Greek Tycoon's Disobedient Bride

by Lynne Graham

  ‘Ordinary marriages don’t have a limit. Are you staying?’ Razor-edged impatience was slicing through Lysander, narrowing his keen gaze and sharpening the angle of his fabulous cheekbones. He had no interest in discussing the finer details, he simply wanted an answer from her: yes or no.

  With very little thought and even less encouragement, Ophelia could have cheerfully asked Lysander another twenty questions at least. Intense curiosity had attacked her. A normal marriage? He had knocked her every expectation flat and startled her with that admission. What had brought about his change of heart? When had he decided he wasn’t prepared to let her go? Could he pinpoint the exact moment and what had led to it? What did he find most attractive about her? Least attractive? What made her different from the legions of women who had preceded her? In short, why her and not someone else more beautiful, more accomplished, more his style? Because she wasn’t his style, was she? She pushed that sudden uneasy reflection to the back of her mind while acknowledging that more questions would exasperate him. For whatever reasons, Lysander had decided that he wanted to retain her as a wife.

  ‘Ophelia…’ Lysander prompted in a low growl.

  All of a sudden happiness was surging through Ophelia like a river breaking its banks to forge a new course and it frightened her. An ordinary marriage with a guy who was anything but ordinary. He was gorgeous and charismatic and unpredictable. He filled her every thought, influenced her every mood. In the space of three days he had taught her that he was incredible in bed and a world-class disaster as a husband. Cold and distant, he had the power to destroy a vulnerable woman, since there was nothing crueller than indifference. His only passion was sexual, while her emotions ran much deeper. Love had made a victim of her mother and she didn’t want to join that club. On the other hand, her late parent had not been married to the object of her affections.

  Lysander had moved closer. He brushed long brown fingers through the tangle of glossy blonde hair tumbling over her slight, bare shoulder. Her skin was white and as fine in grain as porcelain against his. The faint evocative aroma of soap clung to her. He found it incredibly sexy. He watched her breathing quicken, her narrow chest rise and fall as she became aware of his touch and proximity. A tremor ran through her reed-slender body. Her long gold-tipped brown lashes concealed her amazing eyes, but the delicate flush of colour on her cheeks told him all he needed to know.

  ‘You are already mine,’ Lysander husked with raw satisfaction.

  For the first time in several unbearably tense minutes Ophelia allowed herself to look at him. Her defiant gaze locked to his hard, handsome features. ‘No…’

  ‘Liar,’ Lysander fielded, his dark deep accented drawl making a meal of the contradiction. ‘You’re on fire for me, yineka mou.’

  Ophelia snatched in a hunted breath. He had her cornered. The atmosphere sizzled. Oxygen seemed to be in short supply. A hum of erotic awareness was pulsing through her and she was helpless in its hold. His hot, hungry scrutiny held her with spellbinding force. He loosened the towel with assured hands. A slight sound escaped her as the fabric fell at her feet.

  ‘I love looking at you,’ Lysander murmured thickly, his attention raking over the sweet curve of her pouting breasts, the quivering tips of her delicate nipples and the pale silky curls that screened her femininity.

  His lean, strong face was intent as he lifted her onto the bed and arranged her slim body for his visual pleasure. Excitement and shame engulfed her, but still she couldn’t break free. She thought of the bag she had packed, the proud promises she had made to herself, the independent spirit she had believed she could rely on in any crisis. And yet, in the space of a moment, everything had changed because he had made her an offer she hadn’t the strength to refuse, even though staying was most probably a mistake. After all, she longed to be loved, while all he required from her was sex…

  CHAPTER NINE

  LYSANDER studied Ophelia, sensing a lingering tension that went beyond her natural modesty. Her beautiful crystalline eyes still had a wary light that challenged him.

  Her heart was banging like a drum inside her ribcage. She reached up and pulled him down to her, wanting his stubborn sensual mouth so much she burned for it. The taste of him was dynamite to her senses. She loved his kiss, the feel of his body against hers. Her fingers delved into his ebony hair and clenched possessively in the springy strands.

  He lowered his lips to the swollen crests of her small, full breasts and she loosed a stifled moan. Lying naked while he was still clothed made her feel brazen and yet there was an urgency in her, a newly fierce craving for him that she couldn’t restrain. Belatedly she appreciated how much strength it had taken to walk away from him and how overpowering was the sense of reprieve rolling through her in a cathartic surge. With impatient hands she wrenched at his shirt.

  ‘No…’ Loosing a husky sound of amusement, Lysander trapped her hands in his and held them captive above her head. ‘I like your enthusiasm, but this is my show. I’m about to drive you out of your mind with pleasure and prove that business doesn’t always come first.’

  ‘You’re very confident,’ she whispered.

  ‘Always.’

  Ophelia connected with his golden bronze eyes and awareness prickled over her entire skin surface, wild anticipation snaking through her nerve endings. He bent his handsome dark head to her and she shivered. He kissed her just once; the slow, deep stroke and delve of his tongue was intensely erotic. It didn’t begin to satisfy her craving, only notched up her longing a little higher.

  He traced a tantalising path of seduction from her delicate collarbone to the rigid pointed buds of her nipples. A tight ache stirred in her pelvis and she shifted restively. He took his time, laving the straining tips of her breasts with his tongue and grazing them with his thumbs and the edge of his teeth to a volcanic level of sensitivity that left her biting back tiny moans.

  A phone rang. They both jerked into stillness. Lysander dug his mobile out of his trouser pocket. A slim hand closed into the front of his shirt. ‘No…’

  Sleek ebony brows pleating, he stared down at her. ‘But—’

  ‘Don’t answer it.’

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘Is this a normal marriage?’ Her blue eyes were bright as sapphires, her intonation accusing.

  ‘Didn’t I say it was?’

  Before he could guess what she intended, Ophelia snatched the phone out of his hand. Switching it off, she tossed it onto the dresser and then waited, wide-eyed, for the fallout.

  Lysander was stunned by her daring. ‘Theos…’ he began.

  Ophelia curved slender fingers to his blue-shadowed jaw line. Metallic-bronze eyes fringed by dense black lashes surveyed her with incredulous force. He was so beautiful, she could hardly breathe for wanting him.

  ‘Kiss me…’ she begged.

  Lysander almost reached for his phone, just to show her that she could not do what she had just done and expect immunity. But the shy desire in her eyes and the inviting curve of her peach-soft lower lip concentrated his thoughts on more immediate necessities.

  ‘You need to learn my language. Filise me.’ He translated her request into Greek and waited until she had obediently repeated it. Only then did he respond to her request by crushing her soft mouth under his and kissing her until the blood drummed at an insane rate through her veins.

  Desire seemed to punch a hole through Ophelia’s lungs and breathing became a challenge as he explored the moist, delicate flesh between her legs. He pushed her hands away when she tried to pull him down to her and pressed his lips to the taut quivering softness of her belly.

  ‘No, you can’t,’ she mumbled in shock when she realised his objective as he splayed her slim thighs.

  Undaunted, Lysander just laughed and called her a little prude, and went right on ahead as if she hadn’t spoken. Nothing could have prepared her for that level of intimacy. Intense reaction engulfed her from his first carnal touch. Terrified that the low throaty moan
s escaping her might be heard beyond the room, she forced her face in a pillow and bit it while her hand closed round the brass bars of the bed and clenched there. Her frantic response pushed her out of control very fast. In an effort to contain the fevered need he had awakened, she dug her slim hips into the mattress. If he hadn’t held her steady she would have writhed. The irresistible charge of sensation forced her quivering, wildly aroused body to the edge of torment. Excitement surged to an unbearable peak and then the sweet melting pleasure consumed her from inside out. So powerful was that release that it shredded her awareness of her surroundings for long, timeless moments of bliss in the aftermath.

  Lysander removed his hand from her parted lips and smiled down at her. ‘Noisy little thing,’ he teased, long fingers surprisingly gentle on her cheeks, which were damp with tears. ‘I love your passion. I love watching you lose control and knowing that I did it, hara mou.’

  Her blue eyes open and vulnerable from the lingering sensual shock of her experience, Ophelia stared up at his lean dark face and she revelled in his mesmerising smile and unusual warmth. She felt amazingly close to him. The mortification that had threatened to overpower her at her loss of control evaporated. So, she had been a little too vocal in her appreciation and tears had come to her eyes at the height of ecstasy. In her opinion anything that had the power to make him look at her like that could not be wrong.

  Lysander rolled back off the bed and began to shed his clothes. ‘Tomorrow we will spend all day in bed. No flights to catch, no interruptions—’

  ‘No phone calls,’ she slotted in, lazily enjoying the sight of the sleek muscled perfection of his strong, hard body. He skimmed off his boxers revealing the thick jutting length of his manhood.

  ‘My wife is becoming sexually aware,’ Lysander mocked as he saw her stare and noted the colour unfurling like flags in her cheeks.

  He pulled her into his arms and, watching her steadily, brought her hand down to his bold erection. Now she learned what he liked and it was an exercise that she found wildly arousing as well as informative; the afternoon hours slipped inexorably away and neither of them noticed the passage of time.

  Mid-evening, as Ophelia emerged from the bathroom Lysander was on the phone. She was in a bodily daze of satiation, for he had taken her again and again with an insistent passion that had been as exhilarating as it was intense. Now she found that she headed for him with the instinct of a homing pigeon. She leant up against him, driven by an ongoing need for physical contact that was new to her. Disconcerted by that dangerous instinct to stay close to him, she tensed in rejection of the prompting and began to pull away from him again.

  Bronze eyes slumberous, Lysander curved a confident arm round her to keep her where she was. ‘We’re dining at the taverna.’

  ‘The taverna?’ she gasped in sudden dismay at the prospect of descending the stairs so many hours after Lysander had come up them. ‘Can we just slip out the back way—?’

  ‘Our transport is waiting at the front of the building.’

  Ophelia winced. ‘I know it’s silly but…everybody’ll know what we’ve been doing!’

  ‘We could just have been talking…’ Lysander turned to survey the well-used bed with its tossed and crumpled sheets and an unholy masculine grin slashed his handsome mouth. ‘Possibly not. But what else do newly married couples do? Why should that embarrass you?’

  In fact, when they arrived at the taverna, they were ushered straight out to a private terrace overlooking the beach where they dined by candlelight in perfect privacy. The food was divine and cooked by Lysander’s chef, who also owned the taverna. Lysander, when he made the effort and switched off his phone, was incredibly good company. But, try as she might, a certain matter still nudged at Ophelia’s newfound contentment and made her uncomfortable.

  ‘I have just one more question about that perfume episode this morning,’ Ophelia informed him in a rush. ‘No, don’t look like that—I mean, I can’t help being curious. Does one of your employees wear that perfume?’

  Lysander expelled his breath in a long-suffering hiss. ‘My mother wears it.’

  Ophelia was very much taken aback by that reply for it was the very last answer she had expected. His mother? She felt that it should have occurred to her that he might have family he wanted to see in Athens before he flew out to Kastros.

  ‘Virginia likes to hug,’ Lysander added, as if such displays of affection could only be forced on him and tolerated in the name of politeness.

  ‘Didn’t your mother want to meet me?’ That brash question leapt straight off Ophelia’s tongue before she could think better of it. The slight tensing of his strong bone structure warned her that she had the light touch of an elephant in the field of tact.

  ‘She was reluctant to intrude on our honeymoon,’ he responded casually.

  He was a terrifyingly good dissembler, Ophelia conceded with a sinking heart. He met her gaze levelly, employed just the right note of dispassion and betrayed not an ounce of unease. Yet she wasn’t fooled. Somehow—and she genuinely didn’t know how—she sensed that, clever as he was, he was telling her a whopping fib and most probably doing so out of pity. Evidently his mother—her own mother’s former best friend, Virginia—had no wish to meet her son’s bride.

  Was it an aversion based on Ophelia’s parentage? If it was simply the secret wedding that had contrived to cause offence, a few weeks might make all the difference to the older woman’s outlook. On the other hand, the alternative—a mother-in-law who totally hated her sight unseen—struck Ophelia as too awful to contemplate. It also reminded her of another necessity she had yet to tackle.

  ‘I’ve just about wrecked your car,’ Ophelia admitted.

  ‘And to manage that within two hundred yards of the garage is pretty good going.’ Lysander lounged back in his chair like a sleek black panther ready to pounce. ‘You drive like you’re on a race track.’

  Ophelia went from being anxious and apologetic to stiff and bristling with annoyance. ‘No, I do not!’

  Lysander planted a strong hand over hers to prevent her from rising from her chair. His brilliant dark gaze was hard, his jaw line squared. ‘I watched you leave. You were going too fast for someone in an unfamiliar car. You also drove on after the collision, even though the car was damaged. That was a really dangerous decision.’

  ‘Are you quite finished?’ Ophelia prompted tartly.

  ‘Ne—yes. Next time you get into a driving seat, you’ll be much more careful,’ Lysander forecast, lifting her hand and pressing a kiss to her palm in a graceful movement that sharply disconcerted her. ‘Naturally I don’t want you to get hurt.’

  Ophelia swallowed hard. ‘You didn’t even ask me how the accident happened.’

  ‘Enlighten me.’

  Her blue eyes anything but submissive after his criticism, Ophelia lifted her chin. ‘I am proud to say that I single-handedly saved the lives of three goats.’

  His elegant ebony brows pleated.

  ‘The goats were on the road and it was them or the car,’ Ophelia delivered the punchline.

  Reluctant amusement lit his metallic eyes. ‘Very funny—but you could have been injured and that isn’t funny, hara mou.’

  Lysander walked Ophelia out through the bar. Their departure was a slow process, for many of the taverna’s diners were eager to speak to him and offer both of them their good wishes. Lysander was held in considerable esteem. He introduced her as his wife as naturally as though he had been doing it for years. His usual formality and reserve were strikingly absent from his manner. It was yet another intriguing glimpse, she registered, of the deeply complex and private man who lay beneath the cold, tough façade that had made him a legend in the business world.

  ‘The worst thing that ever happened to me as a teenager?’ Lysander was proud of the reality that he didn’t grimace. He wanted his marriage to work and when he put his mind to any objective he was single-minded, thorough and very practical.

  ‘I just f
eel so close to you when you talk to me.’ Ophelia gave him a huge beaming smile that lit up her heart-shaped face like Christmas lights. She was discovering that it took endless digging and encouragement to get Lysander to tell her anything about his past. It was as if he had locked up his entire childhood and thrown away the key of memory.

  ‘The worst thing…’ Lysander could not think of one single thing that he wanted to share with her. ‘Why don’t you go first?’

  Two weeks on Kastros with Ophelia had taught him that she liked to talk. She liked to talk…a lot, and sometimes she liked to talk about the sort of stuff that Lysander would have happily taken to the grave with him. He had treated other women’s conversation as background prattle to which he rarely, if ever, responded. No woman had complained until now, when Ophelia fixed wounded eyes on him and accused him of not being interested in her.

  A fast learner, he now knew that if he didn’t respond or, even worse, didn’t listen, Ophelia would shut up, look unhappy and retreat into herself in a way that he had discovered he absolutely couldn’t stand. She wasn’t sulking when she did it and she certainly wasn’t having a tantrum, but whatever the label he found it intolerable. Disappointment stifled her natural exuberance and made him feel like the sort of guy who kicked puppies. If, however, he gave her the right sort of attention, she glowed and displayed promising signs of turning into the perfect wife. Attentive and sexy, cute and entertaining, very low maintenance, he acknowledged with rich masculine satisfaction. In his opinion, marriage was simply a matter of skilled relationship management.

  Clad in a purple polka-dot bikini, Ophelia lay back in the shade, watching the sunlight dance across the glittering surface of the turquoise sea. It was a glorious day. The sundeck on Lysander’s magnificent yacht was wonderfully comfortable. She stifled a sigh as she registered that, once again, Lysander had deftly sidestepped her invitation to talk.

  ‘When I went to live with my grandmother, she sent me to a posh co-ed school,’ she said ruefully. ‘I didn’t fit in so I wasn’t very popular. I fell for a boy in upper sixth. I was ecstatic when he asked me out. But he dumped me after our first date because I wouldn’t have sex with him.’