‘Both these things are true and I agree that many successful marriages are based on more pragmatic reasons; I have no problem with that, so long as both parties enter into the arrangement with their eyes open.’
‘Like us.’
‘Unless you are planning on not sharing Tom’s bed there are some very obvious differences, but, yes, on your part there are very obviously similarities. However, unlike Tom, I was not madly in love with you,’ he ground out sarcastically. ‘It is your hypocrisy in pretending you are marrying for some pure and elevated reasons that I despise. The thing you love is the idea of being married to someone who can buy you diamonds and keep you in your expensive clothes.’
‘How dare you act as if you know me? You may have married me, but you don’t know me at all!’
‘But we are married and, while we are, Tom is safe from making the worst mistake of his life…’
‘And you can’t marry your girlfriend.’ Surely that consideration had to carry weight with him.
‘She will wait.’ His faintly startled tone suggested no other possibility had even occurred to him.
For a brief moment Katie allowed herself the indulgence of imagining Nikos Lakis left at the altar, a shattered man. The bride leaving him in this happy vision bore a startling resemblance to herself. As pleasant as this fantasy was, Katie had to think of some way of dealing with Nikos in the real world, and denying him her favours was hardly going to do it…what would?
It was so obvious she didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of it earlier.
‘So maybe you’ve got a girlfriend who will let you walk over her and wait for you until doomsday, but the press are a different kettle of fish—they don’t have so much tolerance for rich playboys.’
Katie sensed his big body tense behind the wheel. ‘Meaning…?’
Katie refused to be put off by the menace in his silky voice. ‘Meaning that some sections of the press would have a field day if they found out a member of the Lakis family had gone through a fake wedding ceremony so he could get the money to maintain his lavish lifestyle.’
Greek billionaire, young and more beautiful than any man had a right to be… Katie didn’t know much about such things, but she was betting the press would have files several feet thick on Nikos Lakis and more than a passing interest in his wedding plans past, present or future! Of course she would never actually go to the press, but he didn’t have to know that. On this occasion, him thinking she were some avaricious cow definitely worked in her favour. She flickered a cautious glance at his profile…and swallowed; she had definitely made her point.
‘I can just see the headlines now…’ she breathed airily. Even though she was staring fixedly out the window she was aware of the explosive tension in the tall figure beside her. The silence between them lengthened until Katie could no longer bear it; she swivelled in her seat and shot a look at him.
If Nikos’s expression was any indication, he was seeing those headlines she’d spoken of too. Katie salved her troubled conscience by reminding herself she would not have had to resort to these sort of tactics if he hadn’t played dirty first.
‘You are threatening me?’ he finally asked incredulously.
Kate found his silky shark’s smile and soft voice a million times more menacing than a lot of shouting and swearing.
In fact it was so unnerving that had she had any alternative or been any less stubborn she might have retracted there and then.
‘Think very carefully before you do that, yineka mou.’
Now who was threatening…? ‘I am not your yineka mou,’ she gritted automatically, before adding, ‘it’s the third house on the left after the telephone kiosk.’ She took some comfort from the fact that the street lights in this tree-lined avenue of solid Edwardian houses were fairly bright, and even in subdued light the car Nikos drove was likely to be noticed. He struck her as the practical type of man who would wait until there weren’t any witnesses before he strangled her.
The fact that he wanted to strangle her was not in doubt!
‘You speak Greek?’ Nikos sounded startled.
Katie froze; her response to his sarcastic endearment had been unconscious. ‘Just a few words,’ she mumbled, thinking of the lullaby her mother had sung to her when she’d been unable to sleep. That and a few endearments were the limit of her vocabulary, though she wished right now that she had a better grasp of her mother tongue.
‘When I visit a country,’ she told him blandly, ‘I make it a rule to know how to ask directions to the loo, order a drink and understand what a man is saying when he makes love to me.’
That’s me, the sophisticated woman of the world, well travelled and even more well versed in other things. My God, would he laugh if he knew how far from the truth this was; the only time her passport had come out of mothballs was on a day trip to Calais and as for the other! There could be few twenty-five-year-olds less experienced!
All regretful thoughts of bilingualism and the blank page that was her sex life left her head as they rounded the next tight corner.
‘Oh, my goodness…! Stop the car!’ she suddenly shrieked urgently.
‘There is no need for theatrics, or threats. Be reasonable. I would be a bad enemy to make and a resourceful woman like you will no doubt find another gullible man with a fat bank balance. But I cannot permit you to marry Tom.’
Katie wasn’t listening to these powerful words as she literally bounced in her seat in frustration. ‘I said stop the car!’ she bellowed, grabbing the steering wheel.
There was a short-lived tussle during which the car slewed violently to the left, barely missing a large beech tree before Nikos, white-faced and cursing, brought the vehicle safely to standstill.
‘Are you mad?’ he thundered, raking her face with silver-shot blazing eyes. ‘You could have killed us.’
Katie, who had been thrown against the door, shook her head to clear the ringing in her ears. ‘Well, if you’d done what I said instead of ignoring me…’ she retorted, reaching for the door handle.
Long brown fingers came to cover her own.
‘You are not going anywhere…’
Katie turned her head impatiently towards him. ‘Shut up and phone for the fire brigade—that’s my flat over there with smoke pouring out of the damned window.’
‘Theos!’
CHAPTER FIVE
KATIE didn’t wait around to see if Nikos was doing as she requested. She tore open the door, which he no longer barred, and, gathering her long skirts, ran full pelt down the path to the entrance she shared with Sadie.
In between pounding on the door she fumbled in her purse for her key. Before she found it Sadie, dressed in a baggy pair of silk trousers and a low-cut top that made her look like an inmate of a harem, appeared blinking sleepily.
‘Where’s the fire…?’
Katie had no time to waste on explanations. ‘Upstairs.’
Sadie’s eyes widened as she appreciated for the first time the urgency in Katie’s manner. ‘You’re serious!’ She sniffed the air. ‘I can smell smoke.’
Katie barged unceremoniously past her friend. ‘That’s because my flat’s on fire, and Alexander is still in there!’ she yelled over her shoulder as she raced up the stairs two at a time.
She ignored Sadie’s alarmed cry of ‘Katie, you can’t go up there…he’s just a cat!’
The smell