Mediterranean Tycoons: Masterful & Married: Marriage At His Convenience / Aristides' Convenient Wife / The Billionaire's Blackmailed Bride. JACQUELINE BAIRD
felt colour creeping under her skin as he made no immediate attempt to either move or speak. His hands were slanted casually into his trouser pockets, accentuating the musculature of his long legs. His eyes were hooded so she could not tell what he was thinking as they slid slowly over her head and shoulders to where the collar of her blue silk blouse revealed a glimpse of cleavage. She fought the impulse to slip her suit jacket off the back of the chair and put it on. This was her office, and Lucas was the intruder, and as he made no attempt to break the tense silence between them she finally found her voice.
‘What do you want?’ she asked abruptly.
Lucas Karadines for the first time in his life was struck dumb. The instant tightening in his groin shocked him into silence. His body had not reacted this way in years. His memory of Amber had not done her justice. She’d matured into the most exquisitely beautiful woman he had ever seen. His dark eyes drank in the sight of her. The hair scraped back from her face only accentuated the perfection of her features, the elegant line of her throat, the shadowed cleft between her luscious breasts her conservative blouse could not quite hide.
‘Not a great welcome for an old friend,’ Lucas finally murmured, his dark eyes gleaming with mockery, before scanning the elegant office. ‘So this is your domain.’
A corner suite with windows on two sides, it was light and airy, and in keeping with her present position in the firm as the youngest partner, and Amber was justifiably proud of her achievements. ‘Obviously,’ she said dryly.
‘You have done well for yourself, but then I always said you would.’ Lucas’s glance skimmed lightly over her desk as he moved towards it, noting her hand still on the phone. ‘Sorry if I interrupted your conversation with your lover, but you and I have some pressing business to discuss.’
Her hand gripping the telephone was white-knuckled, and, realising she was betraying her shock, she smoothly slipped her hands to her lap and managed to smile coolly back at him. She was fiercely glad that the sophisticate she had pretended to be when they had first met was now a reality. She refused to be intimidated by Lucas—or any man, for that matter.
‘I can’t imagine we have anything to discuss, Mr Karadines. As far as I am aware you are a client of Janson’s and I am not in the habit of poaching my father’s clients.’ It gave her great satisfaction to say it. Whether Lucas was aware Sir David was her father, she did not know. But she was making it abundantly clear he was not about to treat her like some inferior being to be discarded like yesterday’s newspaper as he had before.
‘Yes, I heard. I’m surprised you didn’t choose to join Sir David’s firm,’ he opined smoothly. ‘I seem to remember Clive Thompson was rather keen on the idea.’
‘He still is,’ Amber shot back, angry that Lucas had the nerve to remind her of that horrible party. ‘But I like it at Brentford’s and I don’t believe in nepotism,’ she said with a shrug. ‘Nor mixing business with pleasure.’ Let him make of that what he liked. She’d been dating Clive for the past year and part of the reason she had spent the last couple of weeks on holiday was to decide if she should accept Clive’s proposal of marriage.
‘Very wise of you. I dispensed with their services myself some months ago.’
That did surprise her. Neither Clive nor Mark, her half-brother, who had been the head of the firm since their father had retired two years ago, had mentioned the fact.
‘I didn’t know,’ she said blandly, implying that she didn’t really care.
‘Now, if there is nothing further, I am rather busy.’ Tilting back her head, she stared up at him, deliberately holding his eyes. ‘And it is usual to make an appointment.’ The sarcasm in her tone was very evident. ‘I am a busy lady.’
Lucas was not the slightest bit fazed. ‘I’m sure you are, Amber—a little too busy, it would seem.’
Amber raised her eyebrows. ‘Too busy, says a man who was the most driven, competitive workaholic!’ she mocked lightly. ‘Marriage has changed you. How is the family? Well, I hope.’ She was proud of her ability to ask the conventional question, and was surprised to realise it actually did not hurt at all.
Lucas stilled, his handsome face as expressionless as stone. ‘I have no family. Spiro was the last—that is why I am here.’
Amber’s face went white. Oh, God! In her shock at seeing Lucas again, she had forgotten all about Spiro’s death. How could she have been so callous? ‘I’m sorry, Lucas, truly sorry,’ she hastened into an explanation. ‘I only found out this morning. I’ve been on holiday, and the news hasn’t really sunk in yet. I’m sorry I missed the funeral. Please sit down.’ She indicated a chair at the opposite side of the desk with the wave of her hand. ‘I’ll order some coffee.’ She was babbling, she knew, and, pressing for her secretary, she quickly asked Sandy to bring in two coffees.
He lowered his long length into the chair she had indicated. ‘Cut out the phoney sympathy, Amber,’ he commanded bluntly. ‘We both know Spiro hated my guts, and the fact he left everything he possessed to you simply underlined the fact.’
‘He what?’ she exclaimed, her golden eyes widening in astonishment on Lucas’s hard face, and what she saw in his night-black eyes sent a shiver of something very like fear quivering down her spine. ‘No, I don’t believe you,’ she amended quickly. ‘Spiro wouldn’t.’ Then she remembered the ‘something to her advantage’.
‘Yes, Spiro would, and did, and your innocent act does not impress me,’ he said harshly. ‘You knew damn fine you stood to inherit Spiro’s share of the business.’
‘Now wait just a minute—’ Amber began, but at that moment Sandy walked in with the coffee.
Amber sat bristling with frustration as she watched her secretary, the girl’s eyes awestruck as she asked Lucas breathlessly how he took his coffee.
‘Black, please.’ He favoured her with a broad smile and just sat looking dark and strikingly attractive until the flustered girl handed him a cup of coffee. ‘Thank you.’
Amber thought Sandy was going to swoon. No wonder she had let Lucas in without an appointment. Even her secretary, who had only been married a few months, was not immune to Lucas’s lethal male charm.
When Amber had first seen Lucas walk into her office she had been in shock, but now the shock had worn off, and another much more dangerous emotion was threatening her hard-won equilibrium. Lucas was a handsome devil and he still had the power to stir her feminine hormones.
Amber hastily picked up her cup of coffee and took a long drink of the reviving brew. The days were long gone when she was a slave to the sexual excitement Lucas could arouse with a mere look or touch. He had killed them dead when he had accused her of being an oversexed female, excellent lover material, but never a wife, and then had gone off and married Christina.
For months after his desertion her self-esteem had hit rock-bottom. She’d questioned her own worth; perhaps Lucas had been right about her. She was sex mad, the hedonist he had called her. She certainly had been when she’d been with him. In consequence she had, without really being aware of doing it, adjusted her style of dress to elegant but conservative—no short skirts, or revealing necklines. She wore little make-up and kept her long hair ruthlessly scraped back in a tight chignon, and she had no idea she looked even more desirable.
The door closing as Sandy left brought Amber back to the present with a start, and, straightening her shoulders, she was once again in command. She looked at Lucas with narrowed hostile eyes. ‘I don’t need you to tell me what I do or don’t know,’ she said curtly, and, picking up the letter from the desk, she held it out to him.
‘Read that. I saw it for the first time this morning, and as yet I have not had time to respond, basically because I have an unscheduled guest. You.’ His fingers brushed hers as he took the document from her outstretched hand, igniting a tingling sensation on her soft skin. Her golden eyes narrowed warily to his face, sure he had done it deliberately, but he was unfolding the