Prudence sat up on her knees. ‘Or…to me?’ she suggested uncertainly.
Nik laughed with rich appreciation. ‘You were never in the running. I don’t think I’d like a wife rich enough to buy and sell me ten times over.’
‘Are you absolutely sure of that?’
Nik stared down at her, lush black lashes of extraordinary length merely accentuating the depth and clarity of his clear gaze. ‘Why are we having this conversation? Were you disappointed at being left out of his will?’
‘No…because I wasn’t…left out, I mean.’
Nik frowned. ‘What did Theo leave you? Some family memento? I’m surprised he left you anything.’
‘He left me everything.’
Nik froze. ‘Theos mou…you cannot be serious.’
‘Everything: the houses, the cars, the jewellery, the businesses, the jets, the yacht.’
Nik studied her in unconcealed shock and then he spread his powerful arms in a movement of acceptance, dark colour lying in a line along his superb cheekbones. ‘If you say it is so it must be so, but I can hardly credit it-’
‘Wait until you see the recording he made.’ Her announcement made, Prudence scrambled off the bed and pelted back to the lounge to remove the disc from her handbag.
Having followed her, Nik extended a hand and took it from her. ‘Theo filmed himself-’
Sudden misgivings assailed Prudence as she recalled some of the inflammatory things that her grandfather had said. ‘I don’t think you should watch it-’
‘Why not?’ Nik enquired almost lazily.
The tension in the air made her heartbeat speed up. She was appalled at how thoughtless she had been in bringing the recording to his notice. ‘You never got on with him-’
‘Neither did you…or the rest of the human race for that matter. What did he say about me?’
Prudence was rigid. ‘Why should you assume that he said anything?’
‘If Theo took the trouble to make a film, it was to gloat about how clever he was.’
‘Look, it’s mine and I would like it back…’ Awkwardly she stuck out her hand.
‘No…I insist on watching it.’ Nik shot her a wrathful glance of challenge.
And he did.
Prudence hovered in an agony of horror and shame. From the first cringe-making words, when Theo gloried in having made her an heiress who held her husband in the palm of her hand, she saw Nik turn white below his vibrant bronzed skin tone and she felt sick.
‘Nik…don’t let him get to you-’
Nik slashed a silencing hand through the air. She could feel the rage vibrating through him while her grandfather delineated his every move.
‘He’s right…I was a prize fool,’ Nik growled.
‘No, he’s wrong…you’re a very different man from him and I wouldn’t want you any other way. Please don’t watch any more of this.’
But he paid her no heed. His classic profile set granite-hard, he watched the film from start to finish and then replayed it to ensure that her interruptions had not caused him to miss a single poisonous word. Finally he swung back to her, his golden eyes glittering as dangerously as the heart of a furnace, aggressive energy written in every line of his lean, beautifully balanced body. ‘If you keep the money, I walk…’
Prudence just stared at him, certain she had misheard, misunderstood, mis-something, anything that could convince her that he was not serious. ‘You don’t mean that.’
‘You’re not going to miss what you’ve never had or what you never expected to possess, thespinis mou.’
‘That’s not the point. You’re just mad because Theo said all that stuff and it was offensive.’
‘Once you suggested that I might regard you as a financial asset. I will not be known as the husband of the Demakis heiress.’
‘Well, you are!’
‘Not if I choose not to be. Don’t tell me greed has got to you already,’ Nik breathed with ringing scorn.
‘I don’t have to justify myself to you. I’m a Demakis.’
Looking unusually subdued, Cassia fixed anxious brown eyes on her. ‘I’m sure you know why I’m here. I’m afraid I drank too much yesterday and I was very rude to you.’
Prudence knew very well that the other woman must have panicked once she realised that Prudence was now her father’s employer. ‘Yes, you were.’
‘I hope you’ll accept my apologies,’ Cassia murmured plaintively. ‘I’m sure that Nik would want you to forgive me.’
‘Nik couldn’t care less. I told him who spiked his drink,’ Prudence countered drily, watching dismay and embarrassment flare in the blonde’s gaze. ‘But I assure you that I won’t hold your behaviour against your father.’
Minutes after Cassia’s hasty departure, Prudence left the villa, propelled by her determination…