Nik sank down on the edge of his desk, his attitude one of total relaxation. He saluted her with his glass. ‘You were a class act. I was a hundred per cent positive you were a virgin.’
Suddenly Olympia was feeling uncomfortably warm in her cardigan jacket, and although she wanted to meet his eyes with complete indifference, she was finding that her eyes were unwilling to go anywhere near him. She hadn’t known what to expect from Nik tonight, but she definitely hadn’t expected him to refer with such apparent calm to that long-ago summer.
‘So…’ Nik trailed the word out in his darkly sensual drawl. ‘I have only one question to ask before we get down to business. It’s like a trick question, Olympia—’
Confusion was starting to grip her. ‘I don’t want to hear it, then—’
‘But you have to answer it with real honesty,’ he continued with the same unnerving cool. ‘It would not be in your best interests to lie. So don’t give me the answer you think I want to hear because you might well end up regretting it.’
Her mouth was dry as a bone. She tipped her orange juice to her lips. Her hand was trembling and the rim of the glass rattled against her teeth. The tension was so thick she could taste it. But she couldn’t think straight because Nik Cozakis now, tonight, was not behaving remotely as he had done a week earlier.
‘That night at the club, you may have seen me with another girl…Theos, I hope I’m not embarrassing you with this rather adolescent walk down memory lane,’ Nik murmured in a voice dark and smooth as black velvet as Olympia perceptibly jerked in shock at what he had thrown at her without warning.
‘Why should you be embarrassing me?’ she asked between gritted teeth.
‘Then let me plunge right to the heart of the matter that engages my curiosity even now,’ Nik continued softly. ‘Did you go out to my car with Lukas because you were drunk and distressed by what you may have seen, and did he then take advantage of you in that state? Or…’
Olympia stared fixedly at the desk lamp, outraged resentment and sheer hatred clawing at her. She wanted to toss the remains of her drink in his arrogant face and then hit him so hard, he wouldn’t pick himself up for a month. Ten years on, having been judged and found guilty for a sin she had not committed, why should she admit the agonies that he had put her through that night? Why should she further humiliate herself with that kind of honesty? Where did he get off asking her such questions? He darned well hadn’t asked her them at the time! Nor had there been any reference to the possibility that she might have seen him carrying on with another girl!
‘Or…what?’ she prompted in a hissing undertone.
‘Or…’ Nik responded without the smallest audible hint of discomfiture. ‘Did you go out to my car with him either because you thought you could get away with not being seen or because—’
‘I went out to your car with him because I fancied him like mad!’ Olympia suddenly erupted, provoked beyond bearing by his sardonic probing, her sea-jade eyes hot with defiance and loathing.
Dark eyes with a single light of gold held to her flushed and furious face. His outrageously long, lush lashes lowered, leaving only the dark glimmer of his gaze visible.
Her tummy clenched and she trembled, an odd coldness spreading inside her, as she met those dark, dark eyes. She spun away, shocked at the gross lie she had thrown at him, shocked that even ten years on her own desire for revenge could still burst back into being and send her off the edge into an insane response, for at the exact same moment she recalled exactly why she had come to Nik’s office.
‘You’re just toying with me for your own amusement!’ Olympia flung him an agitated glance of condemnation. ‘You’re going to say no, of course you’re going to say no…I really don’t know why I bothered coming here tonight!’
‘You were desperate,’ Nik reminded her with dulcet cool.
‘Well, why don’t you just say no?’ Olympia was beyond all pretence now, and she didn’t care that she sounded childish. He was winding her up and making a fool of her. She couldn’t wait to get away from him.
Nik rose lithely upright. ‘No need to get so rattled, Olympia,’ he mocked. ‘Why don’t you take that baggy cardy off and sit down?’
Her hot face got even hotter. She was boiling alive in her jacket, but she folded her arms.
Nik laughed with a sudden amusement that she found even more unnerving.
‘What’s so funny?’ she demanded sharply.
‘You always seemed so quiet. I awarded you all these qualities that you never actually possessed.’ His expressive mouth twisted with derision. ‘But now I’m seeing the real Olympia Manoulis. Hot-tempered, stubborn and reckless to the point of self-destruction.’
‘These are hardly normal circumstances. Don’t presume to know anything about me…because you don’t!’ Olympia slung back at him defensively.
‘But if you don’t take the ugly cardy off, I’m going to rip it off,’ Nik spelt out softly.
Olympia backed off a startled step. Only now was it dawning on her that she had never really known Nik Cozakis either. Clashing with brilliant dark eyes, she watched him extend a lean brown hand to receive the jacket, and suddenly it didn’t seem worth arguing about any more. Tight-mouthed, she peeled it off and tossed it to him. ‘You like throwing your weight around, don’t you? I should’ve remembered that.’
Ignoring that comment, Nik cast the jacket on a nearby chair. ‘Now sit down, so that you can hear my terms for marriage.’
Her eyes opened very wide and she froze.
‘Né…yes. What you want is within reach, but you may yet choose not to pay the price.’
‘The price…?’ Thrown by that smooth acknowledgement that he was seriously considering her proposition, Olympia backed hurriedly down into the armchair closest.
‘All good things come at a price…haven’t you learnt that yet?’ Nik murmured in a voice as smooth and rich as honey.
All of a sudden she couldn’t concentrate. Having forgotten to keep Nik out of focus, she collided head-on with amber-gold eyes. It was like being suddenly dropped from a height. Such beautiful lying eyes, she thought helplessly, curling her taut fingers into the fabric of her skirt. A quivering, insidious warmth snaked up between her thighs, making her tense, jerk her lashes down and freeze, no longer under any illusion about what was happening to her. As she felt her breasts stir and swell, their soft peaks pinch into straining sensitivity, she was aghast. A tidal wave of embarrassment surged up over her. Already her heart was banging as if she had run a race.
‘Olympia…?’
She crossed her arms and lifted her head again with pronounced reluctance. Nik was over by the window at a comfortable distance. He was planning to agree; he was going to marry her. She was home and dry, she reminded herself. What did it matter if her stupid body still reacted to him? He was really gorgeous, really, really gorgeous. It was a chemical response, nothing more. So she didn’t like it, in fact she hated that out-of-control feeling, but it wasn’t as if she would be seeing much of him in the future.
‘You’re in shock…I’m surprised,’ Nik admitted. ‘You seemed so confident last week that you could win my agreement.’
‘You weren’t very encouraging,’ she pointed out unevenly, no longer looking anywhere near him. It might just be a chemical response but she didn’t want to encourage it.
‘I thought your proposition over at length. I feel I should warn you that I tend to be ruthless when I negotiate…’
‘Tell me something I didn’t expect.’
‘I have certain conditions you would have to agree to. And there is no room for negotiation at all,’ Nik imparted gently.
‘Just