Page 15 of The Konstantos Marriage Demand

‘And you fell for it, didn’t you?’

The words had flashed from her mouth before she had time to consider if they were wise or even safe. She only knew that she couldn’t take any more of this black mockery. Of the appalling insults he was tossing in her direction with almost every word that came out of his mouth.

‘You really thought that all you had to do was to touch me—kiss me—and I would be putty in your hands.’

‘You were. That is exactly how you behaved.’

‘I made it seem as if I was but you’re pretty easy to fool. All I had to do was to let you cop a feel…’

The way that his black brows snapped together in a furious frown made her heart lurch in panic, cutting her words off short. Deciding hastily that it was probably safer not to think about the real reason why he looked so furious, instead she opted for a less contentious option and flashed him a mocking smile.

‘Ask someone to translate,’ she suggested wickedly.

‘No translation necessary, believe me,’ Nikos flung back, cold as ice. ‘None at all. But if you think that that was what was happening then you are the one in need of an interpretation. And a reality check.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘Oh, yes. If you think that all it takes is a flash of those stunning green eyes or a wiggle of your sexy little behind, then you really don’t know me at all.’

‘It felt—’ Sadie began, but Nikos cut in on her, bringing one long-fingered hand down in a slashing gesture to emphasise his interruption.

‘I was fool enough to go that way once before and I have no intention of ever putting my head into the noose all over again.’

‘And you’ve made us pay for it ever since!’

Sadie was beginning to feel as if she was on some dangerous emotional rollercoaster. And it was all her own fault. After all she’d started this, with the pretence that she’d only been playing him along.

Playing him along—hah! That would be the day. She hated to admit it, even to herself, but the truth was that she had been putty in his hands. One kiss, one caress, and she had lost all grip on her sanity and been spun into a world of hot sensation and even hotter need. At least she had had the sense to realise that those casually tossed compliments—stunning green eyes and sexy little behind, indeed!—were not meant at all. They were just the practised flattery of a consummate womaniser. He probably rolled them out to whichever woman he happened to be with, changing the colour of their eyes where appropriate of course.

‘You’ve had five years of taking your revenge. Haven’t you done enough, had enough?’

‘If you want the truth, then the answer is no,’

It was a flat, hard statement, his tone as harshly unyielding as his face, and when she looked into the deep pools of his eyes she saw no spark of warmth, no hint of humanity. Instead they were as cold and unresponsive as ice, his opaque, blanked-off stare shocking and frightening.

‘What more can you have? There’s nothing left. My father’s dead—his fortune, his company are yours. Isn’t that enough for you?’

‘No, it is not.’

Nikos’s golden eyes flicked over her face, catching and locking with her furious gaze just for one moment. Then he looked away again, heavy lids coming down to cut him off from her.

‘I thought it was, but now I find it just won’t do. It isn’t enough. It doesn’t give me the satisfaction that I wanted. I need to find some other way of making sure of that.’

And then she knew. With a terrible, sinking sense of despair she realised just what was going on here. Nikos Konstantos had always been determined to have his revenge for the way that Edwin had ruined his family. He had worked for that and for nothing else all the five years since she had last seen him. He’d taken the Carteret name, the Carteret business and stamped them into the mud, drained them of every last penny they possessed. He was even prepared to take the family home from them and throw her and her mother and little George out into the street.

And she had done the worst thing possible, made the most terrible mistake imaginable, by coming here to plead with him for a chance.

Because that had given Nikos one more chance to exact revenge on the member of the family he had the most personal reasons to hate. The one that he hadn’t yet crushed beneath his heel and laughed in triumph as he did so.

He hadn’t truly had his revenge on Sadie herself. Until now. And now it was strictly personal and totally ruthless. This wasn’t about the house or the past except as it pitted the two of them against each other. This was the last part that would make his campaign of revenge complete.

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