Chapter 1 #2
The stocky man with ruddy cheeks and receding blond hair beamed at him. ‘It’s good to see you. Good of you to come. I know you’re flat-out. We’re in the ballroom.’
Ares gripped Larry Milner’s outstretched hand, shaking it as they walked downstairs.
‘I wanted to be here.’ And seeing Larry’s pleasure, it wasn’t quite a lie. ‘My grandfather is so sorry he couldn’t join us tonight. He really wanted to come. He said he’d been in touch?’
‘He has, and it’s fine.’ Larry tightened his grip. ‘I wasn’t expecting him. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting you. I know how much you hate these things.’
‘Milner’s has taken care of my family for two hundred years.’
‘And we’re going to take care of this prenup for Ariana.’ Larry Milner lowered his voice. ‘I’ve put Nancy Kemp on it. She’s tough. I mean, indefatigable.’
And indefatigable was what he needed, Ares thought, glancing idly across the room for a waiter.
Which was when he saw her.
It was maybe thirty minutes since she had tossed that curse in his face, and he hadn’t expected to see her again, so it was a shock. But not as great a shock as the punch of heat that vibrated through him so hard and fast that he almost lost his footing.
For a moment he couldn’t reconcile it—both her being here and looking so different.
She had changed clothes. The snug-fitting shorts and crop top were gone.
In their place was a white dress that made his heart accelerate, although he couldn’t say why, given that it was summer and women wore white dresses a lot in the summer.
Usually something floaty and bohemian or a crisp structured cotton.
The kind of dress Grace Kelly wore to seduce Cary Grant on the French Riviera.
But this dress was something completely different. It was long-sleeved with a high neck and a flippy knee-length skirt. If he’d seen it on a hanger he wouldn’t have given it a second glance. Now, though, he was struggling to tear his gaze away.
His brain twitched as the woman turned to greet someone and the hem did a little shimmy.
She was not on the agenda.
And yet, it felt like they had unfinished business—
Ares Konstantinou let his gaze land briefly on the profile of the woman on the other side of the room.
Her hair was in a different style now. Some kind of messy updo that made him think of waking up late in a tangle of sheets.
A few stray strands curled at the nape of her neck, and he found himself fighting against an urge to walk over and wrap one around his finger.
‘Nancy’s fierce,’ Larry said emphatically. ‘She won’t let anything slip through. Any prenup she writes will be ironclad. I’ve got your back, and Ariana’s too.’
Ares dragged his gaze back to his friend, smiled, nodded. ‘I know.’
‘I know how important this is to you.’
Larry knew why it was so important. The Konstantinou family didn’t need another marital crisis. Not one played out in real time on smartphones and TVs around the globe.
People talked about a twenty-four-hour news cycle, but at times over the last six years it had honestly felt as if the world would never move on. Even now, he knew some of the assembled guests tonight would be putting a face to the headline like some twisted game of Pelmanism.
The Runaway Groom
Konstanti-NO Leaves Bride at Altar
The In-Konstant Lover
His shoulders braced as if he was having to push back against the flow of headlines that had erupted in news outlets across the world after he’d abandoned his bride in front of eight hundred witnesses and the several hundred reporters and photographers who were jostling outside the church.
What nobody had witnessed, except him, was the sight of Zoe, his fiancée, writhing beneath another man on the bed they had also shared.
He had dropped by the day before the wedding with a sapphire bracelet, wanting to surprise her. Which was why he had let himself in. Why he hadn’t called out to her. And he was so eager to see her that at first, he didn’t understand what he was hearing.
A flicker of pain, and shame at his stupidity. Because naive idiot that he was, he’d actually thought that she was working out.
And then he saw them. In the days that followed, he would wonder why he hadn’t done something, said something, shouted, raged, thrown vases, smashed plates—he was Greek, after all.
But he had done none of those things. Instead, he had reversed silently out of the bedroom, let himself out the way he’d come in and driven home, fully intending to tell his family that the wedding was off.
The Athens house had been awash with caterers and waitstaff and people arranging flowers. Even now the scent of roses made him slightly nauseous. And at the centre of all the chaos were his mother and father looking so happy and excited. And he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
Until the following day when seeing Zoe’s demure expression had flipped something inside of him. He could still remember it now. The blank oval faces of the people gaping at him. Zoe’s wide-eyed shock and his parents’ dismay.
And unspoken disappointment.
He still hated that they never knew the truth before their deaths. But in the aftermath of the wedding fiasco, they had been dealing with a hysterical Zoe and the moment passed. A month later, they were dead.
Pushing aside the memory of those terrible weeks, he clapped Larry on the back. ‘It’s a good turnout. So who’s here?’
He let his gaze move oh so casually around the room, but inside he felt like an atom being split in two by some huge, unseen force. He wanted to listen to Larry. But his eyes kept moving of their own accord to the woman in white on the other side of the room.
She had turned again, now presenting him with her back, and his gaze dropped to the taut curve of her bottom, his pulse twitching as she shifted on her heels, and he wondered if her legs were bare. Or was she wearing hold-ups or stockings?
‘Clients, like yourself. Partners, retired partners and associates. Some industry peers and people we work with closely like accountants and financial advisers. We’ve also got a couple of representatives from the charities we support.
Which this year are a local arts foundation for disadvantaged kids and a mentoring service for women entrepreneurs. ’
Larry’s gaze flicked from a thirtysomething man wearing a vivid blue suit to the woman in the white dress.
So that’s who she was. A woman fighting battles for other women.
It made sense. It certainly explained why she hadn’t been fazed or impressed by his driver and bodyguard.
He caught a glint of green as she turned to snatch a glass of orange juice from a passing waiter and felt it unlock something inside of him.
He could go over. Make small talk. But he didn’t want to talk. He wanted to touch—
Not happening.
So she was pretty. She had also cursed him in the street like some witch.
Was that why he couldn’t stop thinking about her? Had she put a spell on him?
He replayed the moment out by the limo when they had been eye to eye, close enough to touch. It was a few half seconds at most, and yet it was like dancing on the edge of a volcano. He’d felt dizzy and elated and powerful.
But it had been a long time since he’d been controlled by his libido. And he wasn’t going to start now.
* * *
Tucking a stray curl behind her ear, Willa Hamilton discreetly put down her glass of orange juice on a side table and asked a passing waiter for something the Brits called Buck’s fizz.
It was essentially a mimosa but with the ratio of champagne to orange juice reversed.
In other words, two parts champagne to one part orange juice.
Which was fine by her. She needed a drink right now.
Or better still a SWAT team to extract her from the building.
The room felt like it was running out of air. She couldn’t believe it. What was he doing here?
When she turned and saw him, after the walls had stopped spinning and her heartbeat had returned to normal, she’d thought he’d followed her. Now, though, it seemed he was a guest.
This couldn’t be a coincidence.
But coincidences must happen sometimes, otherwise why would there even be a word for a situation like this.
Stay calm, she told herself, trying to still the jittery feeling in her stomach.
That encounter in the street had happened outside of work.
She wasn’t even officially on the staff until Monday. And he might not even recognise her.
Could he be one of the A-listers that used Milner’s for prenups and divorce settlements? A sports star, maybe, with those shoulders. Then again, there was something of the aristocrat about him, although Larry had told her that the firm currently had no royal clients.
He certainly had the arrogance of royalty, she thought, remembering his cool, grey gaze moving over her flushed, sweaty face.
Back in LA and New York, she had handled plenty of wealthy clients.
But this man was different. His authority wasn’t rooted in money.
Earlier he had been talking to her boss, Larry Milner, but now he was standing in front of one of the paintings, and there was something about the way he was standing at the edge of the room, apart from everyone and yet totally conspicuous.
Like he was visiting the mortals from Mount Olympus.
His gaze suddenly snapped across the room, and she slid in front of the waiter, her heart beating in her throat. Why was he here? And given that he was such a jerk, why couldn’t he look like one instead of a menswear model on a photo shoot?
He was too perfect, she thought irritably. It was bad enough that he had that jaw and those eyes that were the exact colour of the sky back home when the Pacific tossed up a storm. But he had to have that mouth too.