She fisted her hands in her lap—a labourer’s hands: short nails, slightly callused palms, as his aunt had commented with acid—and took a long breath. She wasn’t interested in his insults. He couldn’t hurt her more than he already had done, and she certainly wouldn’t lower herself by telling him she’d had no intention of asking him for anything except her freedom because he wouldn’t believe her. Why waste her breath when there were more important questions to ask?
The eyes she at last dragged from the cynical gold of his fell on her untouched wine glass. With the distinct feeling that there was worse to come, she reached forward, swept it up and swallowed a long draught. The rush of alcohol into her bloodstream helped her to challenge him, ‘I don’t believe you. Prove it. Why should my parents lose their home? Why don’t we go back right now and ask them?’
‘At this hour?’ Dimitri drawled, as if hearing words from a total idiot, and leaned forward to remove the half-empty wine glass from fingers that threatened to shatter the delicate stem. He set the glass down on the table and edged the plate of untouched sandwiches further in her direction. ‘They are sleeping, happy in the knowledge that we will have kissed and made up after our lovers’ tiff and, almost as importantly, that I will help them out of their present difficulties. They have a load off their mind—isn’t that how you English would put it?’
Torn between outrage that he should have made light of her precipitate flight back to England and the need to know what the so-called difficulties were, she chose the latter as being far more pertinent.
‘What difficulties?’ she got out, regretting the urgent note in her voice, but wanting to get it out into the open and get out of here. Away from the man she could no longer stand being near to. ‘Tell me!’ she pressed, with fuming vehemence, because he seemed to be intent on keeping his mouth shut and his ace up his sleeve, and was looking at her as if she were an object of mild scientific interest.
Dimitri blinked once, then twice. What was that old hat come-on? You look magnificent when you’re angry! In this case it was spot-on! However…
Seething with sheer frustration, Maddie watched him tilt his arrogant head, veil his brilliant golden eyes and steeple his fingers as he recited, in a tone so matter-of-fact it made her blood steam in her veins, ‘Your father has reached retirement age. The company he works for has terminated his employment, and with it his tenure of the cottage. The accommodation is required by the groundsman who is to take his place, apparently.’
‘They told you this?’ Maddie asked thinly.
She felt sick. It could be so true. Six years ago old Sir Joseph had sold the Hall and its estate to a business consortium who had turned it into an upmarket conference centre, complete with a golf course, indoor swimming pool and sauna, clay pigeon range and access to excellent trout fishing. Her dad hadn’t liked the new regime. Had missed Joseph and the relaxed chats they’d enjoyed over a whisky and a pipe apiece as they discussed estate matters in the cluttered estate office. On one of the last of those occasions the elderly man had confessed that it was time he moved on. He didn’t want to, that went without saying. But he couldn’t keep up with overheads, he wasn’t getting any younger, and he had no family to take over. Miserable situation, but there it was.
But a job was a job, as Dad had said, and the cottage was their family home—and hadn’t Joseph promised that it would be theirs for as long as they wanted it?
However, that wouldn’t sway the hard-nosed businessmen who ran the estate now. Concessions for loyalty, long service, personal liking and respect wouldn’t come into it. None of them would have heard the words ‘old retainer’, and if they had they would have dismissed them as being laughably archaic. Suddenly the threat of seeing her parents homeless didn’t seem empty at all.
‘Initially your mother told me,’ Dimitri verified. ‘When I arrived at your home she was obviously upset. I assumed it was because you’d been in touch and told her you were ending our marriage.’ He levelled an incisive look at her, the planes of his darkly handsome face hard and unforgiving. ‘But that was not so. When I dealt her that second blow of bad news she broke down and wept.’
Maddie’s heart twisted. Anguish leapt to her throat and choked her. Both her parents thought Dimitri Kouvaris was the cat’s whiskers. Charming, considerate, super-wealthy, a miracle of perfection—the type of husband they could only have dreamed of for their lovable but unsophisticated tomboy of a daughter. Of course Joan Ryan would have been devastated by his news. But if she’d been able to get her side of the story in first her mother’s dismay at the marriage breakdown wouldn’t have been so absolute. She would have been disappointed that the dream husband had shown himself to be a cynical, manipulating, cruel brute, but she would have been on her side all the way.
‘So you arrived, unasked and unwanted, and put the boot in!’ Maddie derided at volume, hating him for causing her mother even more distress. She half heaved herself out of the chair, her only thought to get back to her parents and tell the dark story of why Dimitri had really married a no-account nobody like her. She would do everything she could to help them move, find somewhere else to live, fight the men in suits. Surely there must be a law against that sort of heartless treatment?
‘Sit down.’ A warning ran like steel through his voice. ‘If any boot, as you so oddly put it, was used, then it was your foot wearing it. Remember that.’
Subsiding with ill grace, blue eyes simmering with mutiny, Maddie pointed out, ‘OK, so you’ve told me why my folks will be thrown out of their home. But that doesn’t change anything. You can’t do anything about it—’
‘True,’ he cut across her, smooth as silk. ‘I cannot stop them losing the cottage. When the consortium took over your father was required to sign a contract of employment. I saw the document, and I read the small print—which your father failed to do. According to him, he was so pleased to be kept on he signed without reading it. It is watertight. However, if you cast your mind back and think clearly, instead of exploding every two seconds, you will recall that I said I could prevent them being without a home of their own provided you fall in with my wishes.’
She hadn’t forgotten—how could she? But, really stupidly, she’d hoped he had. And now she had to sit here and listen—force herself to forget how once she’d loved him and how he’d used that love to blind her to what was in his handsome, cruel head. Difficult to do when faced with all that lean, taut, utterly devastating masculinity, the blisteringly hot memories of how it had once been between them.
She shifted uncomfortably as a responsive quiver arrowed down her spine and lodged heatedly in the most private part of her body. Her face flamed at the uncomfortable knowledge that she still wanted him physically, even as her head and heart hated him.
Mistaking that fiery colour for the precursor of yet another mutinous outburst, Dimitri put in, smooth as polished marble, ‘Your parents and brothers have made tentative plans of their own. Not having the wherewithal to buy a property, nor sufficient income as things stand to rent one, Sam and Ben aim to find cheap lodgings. Your parents plan to move into Adam and Anne’s spare room while they wait for the council to offer them accommodation—not the most promising situation, I think you’ll agree?’
Maddie stayed mute. It was a wretched situation. Her parents had no savings. Any spare cash they’d had had been used to help their children. No matter how her eldest brother and her sister-in-law welcomed them into their small home, things would get tricky. Adam’s young family was growing, and space was at a premium and, used to being Queen Bee in her own home, her mother would begin to feel in the way—past her sell-by date. Her parents, bless them, deserved better than that. But she wouldn’t give Dimitri the satisfaction of agreeing with him. On anything. Ever again.
Dimitri frowned, slashing dark brows clenching above shimmering golden eyes. Her body language was sheer stubborn mutiny. He would change that. His wife would once again become compliant. It was she who had drawn up the battle lines, and
no Greek male could fail to rise to the challenge, meet it and overcome it. Utterly.
Time to deliver his knock-out blow, he decided, harshly ignoring the sharp stab of regret for what they’d once had. Or what he’d thought they had, came the cynical reminder.
‘When I arrived, your brothers were out, trying to persuade the farmer they rent their piece of land from to agree to rent out the adjoining field and so allow your brothers to produce more and become more profitable.’ His tone showed his aggravation as he demanded, ‘Are you listening?’
Maddie shrugged, she didn’t care if she infuriated him. He deserved it. She was ahead of him in any case. Sam and Ben had often said they needed more land under cultivation. Their organic produce was always in demand. They could sell it twice over easily. But for that they needed more land, another bigger greenhouse, more hours in the day. With Dad out of work it would make sense to expand and let him in as a partner.
Inwardly seething, Dimitri battened down the imperative to shake her until her pretty white teeth rattled—or, more productively, to kiss her senseless until she was clinging, hanging wide-eyed on his every word.
Better yet, and less hurtful to his pride, would be to render the coup de grace. Subdue, once and for all the stubborn streak he had never suspected she had.
So his voice bordered on the purr of a jungle cat with its prey within its grasp as he imparted, ‘They returned, their plans in ashes. The said farmer had stated that he was selling up. Even renting the piece of land they are currently working might prove to be a problem with a new owner. They could either buy the lot—farmhouse included—or nothing.’ He paused a moment to let that further piece of bad news sink in. Then, ‘The idea I put to your parents and brothers was this. That I buy the farm and they live there and work the land, expand their business.’ He allowed himself a small smile. ‘To say that they approved the scheme is an understatement. To counter the general non-stop outpourings of gratitude I explained that as they are now part of my family by marriage it is my duty and pleasure to do all I can to help them. Of course,’ he completed, in a tone so honey-sweet it set her teeth on edge, ‘the whole thing is contingent on your remaining my wife until I, and only I, decide otherwise. Ensuring that I continue to regard your family as my family, my responsibility.’
Her voice faint, Maddie managed, ‘That’s blackmail! I don’t want to be married to you. You know I don’t!’
‘Take it or leave it. Your choice.’
In emotional turmoil Maddie shot to her feet, her fingertips flying to her temples. She couldn’t think straight. Her imagination was working overtime as she pictured her family’s relief. Even now her mother would be dreaming of furnishing and decorating the farmhouse, of welcoming her menfolk home from the fields with her famous steak and kidney pie!
Her mouth worked with the onset of hysteria, and the edifice of her earlier determination to cut him out of her life crumbled utterly when he rose with languid grace and came to stand in front of her, his voice cool to the point of uninterest as he asked, ‘Your choice?’ And then, his voice roughening, as if he was uncomfortable with what he had to tell her, he stated, ‘And to help you make that choice I’m afraid I have to tell you that less than a week ago your father was taken into hospital with a suspected heart attack.’
He saw her rock on her feet, saw the little colour she had in her face drain away and could have hit himself. Placing his hands lightly on her shoulders, he apologised gently, ‘I’m sorry. I could have come at it in a gentler way. The good news is that it was very minor—a warning, and no damage done. Provided he takes his medication and avoids stressful situations all will be well. Your mother told me she was in the process of writing to you to put you in the picture without alarming you unduly.’
This close, she could feel the enervating potency of his lean, hard masculinity, the power of him. That, plus the news of her father’s illness, shattered her into honesty, her voice cracking as she cried, ‘What choice? I’m between a rock and a hard place!’
‘You put yourself there,’ he reminded her flatly. ‘It’s make-your-mind-up time. Return to Greece with me, as my wife, or deny your family the opportunity to make a new life for themselves.’ He thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and drawled, ‘Tough, isn’t it? Turn your back on your hopes of a massive divorce settlement, or—’
‘You can be so stupid!’ she blistered, stung again by his insulting suggestion that she only wanted rid of him because of what she could get out of him. She could put him straight on that score, but the truth would gain her nothing and lose her the only thing she had left. Her pride. And, what option did she really have, especially now that the sneaky wretch had raised her parents’ hopes to stratospheric heights? How could she face them with the news that her soon-to-be-ex-husband had withdrawn his generous offer? And heap a bucketload of stress on her father? She couldn’t do that to them. Deliberately closing her mind to what she was letting herself in for, she gritted, ‘OK—have it your way! And you can keep your obscene fortune intact! Satisfied?’
Not waiting for his response, and hating him for having the upper hand, she turned on her heels, snatched up her bag, headed for the door and said, as coolly as her frustration would allow, ‘Take me home. I’ve got my own key. I can let myself in without disturbing them.’
‘You have the regrettable tendency to behave like someone who has had her brain surgically removed—did you know that?’ Dimitri enquired silkily, narrowing the distance she had put between them. ‘As we have kissed and made up, as far as your parents are concerned, it would look very odd if we did not spend the night together, don’t you think?’
Chagrin made her clamp her teeth together. He was right. Give her family one inkling that her husband was blackmailing her and they would close ranks, refuse to accept the lifeline he was offering. And how would that affect Dad’s health?
It didn’t bear thinking about. Her whole system shuddering with reaction, she suffered the indignity of having him remove her jacket, the nerve-racking way those golden eyes drifted over her upper body, where her T-shirt clung to her generous curves, and would have moved smartly away if her legs had had any strength left, and didn’t feel and behave as if they were made of wet cotton wool.
‘It’s been a long day,’ he remarked, as casually as if they were an old married couple, perfectly in tune with each other. ‘I suggest we turn in. In the morning we will break the good news of our reconciliation to your family, and I will make that farmer an offer he can’t refuse.’
He turned away then, a man completely and aggravatingly in control, removing his tie as he reached for his overnight bag, magnanimously offering, ‘Use the bathroom first.’
Scooping up her own bag, Maddie scuttled for the en suite bathroom and closed the door firmly behind her, regretting the lack of a lock.
It was small, nothing like the luxury she was used to—a huge marbled and mirrored space, an elegant shower room and a spa bath big enough to swim in, surrounded by potted plants with shiny green leaves and glass shelves holding luxurious toiletries—but it was sanctuary.
Her emotions all over the place, she stood for a while, her breathing shallow and fast as she reflected that she’d been right. He’d decided that he might as well get an heir with the wife he did have rather than waste time finding another! And his macho Greek pride came into it, too. Of course it did. He would end the marriage when it suited him. Anything else would be unthinkable.
Battening down hysteria, she informed herself that she held the trump card. As long as she didn’t get pregnant—and she’d make sure he never laid a hand on her again—his hateful plans would take a nosedive. Ignoring her past susceptibility where he was concerned, she felt comforted by the control she had in her hands, and opted for a soothing wallow in the bath rather than the quick shower the lateness of the hour dictated.
She stayed in the water until it began to cool. She had hoped it would soothe her, but it couldn’t. The knot of pain inside her inten
sified until she felt she would die of it. She had loved him so, and now that love had turned to acid, burning her insides. As she heard Dimitri tapping on the door, calling her name, another thought hit her like a falling brick wall, and she jerked upright in sick horror. He had mentioned caring for her family only as long as they were his family through marriage.
Refuse to give him an heir and he would cut his losses and end their marriage.
Give him an heir and still he would divorce her, take her child from her, no doubt using top lawyers and low-down lies to prove to a court that she was an unfit mother.
What price his so-called duty of care then? Her parents and brothers would be out of his property at the speed of light.
She was in a no-win situation. She caught her lower lip between her teeth to stop herself screaming and the door crashed open, to reveal six foot plus of Greek male magnificence, clad only in boxer shorts, and glowering like thunder.
Two paces brought him looming over her as he got out through clenched jaws, ‘Why didn’t you answer? I thought you might have passed out, hurt yourself! Instead—’ Throwing her a look of utter disdain now, he plucked a towel from the heated rail and tossed it to her. ‘Cover yourself,’ he said, reminding her, to her shame and confusion, that she was stark naked, rivulets of water coursing down her too generous figure. ‘If I want what still appears to be on offer, I will take it. But don’t hold your breath.’
Humiliated beyond bearing, fingers fumbling, Maddie wrapped herself clumsily in the towel, clambering out of the bath patronisingly aided by one large strong hand around her upper arm.
She shook his supportive hand away as soon as her feet hit the bath mat. He thought she’d planned this. Remembering how in the past she had always responded to her adored and beautiful husband’s sexual overtures with greedy, hedonistic delight he would think that!
The Kouvaris Marriage Page 4
