Read The Greek's Acquisition for Free Online

made them spring apart.
    ‘What do you think you ‘re bloody well doing? Take your hands off my daughter! ’
    All these years later Louise could still hear Tina screaming at Dimitri as she tottered across the patio in her vertiginous heels, quivering with fury so that her platinum-blondbeehive had seemed to wobble precariously on top of her head.
    ‘It’s bad enough that Kostas cut our trip short with some excuse about needing to be at a meeting in Athens. But to find
you
here, preying on Loulou, is the last straw. You have no right to be here. Your father banned you from the villa.’
    ‘Don’t you
dare
talk to me about rights.’ Dimitri’s anger had been explosive as he’d leapt to his feet and faced Tina.
    The row that had followed had been a vicious exchange of words. Louise had said nothing, but her mother had said more than enough.
    ‘Do you think I don’t know what’s in your nasty, vengeful mind?’ Tina hissed to Dimitri. ‘It’s obvious you decided to try and seduce Loulou to get at me—out of some misplaced revenge for your mother.’
    ‘No!’
Louise interrupted desperately. ‘This has nothing to do with you.’
    ‘Doesn’t it?’ Tina laughed mockingly. ‘So Dimitri has
told
you about his mother, has he? That she took an overdose and that he blames me for her death? Has he also told you that his father has disinherited him because of the way he has repeatedly insulted me?’ Tina continued relentlessly. ‘Or that now he is no longer in line to inherit a fortune the woman he hoped to marry has dumped him? This has
everything
to do with me—doesn’t it, Dimitri? You hate my guts, and the only reason you’ve been sniffing around my daughter is because you want to cause trouble.’
    Tina’s accusations sent a cold chill down Louise’s spine. Her mother had always been over-dramatic, she reminded herself. Dimitri couldn’t have been pretending to be attracted to her. He had been so attentive, and the passion between them had been so intense that she had even begun to think—to hope—that he was falling in love with her.
    ‘It’s not true.
Is it?
’ She turned to Dimitri, pleading forhis reassurance, but inside her head doubts were already forming. She had not even known his mother had died, let alone the tragic circumstances of her death. Not once in the past few days had he mentioned it.
    She had thought they were friends, and now they were lovers. But Dimitri had turned into a hard-faced stranger and the coldness in his eyes froze her blood.
    ‘Yes, it’s true.’
    His harsh voice broke the silence, and like a pebble hitting the surface of a pool his words caused shockwaves to ripple through the tense atmosphere.
    ‘My mother took her own life because she was heartbroken that my father had divorced her and thrown away the love they had shared for thirty years for a worthless whore.’
    He stared contemptuously at Tina, and then turned and walked away without saying another word. He didn’t even glance at Louise; it was as if she did not exist. And she watched him go, paralysed with shock and feeling sick with humiliation that she had been nothing more to him than a pawn in his battle with her mother.
    ‘Don’t tell me you were falling for him?’ her mother said, when she caught sight of Louise’s stricken face. ‘For God’s sake, Lou, until recently he was engaged to Rochelle Fitzpatrick—that stunning American model who is regularly on the covers of the top fashion magazines. He wasn’t really interested in you. Like I said, he just wants to cause trouble. A while ago Dimitri overheard me telling Kostas how keen I am for you have a good career,’ Tina continued. ‘He knew I would be upset if you dropped out of university to have an affair with him. I imagine he thought that if you fell for his flattery he would be able to turn you against me. And of course his ultimate goal was to cause friction between me and his father.’
    Tina prattled on relentlessly, unaware of