The Greek Tycoon's Defiant Bride

It was natural human curiosity, she told herself, fighting to control the sense of panic clawing at her. ‘Yes,’ she conceded in reluctant confirmation.

Leonidas scanned the photo with an intensity that would have stripped paint. He studied the little boy’s olive skin and black curly hair and his dark-as-jet eyes. Although he could never recall looking at any other child with the slightest interest and had absolutely no basis for comparison, he thought that Elias was, without a shade of doubt, the most handsome baby he had ever seen. From his level eyebrows to his determined little chin, he just oozed strong Pallis genes.

‘Please go, Leonidas,’ Maribel urged tautly. ‘Don’t make this a battle between us. Elias is a happy child.’

‘He is also self-evidently a Pallis,’ Leonidas pronounced in a bemused tone, his Greek accent more marked than usual.

‘No, he’s a Greenaway.’

Lush black lashes swept up on sizzling dark golden eyes. ‘Maribel…he is a Pallis. You cannot call a dog a cat just because you want to, and why should you want to?’

‘I can think of many reasons. Now that you’ve forced me to satisfy your curiosity, will you leave?’ Maribel was trembling. She was tempted to snatch that precious picture of her son from his lean brown hand. All her protective antenna were operating on high alert.

‘Acquit me of a motive as superficial as that of mere curiosity,’ Leonidas censured. ‘You owe me an explanation—’

‘I owe you nothing and I want you to go.’ Swallowing back the thick taste of panic in her throat, Maribel moved forward and snatched up the phone. ‘If you don’t leave right now, I’ll call the police.’

Leonidas gave her a disconcerted glance and then threw back his handsome dark head and laughed out loud. ‘Why would you do something so mad?’

‘This is my home. I want you to leave.’

‘In the same hour that I find out that you may be the mother of my only child?’ Innate caution and shrewdness were already exercising restraint on Leonidas. He knew it would be most unwise to acknowledge Elias as his before stringent DNA testing had been carried out and the blood bond fully proven by scientific means. Yet he knew in his bones that Elias was his child. He did not know how he knew but he did, and he was already reaching the conclusion that the situation could have been a great deal worse. At least he had Maribel to deal with, and not some mercenary, calculating harpy without morals.

‘I will call the police,’ Maribel threatened unsteadily, terrified that Elias would waken and make some sound upstairs, and that Leonidas would immediately insist on going up to see him.

Leonidas slung her a confounded look and flung his arms wide in a gesture that was expansively Greek and impressive. ‘What is the matter with you? Is this hysteria? Are you at risk of robbery or assault? Is that why you need to talk garbage about calling the police?’

Her eyes were as bright a purple-blue as wild violets, an impression heightened by her pallor and tension. ‘I want you to forget you came here and forget what you think you may have found out. For all our sakes.’

‘Is there some other guy hanging around who thinks that Elias is his child?’ Leonidas enquired grimly, seizing on the only motive he could think of that might explain why she was so eager for him to stage a vanishing act.

A band of tension was starting to pound behind Maribel’s smooth brow and tighten there like a painful vice. Standing up to Leonidas Pallis in such a mood was like being battered by a fierce storm. ‘Of course not.’ Distaste showed openly in her oval face. ‘That’s a really sleazy suggestion.’

‘Women do stuff like that all the time,’ Leonidas told her cynically, and he was not wholly convinced by her denial. Having watched Imogen manipulate Maribel, he had soon appreciated that, while Maribel might be exceptionally brainy, she could also be very gullible when her emotions were engaged. ‘If that isn’t the problem, spare me the theatrical speeches about forgetting I came here. How likely is that?’

‘Just this once I’m asking you to think about someone other than yourself. If that’s theatrical, I’m sorry, but that’s how it is.’ With an unsteady hand, Maribel pushed the hair back from her cheekbone.

Leonidas gave her a quelling look of granite hardness. ‘I’m not listening to this claptrap. Where is Elias?’

Maribel stepped into the hall and yanked open the front door with a perspiring hand. ‘I’ll get the police, Leonidas. I mean it. I’ve got nothing to lose.’

‘My business card. Call me when you come to your senses.’ Leonidas settled a card down on the table.

‘I won’t be changing my mind any time soon,’ Maribel declared defiantly.

Leonidas came to a halt in front of her. Dangerous dark golden eyes slammed down into hers. ‘You want to start a war? You think you can handle that? You think you can handle me?’ he growled. ‘You could never handle me.’

‘But I have to, because I will not accept you in any part of my son’s life. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect him from you!’ Maribel swore in a feverish rush, determination etched into every rigid line of her small, shapely figure.

‘Protect him from me? What are you trying to say? You become offensive and without reason.’ Lean. dark features set with chilling intent, Leonidas shot her a forbidding appraisal. ‘Why? I expected better from you. Is this some sort of payback, Maribel? Are you angry that it took me two years to look you up?’

Maribel wanted to kill him and it was not the first time he had filled her with so much rage and pain that she barely knew what she was thinking any more. Nobody could be more provocative than Leonidas Pallis. Nobody knew better how to put the metaphorical boot in and hurt. Sensible people did not make an enemy of him. But then a sensible woman, she thought in an agony of bitter self-loathing, would never have gone to bed with him in the first place.

‘Why would I be?’ Maribel murmured helplessly. ‘I don’t even like you.’

Virtually nothing shocked Leonidas as, while he’d been growing up, he had seen all the worst facets of human nature as paraded by his dysfunctional mother, but that declaration from Maribel shocked him. He had always viewed her no-nonsense front as a defensive shell. He regarded her as a caring, sympathetic woman with a genuine soft centre, sadly condemned to have her good nature taken advantage of by the users and abusers of the world. But in the space of half an hour, Maribel had turned everything he believed he knew about her upside down and gone out of her way to attack and insult him.

Yet, from what he could work out, she appeared to be the mother of his child. He wondered if stress was making her hysterical, if she just couldn’t cope with the situation. He did not accept that she didn’t like him. He knew she loved him and he had known that almost as long as he had known her. She was not a changeable woman. That she had given birth to his child, rather than choose to have a termination, struck him as perfectly understandable.

Lean, darkly handsome face bleak, Leonidas climbed into his limousine. A Pallis and an alpha male personality to the core of his aggressive being, he wasted no time in making his next move. Lifting the phone, he called the executive head of his international legal team and asked for a copy of Elias Greenaway’s birth certificate to be obtained. He gave the details and ignored the staggered silence that fell at the other end of the line, because Leonidas Pallis never explained his actions to anyone, or laid out the full details of a situation unless he chose to do so.

‘In the morning, I also want a full briefing with regard to my rights as a father in this country.’

Furiously angry and in fighting mode, Leonidas marvelled afresh at Maribel’s offensive behaviour and unreasonable attitude. As he recalled her words his hostility grew ever stronger. To refuse him his natural desire to see the child! To suggest that the child should be protected from him and would be better off without him! His sense of honour was outraged by the shameful accusations she had dared to make.

And, all the while, he kept on seeing images of Maribel flashing him that defiant look, her luscious pink mouth taut with censure. His shimmering dark eyes scorched and hardened. How could she have had his baby without telling him? When the photo of the little boy came to mind, however, he tensed, for he preferred being angry with Maribel to thinking about the matter that lay at the heart of it all.

CHAPTER THREE

ELIAS was grizzling noisily for attention by the time that Maribel finally emerged from her overwrought stance behind the front door. The limousine, with its accompanying cavalcade, was long gone.

Recovering her wits, Maribel hastened upstairs and swept her son from his cot with an enthusiasm that made him laugh and shout with pleasure; there was nothing Elias loved more than good old-fashioned horseplay. Trembling, Maribel lifted him high and then hugged him tight, knowing that she would want to die if anything happened to him. She had done the right thing in sending Leonidas away; she knew she had done the right thing.

But what were the chances that Leonidas would stay away? Maribel looped her damp hair off her anxious brow. Leonidas, who was mentally primed only to do what he wanted to do, and likely to want to do what he was told he could not or should not do? Elias had the same bloody-minded competitive trait. Maybe it was a male thing. She took Elias out into the garden with Mouse. While her son and the wolfhound ran about doing nothing much that she could see but hugely enjoying themselves, Maribel sat on the swing and let her memory take her back seven years…

Imogen had bought a house in Oxford and had persuaded Maribel, who had then been a student, to move in and take care of the property for her. Maribel had been happy to reduce her expenses and take care of the domestic trivia that Imogen, who had often been away from home, couldn’t be bothered with. Imogen had been twenty-three, and her career as a fashion model had failed to reach the dazzling heights she’d craved. An indomitable party girl, Imogen had wasted no time in introducing herself to Leonidas Pallis when she’d run into him at a nightclub. At the time Leonidas had been a student at Oxford University.

‘He is so rich money means nothing to him. His party was amazing!’ Imogen, a tall, strikingly lovely blonde in a trendy short dress, was so excited that her words were tripping over each other. ‘He’s an A-list celebrity and so cool, he just freaks me out. Oh, and did I mention what a total babe he is?’

Listening to that artless flood of confidence, Maribel was more worried than impressed, because Imogen was all too easily influenced by the wrong people. The advent of an infamous Greek playboy, who crashed cars and abseiled down skyscrapers for thrills, struck Maribel as very bad news. Dating the heir to the Pallis billions, however, very much enhanced Imogen’s earning power as a model. Suddenly she was in great demand, rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous and flying round the world to shoots, weekend parties and endless vacations.

‘He’s the one…he’s the one. I want to marry him and become a Greek tycoon’s fabulously wealthy wife. I’ll die if he dumps me!’ Imogen gasped at the end of the first fortnight, and that same night she dragged Leonidas in to meet Maribel without the slightest warning.

Clad in tartan pyjamas, and curled up with a research paper on carbon dating and a mug of hot cocoa clutched in her hand, Maribel was appalled when Imogen simply walked into her bedroom with Leonidas in tow.

‘This is my cousin, Maribel, my best friend in the whole world,’ Imogen declared. ‘She’s a student like you.’

Lounging in the doorway, Leonidas gave Maribel a lazy smile of amusement and the shock of his intense attraction hit Maribel like an electric charge. She didn’t know where to look or how to handle it, since the even bigger shock was that she had the capacity to feel that way! Up until that point, Maribel’s dating forays had been unenthusiastic and always disappointing. One guy had got friendly with her only to steal her work, and another had tried to get her to do his assignments for him. Then there were the many who expected sex on the first date and the others who drank themselves into a stupor. None of them had given her goose-bumps or, indeed, an instant of excitement—until Leonidas appeared on the horizon.

And Maribel being Maribel, she was sick with guilt at being attracted to her cousin’s man. That very first night, she shut out that awareness and refused to allow herself to take it out again. In the month that followed, she barely saw Imogen, who stayed in Leonidas’ properties in Oxford, London and abroad. And then, just as suddenly, the brief affair was over, just one more fling in Pallis terms, but it had meant a great deal more to Imogen, who had adored the high life.

‘Of course, if you want the right to live in the Pallis world, you’ve got to share Leonidas and not be possessive.’ Imogen tried to act as if she didn’t mind watching Leonidas with her replacement, a young film starlet. ‘With the choice he’s got, you can’t expect him to be satisfied with one woman.’

‘Just walk away,’ Maribel urged ruefully. ‘He’s a cold, arrogant bastard. Don’t do this to yourself.’

‘Are you crazy?’ Imogen demanded in shrill disbelief. ‘I’ll settle for whatever I can get from him. Maybe in a few weeks, when he’s fed up with the movie star, he’ll turn back to me again. I’m somebody when I’m with him and I’m not giving that up!’

And true to her resolve, Imogen’s ability to make Leonidas laugh when he was bored ensured that she retained him as a friend. Perhaps only Maribel cringed when she appreciated that Imogen was quite willing to ridicule herself if it amused Leonidas. Then there was a fire at Leonidas’ Oxford apartment and Imogen invited him to use her house while she was working abroad.

Maribel’s animosity went into override because Leonidas proved to be the house guest from hell. Without a word of apology or prior warning, he took over and moved in his personal staff, including a cook and a valet, not to mention his bodyguards. His security requirements squeezed her out of her comfortable bedroom into an attic room on the second floor. Visitors came and went day and night, while phones rang constantly and scantily clad and often drunken and squabbling women lounged about every room.

After ten days of absolute misery, Maribel lost her temper. Up until that point, she wasn’t even sure Leonidas had realised that she was still residing in the house. On the morning of the eleventh day, she confronted him on the landing with a giggling brunette still tucked under one arm.

‘May I have a word with you in private?’

A sleek ebony brow elevated, because even at the age of twenty-four Leonidas was a master of the art of pure insolence. ‘Why?’

‘This is my home as well as Imogen’s, and, while I appreciate that in her eyes you can do no wrong, I find you and your lifestyle utterly obnoxious.’

‘Get lost,’ Leonidas told the brunette with brutal cool.

Studying him in disgust, Maribel shook her head. ‘Possibly you are accustomed to living in the equivalent of a brothel where anything goes, but I am not. Tell your women to keep their clothes on. Send them home when they become drunk and offensive. Try to stop them screaming and playing loud music in the middle of the night.’

‘You know what you need?’ Dark golden eyes hot with a volatile mix of anger and amusement, Leonidas anchored his hands to her hips and hauled her to him, as if she were no more than a doll. ‘A proper man in your bed.’

Maribel slapped him so hard her hand went numb, and he reeled back from her in total shock. ‘Don’t you ever speak to me like that again and don’t touch me either!’

‘Are you always like this?’ Leonidas demanded in raw incredulity.

‘No, Leonidas. I’m only like this with you. You bring out the very best in me,’ Maribel told him furiously. ‘I’m trying to study for my exams…okay? Under this roof, you are not allowed to act like an arrogant, selfish, ill-mannered yob!’

‘You really don’t like me,’ Leonidas breathed in wonderment.

‘What’s to like?’

‘I’ll make it up to you—’

‘No!’ Her interruption was immediate and pungent, because she was well aware of how he got around the rules with other people. ‘You can’t buy yourself out of this one. I don’t want your money. I just want you to sort this out. I want my bedroom back. I want a peaceful household. There isn’t room here for you to have a bunch of live-in staff.’

That evening, she came home to find all her possessions back in her old room and that there was blissful silence. She baked him some Baklava as a thank-you and left it with a note on the table. Two days later, he asked when she was going to pick up his unwashed shirts from the floor. When she explained that her agreement with Imogen did not include such menial duties for guests and that hell would freeze over before she touched his shirts, Leonidas asked how he was supposed to manage without household support.

‘Are you really that helpless?’ Maribel queried in astonishment.

‘I have never been helpless in my life!’ Leonidas roared at her.

Of course he was—totally helpless in a domestic capacity. But a Pallis male took every challenge to heart and Leonidas felt that he had to prove himself. So he burned out the electric kettle on the hob, ate out for every meal and tried to wash his shirts in the tumble drier. Pity finally stirring, she suggested his staff came back but lived out. An uneasy peace was achieved, for Leonidas could, when he made the effort, charm the birds from the trees. She was surprised to discover that he was actually very clever.

Two days before he moved into his new apartment, he staggered in at dawn hopelessly drunk. Awakened by the noise he made, Maribel got out of bed to lecture him about the evils of alcohol, but was silenced when he told her that it was the anniversary of his sister’s death. Shaken, she listened but learned little, as he continually lapsed into Greek before finally commenting that he didn’t know why he was confiding in her.

‘Because I’m nice and I’m discreet.’ Maribel had no illusions that he was confiding in her for any other reason. She knew herself to be plump and plain. But that was still the night when Maribel fell head over heels in love with Leonidas Pallis: when she registered the human being who dwelt beneath the high-gloss sophistication, who could not cope with the emotional turmoil of his bad memories.

The day he moved out, and without any warning of his intention, he kissed her. In the midst of a perfectly harmless dialogue, he brought his mouth down on hers with a hot and hungry demand that shook her rigid. She jerked back from him in amazement and discomfiture. ‘No!’ she told him with vehemence.

‘Seriously?’ Leonidas prompted, his disbelief patent.

‘Seriously, no.’ Her lips still tingling from the forbidden onslaught of his, she backed away from him and laughed to cover her embarrassment. It was her belief that he had kissed her because he had very little idea of how to have a platonic friendship with a woman.

Knowing how Imogen still felt about him, she felt so guilty about that kiss that she confessed to her cousin. Imogen giggled like a drain. ‘Someone must’ve dared Leonidas to do it! I mean, it’s not like you’ve got the looks or the sex appeal to pull him on your own, is it?’

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