CHAPTER ONE
‘WHO is she?’ Markos asked.
Drakon had telephoned down to his cousin Markos’s office just a few minutes ago, and was now in one of the many rooms of the penthouse apartment on the thirtieth floor of the Lyonedes Tower building in Central London, where Drakon stayed whenever he was visiting from the company’s New York offices. Markos, naturally, preferred to live away from the building where he worked every day.
Drakon’s full attention was focused speculatively on one of several security monitors in front of him as he watched the young woman on the monochrome screen pacing restlessly up and down the room she had been escorted to several minutes ago by Max Stanford, his Head of Security, after causing something of a disturbance in the reception area situated on the ground floor of the building.
She was a tall and willowy young woman, the dark blouse she wore—possibly black or brown—clinging to the outline of small pert breasts, while slim-fitting low-rider jeans revealed a tantalising glimpse of the flatness of her abdomen before curving lovingly over her bottom and the length of her legs. She was probably aged somewhere in her mid to late twenties, with just below shoulder-length straight hair—blonde? Her face was arrestingly beautiful: delicately heart-shaped and dominated by light-coloured eyes. Damn this black and white screen! She had a small straight nose and sensuously full lips.
He glanced at Markos as his cousin came to stand beside him. The family resemblance and their Greek nationality were more than obvious in their harshly sculptured olive-skinned features. Both men were dark-haired and over six feet tall, although at thirty-four Markos was two years Drakon’s junior.
‘I’m not sure,’ Drakon answered. ‘Max telephoned a few minutes ago and asked me what I wished him to do with her,’ he continued. ‘Apparently when he removed her from Reception she refused to tell him anything other than that her name is Bartholomew and she has no intention of leaving the building until she has spoken either to you or me—but preferably me,’ he added dryly.
Markos’s eyes widened. ‘Any relation to Miles Bartholomew, do you think?’
‘Could be his daughter.’ Drakon had met Miles Bartholomew several times before the other man’s death in a car crash six months ago, and there was a definite facial resemblance between him and the young woman they could see on the screen now. Although at sixty-two Miles’s hair had been silver, and his tall frame wiry rather than willowy and graceful.
‘What do you suppose she wants?’ Markos prompted curiously.
Drakon’s dark eyes narrowed on the impatiently pacing woman, his mouth thinning to an uncompromising line. ‘I have absolutely no idea. But I have every intention of finding out.’
Markos’s brows rose. ‘You intend talking to her yourself?’
Drakon gave a humourless smile at his cousin’s obvious surprise. ‘I have asked Max to bring her to me here in ten minutes’ time. It is to be hoped she will not have worn a hole in a very expensive carpet before then.’
Markos looked thoughtful. ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea with our current connection to Bartholomew’s young and beautiful widow?’
Drakon deliberately turned his back on the screen. ‘Max’s alternative was to have her arrested for trespassing and/or disturbing the peace. A move at best guaranteed to bring unnecessary and unwanted publicity to Lyonedes Enterprises,’ he said, ‘and at worst to have an adverse effect on our relationship with Angela Bartholomew.’
‘True,’ his cousin conceded. ‘But isn’t it setting something of a precedent to give in to this type of emotional blackmail?’
Drakon arched arrogant dark brows. ‘You are expecting there to be more than one determined young woman in London at the moment who feels the need to stage a sit-in in the reception area of Lyonedes Enterprises until she has been allowed to talk to the company’s president?’
Markos gave a rueful shake of his head. ‘You’ve only been in England for two days—hardly long enough for you to have broken any female hearts as yet.’
Drakon’s expression remained impassive. ‘If, as you say, hearts have been broken in the past, then it has not been my doing; I have never made any secret of the fact that I have no interest in marrying at this time.’
‘If ever!’ His cousin snorted.
Drakon shrugged. ‘No doubt there will come a time when an heir becomes necessary.’
‘Just not yet?’
His mouth thinned. ‘No.’
Markos eyed him teasingly. ‘Miss Bartholomew seems to have piqued your interest…’
There were only two people in the world who would dare to speak to Drakon in this familiar way: his cousin and his widowed mother.
The two men had grown up together in the family home in Athens. Markos had come to live with his aunt and uncle and slightly older cousin after his parents were killed in a plane crash when he was eight years old. It was that closeness, and the fact that they were related by blood, which allowed the younger man certain freedoms of expression where Drakon was concerned. If anyone else but Markos had dared to make a comment on or question Drakon’s private life like that, he would very quickly hav
e found himself on the other side of the door. After being suitably and icily chastened, of course.
‘I am…curious as to her reasons for coming here,’ he acknowledged slowly.