Page 43 of Vows of Revenge

Was it wise to let it happen? To give herself up to all that she was feeling? To give herself up to the tremulous, uncertain, but oh-so-longed-for hope that Damos might be falling in love as well? Did she...could she...dare to hope...?

CHAPTER NINE

DAMOSFROWNED.Kassia was having her morning shower—he could hear the water splashing—and he was using the time to catch up with his business affairs. Athens was two hours ahead of the UK, and the morning there was well advanced. Most of the updates he was receiving were routine, but the one that was currently bringing a frown to his forehead was not.

Things were on the move between Cosmo Palandrou and Yorgos Andrakis, so his sources were telling him. The director of a well-known firm of corporate accountants who specialised in mergers and acquisitions, and were known to have been previously engaged by Andrakis on such matters, had been seen arriving with his team at Cosmo’s company HQ. Andrakis was clearly having due diligence done.

And there was more. Andrakis had been reported as lunching with the senior partner of a law firm specialising in inheritance and marital contract law, giving weight to what Damos was sure Andrakis had in mind for Cosmo and his daughter.

Damos closed down his laptop, still frowning. But not because it was clear that Andrakis was moving in on Cosmo Palandrou. Because two worlds were colliding.

The world of Kassia, here with him in this idyllic Highland retreat, so wonderful to him, so special, theirs and theirs alone.

And the world of his life in Athens—his business life, that had driven him all his life.

He set the laptop aside, getting to his feet and walking over to the bedroom window, with its breathtaking view out over the loch and the forest and mountains beyond. The fortnight with Kassia was flashing by...day after glorious day, night after passionate night.

I don’t want it to end.

The assertion was in his head, almost audible and crystal-clear. He heard it again, more clearly still.

His gaze rested on the vista beyond, his thoughts running.

His time here in the Highlands must end.

But not my time with Kassia.

The words were as clear as the Highland air around him. And their imperative just as clear.

There is no reason for it to end.

Why should it? Why should his time with Kassia not continue when they were back in Greece? Oh, once—long ago now, it seemed—he had assumed that the affair he was going to engineer with her would end once its purpose had been achieved. But now...

Now it was absurd to think that.

He felt his mouth tighten, made himself think of what he’d just read about Andrakis and Cosmo Palandrou. For an instant he wished it all to perdition—wished he knew nothing about it, knew nothing of what they were planning and scheming. He consigned his own whole damn plan to perdition as well. He wanted nothing to do with it any more—nothing to do with his plan for getting hold of Cosmo’s empire.

Then he drew in a breath—a sharp one. Forced his brain back into the gear it normally operated in, the well-oiled channels it was used to. Acquiring Cosmo’s logistics business made perfect sense. It would provide an expansion and a synergy for him that would significantly increase his own reach, bringing in handsome profits after he’d knocked the ailing business into shape and had it properly managed.

That hadn’t changed.

His mouth tightened. And nor had the fact that Andrakis was going to try and use his own daughter to get hold of it first.

Unless...

Unless I spike his guns.

Using the method he’d envisaged from the first.

It’s all I have to do.

That was the beauty of it—the simplicity.

A question forced its way into his head. He didn’t want it to, but it did all the same.

And is it still that simple?

He felt his jaw tighten, his eyes resting on the surface of the loch, its waters dark and impenetrable. Just as were his thoughts.

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