A vow to redeem the gree.., p.1
A Vow to Redeem the Greek, page 1
She’d spent years viewing him through the lens of her own dim memories and then through that of the media.
An enigmatic, brilliant, ambitious man, who’d then retreated from the world stage, whispered about only as rumors and hearsay.
But Atticus was here now and real, so real. His hands were on her hips, holding her fast, his palms burning through the cotton of the T-shirt she wore. His T-shirt. She’d shivered when she’d put it on and smelled his scent, salt and sun and something deliciously musky and masculine.
Elena shivered again now, surrounded by that same scent, tasting salt as he kissed her, along with a heat that stole her breath. His tongue touched her bottom lip and then pushed inside her mouth, and her head went back, giving him access.
Warmth was beginning to spread through her, a heavy ache gathering between her thighs. She lifted her hands to his chest and spread her fingers out, feeling him, testing his strength beneath the warm cotton of his T-shirt. So hard, like rock.
This was heaven and she wanted more of it.
Jackie Ashenden writes dark, emotional stories with alpha heroes who’ve just gotten the world to their liking only to have it blown apart by their kick-ass heroines. She lives in Auckland, New Zealand, with her husband, the inimitable Dr. Jax, two kids and two rats. When she’s not torturing alpha males and their gutsy heroines, she can be found drinking chocolate martinis, reading anything she can lay her hands on, wasting time on social media or being forced to go mountain biking with her husband. To keep up-to-date with Jackie’s new releases and other news, sign up to her newsletter at jackieashenden.com.
Books by Jackie Ashenden
Harlequin Presents
The Innocent’s One-Night Proposal
The Maid the Greek Married
His Innocent Unwrapped in Iceland
Rival Billionaire Tycoons
A Diamond for My Forbidden Bride
Stolen for My Spanish Scandal
Three Ruthless Kings
Wed for Their Royal Heir
Her Vow to Be His Desert Queen
Pregnant with Her Royal Boss’s Baby
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.
Jackie Ashenden
A Vow to Redeem the Greek
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
EPILOGUE
EXCERPT FROM THE INNOCENT’S DEAL WITH THE DEVIL BY TARA PAMMI
CHAPTER ONE
ELENA KALATHES SURVEYED the small, unnamed Jamaican island in the middle of the Caribbean with some annoyance. All green jungle and white sand beaches, the water a crystal-clear turquoise, it was certainly picturesque. Idyllic almost and untouched. That was what the people in Kingston had told her. Off grid, they said. He has supplies delivered once a month, they said. Sometimes he visits Port Antonio but only rarely and never on a schedule, they said.
No one knows where he lives, they said.
Well, no one apart from the three Kalathes Shipping staff members she’d already sent to Jamaica to find her adoptive brother. And herself.
Not that he was her brother, not in any real sense. She hadn’t grown up with him and hadn’t seen him since he’d rescued her from the rubble of her home in that tiny Black Sea nation devastated by an earthquake sixteen years ago, bringing her back to the Kalathes Greek island estate, and left her there.
So no, not a brother. A fairy tale, more like. A myth, even.
Atticus Kalathes. Head of the global charity Eleos, and who ran the whole massive enterprise from his off-grid nameless island that he never left. Or only sometimes, though no one could be entirely sure. His movements were a mystery.
The skipper had cut the engine to the boat she’d hired to get to Atticus’s island and had leapt out onto the small jetty that stuck out into the clear blue sea. Once the motor died there was no sound apart from the waves lapping against the rocks and the sand, and the occasional cry of seabirds.
Sweat trickled down Elena’s spine. Stupid to wear a suit in the tropics, but she’d wanted to present a strong, professional front. She’d thought the lightweight cream jacket wouldn’t be too hot considering she was going to be on a boat, and the cream silk blouse she wore underneath would help keep her cool.
A mistake. The sweat was going to stain the blouse and what had possessed her to wear the matching cream skirt, God only knew.
The heels were a mistake also.
Elena glanced down at the cream kitten heels she’d brought to match her cream suit. Yes, definitely a mistake. She just...well. She liked expensive clothes. She liked to look nice. She was here as Aristeidis Kalathes representative—his adoptive daughter—and it mattered that she look the part.
The skipper tied off the boat and held out a hand to her. Elena took it and gingerly stepped onto the jetty. There were already water stains on her shoes, dammit.
‘Thank you,’ she said to the skipper. ‘Give me an hour.’
He nodded and leapt back into the boat, already getting out the first of what would no doubt be many cigarettes.
Elena turned and glanced down the small jetty then over to the beach beside it, the water lapping gently against the pristine white sand. The heat was punishing, the sun fierce even at this time of the afternoon, and the humidity was making every item of clothing she wore stick uncomfortably to her body.
She hoped an hour would be enough. The others she’d sent had lasted only ten minutes. Then again, none of them were her. None of them were the little eight-year-old Atticus had rescued from the rubble of a destroyed town, before taking her to Greece and then abandoning her at his childhood home.
She would use that abandonment if she had to. She wasn’t above a bit of emotional manipulation, not when it came to fulfilling her adoptive father’s dying wish.
Aristeidis wanted to see his son one last time, to heal the breech between them, and Elena would do anything to help him. Aristeidis had given her a home, given her his name, given her security that the traumatised child she’d once been had lost after her entire family had been killed.
He’d given her everything and for the past few years, over the course of his illness, she’d been giving back. Including bringing his estranged son home.
Atticus Kalathes was going to return to Greece, whether he wanted to or not.
She smoothed her skirt, adjusted her jacket, and walked purposely down the wooden jetty. Not far from the beach, crouched beneath the palms and tangled jungle, was a sprawling house constructed of dark wood. It seemed to be a series of boxes connected by wooden walkways, with large floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the beach and the ocean.
A sandy path bordered by discreet solar lighting and covered in crushed shells led from the jetty to the house. Elena started along it, only to come to a stop as a movement from the direction of the beach caught her eye.
A man walked across the sand. He’d clearly come from the rocks at the end of the beach and carried something over one muscular, tanned shoulder.
One very bare, muscular, tanned shoulder.
Elena frowned then squinted.
It wasn’t just his shoulder that was bare, she realised. He didn’t appear to be wearing swimming trunks of any kind.
He was completely naked.
A flush of embarrassed heat washed through her, making the sticky feeling of her clothes even worse, and she looked hurriedly away.
Of course, he would be naked. It was his island. He must think he had complete privacy and yet here she was, charging in unannounced. Well, almost unannounced. She’d sent him numerous emails and voice messages informing him of her visit, none of which he’d responded to, and she’d thought that maybe he hadn’t received them. He did live off grid after all.
Or maybe he had received them, he just hadn’t wanted to answer. He was famously rude, according to the various Kalathes people who’d tried to make contact with him. Though the people in Kingston had said that the rare times he did venture to the mainland, he was very charming and everyone liked him.
Elena didn’t know which version of him she was going to get—she suspected the rude one—but her coming upon him naked wasn’t going to endear her. Perhaps she should go back to the boat and wait until he’d got dressed.
She turned towards the jetty and the boat, and took a step.
‘Stop,’ a deep, masculine voice ordered.
Elena thought of herself as a modern woman, definitely a strong woman, and she didn’t take kindly to being told what to do by anyone who wasn’t Aristeidis, but she found that she’d obeyed the command before she’d even thought about it.
Annoyed, she turned to tell him that she wasn’t a dog to be ordered around, only for the words to die unsaid on her tongue.
Atticus Kalathes stood not far away, bathed in the Caribbean sun like a male version of Botticelli’s Venus, minus the long blonde hair and the shell.
He was very tall, very broad, and his olive skin was darkly tanned and glistening with water. Every line of him was hard, every muscle exquisite ly chiselled as if out of a dark amber marble. His hips were narrow, his legs long, his thighs powerful. And between them...
Elena flushed even deeper and tore her gaze away and up to his face.
But quite frankly that wasn’t any better.
She knew what he looked like, of course—Aristeidis had many albums full of photos of a laughing boy with coal-black hair and even blacker eyes. A smiling teenager with hints of the man he’d become in his strong jaw and proud blade of a nose. And she had her own memories, too, of that day so long ago now, when she’d gripped the small pocketknife she’d found in the rubble of her home, her only weapon as a crowd of looters surrounded her. They’d seen an opportunity in the lone, vulnerable child, armed with only a tiny knife.
She’d been living in the rubble for at least a week, scrounging what food she could find, not wanting to leave the ruins of her apartment building and her family lost somewhere beneath it. She’d been terrified, blood from a cut she hadn’t even realised she had running down her face and getting into her eyes. But one thing surviving in the rubble for a week had taught her: the roaming packs of looters were predators and they could sense fear, so if she was caught out in the open, she mustn’t ever show she was afraid. Mustn’t ever look like prey.
So she’d stood there, fear like acid in her throat even as she’d gripped her knife, trying not to let any of it show. Then he had come out of the dark, a tall figure armed to the teeth. He’d worn a helmet and fatigues and he’d lifted his weapon, firing two shots into the air and shouting at the looters in a language she hadn’t recognised. The men had scattered and then it was only her and him, and she could see his face, all stark lines and sharply cut angles, and eyes blacker the sky above her head.
A handsome man, she’d thought. A prince maybe. Because he wasn’t one of the looters or the opportunists, she’d known that instinctively. He was here to save her, she’d been certain, so she’d dropped her little knife and held out her arms to him.
The eyes that looked at her now were still as black as that long ago sky, as were the uncompromising lines of his face. But she was looking at him now as an adult, not a child, and she could see how beautiful he was. Apollo come down to earth to seduce mortal women.
She’d known that though. She’d seen photos of him in the media, had read avidly all the interviews he’d given. In fact, she knew them all by heart. She could recite them in her sleep. He’d given all of four, the last one two years ago, and hadn’t been in the public eye since.
Her heart thumped hard beneath the cream wool and silk of her clothing. The sun glistened in his inky hair, still wet from the swim he’d apparently just had, and there were drops caught in his long, sooty lashes.
She’d seen pictures of naked men before. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t. In the books in the Kalathes library, photos of paintings and sculptures and other forms of art. She’d peeked, too, on the Internet, looking at various sites out of interest, but she’d privately wondered what all the fuss was about.
Now she knew. Now she understood.
A living, breathing man, glistening in the sunlight, all damp skin, hard muscle, and glittering black eyes. He was the fuss.
He didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed or bothered by his nakedness. In fact, he stood there as if he weren’t naked at all or carrying some freshly caught fish still attached to a line over his shoulder. He might as well have been wearing a three-piece suit and a crown for all the notice he paid.
She really needed to say something, perhaps the little speech she’d already prepared about how his father was dying and that it was time for him to come home, but the words got jumbled up in her head and all that came out was, ‘Um... I...well...’
‘You don’t have permission to land here,’ he said, his deep voice hard.
Elena’s mouth had gone dry and her cheeks felt hot. In fact, her whole body felt hot, and it wasn’t only the sun or the humidity, she suspected. ‘Oh, well, you possibly don’t recognise me. I’m—’
‘I know who you are, Elena.’ He flicked an impersonal glance over her. ‘You still don’t have permission to land on my island.’
An electric shock went through her and she blinked. He’d recognised her, which she hadn’t expected since the last time he’d seen her had been sixteen years ago, when he’d delivered her to Aristeidis and Kalifos, the Greek island where the Kalathes family lived.
She swallowed, reflexively straightening her jacket as if that would make her any cooler. ‘I sent you a number of emails, and I called—’
‘Yes, and did you at any point get a response from me indicating I would be pleased for a visit?’
It annoyed her that, not only did he not seem to care about his nakedness and its effect on her, he apparently hadn’t cared about her emails either. ‘No. But I thought they might have gone astray.’
‘They did not.’
‘But you—’
‘My silence should have indicated my preference,’ he went on as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘Which is to be left alone.’ Despite the sun gilding his skin, his expression was cold.
It seemed she was going to get rude Atticus Kalathes.
Well, no matter. She was here on a mission for Aristeidis and she wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of her goal, not even one beautiful naked man. She was determined if nothing else.
‘I’m afraid I can’t do that,’ she said crisply, pulling herself together. ‘I’m here on behalf of your father. He’s dying, Atticus. He wants you to come home.’
* * *
Atticus had known exactly who the little boat carried when he’d spotted it motoring steadily towards his island not half an hour earlier. He’d been out in the water catching his dinner for the evening and the sight of the boat had put him in a foul temper.
He’d purposefully ignored Elena’s emails and calls because the last thing he wanted was to have to deal with anything related to his father. He’d thought his silence would be enough to deter her. Apparently not.
Honestly, what was the point in living off grid, on an unnamed island that he’d made sure wasn’t on any maps, if people could find you so damn easily?
He hadn’t bothered with the niceties. If she was so insistent on coming here, to his territory, she could take him as she found him, which was naked, his preferred state on the island when he was catching his own dinner.
She was invading his home and she didn’t have an invite, and he’d be damned if he stopped fishing and got dressed to accommodate her.
At least, that was what he’d thought when the boat had pulled up to the jetty at last, and he’d seen her small figure, dressed in an inappropriate cream suit, picking her careful way along the shell path to his door.
Then he’d got a closer look and hadn’t been able to think of anything at all.
Sixteen years ago, she’d been a ragged little eight-year-old covered in blood, holding a knife in one small fist against the five men who had certainly meant to do her harm. Her clothes had been torn, her rich blonde hair in braids, her brown eyes full of fury.
He’d been in charge of a private army that helped governments during times of civil unrest or disaster, and had been searching the rubble for survivors. He’d spotted her immediately and the danger she was in, and had sensed that, despite the determination in her posture and the fury in her eyes, she was terrified. As she should have been, considering she was a child surrounded by looters.
He’d fired a couple of warning shots in the air to scatter the men around her, and he’d thought she might run after that because, in fatigues and carrying weapons, he was only likely to frighten her further. Yet she’d taken one look at him, her face bloody from the cut on her forehead, had dropped her knife and held out her little arms to him as if he weren’t a hardened mercenary, but her knight in shining armour instead.
He’d never forgotten that. Never forgotten the way his dead heart had given a shudder in his chest at the sight of her.
He hadn’t forgotten it now as she stood in front of him, flushed and damp with perspiration in a suit that was more appropriate for the boardroom than the beach of a tropical island.
She’d changed. She’d changed completely.
