Page 34 of The Konstantos Marriage Demand

A faint smile crossed his mouth as he followed Sadie inside. He was enjoying watching her struggle with the flames that flared between them and the feeling that she could not, must not act on them. He would keep her on that particular rack for a while longer. The end result, when he finally let her off, would be well worth waiting for.

‘We’re here.’

Sadie had to struggle to bite back the exclamation of relief when Nikos made his announcement perhaps fifty minutes later. Helicopter flights were not her favourite form of travel, and from the moment Nikos had led her from the house to his private helipad, where a gleaming machine that looked like nothing so much as a giant black dragonfly had waited for them, her stomach had been twisting tight with tension. And that sensation had been made all the worse by the way the limited space inside had forced her into close confinement with Nikos for the length of the flight.

He’d piloted the helicopter himself, and every movement of his tanned, muscular arms, the strength of his long fingers on the controls, had her mouth drying in sensual response, her own hands tightening on each other where they lay in her lap. So it was with a sense of escape that she watched the land, the first they had seen for the last twenty minutes of a journey which had been mostly over sparkling blue sea, come closer and closer as the helicopter descended.

‘Where are we?’ she asked when at last they were on the ground, with the engine turned off, and she was able to look around.

But Nikos was already out of the craft and, ducking to avoid the slowing blades, coming round to open the door on her side. It was as she set foot on the ground, the blast of heat hitting her after the controlled temperature inside the plane, that recognition hit, and with it a cruel wave of desperate memory. She knew this rugged shoreline, the steep cliffs that rose above the sea. And there in the distance was the low, white-painted, unexpectedly simple house where she had once spent a magical couple of days when Nikos had first brought her to Greece and to his family home.

‘This is Icaros!’

She knew she looked as startled as she sounded, her head coming up sharply in surprise, green eyes locking with cool gold. And it was then that she realised he had been aiming for just this response.

‘You got the island back?’

Nikos’s response was a curt nod.

‘I got the island back,’ he confirmed.

‘Oh, I’m so glad about that.’

That made his eyes narrow in frank disbelief.

‘You are?’

‘Of course! I know how much this island means to your family.’

It was in the tiny chapel here that his father and mother, his grandparents and every great-grandparent they could remember had been married. A tradition that was vital to the man Nikos was. And his sister, who had died as a baby, was buried in the chapel grounds.

‘So did your father.’

Nikos’s tone was so savage that Sadie actually flinched away from it, recoiling in her chair as if from a blow to her face.

‘That was why he sold it to someone else instead of keeping it for himself. An extra fortune for him, and more of a problem for me to get it back if I ever tried it. I would have to negotiate with someone else and he thought he would be able to watch.’

Sadie shivered both at that icy tone and at the thought of how her father had behaved. The island had been one of the weapons Edwin had used against her when she had refused to believe that Nikos didn’t really love her. If it was a love-match, her father had said, wouldn’t she be marrying in the little island chapel, like every other Konstantos bride before her? And faced with that and so much other evidence, she had had no choice but to believe him.

She hadn’t wanted to think that her father was right. Hadn’t wanted to accept his bitter, cynical way of thinking about everything. He had been so totally obsessed with getting revenge on the Konstantos family that it had taken over his life. But she had no idea why.

‘Do you know what started this crazy feud in the first place?’ she asked impulsively, not caring if the question was wise or if it would push her even further into trouble with Nikos, raking up old bitter memories that were far better left buried.

‘There was always rivalry between the families—in business dealings. But then it became personal, when the woman my grandfather was supposed to marry ran off with your grandfather instead. Pappous never forgot—or forgave. And he made sure that the Carterets paid for it financially. After that, if one family could attack the other in any way, they did.’

Nikos moved away from the helicopter and paced over to the edge of the cliff to stand staring out at the sea. His long body was silhouetted dark against the sunlight, the width of his shoulders seeming even more impressive than ever.

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