Introductions were made, and Maddie submitted to having both her hands clasped with enthusiasm and returning smiles until her face ached, not understanding a word of what was being said to her.
She was sorry to see the friendly couple go, gathering the luggage the pilot had unloaded and carrying it to the villa, where the main door stood open in welcome. She followed them slowly, leaving Dimitri to exchange a few words with the company pilot.
The heat was intense. Her denim jeans and T-shirt were sticking to her body, and her hair felt heavy and damp on her forehead and the nape of her neck. Inside her breast her heart was heavy. She had no firm idea why Dimitri had brought her to this isolated place, just uneasy suspicions, and she knew she wouldn’t like it, whatever it was.
‘We could both use a shower.’ He had caught up with her, shortened his pace to match hers. Pandering to her northern wilting in the face of the fierce Mediterranean heat? Unaffected, he looked as fresh as a daisy, crisp and cool in stone-coloured chinos and a similarly coloured cotton open-necked shirt.
So she was hot, sweaty, bulgy in the hip and bosom department, and couldn’t hold a candle to the cool, elegant sophistication of his lover, who had probably never even gently perspired in the whole of her pampered life. But there was no need to rub it in! Too hot and bothered, too incensed by her own interpretation of his remarks she didn’t respond, simply questioned sharply, ‘So why are we here?’
For a moment there was silence but for the sound of their footfalls on the paved area beyond the flower-jewelled grass. Then, ‘It is generally believed that we are enjoying the honeymoon you were denied three months ago.’ If he sounded sour, he couldn’t help it. He’d been working all hours towards getting a new business regime on track, towards freeing him up to surprise her with a three-month honeymoon—anywhere in the world she fancied, her choice. This—this confrontation over her wish to end their marriage—was the last thing he’d wanted.
The scornful objection she would have lobbed at him died in her throat as she lanced a glare at him. There was a gritty edginess to his unforgettable features, tension in the line of his mouth betraying inner turmoil.
Did he dislike the situation as much as she did? Was his plan to get her pregnant, provide him with the heir he needed, beginning to sicken him, too? To his dynastic way of thinking an heir was all-important. During their short and head-spinning courtship he had often spoken of his desire to have a family—a desire she had matched back then with a retrospectively cringe-making enthusiasm.
Was there yet another side to this need of his? A long entrenched, driving need for a family of his own because from an early age he hadn’t had one? Losing both his parents at such an early age and being brought up by his aunt Alexandra wouldn’t have been a bed of roses. As far as Maddie could tell, and backed up by what Cristos had said to Amanda, the old lady didn’t have an affectionate or compassionate bone in her body.
The odd shift in her mood kept her silent while he escorted her through the house. The cool tiled rooms with vaulted high ceilings contrasted with the heat outside, and the wide white marble staircase with its delicate cast-iron banisters soared up to airy corridors and the room the honeymooning couple would share.
The suitcases had been unpacked, and Xanthe was putting the last of the garments in a vast hanging cupboard, full of smiles, bobs and many words as she made her exit. Not giving the room even a cursory glance, Maddie waited until the door had closed behind the caretaker, then said, ‘I know we need to talk—about the divorce.’ Her face reddened beneath the chilling impassivity of his gaze but she struggled on, disadvantaged by his seeming indifference to what she was trying to say. It made her feel like a low-grade employee asking for a rise in wages she had done nothing to earn. ‘But we could have done it in Athens without putting on this farce.’
‘So we could. If there were any question of an immediate divorce.’
He was closing that door. Again. The word immediate induced panic. She would get her divorce when it suited him. When she had given him an heir. And if he pulled out all the stops to make it happen, then manufactured evidence to prove she was an unfit mother, a feckless wife, she would lose her child, her sense of self-worth, and in all probability her parents and two of her brothers would lose their home and their livelihood. Because if he were as unprincipled and callous as to hoodwink her into a short-term, no pain no gain marriage he wouldn’t think twice about pulling the rug from under her family’s feet once the need for blackmail was over.
Her feeling of sympathy for his loveless upbringing, his lack of close family, vanished like a snowflake falling on hot coals. He had strolled over to open the louvres on one of the tall windows that marched down the length of the room. As insouciant as all-get-out, he turned to face her, his hands in the pockets of his chinos, pulling the fabric tight against his hips.
Giving her a glinting look she couldn’t read, he drawled, ‘Tell me, why do you want a divorce?’
Her face crawling with colour, because that stance shouted animal magnetism and she wanted to be immune but wasn’t, she shot back, ‘Because I don’t want to be married to you! Haven’t I made that plain?’
‘I think not. I think you don’t entirely know what you do want.’
He had moved closer now. Golden eyes smouldered, transfixing her like a rabbit in the headlights of an oncoming car.
‘I think—’ And the thought had only just occurred to him, making him feel as if he’d received a hefty thump in the gut. Had she been in two minds when she’d left him? Half wanting to get her greedy hands on a handsome slice of alimony, the other half regretting the unlimited sex she’d so obviously enjoyed as his wife?
Even now she was giving off provocative vibes. Those emminently kissable lips were parted, her eyes a sultry gleam of sapphire beneath dense dark lashes, the dampened fabric of her T-shirt was clinging to her spectacular breasts—
Theos!
His hard, lean features rigid, Dimitri blanked off that train of thought. The little witch could turn him on without even trying! Pushing his thoughts into less troubled waters, he let his eyes meet hers with controlled intensity. ‘You were a virgin when we married. Having sex with me opened up a whole new unguessed-at world of sensation. Sensation you were always eager to indulge in.’
Maddie clasped her hands behind her back to stop herself from hitting him. ‘Are you trying to make some sort of point?’ she flung at him, loathing him for making her sound like a budding nymphomaniac, and caught her breath in outrage as he gave her another slice of his twisted mind.
‘In the process of trying to see inside your pretty head, I am merely stating facts and my suppositions arising from them, since you refuse to tell me why you ran out on our marriage, leaving me trying to make sense of it. You married me. Why? For the life of luxury you knew I could give you? And then, after you experienced it, for the sex?’
Mortified beyond belief, Maddie couldn’t speak—couldn’t say a word in her own defence. Not only a gold-digger but a nymphomaniac, too!
And there was more. A grim cast to his mouth, he queried flatly, ‘Did you make your wedding vows already scheming to sue for divorce after a few months? To secure yourself a slice of alimony that would enable you to lead a life of luxury? And when the time came to carry it out did you realise that you would miss the only other thing you valued in our marriage? The sex.’
‘You are so sick!’ Maddie spat out in immediate and instinctive repudiation, struggling to understand why he was doing this. Shouldn’t he be doing what she had most feared? Sweet-talking her, coaxing her back into the marital bed and trying to convince her that their marriage was viable, instead of accusing her of the most horrible things?
Her throat convulsed, and to her shame she felt hot tears sting the back of her eyes. Was she so inexcusably weak where he was concerned that she actually—in the secret centre of her heart—wanted him to try to coax her, convince her?
Her mind in turmoil, Maddie simply stared at
him as she grappled with a thought that was far too uncomfortable to be lived with. Of course it wasn’t true. Why on earth would she want him to—to coax her?
‘And you still want me,’ Dimitri countered. His brilliant golden gaze rested explicitly on her mouth, making her bones turn to water and her breasts stir in instinctive response so that she just knew the engorged peaks would be plainly visible beneath the thin, sweat-dampened fabric of her top—a sensation so well remembered and now so unwanted that she scrambled for what was left of her wits and threw back at him, ‘If I still wanted to share your bed, as well as enjoy a life of spoiled-rotten luxury, I wouldn’t have left you, would I? You’re talking rubbish!’
‘Am I?’ He moved closer, so close that to her extreme distress Maddie felt her own vastly annoying body strain against her will—strain to close that small distance and melt into the hard, dominating maleness of him. ‘Correct me if for once in my life I’m wrong,’ he asserted, with an arrogance she could have killed him for, ‘but I believe that if you weren’t in two minds, had truly wanted to end our marriage, you would have made sure you weren’t so easy to find. Headed for some place other than the glaringly obvious.’ A sardonic fly-away black brow rose. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’
Floored by his truly incorrect deduction, Maddie quivered helplessly. She hadn’t looked on her flight from their marriage in that light; she simply hadn’t taken his Greek pride into account—the pride that would force him to track her down, demand answers.
All she’d wanted was the comfort of the familiar, the people who really loved her, somewhere sympathetic to lick her raw wounds. She’d been ridiculously easy to track down. He’d even arrived at her destination before her! Made sure she returned with him!
‘That being so,’ he continued, as if she’d humbly agreed with his assessment of the situation, ‘I believe that the larger part of you, deep down, prefers your assured lifestyle as my wife because it has the added bonus of great sex on tap, rather than the insecurity of not knowing how great or small a settlement your lawyer could squeeze out of mine, and the bother of finding some other stud to satisfy your sexual needs.’
‘No!’ Maddie had difficulty finding her voice. She hadn’t a clue which accusation she was denying, and wondered what further character assassination he could come up with next to cover his own vile misdemeanours.
‘Yes,’ he overrode her smoothly. ‘You do still want the pleasure I can give you.’ An assured smile tugged unforgivably at the corners of his wide sensual mouth. ‘Shall I prove it?’
CHAPTER SIX
SHE stared up at him, wide-eyed, dry-mouthed, heart jumping, and pushed out a chokily ambivalent, ‘No—’ But she shuddered helplessly as he closed the gap between them and enfolded her in his arms.
Blood racing in her veins, Maddie raised her hands to push him away, make him keep his distance. Because distance between them meant she was safe from her own deplorable weakness where this one man was concerned. But without conscious effort she found her small fists unfurling, her palms flat against his broad chest, and the heady warmth of him sent rivers of sensation skittering through her body, paralysing her.
‘I think, yes,’ he corrected her, his eyes a golden shaft of confident male mastery in his leanly handsome features, his clean breath feathering her skin as he lowered his dark head and claimed her mouth with breathtaking expertise, teasing her lips apart with no effort at all, meeting no resistance, until she was kissing him back with an aching hunger she was completely unable to disguise or pretend didn’t exist.
Defences shattered out of existence, she gasped raggedly at the wildly erotic sensation that engulfed her as his strong hands lowered to pull her hips in contact with his hard, demanding arousal, the memories of what had happened since he’d dropped everything to fly to the side of the woman he loved expunged in the wild fever of blind, unthinking sexual excitement.
This was how it had always been. His passionate lovemaking allaying the doubts and insecurities that had grown during those three months at his home in Athens, fuelled by Irini’s far-too-frequent presence and Alexandra’s poisoned snobbery.
‘This is how it should be for us, yes?’ Dimitri breathed, his hard thighs pressed against hers as he eased her backwards towards the massive luxurious bed. His mouth invaded hers again with sensual know-how, his voice thick with satisfaction, as if he knew about the burning fire that pooled in the heart of her, that licked the flesh of her inner thighs with liquid, searing heat as he assured her with pure Greek male confidence, ‘You know it is.’
The part of her that murmured feebly about self-preservation, the part that told her to deny it, was woefully weak, and even those semi-formed hazy urgings evaporated beneath the heat of what his clever hands were doing. Lulling her into a false sense of security, as they had always done. She tried to fight it. Her breath caught. It was impossible.
Sliding beneath her T-shirt, curving around the engorged, unbearably sensitised globes of her breasts, his long fingers gently teased the tight crests. He knew what this did to her, he knew it, and he was using her treacherous body against her.
He was using unfair tactics, playing dirty—and that was her last semi-coherent thought as he eased her back on to the bed, removing her flattie sandals in one fluid movement before turning his smouldering attention to divesting her of her T-shirt. And, fingers clumsy in her complete capitulation, in her unthinking eagerness to aid her own downfall, she helped him, writhing in intolerably aroused abandonment as he dealt with the fastenings at her waistband and slid the denim fabric, the sheer silk of her panties, slowly and tantalisingly down over the swell of her curvy hips, exposing her ripe nakedness to his incandescent golden gaze.
‘So beautiful,’ he murmured thickly, lowering his head to trail burning kisses from her throat down to the tangle of curls at the apex of her thighs. Helplessly out of control, Maddie gasped wildly, her fingers clinging to the wide span of his shoulders, writhing mindlessly as one of his hands found the melting core of her, cupping her, teasing unbearably, and her voice was a sob of anguished wanting as she cried his name.
‘And so willing.’
Distant his voice now, drenching her with icy, scarcely believing shock as he moved away from her, looking down at her splayed nakedness with golden eyes suddenly overlaid with ice.
‘You are only with me now for the sex,’ he imparted frigidly. ‘Sorry, pethi mou. But, much as you tempt me, I have to decline the invitation until I know why you left what I believed was a happy marriage and asked for divorce. Until you tell me, you will go unsatisfied. And even then I think I will be strong enough to resist the temptation.’
The stony track petered out beneath her feet and Maddie stared at the top of a cliff fringed with sparse, thorny vegetation, her heart beating wildly, her mind twisting and turning incoherently.
He had left the room. He had said something about fixing lunch, and something else. She hadn’t been listening—hadn’t grasped a thing through those shock waves.
The moment the door had closed behind him she’d lurched off the now hateful bed and dragged on her discarded clothing, flying down the curving staircase and out in to the sun. Running.
Running away from him. Running from her shame, from the deep and shameful humiliation he’d so cruelly dealt her. The self-disgust, wave after wave—so much of it she had no idea how to cope with it.
What sort of creature was she to forget his plans for her? Forget he only wanted to use her? To crave the joy of sex with him so much that she would offer it on a plate the moment he touched her?
A silly creature who had loved him once.
Who still loved him?
Her throat closed convulsively as she shook her head in sharp negation. How could she still love a man who, according to his cynical thought processes, had believed that she was only after a fat slice of his wealth in the first place, then, on reassessment, had decided that she might as well have sex thrown into the mix for good measure—a man who would stoo
p to blackmail to get her back, to get her to resume her brood mare duties?
Frowning, she wiped the sweat from her forehead with shaky fingers. She hated to admit it, but there was something wrong with that line of reasoning. He could have taken her. Just like that. If using her as a walking womb was his only reason for forcing her to return to him, why had he walked away?
A power thing?
To demonstrate that he could have sex with her whenever he liked? To punish her, humiliate her for having had the gross temerity to leave him and say she wanted a divorce? Dimitri Kouvaris was a man who didn’t know what it meant to be rejected, who always expected, as of right, to be master of each and every situation.
What else was she to think?
A smothered sob escaped her. The sun was so hot, burning relentlessly down from the piercing blue vault of the sky, that she couldn’t think straight.
Below, the blue-green seawater, crinkling onto the shimmering white sand, looked irresistible. The thought of sinking into blissfully cool waters filled her head.
A paved path from the villa led to low cliffs, where shallow stone steps had been cut into the rock for ease of access. She’d ignored it. Too close. She’d needed somewhere to hide, some place where she could get her head straight, escape the awful humiliation of what had happened. Try to forgive herself where her fatal weakness for him was concerned.
During the three short months of their marriage she had lost herself. Lost the independant young woman she’d been before he had swept her off her feet, meeting his passion with her own because only then had her insecurites seemed ridiculous. Now it was time she found herself again.
Heading away, her breath shortening with exertion, she’d cut through a grove of ancient gnarled olive trees and had come out onto parched grassland, scattering a herd of goats. And here, on another clifftop, possibly at least a mile from the villa—and him—she was safe. Safe until she’d pulled herself together and decided to return. To him.
The Kouvaris Marriage Page 7
