"SEBASTIEN FIORUKIS?' Alesia gaped at her grandfather, the

grandfather who had been a stranger to her in all but reputation for her whole life. "In exchange for the money I need, you expect me to marry Sebastien Fiorukis?"

"Precisely." Alesia's grandfather smiled an unpleasant smile as she struggled to find her voice and fought to control the torrent of emotion that surged up inside her. Whatever she'd expected when she'd been working up the courage to tackle her grandfather, it hadn't been that.

Fiorukis. The Greek tycoon who had taken his father's moderately successful business and built it into a corporation that rivalled that of her grandfather; the billionaire reputed to be every bit as ruthless as her grandfather; the man who moved between women at a speed faster than the cars he drove and the jets he flew. The man who — 

"You can't be serious?" She looked up, her teeth gritted and her eyes stinging. The very thought made her feel sick. "The Fiorukis family was responsible for the death of my father — "

And she despised them as much as she despised her grandfather.

As much as she despised everything Greek. "And because of that, my bloodline died out," her grandfather said harshly. "Now I shall ensure the same fate for the Fiorukis family. If he marries you then it will end with the son, just as mine did."

Alesia stopped breathing, rigid with shock. He knew. Somehow he knew. The file she was holding dropped from her nerveless fingers and papers scattered across the marble floor. She didn't notice.

As the full implication of his words sank into her shocked brain, her face paled and her voice was little more than