âA good lover makes it his business to make his partnerâs pleasure as enduring as she wishes it to be.â
âThatâs easy to say,â Lizzie responded, desperate to try to hold her own and appear as nonchalant as Ilios was himself. The reality was that his casual observation was having an intense and unwanted effect on her. It was making her ask questions of herself that she knew she could not answer. Questions such as what would it be like to be the partner of Ilios Manos, as his lover?
âAnd I assure you easy to do, when one knows how,â Ilios came back, slipping the comment up under Lizzieâs guard to draw a soft gasp of choked reaction from her.
Of course Ilios Manos would be an experienced lover. Of course he would know exactly how to please his partnerâeven if that partner was as untutored as she was herself.
Penny Jordan has been writing for more than twenty years and has an outstanding record: over 170 novels published, including the phenomenally successful A PERFECT FAMILY, TO LOVE, HONOUR AND BETRAY, THE PERFECT SINNER and POWER PLAY, which hit the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller lists. Penny Jordan was born in Preston, Lancashire, and now lives in rural Cheshire.
Recent titles by the same author:
A BRIDE FOR HIS MAJESTYâS PLEASURE
THE SICILIAN BOSSâS MISTRESS* THE SICILIANâS BABY BARGAIN* CAPTIVE AT THE SICILIAN BILLIONAIREâS COMMAND* TAKEN BY THE SHEIKH THE SHEIKHâS BLACKMAILED MISTRESS VIRGIN FOR THE BILLIONAIREâS TAKING
*The Leopardi Brothers
Bestselling Modern Romance⢠author Penny Jordan brings you an exciting new trilogyâ¦
NEEDED: THE WORLDâS MOST ELIGIBLE BILLIONAIRES
Three penniless sisters, pure and proudâ¦but about to be purchased!
With bills that need to be paid, a house about to be repossessed and little twin boys to feed, sisters Lizzie, Charley and Ruby refuse to drown in their debts. They will hold their heads up high and fight to feed their family!
But three of the richest, most ruthless men in the world are about to enter their livesâ¦
Pure, proud, but penniless, how far will the sisters go to save the ones they love?
Lizzieâs storyâ
THE WEALTHY GREEKâS CONTRACT WIFE
Ilios Manos is Greek and ruthless. A dangerous combination! Lizzie owes him thousands, but heâll take her as his wife in paymentâ¦
Look out for Charleyâs story THE ITALIAN DUKEâS VIRGIN MISTRESS in April 2010
And donât miss Rubyâs story coming soon!
The Wealthy Greekâs Contract Wife
By
ILIOS MANOS looked out across the land that had belonged to his family for almost five centuries.
It was here on this rocky promontory, stretching out into the Aegean Sea in the north east of Greece, that Alexandros Manos had built for himself a copy of one of Palladioâs most famous creations. Villa Emo.
Manos family folklore said that Alexandros Manos, a wealthy Greek merchant with his own fleet trading between Constantinople and Venice, had done business with the Emo family, and had been seized with envy for the new Emo mansion. He had secretly copied Palladioâs drawings for the villa, taking them home to Greece with him, where he had had his own villa built, naming it Villa Manos and declaring that both it and the land on which it stood were a sacred trust, to be passed down from generation to generation, and must be owned by no man who was not of his blood.
It was here that Alexandros Manos had created what was in effect a personal fiefdomâa small kingdom of which he was absolute ruler.
Ilios knew that this promontory of land, surrounded on three sides by the Aegean Sea and with the mountains of northern Greece at its back, had meant everything to his grandfather, and Iliosâs own father had given his life to keep itâjust as his grandfather had forfeited his wealth to protect it. To protect it. But he hadnât protected the sons he had fathered, sacrificing them in order to keep his covenant with both the past and the future.
Ilios had learned a lot from his grandfather. He had learned that when you carried the hereditary responsibility of being descended from Alexandros Manos you had a duty to look beyond your own emotionsâeven to deny them if you had toâin order to ensure that the sacred living torch that was their family duty to the villa was passed on. The hand that carried that torch might be mortal, but the torch itself was for ever. Ilios had grown up listening to his grandfatherâs stories of what it meant to carry the blood of Alexandros Manos in your veins, and what it meant to be prepared to sacrifice anything and anyone to ensure that torch was passed on safely.
His was the duty to carry it now. And his too was the duty to do what his grandfather had not been able to doâand that was to restore their familyâs fortunes and its greatness.
As a boy, when Ilios had promised his grandfather that he would find a way to restore that greatness, his cousin Tino had laughed at him. Tino had laughed again when Ilios had told him that the only way he would pay off Tinoâs debts was if Tino sold him his half-share of their grandfatherâs estate to him.