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Jace’s eyes glittered. ‘I have waited for twenty years to take back what Kostas stole from my family.’
Eleanor stared at his hard-boned face and wondered how she had missed the ruthlessness beneath his charm a year ago. Love had blinded her, she acknowledged bitterly. Defeat tasted rancid in her mouth. ‘You want fifty per cent of the Pangalos,’ she muttered.
He nodded. ‘But the hotel is not all I want. I’ve raised the stakes.’
‘What else can you possibly want from me?’
‘Marriage.’ He met her stunned expression with a smile that bared his white teeth and reminded Eleanor of a wolf. ‘I want you to marry me.’
CHAPTER THREE
‘IMUSTSAYthat I preferred your first proposal,’ Eleanor said after she had stopped laughing. Because she was sure Jace was joking. Her stupid heart had leapt when he’d mentioned marriage, but she wasn’t the gullible idiot she’d been a year ago. ‘Paris was much more romantic,’ she mocked. ‘You even gave me a sparkly ring.’
Amusement and something like admiration gleamed in his dark eyes. ‘You can wear your engagement ring again once we have finalised the details of our marriage.’
The joke had gone far enough. Eleanor looked away from him, desperate to hide how much he had hurt her. ‘I wouldn’t marry you if the continuation of the human race depended on it.’
‘In that case you had better hope your brother likes prison food.’
‘Don’t threaten me.’ She curled her hands into fists in her lap as a mixture of fear and fury swept through her.
‘Face facts, Eleanor,’ he drawled. ‘I have the power to ruin Mark and force the Pangalos to be declared insolvent, meaning that lawyers will take charge of the hotel and sell off its assets to pay its creditors. I will be able to buy up the assets and I could end up owning a one hundred per cent share of the Pangalos.’
Eleanor had a business degree and knew the laws concerning a company going into liquidation. She felt sick. ‘Why didn’t you do that a year ago instead of going through the charade of asking me to marry you?’
He shrugged, drawing her attention to his broad shoulders sheathed in a superbly tailored charcoal-grey suit. Jace had once told her that he had started his working life as a labourer on a building site, and Eleanor guessed it was where he had developed his powerfully muscular physique.
‘Your brother hadn’t racked up huge debts for himself or the hotel a year ago,’ he drawled. ‘If we marry, the hotel will be deemed a marital asset and I will gain the fifty per cent share that my father originally owned before Kostas betrayed their friendship.’
‘Are you really so cold that you would marry for such a cynical reason?’ Eleanor muttered.
‘I certainly wouldn’t marry out of a misplaced sense of sentimentality.’ Jace grimaced. ‘However, my mother is a born romantic and she is desperate to see me happily married before she dies.’
Eleanor’s attention was caught by the undercurrent of emotion in his voice. ‘Is that likely to be soon?’
‘Doctors have given her six months to a year to live.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She bit her lip. ‘But why would us marrying make your mother happy? We don’t love each other.’
‘You accepted my proposal a year ago because you were in love with me,’ he reminded her.
She flushed, thinking of how easily she had been taken in by his calculated seduction. ‘I’m not in love with you any more, that’s for sure.’
‘Good,’ he said coolly. ‘It will make things much less complicated if we keep emotions out of our marriage.’
‘I’m not going to marry you, Jace.’ She stood up and looked frantically over to the door, keen to escape from this man who, even though she knew she would never mean anything to him, made her weak with longing to feel his lips on hers.
It was just her body’s physical response to his magnetism, Eleanor assured herself. Jace had uncovered a sensual side to her that she’d been unaware of. In the past year she’d tried to forget how he had aroused her desire. She hadn’t been remotely tempted to try to replicate the feeling with any other man. But five minutes in Jace’s company had turned her into a mass of molten need.
‘Why not?’ he demanded in that slightly cynical, slightly amused tone of voice that made her grind her teeth.
‘How can you ask that? There are a million reasons why I refuse to be your wife.’
‘I can think of two very good reasons why you should consider it. Your brother’s freedom and the Pangalos hotel,’ he listed, his brows lifting when she shook her head.
‘I’ll find the money to pay back Mark’s debts some other way that doesn’t involve a loveless marriage to a man I despise.’
‘We both know I am your brother’s only hope of salvation. Sit down, Eleanor, and hear me out.’
