The Greek Tycoon’s Disobedient Bride

‘Possibly the lady regretted her behaviour towards your family while she was alive and this may be her way of smoothing matters over now that’s she gone,’ the lawyer proffered, unnerved by his most powerful client’s continuing silence. ‘Deathbed changes of heart are more common than you might think.’

‘I don’t require the woman’s blessing to buy the place.’ Lysander had never met Gladys Stewart. His late father, however, had once described her as a malevolent gold-digging harpy. Certainly, her ongoing hatred had caused his parents, Aristide and Virginia, a certain amount of angst over the years. Lysander had placed that at the door of his adoptive parents’ overactive consciences. After all, what was the big deal? His father had only broken off his engagement to Gladys’s daughter, Cathy, to marry Virginia instead. These things happened and normal people learnt to deal with them.

Forty-eight hours later, Lysander’s helicopter landed at Madrigal Court. As usual, he did not travel alone. With him was a mini-posse of attentive staff and his most recent bed partner, Anichka, a six-foot-tall Russian blonde who featured on the front cover of no less than two exclusive fashion magazines that month.

‘What a beautiful house,’ a female aide pronounced in an unexpectedly dreamy voice.

The huge rambling manor was built of mellow brick and adorned with gracious mullioned window bays and a fantastical roofline that was a riot of tall ornate chimneys, gables and turrets. Lysander was unimpressed. History had never held much attraction for him and a dilapidated building surrounded by unkempt gardens offended his partiality for order and discipline. If so many flaws were visible at first glance, they were probably only the tip of the iceberg, Lysander thought grimly, his sensual mouth hardening. Carrying out repairs quickly would be an enormous challenge.

‘It’s falling apart,’ Anichka remarked with distaste, brushing herself free of the rust particles that adhered to her skin when she was unwise enough to rest a hand on the wrought-iron balustrade that edged the stone bridge over the moat.

The medieval studded oak door stood ajar on a cluttered stone porch. In a critical glance Lysander took in walls in dire need of paint, gloomy, heavily carved dark panelling and shabby Victorian reproduction furniture. It was a dump, a genuine twenty-four-carat dump, on the brink of ruin. But, no matter what the price, he was going to have to buy it. Billionaire that he was, he was also a hard-hitting businessman. The prospect before him was the ultimate challenge for a male who had never before been forced to put sentiment ahead of practicality.

Morton, the solicitor, greeted Lysander in the Great Hall, suggested his party await him there and escorted him into a faded drawing room where most of the furniture was eerily shrouded in dust covers.

‘Unfortunately, Mrs Stewart’s granddaughter, Ophelia, has been delayed, but she should be along soon,’ the older man advanced in a tone of abject apology.

At that same moment, Ophelia was ramming her ancient and battered Land Rover to a shrieking halt in the courtyard. She was running late and furious about it because even though she had told the solicitor that she had a prior arrangement for that afternoon he had ignored the information. Money talked, as the old saying went, and self-evidently a Greek billionaire was a much more important person than she was.

That attitude infuriated Ophelia because it was barely a week since her grandmother’s funeral had taken place and her every free moment had been taken up with the mountain of tasks that followed bereavement. Indeed, so busy had she been that she’d had to offer a personal delivery of plants for her best customer, who had twice called at the walled garden and found her not to be there. Furthermore, the solicitor had sat on the information that Lysander Metaxis would also be attending the will reading and had only given Ophelia twenty-four-hours’ notice of that extraordinary fact.

Ophelia hurried through the kitchen, thinking of what an absolute waste of time it was to have dragged Lysander Metaxis all the way to Madrigal Court. After all, for what possible reason would her grandmother have included a member of the family she had loathed in her last will and testament? Initially incredulous at Donald Morton’s astonishing announcement, Ophelia had reached the uneasy conclusion that the inclusion of a Metaxis in the will could only mean that her grandmother had done something vindictive as a footnote to her departure from the world. But what exactly that might encompass Ophelia could not begin to imagine.

She accepted that Lysander Metaxis would very probably be the buyer and new owner of Madrigal Court. She even accepted that that was probably the kindest fate the ancient property could have, because it definitely did need someone with pots of money to spend. But, regardless of those facts, she would very much have preferred not to meet Lysander, because she could not forget that his father had totally destroyed her mother’s life and, through her, that of her children. Aristide had been a playboy as well. Rich, spoilt and selfish, a womaniser, who’d never stopped to consider the damage he’d caused. And, by all accounts, Lysander Metaxis was much worse than his late father, though society was now less censorious and he could get away with a great deal more in the field of decadent living. He would be the first Metaxis to cross the threshold of Madrigal Court in over thirty years.

A baffling collection of people were waiting in the Great Hall: three men and one woman in business suits. The second woman was an incredibly lovely blonde in a brief lime-green dress. She was engaged in displaying her extremely long legs and basking like a queen in the drooling admiration of the men present.

‘Good afternoon,’ Ophelia said as she walked past.

Outside the drawing room door, Ophelia breathed in deep. A nervous pulse had started beating horribly fast at the foot of her throat.

Donald Morton, the family solicitor, had a harassed air and he rushed to perform introductions. ‘Mr Metaxis… this is Ophelia Carter.’

‘Mr Metaxis…’ Ophelia’s response was stilted. She froze beneath the onslaught of stunning dark eyes that had the rich shimmer of bronze. Although she had seen photos of him in newspapers she had not realised how tall he would be. He towered over her easily at six feet two inches and bore little resemblance to his short, stockily built father. Her breath caught in her tight throat, as Lysander was an astonishingly handsome man with black cropped hair and lean strong features dominated by the penetrating power of his deep-set dark gaze. The perfection of his sculpted masculine mouth was accentuated by a faint dark blue rough shadow. Even she was immediately aware of his raw sexual appeal and that shook her, for in general men left her pretty much untouched.

‘Miss Carter.’ Lysander had narrowed his intense gaze, for he was ensnared by something he couldn’t quite define. She was tiny with a mass of blonde hair as golden as sunlight anchored to the top of her head. Her eyes were a clear crystalline blue, set in a beautiful heart-shaped face. At first he barely noticed that she was dressed like a tramp in a worn waxed jacket with her jeans tucked into muddy boots because, when she shed that jacket, her shirt revealed surprisingly full curves above and below her small waist. He decided she was hot seriously hot, and his sexual response was instant and painfully strong. The immediacy of that reaction startled him.

Registering that Lysander Metaxis’s gaze was welded to the swell of her full breasts, Ophelia flushed pink and she lifted her chin and whispered angrily, ‘What do you think you’re looking at?’

Lysander could not recall a single incident when a woman had reacted with hostility to his attention, especially not one the tiny size of her, he reflected with rare amusement, reckoning that he could probably pick her up with one hand. He wondered if the impudence was deliberate and designed to enhance his interest. ‘Maybe it’s the boots…’ he murmured, slow and soft.

An indefinable undertone in his rich dark drawl made Ophelia’s entire skin surface prickle with awareness. She connected with heavily lashed bronze eyes that had the seismic effect of an earthquake on her composure. Her mouth ran dry, her heartbeat racing like a trapped bird fluttering within her ribcage.

‘I like boots,’ Lysander purred in lazy addition while the solicitor looked between them in growing bewilderment. ‘With heels. I’m not into mud or rubber though.’

That wicked combination of mockery and suggestiveness outraged and discomfited Ophelia, who didn’t know how to handle it. Her face hot enough to fry eggs on, she finally tore her eyes from him and sank down rigid-backed into an armchair, refusing to look back at him or respond.

‘Let’s get started,’ Lysander urged the solicitor.

Ophelia discovered that she was hoping that whatever was in the will that related to Lysander Metaxis would hammer a huge dent in his boundless self-assurance. How dared he poke fun at her appearance? He was a barefaced womaniser with a notorious reputation. Why was she allowing him to annoy her? Since when had she cared how she looked? She recalled her late mother’s obsession with her appearance! Money needed for food and rent had often been squandered. All Ophelia’s clothes were extremely practical.

‘There are certain points I should make clear in advance,’ Donald Morton said tautly. ‘The will was drawn up