The Greek Tycoon's Achilles Heel Read Free Page B

growing so close. Please call me.
    It was signed only with an initial. He immediately texted back.
    No need to be sorry. You were right to break it off. Forgive me for upsetting you.
    Hopefully that would be an end to it, but after a moment another text came through.
    I don’t want to break off. I really didn’t mean all those things. Will I see you at the wedding? We could talk there.
    This time it was signed with her name. He responded.
    We always knew it couldn’t last. We can’t talk. I don’t wish to subject you to gossip.
    The answer came in seconds.
    I don’t care about gossip. I love you.
    Madness seemed to have come over her, for now she’d stepped up the intensity, signing your own forever , followed by her name. His response was brief.
    Please accept my good wishes for the future. Make sure you delete texts from your phone. Goodbye.
    After that he switched off. In every way. To silence amachine was easy. It was the switching off of the heart and mind that took skill, but it was one he’d acquired with practice, sharpening it to perfection until he would have guaranteed it against every female in the world.
    Except perhaps one.
    But he would never meet her again.
    Unless he was very unlucky.
    Or very lucky.
     
    ‘You look gorgeous !’
    Petra Radnor laughed aside the fervent compliment from Nikator Lukas.
    ‘Thank you, brother dear,’ she said.
    ‘Don’t call me that. I’m not your brother.’
    ‘You will be in a couple of hours, when your father has married my mother.’
    ‘Stepbrother at most. We won’t be related by blood and I can yearn after you if I want to.’
    ‘No, I think you’ll be the brother I’ve always wanted. My kid brother.’
    ‘Kid, nothing! I’m older than you.’
    It was true. He was thirty-seven to her thirty-two, but there was something about him that suggested a kid; not just the boyish lines of his face but a lingering immaturity that would probably be there all his life.
    Petra liked him well enough, except for his black moods that seemed to come from nowhere, although they also vanished quickly.
    He admired her extravagantly, and she justified his admiration. The gaunt figure of her teen years had blossomed, although she would always be naturally slender.
    She was attractive but not beautiful, certainly not as the word was understood among her mother’s film-land friends.She had a vivid personality that gleamed from her eyes and a humour that was never long suppressed. But the true effect was often discovered only after she’d departed, when she lingered in the mind.
    To divert Nikator’s attention, she turned the conversation to Debra, the starlet who would be his official companion.
    ‘You two look wonderful together,’ she said. ‘Everyone will say what a lucky man you are.’
    ‘I’d rather go with you,’ he sighed.
    ‘Oh, stop it! After all the trouble Estelle took to fix you up with her, you should be grateful.’
    ‘Debra’s gorgeous,’ he conceded. ‘At least Demetriou won’t have anything to match her.’
    ‘Demetriou? Do you mean Lysandros Demetriou?’ Petra asked, suddenly concentrating on a button. ‘The Lysandros Demetriou?’
    ‘There’s no need to say it like that, as though he was important,’ Nikator said at once.
    ‘He certainly seems to be. Didn’t he—?’
    ‘Never mind that. He probably won’t have a woman on his arm.’
    ‘I’ve heard he has quite a reputation with women.’
    ‘True. But he never takes them out in public. Too much hassle, I guess. To him they’re disposable. I’ll tell you this, half the women who come here today will have been in his bed.’
    ‘You really hate him, don’t you?’ she asked curiously.
    ‘Years ago he was involved with a girl from this family, but he ill-treated her.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘I don’t know the details. Nobody does.’
    ‘Then maybe she ill-treated him,’ Petra suggested. ‘And he reacted badly because he was disillusioned.’
    He glared at her. ‘Why would you think