The Greek Billionaire's Innocent Princess (13 page)

He would be a good father, he vowed silently. His child would want for nothing, especially his

love. But for the sake of the child he would have to help Kitty settle in Athens so that she was

not tempted to flee back to Aristo. He glanced at her, his eyes narrowing on the firm swell of her

breasts outlined beneath her silk jacket. The matching skirt moulded her delightfully round

bottom, and as he imagined tugging the jade silk over her hips he felt himself harden, and he was

fiercely tempted to lead her down the hall to the master bedroom and demonstrate that from now

on the only place she would ever want to be was in Athens—in his bed.

His heartbeat quickened and he placed his hand on her shoulder, stroking back her long chestnut

hair that felt like silk against his skin. He wanted to brush her hair to one side and press his lips to the pulse beating at the base of her throat, but once again he was aware of her sudden tension

and he dropped his hand back to his side.

He did not know what was wrong with her, and, quite frankly, he wasn’t in the mood to play

games. When he had kissed her in the church her eager response had been a satisfactory

indication that she shared his impatience to consummate their marriage. But since then she had

cooled considerably, and her edginess puzzled him. Maybe she just needed time to adjust?

Marriage, impending motherhood and moving from Aristo to Athens were all momentous

changes to her life, and he guessed that she had found the wedding a strain. Even though they

had planned to keep it low-key, the marriage of a member of the royal family was a significant

event and it had seemed as though half the population of Aristo had been invited to the wedding.

Curbing his impatience to take her to bed, he moved away from her. ‘I’ll give you a guided tour

of the apartment, and perhaps you’ll start to feel more at home.’

‘Thank you.’ Kitty followed Nikos down the hall, her heart sinking as she glanced around. His

apartment was ultra-modern and minimalist with white marble floors and pale walls teamed with

black leather sofas and silver furnishings. It was a typical bachelor pad designed for a busy

executive and not the sort of place she could imagine bringing up a baby. She remembered the

shabby but comfortable palace nursery where she had spent her childhood: toys strewn across the

floor and the vast bookshelf stuffed with her beloved fairy tales. Tears welled in her eyes when

she recalled how her father had visited the nursery every evening to read to her, even if he’d had

to interrupt important meetings to do so. She couldn’t imagine Nikos doing the same for their

child, and she could not picture them living here together, playing happy families.

‘There will be no need for you to spend much time in here,’ he informed her when he ushered

her into the gleaming, stainless-steel kitchen. ‘My butler and cook, Sotiri, takes care of

everything on the domestic front. I’ll introduce you to him later.’

He continued on down the hall, past the elegant dining room, and three generous-sized

bedrooms, one of which Kitty supposed would be a nursery when the baby was born. At the far

end of the corridor Nikos flung open the remaining door— and Kitty came to an abrupt halt in

the doorway.

The master bedroom overlooked the Acropolis which, now that dusk had fallen, was illuminated

by spotlights and gleamed gold against the indigo sky. It was a breathtaking sight, but Kitty’s

attention was riveted by the enormous bed that dominated the room, with its leather headboard

and black silk sheets. Floor-to-ceiling mirrors covered the length of one wall, reflecting the

bed—and its occupants, she realised, her heart lurching when she spied the bottle of champagne

cooling in an ice bucket. It was a room designed for seduction, and she wondered how many

other women Nikos had brought here and whether they had paused to admire the view before

they had joined him on that huge bed.

She stared at him, her heart hammering in her chest as she wondered if he was anticipating

taking
her
to bed
right
now.

‘The maid unpacked the trunks sent over from the palace and put your belongings in your

dressing room. Come, I’ll show you.’ Nikos walked over to a door at the far end of the master

bedroom, and Kitty hurried after him, grateful for the reprieve. The dressing room was spacious,

fitted with oak wardrobes, a matching dressing table, and a large sofa, while another door led to

the en suite bathroom. Slowly some of her panic receded when she realised that she would have a

measure of privacy.

Nikos had opened the wardrobes and was studying their meagre contents with a frown. ‘This

can’t be all your clothes. Why didn’t you send everything over from Aristo?’

‘That
is
everything,’ Kitty said tightly. ‘I’ve never taken much interest in fashion.’

‘Well, I suggest you start.’ He flicked impatiently through the hangers. ‘I appreciate that you are

still in mourning for your father, but your entire wardrobe seems to consist of black outfits.’

‘They’re not mourning clothes. I wear black because it makes me look slimmer.’ Kitty could

feel the stain of hot colour flood her cheeks at his scathing expression.

‘Black doesn’t suit you,’ he stated bluntly, ‘and I can see we need to go shopping. I do a lot of

socialising, and my diary is already filling up with invitations from people who are all eager to

meet my princess bride.’

Kitty’s heart sank at his words, and she couldn’t help thinking that the ‘people’ Nikos had

mentioned were likely to be disappointed when they met her and discovered that she was not the

glamorous, sophisticated royal they expected.

Nikos strolled over to her, and the butterflies in her stomach leapt into life once more when he

took her hand in his and led her firmly through the connecting door, into the master bedroom. ‘I

approve of the outfit you are wearing now,’ he murmured, his voice so deep and sensuous that

Kitty could not prevent the tremor that ran through her, and she caught her breath when he slid

his hand over her shoulder and down the front of her jacket.

‘Liss chose it for me,’ she mumbled.

He laughed softly, ‘In that case it’s a pity your sister did not choose all your clothes.’

At his words Kitty felt a familiar stab of jealousy. Liss was beautiful and glamorous, and she

had exquisite taste in clothes. If she had been at the royal ball six weeks ago, Nikos would almost

certainly have noticed her, and he would never have walked down to the beach and made love to

a waitress called Rina.

All her old insecurities came flooding back. She hadn’t needed Vasilis to tell her that she wasn’t

Nikos’s type. She was only too aware that she did not have a model’s figure like Liss, or

Shannon Marsh, and she could not bear the idea of him comparing her plump curves with his

American mistress’s gorgeous, toned body.

Nikos had discarded his jacket, and her mouth went dry when he began to casually unbutton his

shirt.

‘I want to sleep alone tonight,’ she told him baldly, her heart jerking painfully beneath her ribs.

‘It’s been a long day and I’m exhausted.’ She felt as though she had been on an emotional roller

coaster and now her limbs were trembling with reaction.

Nikos had stilled at her startling announcement, and now his brows rose quizzically. ‘In that

case why didn’t you sleep on the journey here? Your rather childish pretence to be asleep didn’t

fool me for a second,’ he added.

The note of impatience in his voice triggered Kitty’s temper. It was all right for him. He had got

his own way on everything.
Her
life had been turned upside down, but their marriage was barely going to have any impact on him at all.

‘You’re right; I did pretend to be asleep—so that I wouldn’t have to talk to you,’ she said

wildly. ‘And the very idea of going to bed with you makes me feel ill.’

Nikos’s jaw tightened as he sought to control his anger. He had no patience for feminine wiles—

or tantrums. ‘That’s not the impression you gave me when I kissed you in the church,’ he said

silkily. ‘What has caused your sudden change of heart, I wonder?’

Kitty blushed as she remembered how she had responded to him. She had been blissfully

unaware then that he had spent the days before their wedding with his American mistress. Nikos

had ceased unbuttoning his shirt but it was open to the waist and her eyes were drawn to his

broad, golden-skinned chest. He was so gorgeous, and she was so very ordinary, she thought

miserably. The idea of undressing in front of him and exposing her body made her cringe.

‘What’s the real issue here, Kitty?’ he demanded, frustrated by his inability to understand her.

It was clear from the determined set of his jaw that he was prepared to wait all night if necessary

for an explanation. Kitty hesitated for a moment and then muttered, ‘At the reception, when I

went to change out of my wedding dress, I met someone—a family friend…’ Her voice faltered

at the idea of calling loathsome Vasilis Sarondakos a friend. ‘I learned something about
you
,’ she revealed hesitantly, ‘facts about your background that I was unaware of, such as that you had

grown up in poverty and been in trouble with the law.’

In the tense silence that stretched between them Kitty felt increasingly awkward, and she blurted

out the doubts that Vasilis had planted in her mind. ‘I also learned of the rumours that you owe

your business success to a wealthy heiress, Larissa Petridis, who bequeathed you her father’s

shipping company when she died because you had been her toy-boy lover.’

‘Who was this friend, I wonder?’ Nikos drawled in a dangerously soft tone. His brows arched in

an expression of arrogant amusement but the hard gleam in his eyes warned Kitty that he was

furious, and she took an involuntary step backwards. ‘At least have the decency to name the

individual who has gone to such trouble to stab me in the back.’

Kitty hesitated. ‘It was a friend of Sebastian’s— Vasilis Sarondakos.’

Nikos gave a harsh laugh. ‘Sarondakos is no friend of your brother’s. Sebastian only included

him on the guest list because King Aegeus was good friends with Vasilis’s father.’

That was the reason she had never told anyone about Vasilis’s assault on her, Kitty thought

bleakly. Vasilis had played on his family’s royal connections for too long, but had he been lying

about Nikos?

‘Are the rumours true?’ she asked in a choked voice.

‘The details of my background are no secret.’ Nikos gave a careless shrug. He appeared relaxed

but Kitty sensed his simmering anger, and she took another step backwards until her legs hit the

end of the bed and she had nowhere else to go.

‘I grew up in the slums, in conditions you cannot imagine,’ he told her harshly. ‘How could
you

know—a princess who has spent her whole life in a royal palace enjoying the trappings of wealth

and luxury? My mother worked all the hours she could to feed and clothe me, but she was young

and poorly educated, forced to struggle alone after the man who had seduced her—my father—

abandoned her, and her family disowned her when they learned she was pregnant.’

Nikos’s face hardened. ‘You have no idea what it is like to be hungry, to roam the streets like a

stray dog and steal food to survive. I am not ashamed of my background, and the hunger in my

belly fuelled my determination to make a better life for me and my mother. But it’s true that

there was a time in my late teens when I was drawn to the street gangs, and if it had not been for

Larissa Petridis I could easily be in prison right now rather than the head of a multimillion pound

company.’

Kitty stared at Nikos with wide, troubled eyes. ‘So you did seduce a rich older woman and

became her lover in the hope of inheriting her company?’

‘My relationship with Larissa is not open for discussion,’ Nikos said coldly. ‘I admit I inherited

Petridis Shipping from Larissa, but although she was an amazing person, she was an appalling

businesswoman and when I took over the company it was on the verge of bankruptcy. I worked

long and hard to turn it around, and I take all the credit for the fact that Petridis Angelaki

Shipping has recently announced record profits.’

While he had been speaking Nikos had moved closer, and now Kitty realised that she was

trapped between him and the bed. She could feel the anger emanating from him and, heart

thumping, she edged sideways and gave a cry of alarm when his hand shot out and gripped her

chin. ‘
Let me go
.’

‘What’s the matter, Kitty?’ Nikos demanded grimly. ‘Are you afraid you’ll get your hands dirty

if you touch me now you know I’m of peasant stock rather than a blue-blooded aristocrat?’

‘Of course I don’t think that,’ she denied instantly. She didn’t care about his social status, or

where he came from—it was where he had been for the weeks leading up to their wedding and

the woman he had spent his time with that bothered her.

‘We should never have married,’ she said wildly, her stomach churning at the images in her

mind of him making love to Shannon. ‘I should never have allowed myself to be talked into it…I

want an annulment.’

‘Because you think I’m not good enough for you?’ he queried furiously. ‘I know you are a

princess but I had no idea that you are also a spoilt, over-indulged snob.’