‘Everything,’ Nik slotted in immovably. ‘I’ll give you an allowance.’
She glanced up in surprise and dismay. ‘But that’s not—’
‘You’ll just have to trust me.’
‘I want to buy a house for my mother.’
‘Naturally I will not see your mother suffer in any way. If you marry me, I promise you that she will live in comfort for the rest of her life,’ Nik asserted. ‘I will regard her as I would regard a member of my own family and I will treat her accordingly.’
It was a more than generous offer, and she was impressed and pleased that there was no lack of respect in the manner in which he referred to her mother.
‘Your grandfather was born seventy-four years ago,’ Nik pointed out, as if he could see what she was thinking. ‘He’s from a very different generation. Your birth outside the bonds of marriage was a source of enormous shame and grief to him.’
Fierce loyalty to her mother stiffened Olympia. ‘I know that, but—’
‘No, you don’t know it, or even begin to understand it,’ Nik incised with sudden grimness. ‘Your mother brought you up to be British. She made no attempt to teach you what it was to be Greek. She stayed well away from the Greek community here in London. I am not judging her for that, but don’t tell me that you understand our culture because you do not.’
Lips compressed, Olympia cloaked her unimpressed gaze.
‘Greek men have always set great value on a woman’s virtue—’
‘We’re getting off the subject,’ Olympia said in curt interruption, tensing at the recollection of the names he had called her. In retrospect, she recognised that she now felt sensitive to his low opinion of her morals, and she wondered why on earth that should be.
Just as quickly, she marvelled at her stupidity in allowing him to demand, unchallenged, that she sign away any claim on the Manoulis empire and trustingly depend on his generosity. ‘What you said about me signing away everything—’
‘Non-negotiable,’ Nik interrupted with gleaming dark eyes. ‘Take it or leave it.’
Olympia breathed in deep. ‘I don’t care about the money—’
‘If you don’t care, why are you arguing?’
She didn’t trust him. But she did nonetheless trust the promise he had made about her mother, and that was all that mattered, she reminded herself. After all, she would be living with her mother and looking after her. Why had she argued?
Nik shot her a sardonic appraisal. ‘Do you think I would keep my wife in penury?’
She flushed. ‘No.’
He glanced down at the slim gold watch on his wrist and then back at her. ‘This is progressing very slowly, Olympia. May I move on?’
She nodded.
‘Your belief that we could marry and separate immediately after the ceremony is ridiculous. Your grandfather would not accept a charade of that nature, and nor would I be prepared to deceive him in that way.’
She tensed. ‘So what are you suggesting?’
‘You will have to live in one of my homes…for a while, at least.’
She focused her mind on her mother’s needs and gave him another reluctant nod.
‘You give me a son and heir.’
Olympia blinked, lips falling slightly apart.
‘Yes, you did hear that.’ Nik surveyed her shocked face with cynical cool. ‘I need a son and heir, and if I have to marry you, I might as well make the most of the opportunity.’
‘You’ve got to be joking!’ Olympia gasped, so taken aback by that calm announcement she could barely vocalise.
Nik elevated a black brow. ‘The son and heir is also non-negotiable. And, unless I change my mind at some future date, a daughter will not be an acceptable substitute. Sorry if that sounds sexist, but there are still a lot of daughters out there who do not want to be leaders in industry!’
Olympia sat in the armchair staring at him as if he had taken leave of his wits. ‘You hate me, you can’t possibly w-want to—’
‘Wouldn’t faze me in the slightest, Olympia. You may be damaged goods, but I’m not over-sensitive when it comes to practicality,’ Nik delivered, running slumbrous dark eyes over her as if he was already stripping off her clothes piece by piece. ‘And as I have no respect for you whatsoever, conceiving a child should be fun.’
‘You’d have to make me!’ Olympia breathed in growing outrage.
Nik winced and regarded her with semi-screened eyes. ‘Oh, I don’t think so…I think you’ll cling and beg me to stay with you like all my other women do. I’m a hell of a good lay, believe me. You’ll enjoy yourself.’
Olympia jerked up out of her chair, so shattered by that speech she was at screaming point. ‘You invited me here to try and humiliate me—’
‘Trying doesn’t come into it. Sit down, Olympia, because I haven’t finished yet.’
Olympia threw him a look of fierce disgust. ‘Get lost!’
She stalked over to the chair where he had tossed her jacket and snatched it up.
‘If I were you, I wouldn’t push me,’ Nik drawled in a soft undertone that danced down her rigid spine like a gypsy’s curse. ‘I’ve got you where I want you.’
‘No way!’ she launched at him, in such a temper that if he had come any closer she would have swung a fist at him with pleasure.
‘Does your mother know about the sordid little encounter in the car park that concluded your visit to Greece ten years ago?’
Olympia’s feet welded to the carpet. Her face drained of colour as if he had pulled a switch. So appalled was she by that question she just stared into space, her stomach knotting with instant nausea.
‘Lesson one, Olympia,’ Nik murmured with soft, sibilant clarity. ‘When I say I’ve got you where I want you…listen!’
CHAPTER THREE
NIK COZAKIS strolled across his enormous office and gently eased the jacket from Olympia’s loosened grasp to cast it aside again.
He closed his hand over hers and guided her back to the armchair. Positioning her in front of it, he gave her a gentle push downward, and her knees bent without her volition. She sank down in slow motion but settled heavily as a stone.
‘You wouldn’t…you couldn’t approach my mother…’
Nik hunkered down in front of her with innate athletic grace. Level now with her, he scanned her ashen face and appalled eyes. ‘Oh what a dark, dark day it was for you when you walked into my office, Olympia…’ he murmured with silken satisfaction.
Olympia was now in so much shock she was shaking. ‘You don’t know what my mother knows—’
‘What do you think I’ve spent the last week having done? I’ve had enquiries made,’ Nik told her levelly. ‘Your mother was very friendly with your next-door neighbour at your last address, and she was a very talkative woman.’
‘Mrs Barnes wouldn’t remember—I mean, you couldn’t possibly…’ Olympia was stammering helplessly now, so horrified by the threat he had made she could barely string two coherent thoughts together.
‘Unfortunately for you, the lady remembered very well, for the simple reason that your disappointment that summer ten years ago has long been an ongoing source of regret to your mother, Irini, and a subject to