Convinced all Greek males had to be chauvinists from birth, Selina escorted the lawyer out of the villa, her mind whirling as fast as the blades on the helicopter waiting on the lawn. Stunned at what she had learnt, she watched Mr Kadiekis board and the machine take off before turning to go back inside.
Rion was leaning casually against the door frame, watching her with heavy-lidded narrowed eyes, his thick lashes flicking against his high cheekbones.
‘I think now it is time you and I had that discussion, Selina Taylor,’ he mocked, using her full name as stated in the will.
The damned, awful, bloody will … Selina swore under her breath and tightened her lips, because she didn’t trust herself to respond to the hateful man. Instead she tried to walk back inside—but she had only taken a step when Rion caught her upper arm and spun her back from the door, leading her around the far corner of the villa.
‘Let go of me,’ she snapped, her eyes spitting fury as she tried to twist free of his grasp. ‘You knew about this, you bastard.’
‘Harsh words, but calling me names won’t help you, Selina. Only I can.’ A cynical smile twisted across his face. ‘You would do well to remember that.’
Selina stopped struggling. Much as she hated to admit it, she needed Rion’s agreement. Stiffening her spine, she looked straight at him. ‘You’re right, of course. I’m sorry,’ she apologised—though it choked her to do so. But antagonising the mighty Orion Moralis would get her nowhere.
‘Apology accepted.’
‘Magnanimous swine,’ she murmured under her breath. In cool, measured tones in sharp contrast to her furiously beating heart she said, ‘Put it down to shock. It is not every day a woman of twenty-four discovers she has a guardian.’
‘Understandable,’ he said with a shrug of his broad shoulders, and let go of her arm. ‘I’m guessing you do not want Anna to hear us before we reach a satisfactory arrangement, so let’s take a walk. The pavilion is not far, and it’s private. I seem to remember it always was before,’ he prompted, and strolled on, expecting her to follow him.
Silently fuming, Selina took a step and stumbled forward. It had nothing to do with his mention of the pavilion—a place where Rion had kissed her senseless and a lot more … Damn it! He was getting to her again. She vowed to act cool and controlled until she got him to agree with her and left.
Then Rion turned and looped an arm around her waist to steady her. She forgot her vow and tried to jerk free, but his strong arm tightened, holding her pressed firmly to his side.
‘Behave, Selina,’ he ordered. ‘To convince Anna, we will have to present a united front, and fighting is not going to do it.’
He was right again, and reluctantly Selina walked beside him, acutely aware of Rion’s towering presence as he continued to walk and talk.
‘Most people would say you have nothing to worry about. Your grandfather has left you his five-percent share in the Moralis Corporation, which I can assure you brings a quite substantial income by any standards. The fact that Stakis sold the house in Athens and mortgaged the villa having lost all his money gambling I knew nothing about until today.’
Still simmering with anger at the unfairness of the situation—and other emotions she preferred not to recognise—Selina glanced up at his harshly handsome face. His expression was bland, giving nothing away, and yet still he exuded an aura of power and a sheer masculine sex appeal that was hard to ignore. But ignore it she did. Been there, done that and never again. She was immune …
This was purely business, she staunchly reminded herself. Not that anything about Rion—business or otherwise—was ever pure, she thought bitterly.
‘Maybe you didn’t know about his gambling, but you sure as hell knew he made his will the weekend of our engagement party and never changed it,’ she flung at him as, with his arm clasped firmly around her, he ushered her down through the old olive grove to the pavilion. ‘I’m not eighteen any more so don’t take me for an idiot, Rion. You must have insisted on being in control of the shares for twelve years as part of the deal you made with my grandfather to marry me and take over his company.’
Rion tensed and stopped a few feet away from the trellised archway of the pavilion, his arm falling from Selina’s waist and his hands curling into fists at his sides. How the hell had Selina heard about the deal his father and Stakis had arranged? Only three people had ever known, and his father would never have said anything. Rion certainly had not …
‘Who told you that?’ he demanded. It had to have been Stakis. He had never liked the man. He’d been a devious old devil—as he knew better than most—but to tell his own granddaughter that he had used her to seal a business deal was cruel … and not strictly true …
Finding she was free from Rion’s confining hold Selina glared up at him. ‘I didn’t know before I married you, that’s for sure, and who told me does not matter. The fact you don’t deny it is enough,’ she said flatly. ‘But to convince my grandfather before we were even married to make you the sole trustee of any shares I might inherit until I reached thirty was genius—a great bit of business on your part,’ she said scathingly. ‘I can’t believe the lawyer insists it is legal. We have been married and divorced, for heaven’s sake! And where did Kadiekis get the idea you and I get on so well that it would be fine? He could have only got that from you …’
Rion’s face was impassive, but she noted lines of strain around his firm mouth.
‘Unless you want the world to see and hear you ranting, I suggest we go inside,’ he said curtly, and placing a hand in the middle of her back, he urged her forward through the arch into the pavilion.
Selina stopped dead and glanced around, her breath catching in her throat. Nothing had changed: the same plump blue cushions—faded now—were stacked along the deep padded seat that doubled as a daybed against the back wall of the pavilion. The only other furniture was a wooden table with a dead pot plant on top. The pavilion had been built for the grandmother Selina had never met. According to Anna, the poor woman had suffered from a weak heart and crippling arthritis in her later years. This had been her favourite view of the bay. She had died three years before her son and his family—a blessing, in a way …
Not a lucky place, and haunted by ghosts, Selina thought bitterly.
Rion left her where she stood and dropped down on the bench, discarding his jacket and tie. He needed time to assimilate the fact that Selina had found out about the marriage deal …
> The irony was that a week after meeting Selina he would have done just about anything to get her into bed, he’d wanted her so badly …
When he finally had he’d been so out of control for the first time in his life he had had sex without protection. With the prospect of a pregnancy in the mix, as well as the business, he had asked her to marry him. Selina had been ecstatic, his father and Stakis had been delighted, and Rion had felt supremely confident that he had made the right decision all around. He would like a son and heir someday, and with the virgin Selina at least he would be sure he was the father.
Maybe her hearing about the marriage contract went some way to explaining why Selina had betrayed him with another man. She had been so naive when they’d married—so open in her avowals of love. After the divorce he had realised cynically she had simply been enamoured of her introduction to sex. But for all that, she had been a refreshing change from the women Rion had known before. She must have been hurt and disillusioned, learning that he’d married her as part of a business deal, and had got back at him in any way she could.
But betray him she had, and it was something he could never forget. Not once, but twice—first by leaping into bed with another man and then with the conditions of the divorce.