The Kouvaris Marriage

by Diana Hamilton

  To tell him in exact detail why she’d left him. To grit her teeth and put her pride—the only thing she had left—aside. And end the farce that their marriage had become.

  Countless times during those three months it had been on the tip of her tongue to repeat what Irini had said, to ignore Amanda’s advice. But something apart from Amanda’s sensible advice had always stopped her. The fear that Irini hadn’t been lying?

  But she had to tell him now. And do her damnedest to hide the hurt that was still so raw it flayed her. Pride at least demanded that much. If she could manage it.

  She had to.

  In the meantime the cool waters called her. Feeling fresh and clean again would help clear her mind, wash away the still-burning memories that his hands had imprinted on her skin. Unsteadily, she walked closer to the edge of the clifftop. No convenient steps here. Nothing but the rock face, which seemed to shimmer and shift beneath her eyes. But she could do it—climb down, strip off, and walk into the cool, whispering, welcoming sea.

  How he’d resisted the temptation of her he would never know. Even as he assembled the makings of a light lunch his body ached for her—for the only woman, the first woman, ever to separate his mind from his body, to take him to paradise and far, far beyond. But that way lay madness.

  She had left him; she wanted a divorce. Lust he could control. But not the need to know the truth. Until he knew why he would have no peace. Money? The idea sickened him. He’d been the target of too many greedy little gold-diggers in the past to welcome the thought that he’d been well and truly suckered. But, in the absence of any other sensible explanation from her, it was the only viable answer he could think of.

  When he’d given her no option but to comply with his demands she’d come back to him decided she would avail herself of the material advantages she could still claim as his wife, plus the thing she had become hooked on, the thing he gave freely. Fantastic sex. He’d just proved it, hadn’t he? And he didn’t like the feeling.

  Carrying the loaded tray, his mouth curling with distaste, Dimitri told himself he’d get a truthful answer if it killed him. Only to discover that she wasn’t waiting on the balcony outside the master bedroom, as he’d instructed her to. Leaving the tray on the delicate white-painted cast-iron table, he took in the bathroom. No sign of her having had that shower.

  Sulking somewhere because he’d denied her what her eager body had been begging for? With a hiss of impatience he set off to systematically search the empty villa, the grounds behind, the swimming pool and the area around the vine-shaded arbour.

  Nothing.

  Standing at the head of the steps down to the nearest beach, he scanned the empty sands.

  Nothing.

  Anxiety made a furrow on his brow. She couldn’t go far. The island was a mere five miles by three at its widest point. But the midday sun was ferocious.

  His stride, long and swift, took him to higher ground. Beyond the olive grove, Yiannis’s goats were scattered. Unused to strangers, something seemed to have spooked them. Or someone.

  Moving faster than he had ever moved in his life before, he followed in the direction he was sure she must have taken. Sunstroke or heat exhaustion was a very real danger for someone who wasn’t used to the unforgiving midday climate at this latitude.

  His features tight, he cursed himself. He’d needed proof that, denied her first choice of a ton of alimony and her freedom, she had settled for the very real perks of being his wife.

  But had she wanted to end their marriage, get him completely out of her life, because she no longer loved him? Because unknowingly he’d done something to hurt or disgust her? But, if so, she wouldn’t have been so eager to have sex with him. Making love didn’t come into it. Much as the idea repelled him, for her it was all about lust. Sex.

  Well, he’d had his proof and he didn’t much like himself for it. He was tough in business matters, he’d had to be, but never unfair and certainly never cruel.

  Yet he’d been cruel to Maddie—driven her to put as much distance between them as she could manage within the confines of the small island. He despised himself for the first time in his life. He had his proof and it left a sour taste in his mouth, because in getting it he had shattered his code of honour.

  And then he saw her. His thumping heart picked up a beat. Her bright head bent, she was too near the edge of the clifftop. The sound of his approach brought her head round and she took a step back, thankfully away from the edge. As he quickened his steps to a flat-out run one hand fluttered up to her forehead, and she swayed, then crumpled in a heap on the ground.

  Within heart-banging moments he was at her side, kneeling, cradling her head and reaching into his back pocket for his mobile. Her face was deathly pale, and the delicate skin around her eyes looked bruised. Two calls. His instructions, bitten out, concise. Repocketing the slim phone he lifted Maddie in his arms and began the slow journey back to the villa—slow because he didn’t want to jolt her. He promised himself that once she’d recovered from this—sunstroke?—they would sit down and talk like the sensible adults they were supposed to be. No more threats, demands, mind-games.

  As they entered the shaded area in the olive grove she stirred, her eyes drifting open. ‘It is all right,’ he assured her softly, his heart lightening as he saw her colour begin to return. ‘You collapsed, but we will soon be back at the villa and Papantoniou will be with you within the hour.’

  ‘I don’t need a doctor. Put me down. I can walk.’ A feeble attempt to struggle to her feet had his arms tightening around her—which was absolutely the last thing she wanted, wasn’t it? She wanted distance between them. She didn’t want him to think he had to be kind to her just because she’d been stupid enough to pass out. It was demeaning!

  ‘I fainted. No big deal,’ she grumbled fiercely. ‘I don’t want a doctor! I skipped breakfast, that’s all!’ Because once again the sight of food had turned her stomach.

  ‘Save your energy.’ His golden eyes were dark with concern and something else she couldn’t read as he glanced down at her. ‘Just forget your middle name is Stubborn and do as you’re told for once, yes?’

  After that Maddie saw no point in pitting herself against his iron will, and submitted, with gritted teeth, to being carried through the cool interior of the villa and gently deposited on the huge bed that had been the scene of her recent stomach-churning humiliation.

  But she drew the line when he attempted to undress her.

  ‘I can do that!’ She batted his hands away, squirmed round and planted her feet on the floor, snapping tartly, ‘If you’ve decided it’s necessary for me to be in bed in a nightie when the doctor calls, to keep up the pretence of not dragging him out here for no purpose, I won’t do it—you can go and wait and make your apologies when he arrives!’

  Dimitri stood back, but he didn’t leave the room. To her utter chagrin he even looked slightly amused, standing watching her, his arms folded over his chest.

  Thinking of the invitingly cool-looking sea water, Maddie headed for the shower in the huge marble and glass bathroom. He followed. She was spikily aware of those unreadable eyes pinned on her, and as the only slightly warm water sluiced over her grateful body her anger with him, with herself, increased in proportion to the ache of wanting that flickered and burned deep within.

  Damn him! Damn him for making her feel like this. She didn’t want it. It was the last thing she needed, she fumed as she grabbed a towel and stumbled back into the bedroom, pointedly sidestepping when he reached out a hand to help her.

  Thankfully, the whump-whump of approaching rotors brought an end to the situation that was winding her up to explosion point. Glaring at him, pink-cheeked and furious, she watched him move to the door with the innate grace that was so much a part of him.

  ‘Tell him there’s nothing wrong with me,’ she flung after him. ‘And apologise for wasting his time.’

  He turned back briefly. ‘You are looking better.’ There was an almost
-smile on his sensual mouth. It made her want to go and smack it away. ‘Nevertheless…’ He spread his hands, palms uppermost, and closed the door gently behind him.

  Intent on making a fool of her. Again. Paying her back in spades for taking off, not doing as she’d been told. The fleeting, unwelcome thought that he might have been genuinely concerned about her was swiftly knocked on the head. He didn’t give a darn for her well-being. The only things that mattered to him were any child she might bear for him and Irini. Of course. Mustn’t forget the woman he loved enough to do what he’d set out to do—secure an heir, get rid of an unwanted wife and marry where he truly loved.

  Totally unwilling to greet the doctor lying like a wilting Victorian heroine on the bed, when there was not a single thing wrong with her, she grabbed fresh underwear from a drawer and a honey-coloured, gauzy cotton strappy sundress from the closet, dressed at speed, and perched herself in a brocade-covered armchair close by one of the windows, picking up a glossy magazine from a nearby table and pretending to be engrossed.

  The doctor had other ideas. A serious-looking beanpole of a man, silver-haired and exquisitely dressed, he indicated the bed and carried out an examination that had her squirming with violent embarrassment—because Dimitri was still looming, taut-featured. Though what he had to be uptight about Maddie couldn’t begin to guess, and wasn’t going to try.

  As he removed the blood-pressure cuff Papantoniou stood up, smiling. He swung round to face Dimitri. ‘Congratulations. My best estimate is that your wife will give you a child in around seven months.’ He turned his smile on Maddie. ‘You are fit and well, kyria. And pregnant. I forbid any further treks in the heat of the afternoon. Remember, you are carrying a precious life inside you. Take gentle exercise in the cool of the day, rest and eat well, and be sure of a happy pregnancy.’

  Turning to a shell-shocked Dimitri, he advised, ‘I will visit again when you return to the mainland, to arrange tests and make a referral to a top gynaecologist. I foresee no difficulties, but you will naturally demand the very best for your wife and child.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  IF DIMITRI had looked positively shell-shocked at the doctor’s announcement, then Maddie couldn’t have described what she felt. The news that there was a tiny baby growing inside her had made her feel light-headed with something she could only define as fierce protectiveness, all mingled up with the razor-sharp, icy edge of fear.

  Because this was the news that Dimitri and Irini had been waiting for. The safe conception of a rightful heir, then—bingo!—get rid of the unwanted wife and marry the so beautiful, so suitably wealthy, so upper-crust love of his life!

  How could she have not known? Or at least suspected? But she’d put the extremely scanty nature of her last two periods down to the stress she’d been under, and her early-morning queasiness hadn’t occurred often enough to ring alarm bells. If she’d suspected she might be pregnant he could have threatened all he liked but she would never have agreed to come back to Greece, she thought wildly.

  She would fight him to the last breath in her body before she let him take her baby from her, she vowed staunchly. Then, choking as tears clogged her throat, she buried her head in the pillow. She only realised Dimitri had re-entered the room when his hand touched her shoulder.

  Her heart gave a sickening lurch as she twisted round on the massive bed, sitting with her hands tightly wrapped around her updrawn knees to hold herself together, and trying to gather the coherent yet cutting words that would tell him in no uncertain terms she was aware of his sick plans, and that no way would she allow him to bring them to fruition. Even if she did come from a humble background—fit, as his ultra-snobbish aunt would have it, only to scrub his floors—it didn’t mean she didn’t know how to fight her corner, or that she wouldn’t!

  But before she could formulate a single phrase, let alone anything approaching a sensible sentence from the mayhem going on inside her head, he took her hands, gently unknotting her savagely clenched fingers, and spoke with a warmth that momentarily drove everything out of her mind and left her gaping.

  ‘Between us we have created a precious new life. There will now be no question of a divorce. And, whatever your reasons for wanting one, I do not wish to hear them. I will not hear them,’ he stressed with fierce insistence. ‘As of the moment your pregnancy was confirmed past differences are forgotten. By both of us,’ he stressed again, this time with a blithe arrogance that literally took her breath away.

  Just like that! Maddie exploded internally, her gaze narrowing to needle-points of glittering bright blue as she tried to read the golden eyes partially obscured by the thick dark sweep of his ebony lashes. She was as sure as she could be that divorce would be the first word to trip smartly off his tongue the moment his son or daughter was born!

  Removing her hands from his gentle grasp, she sat on them, speedwell-blue eyes daring him to take them back. He didn’t, simply brushed the tumbling silk of caramel curls from her forehead with tender fingers and smiled that slow, devastating smile of his that always before had had the power to send delicious tingles up and down her spine. Now it just made her hate him!

  ‘Today we start our married life afresh, chrysi mou. For the sake of our child. And it will be good, I promise. You will want for nothing. Whatever you desire, you will have,’ he claimed with extravagant emphasis. ‘And now—’ he got to his feet ‘—I will make that belated lunch. You must eat for two now, and I am ravenous! But the food I prepared before will be unfit to eat. I left it on the balcony in my panic to find you.’

  The light kiss he dropped on her cheek made her heart leap like a landed fish, and there was anger sparking in her eyes as she watched him walk to the door, turning, giving her that bone-melting smile as he invited, ‘Come down and join me.’

  The silence that followed his exit was thick with her rage and pain as she vowed she would not be taken for a sucker. Not again!

  He had got what he wanted.

  Her pregnancy.

  Of course he would sweet-talk her—he was very good at it! Brush aside her request for a divorce as the utterings of a retard. Use soft-soap by the bucketful to keep her with him until the child was born. He’d want to keep a close eye on her to make sure she didn’t take up sky-diving, get drunk every night, or in any way put his heir at risk!

  Swinging her feet off the bed, she stood slowly, straightened her skirt and headed for the bathroom, sluicing her burning cheeks with cold water and dragging a brush through her tangled hair. Staring sightlessly at her reflection, she took several deep, calming breaths.

  Dimitri thought he’d got her right where he wanted her. But she would prove otherwise. Always up front—what you saw was what you got—she would change the habits of a lifetime and learn to be as devious as he. She’d had a top-flight tutor in that regard, hadn’t she?

  Useless to confront him now with what she knew. It was far too late. Pointless to repeat what Irini herself had told her, his aunt’s sly hints, or to remind him forcefully of the evidence of her own eyes and ears. The way when Irini was around, he’d always give her the undivided attention she routinely demanded—the way he’d dropped everything on that last morning, not hanging around even to share morning coffee with his wife as he always did. His avowal of love to the other woman would continually haunt her nightmares.

  And other things—things that hadn’t troubled her one iota before—had fallen into place when she’d been forced to face the truth on that dreadful morning.

  Their low-key wedding in the tiny village church, with only her immediate family invited to witness the event, for instance. As if he was ashamed of marrying so far beneath him and regarded the ceremony as a necessary evil, the tedious preliminary to a hopefully short-lived marriage that would provide him with what he really wanted.

  Greeks made a great celebration of marriage, and in the normal course of events a man such as Dimitri Kouvaris would have wanted an almighty splash—with his aunt there, of course, and all
the distant relatives Irini had spoken of, his large circle of friends and business colleagues, the press, all in admiring awestruck attendance.

  Useless to confront him with what she knew—because with the heir he wanted so badly now on the horizon he would deny everything until his face turned blue. There was too much at stake for him to do anything else.

  So for the next few weeks she would play it his way. Grit her teeth and fall in with the charade of starting their marriage afresh. There was too much at stake for her to do anything other. Oh, how she wished she’d come straight out with it on the night of that party—insisted that Irini repeated what she’d said in front of Dimitri. On the face of it Amanda’s advice had seemed sensible after all, she was married to a well-heeled Greek herself and would know how their minds ticked. But, oh, how she wished she hadn’t taken it!

  She would have to find a way to warn her parents that their comfortable new lifestyle would soon be a thing of the past, give them time to make contingency plans. And plan her own bid for freedom—because no way was he going to take her baby from her.

  If she couldn’t bear the thought of giving up the tiny life inside her now, she couldn’t begin to contemplate how very much worse it would be after the birth.

  When they were back on the mainland she would be able to work on what she had to do. Transfer some of what she had always considered to be the over-the-top personal allowance he’d made her from Greece into her still open but paltry account back in England for starters.

  Not that she wanted anything from him for herself. She definitely didn’t, and the thought of actually doing it turned her stomach, but for her baby’s sake she had to have some funds behind her. Enough to live frugally until the birth, until she could rebuild her career and work to keep them both.

  And back in England she wouldn’t make the unthinking mistake she’d made before. She wouldn’t go near her family, but hide somewhere he’d never find her.

  In the meantime she would bide her time, let him think she was willing to make a fresh start. It was the only way she could ensure that he didn’t suspect what she was planning. Besides, pulling the wool over his eyes while playing him at his own game was one way of paying him back for what he had done. Taken her heart and broken it.