Her hatred had festered over many months. She hated and detested Alex Terzakis more than any man alive. ‘No!’ Sarah gritted, her slight body stiffening with a sudden rush of raw aggression that came from fathoms deep down inside her. ‘I would like to see my nephew,’ Alexis responded, ignoring her response with supreme cool. He is most deeply distressed,’ he asserted.Ī hysterical laugh escaped Sarah. ‘I have already informed him of your sister’s death.

‘Damon is in Greece.’ Alexis Terzakis watched her with impassive eyes as dark as a winter’s night. ‘Callie made me phone, but I didn’t ask for you to come, Mr Terzakis,’ Sarah breathed jerkily. ‘You left an urgent message with my secretary,’ he reminded her. ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded shakily. Sarah took a quick backward step, repulsed by the threat of any form of bodily contact. ‘Please permit me to offer my most sincere condolences on your sister’s tragic death,’ he murmured in a taut undertone. The long fingers, she noticed absently, were beautifully shaped. Sarah stared in disbelief as he extended a lean brown hand.

He had the lethal, inborn grace of a wild animal and the intimidating and instinctive authority of a man born to command. The fabric and the cut alone screamed expense. His superbly tailored dark grey suit outlined broad, muscular shoulders and long, lean legs. That dark, accented drawl cut into her like a razor. The sound of that voice halted her in her tracks. The emotion was so intense, it literally frightened her. A golden girl with beauty, intelligence and everything to live for.until Damon Terzakis had come into her life and laid it to waste. At eighteen, Callie had been on the shady boundary line between child and adult. And Callie hadn’t even been a woman in her sister’s opinion. Women didn’t die in childbirth these days. She flinched inwardly away from the word and began to walk up the corridor on legs that didn’t feel strong enough to support her. She wondered if on some strange wavelength he knew that his mother was dead. He was Mediterranean-dark, his foreign ancestry clearly apparent. He had a shock of black hair and a pair of furious dark eyes.

Her attention had locked into her nephew. The nurse stopped smiling but Sarah didn’t notice. She looked back at the nurse, her fine-boned face ashen and strained, her facial muscles frozen into a mask. She probably didn’t know, Sarah thought numbly. The nurse wheeled over her nephew’s cot and displayed him with a wide smile. And every minute, every agonising hour of it was etched into her soul. It had been a long night and a devastating dawn. Only the most fierce self-discipline held back her exhaustion. Every muscle in her body was rigid with tension. SARAH stood still as a statue at the glass viewing window.

Bond of Hatred by Lynne Graham