The Greek’s Chosen Wife

seething anger 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 me of my late son and his mother.’ Theo Demakis studied his granddaughter with cold derision. ‘You have the same puppy-dog eyes, the same scared smile. You’ve got no backbone and weakness disgusts me.’

‘If I was weak, 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 come to stay on the older man’s magnificent estate and every day had been an ordeal. Having flown out to Greece with naive 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 man with not an atom of affection for her and a vicious tongue.

Theo Demakis laughed at her attempt to stand up to him. ‘Do you take me for a fool? Why do you think I invited you to visit me? You’ve taken everything I’ve thrown at you because your mother’s on the booze again and the bailiffs are back at the door!’

Dismay peeling away the composure she was struggling to maintain, Prudence could no longer hold his derisive gaze. As she dropped her head in shame-faced embarrassment, a curtain of chestnut-brown hair fell forward to screen her rounded profile and she looked very much her nineteen years.

‘Am I right?’ the older man sneered.

‘Yes…’ The admission almost choked Prudence, for she would have loved to tell him that he was wrong and that her mother, Trixie, had cleaned up her act and turned her life around. Sadly, that wasn’t possible and her grandfather’s contemptuous satisfaction made the humiliation of her mother’s frailties sting even more. She suspected that he was congratulating himself on his foresight almost two decades earlier when he had told his son to ditch his pregnant girlfriend.

‘What a winner Apollo picked to father my only grandchild with! He had the pick of the world’s heiresses. He could have brought a royal princess home as his bride,’ Theo Demakis growled in disgust. ‘Even then I was rich as Midas and money is the equal of any fancy pedigree. But my son wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, was he? He picked a woman who was a lush, a spendthrift and a whore-’

Her face flaming, Prudence surged upright. ‘I won’t sit here listening to you talking about my mother like that!’

The older man surveyed her with ironic amusement. ‘What choice do you have? You need my money to dig her out of trouble.’

At that blunt declaration, Prudence lost colour. She lowered her head and swallowed hard on her angry pain. Slowly, heavily, she sank back down in her seat again. As she had learned at an early age, penury and dignity rarely went hand in hand. In any case, Theo Demakis was right and the truth was not very pleasant: she did need his money. Her mother was deeply in debt, drinking heavily and currently facing court action over unpaid bills. But Prudence was convinced that if the stress of the older woman’s financial problems was removed, Trixie could be persuaded to enter a clinic and go through rehab again. Painful as it was to accept, Prudence reflected with a sinking sensation in her tummy, Demakis money could well make the difference between her mother living or dying. Years of alcohol abuse had dangerously weakened Trixie’s health.

The older man dealt his silent granddaughter a harsh look of impatience. ‘I brought you to Greece only because I believe you can be of use to me. It’ll be interesting to see if you have the brains to recognise a lucky break when it’s on the table in front of you. ‘

Her brow indented, Prudence was bewildered by that statement.

‘What do you think of Nikolos Angelis?’ Theo asked with the teeth-baring smile that sent a shiver down most people’s backs.

The disconcerting sound of that particular name shattered Prudence’s composure. Blushing like mad in her confusion, she averted her attention from her grandfather without even noticing the chilling curl of his thin mouth. ‘He’s…he’s kind,’ she framed finally, biting back a whole host of other, more enthusiastic words which she felt would have exposed her to the older man’s derision.

How could she possibly speak freely about Nikolos without revealing the depth of her feelings for him? She was in love for the first time in her life but that was her secret and she had no intention of sharing it with anyone. After all, Nikolos had the dark, dangerous beauty of a fallen angel and she was overweight and plain. It was a hopeless passion and she knew it.

‘How do you think Nikolos will handle poverty? At this very moment, the Angelis family are facing financial ruin. They’ll lose their homes, their cars, they’ll have to take the younger children out of their fancy schools and that will just be the beginning of their sufferings. After more than a century of wealth and ease, his parents will find it very difficult to adapt to such heavy losses.’ Theo watched the surprise and immediate concern blossoming in her expressive eyes. ‘But you have it within your power to save them all from that unhappy fate.’

‘How could I help them?’ Prudence exclaimed, shaken by the picture he had drawn.

‘By helping me. If you agree to marry the Angelis boy I’ll rescue his family and also take care of all your mother’s little problems. I will be very generous to all parties concerned and I am not a generous man as a rule.’

Prudence stared back at him in wide-eyed astonishment. As he spoke, her soft full mouth had parted several times as though she intended to break into speech but each time innate caution had made her hold back. ‘Me… agree to marry Nikolos Angelis? How on earth could that come about? It sounds totally mad…and I don’t understand how that would be helping you,’ she framed shakily.

‘There’s method in my madness.’ The portly older man poured a measure of brandy into a crystal glass. ‘I want a male heir, but with the exception of your father my own efforts in that direction have been unsuccessful. However, you’re young and healthy and so is the Angelis boy. If even half of the rumours about his virility are true, it shouldn’t take him very long to achieve the required result.’

His coarse laugh made agonised colour well up below his granddaughter’s skin. ‘I can’t believe you’re talking to me like this,’ she protested. ‘For goodness’ sake, Nikolos wouldn’t marry me…he wouldn’t want me-’

‘It’s not a matter of wanting, which is just as well, isn’t it? You’re no beauty,’ her grandfather pointed out with a casual cruelty that turned her white. ‘But, believe me, given the choice between marrying you and watching his precious family lose everything, Nikolos Angelis will take you as his bride-’

‘No…’ she muttered sickly, her hands tightly clenched in on themselves, for she was humiliated beyond bearing by his taunts.

‘He will. He is not a fool like his father. He’s strong and very loyal to his family. As for you, you do have Demakis blood in your veins and I’m giving you both a wonderful opportunity.’

‘That’s not how I see it…you’re talking about blackmailing Nikolos into marrying me!’

The older man fixed his steely gaze on her. ‘I dislike wild accusations. There is no blackmail,’ he specified with cold clarity. ‘I’m offering a helping hand in return for a favour. Turn your back on my generosity if you wish.’

‘It’s not a question of me doing that. Just please help me help my mother,’ she begged him in desperation.

‘Accept that I don’t care whether your mother goes to prison or drinks herself to death,’ Theo Demakis fielded drily. ‘Why would I care? What is she to me?’

‘Trixie might not be in the mess she’s in now if she hadn’t had such a battle to survive when I was a kid!’

His scorn unconcealed, Theo Demakis checked his watch. ‘Look out of the window…’

After a moment’s hesitation, Prudence scrambled up and stared down at the pristine gardens. She wondered what she was supposed to see when her mind was in so much turmoil that she was incapable of concentration. Belatedly she noticed the taxi waiting by the imposing front door.

‘That taxi is waiting to take you to the airport.’

Prudence was as startled by that announcement as he could have wished. ‘Now…you want me to leave?’

‘Your luggage has already been packed. If you say no to marrying the Angelis boy, I will send you home to the UK immediately and you will never hear from me again. Make your mind up and do it quickly.’

A sense of panic gripped Prudence. ‘Can’t you be reasonable about this? It’s so unfair to spring this on me and demand-’