The Greek's Stolen Bride Read Free

destroy must have offered you a fair one."
    Leotokos laughed, the sound reverberating through the stillness of the dining room. "Some things," he said, his manner irritatingly patronizing, "are really amazingly easy."
    "Are they." Theo had intended to use this dinner as a way to ferret out more information from Leotokos, but he found he no longer had the stomach. He wasn't sure how long he could remain in the same room as the oily, arrogant man without punching him.
    And that would certainly ruin both their evening, as well as make the job he'd come here to do all the more difficult. He forced himself to relax, and he felt Ariana's gaze on him. When he looked up she saw she was frowning slightly. He directed a smile at her.
    "Do you live on this island paradise, Miss Leotokos?"
    "Yes." Her lips pursed and her eyes flashed. She was certainly prickly.
    "Ariana is to be married in the autumn," Leotokos said.
    Theo watched as she tensed, one hand curling into an elegant fist. Not a happy match, then. "May I offer my congratulations," he said formally. "Who is the lucky man?"
    "My second in command, Dion Paranoussis."
    Theo knew the man vaguely. He was hard and ambitious, a thoroughly unpleasant character if flashily handsome. What did he offer Ariana? Or was her father putting pressure on her to wed? It seemed unlikely in this day and age, yet knowing the extent of Leotokos' power and corruption, Theo wondered.
    "Congratulations," he said again. "I wish you both happiness."
    Ariana's mouth thinned and she said nothing. Leotokos reached for his wine.
    This dinner, Theo thought, was going to be utterly interminable. Discreetly he checked his watch. He thought of making his excuses but he didn't want to raise Leotokos's suspicions. He leaned back in his chair, surveyed the increasingly tense Ariana.
    "And where will you live, once you are married?"
    "She'll stay here," Leotokos answered for his daughter. "I'm building the happy couple a villa on the other side of the island."
    Theo raised his eyebrows. "It's a rather long commute for Paranoussis."
    "He'll keep his apartment in Athens," Leotokos  answered with a shrug and Ariana still said nothing.
    It sounded, Theo thought, like a hellish marriage. Prison, essentially, for a woman he already sensed was strong and proud and most unwilling to be contained. He wondered again why she had agreed.
    The courses dragged on, and Theo felt himself getting more and more tense--as tense as the woman seated across from him. He could not stand exchanging pleasantries with Miles Leotokos for one more minute. This man was his enemy, had been his enemy since he'd gazed into his father's ravaged face and asked him who had done this to him.
    Spiro had been near death, death by his own desperate hand because his business was bankrupt, his reputation ruined, and all because one man had coveted what he had had.
    Miles Leotokos , his father had whispered, and Theo's destiny had been sealed. He would avenge his father's death. He would ruin Leotokos.
    He glanced up from his reverie and saw Ariana looking at him again, her eyes narrowed in something like suspicion. He suspected she bore no deep affection for her father, but he had no intention of letting her guess his real purpose here. Smiling blandly, he reached once more for his wine.
     
    Ariana rose from the table with her mother while her father ushered Theo Atrikes into the study for the usual glass of ouzo and a bit of a man-to-man chat after dinner. Her father did so love baiting these willing young victims of his, yet Theo had seemed to take it all in knowing stride.
    Yet what would tomorrow hold?
    She glanced at the pale face of her mother, her eyes depressingly blank. Her mother, Ariana knew, had given up on life a long time ago. She simply existed now, drifting through the days, as empty as one of the shells that washed up on the beach.
    And tonight might be the last time Ariana ever saw her.
    "Let me help you to your room," Ariana said and