A Breathless Bride Read Online Free PDF Page B

exhaustion and nerves, she started the car and busied herself with fastening her seat belt. “The beach house is far enough out of town that the press isn’t likely to be staking it out. If this conversation is taking the direction I think it is, we’d better meet there.”
    “Tell me,” he said curtly. “What direction, exactly, do you think this conversation will take?”
    “A conversation with Constantine Atraeus?” Her smile was as tightly strung as her nerves. “Now let me see… Two options—sex or money. Since it can’t possibly be sex, my vote’s on the money.”

Three
    M oney was the burning agenda, but as Sienna drove into Pier Point, with Constantine following close enough behind to make her feel herded, she wasn’t entirely sure about the sex.
    Earlier, in the Audi, Constantine’s muscular heat engulfing her, she had been sharply aware of his sexual intent. He had wanted her and he hadn’t been shy about letting her know. The moment had been underscored by an unnerving flash of déjà vu.
    The first time Constantine had kissed her had been in his car. He had cupped her chin and lowered his mouth to hers, and despite her determination to keep her distance, she had wound her arms around his neck, angled her jaw and leaned into the kiss. Even though she had only known him for a few hours she had been swept off her feet. She hadn’t been able to resist him, and he had known it.
    Shaking off the too-vivid recollection, she signaled and turned her small sports car into her mother’s driveway. Barely an hour after the unpleasant clash across her father’s grave, those kinds of memories shouldn’t register. The fact that Constantine wanted her meant little more than that he was a man with a normal, healthy libido. In the past two years he had been linked with a number of wealthy, beautiful women, each one a serious contender for the position of Mrs. Constantine Atraeus.
    He turned into the driveway directly behind her. As Sienna accelerated up the small, steep curve, the sense of being pursued increased. She used her remote to close the electronic gates at the bottom of the drive, just in case the press had followed. After parking, she grabbed her handbag and walked across the paved courtyard that fronted the old cliff-top house.
    Constantine was already out of his car. She noticed that in the interim he’d rolled his sleeves up, baring tanned, muscled forearms. She unlocked the front door and as he loomed over her in the bare, sun-washed hall, her stomach, already tense, did another annoying little flip.
    He indicated she precede him. She couldn’t fault his manners, but that didn’t change the fact that with Constantine padding behind her like a large, hunting cat, she felt like prey.
    “What happened to the furniture?”
    The foreign intonation in his deep voice set her on edge all over again. Suddenly, business agenda or not, it seemed unbearably intimate to be alone with him in the quiet stillness of the almost empty house.
    Sienna skimmed blank walls that had once held a collection of paintings, including an exquisitely rendered Degas. “Sold, along with all the valuable artwork my grandfather collected.”
    She threw him a tight smile. “Auctioned, along with every piece of real jewelry Mom, Carla and I owned— including the pearls. Now isn’t that a joke? We own a pearl house, but we can’t afford our own products.”
    She pushed open the ornate double doors to her father’s study and stood aside as Constantine walked into the room, which held only a desk and a couple of chairs.
    His gaze skimmed bare floorboards and the ranks of empty built-in mahogany bookshelves, which had once housed a rare book collection. She logged the moment he finally comprehended what a sham their lives had become. They sold pearls to the wealthy and projected sleek, rich-list prosperity for the sake of the company, but the struggle had emptied them out, leaving her mother, Carla and herself with nothing.
    He