had ceased unbuttoning his shirt but it was open to the waist and her eyes were drawn to his
broad, golden-skinned chest. He was so gorgeous, and she was so very ordinary, she thought
miserably. The idea of undressing in front of him and exposing her body made her cringe.
‘What’s the real issue here, Kitty?’ he demanded, frustrated by his inability to understand her.
It was clear from the determined set of his jaw that he was prepared to wait all night if necessary
for an explanation. Kitty hesitated for a moment and then muttered, ‘At the reception, when I
went to change out of my wedding dress, I met someone—a family friend…’ Her voice faltered
at the idea of calling loathsome Vasilis Sarondakos a friend. ‘I learned something about you ,’ she revealed hesitantly, ‘facts about your background that I was unaware of, such as that you had
grown up in poverty and been in trouble with the law.’
In the tense silence that stretched between them Kitty felt increasingly awkward, and she blurted
out the doubts that Vasilis had planted in her mind. ‘I also learned of the rumours that you owe
your business success to a wealthy heiress, Larissa Petridis, who bequeathed you her father’s
shipping company when she died because you had been her toy-boy lover.’
‘Who was this friend, I wonder?’ Nikos drawled in a dangerously soft tone. His brows arched in
an expression of arrogant amusement but the hard gleam in his eyes warned Kitty that he was
furious, and she took an involuntary step backwards. ‘At least have the decency to name the
individual who has gone to such trouble to stab me in the back.’
Kitty hesitated. ‘It was a friend of Sebastian’s— Vasilis Sarondakos.’#p#分页标题#e#
Nikos gave a harsh laugh. ‘Sarondakos is no friend of your brother’s. Sebastian only included
him on the guest list because King Aegeus was good friends with Vasilis’s father.’
That was the reason she had never told anyone about Vasilis’s assault on her, Kitty thought
bleakly. Vasilis had played on his family’s royal connections for too long, but had he been lying
about Nikos?
‘Are the rumours true?’ she asked in a choked voice.
‘The details of my background are no secret.’ Nikos gave a careless shrug. He appeared relaxed
but Kitty sensed his simmering anger, and she took another step backwards until her legs hit the
end of the bed and she had nowhere else to go.
‘I grew up in the slums, in conditions you cannot imagine,’ he told her harshly. ‘How could you
know—a princess who has spent her whole life in a royal palace enjoying the trappings of wealth
and luxury? My mother worked all the hours she could to feed and clothe me, but she was young
and poorly educated, forced to struggle alone after the man who had seduced her—my father—
abandoned her, and her family disowned her when they learned she was pregnant.’
Nikos’s face hardened. ‘You have no idea what it is like to be hungry, to roam the streets like a
stray dog and steal food to survive. I am not ashamed of my background, and the hunger in my
belly fuelled my determination to make a better life for me and my mother. But it’s true that
there was a time in my late teens when I was drawn to the street gangs, and if it had not been for
Larissa Petridis I could easily be in prison right now rather than the head of a multimillion pound
company.’
Kitty stared at Nikos with wide, troubled eyes. ‘So you did seduce a rich older woman and
became her lover in the hope of inheriting her company?’
‘My relationship with Larissa is not open for discussion,’ Nikos said coldly. ‘I admit I inherited
Petridis Shipping from Larissa, but although she was an amazing person, she was an appalling
businesswoman and when I took over the company it was on the verge of bankruptcy. I worked
long and hard to turn it around, and I take all the credit for the fact that Petridis Angelaki
Shipping has recently announced record profits.’
While he had been speaking Nikos had moved closer, and now Kitty realised that she was
trapped between him and the bed. She could feel the anger emanating from him and, heart
thumping, she edged sideways and gave a cry of alarm when his hand shot out and gripped her
chin. ‘ Let me go.’
‘What’s the matter, Kitty?’ Nikos demanded grimly. ‘Are you afraid you’ll get your hands dirty
if you touch me now you know I’m of peasant stock rather than a blue-blooded aristocrat?’
‘Of course I don’t think that,’ she denied instantly. She didn’t care about his social status, or