‘Mistress,’ Nikolai slotted in, cool as ice.
‘But we don’t even know each other,’ Ella framed dazedly. ‘You’re a stranger.’
‘If you live with me I won’t be a stranger for long,’ Nikolai pointed out, with monumental calm.
The very sound of that inhuman calm forced her to flip round and settle distraught eyes on his lean, darkly handsome face. ‘You can’t be serious about this.’
‘I assure you that I am deadly serious. Move in and I’ll forget your family’s debts.’
‘But it’s a crazy idea!’ She gasped the words, floundering against his restrained silence. It was obvious that he was determined to behave as though such a proposition was an everyday occurrence.
‘It’s not crazy to me,’ Nikolai asserted. ‘When I want anything I go after it—hard and fast.’
Did he want her like that? Enough to trace her, buy up her father’s debts and try to buy the rights to her body along with those debts? The very idea of that made her dizzy, and plunged her brain into even greater turmoil.
‘It’s immoral … it’s blackmail …’
‘It’s definitely not blackmail. I’m giving you the benefit of a choice you didn’t have before I came through that door,’ Nikolai Drakos said with glittering cool. ‘That choice is yours to make.’
I can’t quite believe this is my 100th book for Mills & Boon! It’s been an incredible experience, made all the more special by the wonderful editors, writers and readers I’ve met along the way.
As you may have guessed, this book is a very special one for me. When my editor gave me carte blanche on the story, I couldn’t resist coming back to my favourite themes. There’s something about a mistress story—especially when the hero is as commanding and determined as Nikolai Drakos!
Perhaps it’s the moment when the hero realises that he’s got more than he bargained for with the heroine … or maybe it’s when he realises just how much he has to make amends that I can never wait to write about. Perhaps it’s because finally the heroine is going to get the true love that she absolutely deserves. Either way, I couldn’t think of anything that I wanted to write more than Bought for the Greek’s Revenge for my 100th book.
It was a joy to write, from start to finish, and I hope that you love it as much as I do.
Much love,
Lynne Xx
LYNNE GRAHAM was born in Northern Ireland and has been a keen romance reader since her teens. She is very happily married to an understanding husband who has learned to cook since she started to write! Her five children keep her on her toes. She has a very large dog who knocks everything over, a very small terrier who barks a lot, and two cats. When time allows, Lynne is a keen gardener.
For my readers,
who have given me endless support throughout my career.
Thank you.
NIKOLAI DRAKOS SCANNED the photo with a frown and enhanced it. It couldn’t be the same woman; it simply couldn’t be! There was no way that his quarry, Cyrus Makris, could possibly be planning to marry a woman from a humble background.
Bemused, Nikolai lifted his arrogant dark head high and once again studied the picture of the ethereal redhead. No way could it be the same little temptress he had once met working as a parking attendant. The world wasn’t that small. Even so, he was aware that Cyrus owned a country house in Norfolk. A deeper frown lodged between his level dark brows, his quick and clever brain taking a rare hike into the recent past.
For all her diminutive size the woman he had met had had attitude, lots and lots of attitude, certainly not an attribute Nikolai sought from the transient beauties who shared his bed. But she had also had aquamarine eyes and a mouth as soft, silky and pink as a lotus blossom. A sizzling physical combination, which had taken a hell of a lot of forgetting on his part. His wide sensual mouth compressed with dissatisfaction. After she had blown him off, another man might have tried to find her again to make another attempt but Nikolai had refused to do so. He didn’t chase women, he didn’t do sweet talk or dates or flowers or any of that stuff ever. He walked away. The mantra by which he lived insisted that no woman was irreplaceable, no woman unique, and he didn’t believe in love. She had simply caught his imagination for a few intoxicating moments but he had refused to allow lust to seduce him into pursuit. Since when had he had to pursue a woman?
And although it was generally known that Cyrus’s elderly father was putting pressure on his forty-five-year-old son and heir to take a bride, it was a challenge