Люси Монро – The Greek Tycoon's Ultimatum (страница 2)

He pressed her closer. “Relax. I’m not going to eat you.”

“But I shouldn’t be dancing with you,” she told him.

His hold grew even more possessive. “Why? Are you here with a boyfriend?”

“No, but—”

Demanding lips drowned her explanation that she was with her husband, not a boyfriend. Her struggles to get free increased, but the heat of his body and the feel of his hands caressing her back and her nape were already seducing her good intentions.

And to her everlasting shame she felt her body melt in helpless response. The kiss drew emotions from her Dion had never tapped into. She wanted it to go on forever, but even under the influence of a wholly alien passion, she knew she had to break away from the seduction of his lips.

The hand on her back moved to her front and cupped her breast as if he had every right to do so. The fact that he was touching her so intimately was not nearly so appalling as her body’s reaction to it. Her breasts seemed to swell within the confines of her lacy bra while their tips grew hard and aching. She’d never felt this way with Dion.

The thought was enough to send her tearing from Leiandros, her sense of honor in tatters while her body actually vibrated with the need to be back in his arms. “I’m married,” she gasped.

His eyes flared with the light of battle and she stood paralyzed for a solid minute, their gazes locked, their breathing erratic.

“Leiandros. I see you’ve met my wife.”

And Leiandros, whose body was turned away from Dion so her husband could not see his expression had glared at her with a hate filled condemnation that had not diminished in six years.

“Do not fool yourself into believing that since my cousin is not here to defend himself, your behavior can be dismissed with lies.”

Leiandros’s voice brought her back to the present, to a woman no longer capable of any kind of response to a man. For a moment she grieved the memory of those awesome feelings she had not experienced since and knew she would never experience again. Dion had seen to that.

Leiandros’s six-foot-four-inch frame towered over her own five feet, eight inches, making her feel small and vulnerable to his masculinity and the anger exuding off of him. She took an involuntary step backward and finding refuge in silence, she merely inclined her head before turning in order to leave.

“Do not walk away from me, Savannah. You won’t find me as easy to manage as my cousin.”

The implied threat in his tone halted her, but she did not turn around. “I do not need to manage you, Leiandros Kiriakis. After today, all necessity for communication between myself and your family will be at an end.” Her voice came out in an unfamiliar husky drawl when she had meant to sound firm.

“In that, you are mistaken, Savannah.” His ominous tone sent shivers skating along her nerve endings.

She whirled to face him, taking in the stunning lines of his masculine features, the way the sun glinted off his jet-black hair and the aura of power surrounding him even as she tried to read the expression in his enigmatic gaze.

“What do you mean?” Had Dion betrayed her in the end?

Leiandros’s sensual lips thinned. “That is something we will have to discuss at a later date. My wife’s graveside service begins in a few minutes. Be content with the knowledge that as sole trustee for your daughters’ inheritance, you and I must of necessity talk occasionally.”

Pain assailed her—a sympathetic pain for the grief this strong and arrogant man must be feeling at the death of his wife in the same car accident as his cousin.

“I’m sorry. I won’t keep you.”

His eyes narrowed. “Aren’t you coming?”

“I have no place there.”

“Iona thought you had no place here, yet you came.”

Because of the phone call. She never would have come if Dion had not made that call the night before his accident.

“Regardless of what the Kiriakis clan would like to be true, I married Dion. I owed my presence here to his memory.” Both the memory of the Dion who had courted her and the man who had called that one last time.

“Then do you not owe me your attendance at Petra’s service as a member of my family?”

“Why in the world would you want me there?” she asked, unable to hide her complete bewilderment.

“You claim your place in my family. It is time you paid the dues accompanied by that status.”

Humorless laughter fought to break free of the constriction in her throat. Paid her dues? Hadn’t she done that for six long years? Hadn’t she paid dearly for the privilege of wearing the Kiriakis name?

Leiandros watched emotions chase across Savannah’s usually expressionless face. She hadn’t been that way the first time they met. Then, she had seemed achingly vulnerable and sweet. So sweet she allowed another man to kiss her, to touch her while married to his cousin, he reminded himself.

Although she avoided eye contact with him on the few occasions they met after that, she’d still had an appealing vibrancy and beauty which made him understand why Dion stayed with her even after she had shown herself unworthy of her husband’s respect and love. At least for the first year, but the one time Leiandros had seen her the second year she lived in Athens, she had changed beyond recognition.

Her green eyes had dulled to the point of lifelessness. Had guilt over her lovers done that? Her demeanor had completely lacked emotion—except when she looked at her daughter. Then a love Leiandros had envied—and hated himself for doing so—had suffused her face and brought life back to her green eyes. No wonder Dion ran wild with his friends. His wife had reserved all her emotion for the daughter she bore as the result of a liaison with one of her lovers.

Leiandros had chided Dion for showing so little interest in fatherhood after Eva’s birth. Dion had cried when he told Leiandros that his wife had claimed the baby was not his. If Leiandros had ever doubted Savannah’s culpability in their shared kiss the night they met, he doubted no longer.

Remembering that encounter, his body tensed with anger. “Perhaps you are right. You have no place at my wife’s funeral. One display of false grief within our family is enough.”

Her eyes widened with what he could have sworn was fear before she took yet another step away from him. “I’m sorry Petra died, Leiandros.”

The apparent sincerity in her soft voice almost touched him, but he refused to be taken in by her act a second time. She was no more the vulnerable innocent than he was a gullible fool. “I think you will be, Savannah.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, her voice quavering in a way that annoyed him while she brushed a lock of wheat-colored hair away from her face.

What did she think he was going to do? Hit her? The thought was so ridiculous, he dismissed it out of hand. She had reason to be concerned, if not afraid. He did have plans for her, but they had to wait. “Never mind. I have to go.”

She nodded. “Goodbye, Leiandros.”

He inclined his head, refusing to utter a farewell he did not mean. After he expressed his respect for Petra with a year of mourning, Savannah would be seeing him again.

Then she would be made to pay for all that she had cost his family…all she had cost him.

CHAPTER TWO

SAVANNAH could hear the happy chatter of her daughters playing in their bedroom as she settled into the creaking desk chair in the small, cluttered study of her home in Atlanta, Georgia.

She stared at the letter from Leiandros Kiriakis, feeling as if it were a black moccasin ready to strike. In it he requested her presence in Greece for a discussion regarding her financial future. Worse, he had demanded Eva and Nyssa’s presence as well.

He would be freezing Savannah’s monthly allowance until such a discussion occurred.

Panic shivered along her consciousness.

After the trial of attending Dion’s funeral a year ago, she had promised herself she would never have to see anyone Kiriakis again. Okay, if not never, then at least for a very long time.

The girls would have to be introduced to their Greek family someday, but not before they were old enough to deal with the emotional upheaval and possible rejection of doing so. In other words, not until they were confident, mature adults.

She wished. She knew that wasn’t realistic. Not after the revelations Dion had made in that final phone call, but she had intended to put the trip off for a while. Like until she had a secure job and her Aunt Beatrice no longer needed her.

Her mouth firming with purpose, she decided Leiandros would have to have his discussion with her over the phone. There was no earthly reason for her to fly all the way to Greece merely to talk about money.

Savannah’s confidence in Leiandros’s reasonability was severely tested ten minutes later when his secretary informed her he would not take Savannah’s call.

“When would you like to fly out, Mrs. Kiriakis?” the efficient voice at the other end of the line enquired.

“I don’t wish to fly out at all,” Savannah replied, her southern drawl more pronounced than usual, the only indicator the conversation was upsetting her. “Please inform your boss that I would prefer to have this conversation by telephone and will await a call at his convenience.”