek Tycoon”.’
Jade blushed with shame at the tasteless headline, and he opened his eyes, which narrowed marginally as he took in the heated flares of colour which lay over her high cheekbones.
‘As you know,’ he ground out, ‘there were no nights of love; and more fool me. For if I had not been so taken by your convincing little virginal act I would have taken you on the island when you offered yourself so willingly to me. Over and over again,’ he said in a soft, cruel voice. ‘Until I had satiated the aching in my loins, and rid myself of my obsession for you.’
And to Jade’s astonishment and horror her body began to react to the brutal sexual boast, and she felt her breasts tingle into life, felt a hot frustrated aching begin at the pit of her belly, and the colour in her face deepened.
His eyes flicked to her breasts, to where she knew without having to look that the pointed outlines of her nipples were pushing against the thin material of her shirt, and his mouth gave another mocking twist.
‘And as you know,’ he continued relentlessly, ‘the physical extent of our relationship lasted a little under an hour—’
Jade got quickly to her feet, her eyes flashing with humiliation and fury. ‘I don’t have to listen to a minute more of this, you swine!’
‘Yes, you do,’ he answered icily.
‘I’m leaving right now!’
‘I don’t think so.’
Something in the cool and unswervable determi- nation in his voice made her turn around, startled. ’Just try stopping me!’ she challenged.
He gave a brief shake of the head. ‘I intend to,’ he said harshly. ‘But not the way you want me to, at least not yet.’
Appalled, her mouth fell open. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
He shrugged. ‘Don’t play innocent games, Jade— we’ve already established that your innocence is a sham. I’m talking about the usual scenario. You run for the door. I follow. You struggle. I kiss you and naturally, you kiss me back. And then I lock the office door, to take you right here. You would like it on the floor, perhaps—or do you prefer the desk?’
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