CHAPTER ONE

THE TINY CHURCH at the top of the hill was cute beyond words.

Efemia, the Greek island tucked away in a forgotten corner of the Aegean, was the kind of place tourists cooed over and excitedly photographed from the outside while, inside, pious grandmothers clutched their rosaries and whispered fervent prayers.

It was the very last place Imogen Callahan expected to be. Certainly the last place she’d anticipated her frantic search would culminate. For several stunned seconds, she stared up at the dazzling whitewashed, blue-domed structure, with the slightly unevenly spaced windows, the sparkling Aegean its picture-perfect backdrop, still unable to comprehend what her private investigator had discovered. Unable to comprehend what was about to happen within the sacred walls. If indeed the report was true.

Had he gone insane? Or was this another of those multi-tiered games he excelled at, where most participants didn’t even know they were playing until it was too late, and he was striding away with his prize?

Imogen firmed her lips as, from inside the chapel, the crescendo of voices sang the last refrain of a Greek hymn. She willed her hands not to shake as she mounted the last few steps, reached out and grasped the cool, solid aged iron handle.

Whatever game was going on, it was past time it came to an end. It had to, before she went out of her mind. She’d spent far too many nights tossing and turning, the unknown eating an acid path through her chest.

Through her life.

Well, no more.

With a deep breath in, she wrenched the heavy door open, the sound of old hinges creaking in the silence making her cringe.

Sunlight slanted through stained-glass windows, bathing the small congregation in streaks of vivid colour. But the couple at the head of the altar were shrouded in muted shadow. That didn’t stop her from gaining an impression of a tall, towering frame and broad shoulders, of sculptured features and a penetrating gaze whose force was immediate, laser sharp and commanding as he turned towards her.

As was far too predictable with this man...if it was him... She shivered in bone-deep awareness, the overpowering magnetism that was never far already eddying around her. Then she grew impatient with herself for doing so. It could be a stranger for all she knew. Another dead end.

Still...she needed to make sure. Nothing but absolute certainty would suffice.

So she forced herself to step forward through the doors. To clear her throat. To tilt her chin and aim her gaze at the priest who stood in a circle of light two steps above the couple, his hands folded benevolently in front of his robes.

‘I’m not sure what’s going on here. But this farce needs to end. Right now,’ Imogen announced, tone firm, intent unwavering.

The shocked silence, broken almost immediately by fervent whispering, then gawping expressions that ensued were like a scene from the telenovelas her late grandmother had loved to devour. Except this wasn’t make believe. This was her life.

She swallowed again as stunned expressions began to grow disapproving, then downright hostile, her words and the click of her heels as she advanced commanding every gaze.

At the top of the aisle, the priest frowned, his own gaze turning less benevolent the closer she got.

Imogen didn’t need to look down to be reminded of what she looked like.

The blow-out hairdo she’d let her stylist talk her into had got even wilder as the hours grew smaller, the heavier than usual make-up dramatising her every feature as a precursor to highlighting every emerald sequin of her thigh-skimming dress in the blinding sunlight, the red-soled heels looking positively indecent in the small, hallowed space.

She knew she looked completely out of place in a church, but she refused to be embarrassed by her appearance.

She’d been at a nightclub in Athens when she’d received the text from the PI.

A rare occurrence in and of itself because she’d rarely socialised in the past ten months. Returning to her apartment to change hadn’t even occurred to her. The visceral need to rush here, to know, had been all-encompassing.

Feeling every inch of the congregation’s judgment, she wanted to blurt that this wasn’t how she usually dressed; that she wasn’t one for short, barely there dresses that flaunted more skin than fabric. That she was more at home in power suits than cocktail dresses. But she didn’t owe anyone an explanation of how she lived her life these days. Not since she’d finally offered one last sacrifice and stepped out from under her father’s thumb.

Instead, she raised her chin, boldly met censorious gaze after censorious gaze until one by one they began to fall away. Of course, the gazes fell to her skimpy, thigh-skimming hem, bare legs and sky-high Louboutins, especially when she started to move towards the couple who were also turned towards her, as frozen as the rest of the congregation who were now beginning to whisper louder in Greek.

The priest skirted the couple and stepped towards her, arms outstretched as if shielding them from whatever harm he imagined Imogen intended to do to them.

Rapid-fire words were launched at her.

She shook her head, her long dark hair falling about her shoulders as she carried on down the aisle. ‘I’m afraid I don’t speak Greek. But I sincerely hope you understand English because, like I said, you need to stop this...whatever this is before you make a serious mistake.’

‘And what mistake would that be?’

Imogen froze mid-step, finally brought to a halt by the cool query that didn’t come from the priest but from the prospective groom.

Because...dear God.

That voice.

Deep. Rasping. Commanding. Hypnotic.

It had sent CEOs and minions alike scurrying for cover. It’d sent her own father into a downward spiral that had ultimately resulted in Imogen being offered up as a completely unwilling sacrifice.

It’d sent her alternately sobbing and raging when its owner had drawled his refusal to listen to reason. When he’d dispassionately rejected her every imploration to reconsider the heinous price he’d demanded from her family.

In her darkest nights over the last ten months, she’d wondered why she was so tormented by the notion that she’d never hear his voice again when she should’ve been relieved that she was finally, finally free.

Hearing it now, she knew she’d only been fooling herself. Somehow, she’d known she’d never be free of it, of him, until she took definitive steps to make it so.

It was why she’d never given up trying to find him.

And now she had—

‘I asked you a question. If you’re going to interrupt my wedding, at least have the decency to tell me why.’

My wedding.

Had he gone mad? Or did power truly corrupt absolutely as the saying went? Because this was truly next-level insanity. This was hubris above and beyond what even she’d imagined him capable of. And he’d shown her a lot during their short, intensely charged time together.

Before he’d vanished off the face of the earth.

She took one last step and the angle of the light changed, throwing him into sharp, dramatic relief. Imogen inhaled sharply, right before her breath locked in her lungs.

After so many dead ends, she hadn’t, deep down, believed that this new lead would pan out. Hadn’t believed that the man she’d been searching for had been right here in Greece all along. In this backwater village tucked away out of sight, where the Internet was sketchy to the point of non-existent, and indoor plumbing was considered a luxury, according to her handsomely paid PI.

Was she missing some vital angle? What the hell was he playing at?

A softly murmured question in Greek made Imogen turn her attention to the woman at his side. Tucked under his protective arm.

Something caught tighter in Imogen’s chest as several uncharitable thoughts flitted through her head.

Was she some sort of witch? Or, worse yet, considering they were in the very birthplace of Greek mythology, a siren? Because none of this made sense.

She took a step closer, to get a better view of her, then froze when the man stepped forward to block her way.

The protective arm he kept around the woman sent sharp darts through her Imogen didn’t want to acknowledge. So what if he was protective of this woman? Theirs had never been that sort of relationship. It’d been forged within the cold, clinical walls of the boardroom, finalised in an even colder civil court in Athens. And in light of what had come after, that was where it’d end.

Soon, she silently prayed.

She’d put her life on hold for not one but two men—her father, and this man. Simply because she’d been born a woman. Enough.

‘You know why I’m interrupting. God, you’re not going to claim some sort of mistaken identity, are you? Or that you have a twin brother?’

Surprisingly, a whisper of uncertainty flickered in his eyes before his jaw clenched and he exhaled with visible displeasure. ‘Not that I’m aware of,’ he said.

‘Then can we dispense with this façade?’

‘I assure you, the only strange activity going on here currently is your uninvited presence here, Miss...?’

Imogen started. ‘Seriously?’ She cast a look around, clocked the avid gazes of the congregation. Forced herself to look closer, to see if there was anyone critical she’d missed. Any of the notable people of industry who’d tended to gravitate towards this man’s power like moths to a flame. Anyone who could explain why this ruse was necessary. When she didn’t, when all she saw were villagers dressed simply, with openly curious stares and none of the cut-throat machinations she was used to seeing in the business world, she faced him again. ‘If you’re pranking me, I assure you, this isn’t funny in the least.’

‘And I assure you, the only person making a ridiculous spectacle of themselves is you, Miss...?’ The second pointed query came sharper now, that imperious tone she was well familiar with rumbling through the silence. Another hushed murmur went through the crowd, as if they weren’t used to hearing this timbre. As if this version of the man who was familiar to her was a stranger to them.

Familiar.

Stranger.

Imogen’s breath caught as possibilities bombarded her brain.

Dear God...

Could it be? Surely not...? Surely, this man who could raise and raze dynasties at will hadn’t taken leave of his faculties? It was unconscionable.

But then it would also explain every second of his absence. Would explain the complete vanishing act. Would explain why the man she’d never dreamed would have walked away from the one thing he treasured most—his beloved company—had abandoned it so conclusively and entirely.

Every morning she’d woken up and wondered what he was playing at.

Where he was playing it.

Whether she would eventually go out of her mind with not knowing.

The possibility that this was a deliberate act shook through her.

But no. It didn’t seem possible.

So she took one last step and stared into the eyes of the man whose face and name were imprinted on her so indelibly, she knew it would take a superhuman feat to remove them.

‘My name is Imogen Callahan Diamandis. Yours is Zephyr Diamandis.’ And just in case he still doubted her or intended to keep up this puzzling game, she raised her left hand, where he had slipped the obscene diamond that matched his name onto her finger in a sterile room as different from this charming chapel as night from day. ‘And in case you’re still confused, I’m your wife!’

Zephyr Diamandis.

The name was unashamedly Greek.

Arrogantly and pompously so, some might even say. A world removed from the pedestrian Yiannis he’d settled on when he woke up in the strange bed ten months ago.

Shock immobilised him as his brain searched frantically to parse through the bombshell just detonated at his feet. But like every time he attempted it, a dull throb commenced at his temples. As if urging him to let go. To forget.

Zephyr Diamandis.

It was as alien to him as Yiannis.

Yiannis With-No-Last-Name.

That was what his soon-to-be yiayia by marriage had laughingly called him for months after he was welcomed into Petros’s small family.

While the name hadn’t quite settled on him as he’d secretly wished it would, he’d accepted it. Because really, he’d had very little to call his own back then, save for the tattered clothes he’d been found in. And the fact that he spoke the language and must be Greek.

His life had improved somewhat since then, however. Now he boasted a handful of friends, cordial neighbours and even a job helping Petros manage his ten fishing vessels. Altogether, he was content enough—although was complete contentment ever achievable?—to have finally given in to the gentle but firm nudges from Petros to make an honest woman of his daughter.

Enough for him to set aside—for now at least—the quest to discover his past.

As Petros had reasoned, if he was important to anyone out there in the wide world, surely the local police force—although it was a stretch to call the single policeman who settled all squabbles at the village taverna a force—would’ve found something by now?

He shifted beneath the itch between his shoulder blades, the thin inner voice that mocked him for not pushing harder. For ignoring the quiet urgency that dogged him at night.

‘Yiannis?’

He turned to the woman enclosed within his arm, a little startled that he’d forgotten all about her in the aftermath of this stranger...this scantily dressed, fearless and offensive, stunning...beauty who proclaimed herself his wife.

Whose bright green eyes held both defiance and censure. Whose overfull lips were the most sensual lips he’d ever seen. Whose lustrous chestnut locks he wanted to sink his fingers—

Theós...he wasn’t seriously contemplating one woman’s lips when he was standing before an altar, minutes away from marrying another, was he?

Should he thank this woman...whoever she was—because he still wasn’t convinced this wasn’t some cosmic joke, perhaps an overextension of the beer-filled bachelor’s party the village men had thrown him two nights ago—for saving him from committing bigamy?

A small hand touched his chest and he refocused on Thea, his almost-bride.

Her face held wariness and confusion, much like the emotions churning through him.

‘His name isn’t Yiannis,’ the woman—his wife—said.

Flicking a glance at her, he watched her nostrils flare in jealousy and felt a punch of something—hot and vibrant and puzzlingly satisfying—inside him.

What the hell?

Was he...glad that this woman was jealous of Thea?

Ever the thinker, as Petros had also laughingly labelled him, he placed himself in the woman’s position. Then felt a distinctly unpleasant emotion churn in his gut.

Ne, he would be vastly disgruntled too, if he discovered his wife was marrying another man.

But...he only had her word for it.

‘I am your husband?’ Why did that question punch something hot and heavy through his veins?

‘Yes,’ the woman...Imogen...responded, although something shook in her voice he couldn’t quite recognise.

The throb at his temple stepped up another notch as he watched her. ‘Prove it,’ he drawled eventually.

Her eyes widened and, again, something snagged in his midriff. Her eyes were enchanting, reflecting shards of the multicoloured light streaming through the windows. For some absurd reason, he wanted to step closer, look deeper into those aquamarine depths.

‘What?’

He forced himself to continue the entirely rational demand. Allowed himself to rake his gaze over her body to prove his point. ‘Prove that this isn’t some prank you are pulling. We get tourists like you on the isle all the time, looking for...unsavoury ways to amuse themselves. Prove you’re not on here to extend whatever dare you’ve been chosen to play.’

Her jaw sagged, her chest heaving in disbelief. ‘Are you joking?’

Her accent was foreign. American or Canadian—although he couldn’t pinpoint exactly how he knew that. And he was a little taken aback with how alluring he found it. How much he wanted to step closer, press his thumb to that luscious lower, pouting lip.

He tightened his gut, pressing his hand over Thea’s to gather a semblance of control. To relocate the integrity that Petros and Yiayia had both praised him for.

Again he watched her gaze flick to the gesture, watched her green eyes flash for a second before she corralled it.

Interesting...

Why would she want to hide that emotion from him? He was absolutely certain he wouldn’t throttle his emotions if he were watching her being claimed by—

Enough.

‘Surely, you didn’t just expect me to take you at your word?’ he said as Petros, the man who would’ve been his father-in-law by now if they hadn’t been interrupted, rose from his seat and joined them.

The woman’s mouth closed and opened. ‘I’m not...’ She stopped and shook her head. ‘This isn’t a prank, believe me.’

He flicked up an eyebrow, and watched, far too fascinated, as she plucked a phone from a minuscule handbag whose strap was slung across her body, prompting Yiannis...Zephyr...to become aware of her full, perky breasts.

A sleek phone emerged but before she could produce the evidence he sought, Petros stepped forward.

‘What my son is too polite to say is that we have...visitors like you far too frequently in our village, hoping to bask in a slice of our admittedly simple lives, so they can go and boast about it to their friends. What is it you want, exactly, miss?’

She shook her head. ‘Your son?’ she echoed, ignoring the rest of Petros’s query. Then her gaze slanted to him, a look in her eyes that winked out far too quickly for Yiannis to decipher. ‘This isn’t your father.’

His heart jumped, the thirst for knowledge almost making him blurt out a demand for her to elaborate. To tell him everything she knew about him. He bit his lip just in time. He hadn’t ascertained that this woman wasn’t toying with him; that she wasn’t everything Petros was accusing her of.

Petros waved her response away, triggering a curious dissatisfaction in Yiannis. ‘He’s my son in all the ways that count. Now, if you’ve finished entertaining yourself, we have a ceremony to finish. Unless you truly have this proof to show us?’

The woman looked from Petros to him. Then, with another defiant look that sent yet another hot poker of lust through him, she flicked on her phone.

His breath strangled in his chest, his free hand bunching at his side as her fingers flew over the screen. Only for those kissable lips to purse. ‘I don’t have any cell reception.’

He smiled to hide the searing disappointment and acute hollowness in his stomach. ‘You don’t need the Internet to access photos on your phone, Miss Diamandis. Are you saying that you don’t have a single photo of us together on your camera roll?’ he taunted.

He followed the path of heat that rushed into her face before her gaze fell from his. He caught the tail of wariness and his insides stiffened further. There was something else going on here, something besides her outrageous announcement.

He wanted to catch her chin and direct her gaze to his, but he’d allowed himself to be distracted by this woman for long enough.

‘It’s Mrs Diamandis,’ she said, another peculiar look flickering over her smooth, satin-like skin. ‘Or Miss Callahan if you prefer to use my maiden name.’

He didn’t prefer it. If they truly shared a connection, he would never resort to her previous name. The clutch of possessiveness made him press his lips together.

‘And as Petros said, we have a marriage ceremony to finish. Admit you stormed in here to get a top-up of whatever titivation you were up to last night,’ he said, unable to stop his gaze from trailing over her again, swallowing discreetly at the sight of her spectacular, bare legs. ‘And I will let you walk away with an apology.’

Her chin rose, green fire swirling in her eyes. ‘And if I don’t?’

A few breaths caught in the audience, the few who understood English hearing the taunt in her tone.

‘Yiannis, please take care of this,’ Thea urged softly in Greek.

He stared down into her gentle face. Petros’s only child was modestly beautiful, her features draped in that touch of melancholy that had clung to her after the loss of her fiancé three years ago. He wasn’t sure whether it was her delicateness or that melancholy that had kept him at arm’s length, even during their very short engagement.

Whatever it was, it’d never prompted him to even kiss or take things further with her.

While he hadn’t given much thought about the type of woman he preferred, Thea definitively lacked the daring and feistiness of the woman claiming to be his wife.

He grimaced inwardly at the comparison but admitted that, as much as he liked Thea Angelos, this had never been a love match. They’d drifted into a friendship encouraged by Petros, a man who had seen a chance to perpetuate his family and determinedly stoked it. And he, Yiannis, had gone along with it because he’d felt as if he owed Petros something after the man had saved his life.

‘Ne,’ he responded now. This interruption had gone on long enough. ‘If you don’t, I’ll have you escorted out.’

He turned and nodded to the priest, who breathed a sigh of relief and climbed back onto the dais. Before he could open his mouth, the woman’s husky voice froze proceedings. Again.

‘Your superyacht, which you named Ophelia I, after your mother, is anchored a mile offshore,’ she blurted. ‘If you don’t believe me, just step outside. You can see it from the top of this hill. You have a staff of thirty-five manning it, and you’ve known the pilot since you were twenty-one years old. You were on board the yacht when you fell over the side and were presumed drowned ten months ago. Every single person on that vessel can corroborate who you are. Or you can go ahead and commit bigamy. Your choice.’

He stiffened. Not at the announcement that he was wealthy enough to own a superyacht, but at the acute sensation that cut through him at her words. He couldn’t deny she had the timing right. As she did the ‘presumed drowned’ part. Because he’d been in serious danger of drowning when Petros and his men had fished him out of the ocean.

But there was something else.

The knowledge that this supposed affluence surely came with responsibility.

Clout. Power. Dynamism. More.

All facets of himself he’d sensed echoing just out of reach. Facets he’d suppressed because it’d made him seem ungrateful for the open-hearted generosity Petros and his family had shown him. Facets he’d felt pulling at him in his unguarded moments when he should’ve been basking in the wealth of affection and warmth but had instead felt...adrift. Grateful, yes, but...diminished.

He felt it strain within him now, tethers of this life binding him when he wanted...no, was destined to be free.

Or was he being fanciful? Reaching for something his faulty psyche was tricking him into believing he needed?

All because of this woman?

A raised murmur went through the crowd as he hesitated. A few people rose from the pew and drifted towards the window, eager to verify for themselves.

When he heard the first gasp, a knot twisted painfully in his gut, then slowly began to unravel, loosening the first of many leashes.

‘Yiannis,’ Petros uttered his name cautiously.

But he knew...deep in his bones, he knew, this was the moment he’d waited ten long months for.

As if he sensed what was coming, Petros shook his head and narrowed his eyes at their intruder. ‘You claim to know this man. Tell me what he was wearing the last time you saw him,’ he demanded, unfamiliar hostility stiffening his shoulders.

‘He was wearing a sea-green shirt with long sleeves and light brown cargo pants. He also had a thin leather bracelet with a titanium clasp but that could’ve been lost.’

Petros exhaled in defeat and the fire went out of him. Because the description was accurate, even if the state of those clothes had been beyond rescue. The leather bracelet had deteriorated within weeks, and Yiannis had had to dispose of it after intense examination showed it bore no signs of who he was.

Regret scythed through him as he glanced at Petros. ‘I’m sorry, old friend.’ I need to know.

The older man’s features clenched, possibly from being addressed as friend instead of the pateras he’d been urging Yiannis to call him lately. Or possibly because he, too, knew the time had come.

Most of their guests were at the window now, and he was a little thankful for it, because it gave him the privacy he needed.

But staring into Thea’s face, he smiled wryly at the faint relief in her eyes.

No, she wasn’t over her dead fiancé. And she proved it with how easily she accepted his decision when she stepped back from him, into her father’s waiting arms.

Yiannis...Zephyr—if this stranger was to be believed—turned and faced the woman who’d fallen silent after making the bold announcement.

Now he was free, he was even more taken aback by the punch of hot attraction in his gut, by the rise of his manhood after ten long months of disinterest in carnal pleasure. This woman—his wife—was his.

His to kiss. To touch. To claim.

But first... ‘If this turns out to be an elaborate joke, Miss Callahan, be assured that you will live to regret it.’