LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER TWO

      NIKOS GAZED UP at KK Towers, an imposing glass-fronted building in Midtown Manhattan. He had been surprised to discover that the Kandy Kate headquarters were still located here. From what he’d heard, all the offices and apartments had been leased off, even if the premises still retained the KK name.

      Christened by Bernie O’Connor, it had been a glittering symbol of the power and success of the Kandy Kate empire, with its offices sprawling over several floors and the stunning penthouse apartment home to his adored family.

      He had never met Bernie, but he had obviously been an astute businessman—something that Nikos respected highly. To have made such a success of the Kandy Kate business in what had to be a very competitive market took intelligence and guts.

      It was a shame he hadn’t applied those same principles to his private life. From what Nikos could see, Bernie had made completely the wrong choice of wife.

      Fiona O’Connor was an arrogant snob—that much had been obvious from the start. Her rudeness Nikos might have accepted. After all, when they had met Fiona had been recently bereaved...he would have made allowances. He could even have excused her blatant hostility, given the circumstances. Particularly in light of the fact that Kate had conveniently forgotten to tell her mother of his existence. But the way she had looked at him with such abject horror—as if he was worse than nothing—that had got under his skin.

      And then there was Kate...

      Nikos held his jaw firm as he marched through the revolving doors into a light-filled vestibule. What right did he have to criticise Bernie O’Connor about his choice of partner when he had made the same mistake—with bells on? He too had fallen for totally the wrong woman.

      The ‘Kate effect’ had hit Nikos like a tornado. His golden rule of never getting emotionally involved with any woman had been smashed just like that. With a rush of wild exhilaration he had taken Kate’s hand and jumped off the edge of the cliff, self-preservation blown to the wind. Totally consumed by that all-powerful, all-consuming thing called love, he’d had no choice but to obey the fierce command of his heart.

      She had been beautiful, funny, clever...like no woman he had ever met before. The summer they had spent together in his home town of Agia Loukia, had been so special, so wonderful, that Nikos had assumed their joy would last for ever. And when Kate had accepted his proposal of marriage he had thought their future set, their happiness complete.

      But too late Nikos had realised that when you jumped off a cliff, at some point you had to come back down to earth. And the crash landing he and Kate had made had been spectacularly horrendous.

      Discovering that Kate had never told her parents about him—never even mentioned him—had been the first punch in the gut. No wonder she hadn’t wanted him to accompany her to New York when her father had been taken ill. No wonder she hadn’t wanted him at Bernie’s funeral.

      His first niggling thoughts that she might actually be ashamed of him had soon solidified into rock-hard certainty as Kate had continued to treat him with cold distance...holding him at arm’s length, pushing him away. Gone had been the warm and loving woman he had fallen in love with in Crete, to be replaced by someone he’d barely recognised—someone who had hardly been able to bring herself to look at him.

      Their final showdown had had an air of inevitability about it. But even so it had been far harder, far more painful than Nikos could ever have imagined. Discovering what Kate really thought of him, and the pitifully low opinion she had of him, had felt like a stab to the heart. It still did.

      But now it was time to expunge that memory. Now the tables had turned. Now Nikos intended to exact his revenge.

      The concierge behind the gleaming wooden desk indicated the elevator for Kandy Kate’s headquarters. Not the sleek, burnished gold affair at the end of the lobby, but a much smaller one, with an old-fashioned metal grid that you had to pull across manually. There was a moment’s hesitation after Nikos pressed the button, and then the elevator slowly ground its way down to what felt like the bowels of the earth.

      He had decided not to announce his arrival. He preferred to take his chances rather than give Kate the opportunity to disappear or prepare pretty lies. In his experience an element of surprise always worked in his favour.

      The Kandy Kate office was at the end of a long corridor, its name stuck on the middle panel of a half-glazed door. After a single sharp knock Nikos walked straight in.

      The room was small, gloomy and empty. There was no natural light, and a fluorescent strip bulb cast a depressingly cold glow over a cluttered desk, a couple of wooden chairs. A rustling noise to the left alerted him to another, smaller room, not much more than a cupboard. Someone of indeterminate age and sex was in there, squatting on the floor in front of an open filing cabinet drawer.

      ‘Hi!’ Nikos raised his voice as the person obviously hadn’t heard him. ‘I’m looking for Kate O’Connor.’

      He saw the figure go rigid. As it slowly moved to stand Nikos felt the breath catch in his throat. Of course. She still hadn’t turned around, but as she pulled out the buds in her ears, cutting short the tinny buzz of music from the phone she retrieved from her pocket, it was obvious. The shape of the back of her head, the long sweep of her neck...

      Once again it had taken him a couple of seconds to recognise her, but if this was another disguise she was going to have to try a lot harder.

      He advanced further into the room, positioning himself in the doorway of the glorified cupboard. ‘I see I have found her.’

      ‘Nikos!’

      His name was a dry accusation on her tongue. As she finally turned to face him Nikos caught the alarm in her wide green eyes, saw the way her face had drained of colour. He heard the snatch of her indrawn breath. It was all suitably gratifying.

      Nikos blatantly stared at her, ignoring the normal rules of decorum. They were way past that.

      She was dressed entirely in black, her face free from make-up, her dark hair cropped short, cut into the nape of her neck so that it exposed her ears. With an unwanted kick of lust Nikos found himself wondering how that hair would feel beneath his fingertips. She looked elegant, fragile, beautiful. Certainly nothing like the woman he had seen last night. A pair of plain silver earrings dangling from her lobes were the only hint of adornment.

      She looked away, avoiding his gaze. Nikos could see her desperately working to regain her composure, to pull a mask of indifference into place. He held the silence.

      ‘What do you want?’ Her voice sounded faint. ‘Why are you here?’

      ‘That’s not much of a greeting, Kate.’ Now his taunting animosity had kicked in. ‘Not much of a welcome after all these years.’

      ‘You’ll get no welcome from me.’ Her head swung back, her words falling like shards of glass.

      ‘No. Of course I won’t. How foolish of me.’

      With a mocking stare, he stepped out of the doorway back into the office. After a moment’s hesitation he strode over to a chair, picking up the pile of papers from the seat and holding them in his hand as he waited for Kate to squeeze in the other side of the desk.

      ‘All right if I sit down?’

      He

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