But this dinner was different, Ashley decided as she caught Sebastian’s eye and slowly walked to him. The sky was streaked with orange and red and the birthday candles flickered on the cake she held.
The guests at the long table clapped and cheered when they saw her. She smiled when they began to sing “Happy Birthday.” She walked barefoot as the ocean breeze pulled at her casual sundress.
Everyone on Inez Key was there to celebrate. The main house was festooned with streamers, bunting and balloons. The bright colors and loud music reflected the festive spirit of the day. The islanders and the Cruz family mingled at the party that had started early in the day and showed no signs of fading.
Ashley glanced at her mother-in-law. She knew it had been a long and emotional day for Patricia. The older woman, dressed in a vibrant red, was dabbing her eyes with one hand while holding Ashley’s infant daughter with the other. Patricia continued to fulfill the wish she’d made almost thirty years ago. She was home surrounded by her family.
Ashley carefully set the cake down in front of Sebastian as he held their boisterous three-year-old twin boys in each arm. She felt his heated gaze on her as the guests sang the last verse.
“Happy birthday, Sebastian,” she murmured as she scooped up one of the boys who tried to lunge for the cake. “Make a wish.”
“I have everything I want, mi vida.”
“Ask for anything,” she encouraged her husband, “and I’ll make it happen.”
Ashley saw the devilish tilt of his mouth as the desire flared in his eyes. Anticipation licked through her veins as she watched Sebastian blow out the candles.
As the guests clapped, Ashley saw Sebastian’s satisfied smile at the blown-out candles. The curiosity got the better of her. “What did you ask for?”
“If I tell you, it won’t come true,” he teased. “But this is going to be one birthday wish I’ll never forget.”
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from THE DIMITRAKOS PROPOSITION by Lynne Graham.
CHAPTER ONE
‘BEARING IN MIND the history of the company’s expansion and success, it is a most unjust will,’ Stevos Vannou, Ash’s lawyer, declared heavily in the simmering silence, a wary eye locked to the very tall, dark and powerfully built male across the office.
Acheron Dimitrakos, known as Ash to his inner circle, and Greek billionaire founder of the global giant DT Industries, said nothing. He did not trust himself to speak. Usually his control was absolute. But not today. He had trusted his father, Angelos, as far as he trusted anyone, which was to say not very much, but it had never once crossed his mind that the older man would even consider threatening the company that Ash had single-handedly built with the bombshell that his last will and testament had become. If Ash didn’t marry within the year, he would lose half of the company to his stepmother and her children, who were already most amply provided for by the terms of his father’s will. It was unthinkable; it was a brutally unfair demand, which ran contrary to every honourable scruple and the high standards that Ash had once believed the older man held dear to his heart. It just went to show—as if Ash had ever had any doubt—you couldn’t trust anybody, and your nearest and dearest were the most likely to plunge a knife into your back when you were least expecting it.
‘DT is my company,’ Ash asserted between compressed lips.
‘But regretfully not on paper,’ Stevos countered gravely. ‘On paper you never had your father transfer his interest to you. Even though it is indisputably the company that you built.’
Still, Ash said nothing. Cold dark eyes fringed with ridiculously long black lashes locked on the sweeping view of the City of London skyline that his penthouse office enjoyed, his lean, darkly handsome features set in hard, forbidding lines of restraint. ‘A long court case disputing the will would seriously undermine the company’s ability to trade,’ he said eventually.
‘Picking a wife would definitely be the lesser evil,’ the lawyer suggested with a cynical chuckle. ‘That’s all you have to do to put everything back to normal.’
‘My father knew I had no intention of ever marrying. That is exactly why he did this to me,’ Ash ground out between clenched teeth, his temper momentarily escaping its leash as he thought of the utterly unhinged woman his misguided father had expected him to put in the role. ‘I don’t want a wife. I don’t want children. I don’t want any of that messing up my life!’