Page 1 of The Billionaire's Seduction Revenge

1

MUSCLE MEMORY WAS A FUNNY thing. Despite the fact it was the middle of the night, the only light in the pool house cast by the high, silver moon, and even though Vasilios had not been inside for almost a year, he remembered where every single piece of furniture was, and therefore found it easy to walk unobstructed across the lounge area and through the door of the bedroom.

He inhaled deeply, the fragrance of the sea calling to him, reminding him of something he’d tried to forget these past few years: this was home.

At least, it was the closest thing to a home he’d known, and it was right that he should be back here now.

His gut rolled as he recalled the phone call he’d received from his grandfather’s doctor only hours earlier.

“I cannot say how long, exactly, but I do not think more than a month.”

Vasilios’s eyes swept shut, his breathing grew ragged as he unbuttoned his shirt and hung it over the back of the armchair. His relationship with his grandfather was not uncomplicated, but regardless, Vasilios loved the old man—he was all Vasilios had left. The prospect of his death was not something Vasilios could face with ease. He stripped out of his pants, then his boxers, contemplated a shower before deciding it would wait until morning. Having flown in from back to back meetings in Tokyo only hours earlier, then gone straight to his office in Rome to finalise some paperwork, he’d already been bushed when he got the call.

He needed to catch a few hours sleep, see Costa in the morning and work out what the next step should be. Cancer was an unflinching adversary; Vasilios wasn’t arrogant enough to presume he could wage war on the disease and be guaranteed to win, but he knew he had to at least try. To make sure his grandfather had the best medical care money could buy, that no stone was left unturned.

He strode to the side of the bed, pulled back the sheets and slid between them. He was exhausted, and the first thing he was aware of was a deep sense of relief to be horizontal at last, a comfortable duck down pillow behind his head, the sheets crisp and cool. It was all so familiar and expected.

But then, there was something whollyunfamiliar.A leg, soft and smooth as satin, against his toe. His hand reached out on autopilot and connected with a cotton-covered hip, and courtesy of a long spell of celibacy, Vasilios’s body immediately stirred, his masculine instincts undeniably firing to life.

What the hell was a woman doing in his bed?

His hand lingered longer than it should have, until a soft, feminine exclamation cut through the room and then his vision flashed with white. Pain induced stars in his eyes, he diagnosed a second later, when he felt the throbbing in his nether regions and swore darkly, the word reverberating around the walls at the same time the covers flew off the bed and the lights came on in the room. He pressed one hand to his groin and the other to his eyes, trying to focus when he felt a wave of nausea courtesy of the knee he’d copped between his legs.

“Who the hell are you?”

Her voice was high-pitched and accented. Australian? She had hair as pale as the moon he’d been admiring only minutes earlier, and skin the colour of creamed honey, and though she wore a nightgown, it was so flimsy he could see the silhouette of her body through the fabric and it did little to help his situation. His mood tanked.

“I could ask the same of you,” he responded in a grim tone, grateful at least that the blow she’d delivered had stalled his burgeoning arousal. Nonetheless, he was naked, as he always slept, so remained where he was, even though he felt oddly disadvantaged—an unusual emotion for Vasilios Valenti to experience.

“I’m serious! If you don’t tell me who the hell you are, I’m—I’ll scream!”

He couldn’t help but admire her pluck. “To whom?” He asked with genuine curiosity. He knew for a fact his grandfather had no live-in staff. “The eighty seven year old in the house over there? Do you think he’ll hear you? Let alone be able to get to you?”

Her face paled visibly and her fingers pressed to her lips. Though she stood in the door frame, she didn’t flee. “Tell me you didn’t hurt him,” she cried, and it was such an unexpected question it took Vasilios a moment to connect the dots and realise she believed he was an intruder and that he’d come to her via the main house where he’d unleashed some kind of violence on Costa.

“Of course I didn’t hurt him,” Vasilios hissed, disgusted by the direction of her thoughts. “Cristo.Do you really not know who I am?”

She blinked, dropping her hand and inhaling, narrowing her eyes as she regarded him almost as if for the first time. She didn’t relax, but she no longer looked terrified. “You’re Vasilios,” she said quietly, eyes wide.

He couldn’t say why but it pleased Vasilios that she recognised him.

“Your photo is in your grandfather’s bedroom,” she explained, and exhaustion again made Vasilios’ mind work slower than it should, because he wondered why it hadn’t immediately occurred to him that this beautiful young woman might be a ‘special guest’ of his grandfather’s. It wouldn’t be the first time the pool house had been used to house his grandfather’s conquests.

“He talks about you.”

Her body was taut, wary, so Vasilios wondered exactly what sorts of stories the old man had filled her head with. Things between them hadn’t been great for a while. Not since Vasilios had aggressively bought out his father’s business interests and Costa had struggled to see his only son humiliated in such a way.

“I’m sure he does,” Vasilios drawled, and then, frustrated with being stuck in the bed, he gave up caring about his state of undress, threw off the sheet and stood up, taking a small amount of pleasure in the way her face flooded with colour and her eyes raked over him as though she’d never seen a naked man before. He particularly like the way her gaze stayed glued to a certain part of his anatomy for several beats, her eyes round like saucers as she stared at him.

“You’re—” She squeezed her eyes shut, perhaps attempting to make him go away. Vasilios couldn’t help his smirk, as he reached for the boxer shorts he’d tossed on the armchair and pulled them back on.

“You’re naked.”

“Not anymore,” he said with a nonchalant lift of his shoulders.

She fluttered her eyes open, stared straight at his crotch as if to ascertain the truth of that statement, then looked away again, focusing on a point over his shoulder.

“That’s a technicality,” she muttered.

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