Gullibility, lack of experience, and the fact that Kate had been way out of her depth had cost the company dear. Within months the con man had syphoned off vast quantities of money, leaving Kandy Kate in a more desperate state than ever.
Nearly three years had passed since then, and Kate had wised up considerably. But despite her best efforts—despite selling off just about every asset that Kandy Kate had had left, working all the hours that God sent, begging, borrowing and pleading with banks, investors, and anyone else who might be prepared to pour some serious capital into the business—Kate had got nowhere.
The sad fact was that Kate’s eponymous business was still in a dire state. And, short of a miracle, there was nothing she could do to repair it.
The press, of course, were lapping it up. Fiona O’Connor had always been good tabloid fodder, with her expensive tastes and her erratic outbursts. But, as the face of Kandy Kate, Kate herself was the real prize. Hounded by the press all her life, she never knew when she was going to be snapped by a lone pap, hoping to make a few dollars out of her—though why anyone should be remotely interested in seeing her buying a few groceries in the local deli or snatching a coffee on her way to work she had no idea.
Events like the Executives’ Club, however, were a different matter. Which was why Kate made sure she concealed her identity with a false name, a blonde wig and more make-up than a three-year-old at a clown convention.
Getting into bed, she pulled the covers under her chin.
Maybe it was time to give up. This morning she’d discovered there had been a surge in the price of Kandy Kate’s shares, and that meant only one thing. Someone was planning a hostile takeover. Which was all she needed.
Kate had hoped she might be able to glean some information as to who might be behind the takeover from some of guests at the Executives’ Club. Obviously she’d had to make sure she didn’t reveal who she was, but successful businessmen loved to brag and champagne loosened their tongues. Unfortunately it also loosened their hands, and Kate had found them far more interested in stroking her butt or staring down her cleavage than giving her the lowdown on the latest gossip from the trading floor.
Closing her eyes, Kate willed herself to go to sleep. She was dog-tired...physically and emotionally drained. But sleep refused to come. Instead, Nikos’s powerful image filled her vision, crowding her mind, snapping her eyes open again.
The acute shock of seeing him tonight still held her body in a rigid grip. The three years since she had last seen him had vanished like vapour the second she had set eyes on him again. One glance at that handsome face and the memories of their break-up had come flooding back: the fight, the things they had said...horrible, hateful, brutal words...all recalled with vivid clarity. She felt as if time had simply distilled the pain, making it even more potent as it sank its vicious claws into her once again.
When Nikos had left her, Kate’s whole world had collapsed. Her hopes and dreams had crumbled before her eyes—built, as it turned out, on nothing more substantial than the shifting sands of blind optimism and unguarded love. She had fallen into a place so deep, so dark, that she had feared she would never see the light again.
But somehow she had clawed her way back up. Somehow she had survived.
As she stared up at the peeling paintwork of the ceiling Kate conceded that their relationship had been doomed from the start. The cracks had always been there—just ignored in the first wild rush of all-consuming passion. A time when anything had seemed possible.
She hadn’t been totally blameless. By choosing to play down her family’s wealth and lavish lifestyle she had been guilty of deceiving Nikos. It had been a selfish act, but the relief of being free from the shackles of Kandy Kate that had dominated her whole life had been so wonderful, so liberating, she had lied by omission just to try and keep it that way for as long as possible.
Just for a while she had wanted to be Kate O’Connor—a regular kind of girl from an ordinary background, who happened to have been fortunate enough to fall in love with the most wonderful guy in the world.
But the flipside had meant she’d failed to mention Nikos to her parents. Far less the fact that she had rushed headlong into an engagement with him. That she intended to marry the remarkable Greek man as soon as possible.
Because Kate had known full well the ruckus it would cause. She knew her mother would hit the roof and insist that the engagement was broken off immediately—that there was no way she was going to allow her daughter to marry some penniless Greek bum. And then her poor father would be dragged into it, torn between the two women in his life the way he always was, doing his best to keep the peace.
Kate had decided that she was going to keep the engagement a secret for as long as she could. But when news had arrived that her father had been taken seriously ill her little secret had suddenly begun to grow, to take on a life of its own.
As she’d rushed to make plans to return to New York Nikos had assumed he would be going with her. But Kate hadn’t been able to let that happen. Her parents hadn’t even known of his existence—she couldn’t arrive back home with him by her side, knowing the way her mother would react and risking damaging her father’s fragile health still further.
So she had insisted Nikos stayed behind in Crete. She could still remember the look of hurt on his face when she’d told him. Standing there in the Greek sunshine, so tall and proud, his dark brows pulling together in surprise, his features had set like stone.
It had all but broken her heart, but Kate had stood firm, slinging her rucksack over her shoulder and turning away when all she’d wanted to do was to fall into his arms and stay there for ever.
If she had come clean there and then, confessed everything, would things have turned out differently?
Kate had gone over that moment in her head a thousand times. But the fact was she hadn’t. And as Nikos’s hurt had quickly turned to a carefully controlled anger, a cold cloud of animosity had descended over them as they’d said their goodbyes.
Nikos’s dry peck on her cheek had only accentuated the widening rift between them.
Her father had died two weeks later. And in the melee of trying to organise everything—taking care of her mother, who had always suffered from fragile mental health, as well as coping with her own crippling grief—suddenly Nikos had arrived. Unannounced. Uninvited. And even though her heart had leapt at the sight of him—even though he had been the person Kate had wanted to see more than anyone else in the world, needed more than anyone else in the world—she had panicked.
Hadn’t she expressly told him not to come? His arrival was going to cause nothing but trouble. And that trouble had started almost immediately.
Within minutes her guilty secret had been exposed. Dropping his bag, Nikos had looked around the luxurious apartment with a puzzled expression on his face before pulling her into a stiff hug.
With immaculate timing Fiona O’Connor had walked in at that precise moment, demanding to know who this person was. And as Nikos had stepped forward to offer his condolences, and to introduce himself as Kate’s fiancé, she had let out a little scream, her hand fluttering to her throat.
Kate had had no choice but to try and do whatever she could to mitigate the damage, to calm Fiona down. Even though that had meant pushing Nikos away.
And then, on that last evening—the evening of her father’s funeral—her whole shaky world had finally collapsed.
When she’d been at her lowest ebb Nikos had turned on her, slashing through her battered defences, inflicting the sort of crippling pain from which there was no recovery...
Turning on her side, Kate curled herself into a ball as the memory of how Nikos had looked tonight imprinted itself on her brain. Gone had been the laid-back guy she had once known, casually dressed in faded jeans slung low on his hips or board shorts frayed at the hems by the