Page 5 of Reclaimed By His Billion-Dollar Ring

The word tolled in Calanthe’s brain now, as she stood beside her father.

No, it had not been ‘harmless’ to indulge as she had wanted to do—as she had actually done—that long-ago summer, a wine glass lazily in her hands, letting her dreamy, wine-infused gaze self-indulgently rest on the man seated further along the taverna table, drinking him in as if he, too, were wine...

It had not been ‘harmless’ to have anything to do with him at all. Let alone—

She silenced her own inner, anguished voice. What use to tell herself what she should have done all those years ago? She hadn’t—and her stupid, trusting heart had paid the price for it. She had been broken, and bitterly disillusioned by the man he’d turned out to be....

She heard, in her head, the echo of her father’s voice, telling her just what Nik had done...what he had stooped to. How shamelessly, readily he had done so.

She tore her mind away—it was in the past and she would keep it that way.

Except that the past was now walking towards her. Purposefully heading towards her father and herself.

She had moments only to brace herself, to dredge up strength from somewhere deep inside her, and then he was there. Standing in front of her, a bare metre away. As tall and as head-turningly good-looking as he had ever been.

His evening dress was bespoke, hand-tailored to his broad, strong frame, superbly moulding his superb body. His hair was cut short and by an expert, feathering at the nape. His jaw was pristine, his skin smooth. He was svelte, groomed, immaculate, fitting in seamlessly with all the other svelte, groomed, immaculately clad rich men around him.

He stood in front of her. The eyes resting on her, not her father, were as dark, as long-lashed and as unreadable in their depths as they had ever been. With nothing in them except the bland civility befitting the occasion.

All her strength was going into standing there, every muscle taut, her fingertips tight around the stem of the champagne flute so that the skin around her lightly varnished nails was white. She had no strength left to analyse the something that flared to life in those unreadable depths—something that was not bland at all.

But then it was gone, and now he was speaking, that same bland civility in his voice.

‘Hello, Calanthe, it’s been a while.’

CHAPTER TWO

NIKOS SAW HER FREEZE. Saw shock flash fleetingly across her face. Well, he hadn’t been expecting to see her either. It had been impulse only, his instinct for taking opportunities as they presented themselves, that had made him walk in here.

His eyes went past Calanthe to the man beside her, who had registered his presence and now paused in his conversation with the man he’d been talking to, who nodded and moved away. There was a questioning look in Georgios Petranakos’s eye, and Nikos spoke to allay it.

Even as he did he was conscious of a sense of biting irony. Georgios Petranakos had no idea who he was. The fixers he’d despatched eight years ago to protect his daughter would have recognised him, despite the different name he’d used back then...

Well, he was using his own name now.

‘Nikos Kavadis,’ he said, introducing himself.

He saw Georgios Petranakos mentally review the name, then nod in recognition. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said.

‘I hope you will not mind my intruding like this, Kyrios Petranakos.’ Nikos gave a smile that was a judiciously exact blend of confident and respectful. ‘But I’m staying at this hotel at the moment, and I noticed your name listed on the function board in the lobby.’

The older man smiled genially. ‘I am very glad you can join us.’

Nikos’s social antennae, long honed, caught the note of genuine welcome in his host’s voice. And, after all, why should he not be welcome?

His eyes darkened momentarily. Once, he would never have been welcome. Once, steps would have been taken—had been taken—ruthless and swift. His mouth twisted. Highly effective steps to dispose of him promptly.

But now... Oh, now he was completely eligible to move in such elite circles as Georgios Petranakos did. OK, so his own business affairs were not centred in Greece but ranged globally, wherever his specialist, innovative services were required—services so specialist, so innovative, that they had made him, in eight short years, a very wealthy man.

A man who could walk in, uninvited, to a rich man’s private party with impunity. A man who could, with equal impunity, let his gaze go to the woman standing at Georgios Petranakos’s side. A woman he’d had no idea he would set eyes on again. A woman he had once known, eight long years ago, as a very different person.

But she was always the woman I see here now! Even back then.

His thoughts darkened.

But back then I did not know who she was. Not until—

He pushed these thoughts away. When he’d found out who she was, everything had changed...

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