LITMIR.BIZ

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the little villa. Beyond it she could see a flat, bare area of ground, the modern metal-framed hangar and windsock declaring it to be a helipad. Just below the helipad was a small cove, with a stone jetty and boathouse, but no sign of a boat. To the front of the villa was the beach, a secret jewel. She swept her eye past the beach, bringing it round to the opposite direction. The sea went with her.

      She went on sweeping her head round—and still the sea was visible.

      As she completed her three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn Leandra felt her insides dissolve.

      There was sea visible in every direction.

      As she stilled, like a statue frozen in disbelief, the truth hit her.

      She was on an island.

      Theo closed the throttle and cut the rotors. He’d landed. Finally.

      As he shut down the controls with routine expertise he glanced out of the helicopter, sliding off his headphones as he did so.

      The girl was there waiting for him.

      He’d seen her running towards the helipad as he’d made his descent, alerted by the racket the rotors made which was audible all over the island, he knew.

      He glowered balefully in her direction. What an infernal mess this was! Cheaper than paying the girl to leave Demos? Theo snorted. It was going to cost an arm and a leg to sweeten her after her ordeal! And if she chose to press charges…

      Sweat pricked beneath the collar of Theo’s business suit. He wanted a shower, and a long, cold beer.

      He slid the door back and stepped out on to the ground. There was no way he was flying back to Athens tonight. The chopper would need refuelling, for a start, and night was coming on. Besides, he was tired.

      Tired physically and mentally.

      And his temper was on a knife-edge.

      He just hoped the girl wasn’t the hysterical type. She must have been frightened by what had happened to her, he found himself thinking as he slid the door to and headed across to her. She was standing very still.

      Theo hoped she wasn’t going to start weeping and wailing all over him.

      He hated that in a woman.

      As he drew closer, walking with his customary rapid stride, it dawned on him that if he hadn’t known it was Leandra Ross standing there he’d never have recognised her.

      The clinging sex kitten was gone. Her lush, slender body, which had been so lavishly on show the other evening, was now almost completely concealed by a sweatshirt and jeans. Her glorious blond hair was pinned haphazardly on her head and her face was completely free of make-up. Yet she was still a stunner.

      As he approached he felt his body responding. She had an unconscious grace, standing there, so very motionless—poised almost, he thought, like a nymph of mythical Greece, sighted by Apollo, or Dionysus, or any one of the Olympians in a mood for dalliance, deciding whether to flee from the approaching god or yield to his desire…

      Again, just as it had at the gala, the vision that leapt in his mind was vivid. He saw her caught by his restraining arms, drawn close against him, so soft against his hardness, pressing her pliant body against him…

      Brusquely he quelled the thought. It was an irrelevance. She was simply a complication—a deadly, dangerous complication now, thanks to Milo!—and she had to be neutralised as soon as possible. That was all.

      He stopped in front of her.

      CHAPTER THREE

      LEANDRA was staring at him as if transfixed.

      After hours of staring out to sea, up into the heavens, desperate to spot something, anything, heading towards the island, the approach of a helicopter had sent her hurtling down towards the helipad. Until its noisy rotors had cut through the silence the only sounds she’d heard had been the old man hammering intermittently as he mended an outhouse roof and his wife emerging from what must be their living quarters behind the villa to hang up washing.

      Then, as Leandra had watched the machine land, a new terror had filled her. The helicopter bore no markings, no Atrides logo.

      Oh, God, suppose this isn’t anything to do with Demos! Suppose I really have been white-slaved!

      She’d felt weak with horror.

      Then, as the door of the helicopter had slid back and the occupant had emerged, her eyes had lit on a figure she knew all too well.

      Theo Atrides, immaculate in a business suit that must have been handmade for him, his night-dark eyes veiled by a pair of aviator sunglasses, had shut the helicopter door with effortless ease and started to walk towards her.

      Something had started to simmer inside her.

      He looked so cool, so composed, so immaculate—so imposing. So damn calm that Leandra had felt her emotions boil up inside her as if the lid had just been taken off a pressure cooker heated in a furnace.

      He’d kept on coming closer. His face set, his eyes hidden by the impenetrable sunglasses that half her mind registered, made him look so ludicrously sexy that she wanted to scream!

      And if it hadn’t been the sight of Theo Atrides heading towards her as if he could melt butter as he walked that made her want to scream, then something had. Something powerful, and black, and overwhelming, and absolutely, totally raging!

      She had been through so much—terrified out of her mind—and now here he was, just sauntering towards her looking like a million dollars.

      He stopped in front of her. And the lid flew right off the pressure cooker.

      With a frenzied strength she hadn’t even known she was capable of Leandra found her hands lifting and starting to pummel, insanely, at the broad chest, thumping and pounding as if she were possessed by all the devils in hell.

      Her voice was yelling. She could hear it. Yelling right at Theo Atrides, letting out all the terror and anger and bewilderment and outrage she was feeling—had been feeling all day, since she had surfaced to realise that someone, someone, had kidnapped her right off the streets of London, drugged her out cold, and dumped her down a thousand miles away.

      And that someone hadn’t been kindly, troubled Demos at all! It had been his overbearing, arrogant, contemptible cousin, who’d looked at her as if she was dirt. He was the one who’d done this to her! And she knew why! To get rid of her! That was why! To make sure Demos couldn’t hide behind her, so he could drag him back to marry Sofia!

      How dared he? How dared he?

      Then, abruptly, her hands were seized and held away from him. ‘Be silent!’

      Her face contorted even more. ‘I will not be silent! You kidnapped me and I’ll see you in gaol!’

      ‘I said, be silent, you virago! Be silent and I will explain!’

      Theo looked down at her, his hands like vices around her wrists to immobilise her.

      She was a she-devil, a maniac!

      Her eyes were flashing like swords trying to pierce him and her chest was heaving raggedly, the breath choking and panting in her throat. Her face was contorted with fury.

      And he had thought she might wail and weep!

      But at least she had stopped yelling at him. With a hard, heavy command he impelled her to step backwards, increasing the distance between them but still prudently holding on to her wrists all the while.

      ‘Let me go!’ she spat at him, writhing against his implacable hold.

      ‘Only if you listen to me!’

      Breath shuddering, she gasped, still venomous, ‘What’s to tell, Mr Atrides? You kidnapped me and I’ll see you in gaol!’

      He swore again. ‘I did not kidnap you. I am not responsible for your presence here, which—’

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