Stranded with Her Greek Tycoon Read online

  One night to win back his wife!

  Can Hayley resist Cristos’s seductive charms?

  After the demise of her marriage, Hayley fled to nurse her broken heart. Now she’s back to ask her husband, Cristos Theofanis, for a divorce—but he has other ideas! When a storm hits and they’re stranded together, Cristos has one night to prove himself. Can Hayley resist the temptation of Cristos’s kiss or will she find herself back in his arms?

  Hayley lifted her face and closed her eyes to better savor the sensation as he made the act of smoothing her hair into a caress.

  She was so lost in the feeling that she was totally unprepared when he kissed her. Oh! His mouth firm and warm on hers, the roughness of his chin, his scent spicy and male. Her own lips soft and yielding under his. His hands sliding around her waist, pulling her closer. This felt so good. Too good. Her eyes flew open.

  She didn’t want this. Not this languorous warmth overtaking her. Not this feeling of being lost in his possession. Not this surge of awakening when she’d worked so hard to suppress her longing for him. She didn’t want him. The marriage had been all on his terms—and in loving him so desperately she had lost herself.

  She tried to pull away. “We have to make this look believable,” he murmured against her mouth.

  Why? She had agreed to play along with the charade of reconciliation so as not to disrupt his cousin’s festivities. Not to kiss Cristos. She did not welcome the whoosh of long-banked-down embers igniting into flames. Because of a kiss. A simple—you could almost call it chaste—kiss.

  “Don’t kiss me again,” she murmured back against his mouth.

  Dear Reader,

  Have you ever met someone just fleetingly, yet you can’t get them out of your head?

  That happened to me with a minor character named Cristos in my last novel for Harlequin Romance, Conveniently Wed to the Greek. Cristos is the cousin of that book’s hero. I didn’t know a lot about him other than that he was extremely good-looking. But I couldn’t stop thinking about Cristos. Why was someone so handsome on his own? Why did I sense secrets and sadness behind his happy-go-lucky mask?

  I wanted to find out more about Cristos Theofanis—so he had to have his own story! I discovered Cristos was estranged from the wife he adored, Hayley Clements. They’d married young but trauma and tragedy took the gloss off their marital bliss and they spiraled apart.

  When Hayley unexpectedly reappears, she and Cristos get a last chance to save their marriage as they’re stranded together by a snowstorm.

  Stranded with Her Greek Tycoon is set on the beautiful Ionian Islands in Greece. What a perfect place for a couple to reignite the spark of their passion and fall in love all over again—just in time for Valentine’s Day! I hope you enjoy Cristos and Hayley’s story.

  Warm regards,

  Kandy

  STRANDED WITH HER GREEK TYCOON

  Kandy Shepherd

  Kandy Shepherd swapped a career as a magazine editor for a life writing romance. She lives on a small farm in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, with her husband, daughter and lots of pets. She believes in love at first sight and real-life romance—they worked for her! Kandy loves to hear from her readers. Visit her at kandyshepherd.com.

  Books by Kandy Shepherd

  Harlequin Romance

  Sydney Brides

  Gift-Wrapped in Her Wedding Dress

  Crown Prince’s Chosen Bride

  The Bridesmaid’s Baby Bump

  A Diamond in Her Stocking

  From Paradise...to Pregnant!

  Hired by the Brooding Billionaire

  The Greek Tycoon’s Mistletoe Proposal

  Conveniently Wed to the Greek

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  Join Harlequin My Rewards today and earn a FREE ebook!

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  To my dear friend Anne Yeates and her clever boys for introducing me to the historic university town of Durham in northern England—the inspiration for my hero and heroine’s past.

  Praise for

  Kandy Shepherd

  “I was drawn into this fast-paced story by engaging dialogue, lively banter, and the drama...passionate, touching and immensely satisfying, and I definitely would recommend it to romance lovers!”

  —Goodreads on Conveniently Wed to the Greek

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  EXCERPT FROM REUNITED WITH HER ITALIAN BILLIONAIRE BY NINA SINGH

  CHAPTER ONE

  CRISTOS THEOFANIS HAD made such a monumental mess of his own marriage, he found it impossible to share in the joy as he watched his favourite cousin and his wife renew their wedding vows. Seeing their happiness in each other, the intimate smiles shared by a man and a woman deeply in love, made him fist his hands at the memories of what he had lost.

  But he was careful to keep in place the mask he chose to present to the world—happy, without-a-care Cristos, unaffected by the losses that secretly haunted him. His pain was his own to keep all to himself.

  The renewal ceremony had been held in the tiny white chapel perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking the turquoise waters of the Ionian sea on his cousin’s privately owned island of Kosmimo. Now the happy couple was flocked by joyous well-wishers as they spilled out of the chapel. Cristos stood alone by a stunted cypress tree, marooned on his own black cloud of dark thoughts, his face aching from the effort of forcing smiles he didn’t feel.

  Of course he wished his cousin well, but Cristos was haunted by memories of his own wedding five years ago in a register office in the medieval city of Durham in the north of England. He had looked down at Hayley, his bride, with pride and adoration and a wondering disbelief that such an amazing woman had agreed to share her life with him. In return, her eyes had shone with love and trust as she’d offered him both her body and, more importantly, her heart. A priceless gift. One that had been wrenched away from him.

  Remorse tore through him like a physical pain. He had not seen his wife in more than two years. Two years and five months to be precise. He could probably estimate the time in hours, minutes even. For every second of that separation he had torn himself apart with self-recrimination and guilt. Now, he didn’t even know where Hayley lived, what she was doing. He had hurt her by not being there when she’d needed him. But she hadn’t given him a chance to make it up to her. With a ruthlessness he had not believed his sweet, gentle wife had possessed, she had left him and completely deleted him from her life.

  As his cousin Alex and his wife Dell kissed to the sound of exuberant cheering, Cristos closed his eyes as he remembered the joy of kissing Hayley when the celebrant had told him he could claim his bride. They had been as happy as these two. Excited about the prospect of a lifetime together. Deliriously in love. Confident that all they’d needed was each other when the world had seemed against them.

  ‘We were once just like them.’ The words were no more than a broken murmur, as light and insubstantial as the breeze playing with the branc
hes of the tree above him.

  Cristos’s eyes flew open in shock at the wistful tones of a once familiar voice. Hayley. From somewhere below his shoulder, where she’d used to fit so neatly, he seemed to breathe in the elusive hint of her scent. Crazed by regret, he must be conjuring up a ghost from his past.

  He turned his head. His heart jolted so hard against his ribs he gasped. She stood there beside him, looking straight ahead towards the church, not up at him, as if she couldn’t bear to meet his gaze. His wife.

  He put out his hand to touch her, to make sure he was not hallucinating. Her cheek was soft and cool and very, very real. ‘It’s you, koukla mou,’ he said, his voice hoarse. He had not used that term of endearment for years—it belonged to her and her only.

  Immediately he regretted his words. Drew back his hand. He had loved her unconditionally but she had thrown that love back at him. Yes, he had made mistakes he deeply regretted. But she had not given him the chance to remedy them. She had hurt him. Humiliated him. Put him through hell as he’d searched Europe for her. But she hadn’t wanted to be found.

  ‘Don’t call me that,’ she said. ‘I’m not your little doll or your gorgeous girl or whatever that word translates to. Not any more.’

  ‘Of course you’re not,’ he said tersely.

  Her gaze flickered away from him and she bit her lower lip with her front teeth as she always did when she was nervous. Or dreading something. What was she doing here?

  He stared at her, still scarcely able to believe she was real. Hungry, in spite of himself, for every detail of her appearance. She was wrapped against the late morning February chill in slim trousers and an elegant pale blue coat he had once bought for her from a designer in Milan. The coat, belted around her narrow waist, was the same but he was shocked to see Hayley was not. The image of her he had for so long held in his mind shimmered around the edges and reformed into a different version of his wife.

  Her beautiful blonde hair that had tumbled around her shoulders in lush waves was gone, shorn into an abbreviated pixie cut. Like a boy was his first dismayed thought. He had loved her long hair, loved running his hands through it, tugging it back to tilt her head up for his kiss. But a deeper inspection made him appreciate how intensely feminine the new style was, feathered around her face, clinging to the slender column of her neck. Her features seemed to come into sharper focus, her cheekbones appeared more sculpted, her chin more determined. Her youthful English rose prettiness that had so attracted him had, at twenty-seven, bloomed into an even more enticing beauty.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ he said. ‘What are you doing here after all this time?’

  She met his gaze. ‘To see you. What else?’

  Hope that she might be there to—at last—explain why she had abandoned their marriage roared to life only to be beaten back down by the cool indifference of her blue eyes, the tight set of her mouth. He wanted to demand that she explain herself. She was still his legal wife. But there was a barely restrained skittishness about her that made him hold back. He couldn’t risk her running away from him again. He wanted answers.

  She looked over to the gathering outside the church and then back to him. ‘I didn’t know your entire family would be here or I certainly wouldn’t have come to this island,’ she said.

  There was something different about her voice. A trace of some kind of accent blurring the precise Englishness of her words. He was fluent in English and Italian, with passable French and Spanish, but he couldn’t place it. Where had she been?

  ‘This is a private function.’

  ‘I would never have been on the guest list,’ she said, a bitter undertone to her voice.

  He was unable to refute the truth of her words. His family—in particular the grandmother who had raised him since he was fourteen—had disapproved of his marriage to Hayley and made no secret of it. For Yia-yia Penelope their union had been too rushed, too impulsive, too reminiscent of his own parents’ hasty marriage that had brought the family so much grief.

  ‘I want to know why you’re here,’ he said. ‘The last time we met you told me you hated me. And then nothing.’

  He didn’t hate her, though there had been moments when he had wanted to. Since that day in the hospital in Milan when she had turned away from him, her face as pale as the hospital pillow, his emotions had gone from guilt for his neglect, to terror for her safety, through smouldering anger that she had thought so little of their marriage—of him—to wipe him without explanation from her life. Finally his anger had mellowed to a determined indifference.

  Hayley made no reply. She placed great store on honesty. A shudder of foreboding made Cristos think her unexpected visit was not something he should be glad about.

  ‘How did you get here?’ Kosmimo was only accessible by boat. Or the helicopters of the wealthy guests who frequented the luxury retreat spa his hotelier cousin Alex had established on the island.

  ‘I’d heard you were back in Nidri, staying with your grandparents.’ His grandparents ran a tourist villa complex in the port town on the nearby island of Lefkada. ‘Their maid told me you were here. I hired a man and his boat to bring me over.’

  There’d been storms and the water was choppy. ‘What man?’ he said too quickly, too possessively. He wouldn’t trust his wife to just anyone on these waters. Mentally he slammed a fist against his forehead. She was no longer his concern. Who knew what risks she’d taken in the last two years and five months without him to look out for her? More to the point, why should he care?

  Her eyes narrowed at his tone. But she named a local boatman he knew well. ‘Good choice,’ he said.

  Why had he doubted her ability to choose a safe boat ride? Hayley had always been practical, seeing a problem and finding a solution. Then she’d seen him as a problem and the solution as leaving him.

  He looked over her shoulder, aware they had become the target of curious glances. Most of the people gathered here for the ceremony had never met Hayley. But he sensed their interest like a current buzzing through the congregation. Those in ignorance would very soon be made aware that this lovely blonde woman was Cristos’s estranged wife. The one who had humiliated a Greek husband in a way a Greek husband should never be humiliated.

  He shifted his body to shield her from curious gazes. That was all he’d ever wanted to do—protect her and look after her. Yet when she’d really needed him, he’d let her down so badly she had been unable to forgive him. Deep down, he had been unable to forgive himself.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?’ he said, keeping his voice low.

  ‘I wanted to see you face to face. But I wasn’t sure you’d welcome me if I warned you.’

  Banked up from years of frustration his words flooded out. ‘Of course I’d want to see you. I need to know what happened. You left the hospital without telling me where you were going. I tried to find you. Your parents wouldn’t tell me where you were. Or your friends. Your sister slammed the door in my face.’

  She put her hand up to stop him. He noticed it wasn’t quite steady. ‘Stop. Not here. Not with an audience. What I have to say should be said in private. It’s why I had to see you in person rather than—’

  ‘Just say it,’ he said through gritted teeth.

  She played with the strap of her designer handbag—another gift from him—twisting it until he thought it would snap. Then she looked up at him. ‘I want a divorce.’

  He glared at her. ‘The sooner the better,’ he said.

  * * *

  Hayley took a step back and looked up at her soon-to-be-ex-husband. Why, oh, why had she come here? She’d thought she could handle seeing Cristos again. In light of the love they’d once shared, surely it was the right thing to deliver the divorce papers in person rather than have them served on him by her lawyer?

  But the moment she’d seen him standing under that tree in his dark
coat staring moodily out to sea, she’d known it was a mistake. She’d been slammed by her impossible attraction to him with such force she’d had to plant her booted feet on the ground to keep herself steady. Dry-mouthed, heart pounding, she’d been unable to do anything but stare at him, stricken with hopeless longing.

  He was now twenty-nine, and still the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. Perhaps beautiful wasn’t the right word. But handsome, good-looking, striking, even gorgeous were not adjectives enough. Not for this man. Not for six feet two of broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped masculine perfection. Not for thick black hair, smooth olive skin that was a delight under a woman’s stroking fingers, the surprise of pure green eyes.

  Cristos could have modelled for the marble statues of the ancient Greek gods she had admired in Athens on their honeymoon. Instead just six months later, on a weekend break in London, he’d been scouted by an international model agency. As a macho Greek male, he’d scorned the idea. But they’d needed money badly and she’d talked him into at least trying it. He’d been booked for a prestigious job the first day he’d reluctantly signed the agency contract.

  That was when she’d begun to lose him, Hayley reflected now, when he’d started to slip slowly away into a world that’d had no place for her. Pushing him into it was the stupidest thing she’d ever done. She had become the insignificant peahen to the glorious peacock of her magnificent husband. And he had allowed it to happen. He had left her alone to tend the nest while he strode with masculine insouciance the catwalks of the fashion capitals of Europe, shot advertising campaigns and commercials, all the while hobnobbing with the wealthy and well-connected. Every time she’d questioned him, he’d told her everything he did was for her and their financial security. For a while she’d believed him. Before she began to doubt him.

  She gritted her teeth. The longing that surged through her wasn’t for this Cristos. It was for the Cristos she’d fallen in love with as a student back in that pub in Durham when she’d been barely twenty-two. After her gap year, she was a year older than most of the people in her class and something about the group of older students had caught her attention. He’d been laughing with some fellow exchange students. The flash of his white teeth against his olive skin, the humour in those amazing green eyes had caught her attention then mesmerised her. He’d looked across to her and their gazes had connected. For a long moment there had been nothing—no one—else but him. The sounds of the pub had receded, the chatter and the clinking of glasses, until it had just been her and him, drinking in each other’s eyes, their souls connecting. Or that was how it had seemed. Then his brow had furrowed in a quizzical frown. He’d put down his glass and left his friends behind to make his way to her side.

 
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