‘Oops, was that your ego I stepped on? Oh, but I’m sure they’re spectacular lovers.’ She turned the voltage of her insincere smile up by several watts before allowing it to fade away to grim contempt. ‘But pardon me if I happen to think that picking out some poor girl with good childbearing hips and the right blood lines to produce an heir is extremely cold-blooded.’
‘Katie!’
Nikos, a smile fixed on his sensual lips, lifted his hand in a soothing gesture to still the other man’s appalled protest. ‘You are marrying a romantic, my friend,’ he drawled. ‘Someone to whom arranged marriages are anathema.’ He scanned her face with derisive eyes. ‘Am I right, Katerina? You would never marry for anything but love? Certainly not for anything as base as…security.’ His long forefinger seemingly accidentally brushed the diamond nestling on her finger.
His mockery, as corrosive as battery acid, made her long to wipe the smirk off his face. Her hands curled into fists on the table-top.
‘In a perfect world everyone would marry for love,’ she told him stiffly.
Nikos’s mobile lips curled contemptuously. ‘So you are a pragmatist after all, which is of course infinitely preferable to a hypocrite.’
At his soft, sibilant words the last remnants of Katie’s trepidation were washed away on a violent tide of anger. It was one sneer too many. She lifted her furious sparkling eyes to his lean, dark face—just where did he get off looking down his superior nose at her?
Buying a husband might be a pretty pathetic thing to do, but at least she’d had a damned good excuse, whereas what excuse had Nikos Lakis had? A quick way to get money to fuel his extravagant lifestyle when he’d fallen out of favour with his rich daddy seemed the safest bet. If anyone is the hypocrite here, it isn’t me, Katie thought scornfully.
Tom, who had the suspicion he was missing something in this rapid exchange, seized on the mention of something he felt he was an expert on. ‘Oh, Katie is very practical.’
Nikos looked from the ring on her finger to the diamonds encircling her narrow wrist and smiled. ‘That I never doubted. Ah, I hope you don’t mind, I ordered champagne,’ he said as a wine waiter approached the table.
‘Much appreciated, Nik. Isn’t it, darling?’
Katie nodded. It pained her deeply to see Tom’s unsuspicious pleasure at the empty gesture. Normally an astute man, he couldn’t seem to see what was under his nose where Nikos Lakis was concerned. Maybe it was the glamour of his wealth that made Tom blind. As far as she was concerned, the man was a prize creep!
Nikos took the bottle from its bed of ice and personally popped the cork with an expert twist of his long brown fingers and a flick of his strong, supple wrist, but then he would be an expert at drinking champagne and making love to beautiful women, Katie thought sourly, for wasn’t that what playboys like him spent their time doing? The irony was that she had probably financed some of that champagne and those women! The realisation only made his attitude all the more hypocritically sanctimonious.
Her chin firmed in determination; they’d had a deal and he’d got his money’s worth for precious little effort on his part. She was damned if she was going to let him ruin her life just when it was going where she wanted it with his silent threats, and the first moment she got him alone she was going to tell him so.
The thought of being alone with him made her stomach flip. Katie was surprised to discover that excitement and disgust could sometimes feel much the same thing. Naturally, given the choice she’d never want to be alone with the hateful man, but under the circumstances there wasn’t an option.
‘To the happy couple.’
Katie, her eyes shining with belligerence, obediently sipped the expensive bubbles, not tasting a thing.
The meal was torture; Nikos’s cryptic remarks were so numerous that Katie was sure Tom would catch on. It took all her will-power not to react to his wind-ups. The intrusive chime of Tom’s mobile just as they reached the main course was for once something of a welcome break.
He apologised but took the call and spoke for several minutes to someone on the other end. From the way his expression darkened it wasn’t hard to tell it was bad news he was hearing.
‘I’ll be there in about thirty minutes,’ he said, before sliding his phone back into his pocket. ‘I’m really sorry, folks.’ His apologetic glance slid from Katie to Nikos and back again. ‘But I really have to go. That out-of-town development I’m working on has been nothing but trouble from the start. I’d heard there was going to be some sort of demonstration so I arranged for the bulldozers to move in tonight, but it seems the damned eco-warriors beat us to it.
‘And,’ he added gloomily, ‘they’re not alone. A local TV station has picked up on it.’ Looking grim, he folded his napkin and got to his feet. ‘Can you believe it? All this over a scrubby bit of bog land nobody has ever heard of. Now they’ve come up with rare weed…I ask you, a weed!’
Katie, who found she had some sympathy with the local businesses and residents who didn’t want the out-of-town development, kept a tactful silence.
‘Some people,’ he complained darkly, ‘can’t stand progress.’
‘The future, my friend, is green,’ Nikos observed.
Tom’s laughter suggested he considered his friend’s remark a joke. Katie, who wasn’t so sure, began to get to her feet.
Tom motioned her to sit down. ‘No, sweetheart, you finish your meal—no need for everyone to suffer. Nik will see you home?’ He looked enquiringly at the other man, who responded smooth as silk.
‘My pleasure.’
Katie’s stomach gave a horrid lurch. Only a determination not to give him the satisfaction enabled her to conceal her dismay.
‘Thanks, mate.’ Tom gave Nikos a thumbs-up signal. ‘You two enjoy your meal,’ he encouraged, bending down to kiss the top of Katie’s head.
‘Perhaps I could help,’ she said, speaking quickly. ‘I know Mark Rogers’s mother.’ Tom gave a growl at the mention of the leader of the local opposition to his project. ‘She’s a lovely woman, Tom, and she was saying that it’s the scale of the development and the lack of local consultation that has upset Mark and the others. Perhaps if—’
‘I appreciate the offer, Katie,’ Tom said, unable to hide his impatience. ‘But this is business. I’m sure Rogers’s mother is a nice woman, but you can’t reason with troublemakers like him—they just see it as weakness. I’ll ring you in the morning.’
Katie had told herself that that was just the way Tom was and it wasn’t something she could do anything about, but on this occasion as she watched his departure part of her wanted to call him back and confront him. Why are you acting like a prehistoric jerk? Why are you treating me like a brainless ornament? she wanted to demand.
She’d seen him work perfectly amicably with high-powered female executives. He’d come across as an enlightened new man on the occasions she’d heard him express admiration for females in top jobs. So why, when it came to his own fiancée, did he assume that anything remotely connected with his business was over her head?
Maybe it was his upbringing, she reflected, or maybe I just look dumb?
She gave a sigh as he reached the door and, turning back to the table, discovered that Nikos Lakis was watching her.
CHAPTER THREE
‘WHAT,’ Katie snapped testily, ‘are you looking at?’ There was entirely too much understanding in those disturbing eyes of Nikos’s for her comfort.
‘The dynamics of a loving relationship.’
The reply didn’t soothe her; she didn’t want those cold, clever