Page 1 of Vows of Revenge

CHAPTER ONE

DAMOSKALLINIKOSSTOODbeside the excavation’s director, Dr Michaelis, looking out over the site, paying only cursory attention to what was being said to him about the work being carried out around them. He was not here because he was interested in Bronze Age settlements on this remote island in the Aegean—though the good doctor thought he was—and nor, indeed, as he had trailed quite deliberately, because the Kallinikos Corporation might be interested in sponsoring the dig. No, his interest was completely different.

His lancing gaze went out over the site’s excavators, many on their knees in the dusty earth, inching their way deeper with trowels and infinite care, some going back and forth, taking photos of finds or carrying them, with even more care, to the tables set out under the shade of olive trees around the edge of the site.

So, which one was she? She wasn’t one of the females on her feet, so she must be one of those kneeling. He’d never met her in real life, but the photos he’d had taken of her by his investigators were clear enough. As clear as the résumé they’d provided him with of her particulars.

Kassia Bowen Andrakis, twenty-six years old, English mother, Greek father. The mother he knew nothing about, and cared less—the opposite was true for her father. Yorgos Andrakis was a very familiar figure to him indeed. He was one of Greece’s wealthiest men—and one of the most unpleasant. Damos had met him enough times to have that reputation confirmed.

But he didn’t care about his personality—only about his latest business venture.

And the means Yorgos Andrakis was using to secure it.

Damos’s expression hardened. Well, Andrakis would not succeed. The company he was aiming to add to his acquisitions was, in fact, going to be acquired by himself. Cosmo Palandrou’s freight, transport and logistics business was ripe for takeover. Despite Cosmo’s inept handling of what he had inherited, resulting in strikes and disaffection amongst his badly treated workforce, which had led to client contracts increasingly being cancelled, there was a significant amount of untapped value in the business—once it had competent management at the helm.

Damos had plans for its expansion too—capitalising on the large number of currently under-exploited prime site depots, developing new markets and maximising the synergy with his own marine-based interests. Oh, yes, there was a lot about Cosmo’s business that he wanted.

But so did Yorgos Andrakis.

Andrakis, though—as usual with all his acquisitions—wanted to buy it cut-price, so that when he broke the business up, as he would, for that was his way with acquisitions, plundering them for what he could strip out, he would maximise his profits.

Cosmo, however, was driving a hard bargain with Andrakis—he wanted more, and the ‘more’ that Andrakis was prepared to offer him, according to Damos’s sources, was right here—digging in Bronze Age dirt.

Kassia Andrakis. The daughter Yorgos Andrakis was planning to marry off to Cosmo in order to get hold of Cosmo’s company. The bride-to-be who would make Cosmo a son-in-law to Yorgos Andrakis. A win-win all round.

Except that Damos had other plans for Kassia Andrakis...

His eyes narrowed. He’d just spotted her. She’d looked up momentarily, wiping her brow with the back of her hand under the hot sun, before resuming the careful twisting of her trowel around something she seemed to have found. Yes, that was her, all right—it tallied with the photos.

He let his eyes rest on her a moment. Did she know of her father’s intentions for her? If she did, she surely could not be a fan. No woman would be. Cosmo Palandrou shared Yorgos Andrakis’s abrasive, repellent personality, and physically he was just as unattractive—overweight, with pouched, close-set eyes, flaccid jawline and a slack mouth.

No, Kassia Andrakis could scarcely want to be Cosmo’s bride.

But there was something Damos was going to ensure shedidwant to be—something that would stop Andrakis’s scheme in its tracks, leaving the way clear for Damos to scoop up Cosmo’s company himself.

Because Cosmo Palandrou was going to discover that Kassia Andrakis was the very last woman he would want as his bride...

He turned to the excavation’s director.

‘Fascinating,’ he murmured. ‘Could we take a closer look, do you think?’

Kassia Andrakis was getting to her feet. In her hand, Damos could see, was a shard of pottery. The timing was perfect.

Damos nodded towards her. ‘Is that something just uncovered?’

Without waiting for an answer he started to stroll forward. Towards the woman he wanted to meet—the woman who was, although as yet she absolutely no idea of it, going to become his next mistress...

Kassia felt sweat trickling down her back and between her breasts. Her tee shirt was damp with it, and her cotton trousers grimed with dirt from where she’d been digging. She studied what she’d just unearthed—definitely a piece of a stirrup jar, once used for storing olive oil, over three millennia ago—then carried it carefully across to the table for initial cataloguing and identification.

‘Ah, Kassia—what have you got there, hmm?’

The voice of the director of the excavation made her look up as she approached the table.

She opened her mouth to speak, to tell him what she’d found, but no words came. Her eyes had gone, as if pulled by a magnet stronger than that at the earth’s core, to the man beside Dr Michaelis. He was completely out of place in his pale grey expensive business suit—top dollar, she could see at a glance—with his dark burgundy silk tie, high-gloss black shoes and gleaming gold watch around his wrist. He looked as though he’d just walked out of a board meeting.

But that wasn’t what was making her stare. It was the fact that this man, whoever he was—tall, lean and impeccably groomed—was, quite simply, the most incredible-looking man she had ever seen in her life...

Damos put a smile on his face. Just the right amount of a smile. But behind the nicely calculated smile his thoughts were racing.

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