Czytaj książkę: «The Greek's Duty-Bound Royal Bride»

CHAPTER ONE

LEON DUKARIS GLANCED at the invoice on his desk and then, with an indifferent shrug of one broad shoulder, initialled the hefty sum for payment.

The Viscari St James was one of London’s most expensive and exclusive hotels, and the coup that had ejected Mikal of Karylya from his Grand Duchy in the heart of central Europe had happened with lightning speed less than two weeks ago, so it was not surprising that the Grand Duke was finding it difficult to adjust his royal lifestyle to that of impoverished former ruler, with none of the wealth of his small but highly prosperous fiefdom at his disposal any longer.

It was a difficulty that suited Leon—bankrolling the Grand Duke’s exile was not largesse on his part in the slightest. He gave a tight smile, accentuating the strong planes of his face and indenting the deep lines around his well-shaped mouth, sharpening the gold flecks in his eyes. It was, rather, an investment.

One that he fully intended to pay out handsomely.

His eyes darkened. Suddenly he was not seeing the expensively furnished office, towering over the City of London far below, the private domain of a billionaire and his working environment. His vision went way beyond that—way back into the past. The bitter, impoverished past...

The line for the soup kitchen in the bleak Athens winter, holes in the soles of his shoes, shivering in the cold, queuing for hot food to take back to the cramped lodging where he and his mother had to live now they’d been evicted from their spacious apartment for non-payment of rent. He is all his mother has now—the husband who professed to love her for all eternity has run out on her, abandoning her and him, their young teenage son, to the worst that the collapse of the Greek economy in the great recession over a dozen years ago can do to them...

And the worst had been bad—very bad—leaving them in an abject poverty that Leon had vowed he would escape, however long it took him.

And he had escaped. His success, doggedly pursued, his focus on nothing else, had lifted him rung by rung up the ladder of financial success. He had taken risks that had always paid off, even if he’d had to steel his nerves with every speculative gamble he pulled off. It had been a relentless pursuit of wealth that had seen him become a financial speculator extraordinaire, spotting multi-million-euro opportunities before others did and seizing them, each one taking him further up into the stratosphere of billionairedom.

But now he wanted his money to achieve something else for him. His smile widened into a tight line of satisfaction. Something that had now come within his reach, thanks to the coup in Karylya that had ousted its sovereign.

The gold glint in Leon’s night-dark eyes came again at the thought. A princess bride to set the seal on his dizzying ascent from the lines for the soup kitchen.

Grand Duke Mikal’s daughter.

‘Ellie! There is news about your father! Bad news!’

In her head, Ellie could hear the alarm in her mother’s voice, echoing still as she emerged from the tube station at Piccadilly Circus, hurrying down St James’s and into the Hotel Viscari.

A stone’s throw from St James’s Palace, Clarence House and Buckingham Palace itself, it was often frequented by diplomats, foreign politicians and even visiting royalty.

Including deposed visiting royalty.

Deposed.

The word rang chill in Ellie’s head and she felt her stomach clench. The coup causing her father and his family to flee their fairy-tale palace in Karylya had turned the Grand Duke into nothing more than a former sovereign in exile. Ellie’s glance swept the Edwardian opulence of the Viscari’s marbled lobby. Albeit a very luxurious exile...

She hastened up to the reception desk. ‘Grand Duke Mikal’s suite, please!’ she exclaimed, breathless from hurrying and agitation.

‘Whom shall I say?’ asked the receptionist, lifting her phone.

She sounded doubtful, and Ellie could understand why. Her work-day outfit, crumpled from an overnight transatlantic flight, was more suited to the life she lived in rural Somerset with her mother and stepfather, where she had been since an infant, than to someone who had an entrée to a royal suite at a deluxe London hotel.

‘Just say Lisi!’ she replied, giving the Karylyan diminutive of her name.

Moments later the receptionist’s attitude had changed and she was briskly summoning a bellhop. ‘Escort Her Highness to the Royal Suite,’ she instructed.

As she sped upwards in the elevator Ellie wished her identity had not been guessed—she never used her title anywhere outside Karylya, except on rare state occasions with her father. Instead she used the English diminutive and her British stepfather’s surname—the name on her passport. Ellie Peters. It made life a lot simpler. And it was also considerably shorter than her patronym.

Elizsaveta Gisella Carolinya Augusta Feoderova Alexandreina Zsofia Turmburg-Malavic Karpardy.

She must have been named after every single aunt, grandmother and other female member of every European royal house her father claimed kin with!

From Hapsburgs to Romanovs, and any number of German royal houses, not to mention Polish, Hungarian and Lithuanian ones, and even an Ottoman or two thrown in somewhere for good measure, the nine-hundred-year-old dynasty had somehow, by luck, determination, shrewd alliances and even shrewder marriages, clung on to the mountain fastness that was the Grand Duchy of Karylya, with its high snow-capped peaks and deep verdant valleys, its dark pine forests and rushing rivers, glacial lakes and modern ski slopes.

Except now—Ellie felt her stomach clench in dismay and disbelief at the news her mother had announced—that nine-hundred-year possession had suddenly, devastatingly, come to an end...

The elevator’s polished doors slid open as the car came to a halt and Ellie stepped out into the quiet, deserted lobby of this exclusive floor of suites and residences. One of the doors opposite was flung open and a figure came hurtling through, embracing her as she hurried forward.

‘Oh, Lisi, thank heavens you are here!’

It was her younger sister, Marika—her half-sister, actually, one of her two half-siblings, offspring of her father and his second wife. Although Marika was here with her parents, Ellie knew from the fractured phone call she’d made from the airport that her younger brother, Niki, her father’s heir—his former heir, she realised now, with a start of dismayed realisation—was still at school in Switzerland, in the throes of critically important university entrance exams.

How he had taken the grim news Ellie didn’t know—but Marika, as was clear from her heartfelt cry now, was not coping well.

‘I can’t believe this has happened!’ she heard herself cry back, answering her sister in the Karylyan Marika had used.

‘It’s like a nightmare!’ Marika said, drawing Ellie into the suite.

‘How is Papa?’ Ellie asked, her voice sombre.

‘Shell-shocked. He can’t take it in. No more can Mutti—’ Marika gave a shuddering sigh. ‘Come on...come in. Papa’s been waiting and waiting for you.’

Ellie hurried forward into the spacious reception room beyond the suite’s hallway. Absently, she took in the luxury of the place—though, of course, compared with the palace it was nothing at all...

Inside, she saw the room was crowded—her father, his wife the Grand Duchess, and several of the palace staff were there. Her father was standing immobile by the plate glass window that opened on to a private terrace, staring out over the rooftops. He turned as Ellie came in, and instinctively she rushed to hug him.

A sharp voice stilled her. ‘Elizsaveta! You forget yourself!’

It was the Grand Duchess, her stepmother, admonishing her. Realising what she was being called to do, she took a breath, dropping an awkward curtsy in her knee-length skirt. But as she did so she felt her stomach hollowing. Her father was no longer a reigning sovereign...

He came forward now, to take her hands and press them in his cold ones. ‘You finally came,’ he said. There was both relief and a tinge of criticism in his tone.

Ellie swallowed. ‘I’m sorry, Papa—we were in Canada...far in the north. Filming with Malcolm. Communication was difficult, we were so remote, and then I had to get back here and—’

She stopped. In the disaster that had befallen him her father would hardly be concerned about her mother and her stepfather, a distinguished wildlife documentary filmmaker, whose work took him all over the world and for whom her mother had left her royal husband when Ellie had been only a baby.

‘Well, you are here now, thankfully,’ her father said, his voice warmer. Then he turned to one of the nearby members of staff. ‘Josef—refreshments!’ he commanded.

Ellie bit her lip. She’d always believed her father’s stiffly imperious manner had contributed to his growing unpopularity in Karylya. And her unspoken thoughts had been echoed in all the political analyses she had read since the news had broken, giving the reasons for the coup.

That and his intransigent refusal to entertain any degree of constitutional, fiscal or social reform in order to defuse the potentially toxic and historically fraught ethnic mix of the population, whose internecine rivalries had always required careful and constant balancing against each other to prevent any one minority feeling slighted and ignored.

Ellie sighed inwardly. The trouble was her father lacked the astute political management skills and charismatic, outgoing personality of his own father. Grand Duke Nikolai had successfully steered Karylya through the diplomatic minefield of the Iron Curtain decades, maintaining the duchy’s precarious independence against huge foreign pressures and gaining the great prosperity the duchy now enjoyed. Her father’s reserve and awkwardness had, in the ten years of his reign, only managed to alienate every faction—even those traditionally most supportive of him.

Which had left none to support him when the coup, led from the High Council by the leader of the ethnic faction with the strongest perceived grievances, had erupted.

Now her father and his Grand Duchess were harbouring a deep and, she allowed, understandable anger and resentment at their fate. It was evident in their condemnation of all who had contributed to their ignominious flight. For her part, Ellie merely murmured sympathetically—it was obvious her father and stepmother needed to vent their understandably strong emotions. More rational discussion could take place later—she hoped. And all the awkward questions could be asked later, too.

Finally taking refuge in Marika’s bedroom, Ellie asked the question which was most concerning her, which she could not possibly have asked in front of any member of the remaining royal staff, however loyal they were.

‘Marika, what’s happening about Papa’s finances? What has the new government agreed to? It must have been quite a generous settlement...’ She glanced around her at the luxuriously appointed bedroom. ‘This place doesn’t come cheap, that’s for sure!’

But her sister was looking at her with an expression that struck a chill through her. And her features were strained.

‘Papa isn’t paying for this hotel, Lisi! He can’t afford it—oh, Lisi, he can’t afford anything at all! We’re completely penniless!’

The blood drained from Ellie’s face. ‘Penniless?’ she echoed in a hollow voice.

Her sister nodded, her features still contorted. ‘He’s been told by the new head of government that he won’t get any kind of financial settlement at all, and that all the royal assets have been frozen!’

‘Nothing?’ Ellie gasped disbelievingly. Then her eyes went around the luxuriously appointed bedroom again. ‘But...but this place...? You’ve been here nearly a fortnight already...’

Consternation was flooding through her as Marika’s expression changed. Now awkwardness was vivid in her pretty features.

‘Like I said, Lisi... Papa isn’t paying for this suite—someone else is.’

Ellie stared, dismay filling her like cold water. ‘But who?’ she demanded.

Marika’s answer was fractured and disjointed. ‘He’s called Leon—Leon Dukaris—and he’s a billionaire—Greek. He was in Karylya last summer, on business. He came to the summer opera gala that Mutti is patroness for. He was introduced to us—and Papa invited him to a garden party at the palace. Then he came to a reception and a dinner, too—I didn’t really pay any attention. It was a business affair with some of the ministers and other foreign investors. He was mostly talking to them and Papa. I... I don’t really know much more, except that when we arrived in London he got in touch with Papa and told him he would underwrite our expenses...’

Ellie was still staring. ‘But why? Why should this...this Leon Dukaris care about Papa? Let alone fork out for this place! If he wants to do business in Karylya it’s not Papa he should be making up to,’ she finished bitterly.

A tide of colour washed up her sister’s face, and something about Marika’s expression curdled Ellie’s blood.

‘Marika, what is it?’ she asked urgently.

Her sister was twisting her hands, a look of anguish in her face. ‘Oh, God, Lisi—there’s only one reason he’s paying for everything! He wants...’ She swallowed. ‘He wants to marry me!’

Ellie’s eyes widened in total disbelief. ‘Marry you? You can’t be serious!’

‘He’s making it obvious!’ Marika cried. ‘He’s been here several times, always very attentive to me. Way more than just being polite! I do my best to put him off, but I know Mutti is hoping I’ll encourage him. She’s worried sick about what’s going to happen to us now, and if he really wants to marry me—’

She broke off, her voice choking. Ellie’s dismay doubled. It was bad enough learning that her father was penniless, and that he was being bankrolled by some unknown Greek billionaire...but that her sister should believe the Greek billionaire wanted to marry her...?

Surely Marika was imagining it? Upset and overwrought as she so obviously was right now by the disaster that had befallen their family?

In a macabre attempt at humour, at a time when humour was absolutely impossible, Ellie heard herself blurt out, ‘Just please don’t tell me that this Leon Dukaris is some creepy, lecherous old man with a fat gut and piggy eyes!’

‘No, not exactly,’ Marika answered in a shaky voice. But then her eyes welled with tears. ‘Oh, Lisi, it doesn’t matter what he looks like or who he is!’ Her tears spilled over into open weeping. ‘I’m in love with someone else!’ she cried. ‘So I can’t marry Leon Dukaris! I just can’t!’

Leon vaulted from his limo, now drawn up in the entrance sweep of the Viscari St James, and strode into the lobby. It was time to visit the royal family again.

He had called upon the Grand Duke several times since his abrupt arrival in London two weeks ago—ostensibly to give him his assurance that all his expenses would be underwritten by himself for the duration of his stay, until such time as he had decided where to live out his exile and do whatever it was that former monarchs did when their countries no longer wanted them. But the real reason for his visits was quite different.

He was trying to decide whether he was truly going to go ahead with claiming a princess for his bride—the ultimate prize.

Thoughts played across his mind as the elevator doors to the penthouse floor slid shut. Was he simply being fanciful in even giving house room to the idea? It had come to him the previous summer, when he had been visiting Karylya on business, being invited to the palace, socialising with the royal family, meeting Princess Marika...

At the time he had given it no serious thought, but the idea had grown on him during the intervening months. The girl, though a brunette, and quiet in her manner, was very pretty, and if his own tastes actually ran to blondes—well, for the sake of a princess bride surely he could change his tastes...

Nor was she unintelligent, from what he could judge of her, and that was another key advantage. His features hardened momentarily. So was the crucial fact that, as a princess, she’d be perfectly open to the idea of marrying for practical reasons. Love—his mouth tightened—would not get to taint their marriage...

He snapped his mind away from his darkening thoughts. No, there was nothing to rule Princess Marika out of his consideration...and now that events had taken such a disastrous turn for the Karylyan royal family, from the princess’s point of view—and her parents’—there was every incentive for her to consider his proposal seriously.

If he were to make one, of course...

But should I?

That his suit would be favoured by her parents was obvious—what could be more desirable than a very wealthy son-in-law to keep on bankrolling their exile indefinitely? As for the princess herself... He knew without vanity that he was highly attractive to women—his life, even while he had still been in the process of making his huge fortune, had been filled with eager females demonstrating that undeniable fact to him. Now, in his thirties, he was done playing the field. He would be perfectly happy to settle down with one agreeable female and he would make the princess a good husband.

And theirs would be an honest marriage. He wouldn’t delude and deceive his bride with hypocritical declarations of undying love and endless mouthing of romantic flummery that meant nothing when the chips were down.

Leon’s dark eyes hardened with harsh memory. His father had made such endless declarations—Leon had grown up hearing him telling his mother how devoted he was to her, how much he loved her, how she meant the world to him, how she was the moon and the stars and all the other romantic verbiage he had lavished upon her.

It had counted for nothing.

When the Greek economy had crashed his father had taken off with another woman—conveniently wealthy—leaving his heartbroken wife and his teenage son to cope on their own. Abandoning them totally.

His mother had been devastated by the betrayal—Leon had been only angry. Deeply, bitterly angry. And contemptuous of the man who had abandoned them.

I will never be like him—never! I will never do to a woman what my father did to my mother! Because I will never tell a woman I love her. Because I will never fall in love. Because love doesn’t exist—only meaningless words that lie...and destroy.

The elevator glided to a halt, the doors sliding open, and Leon shook his dark memories from him. The miseries of his teenage years were gone and he would not be haunted by them. He had made his life on his own terms—and those were the terms he would make any marriage on. Terms that would never include what did not exist—would never include love...

His wife, when he married—whoever she was, princess or not—would get respect, regard, friendship and companionship.

And, of course, desire. That went without saying...

It was a word he should not have admitted into his thoughts at that moment. Because as he strode out of the elevator the door to the royal suite opened and a woman emerged.

Instinctively his eyes took her in, in one comprehensive sweep.

Tall, blonde, slender, with grey-blue eyes and her hair caught back in a ponytail. Not wearing any make-up. Her clothes non-descript—certainly not couture or designer. Yet that didn’t matter in the least. Because she was, without doubt, breathtakingly, stunningly beautiful... Instantly desirable.

He felt a rush of adrenaline quicken in his bloodstream.

Who is she?

He had never seen her before—no woman that stunning would have escaped his eye.

He realised she was gazing at him, stopped in her tracks just as he was. For a moment—an enjoyably adrenaline-fuelled moment—Leon allowed himself the pleasure of meeting her gaze full-on, letting her see just how pleasurable it was for him to look at her...

Then, abruptly, her eyes peeled away from his and he saw colour flare across her high-cut cheekbones. Dipping her head, she hurried forward, veering around him to dive into the waiting elevator behind him. He gave a low laugh. Whoever she was, if she had joined the entourage of the Grand Duke, in whatever capacity, he would at some point see her again. And that would suit him very well...

His thoughts cut out. Realisation slammed into him. Hell, no, it would not suit him to see the breathtaking blonde again!

Taking an incised breath, he strode forward again, heading for the door of the royal suite. The breathtaking blonde, whoever she was, could be no concern of his. He had a princess to woo...