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PROLOGUE

NIKOLOS ANGELIS STUDIED his father in rampant disbelief ‘You’re not serious You can’t be serious We own one of the biggest companies in Greece!’

Sy his ebullient best His corey and heavy lines of exhaustion amble and it didn’t pay off In fact, it was a disaster The co very nervous Theywe possess but they’re still not happy If they pull the plug noe’ll lose the lot!’

Nikolos said nothing Everything? Even the fary that he did not trust hiht him that a man should put the honour and security of his family first While the old man had lived the family fortune had been in safe, protective hands But Syh he was in his fifties, he was still desperate to prove that he could wheel and deal as successfully as his legendary father and he had lost h-risk deals

‘If it’s any consolation,’ Syht about the Arnott developood to be true’

Nikolos swung round, stung beyond bearing by that adht in even after the Kutras brothers warned you to stay clear?’

Syave his eldest son a rueful look ‘I thought they were trying to corner all the action for themselves’

Nikolos ground his even white teeth together in silence He did not allow himself to look in his parent’s direction He was ashaood ood husband He was universally well-liked and respected but his intellect was not powerful and he was a lousy entrepreneur Nikolos, on the other hand, had devoted his spare ti in stocks and shares that had made him a millionaire before he even left school To stand by powerless and watch his less clever and shrewd father stumble and make stupid mistakes was, for Nikolos, a punishment of no mean order

‘I’ll be frank with you This may be our darkest hour but we have been offered an escape clause,’ the oldersource In fact, I was astonished…However, I said it couldn’t be done It wouldn’t be right-’

Mastering his iriht?’

His father see scrutiny ‘I can’t ask you to e You’re only twenty-two-’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

Syelis expelled his breath in a hiss ‘Theo Demakis approached me and offered to bail us out’

Nikolos vented a startled laugh of incredulity ‘Theo De me up? Since when did we move in such exalted circles?’

‘It seems that we could move in those circles if anted to,’ Sy his words with extreme care

His son’s lean, bronzed face stayed uniet into bed with him you’ll wake up with a knife stuck between your ribs’

‘In other circuht have beena family connection rather than just a business transaction’

At those words, Nikolos fell very still ‘You can’t mean what I think you mean…’

The olderfrom-’

‘I think your view ed-’

Refusing to be discouraged, Symeon pressed on ‘Theo’s only son must be dead ten years now, he’s on his third wife and he still doesn’t have another child He only has his English granddaughter He wants Prudence to round and that’s not surprising when she’s half-English and illegitiain De an old-fashioned deal’

An appalled inability to credit what he was hearing kept Nikolos silent

‘If you married her and there was a child, the world would be your oyster,’ Syhtly ‘Yes, it would save us, too, but you’re aoose To talk of such an arrangeht that I should draw your attention to the very obvious benefits’

Nikolos closed his eyes, lashes long and black as silk fans usted by his father’s willingness to consider such an arrange for her love of baklava pastries, was to be his wife? He was shocked and outraged by the suggestion He hardly knew her, although he had on several occasions intervened when he saw her being ignored and insulted at social events Her lack of Greek and her trusting nature had et, for no matter as said to her she would assume it was pleasant and she would smile

Her inability to defend herself had infuriated Nikolos He hated bullies and would have done as much for any helpless creature too stupid to look after itself in a hostile world But had those trivial displays of good manners, those rueso suspicionface clench hard When he walked into a room, she lit up like a Christmas tree Had Prudence decided to tell her fabulously wealthy grandfather just how elis?

‘Papa…’ Nikolos’s sister Kos silence from the Frenchthat opened out onto the terrace ‘I know I shouldn’t have been listening and I’ll die if we becoranddaughter She’s a fat cow and plain as a pig!’

‘How dare you hide behind the door and eavesdrop on a private conversation?’ Eelis leap up in a wrathful response that his hter had rarely witnessed ‘Leave us-’

‘But it’s true,’ the pretty teenager wailed, standing her ground and defying his authority ‘Nikolos would have to put a paper bag over her head to eat at the saly and he’s so handsome-’

‘Get out,’ Nikolos told his kid sister with ferocious, cutting cool

The olderbrother’s bidding and released a regretful sigh ‘Of course, I’ve never seen the girl If she’s that bad, Kosma would have a point I couldn’t ask you to marry her’

Nikolos bit back a sardonic laugh That this was the only objection his parent could see to such a revoltingly mercenary proposition spoke voluhting despair and ready to clutch at any straw thathim back from the abyss of financial ruin Nikolos asked himself how he could stand back and allow that to happen to his parents and his four siblings

Yet at twenty-two years old, he felt that his own life had barely begun He was no innocent though, he conceded grudging

ly Even though he was still at university, he had acquired a reputation as a wole-minded zeal He worked hard and he played hard and he rarely slept alone He didn’t do long-terirl ould not accept those conditions But he still could not begin to conte a husband or, worse still, a father Indeed, the very concept of being forced into such a heavy coer and bitterness But he also knew that his grandfather, Orestes, would have laid down his own life to protect his nearest and dearest…

‘You remind randdaughter with cold derision ‘You have the saot no backbone and weakness disgusts me’

‘If I eak, I would have gone home the day after I arrived’ Prudence tilted her chin, her soft blue eyes staying steady while beneath her loose cotton shirt she could feel her heart beating so fast with fear that she felt sick

His unpleasantness continually appalled her It was three weeks since she had conificent estate and every day had been an ordeal Having flown out to Greece with naïve hopes of getting to know and love the grandfather she had never met, she had instead been forced to accept that he was a cold, malevolent ue