by Lynne Graham
Recalling his own less than presentable youthful track record in the sexual stakes, Lysander contrived not to wince. ‘Boys of that age are a raging bunch of hormones.’
‘Yes, well, unfortunately for me, Todd was a liar too,’ Ophelia confided heavily. ‘He told everyone I’d slept with him. All the girls started calling me a slag.’
‘You’re very beautiful, yineka mou.’ Lithe and bronzed and still damp from his swim, Lysander settled down beside her. ‘I imagine that you inspired a lot of jealousy.’
‘I was badly bullied. When I tried to fight back, the abuse only got worse. That’s why I didn’t stay on at school to do my A-level exams.’
‘I bet the experience made you even stronger.’
‘Yes,’ she admitted.
Lysander pulled her to him. Arms wrapped round her, he eased her down onto powerful thighs. She responded with an enthusiastic hug and kissed his smooth, muscular shoulder, his strong brown throat and a sculpted cheekbone in quick succession. His handsome mouth quirked in the sun-warmed tumble of her golden hair. She was very affectionate and it rarely ended in a platonic embrace. He curved appreciative hands to the firm, rounded swell of her bottom and lifted her, clamping her knees to his waist, to carry her indoors.
‘Talk first?’ Ophelia whispered.
Lysander groaned out loud and brought her into expressive connection with the heat and thrust of the erection moulded by his wet trunks.
Even as she trembled in helpless response, she tipped her head back. ‘Why won’t you tell me anything about yourself?’ she pressed. ‘Why is it such a sensitive subject?’
The suggestion that he might be sensitive affected Lysander much like a red rag waved in front of a bull. ‘Why would it be sensitive? Perhaps I was trying to protect you from embarrassment. The worst thing that happened to me when I was a teenager?’ he repeated in a raw undertone. ‘Seeing my father’s photo in the newspaper when he was knifed to death in prison! He was a drug dealer.’
Ophelia had frozen in shock in his arms. Aristide Metaxis? A drug dealer? What on earth was he talking about?
‘You’re the first person I have told about that, so that should please you. It’s very exclusive information,’ Lysander derided. ‘Virginia prefers to believe that I no longer recall being with my birth parents and I’ve never seen the point of upsetting her by telling her how good my memory of my early years is.’
Ophelia’s stunned silence lasted all the way into the opulent saloon. She fixed questioning eyes on his lean hard-boned face. ‘Birth parents? Are you saying that Virginia and Aristide Metaxis adopted you?’
‘When I was five years old. My natural mother was a cousin of Aristide’s—a minor Metaxis and a drug addict disowned by her family. When she died of an overdose I was four years old and my father tried to use me as a bargaining chip to get money out of her parents. But they didn’t want to know and I was left in his charge to be beaten and neglected.’
Ophelia was staring at him in horror. ‘I had no idea…I swear…I wouldn’t have kept on at you if I’d known. I would’ve minded my own business.’ Pale blue eyes swimming, she was in floods of guilty tears, for she finally understood why he was so reluctant to discuss his past.
Startled but surprisingly touched by that emotional response, Lysander lowered her down onto the edge of the pale wood dining table and soothed her with words of Greek. ‘Why shouldn’t you know? I’m not used to talking about it. I’m grateful that the media never dug up that connection—’
‘I had no idea you were adopted.’
Virginia had witnessed Lysander’s brutal treatment at the hands of his birth father when Aristide had turned man and child away from their home. Virginia had notified the welfare services and had fought to adopt Lysander. Her actions had undoubtedly saved his life—for his violent father had broken almost every bone in Lysander’s body by the time he was five years old. He had required surgery to correct some of the damage.
‘I’ll never forget what she did for me. Many people tried to dissuade Virginia from taking me on. I was an ignorant little tyke, brought up to shoplift and deliver drugs,’ Lysander divulged with a grimace. ‘She could have adopted a baby but for some reason she set her heart on me and Aristide let her have her way.’
‘Thank God,’ Ophelia said fervently, sick inside at the thought of what he must have suffered. ‘My mother was never unkind to me and when one of her boyfriends hit her she put him out of the house and wouldn’t have him back. She did try to be a decent parent.’
Just as Ophelia always tried to be generous, Lysander recognised wryly, wondering how he had ever subscribed to the idea that she was a scheming gold-digger who had known about the second will and who had conspired to deceive him. When he bought her jewellery, she told him how beautiful it was, wore it once to please him, and then put it away in a drawer and promptly forgot about it again. He had never been with a woman like her before. Very much an individual, she defied his expectations and she was always honest in her opinions. There was nothing artificial about her. Yet she also gave him the uneasy feeling that, for all her apparent openness, she still kept part of herself back from him.
In the early hours of the following morning, Ophelia wakened to a familiar pang in her lower stomach that told her that her menstrual cycle was still functioning as efficiently as ever. No, she wasn’t pregnant. Well, she hadn’t really thought that Lysander’s oversight was that likely to result in conception, but even so she couldn’t suppress the pang of disappointment that gripped her. She supposed that she should be grateful that she hadn’t conceived after Lysander had demonstrated his unmistakable aversion to the idea of fatherhood. Only now she found herself wondering whether she could be entirely happy in a marriage without children. Just as quickly a little inner voice whispered that Lysander would probably not stay with her long enough for it to matter.
She tiptoed out of the bathroom because Lysander was a very light sleeper and she loved watching him while he slept. Shards of dawn light were beginning to slant across the bed, illuminating his male body as he sprawled across the mattress with only a sheet tangled round his lean sun-bronzed hips, a muscular, hair-roughened thigh exposed. The black density of his lashes above his high carved cheekbones was given a tough masculine edge by the blue shadow of stubble obscuring his strong jaw line. His sleek power and masculine perfection were very sexy. She had to clench her fingers to resist the urge to stretch out a hand and touch him. Only when he was unaware of her scrutiny did she allow herself to look at him that way.
She had realised that she loved him that afternoon in the taverna when she hadn’t been able to summon up the strength to ask him to leave. But she had no intention of letting her feelings get out of hand as her mother once had. Cathy Stewart had set her heart on Aristide Metaxis and had suffered accordingly. Ophelia was determined not to go down that road, and was equally determined to be realistic. Expecting too much from Lysander would only set her up for a painful disillusionment in the future.
And just how far away was that future? Her skin turned clammy. Keeping the ambience light and friendly would suit Lysander much more than anything heavy. She had practically had to torture him just to find out that he was adopted, but at least she now understood the source of his emotional distance and reserve. He didn’t trust people. He relied on his own judgement.
Yet the past two weeks had been the happiest of her life, as she loved being with him and treasured the special moments. Top of the list had to be the afternoon when he had apologised for accusing her, or Pamela, for having tipped off the paparazzi about their wedding. Enquiries had revealed the culprit to be an office worker employed by his London legal team. That security leak, on top of the previous oversight concerning the walled garden, had proved one strike too many for Lysander’s patience and he had sacked the whole team.
In so many ways, Lysander’s attitude towards her had radically changed. She couldn’t believe how considerate he was being, how much effort he made to ta
lk to her and ensure that she had a good time. He was much too clever and subtle to leave her with the crude impression that he only wanted her for sex. He had weaned himself off his array of phones and computers and also the business news during the hours that she was awake. She knew he often got up to work while she slept, but that didn’t bother her. She was impressed that he was giving her priority over business because he was a workaholic. He really was behaving like a bridegroom on a honeymoon, when she had expected a rather more superficial amount of his attention.
Almost every day they went sailing. He loved the water. He was incredibly energetic and she had been surprised to discover how much she too enjoyed sporting activities. She was learning to dive and waterski and loving the challenge of both pursuits. Her enthusiasm had pleased him almost as much as it surprised him, for he was used to women who were decorative rather than active. Just being with Lysander was exciting.
On the other hand, although he had denied it she was convinced that there had to be a time limit to the duration of his interest in her. He wasn’t going to stay with her for ever—she accepted that, of course she did! A normal marriage? What would Lysander know about normal? He led a life of extremes. Extreme wealth, extreme power, extreme privilege. His track record for long-lasting relationships was nonexistent. He changed women as other men changed their socks.
Right now, at this very moment, she could only count on one truth: Lysander wanted her in his bed, and when he wanted something—anything—he was used to getting it. Her walkout had genuinely shocked him, but she also suspected that the challenge her departure had presented had increased her desirability by a factor of ten. Once Lysander had accepted that his wealth did not influence her, he had probably just offered her what he guessed would most appeal to her. And that had been a normal marriage, she reflected ruefully. But sooner rather than later, he would get bored.
‘I’m not used to seeing you awake this early,’ Lysander murmured lazily, breaking into her troubled reverie.
Ophelia jumped and spun round in a defensive movement.
A vision of bronzed magnificence, Lysander pushed his lean muscular length up against the crumpled pillows and frowned at her. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing’s wrong. In fact—’ Ophelia pasted a big fake smile on her face ‘—I’ve got good news: I’m not pregnant!’
His strong bone structure clenched. ‘How do you know you’re not?’
‘The usual way. I don’t need a test to confirm it. So, isn’t that a major relief?’ Ophelia commented in the same bright voice, while she wondered why he wasn’t responding as she had expected.
In fact, Lysander was wondering much the same thing. Perhaps it was her attitude he found offensive, although that was possibly too strong a term. Inappropriate, that was the word he needed, he decided. He didn’t like the fact that she should be so delighted that she hadn’t conceived his child.
‘If you had discovered that you were carrying my baby, I would have been pleased about it.’
Astonished by that claim, Ophelia studied him in open disbelief. ‘I doubt that. Only a few weeks ago you said you hoped there would be no repercussions—’
‘And you’re celebrating the fact?’ Lysander broke in, his dark, deep drawl harsh in tone as he sprang out of bed.
‘Have you got a problem with that?’ Ophelia didn’t know why he was angry with her and she thought he was being very unfair. She had told him what she thought he wanted to hear and for some peculiar reason she was getting an aggressive response.
‘Yes, I have,’ Lysander said in Greek, hitting the button that opened the doors onto the terrace.
‘Say it in English,’ Ophelia snapped.
‘Theos…I don’t like your attitude!’ Lysander slung at her, throwing her a blistering look of censure from his stunning dark deep-set eyes.
‘You didn’t want a baby. You don’t want to be a father. You made that very clear to me. No woman in her right mind would want to fall pregnant by a guy like you!’ Ophelia shouted back at him, tears prickling her eyes, stark bewilderment attacking her as she saw the anger he couldn’t hide.
She slammed the bathroom door so hard behind her that even Lysander flinched.
He swore under his breath and paid no heed whatsoever to the spectacular sunrise colouring the early morning sky. He drove long, impatient fingers through his sleep-tousled black hair. He couldn’t explain why he felt as he did. She was right: he had never had any desire to become a father. Yet when she had told him she wasn’t pregnant, he had experienced a stab of regret rather than relief.
Somehow he had grown accustomed to the possibility that Ophelia might already be carrying his child. It had not seemed so unlikely a result to Lysander. After all, they were both young and healthy. Recent events had made him gradually reassess his reservations about fatherhood.
Yes, his birth father had been a violent man. But why should he worry that he might have inherited that fatal flaw, when he was an adult who had long since proven his ability to control his temper? No doubt if he put his mind to it, he could be a great father. He might have no impressive example to follow in the role, but he certainly knew what not to do with a child. He was an intelligent man and adaptable. Life by its very nature was a process of constant change, Lysander reminded himself squarely. His broad shoulders lifted and settled in an easy shrug, his tension slowly ebbing away, until it occurred to him that Ophelia might be less keen on his change of heart.
Ophelia was walking along the beach barefoot when Lysander appeared. The minute she saw him heading down the wooded slope towards her she fell still. Seeing him angry had unnerved her, because cool logic was the very core of his character. Wrenched from her contentment and made to feel insecure, she felt furious, bewildered and scared because she didn’t understand why he was so annoyed with her. But none of those emotions prevented her from reacting to his approach with a dry mouth and a fast-beating heart. Casually clad in trousers and a striped silver-and-white shirt that hung loose, Lysander was strikingly handsome.
Lysander saw the anxiety she couldn’t hide and an unsettling feeling nibbled down his spine. He didn’t recognise what it was and he didn’t like it, but he did recognise that it was his responsibility to take care of her and that he did not appear to be doing a very good job.
He shifted shapely hands in a soothing motion that was new to him. ‘I got used to the idea that you might be pregnant and I came round to it.’
Ophelia folded defensive arms. She felt as though, once again, she was being wrong-footed by his having switched sides without warning her. She was also furious that she had made the mistake of telling him what she thought he wanted to hear rather than what she truly felt. ‘How did that happen?’
Lysander rested metallic-bronze eyes on her. ‘I don’t know.’ A shrug was added for extra emphasis. ‘I really don’t know. It just happened.’
‘But you must know! I mean, you were so against it.’
Lysander stared moodily out to sea and shrugged again.
The silence dragged and dragged.
‘You know, sometimes I feel like I need to take a tin-opener to you to get words out of you!’ she exclaimed in frustration.
‘Maybe when…’ Lysander ground to a halt, bold chiselled profile clenched hard in the sunlight ‘…maybe I was concerned that I might take after my birth father and be an inadequate parent.’
Ophelia was so stunned by that amazing admission of potential imperfection and self-doubt that she didn’t know what to say. ‘Oh…’
‘But I only took the time to think about that aspect after I married you. Now I feel confident that I could meet the challenge.’ Lysander expelled his breath in a slow hiss. ‘Although I don’t know how you feel because I never asked you…’
Ophelia hunched her shoulders and studied her feet, bare pink toes digging into the soft sand. She was still in a daze. ‘I—’
‘I would like a child with you.’
Ophelia blinked once and then a
gain, and then looked up. Lysander was watching her intently and for once in her life she couldn’t find words. She was simply bowled over that he should want to have a family with her, for a child struck her as the ultimate commitment. Yet he was a male famed for his aversion to anything that would tie him down. For the first time she honestly believed that her marriage had a proper future and that her husband regarded her as something other than a novelty.
‘Me too,’ she framed inelegantly, her throat thickening.
His ebony brows pleated. ‘But you were delighted that you hadn’t conceived—’
‘Only because I thought you didn’t want a baby.’
His brilliant gaze narrowed. ‘It seems that I shouldn’t believe everything you tell me, hara mou.’
‘Cuts both ways,’ she fenced. ‘You’ve jumped ship too.’
Lysander hauled her slight body close with enthusiasm. She curved into him as faithfully as his skin. ‘Next month I’m throwing a party in London to introduce you to my friends.’
‘London?’ Unwittingly, her eyes shone like stars. ‘So I’ll be able to travel from there to Madrigal Court and get back to my garden.’
‘You miss it?’
Ophelia gave him a guilty nod. ‘It’s so beautiful here and the weather is wonderful and I’m happy, really I am, but—’
‘You’re homesick.’ Lysander required no crystal ball to work that out. Listening in on the rather one-sided chats she’d enjoyed with Haddock the parrot on the phone several times a week had proved informative, and she also checked with the horticulturist he had hired on the progress of her garden even more frequently. She seemed to have a personal acquaintance with every single plant she grew. He might have taken her away from Madrigal Court, but her heart and her spirit still lived there.
‘Maybe just a little.’
