Buch lesen: «The Greek Tycoon's Achilles Heel»
Under the cover of darkness, he pulled her into his arms.
‘Now!’ he said.
Pleasure and relief went through her. She had wanted this so much, and now everything in her yearned towards him. His kiss was everything she’d wanted since their meeting. Nothing else in her life had been like it. Nothing else ever would be.
‘What have you done to me?’ he growled. ‘Why can’t I stop you doing it?’
Lysandros felt as if he were awaking from a dream, or sinking into one. He wasn’t sure which. Her plea of ‘kiss me’ was entrancing, yet something deep inside him was drawing away. He tried to fight it. He wanted her, but so much that it alarmed him.
Impulse had made him call her tonight. Impulse had made him drag her away from their unwanted companions. Impulse, the thing he’d battled for years, was turning him into its creature.
Her creature! The words screamed at him. A puppet dancing on the end of her chain. And she knew it.
‘What is it?’ she asked, feeling him draw away.
‘This place is very public. I think we should both—go home.’
She stared at him, trying to believe what he was doing, feeling the anger rise within her. He was telling her the magic was over. He’d banished it by an act of will, proving that his control was still strong, although he’d brought her to the edge of losing hers.
THE GREEK TYCOONS
Legends are made of men like these!
Modern™ Romance are proud to introduce you to…The all new Greek Tycoons
Modern day magnates As gorgeous and god-like as their mythological ancestors, they put the ‘man’ into Romance!
This month
The Greek Tycoon’s Achilles Heel
by Lucy Gordon
Meet Lysandros Achilles Demetriou as he faces his only weakness—English beauty Petra Radnor!
In June 2010
The Power of the Legendary Greek
by Catherine George
Lukas is the wing-heeled Perseus whose life takes a different turn when the intriguing Isobel James washes up on his beach!
Lucy Gordon also writes for Mills & Boon® Romance!
The Greek Tycoon’s Achilles Heel
by
Lucy Gordon
MILLS & BOON®
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Dear Reader,
I’ve really enjoyed the chance to write about Achilles, because of all the charismatic Greek heroes he’s the one whose story still speaks to us down the centuries. His name lives in the phrase ‘Achilles heel’ meaning a secret weakness through which even the strongest person can be overcome.
Legend says that, to protect her baby son, his mother dipped him into the River Styx, which lay between earth and the underworld, knowing that the water would make him invulnerable.
But she held him by the heel, leaving a place where the water had not touched him. Years later it was an arrow in the unprotected heel that brought him down.
Achilles was a powerful man, bold, adventurous, fearing nothing. Yet it’s his hidden frailty that had caused his name to survive, perhaps because it’s something we can all feel in ourselves.
Lysandros knew that his own weakness was emotion. Once he’d yielded to it so completely that it nearly destroyed him. Determined never to succumb again, he imprisoned his heart behind bolts and bars so that nobody should suspect the truth.
But Petra knew from the start that under his hard exterior was a man of deeper feeling than he would ever admit. The question was, would he allow her close enough to heal him, or turn away into a bleak, unfeeling wilderness? Until the last moment, neither of them could know.
Warm wishes,
Lucy Gordon
Lucy Gordon cut her writing teeth on magazine journalism, interviewing many of the world’s most interesting men, including Warren Beatty, Charlton Heston and Roger Moore. She also camped out with lions in Africa, and had many other unusual experiences which have often provided the background for her books. Several years ago, while staying in Venice, she met a Venetian who proposed in two days. They have been married ever since. Naturally this has affected her writing, where romantic Italian men tend to feature strongly.
Two of her books have won the Romance Writers of America RITA® Award. You can visit her website at www.lucy-gordon.com
Lucy Gordon also writes for Mills & Boon® Romance!
PROLOGUE
THE lights of the Las Vegas Strip gleamed and glittered up into the night sky. Down below, the hotels and casinos rioted with life and money but the Palace Athena outshone them all.
In the six months since its opening it had gained a reputation for being more lavish than its competitors, and today it had put the seal on its success by hosting the wedding of the beautiful, glamorous film star, Estelle Radnor.
The owner of the Palace, no fool, had gained the prestige of staging her wedding by offering everything for free, and the gorgeous Estelle, also no fool where money was concerned, whatever might be said of her taste in men, had seized the offer.
The wedding party finished up in the casino, where the bride was photographed throwing dice, embracing her groom, throwing more dice, slipping an arm around the shoulders of a thin, nondescript young girl, then throwing more dice. The owner watched it all with satisfaction, before turning to a young man who stood regarding the performance sardonically.
‘Achilles, my friend—’
‘I’ve told you before, don’t call me that.’
‘But your name has brought me such good luck. Your excellent advice on how to make this place convincingly Greek—’
‘None of which you’ve taken.’
‘Well, my customers believe it’s Greek and that’s what matters.’
‘Of course, appearance is everything and what else counts?’ the young man murmured.
‘You’re gloomy tonight. Is it the wedding? Do you envy them?’
‘Achilles’ turned on him with swift ferocity. ‘Don’t talk nonsense!’ he snapped. ‘All I feel is boredom and disgust.’
‘Have things gone badly for you?’
A shrug. ‘I’ve lost a million. Before the night’s out I’ll probably lose another. So what?’
‘Come and join the party.’
‘I haven’t been invited.’
‘You think they’re going to turn away the son of the wealthiest man in Greece?’
‘They’re not going to get the chance. Leave me and get back to your guests.’
He strolled away, a lean, isolated figure, followed by two pairs of eyes, one belonging to the man he’d just left, the other to the awkward-looking teenager the bride had earlier embraced. Keeping close to the wall, so as not to be noticed, she slipped away and took the elevator to the fifty-second floor, where she could observe the Strip.
Here, both the walls and the roof were thick glass, allowing visitors to look out in safety. Outside ran a ledge which she guessed was there for workmen and window cleaners, but inaccessible to customers unless they knew the code to tap into the lock.
She was staring down, transfixed, when a slight noise made her turn and see the young man from downstairs. Moving quietly into the shadows, she watched, unnoticed, as he came to stand nearby, gazing down a thousand feet at the dazzling, distant world beneath.
Up here there were only a few lamps, so that customers could look out through the glass. She had a curious view of his face, lit from below by a glow that shifted and changed colour. His features were lean and clean-cut, their slight sharpness emphasised by the angle. It was the face of a very young man, little more than a boy, yet it held a weariness—even a despair—that suggested a crushing burden.
Then he did something that terrified her, reaching out to the code box and tapping in a number, making a pane of glass slide back so that there was nothing but air between him and a thousand foot drop. Petra’s sharp gasp made him turn his head.
‘What are you doing there?’ he snapped. ‘Are you spying on me?’
‘Of course not. Come back in, please,’ she begged. ‘Don’t do it.’
He stepped back into comparative safety, but remained near the gap.
‘What the hell do you mean, “don’t do it”?’ he snapped. ‘I wasn’t going to do anything. I wanted some air.’
‘But it’s dangerous. You could fall by accident.’
‘I know what I’m doing. Go away and let me be.’
‘No,’ she said defiantly. ‘I have as much right to take the air as you. Is it nice out there?’
‘What?’
Moving so fast that she took him by surprise, she slipped past him and out onto the ledge. At once the wind attacked her so that she had to reach out and found him grasping her.
‘You stupid woman!’ he shouted. ‘I’m not the only one who can have an accident. Do you want to die?’
‘Do you?’
‘Come inside.’
He yanked her back in, stopping short in surprise when he saw her face.
‘Didn’t I see you downstairs?’
‘Yes, I was in the Zeus Room,’ she said, naming the casino. ‘I like watching people. That place is very cleverly named.’
‘You know what Zeus means, then?’ he asked, drawing her away to where they could sit down.
‘He was the King of the Greek gods,’ she said, ‘looking down on the world from his home on the top of Mount Olympus, master of all he surveyed. That must be how the gamblers feel when they start playing, but the poor idiots soon learn differently. Did you lose much?’
He shrugged. ‘A million. I stopped counting after a while. What are you doing in a casino, anyway? You can’t be more than fifteen.’
‘I’m seventeen and I’m…one of the bridal party.’
‘That’s right,’ he said, seeming not to notice the way she’d checked herself at the last moment. ‘I saw her embracing you for the camera. Are you a bridesmaid?’
She regarded him cynically. ‘Do I look like a bridesmaid?’ she demanded, indicating her attire, which was clearly expensive but not glamorous.
‘Well—’
‘I don’t really belong in front of the cameras, not with that lot.’
She spoke with a wry lack of self-pity that was attractive. Looking at her more closely, he saw that she wore no make-up, her hair was cut efficiently short, and she’d made no attempt to enhance her appearance.
‘And your name is—?’ he queried.
‘Petra. And you’re Achilles. No?’ The last word was a response to his scowl.
‘My name is Lysandros Demetriou. My mother wanted to call me Achilles, but my father thought she was being sentimental. In the end they compromised, and Achilles became my second name.
’ ‘But that man downstairs called you by it.’
‘It’s important to him that I’m Greek because this place is built on the idea of Greekness.’
To his delight she gave a cheeky giggle. ‘They’re all potty.’
They took stock of each other. He was as handsome as she’d first sensed, with clean cut features, deep set eyes and an air of pride that came with a lifetime of having his own way. But there was also a darkness and a brooding intensity that seemed strange in this background. Young men in Las Vegas hunted in packs, savouring every experience. This one hid away, treasuring his solitude as though the world was an enemy. And something had driven him to take the air in a place full of danger. ‘Demetriou Shipbuilding?’ she asked.
‘That’s the one.’
‘The most powerful firm in Greece.’ She said it as though
reciting a lesson. ‘What they don’t want isn’t worth having. What they don’t acquire today they’ll acquire tomorrow. If anyone dares to refuse them, they wait in the shadows until the right moment to pounce.’
He grunted. ‘Something like that.’
‘Or maybe you’ll just turn the Furies onto them?’
She meant the three Greek goddesses of wrath and ven geance, with hair made of snakes and eyes that dripped blood, who hounded their victims without mercy.
‘Do you have to be melodramatic?’ he demanded.
‘In this “pretend” Greek place I can’t help it. Anyway, why aren’t you in Athens grinding your enemies to dust?’
‘I’ve done with all that,’ he said harshly. ‘They can get on without me.’
‘Ah, this is the bit where you sulk.’
‘What?’
‘During the Trojan war Achilles was in love with this girl. She actually came from the other side, and was his prisoner, but they made him give her back, so he withdrew from the battle and sulked in his tent. But in the end he came out and started fighting again. Only he ended up dead. As you could have done on that ledge.’
‘I told you I wasn’t planning to die, although frankly it doesn’t seem important one way or the other. I’ll take what comes.’
‘Did she do something very cruel?’ Petra asked gently.
In the dim light she could barely see the look he turned on her, but she sensed that it was terrible. His eyes were harsh and cold in the gloom, warning her that she’d trespassed on sacred ground.
‘Stop now!’howled the Furies. ‘Run for your life before he strikes you dead.’
But that wasn’t her way.
‘She?’ he asked in a voice that warned her.
She laid a gentle hand on his arm, whispering, ‘I’m sorry. Shouldn’t I have said that?’
He rose sharply and strode back to the gap in the glass wall and stood gazing out into the night. She followed cautiously.
‘She made me trust her,’ he whispered.
‘But sometimes it’s right to trust.’
‘No,’he insisted. ‘Nobody is ever as good as you think they are, and sooner or later the truth is always there. The more you trust someone, the worse it is when they betray you. Better to have no illusions, and be strong.’
‘But that would be terrible, never to believe in anything, never to love or hope, never be really happy—’
‘Never to be wretched,’ he said harshly. ‘Never to be alive,’ she said with gentle urgency. ‘It would be a living death, can’t you see that? You’d escape suffering, but you’d also lose everything that makes life worth living.’
‘Not everything. There’s power. You’d gain that if you did without the other things. They’re only weaknesses.’
‘No,’ she said, almost violently. ‘You mustn’t give in to that way of thinking or you’ll ruin your life.’
‘And what do you know about it?’ he demanded, angry now. ‘You’re a child. Has anyone ever made you want to smash things and keep on smashing until nothing is left alive—including yourself?’
‘But what do you gain by destroying yourself inside?’ she demanded.
‘I’ll tell you what you gain. You don’t become—like this.’ He jabbed a finger at his heart.
She didn’t have to ask what he meant. Young as he was, he lived on the edge of disaster, and it would take very little to push him over. That was why he dared to stand here, defying the fates to do their worst.
Pity and terror almost overwhelmed her. Part of her wanted to run for her life, get far, far away from this creature who might become a monster if something didn’t intervene. But the other part wanted to stay and be the one to rescue him.
Suddenly, without warning, he did the thing that decided her, something terrible and wonderful in the same moment. Lowering his head, he let it fall against her shoulder, raised it, dropped it again, and again and again. It was like watching a man bang his head against a brick wall, hopelessly, robotically.
Appalled, she threw her arms around him and clutched a restraining hand over his head, forcing him to be still. His despair seemed to reach out to her, imploring her comfort, saying that only she could give it to him. To be needed so desperately was a new experience for her and, even in the midst of her dismay, she knew a kind of delight.
Over his shoulder she could see the drop, with nothing to protect him from it. Nothing but herself. She gripped him tight, silently offering him all she could. He didn’t resist, but now his head rested on her shoulder as though the strength had drained out of him.
When she drew back to see his face the bitter anguish had gone, leaving it sad and resigned, as though he’d found a kind of peace, albeit a bleak and despairing peace.
At last Lysandros gave her a faint smile, feeling deep within him a desire to protect her as she had tried to protect him. There was still good in the world. It was here in this girl, too innocent to understand the danger she ran just by being here with him. In the end she would be sullied and spoiled like the rest.
But not tonight. He wouldn’t allow it.
He tapped a number into the code pad and the glass panel closed.
‘Let’s go,’ he said, leading her away from the roof and down into the hotel.
Outside her door he said, ‘Go inside, go to bed, don’t open this door to anyone.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’m going to lose a lot more money. After that—I’m going to do some thinking.’
He hadn’t meant to say the last words.
‘Goodnight, Achilles.’
‘Goodnight.’
He hadn’t intended what he did next either, but on impulse he leaned down and kissed her mouth gently.
‘Go in,’ he said. ‘And lock your door.’
She nodded and slipped inside. After a moment he heard the key turn.
He returned to the tables, resigned to further losses, but mysteriously his luck turned. In an hour he’d recovered every penny. In another hour he’d doubled it.
So that was who she was, a good luck charm, sent to cast her spell and change his fortunes. He only hoped he’d also done something for her, but he would probably never know. They would never meet again.
He was wrong. They did meet again.
But not for fifteen years.
CHAPTER ONE
THE Villa Demetriou stood on the outskirts of Athens on raised ground, from which the family had always been able to survey the domain they considered theirs. Until now the only thing that could rival them had been the Parthenon, the great classical temple built more than two thousand years before, high on the Acropolis, far away across the city and just visible.
Recently a new rival had sprung up, a fake Parthenon, created by Homer Lukas, the one man in Greece who would have ventured to challenge either the Demetriou family or the ancient gods who protected the true temple. But Homer was in love, and naturally wished to impress his bride on their wedding day.
On that spring morning Lysandros Demetriou stood in the doorway of his villa, looking out across Athens, irritated by having to waste his time at a wedding when he had so many really important things to deal with.
A sound behind him made him turn to see the entrance of Stavros, an old friend of his late father, who lived just outside the city. He was white-haired and far too thin, the result of a lifetime of self-indulgence.
‘I’m on my way to the wedding,’ he said. ‘I called in to see if you fancied a lift.’
‘Thank you, that would be useful,’ Lysandros said coolly. ‘If I arrive early it won’t give too much offence if I leave early.’
Stavros gave a crack of laughter. ‘You’re not sentimental about weddings.’
‘It’s not a wedding, it’s an exhibition,’ he said sardonically. ‘Homer Lukas has acquired a film star wife and is flaunting her to the world. The world will offer him good wishes and call him names behind his back. My own wish for him is that Estelle Radnor will make a fool of him. With any luck, she will.
‘Why did she have to come to Athens to get married, anyway? Why not make do with a false Greek setting, like that other time?’
‘Because the name of Homer Lukas is synonymous with Greek shipbuilding,’ Stavros said, adding quickly, ‘after yourself, of course.’
For years the companies of Demetriou and Lukas had stood head and shoulders above all others in Greece, or even in the world, some reverently claimed.
They were opponents, foes, even outright enemies, but enemies who presented a civilised veneer to outsiders because it was profitable to do so.
‘I suppose it might be a real love-match,’ Stavros observed cynically.
Lysandros raised his eyebrows. ‘A real—? How many times has she been married? Six, seven?’
‘You should know. Weren’t you a guest at one of the previous weddings, years ago?’
‘Not a guest. I just happened to be in the Las Vegas hotel where it was held and watched some of the shenanigans from a safe distance. And I returned to Greece the next day.’
‘Yes, I remember that. Your father was very puzzled—pleased, but puzzled. Apparently you’d told him you wanted nothing more to do with the business now or ever again. You vanished for two years, but suddenly, out of the blue, you just walked in the door and said you were ready to go to work. He was even afraid you wouldn’t be up to it after…well…’
He fell silent, alarmed by the grim look that had come over Lysandros’s face.
‘Quite,’ he said in a quiet voice that was more frightening than a shout. ‘Well, it’s a long time ago. The past is over.’
‘Yes, and your father said that all his fears were groundless because when you returned you were different, a tiger who terrified everyone. He was so proud.’
‘Well, let’s hope I terrify Homer Lukas. Otherwise I’m losing my touch.’
‘Perhaps you should be scared,’ Stavros said. ‘Such threats he’s been uttering since you recently bilked him and his son of billions. Stole billions, according to him.’
‘I didn’t steal anything, I merely offered the client a better deal,’ Lysandros said indifferently.
‘But it was at the last minute,’ Stavros recalled. ‘Apparently they were all assembled to sign the contracts, and the client had actually lifted the pen when his phone rang and it was you, giving him some information that you could only have acquired “by disgraceful means”.’
‘Not as disgraceful as all that,’ Lysandros observed with a shrug. ‘I’ve done worse, I’m glad to say.’
‘And that was that,’ Stavros resumed. ‘The man put the pen down, cancelled the deal and walked out straight into your car, waiting outside. Rumour says Homer promised the gods on Olympus splendid offerings if only they would punish you.’
‘But I’ve remained unpunished, so perhaps the gods weren’t listening. They say he even uttered a curse over my wedding invitation. I hope he did.’
‘You’re really not taking anyone with you?’
Lysandros made a non-committal reply. He attended many weddings as a duty, sometimes with companions but never with one woman. It would interest the press too much, and send out misleading signals to the lady herself, which could cause him serious inconvenience.
‘Right, let’s get going,’ Stavros said.
‘I’m afraid I’ll have to catch you up later,’ Lysandros excused himself.
‘But you just said you’d go with me—’
‘Yes, but I’ve suddenly remembered something I must do first. Goodbye.’
There was a finality in the last word that Stavros dared not challenge.
His car was waiting downstairs. In the back sat his wife, who’d refused to come in with him on the grounds that she hated the desolate house that seemed to suit Lysandros so perfectly.
‘How can he bear to live in that vast, silent place with no family and only servants for company?’ she’d demanded more than once. ‘It makes me shiver. And that’s not the only thing about Lysandros that makes me shiver.’
In that, she knew she was not alone. Most of Athens would have agreed. Now, when Stavros had described the conversation, she said, ‘Why did he change his mind about coming with us?’
‘My fault. I stupidly mentioned the past, and he froze. It’s almost eerie the way he’s blotted that time out as though it never happened, yet it drives everything he does. Look at what happened just now. One minute he was fine, the next he couldn’t get rid of me fast enough.’
‘I wonder why he’s really going to leave early.’
‘He’ll probably pass the time with a floozy.’
‘If you mean—’ she said a name, ‘she’s hardly a floozy. Her husband’s one of the most influential men on the—’
‘Which makes her a high class floozy, and she’s keeping her distance now because her husband has put his foot down. Rumours reached him.’
‘He probably knew all the time,’ his wife said cynically. ‘There are men in this city who don’t mind their women sleeping with Lysandros.’
Stavros nodded. ‘Yes, but I gather she became too “emotional”, started expecting too much, so he dropped the husband a hint to rein her in if he knew what was good for him.’
‘Surely even Lysandros wouldn’t be so cruel, so coldblooded—’
‘That’s exactly what he is, and in our hearts we all know it,’ Stavros said flatly.
‘I wonder about his heart,’ she mused.
‘He doesn’t have one, which is why he keeps people at a distance.’
As the car turned out of the gate Stavros couldn’t resist looking back to the house. Lysandros stood there at the window, watching the world with a brooding air, as though it was his personal property and he had yet to decide how to manage it.
He remained there until the car had vanished through the gates, then turned back into the room, trying to clear his mind. The conversation had disturbed him and that must be quickly remedied. Luckily an urgent call came through from his manager at the port of Piraeus, to say that they were threatened with union trouble. Lysandros gave him a series of curt orders and promised to be there the next day.
Today he would attend Homer Lukas’s wedding as an honoured guest. He would shake his rival’s hand, show honour to the bride, and the watching crowds would sigh with disappointment not to see them at each other’s throats, personally as well as professionally.
Now, more than ever, his father’s advice rang in his head.
‘Never, never let them know what you’re thinking.’
He’d learned that lesson well and, with its aid, he would spend today with a smile on his face, concealing the hatred that consumed him.
At last it was time for his chauffeur to take him to the Lukas estate. Soon he could see Homer’s ‘Parthenon’, in which the wedding was to take place, and it loomed up high, proclaiming the residence of a wealthy and influential man.
A fake, he thought grimly. No more authentic than the other ‘Greek setting’ in Las Vegas.
His thoughts went back to a time that felt like another world and through his mind danced the girl on the roof, skinny, ordinary, yet with an outspoken innocence that had both exasperated and charmed him. And at the last moment, when she’d opened her arms to him, offering a comfort he’d found nowhere else in the world and he’d almost—
He slammed his mind shut. It was the only way to deal with weakness.
He wondered how she’d come to be one of the wedding party; probably the daughter of one of Estelle Radnor’s numerous secretaries.
She might be here today, but it was probably better not to meet again after so long. Time was never kind. The years would have turned her into a dull wife with several children and a faithless husband. Where once she had sparkled, now she would probably seethe.
Nor had he himself been improved by time, he knew. A heaviness had settled over him, different from the raging grief that had possessed him in those days. That had been a matter of the heart and he’d dealt with it suitably, setting it aside, focusing on his head, where all sensible action took place.
He’d done what was right and wise, yet he had an uneasy feeling that if he met her now she would look right through him—and disapprove.
At last they arrived. As he got out of his car and looked around he had to admit that Homer had spent money to great effect. The great temple to the goddess Athena had been recreated much as the original must have looked when it was new. The building was about seventy metres by thirty, the roof held aloft by elegant columns. Marvellous statues abounded, but the greatest of all was the forty-foot statue of Athena, which had mysteriously developed the face of Estelle Radnor.
He grimaced, wondering how long it would be before he could decently depart.
But, before he could start his social duties, his cellphone shrilled. It was a text message.
I’m sorry about what I said. I was upset. You seemed to be pulling away when we’d been 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 a machine 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.
