Free The Konstantos Marriage Demand by Kate Walker

his tone get any more cynical?
    ‘Young woman with no money, a not very successful business as a wedding planner…’
    Seeing her start of surprise, he gave a tight smile.
    ‘I make sure I keep up to date with what is happening to anyone I have had dealings with in the past.’
    So how much did he know? The idea of being kept under surveillance like that when she hadn’t known he was watching made her skin crawl.
    That smile grew darker, more dangerous, the blaze of the candles reflected in the depths of his penetrating gaze.
    ‘I always thought that it was something of a very black irony that someone who walked out on her own wedding just the day before it was due to take place should now make her living organising other women’s “big days.”’
    Nikos’s sensual mouth twisted on the words.
    ‘But then the one thing I could never deny is that you always had that very special sense of style. When other people were paying, of course.’
    ‘I had to do something to earn a living,’ Sadie managed from between tight lips. ‘And that at least was a way of using my design course.’
    The one her father had paid for as a reward for doing as he asked of her. She wouldn’t need it, Edwin had told her. After all, she was going to be a great catch—a very wealthy young woman now that he had seen off the opposition, which was the way he had described his takeover of almost everything the Konstantos family had owned.
    But Sadie had known that she couldn’t just sit around at home. For one thing, the atmosphere there between her parents had been so poisonous that it had been an endurance test simply to breathe the same air. And, for another, the last thing she had wanted to do was to consider the prospect of another suitor who would only want to marry her because of the huge inheritance that was going to come to her when her father died.
    She’d been through that once. And once was more than enough.
    ‘And it was something I could do from home.’
    Nikos nodded slowly, turning the stem of his glass round and round in his tanned fingers.
    ‘And of course Thorn Trees is a prestigious address from which to run a business that would attract society brides and their wealthy families.’
    ‘But that isn’t why I want to keep the house!’
    A deliberately lifted eyebrow questioned her overemphatic outburst.
    ‘Then why would you want to live in a huge London mansion with—what?—seven bedrooms and an indoor pool? Preferably for free, or at the most for a tiny rent. So, tell me exactly why you need a house like Thorn Trees? Do you plan to sleep in each of the bedrooms on a different day of the week?’
    ‘Oh, now you’re just being ridiculous! Of course not! And I wouldn’t be living there on my own.’
    That had his attention. She could tell by the way his back stiffened, cold eyes burning into her as the swept over her face. Sadie felt she could also tell just what was going through his mind—clearly his ‘keeping up to date’ hadn’t resulted in him finding out the story about her mother. At least that was one thing her father had done properly before he died.
    But the waiter was back again, this time bringing their meals, and Nikos was forced to sit and wait—obviously burning up with impatience—to be served before he could find out more. The man barely had time to put the plates on the table before Nikos was waving him away, ignoring his questions as to whether there was anything else they wanted.
    ‘Who?’ he demanded, and Sadie allowed herself a moment or two to prolong the tension, knowing it would provoke him even more.
    ‘Did you have to send him away like that?’ she complained. ‘I might have wanted some parmesan…’
    A flick of Nikos’s hand dismissed her protest as irrelevant and unimportant.
    ‘Who?’ he repeated.
    ‘Well, not what you’re thinking—so you can get your mind out of the gutter. Do you really think that I would ask you to finance my love life by providing a home for me and