Harlequin Presents Extra

NORTH AMERICA

- June 2010 -

 

 

 

Modern Romance

UNITED KINGDOM

- April 2010 -

 

 

 

The Book Depository

(free postage worldwide!)

 

Paperback North America

Paperback UK

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"A dramatic and passionate tale written by a true mistress of the genre, The Greek Tycoon’s Achilles Heel’s intoxicating brand of steamy sensuality, electrifying pathos, heart-wrenching emotion and spellbinding romance is guaranteed to keep readers glued to the pages of this fabulous story and eagerly turning the pages late into the night. Wonderfully told, highly emotive and simply breathtaking, Lucy Gordon’s excellent new Modern Romance, The Greek Tycoon’s Achilles, is compulsive reading at its unputdownable best!"

Cataromance, 4.5 stars

 

 

    

 

 

 

 

Lysandros and Petra are spending some time together at his home on the island of Corfu.  Behind his hard exterior she can see the passionate man inside, but after a night spent loving each other he retreats cautiously behind his defences.

 

                                                          

  

She wondered how Lysandros would be when they met again at breakfast, whether he would show any awareness of what had happened.  But he greeted her cheerfully, with a kiss on the cheek.  They might have been any couple enjoying a few days vacation without a care in the world.

   “Is there anything you’d like to do?” he asked.

   “I’d love to go to Gastouri.”

   She was referring to the tiny village where the Achilleion Palace had been built.

   “Have you never been before?” he asked in surprise

   “Yes, but it was a hurried visit to get material.  Now I’ll have time to explore properly.”

   And perhaps, she thought, it would help her cope with the sadness of being rejected again.

   The village lay about seven miles to the south, built on a slope, with the Palace at the top, overlooking the sea.  This was the place that Sisi, the Empress Elizabeth, had built to indulge her passion for the ancient Greek hero, who seemed to have reached out to her over thousands of years.  His courage, his complex character, his terrible fate, all were remembered here.

   As soon as they entered the gates Petra was aware of the atmosphere; powerful, vital, yet melancholy, much as Achilles himself must have been.

   There stood the tall, bronze statue, showing Achilles as a magnificent young warrior, wearing a metal helmet, mounted with a great feathered crest.  On his lower legs was armour, embossed at the kneecaps with snarling lions.

   From one arm hung a shield while the other hand held a spear.  He stood on a sixteen foot plinth, looming over all-comers, staring out into the distance.

   “Disdainful,” Petra murmured.  “Standing so far above, he’d never notice ordinary mortals like us, coming and going down here.  So that’s who your father wanted you to be.”

   “Nothing less would do for him.  There’s also the picture inside which he admired.”

   The main hall was dominated by a great staircase, at the top of which was a gigantic painting, depicting a man in a racing chariot, galloping at full speed, dragging the lifeless body of his enemy in the dirt behind.

   “Achilles in triumph,” Petra said, “parading the lifeless body of his enemy around the walls of Troy.”

   “That was how a man ought to be,” Lysandros mused.  “Because if you didn’t do it to them, they would do it to you.  So I was raised being taught how to do it to them.”

   “And do you?”

   “Yes,” he replied simply.  “If I have to, otherwise I wouldn’t survive, and nor would the people who work for me.”

   “Parading lifeless bodies?” she queried.

   “Not literally.  My enemies are still walking about on earth, trying to destroy me.  But if you’ve won, people have to know you’ve won, and the lengths you were prepared to go to.  That way they learn the lesson.”

   For a moment his face frightened her, not because it displayed harshness or cruelty, but because it displayed nothing at all.  He was simply stating a fact.  Victory had to be flaunted, or it was less effective.

   He’d been born into a society that expected him to conquer his enemies and drag them behind his chariot wheels.  The past lay its weight on him, almost expecting him to live two lives at once, and he knew it.  Fight it as he might, there were times when the expectations almost crushed him.

   If she’d doubted that, she had the proof when they moved back into the garden and went to stand before the great statue depicting Achilles’ last moments.  He lay on the ground, trying to draw the arrow from his heel, although in his heart he knew it was hopeless.  His head was raised to the heavens and on his face was a look of despair.

   “He’s resigned,” Lysandros said.  “He knows there’s no escaping his fate.”

   “Maybe he shouldn’t be so resigned,” Petra said at once.  “You should never accept bad luck as inevitable.  That’s just giving in.”

   “How could he help it?  He knew his fate was written on the day he was born.  It was always there on his mind, the hidden vulnerability.  Except that in the end it wasn’t hidden, because someone had known all the time.  None of us hide our weaknesses as well as we think we do.”

   “But perhaps,” she began tentatively, “if the other person was someone we didn’t have to be afraid of, someone who wouldn’t use it against us – ”

   “That would be paradise indeed,” Lysandros agreed.  “But how would you know, until it was too late?”