Her chin defiantly angled, Maddie slid into the passenger seat, her heart jolting as the door at her side closed with force. If there was the slightest chance that he could carry through with that threat then she owed it to her parents to fall in with his wishes.
For now. Only for now, she promised herself.
The drive to the nearby small market town was accomplished in tight silence. Unlike her journey with the taxi driver, Maddie had no need to give Dimitri directions through the tangle of narrow lanes. The Greek drove and navigated as he did everything else—exceptionally well—and he would have exact recall of the tortuous route between her home and the hotel he’d been using just over three months ago, when he’d embarked on his sneaky campaign to persuade her to marry him.
Unwilling to give headroom to the thought of how absurdly gullible and bird-brained she’d been back then, Maddie clamped her teeth together until her jaw ached, and made herself think of the present.
It was blistering her mind. His totally unexpected presence. His weird threats. If she, loving him with a depth that had shaken her, could take the sensible course, end their marriage and walk away then why couldn’t he? It would be so much easier for him, given that he had never loved her in the first place, had seen her only as a walking, fertile womb.
Her smooth brow furrowed as she tried to find an answer. She had genuinely believed that, knowing her decision to end their marriage, he would have shrugged those impressive shoulders and consigned her to history. A swift divorce—made simpler because of her firm intention not to ask for any financial settlement—followed smartly by a marriage to another such as she—a gullible little nobody from an ordinary, fairly simple but prolific family. The sort who wouldn’t know how to stand her ground against the mighty Kouvaris empire when she found herself in the divorce courts, her child given into his custody.
Her face flamed with a mixture of outraged pride and humiliation. She should have cottoned on—at least suspected his motives all those months ago. It had been there right under her nose if only her starstruck eyes had been able to see. His questions, which had given him the information that she came from undeniably fecund stock. Their—what had his snooty aunt called it?—their hole-and-corner wedding. And the lack of anything as romantic as a honeymoon. Not that she’d minded that. She had assured him that she understood perfectly when he’d pleaded that pressure of work meant he had to be in Athens, soppily saying that where he was was where she wanted to be. She’d been too blinded by love to read anything into any of it.
Her hands clenched, her fingernails cutting into her palms. Looking back, she just didn’t believe herself! How could she have thought, for one insane moment, that a man as knock-’em-dead gorgeous, charismatic, sophisticated, rotten rich and frighteningly clever would want to tie himself for life to an ordinary-looking, low-status nobody like her?
As he brought the car to a halt in front of the small town’s only hotel Maddie made herself a set-in-concrete promise. If her devious husband tried to make her change her mind, because he’d decided he didn’t want the delay of even a quickie divorce and then the tiresome chore of hunting down another sucker, with the tedious expenditure of all that seemingly effortless charm to get her to marry him, and had decided he’d be better off sticking to the brood mare he’d got—which, thinking about it, was the only motive possible for him being here at all—then she would resist all his attempts to her very last breath!
With scarcely controlled impatience Dimitri fisted the ignition key and exited the car, reaching the passenger side in a handful of power-driven strides.
He wrenched the car door open and ordered, ‘Come.’ He had to use every last ounce of self-control to stop himself from hauling her to her feet. In the space of twenty-four hours his wife had changed from a voluptuous, adoring wanton to an ice-cold stranger. And he didn’t know why—although he had strong and utterly distasteful suspicions. It was driving him insane. And no one, not even his wife, would be allowed to do that!
As if she sensed the stirrings of his volcanic anger, Maddie moved. Slowly swinging her feet to the ground, she exited the car and stood, facing the timber-framed façade of the hotel. The light from above the main entrance illuminated her. She was wearing jeans and a lightweight jacket, a leather bag clutched in one small hand, a mutinous twist to her mouth.
Dimitri cupped an unforgiving hand beneath her elbow and headed to the main door. If he bent his head he could tease the mutiny away, feel those lush lips tremble beneath his own, flower for him. The gateway to paradise. She liked sex, more than met his demands. But no way would he oblige—now, or in the foreseeable future. That would be part of her punishment!
No, the sex hadn’t been feigned. Everything else in their marriage had been, though. Starting with her wedding vows, uttered with her eye on the main chance. He was ninety per cent sure of it. Three months of her life in exchange for a settlement that would keep her in luxury for the rest of her days. Logically, it was the only scenario that remotely fitted in with what she had done—and, heaven knew, he’d racked his brain to try and find another, coming up with a big fat zero.
She would not do that to him!
He removed his hand from her arm as if even that connection was poisonous.
Maddie shivered as the heavy main door swung closed behind them and he strode away from her. She hadn’t wanted this confrontation; it had been forced on her. No wonder her nerves were going haywire, adrenalin pumping through her veins. He was rigid with anger, she recognised. And she could understand it.
He was a busy man, a driven man. Amanda had told her, in one of her long, chatty phone calls after Maddie had returned to England that first time, that Dimitri Kouvaris had pumped her for information. About her, about her family. Stupidly, the knowledge had excited her, made her feel almost special. How he would hate the waste of his time. Not that it had taken much of that, she recalled with a sickening lurch of her tummy. Five days later, after having gathered the necessary information from her unsuspecting friend, he had charmed her into a state of besotted adoration with very little effort.
No, he would view the three months of their marriage as an unforgivable waste of his time and effort. And it would have taken an effort on his part to treat a peasant as if she were a princess, she decided with a resurgent cynicism. As for the other—the sex—trying to get her pregnant at every opportunity with no result, while thinking of the time when he could get rid of the wife he didn’t love and marry the woman he did love, must have infuriated him.
He’d hidden it well. She had to give him that.
But now it was showing.
Thing was, was she brave enough to handle it? Discover what he meant by those threats? And the answer was, she had to be.
At this late hour the hotel foyer was deserted, the lights low, adding another layer of atmosphere to the heavy exposed beams and oak panelling of what had once been a coaching inn. The night porter had emerged from his cubby-hole behind Reception and was handing Dimitri a key. A few inaudible words were exchanged, and then he swung round on his heels and faced her, his stance disdainful, coated in ice.
Sucking in her breath, she obeyed his curtly expressive hand gesture and made herself move towards him, her head high. True, she wasn’t here of her own free will—but she’d be damned if she was going to let herself down and act like a victim.
‘We can talk in the lounge.’ Her voice as firm as she could make it, Maddie gestured towards a partly open door. The steel grille was lowered over the bar, but there were comfy lounge chairs grouped around the tables, and the light from the foyer gave sufficient illumination.
Totally ignoring that sensible suggestion, just as if she’d never spoken, Dimitri started up the uncarpeted broad oak staircase, and Maddie, biting back a howl of fury, followed.
Arrogant low-life!
Still seething, Maddie caught up with him as he opened a door and reached in to switch on a light.
‘In.’
Her stoma
ch clenched painfully. This icily intimidating side of him was alien to her. But she was going to have to get used to it—at least for as long as it took him to spell out what had to be, surely, his groundless threats.
Slightly comforted by that slice of common sense, Maddie stepped into a room that looked as if it hadn’t had a makeover since the sixteenth century. And all the better for it, she approved, making an inventory of the jewel-coloured rugs laid over wide, highly polished oak boards, the ornately carved four poster bed and linen press, the tapestry-like curtains. It took her weary mind off being here with the husband she had loved to distraction and now hated with a vehemence that made her bones tremble.
An overnight bag stood at the foot of the bed. So he must have checked in here before driving out to her parents’ home. To wait. Somehow he had known that she must contact her folks on her arrival back in the UK, stay with them or in the vicinity until the divorce came through, she deduced tiredly—though the reason for his precipitate actions escaped her. And how had he arrived ahead of her?
She would have already been waiting for her delayed flight when he’d returned at lunchtime, making for the bedroom as usual and more of the sex he was so good at—the hoped for end result his son and heir—and finding her note instead.
And yet he had been ahead of her, waiting for her. His private jet—of course! Why hadn’t she remembered that? Because she’d never rated the outward signs of his financial clout, only the man himself. The super-wealthy had the means for getting things done that humble peasants could only dream of, she decided with resignation, as a firm hand in the small of her back propelled her towards two wing chairs at opposite ends of a low, dark oak table.
She sat, was grateful to. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this weary and drained in her life before. Dimitri was hovering over her, his hands in the trouser pockets of his superbly tailored pale grey suit, the fabric pulled taut against his pelvis.
Smothering a groan as a hatefully familiar, ultra-responsive frisson lurched through her entire body at his sexy magnetism, Maddie closed her eyes to shut him out. She didn’t need that kind of betrayal from her own body—not now, not ever again. All she needed right now was the healing oblivion of sleep.
And if he was waiting for her to ask him to explain himself, to instigate some kind of conversation, then he could wait. This—whatever it was—was his idea, most certainly not hers.
She heard the discreet knock at the door, sensed him move and opened her eyes reluctantly in time to see the night porter place a tray on the table. Something changed hands—a tip, presumably—and Dimitri sat in the chair opposite, surveying her with golden eyes lacking in expression over a lavish platter of sandwiches, a wine bottle and glasses.
Her lungs aching with the effort to hold back a hysterical peal of laughter, Maddie gripped the arms of her chair to keep herself grounded. An outraged husband about to read the Riot Act and explain vile threats to his runaway wife and the first thing he thinks about is his stomach! The situation was farcical!
But there was nothing off-the-wall about his containment as he poured wine into two glasses and slid two sandwiches onto a delicate china plate and put it in front of her. There was even a hint of a smile on that devastatingly handsome mouth as he imparted, ‘If, like me, you haven’t eaten since breakfast, you’ll need this.’
‘Not hungry.’ Maddie eyed the food with disdain, her stomach rolling sickly as she experienced total recall of precisely why she hadn’t been able to face breakfast, or the thought of food since then.
As usual, he had risen first, full of vitality, leaving her to come awake more slowly, stretching luxuriously in the rumpled bed, sated with the passion of the night before. She had pushed away the uncomfortable thought that their time in bed together was the only time she was truly happy. The rest of the time everything conspired to make her feel purposeless, a thing of little use, an unsavoury intruder into a rarefied atmosphere.
She had followed him down, a silk robe covering the naked voluptuous body he always seemed so wild for—gratifyingly belying the snide rumours and wicked lies she’d been fed just lately—expecting to share a pot of coffee with him before he left for his high-tech head office in the city, as she always did. She’d needed her Dimitri fix to carry her through the morning before they enjoyed a long and intimate lunch-break together.
Slipping silently into the sunny room where the first meal of the day was taken, her eyes had gone soppy at the sight of that tall, commanding figure, dressed that morning in pale grey trousers that hugged his narrow hips and skimmed the elegant length of his strongly muscled legs, his white shirt spanning wide shoulders, his suit jacket draped over the back of one of the dining chairs.
His broad back to her, he had been speaking into his cellphone. He hadn’t seen her—as the contents of a conversation that was to turn her life upside down soon evidenced.
‘Be calm, Irini,’ he had soothed. ‘We discussed this. It will take time. Please be patient.’ A short silence from him, then, decisively, ‘I will be with you in less than five minutes, and of course I love you. You are—’ Another silence while he had listened to what was being said, then, his voice full of soft emotion, ‘Be calm, sweetheart. Five minutes.’
Heart pounding, blue eyes stunned, she’d watched him snatch up his suit jacket and stride out through the open French windows, heading for the woman he did love, leaving the woman who was just a commodity clutching the doorframe for support, the lies turned into truth, the rumours into hard, hateful, hurtful fact. The last straw.
At least he hadn’t lied. He had never said he loved her, had he?
Now, Dimitri helped himself from the platter, golden eyes assessing beneath the thick dark sweep of his lashes. She was pale, her skin ashen beneath the light golden tan, the band of freckles across her nose standing out starkly. He had always found those freckles endearing—those and the caramel curls now delightfully tamed by the best hairdresser in Athens. The fierce, rapacious need for her wildly sensuous body, his need to soften the raging heat of lust into something infinitely more tender, more fulfilling, made him furious with his body for responding to his thoughts. Blisteringly angry with her for what she had seemingly proved herself to be, he said, with more force than necessary, ‘Eat before you pass out.’
Never one to respond positively to anything smacking of bossiness or bullying, Maddie flattened her mouth stubbornly. She crossed her arms over the breasts he had once said he worshipped, and clipped out at him, ‘I didn’t come here to eat with you. I came because you made threats against my parents and I demand to know how you think you can threaten them.’
‘So, she finally speaks.’ Dimitri was lounging back now, holding a wine glass in one beautifully crafted hand. His voice was smooth as silk he told her, ‘No one makes demands of me—not even my wife. Understand that and you’ll be a wiser woman.’
With an effort he kept his cool. She had never asked for anything—had made no demands. Hadn’t needed to. He’d given her everything, and gladly. High status, an assured position in Greek society, wealth beyond avarice, jewels—and she’d thrown the lot back in his face.
His heart thumped with the outraged anger of savaged pride. Because she wanted even more. The sort of divorce settlement that would keep her in luxury for the rest of her life without the burden of having a husband. Until she came up with another plausible reason for leaving him, it was the only motive that made any sense.
He was taunting her, Maddie deduced with mounting horror, her skin crawling with the onset of panic. No doubt he would tell her what he’d meant by that threat in his own good time.
But she didn’t have time, she thought wildly. Draining tiredness, the beginnings of a thumping headache and the awful emotional trauma of the day meant that any minute now she would break down, scream and throw things, or dissolve in floods of helpless tears, betraying how desperately unhappy his betrayal and cynical manipulation of her had made her. She wouldn’t be able to prevent it happen
ing if she had to suffer this unwanted confrontation, this not knowing, for much longer.
Dimitri set his glass down with an irate click. The gold of his eyes frosted. Time she learned she couldn’t make him look a fool, shame and dishonour him. Time she knew who called the shots.
‘You are my wife. There will be no divorce. You will return with me to Greece. If the marriage ends at some time in the future, as seems likely, then I will be the one to end it. I demand that much. I will not be made to look a fool in front of my friends and colleagues.’
Because she hadn’t given him an heir, Maddie translated, chilled to the bone by his harshly decisive delivery. Hanging on to her rapidly fleeing composure, she managed, ‘You can’t stop me suing for divorce. Or make me go anywhere I don’t want to be.’
Fully expecting a blistering statement of the opposite—because the rich and the powerful had ways of getting everything they wanted—she was speechless when he gave a slight shrug of his magnificent shoulders and uttered blandly, ‘True.’
With one hand he loosened his tie and settled back in his seat, graceful in his relaxation. He was more gorgeous than any man had a right to be, she decided in utter misery—then gave herself a sharp mental kick. The days of her overwhelming love for him were over. He was no longer the light of her life, and she no longer felt herself melting inside when she looked at him.
‘But?’ she all but snapped at him. It wasn’t in the nature of the beast to simply cave in. There had to be a ‘but’.
There was.
‘But, if you follow that road be sure that your parents will be homeless by the end of the month. It’s in my power to prevent that happening. I will do so—but only if you agree to everything I ask of you. And if you think that you can divorce me, claim a large settlement and help your parents financially, live the high-life, forget it. Any lawyer I employ will make sure you receive absolutely nothing.’
CHAPTER THREE
APPALLED by that implied insult, Maddie could only stare at him, feeling her face redden. It showed how little he thought of her! Was proof—if she had needed any after what she’d been told—that outside the bedroom he viewed her with contempt, a necessary evil.
The Kouvaris Marriage Page 3
