PROLOGUE
'You want me to do what?' Nikos Vassilis stared at the old man seated at the desk.
Yiorgos Coustakis looked back with a level gaze. At seventy-eight he was still a formidable figure of a man. His eyes were still as piercing as they had been when he was young. They were the eyes of a man who knew the price of everything.
Especially human souls.
'You heard me.’ His voice was unemotional. 'Marry my granddaughter and you can go ahead with the merger.'
‘Maybe,' replied the younger man slowly. 'I just didn't believe you.’
A twisted smile pulled at Yiorgos Coustakis's mouth. 'You should,' he advised. 'It's the only deal on the table. And a deal, after all,' he said, 'is what you've flown four thousand miles for, ne?’
His visitor kept his hard, handsome face expressionless. Revealing anything in front of Old Man Coustakis was a major error in any kind of negotiation with him. Certainly he did not reveal the exasperation he had felt when the head of the Coustakis empire had phoned him at three a.m. in his Manhattan apartment the night before last to tell him that if he wanted a deal he'd better be in Athens this morning to sign it.
If it had been any one else phoning him Nikos would have given him short shrift. He'd had Esme Vandersee with him in bed, and sleeping was not what they'd been doing. But Yiorgos Coustakis had attractions that even the spectacular Esme, queen of the catwalk, could not compete with.
The Coustakis empire was a prize worth forgoing any woman for.
But was it a prize worth marrying a woman for? Giving up his freedom?
For a woman he'd never met? Never laid eyes on?
Nikos shifted his gaze past the penetrating dark eyes and out through Ehl plate-glass window. Athens lay below—crowded, polluted, unique. One of the most ancient cities of Europe, the cradle of western civilisation- Nikos knew it as a child knew its parent - he had been raised on its streets, toughened in its alleyways, tempered in its unforgiving crucible.
He'd clawed his way up off the streets, fighting tooth and nail, pushing poverty behind him deal by nerve-racking deal, until now, at thirty-four, it was as if he had never been that unwanted, fatherless boy running wild in the alleyways.
The journey had been long, and tough, but he had made it— and the fruits of his triumph were sweet indeed.
Now he stood poised on the edge of his greatest triumph-getting hold of the mighty Coustakis Industries.
'I was thinking,' he said, keeping his face blank, 'of a share-swap.'
He had it all planned. He would reverse Vassilis Inc into the far larger Coustakis empire, and take the lot in a cashless exchange of shares. Oh, Old Man Coustakis would need a lot of personal financial sweeteners, he knew that, but Nikos had mat covered too. He knew the old man wanted out, that his health—deny it officially as he would—was not good. But he knew Yiorgos Coustakis would never cede control of his business without a top-dollar face-saving deal—he'd go out like a lion, with a final roar, not like an old wolf driven from the pack.
That didn't bother Nikos—when his time came to quit he'd drive a hard bargain too, just to keep his successor on his toes.
But what Coustakis had just thrown at him had winded him like a blow to the gut Marry his granddaughter to get hold of the company? Nikos hadn't even known the old man had a granddaughter!
Inside, behind the mask that was the carefully irel'ully schooled expression on his face, Nikos had to tip his hat to the old man.
He could still catch his rivals out—even a rival who was posing as a friendly merger partner.
'You can have the share-swap—on your wedding day.
Yiorgos's reply was flat. Nikos kept his silence. Behind his composed appearance his mind was teeming. Racing.
'Well?' Yiorgos prompted him.
‘I’ll think about it,' returned Nikos. His voice was cool.
He turned to go.