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The Greek's Nine-Month Redemption
Maisey Yates
“I own your company, I own you.”Fury is all Elle St James feels when she looks at the man she once thought of as family. Apollo Savas has mercilessly destroyed her father’s company but she holds the last little piece!Elle is determined to stop the step-brother who is both sensual fantasy and darkest enemy. But their forbidden desire gives way for one illicit night that leaves untouched Elle with a life-changing consequence.Now irrevocably bound to Apollo, will nine-months be long enough for Elle to redeem this brooding Greek?
Apollo reached out and wrapped his fingers around Elle’s wrist, holding her hands still. “What the hell are you doing?” he asked, his voice a growl.
She looked up at him, her green eyes round, those soft, sassy pink lips shaped into a perfect O. “I …” Color flooded her face.
“If you were thinking you were going to take my shirt off, either stop now and walk out that door, or keep going and realize that I will have you flat on your back and screaming my name in a very different way before you can protest.”
Her color deepened … her eyes grew even wider. He thought she would run. Because Elle was a good girl. And she was stone-cold, aloof, and fancied herself far above him.
It had made him want to destroy that façade from the first. He hadn’t. Because he knew that she was innocent. Knew that she was nothing more than a cosseted rich girl who would be completely out of her depth with a man like him. A man who had grown up on the streets in Athens—who had learned the hard truths about life early on. About loss. About the true nature of people.
He had known that if he ever touched her it would violate the trust he had built with her father.
But if she was going to touch him now, if she was going to remove the barrier that had always loomed between them, then he wasn’t going to put a stop to it.
One Night With Consequences (#ulink_c15adb3b-d5b7-5cbf-91d9-b95a26d232d8)
When one night … leads to pregnancy!
When succumbing to a night of unbridled desire it’s impossible to think past the morning after!
But, with the sheets barely settled, that little blue line appears on the pregnancy test and it doesn’t take long to realise that one night of white-hot passion has turned into a lifetime of consequences!
Only one question remains:
How do you tell a man you’ve just met that you’re about to share more than just his bed?
Find out in:
Her Nine Month Confession by Kim Lawrence September 2015
An Heir Fit for a King by Abby Green October 2015
Larenzo’s Christmas Baby by Kate Hewitt November 2015
Illicit Night with the Greek by Susanna Carr February 2016
Bound to the Tuscan Billionaire by Susan Stephens March 2016
The Shock Cassano Baby by Andie Brock May 2016
An Heir to Make a Marriage by Abby Green June 2016
Look for more One Night With Consequences coming soon!
The Greek’s Nine-Month Redemption
Maisey Yates
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
MAISEY YATES is a USA TODAY bestselling author of more than thirty romance novels. She has a coffee habit she has no interest in kicking, and a slight Pinterest addiction. She lives with her husband and children in the Pacific Northwest. When Maisey isn’t writing she can be found singing in the grocery store, shopping for shoes online and probably not doing dishes. Check out her website: maiseyyates.com (http://maiseyyates.com).
To Jackie, Megan and Nicole for listening to me say, ‘This is weird. I’m not doing it right.
I don’t think this is good enough!’ every time I work on a book, and helping me through it. Every time.
Contents
Cover (#uc510b9be-9e23-5faa-a516-ce3703d49e6f)
Introduction (#uffa5b821-a74c-5c3c-9153-d569651f88d5)
One Night With Consequences (#ulink_a6a0d221-0520-50e5-8a4d-c81ac355c7d3)
Title Page (#u23a283ca-e26a-5db5-855d-c00f1f6a9ae0)
About the Author (#ufed9a93d-3402-5f4e-a074-640c441ed862)
Dedication (#u9f58ff8a-1ca1-57be-90a2-f9ebc7066e15)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_319af277-eaba-5aea-b57d-fc184c9f0328)
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_f09f0f64-68f0-5125-a1d1-39c24d3cbae7)
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_9a0731ab-8de4-5720-8d40-5fd552084db8)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_b6849dc6-cfcd-5473-b886-df0f651a4f66)
SOMETIMES ELLE ST. JAMES imagined taking a pen and stabbing it straight through Apollo Savas’s chest. Not to kill him of course. He didn’t have a heart so the wound would hardly be fatal. Just to hurt him.
Still, other times she fantasized about crossing the boardroom, wrenching free the knot on his tie and tearing the front of his shirt open, scraping her fingernails down his heated skin and feeling all those hard muscles beneath her hands. Finally. After nine long years of resisting him, resisting the heat that roared through her body every time their eyes met.
That one was way more disturbing than the stabbing thing.
It was also far too frequent.
They were sitting in a crowded meeting and she should be paying attention. But all she could think about was what she would do to him if she had five minutes with him, alone, behind a locked door.
It would either be violent or naked.
He was talking about budgets and cuts. And she hated those words. It would mean scaling down her team again. As had been the story of the past twelve months, ever since he’d bought her out from her father’s holding company. A company that had since sunk into bankruptcy.
Just another moment in a long line of Apollo undermining her. Finally, her father had been forced to give her responsibility. Since his stepson had finally proven to be a viper in the nest, so to speak.
She’d been installed as CEO. Then Apollo had come down like a hammer.
It was his fault. At least in part. And nothing would convince her otherwise.
She had a plan. A plan he seemed intent on thwarting at every turn. She knew she could rescue Matte without all of these sweeping staff changes, but he wouldn’t give her a chance.
Because—just as he’d always done—he was making it his mission to undermine her. To prove he was better even now.
But that didn’t stop her eyes from following his hands as he gestured broadly, from wondering what those hands might feel like on her skin.
She could write what she knew about sex on a napkin. The sad thing was, it would be two words.
Apollo Savas.
He’d been sex to her from the moment she’d understood what the word sex meant. From the moment she’d understood why men and women were different, and why it was such a wonderful thing.
The dark-haired, dark-eyed son of the woman her father had married when Elle was fourteen. He had been fascinating. So different from her. Rough around the edges, a product of his upbringing in a class of society Elle herself had had no contact with. His mother had been a maid prior to her marriage to Elle’s father. The culture shock had been intense. And very, very interesting.
Of course, since then he’d grown into a dark-hearted man who’d betrayed her family and put her under his boot heel.
Still, she wanted him.
The Big Bad Wolf of the business world, huffing and puffing and blowing your dreams down.
“Don’t you agree, Ms. St. James?”
She looked up, her eyes locking with Apollo’s, her heart thudding a dull rhythm. The last thing she needed was to admit she’d missed what he was saying. She would rather admit to having fantasies of killing him than the alternative.
“You’ll have to repeat the question, Mr. Savas. My attention span for repetition isn’t infinite. This is the same song you’ve been singing for months, and it isn’t any more effective or logical than it was last time.”
He stood, his movements liquid silk. She could see from the black glitter in his eyes that she was going to pay for her words. The thought sent a shiver down her spine. Fear mingled with unaccountable lust.
“I am sorry you find me boring. I shall endeavor to make myself more interesting. You see, I was speaking of the fact that for a company to be successful it must be sleek. Well oiled. Each cog functioning at top capacity. Extraneous cogs are unnecessary. Sluggish cogs are unnecessary. I was attempting to be delicate with my metaphor.” He began to walk down the length of the boardroom table, the postures of each person he moved behind straightening as he did. “Perhaps I would have held your attention a bit better if I would have simply said that if I identify a portion of your company functioning at less than optimum capacity I will start slashing and burning your employees like they were dry brush.”
Her entire face felt like it was on fire, her heart pounding harder now. She clenched her shaking hands into fists. “Everyone in this company—”
“I’m sure your speech is about to be inspiring and truly emotional, but since this is not a feel-good underdog sports movie, you should perhaps save your breath, Ms. St. James. You can say what you will, but I have seen the numbers. Conviction doesn’t equal profits. I will be reviewing everything closely and making cuts at my discretion. With that, I think the meeting is adjourned. Ms. St. James has a very low tolerance for my droning, I hear. If it is the same for the rest of you, you should be pleased to be sent on your way.”
The collective surge of bodies making their way out of the room reminded Elle of a herd of wildebeests fleeing a lion.
A big, bored lion who wanted nothing more than to scare them by flashing his teeth. He wasn’t going to give chase. Not now.
No, now his focus had turned to her.
“You are in rare form today, Elle.”
“I am in exactly the appropriate form, Apollo,” she said, reverting to the use of his first name.
They were family, after all.
Not that she’d ever seen him as a brother. A sexual fantasy she didn’t want. Her biggest competitor. Her darkest enemy. He was all of those things, but not a brother.
“I own your company,” he said. “I own you.” Oh, dammit all, why did those words make her...ache? “You never seem to show me the proper amount of fear.”
“Real leaders don’t rule with an iron fist,” she hissed. “They understand that intimidation isn’t the way to gain respect.”
She shouldn’t be talking back to him, but she could never control her tongue around him. They’d known each other for too long. Had spent too many years in the same household.
And she had spent too many years tearing strips off him when she’d felt like she had the upper hand. When she was the blood daughter of her father, the one who held a rightful place in their upstate mansion.
Things changed. Oh, how things changed.
“Says the woman who is no longer in a true position of leadership.” He smiled. Showing his teeth.
She wouldn’t scatter. She would not. She was not a wildebeest.
“Oh, but I am. As long as Matte is an independently operating entity beneath your large corporate umbrella, I am here to run it as best as I can. I am here to stand in the gap for my employees and give you the information black-and-white printouts can’t.”
“You’re being ridiculous. Everything is electronic now. I’m not wasting resources on printouts.”
He turned and started to walk out of the office. “You know what I mean. A flat, two-dimensional report reducing everything to statistics and cold numbers is hardly the be-all and end-all.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said, taking long strides down the hall.
Elle had to take two steps to his one, her high heels clicking loudly on the marble floor as she hurried after him. “I am not wrong. It doesn’t offer the whole picture. You can’t possibly know how the company is really functioning. How each worker impacts the creative process. Matte isn’t just a magazine. It’s a line of cosmetics, a fashion brand. We have books and—”
