Читать онлайн «Securing the Greek's Legacy»

‘Does that reassure you?’ Anatole asked.

No! she wanted to shout. No! Absolutely nothing about this insane idea reassures me!

But what was the point of saying that? Of course the idea was insane and absurd and outrageous—but Anatole Telonidis was taking it seriously. Talking about it as if it were really going to happen.

Am I really going to go through with this? Go through with marriage to a man I never knew existed forty-eight hours ago?

‘Lyn?’

His deep, accented voice interrupted her troubled emotions. She jerked her head up and felt the impact of his gaze, felt the flurry in her veins that came as his eyes rested on her, his look enquiring.

‘Are we agreed?’ he asked.

She bit her lip. She wanted time—time to think, to focus! But how would that help? The longer she delayed, prevaricated, the more likely Anatole Telonidis would get impatient and set his lawyers on to the task of making a formal application to adopt Georgy himself.

She took a breath, ragged and uneven. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘OK, I’ll do it.

JULIA JAMES lives in England with her family. Harlequin Mills & Boon^® were the first ‘grown-up’ books she read as a teenager, alongside Georgette Heyer and Daphne du Maurier, and she’s been reading them ever since. Julia adores the English and Celtic countryside, in all its seasons, and is fascinated by all things historical, from castles to cottages. She also has a special love for the Mediterranean—’The most perfect landscape after England!’—and considers both ideal settings for romance stories. In between writing she enjoys walking, gardening, needlework, baking extremely gooey cakes and trying to stay fit!

Recent titles by the same author:

PAINTED THE OTHER WOMAN

THE DARK SIDE OF DESIRE

FROM DIRT TO DIAMONDS

FORBIDDEN OR FOR BEDDING?

Securing the Greek’s Legacy

Julia James

For Franny, my dearest friend, in her brave fight against cancer—a fight shared by so many.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

ANATOLE TELONIDIS STARED bleakly across the large, expensively furnished lounge of the penthouse apartment in the most fashionable part of Athens. It was still as untidy as it had been when his young cousin Marcos Petranakos had last walked out of it a few short nightmare weeks ago, straight to his death.

When their mutual grandfather, Timon Petranakos, had phoned his older grandson he had been distraught. ‘Anatole, he’s dead! Marcos, my beloved Marcos—he’s dead!’ the old man had cried out.

Smashed to pieces at twenty-five, driving far too fast in the lethal supercar that had been Timon’s own present to Marcos, given in the wake of their grandfather’s recent diagnosis with cancer.