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The Greek Tycoon's Achilles Heel
Lucy Gordon
An innocent for the Greek Lysandros Demetriou: shipping magnate and Athens’ most sought-after bachelor. Glamorous women compete for this tycoon’s attention, but his focused ruthlessness ensures none outstays her welcome! Until Petra Radnor whirls into his life. Her beauty is a lure Lysandros cannot resist – she awakens something within him that he’s kept hidden for years.When their scorching passion shows no sign of burning out, Lysandros has to decide whether his desire for Petra is a temporary craving or a lifelong obsession…The Greek Tycoons Legends are made of men like these!
Under the cover of darkness, he pulled her into his arms.
‘Now!’ he said.
Pleasure and relief went through her. She had wanted this so much, and now everything in her yearned towards him. His kiss was everything she’d wanted since their meeting. Nothing else in her life had been like it. Nothing else ever would be.
‘What have you done to me?’ he growled. ‘Why can’t I stop you doing it?’
Lysandros felt as if he were awaking from a dream, or sinking into one. He wasn’t sure which. Her plea of ‘kiss me’ was entrancing, yet something deep inside him was drawing away. He tried to fight it. He wanted her, but so much that it alarmed him.
Impulse had made him call her tonight. Impulse had made him drag her away from their unwanted companions. Impulse, the thing he’d battled for years, was turning him into its creature.
Her creature! The words screamed at him. A puppet dancing on the end of her chain. And she knew it.
‘What is it?’ she asked, feeling him draw away.
‘This place is very public. I think we should both—go home.’
She stared at him, trying to believe what he was doing, feeling the anger rise within her. He was telling her the magic was over. He’d banished it by an act of will, proving that his control was still strong, although he’d brought her to the edge of losing hers.
THE GREEK TYCOONS
Legends are made of men like these!
Modern
Romance are proud to introduce you to…The all new Greek Tycoons
Modern day magnates As gorgeous and god-like as their mythological ancestors, they put the ‘man’ into Romance!
This month
The Greek Tycoon’s Achilles Heel
by Lucy Gordon
Meet Lysandros Achilles Demetriou as he faces his only weakness—English beauty Petra Radnor!
In June 2010
The Power of the Legendary Greek
by Catherine George
Lukas is the wing-heeled Perseus whose life takes a different turn when the intriguing Isobel James washes up on his beach!
Lucy Gordon also writes for Mills & Boon® Romance!
The Greek Tycoon’s Achilles Heel
by
Lucy Gordon
MILLS & BOON®
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Dear Reader,
I’ve really enjoyed the chance to write about Achilles, because of all the charismatic Greek heroes he’s the one whose story still speaks to us down the centuries. His name lives in the phrase ‘Achilles heel’ meaning a secret weakness through which even the strongest person can be overcome.
Legend says that, to protect her baby son, his mother dipped him into the River Styx, which lay between earth and the underworld, knowing that the water would make him invulnerable.
But she held him by the heel, leaving a place where the water had not touched him. Years later it was an arrow in the unprotected heel that brought him down.
Achilles was a powerful man, bold, adventurous, fearing nothing. Yet it’s his hidden frailty that had caused his name to survive, perhaps because it’s something we can all feel in ourselves.
Lysandros knew that his own weakness was emotion. Once he’d yielded to it so completely that it nearly destroyed him. Determined never to succumb again, he imprisoned his heart behind bolts and bars so that nobody should suspect the truth.
But Petra knew from the start that under his hard exterior was a man of deeper feeling than he would ever admit. The question was, would he allow her close enough to heal him, or turn away into a bleak, unfeeling wilderness? Until the last moment, neither of them could know.
Warm wishes,
Lucy Gordon
Lucy Gordon cut her writing teeth on magazine journalism, interviewing many of the world’s most interesting men, including Warren Beatty, Charlton Heston and Roger Moore. She also camped out with lions in Africa, and had many other unusual experiences which have often provided the background for her books. Several years ago, while staying in Venice, she met a Venetian who proposed in two days. They have been married ever since. Naturally this has affected her writing, where romantic Italian men tend to feature strongly.
Two of her books have won the Romance Writers of America RITA
Award. You can visit her website at www.lucy-gordon.com
Lucy Gordon also writes for Mills & Boon® Romance!
PROLOGUE
THE lights of the Las Vegas Strip gleamed and glittered up into the night sky. Down below, the hotels and casinos rioted with life and money but the Palace Athena outshone them all.
In the six months since its opening it had gained a reputation for being more lavish than its competitors, and today it had put the seal on its success by hosting the wedding of the beautiful, glamorous film star, Estelle Radnor.
The owner of the Palace, no fool, had gained the prestige of staging her wedding by offering everything for free, and the gorgeous Estelle, also no fool where money was concerned, whatever might be said of her taste in men, had seized the offer.
The wedding party finished up in the casino, where the bride was photographed throwing dice, embracing her groom, throwing more dice, slipping an arm around the shoulders of a thin, nondescript young girl, then throwing more dice. The owner watched it all with satisfaction, before turning to a young man who stood regarding the performance sardonically.
‘Achilles, my friend—’
‘I’ve told you before, don’t call me that.’
‘But your name has brought me such good luck. Your excellent advice on how to make this place convincingly Greek—’
‘None of which you’ve taken.’
‘Well, my customers believe it’s Greek and that’s what matters.’
‘Of course, appearance is everything and what else counts?’ the young man murmured.
‘You’re gloomy tonight. Is it the wedding? Do you envy them?’
‘Achilles’ turned on him with swift ferocity. ‘Don’t talk nonsense!’ he snapped. ‘All I feel is boredom and disgust.’
‘Have things gone badly for you?’
A shrug. ‘I’ve lost a million. Before the night’s out I’ll probably lose another. So what?’
‘Come and join the party.’
‘I haven’t been invited.’
‘You think they’re going to turn away the son of the wealthiest man in Greece?’
‘They’re not going to get the chance. Leave me and get back to your guests.’
He strolled away, a lean, isolated figure, followed by two pairs of eyes, one belonging to the man he’d just left, the other to the awkward-looking teenager the bride had earlier embraced. Keeping close to the wall, so as not to be noticed, she slipped away and took the elevator to the fifty-second floor, where she could observe the Strip.
Here, both the walls and the roof were thick glass, allowing visitors to look out in safety. Outside ran a ledge which she guessed was there for workmen and window cleaners, but inaccessible to customers unless they knew the code to tap into the lock.
She was staring down, transfixed, when a slight noise made her turn and see the young man from downstairs. Moving quietly into the shadows, she watched, unnoticed, as he came to stand nearby, gazing down a thousand feet at the dazzling, distant world beneath.
Up here there were only a few lamps, so that customers could look out through the glass. She had a curious view of his face, lit from below by a glow that shifted and changed colour. His features were lean and clean-cut, their slight sharpness emphasised by the angle. It was the face of a very young man, little more than a boy, yet it held a weariness—even a despair—that suggested a crushing burden.
Then he did something that terrified her, reaching out to the code box and tapping in a number, making a pane of glass slide back so that there was nothing but air between him and a thousand foot drop. Petra’s sharp gasp made him turn his head.
‘What are you doing there?’ he snapped. ‘Are you spying on me?’
‘Of course not. Come back in, please,’ she begged. ‘Don’t do it.’
He stepped back into comparative safety, but remained near the gap.
‘What the hell do you mean, “don’t do it”?’ he snapped. ‘I wasn’t going to do anything. I wanted some air.’
‘But it’s dangerous. You could fall by accident.’
‘I know what I’m doing. Go away and let me be.’
‘No,’ she said defiantly. ‘I have as much right to take the air as you. Is it nice out there?’
‘What?’
Moving so fast that she took him by surprise, she slipped past him and out onto the ledge. At once the wind attacked her so that she had to reach out and found him grasping her.
‘You stupid woman!’ he shouted. ‘I’m not the only one who can have an accident. Do you want to die?’
‘Do you?’
‘Come inside.’
He yanked her back in, stopping short in surprise when he saw her face.
‘Didn’t I see you downstairs?’
‘Yes, I was in the Zeus Room,’ she said, naming the casino. ‘I like watching people. That place is very cleverly named.’
‘You know what Zeus means, then?’ he asked, drawing her away to where they could sit down.
‘He was the King of the Greek gods,’ she said, ‘looking down on the world from his home on the top of Mount Olympus, master of all he surveyed. That must be how the gamblers feel when they start playing, but the poor idiots soon learn differently. Did you lose much?’
He shrugged. ‘A million. I stopped counting after a while. What are you doing in a casino, anyway? You can’t be more than fifteen.’
‘I’m seventeen and I’m…one of the bridal party.’
‘That’s right,’ he said, seeming not to notice the way she’d checked herself at the last moment. ‘I saw her embracing you for the camera. Are you a bridesmaid?’
She regarded him cynically. ‘Do I look like a bridesmaid?’ she demanded, indicating her attire, which was clearly expensive but not glamorous.
‘Well—’
‘I don’t really belong in front of the cameras, not with that lot.’
She spoke with a wry lack of self-pity that was attractive. Looking at her more closely, he saw that she wore no make-up, her hair was cut efficiently short, and she’d made no attempt to enhance her appearance.
‘And your name is—?’ he queried.
‘Petra. And you’re Achilles. No?’ The last word was a response to his scowl.
‘My name is Lysandros Demetriou. My mother wanted to call me Achilles, but my father thought she was being sentimental. In the end they compromised, and Achilles became my second name.
’ ‘But that man downstairs called you by it.’
‘It’s important to him that I’m Greek because this place is built on the idea of Greekness.’
To his delight she gave a cheeky giggle. ‘They’re all potty.’
They took stock of each other. He was as handsome as she’d first sensed, with clean cut features, deep set eyes and an air of pride that came with a lifetime of having his own way. But there was also a darkness and a brooding intensity that seemed strange in this background. Young men in Las Vegas hunted in packs, savouring every experience. This one hid away, treasuring his solitude as though the world was an enemy. And something had driven him to take the air in a place full of danger. ‘Demetriou Shipbuilding?’ she asked.
‘That’s the one.’
