Her Enemy, Her Lover (The Ladies of The Burling School Book 1) Read online

  Her Enemy, Her Lover

  By Elizabeth Lennox

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  Copyright 2020

  ISBN13: 9781950451142

  All rights reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Any duplication of this material, either electronic or any other format, either currently in use or a future invention, is strictly prohibited, unless you have the direct consent of the author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from “Awakened by the Powerful Sheik”

  Chapter 1

  Lana stared blankly at the complex documents spread out chaotically over the big, wooden desk. Contracts and invoices, complaints and lawsuits, requests for…something…and even pages that looked like they might be official or legal. Those were the papers that scared her the most. Everything in front of her seemed extremely complicated and she had no idea where one issue ended and another began.

  At the moment, the door to her father’s big, pandemonium-filled office was closed, a heavy silence weighing over the room. Lana slowly dropped her head into her hands, hoping that divine intervention would point out what she needed to focus on first. And if that could happen, perhaps that divine intervention could also give her clues as to how she might accomplish the high priority tasks.

  Unfortunately, the heavenly message wasn’t forthcoming and she sighed again, but this time, frustration tinged the increasing resentment. “Why did you leave me, Father?” she whispered to the silence. “Why couldn’t you have taken better care of yourself?”

  Lana’s father, Higar Kosta, had been a wonderful man, filled with love and laughter, always ready to listen when Lana had a problem or just needed a hug. But Higar preferred a good cigar with a glass of scotch over sweating in a gym. And goodness, he’d loved his food! The man was renowned all over the city for his elaborate dinner parties! Maybe, if he’d stopped eating so much rich food and exercised a few times a week instead of sitting around smoking those horrible cigars, then he might still be here now. He would still be taking care of all of these mind-boggling corporate details and she could be back in her light-filled art studio, doing what she loved instead of sitting here in this depressing office alone, panicked, and overwhelmed.

  But her father had passed away two months ago.

  Maybe, she should call up her best friends from school, Tamara and Willow. The three of them had met at The Burling School on the outskirts of London, and, after initially expecting to hate them, they’d quickly become her closest friends. The three of them had shared a room for many gloriously wonderful, laughter and tear-filled years.

  Lana was aware that most people thought of her as flighty and irresponsible. But she wasn’t! Lana came across as flighty only because she lived in her head a bit more than the rest of the world. As a painter, Lana saw things differently, which was also why her paintings sold so well. Every year, the value of her paintings increased. She was financially secure and understood the international markets better than most artists.

  But this…! She shifted several of the papers around on the previously polished desk, not sure where to even start. Lana couldn’t keep relying on advice from Tamara, who had a degree in international business and knew how businesses should work. The woman knew the world and, even though the world might think that she was a ditzy party girl, that was a very deliberate image that Tamara created and cultivated. The images that appeared in the tabloids were there for a very specific purpose.

  Unfortunately, Tamara had her own problems and Lana didn’t want to bother her. Willow was…well, normally Willow would be in her craft studio, working with her team to get ready for the next holiday season’s…stuff…whatever it was that Willow might create next. But Willow had her own worries as well.

  “Cassandra!” Lana whispered into the silence of the office. Standing up, Lana walked over to the window and looked out, not really seeing the beautiful ocean or the sunshine as it sparkled off the water. “Cassandra might be able to get me out of this mess!” she muttered. There’d been that article recently about an especially tricky legal case that Cassy had won!

  Cassy was gorgeous in a pinup girl kind of way. She was smart too! But…Lana and Cassy weren’t really friends. They were more…acquaintances. Lana and Cassy had enjoyed a few moments of camaraderie during their years at The Burling School, but they weren’t bosom buddies. Unfortunately, Lana hadn’t ever taken the time to really get to know Cassy – or Cassy’s roommates, Naya and Ella. Not really. Oh, the six of them had snuck into the dining hall occasionally for a late night ice cream raid. But she’d been too close with Tamara and Willow and hadn’t bothered trying to befriend anyone else.

  “Not an option,” Lana turned resignedly away from the window to look at the desk again.

  “What a mess,” she groaned, pushing her hands through her already mussed brown hair, trying to figure out where to start. Her father’s business was shockingly complex and, from some of the documents she’d read, wasn’t in particularly good shape.

  Every morning when she contemplated coming into this office, she felt her chest constrict followed by a vicious bout of nausea. Not only because she had her own issues to handle with her personal business, but because her father’s empire was too convoluted. Too vast.

  Thankfully, as an artist, Lana’s business had done well enough over the last few years that she hadn’t needed to accept money from her father since graduating from college. Her paintings were meticulous and beautiful. Every canvas she released into the world sold almost immediately.

  Unfortunately, the sales of her paintings couldn’t cover the expenses of her father’s business. At least, not all of the financial issues.

  “Having problems?” a deep voice asked, interrupting her pity party.

  Lana looked up, startled. But not nearly as startled as she was when she focused on the tall, terrifying silhouette lurking in the doorway.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded, leaping to her feet as he pushed away from the doorframe and stepped arrogantly into her father’s office. The door closed behind him with a soft thud, the sound ominously dreadful. It might have been better if he’d slammed it. That would have more perfectly matched the sick feeling forming in the pit of her stomach.

  “I’m here to see if you need help.” His sharp gaze took in the desk piled with papers and files, contracts and reports. “Looks to me as if you’re drowning.”

  Lana stared up at the formidable man, refusing to let her fear show. Christoph Anastas. The few times she’d met him at the various social gatherings around Athens she had learned he was not a man to ignore. He was one of the few businessmen in Greece, all over the world actually, that made other corporate leaders quake in their thousand
dollar shoes! Christoph Anastas was beyond powerful. Just speaking his name sparked reverential silence in most business circles.

  Ice, she thought with an internal shiver. His eyes were the color of ice. Cold. Heartless. Merciless. Rivers of ice that ripped open mountains, tore down boulders, and reframed the earth. He was a glacier. Just a glance from him could ruin a business, alter financial markets, and shift the paths of currencies.

  She’d hated him since they’d been introduced several years ago. Within the space of a single dance, she’d begun to grasp his power.

  Even from across the ballroom, the weight of his gaze left her feeling naked. Raw. Vulnerable. When he’d touched her that one time, her skin had felt singed. An odd reaction when his eyes seemed so cold. She’d immediately wanted to pull her hands away. To run from him.

  But Lana prided herself on facing problems head on. Never running from them, never cowering. After the initial shock of being in his arms, she’d straightened her spine and glared up at him, refusing to let him feel her trembling! Not him! Not her father’s enemy! Show no weakness, Higar Kosta had always told her. “Use your weaknesses to gain power! Aspire to strength.” He’d preached that mantra as far back as she could remember.

  In the meantime, Lana refused to let Christoph see how overwhelmed she was. Her chin went up a notch, and she crossed her arms. “Did you come here just to annoy me?” Lana demanded. “Or did you have a more useful purpose?”

  The man had the audacity to sit down in one of the chairs on the opposite side of her father’s big desk. He even unbuttoned his immaculate suit jacket, stretching his long legs out in front of him before he looked up at her. Was he laughing at her? Was he mocking her?!

  Oh, her hatred for this man smoldered in her chest! There were few people in this world who could engender those kinds of emotions in Lana. Her friends from boarding school, Tamara and Willow, had been two of them…initially. They’d hated each other upon their first meeting all those years ago. But now she loved them more than if they were her own sisters. The three of them understood each other. They fought for each other and protected each other’s secrets.

  This man most likely had lots of secrets, she thought. And if she could ever discover any of them, she’d reveal those secrets to the world. Just looking into his eyes made her want to take him down several pegs. No, not several pegs. She wanted to crush him under her heel. She wanted to beat him at whatever game he was playing.

  And Lana had no doubt that the man was initiating a game. Cat and mouse. Okay, maybe lion and mouse, she corrected. Christoph Anastas was much bigger and significantly more powerful than a house cat.

  But Lana refused to be a timid mouse! She was going to be…well, at least a cheetah.

  Okay, ridiculous mental conversation, she acknowledged and glared at him from across the huge desk.

  “I understand that you’ve inherited your father’s businesses,” he started off conversationally.

  The horrible grief of her father’s passing still haunted her and Lana suppressed a sigh at the stab of sadness. She was a cheetah, she reminded herself. A sleek, powerful cheetah. “Why would that matter to you?” Her hand slipped self-consciously over her too-rounded hips, reminding herself that she’d planned to go for a run after work. Of course, she’d planned on going for that run this morning, but had instead rolled over in her warm bed, unable to face a run first thing in the morning.

  His thin lips shifted slightly, but his face was all angles and planes, harsh lines and boogey-man intensity…the smile didn’t warm his features in any way.

  “Lana, I know you’re in over your head. Your father’s businesses were far-ranging and incredibly complex.”

  That was true, but Lana wasn’t going to admit it. Leaning forward, she clasped her hands in front of her and looked directly into his ice-blue eyes. “Christoph, you’re being a patronizing ass.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, then threw back his head, roaring with laughter.

  For some reason, the sound made her heart pound. She hid her insane reaction by crossing her arms more tightly over her chest and waited.

  When he looked up at her this time, there seemed to be a glimmer in his icy eyes. A glimmer of…ice? Or heat?

  “That’s very good, my dear. No one has ever had the courage to call me out in such a way. Which,” he leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees, “makes my offer even more enticing.”

  Lana tensed, knowing with absolute certainty that she wasn’t going to like his offer. An easy supposition, since she’d never liked anything he’d ever said to her. “I can’t sell the business to you. Even if I could, I wouldn’t. Not to you,” she said flatly.

  His grin widened for a brief moment. And did those eyes of his glance downward? Lana wasn’t sure because it was only a brief flash, then he looked earnestly into her hazel eyes. “I don’t want to buy any of your businesses. I know that you can’t legally do that. The terms of your father’s will were very clear.”

  Wait – he knew about the terms of her father’s will? Her mouth fell open in shock. “How…how do you know what my father’s will says?” she squeaked, impressed in spite of herself. Her father’s will was private. No one but her father’s attorney and Lana knew about what her father had demanded of her.

  “It doesn’t matter how I know,” he replied smoothly and stood up, moving around to the other side of the desk. Immediately, Lana stepped away, not wanting him to loom over her.

  “I know that your father’s will declared that you couldn’t sell off any part of the business. Everything he owned, right up until the point of his unexpected heart attack, will go to your husband.”

  She wanted to step back again, but seeing him this close reminded her of those few minutes in his arms, swaying gently to the music. But she hadn’t heard the music that night. Every ounce of her attention had been focused on Christoph and trying not to let him see how intensely confused she’d felt when he held her like that.

  Taking a deep breath, she shook her head, trying to focus. Those blasted memories were…warped! They’d magnified over time. There was no way she was accurately remembering her body’s reaction because she would never betray her father by…reacting like that to his foremost enemy!

  So what if she’d had a few erotic dreams featuring that dance? He’d never know about those dreams! Ever!

  Her chin lifted slightly in an attempt to appear more confident than she felt. “Okay, so you know private details of my father’s sexist will. Should I be impressed that you have super-secret spies?” She shrugged slightly.

  He buttoned his suit coat as he looked down at her, his icy eyes not revealing anything.

  “I want to be your husband.” He pulled a card out of his pocket, wrote something on the back, then laid the card on the edge of her desk. “This is my private number. Call me when you’re ready to talk.”

  And with those astonishing words, he left her with her mouth hanging open and no pithy response to toss back at him.

  Chapter 2

  Christoph stepped into his waiting limousine, barely acknowledging his driver as he contemplated the lovely Lana’s response to his unconventional proposal.

  She was just as shockingly beautiful today as he remembered. Dancing with her, holding her in his arms, had been a startling experience. Over the years, he’d had mistresses that were more classically beautiful. Some that had been exotic. But there was something about Lana that enticed him. She was startlingly lovely, and there was a softness to her. A softness that called to him, lured him, made him ache to hold and claim her. He hadn’t seen her since that night, although he’d followed her career. But now, thinking about her full, trembling lips and her glorious, dark curls, he realized that there was a maturity about her now. And that maturity made her even more desirable.

  That one dance had told him so much. He’d seen her across the ballroom and had been immediately drawn to her. When he’d discovered that she was the daughter of his biggest rival, that onl
y made her more enticing. Higar was a good businessman. He’d worked hard over the past several decades and he had been smart, hiring good people to run the various businesses in his corporate empire. But Higar had tried to crush Christoph from their first business competition. Christoph had come out on top by buying up the company they had both been trying to acquire, which had become a sore spot that had never healed. The fact that Christoph had won at half the price that Higar had spent had only added salt to the wound. In the end, Higar had lost a lot of money as well as the target company. At the time, Christoph had just put the man’s losses up as the cost of doing business. But Higar had gone after more of Christoph’s targets. Never winning, but continuing to try and losing every time. Which only made the man more resentful.

  Unfortunately, the poor man had passed away from a massive heart attack two months ago, which meant that the older man hadn’t ever found the satisfaction he craved. Beating Christoph at business was the one thing that Higar had vowed to do, but had never accomplished.

  Two years ago, Christoph had been drawn to Lana, wanting her in his bed. But because of her relationship to her father, he’d stayed away, respecting the man’s family. Higar would take any pursuit of his daughter as an insult and would have poisoned Lana’s mind against Christoph.

  Now, the man was gone, which truly was a tragedy, but Christoph still wanted Lana, in addition to several of the man’s businesses. The businesses would fit in with his own corporate entities extremely well. After learning of the restrictions Kosta had placed on his businesses through his will, Christoph had determined that he could win the lovely woman into his bed, as well as absorb the man’s companies into his own corporate umbrella. If some of his critics labeled him a bastard for his cold-hearted planning…well, he’d been called worse.

  One thing bothered him though. Christoph didn’t fully understand his attraction to Lana. She was stunningly beautiful, but many of the women in his life had been striking in various ways. Lana’s dark curls framed a face that was lightly covered with freckles. Her dark eyes against that soft skin contrasting with the freckles just…he loved those freckles. And that spunk! Damn, he liked her spunk! Christoph had always enjoyed the women that passed through his life, but for the first time, he actually liked and respected a woman he was attracted to. Another mystery was how much he liked the fact that she wasn’t intimidated by him. He suspected that the woman was pretty overwhelmed by the issues surrounding the takeover of her father’s businesses. But Lana wasn’t backing down and that feistiness, her independence…it was both a turn-on and a challenge.