The Konstantos Marriage Demand Read Online Free

N IKOS said, flinging the accusation at her almost as soon as the door had swung closed behind her, shutting them in together. ‘You lied about who you were—gave a false name.’
    ‘Of course I did!’
    Sadie prayed that the control she was forcing into her voice kept it steady. She hoped that she had at least held it down so that it didn’t go soaring up too high under the influence of the panic that was tying her insides into tight, painful knots.
    ‘I had to. What else could I do? If I’d given my real name then there’s no way you would have ever agreed to see me, would you?’
    ‘You’re damn right I wouldn’t. You wouldn’t have got across the threshold. But the fact remains that you are here—and that you lied in order to get here. Which means that you have something you want to say. Something that is important enough for you to use that lie in order to get to say it. So what is that, I wonder?’
    The look he turned on her seemed to sear right through her, the blaze of his eyes so intense that Sadie almost expected to see her clothes scorch and burn along the path that it traced over her body.
    Nikos was behind his desk, and he leaned forward to stabone long finger down on a button by his phone. Sadie heard a woman’s voice, faintly blurred by the nervous buzzing in her head, respond almost immediately.
    ‘No calls.’ It was a command, and clearly one he meant to have obeyed. ‘And no interruptions. I am not to be disturbed until I say.’
    And if the secretary or PA goes against those instruction, then she’s a braver woman than I am, Sadie told herself. But the next moment any other thoughts fled from her mind as Nikos nodded his satisfaction and turned his attention back to her.
    ‘So why are you here?’
    ‘I…’
    Faced with that arctic glare, the ferocious bite of his demand, Sadie found that in that moment she couldn’t actually recall precisely why she was there, let alone form her response into any sort of coherent argument. One that might actually impress him, persuade him on to her side when she knew that he was guaranteed to take the opposite stance, simply because he was who he was and she was the one doing the asking.
    She was suddenly very glad of the expanse of polished wood of his desk that came between them, acting as a barrier between the powerful dynamic force that was Nikos Konstantos.
    It was totally irrational, but when he glowered at her like that she suddenly felt as if the room had shrunk, as if the walls had moved inwards, the ceiling coming down, contracting the space around her until she felt it hard to breathe. She felt trapped, confined in a room that had suddenly become too small to hold them both.
    She had been shut in with him in the lift, in a far smaller space, but somehow, contradictorily, this seemed so much worse. Now Nikos seemed so much bigger, so much more powerful, dominating the space in which he stood and holding her captive simply by the pure force of his presence.
    Or was it about the room? Because it was the office that had once been her father’s? But there was no sign at all of the previous occupant. Every last trace of anything that was personal to Edwin had been removed and replaced with something much more modern, more stylish—and much more expensive. Even in the good days of Carteret Incorporated the office had never looked like this.
    The heavy, dark desk and chairs had all been removed and replaced by modern furniture in a pale wood. Thick golden rugs covered the floor, and in the window area there was a comfortable-looking settee and armchairs for relaxing.
    It spoke of Nikos Konstantos of Konstantos Corporation. The man who had taken everything her father had thrown at him and refused to go down under it. He had seen everything his own father had worked for snatched away, had stared bankruptcy and total ruin in the face and still come out fighting. And in five short years he had built up his business empire to what it had once been—and