The Greek Tycoon's Achilles Heel Read Online Free PDF

or perhaps at the five million dollar diamond on her finger.
    The young woman who’d dared to tease Lysandros joined in the applause, and kissed her mother as Estelle sat down. The crowd settled to the meal.
    Of course he should never have mistaken her for an employee. Her air of being at home in this company ought to have warned him. And when she moved in to take close-up photographs both bride and groom posed at her command.
    Then she posed with the happy couple while a professional photographer took the shots. At this point Nikator butted in.
    ‘We must have some of us together,’ Lysandros could just hear him cry. ‘Brother and sister.’
    Having claimed a brother’s privilege, he snaked an arm about her waist and drew her close. She played up, but Lysandros spotted a fleeting look of exasperation on her face, and she freed herself as soon as possible, handing him back to Debra Farley like a nurse ridding herself of a pesky child.
    Not that he could blame Nikator for his preference. In that glamorous company this creature stood out, with her effortless simplicity and an air of naturalness that the others had lost long ago. Her dress was light blue silk, sleeveless, figure-hugging, without ornament. It was practically a proclamation, as though she were saying, I need no decoration. I, myself, am enough.
    No doubt about that.
    As the party began to break up he made his way over to her. She was waiting for him with an air of teasing expectancy.
    ‘I suppose that’ll teach me to be more careful next time,’ he said wryly.
    ‘You were a little incautious, weren’t you?’
    ‘You thought it was a big joke not to tell me who you were while I said those things about your mother.’
    ‘I didn’t force you to say them. What’s the matter with you? Can’t you take a joke?’
    ‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘I don’t find it funny at all.’
    She frowned a little, as though confronting an alien species. ‘Do you find anything funny—ever?’
    ‘No. It’s safer that way.’
    Her humour vanished. ‘You poor soul.’
    She sounded as though she meant it, and the hint of sympathy took him aback. It was so long since anyone had dared to pity him, or at least dared to show it. Not since another time—another world—long ago…
    An incredible suspicion briefly troubled his mind. He ordered it gone and it obeyed, but reluctantly.
    ‘If you feel I insulted your mother, I apologise,’ he said stiffly.
    ‘Actually, it’s me you insulted.’
    ‘I don’t see how.’
    She looked into his face with a mixture of incredulity, indignation, but mostly amusement.
    ‘You really don’t, do you?’ she asked. ‘All this time and you still haven’t—you really haven’t—? Well, let me tell you, when you meet a lady for the second time, it’s considered polite to remember the first time.’
    ‘For the second—? Have we ever—have we—?’
    And then the suspicion wouldn’t be banished any longer. He knew .
    ‘It was you,’ he said slowly. ‘On the roof—in Las Vegas—’
    ‘Boy, I really lived in your memory, didn’t I?’
    ‘But—you’re different—not the same person.’
    ‘I should hope not, after all this time. I’m the same in some ways, not others. You’re different too, but you’re easier to spot.I was longing for you to recognise me, but you didn’t.’ She sighed theatrically. ‘Hey ho! What a disappointment!’
    ‘You didn’t care if I recognised you or not,’ he said flatly.
    ‘Well, maybe just a little.’
    An orchestra was getting into place and the dancing area was being cleared, so that they had to move to the side.
    He was possessed by a strange feeling, of having wandered into an alien world where nothing was quite as it looked. She had sprung out of the past, landing in his path, challenging him with memories and fears.
    ‘Even now I can’t believe that it’s you,’ he said. ‘Your hair’s different—it was cut very short—’
    ‘Functional,’ she said at once. ‘I was