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CHAPTER ONE

‘BEARING IN MIND the history of the company’s expansion and success, it is a most unjust will,’ Stevos Vannou, Ash’s lawyer, declared heavily in the si silence, a wary eye locked to the very tall, dark and powerfully built male across the office

Acheron Dimitrakos, known as Ash to his inner circle, and Greek billionaire founder of the global giant DT Industries, said nothing He did not trust himself to speak Usually his control was absolute But not today He had trusted his father, Angelos, as far as he trusted anyone, which was to say not very much, but it had never once crossed histhe cole-handedly built with the bombshell that his last will and testament had become If Ash didn’t marry within the year, he would lose half of the company to his stepmother and her children, ere already most amply provided for by the terms of his father’s will It was unthinkable; it was a brutally unfair demand, which ran contrary to every honourable scruple and the high standards that Ash had once believed the older man held dear to his heart It just went to show—as if Ash had ever had any doubt—you couldn’t trust anybody, and your nearest and dearest were the e a knife into your back when you were least expecting it

‘DT is my company,’ Ash asserted between compressed lips

‘But regretfully not on paper,’ Stevos countered gravely ‘On paper you never had your father transfer his interest to you Even though it is indisputably the company that you built’

Still, Ash said nothing Cold dark eyes fringed with ridiculously long black lashes locked on the sweeping view of the City of London skyline that his penthouse office enjoyed, his lean, darkly handso lines of restraint ‘A long court case disputing the ould seriously undermine the company’s ability to trade,’ he said eventually

‘Picking a ould definitely be the lesser evil,’ the lawyer suggested with a cynical chuckle ‘That’s all you have to do to put everything back to normal’

‘My father knew I had no intention of ever round out between clenched teeth, his teht of the utterly unhinged wouided father had expected him to put in the role ‘I don’t want a wife I don’t want children I don’t want any of thatup my life!’

Stevos Vannou cleared his throat and treated his employer to a troubled appraisal He had never seen Acheron Dier before or, indeed, any kind of emotion The billionaire head of DT Industries was usually as cold as ice, possibly even colder, if his discarded lovers in the ical approach, his reserve and lack of hu to popular repute when one of his PAs had gone into labour at a board su

‘Forgive est that any number of women would line up toof his oife, who threatened to swoon if she even saw Acheron’s face in print ‘Choosing would bea wife’

Ash clamped his mouth shut on an acid rejoinder, well aware the portly little Greek was out of his depth and only trying to be helpful even if stating the obvious was ers and get a wife as quickly and easily as he could get a woman into his bed And he understood exactly why it was so easy: the money was the draw He had a fleet of private jets and homes all over the world, not to uests hand and foot He paid well for good service He was a generous lover too but every tins in a woman’s eyes it turned him off hard and fast And ns before he noticed the beautiful body and that was taking sex off the menu more often than he liked He needed sex as he needed air to breathe, and couldn’t really coreed and manipulation that ith it so profoundly repellent Evidently somewhere down inside him, buried so deep he couldn’t root it out, there lurked an oversensitive streak he despised

It orse that Acheron knew exactly what lay behind the will and he could only marvel at his father’s inability to appreciate that the woman he had tried to push Acheron towards was anathema to him Sixscene at his father’s ho since then, which was simply one more nail in the coffin of the proposed bride-to-be He had tried to talk to his step to listen to common sense, least of all his father, who had been sufficiently i woman he had raised from childhood would make his only son the perfect wife

‘Of course, perhaps it is possible that you could sinore the will and buy out your steplibly

Unilance ‘I will not pay for what is ht Thank you for your time’