A Breathless Bride

“I don’t have the apartment anymore. I own a house along the coast.”

“I thought you liked living in town.”

“I changed my mind.”

Just like he had about her. Instantly and unequivocally.

He opened the door of her small soft-top convertible. Feeling as edgy as a cat, her stomach tight with nerves, she slipped into the driver’s seat, carefully avoiding any physical contact. “Carla’s taken Mom to a family lunch at Aunt Via’s apartment, so they’ll be occupied for the next couple of hours. I can meet you at my parent’s beach house at Pier Point. That’s where I’ve been staying since Dad died.”

Constantine closed her door. Bracing his hands on the window frame, he leaned down, maintaining eye contact. “That explains why you haven’t been at your apartment, although not why you haven’t been returning my calls at work.”

“If you wanted to get hold of me that badly you should have rung my mother.”

“I got through twice,” he said grimly. “Both times I got Carla.”

Sienna could feel her cheeks heating. After Sienna’s breakup with Constantine, Carla had become fiercely protective. Constantine hadn’t gotten through, because Carla would have made it her mission to stop him.

“Sorry about that,” she said, without any trace of sympathy in her voice. “Carla said there had been a couple of crank calls, then the press started bothering Mom in the evenings, so we went to stay at the beach house.”

Constantine had also left a number of messages at work, which, when she had been in the office at all, Sienna had ignored. She had been feverishly trying to unravel her father’s twisted affairs. Calling Constantine had ranked right up there with chatting to disgruntled creditors or having a cozy discussion with IRD about the payments Ambrosi Pearls had failed to make.

“If Pier Point is hostile territory, maybe we should meet on neutral ground?”

Was that a hint of amusement in his voice?

No, whatever it was Constantine was feeling, it wasn’t amusement. There had been a definite predatory edge to him. She had seen a liquid silver flash of it at the gravesite, then been burned by it again in the parking lot.

The foreboding that had gripped her at the cemetery returned, playing havoc with her pulse again.

Suddenly shaky with a combination of exhaustion and nerves, she started the car and busied herself with fastening her seat belt. “The beach house is far enough out of town that the press isn’t likely to be staking it out. If this conversation is taking the direction I think it is, we’d better meet there.”

“Tell me,” he said curtly. “What direction, exactly, do you think this conversation will take?”

“A conversation with Constantine Atraeus?” Her smile was as tightly strung as her nerves. “Now let me see … Two options—sex or money. Since it can’t possibly be sex, my vote’s on the money.”

Three

Money was the burning agenda, but as Sienna drove into Pier Point, with Constantine following close enough behind to make her feel herded, she wasn’t entirely sure about the sex.

Earlier, in the Audi, Constantine’s muscular heat engulfing her, she had been sharply aware of his sexual intent. He had wanted her and he hadn’t been shy about letting her know. The moment had been underscored by an unnerving flash of déjà vu.

The first time Constantine had kissed her had been in his car. He had cupped her chin and lowered his mouth to hers, and despite her determination to keep her distance, she had wound her arms around his neck, angled her jaw and leaned into the kiss. Even though she had only known him for a few hours she had been swept off her feet. She hadn’t been able to resist him, and he had known it.

Shaking off the too-vivid recollection, she signaled and turned her small sports car into her mother’s driveway. Barely an hour after the unpleasant clash across her father’s grave, those kinds of memories shouldn’t register. The fact that Constantine wanted her meant little more than that he was a man with a normal, healthy libido. In the past two years he had been linked with a number of wealthy, beautiful women, each one a serious contender for the position of Mrs. Constantine Atraeus.

He turned into the driveway directly behind her. As Sienna accelerated up the small, steep curve, the sense of being pursued increased. She used her remote to close the electronic gates at the bottom of the drive, just in case the press had followed. After parking, she grabbed her handbag and walked across the paved courtyard that fronted the old cliff-top house.

Constantine was already out of his car. She noticed that in the interim he’d rolled his sleeves up, baring tanned, muscled forearms. She unlocked the front door and as he loomed over her in the bare, sun-washed hall, her stomach, already tense, did another annoying little flip.

He indicated she precede him. She couldn’t fault his manners, but that didn’t change the fact that with Constantine padding behind her like a large, hunting cat, she felt like prey.

“What happened to the furniture?”

The foreign intonation in his deep voice set her on edge all over again. Suddenly, business agenda or not, it seemed unbearably intimate to be alone with him in the quiet stillness of the almost empty house.

Sienna skimmed blank walls that had once held a collection of paintings, including an exquisitely rendered Degas. “Sold, along with all the valuable artwork my grandfather collected.”

She threw him a tight smile. “Auctioned, along with every piece of real jewelry Mom, Carla and I owned—including the pearls. Now isn’t that a joke? We own a pearl house, but we can’t afford our own products.”

She pushed open the ornate double doors to her father’s study and stood aside as Constantine walked into the room, which held only a desk and a couple of chairs.

His gaze skimmed bare floorboards and the ranks of empty built-in mahogany bookshelves, which had once housed a rare book collection. She logged the moment he finally comprehended what a sham their lives had become. They sold pearls to the wealthy and projected sleek, rich-list prosperity for the sake of the company, but the struggle had emptied them out, leaving her mother, Carla and herself with nothing.

He surveyed the marks on the wall that indicated paintings had once hung there and the dangling ceiling fitting that had once held a chandelier. “What didn’t he sell to pay gambling debts?”

For a split second Sienna thought Constantine was taking a cheap shot, implying that both she and Carla had been up for auction, but she dismissed the notion. When he had broken their engagement his reasons had been clear-cut. After her father’s failed deal he had made it plain he could no longer trust her or the connection with her family. His stand had been tough and uncompromising, because he hadn’t allowed her a defense, but he had never at any time been malicious.

“We still have the house, and we’ve managed to keep the business running. It’s not much, but it’s a start. Ambrosi employs over one hundred people, some of whom have worked for us for decades. When it came down to keeping those people in work, selling possessions and family heirlooms wasn’t a difficult choice.”

Although she didn’t expect Constantine with his reputation for being coldly ruthless in business to agree. “Wait here,” she said stiffly, “I’ll get towels.”

Glad for a respite, she walked upstairs to her room. With swift movements she peeled off her ruined shoes, changed them for dry ones then checked her appearance in the dresser mirror. A small shock went through her when she noted the glitter of her eyes and the warm flush on her cheeks. With her creased dress and tousled hair, the look was disturbingly sensual.

Walking through to the bathroom, she towel-dried her hair, combed it and decided not to bother changing the dress, which was almost dry. She shouldn’t care whether Constantine thought she was attractive or not, and if she did, she needed to squash the notion. The sooner this conversation was over and he was gone, the better.

She collected a fresh towel from the linen closet and walked back downstairs.

Constantine turned from the breathtaking view of the Pacific Ocean as she entered the study, his light gaze locking briefly with hers.

Breath hitching at the sudden pounding of her heart, Sienna handed him the towel, taking care not to let their fingers brush. She indicated the view. “One of the few assets we haven’t yet had to sell, but only because Mom sold the town house this week. Although this place is mortgaged to the hilt.”

It would go, too. It was only a matter of time.

He ran the towel briefly over his hair before tossing it over the arm of a chair. “I didn’t know things had gotten this bad.”

But, she realized, he had known her father’s gambling had gotten out of hand. “Why should you? Ambrosi Pearls has nothing to do with either Medinos or The Atraeus Group.”

His expression didn’t alter, but suddenly any trace of compassion was gone. Good. Relief unfolded inside her. If anything could kill the skittish knowledge that not only was she on edge, she was sexually on edge, a straightforward business discussion would do it.

She indicated that Constantine take a seat and walked around to stand behind her father’s desk, underlining her role as Ambrosi Pearls’ CEO. “Not many people know the company’s financial position, and I would appreciate if you wouldn’t spread it around. With the papers speculating about losses, I’m having a tough time convincing some of our customers that Ambrosi is solid.”

Constantine ignored the chair in favor of standing directly opposite her, arms crossed over his chest, neutralizing her attempt at dominance.

Sienna averted her gaze from the way the damp fabric of his shirt clung to his shoulders, the sleek aura of male power that swirled around Constantine Atraeus like a cloak.

“It must have been difficult, trying to run a business with a gambler at the helm.”

As abruptly as if an internal switch had been thrown, Sienna’s temper boiled over. Finally, the issue he hadn’t wanted to talk about two years ago. “I don’t think you can understand at all. Did your father gamble?”

Constantine’s gaze narrowed. “Only in a good way.”

“Of course.” Lorenzo Atraeus had been an excellent businessman. “With good information and solid investment backing so he could make money, then more money. Unlike my father who consistently found ways to lose it, both in business and at the blackjack table.” Her heart was pounding; her blood pressure was probably off the register. “You don’t know what it’s like to lose and keep on losing because you can’t control someone in your family.”

“My family has some experience with loss.”

His expression was grim, his tone remote, reminding her that the Atraeus family had lived in poverty on Medinos for years, farming goats. Constantine’s grandfather had even worked for hers, until the Ambrosis had lost their original pearl business when it had been bombed during the war. But that had all been years ago. This was now.

She leaned forward, every muscle taut. “Running a business with a gambler at the helm hasn’t been easy.”

He spread his palms on the desk and suddenly they were nose to nose. “If it got that bad why didn’t you get out?”

And suddenly, the past was alive between them and she was taking a weird, giddy delight in fighting with Constantine. Maybe it was a reaction, a backlash to the grief and strain of the funeral, or the simple fact that she was sick of clamping down on her emotions and tired of hiding the truth. “And abandon my family and all the people who depend on our company for their livelihood?” She smiled tightly. “It was never an option, and I hope I never arrive at that point. Which brings us to the conversation you want so badly. How much do we owe?”

“Did you know that two months ago your father paid a visit to Medinos?”

Shock held her immobile. “No.”

“Are you aware that he had plans to start up a pearl industry there?”

“Not possible.” But blunt denial didn’t ease the cold dread forming in her stomach. “We barely have enough capital to operate in Sydney.” Her father had driven what had been a thriving business into the ground. “We’re in no position to expand.”

Something shifted in Constantine’s gaze, and for a fleeting second she had a sense that, like it or not, he had reached some kind of decision.

Constantine indicated a document he must have dropped on the desk while she’d been out of the room. Sienna studied the thick parchment. Her knees wobbled. A split second later she was sitting in her father’s old leather chair, fighting disbelief as she skimmed the text.

Not one loan but several. She had expected the first loan to date back to the first large deposit she had found in her father’s personal account several weeks ago, and she wasn’t disappointed.

She lifted her head to find Constantine still watching her. “Why did Lorenzo lend anything to my father? He knew he had a gambling problem.”

“My father was terminally ill and clearly not in his right mind. When he died a month ago, we knew there was a deficit. Unfortunately, the documents confirming the loans to your father weren’t located until five days ago.”

Her jaw clenched. “Why didn’t you stop him?”

“Believe me, if I had been there I would have, but I was out of the country at the time. To compound the issue, he bypassed the usual channels and retained an old friend, his retired legal counsel, to draw up the contracts.”

Constantine ran his fingers around his nape, his expression abruptly impatient. “I see you’re now beginning to understand the situation. Your father has been running Ambrosi Pearls and his gambling addiction on The Atraeus Group’s money. An amount he ‘borrowed’ from a dying man on the basis of a business he had no intention of setting up.”

Fraud.

Now the questions fired at her by the reporters made sense. “Is that what you told the press?”

“I think you know me better than that.”

She felt oddly relieved. It shouldn’t matter that Constantine hadn’t been the one who had leaked the story, but it did.

Someone, most likely an employee, would have sold the information to the press.

Sienna stared at the figure involved and felt her normal steely optimism and careful plans for Ambrosi Pearls dissolve.

Firming her chin, she stared out at the bright blue summer sky and the endless, hazy vista of the Pacific Ocean, and tried to regroup. There had to be a way out of this; she had wrangled the company out of plenty of tight spots before. All she had to do was think.

Small, disparate pieces of information clicked into place. Constantine not wanting to talk to her at the funeral or in the car, the way he had remained standing while she had read through the documents.

He had wanted to watch her reaction when she read the paperwork.

Her gaze snapped to his. “You thought I was part of this.”

Constantine’s expression didn’t alter.

Something in her plummeted. Sienna pushed to her feet. The loan documents cascaded to the floor; she barely noticed them. When Lorenzo Atraeus had died, he had left an enormous fortune based on a fabulously rich gold mine and a glittering retail and hotel empire to his three sons, Constantine, Lucas and Zane.

It shouldn’t be uppermost in her mind, but it suddenly struck her that if Ambrosi Pearls was in debt to The Atraeus Group, by definition—as majority shareholder—that meant Constantine.

Constantine’s gaze was oddly bleak. “Now you’re getting it. Unless you can come up with the money, I now own Ambrosi Pearls lock, stock and barrel.”

Four

The vibration of a cell phone broke the electrifying silence.

Constantine answered the call, relieved at the sudden release of tension, the excuse to step back from a situation that had spiraled out of control.

He had practically threatened Sienna, a tactic he had never before resorted to, even when dealing with slick, professional fraudsters. In light of the heart-pounding discovery that Sienna hadn’t known about her father’s latest scam, his behavior was inexcusable. He should have stepped back, reassessed, postponed the meeting.

Gotten a grip before he wrecked any chance that she might want him again.

Unfortunately, Sienna doing battle with him across the polished width of her father’s desk had put a kink in his strategy. Her cheeks had been flushed, her eyes fiery, shunting him back in time to hot, sultry nights and tangled sheets. It was hard to think tactically when all he wanted to do was kiss her.

She had never been this animated or passionate with him before, he realized. Even in bed he had always been grimly aware that she was holding back, that there was a part of her he couldn’t reach.

That she was more committed to Ambrosi Pearls than she had ever been to him.

To compound the problem, he had mentioned the bad old days when the Atraeus family had been dirt-poor. Given that he wanted Sienna back in his bed, the last thing he needed was for her to view him as the grandson of the gardener.

Jaw tight, he turned to stare out at the sea view as he spoke to his personal assistant. Tomas had been trying to reach him for the past hour. Constantine had been aware he had missed calls, something he seldom did, but for once, business hadn’t been first priority.

Another uncharacteristic lapse.

Constantine hung up and broodingly surveyed Sienna as she gathered the pages she had knocked onto the floor and stacked them in a precise pile on the desktop. Even with her dress crumpled and her makeup gone, she looked elegant and classy, the quintessential lady.

A car door slammed somewhere in the distance. The staccato of high heels on the walkway was followed by the sound of the front door opening.

Constantine caught the flare of desperation in Sienna’s gaze. Witnessing that moment of sheer panic was like a kick in the chest. He was here to right a wrong that had been done to his father, but Sienna was also trying to protect her family, most specifically her mother, from him. It was a sobering moment. “Don’t worry,” he said quietly. “I won’t tell her.”

Sienna stifled a surge of relief and just had time to send Constantine a grateful glance before Margaret Ambrosi stepped into the room, closely followed by Carla.

“What’s going on?” her mother demanded in the cool, clear tone that had gotten her through thirty years with a husband who had given her more heartache than joy. “And don’t try to fob me off, because I know something’s wrong.”

“Mrs. Ambrosi.” Constantine used a tone that was far gentler than any Sienna could ever remember him using with her. “My condolences. Sienna and I were just discussing the details of a business deal your husband initiated a few months ago.”

Carla’s jaw was set. “I don’t believe Dad would have transacted anything without—”

Margaret Ambrosi’s hand stayed her. “So that’s why Roberto made the trip to Europe. I should have known.”

Carla frowned. “He went to Paris and Frankfurt. He didn’t go near the Mediterranean.”

An emotion close to anger momentarily replaced the exhaustion etched on her mother’s face.

“Roberto left a day earlier because he wanted to stop off at Medinos first. He said he wanted to visit the site of the old pearl facility and find his grandparents’ graves. If anything should have warned me he was up to something that should have been it. Roberto didn’t have a sentimental bone in his body. He went to Medinos on business.”

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