The Kouvaris Marriage

by Diana Hamilton

  A gentle hand slid up behind her head, long fingers slipping through her bright hair, lifting her face, her mouth, to the seductive invasion of a kiss that proved his point—because she could not resist the hunger of his lips, the tongue that dipped, teased and tormented until she was writhing against him, heart hammering, veins running with liquid fire.

  Everything inside her quivered as with one fluid movement he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bedroom, his mouth unceasing in its ravishment of hers until he laid her on the bed and came down beside her, divesting them both of damp garments in the time it took to draw breath.

  She had expected immediate consummation, indeed her body craved it, but he whispered, ‘Slowly, my sweet, slowly,’ which she translated as Gently, for our baby’s sake. But then she didn’t care, because the wicked expertise of his sensual mouth, his knowing hands, as he brought every inch of her restlessly writhing body to a wild crescendo of excitement drove everything else out of her mind until at last, responding to her moans of ‘Please—Dimitri, please!’ he sank between her thighs and with one long thrust instigated an unstoppable storm of white-hot passion that spiralled until control splintered and was lost in the primitive rhythm that swept her up and beyond the very pinnacle of ecstasy.

  Held in his arms, his fantastic body melded to the yielding softness of hers, Maddie floated gently back to earth, loving the way he dropped tiny kisses on her damp forehead, the tip of her small nose, the corner of her mouth, revelling in sweet satiation until, at the unmistakable hardening of his body, he released her with a shaky laugh, a reluctant, ‘I am too greedy for you! I hadn’t meant this to happen.

  But you, alone among women, are too much temptation for me!’

  He sprang off the bed, telling her after a rapid glance at the watch that adorned his flat wrist, ‘Xanthe will arrive at any moment with the evening meal she has prepared.’ Slanting her a smile he promised, his stunning eyes filled with dancing golden lights, ‘I will be patient until after we have eaten,’ and strode to the bathroom where, above the sound of the shower, she could hear him singing in the tuneful baritone she had once delighted to hear.

  Pleased with himself, she thought sourly, as bleak despair again settled around her, a too-regular visitor, and as demeaning as it was unwelcome. So he had a highly over-active libido. He could have sex with her while loving another woman. No problem when his eager wife was so obviously more than willing to participate.

  And as for her—well, she was deeply ashamed of herself. Telling herself that sexual desire—lust, if you like—had the habit of taking over, crippling the mind, filling the body and heating the blood to boiling point, did nothing to excuse what she had done.

  Her body aching from his intimate possession, she waited, scrambling a sheet around her nakedness. At one time nothing would have prevented her from joining him in the shower, delighting in the welcome she knew he would give her as they teased each other with soap-slicked, deliciously tormenting hands, laughter dissolving into the ecstasy of out-of-this-world passion.

  Now, nothing would make her join him in there. And so she waited, subduing the sob of self-loathing that was burning her lungs, compressing her lips to stop her soft, kiss-swollen mouth from trembling, until he emerged from the en suite bathroom, towel-drying his thick dark hair, his smile something else as he imparted, ‘I heard the quad bike arriving.’ His smile widened to a grin. ‘Yiannis will have nothing to do with it, but Xanthe uses it at every opportunity—flat out!’

  Unable to respond for her swamping awareness of that naked, lithely lean and powerful physique, Maddie willed her pulses to stop racing, waiting until he had rapidly clothed himself in narrow white jeans topped by a silky black shirt, open-necked, sleeves rolled up to display tanned, muscular forearms, before getting out, ‘I would like to phone my parents.’

  She marvelled at his duplicity as he reached his mobile from the top of a dressing chest, found the number, and passed the instrument to her, saying, ‘Of course—you’ll want to tell them our good news. I know they’ll be delighted to hear they can look forward to being grandparents again. Be sure to give them my regards.’ A swift kiss landed on her brow. ‘Don’t be too long. I’d speak to them myself, but I must see to Xanthe. We’ll eat on the terrace and count the stars as they come out to celebrate our new beginning.’

  And he was gone, leaving her listening to the ringing tone and fuming. Give them his regards—oh, the low-life! How could he? When all the time he was doubtlessly planning on throwing them off his property when he no longer had need of his disposable wife!

  She had to warn them of that strong possibility.

  But how to do it gently, without creating panic and outraged anxiety, when her mother’s bubbly conversation was filled with enthusiasm for the farmhouse they had recently moved into, her redecorating plans, the imminent arrival of the new glasshouse, and the hard work her menfolk were putting in? ‘No, not your father,’ she said soothingly. ‘He is being sensible. He takes gentle exercise each day and contents himself with keeping the accounts.’

  Eventually Maddie slid in a question—when her mother drew breath after happily imparting the fact that the old fellow hadn’t farmed intensively for a decade, merely keeping a flock of sheep and a few free-range hens and pigs, so the land wasn’t contaminated with nasty chemicals—‘Did Dad go over the small print of the lease for the farmhouse and land?’ And fingers crossed, but without too much hope, ‘There is a properly drawn-up lease?’

  Ringing silence greeted the question that had stopped the flow of excited information in its tracks. Maddie felt truly dreadful.

  Was poor old Mum belatedly recalling that Dad had failed to check the details of his contract of employment when the men in suits had taken over the estate? Maddie hated having to do this to her family, and her heart plummeted even further when Joan Ryan asked with some bewilderment, ‘What lease?’

  So nothing had been put in writing concerning her family’s security of tenure. Even though Maddie had known what would happen, having the fact thrust under her nose reminded her much too forcefully of Dimitri’s threats, and made her feel dreadfully nauseous.

  Until her mother questioned, ‘Didn’t Dimitri tell you? No, I suppose he wouldn’t. He’s too big-hearted to boast about his generosity! He bought the property, but it’s in my and your father’s name. We own it, Maddie. We did feel a bit awkward about it—poor but proud, as your Dad always says! He tried to persuade your Dimitri to make it a capital loan, but he was having none of it. We were family, he said, and the cash outlay was peanuts to him. You married a man in a million!’ This was followed by a slightly anxious, ‘Everything’s still all right between you? We were worried. On the face of it, Dimitri’s everything a parent could want for a daughter. But—’

  Her head reeling from what she’d heard, Maddie put in, ‘We’re fine, Mum.’ And, because they had to know, ‘I’m pregnant.’

  No need to worry them now. It would be a few more weeks before she had to tell them the truth. She was more than happy to listen to her mother’s overjoyed exclamations as her mind spun, trying to make sense of this new information.

  CHAPTER NINE

  AFTER the call ended Maddie stood immobile under the shower, her brow furrowed, as she grappled with Joan Ryan’s revelations, and what they meant.

  Thanks to Dimitri’s generosity her parents’ home and livelihood were safe. There was, of course, huge relief because from the start he had led her to believe that her family would be out of their new home and business like a shot if she didn’t toe the line and stick with their marriage—but the question remained.

  Why? Why had he done that?

  To force her to resume her marital duties? Share his bed until the child he needed was conceived.

  Obvious.

  And yet…

  That kind of thoughtful generosity didn’t gel with the kind of guy she had categorised him as being—a heartless blackmailer who would use any means to get what he wan
ted and suffer not one pang of conscience when he made her family face real hardship when he’d got it, because they were unimportant, mere peasants. He didn’t fit that box now.

  It looked as if he were the kind of guy who would spend vast amounts of money setting her parents up in their own home and business, generously sorting out the difficulties they were facing and were financially and emotionally unable to cope with.

  In the situation that had faced her parents any other needle-sharp, super-wealthy businessman with a philanthropic streak a mile wide might have done what he had done, she conceded, but he would have kept the deeds in his name, as an investment, one among many.

  But Dimitri had gone one huge stride further. His generosity shook her, made her acknowledge that he wasn’t all as bad as she had named him. Far from it.

  Could she have misjudged him in other aspects of their relationship?

  Irini?

  The attention he lavished on the other woman when she was around—which had always been far too often for Maddie’s liking—could be explained away by the fact that his aunt had counted her as one of the family from the time of her birth. And the relationship had rubbed off because for Dimtri family was all important.

  Having lost both his parents at an early age, he was determined to create a family of his own. She could understand that because he would lavish care on anyone he considered part of his family, as witness how he had helped his parents-by-marriage.

  But she couldn’t explain away that overheard telephone conversation when he had confirmed his love for the beautiful Greek woman, dropped everything and shot off to be with her. Nothing could. Or the way the two of them had vanished together during the week before he’d brought her here to this island. And, although he hadn’t confirmed it—or denied it either, come to that—the intimate-sounding phone call she’d interrupted had to have been to Irini, breaking the news of the pregnancy they had both waited so anxiously for.

  And Irini’s spiteful warning on the night of that party, spelling out exactly why the man who was probably the most eligible bachelor in the whole of Greece had chosen to marry an insignificant nobody like her, was solid, irrefutable fact.

  Her mind preoccupied, Maddie dressed and went down to find him, uselessly wishing yet again that she had never taken Amanda’s advice and kept quiet about Irini’s warning, sticking her head in the sand and putting it down to the malicious spite of a jealous woman.

  Her pride had stopped her flinging what she knew and what she strongly suspected at him after he had flown to England to find her and force her to return to him. And now, it seemed, it was too late.

  He had categorically stated that he no longer wished to know why she had left him. He wouldn’t listen and, knowing him, his masculine pride, she could understand why. In leaving him, demanding a divorce, she had rejected him and all that he was. His ego wouldn’t let him listen to why she had done it. Not if he wanted them to start over, wipe the slate clean. Make the marriage work.

  Until the safe delivery of their child?

  ‘We’ll stop here. You mustn’t overtire yourself.’ A couple of days ago she had accused him of wrapping her in cotton wool. True, he conceded with a wry twist of his mouth. He simply couldn’t help himself. He took this pregnancy seriously, and his part in it was to cherish her.

  Dimitri slid the strap of the picnic bag off one broad shoulder as they reached one of his favourite spots on the island. A gentle green hollow beside an abundant freshwater spring, shaded from the burning sun by a grove of ancient, long-neglected olive trees.

  Golden eyes soft and slightly narrowed between thick black lashes, he watched her wander over the lush green grass, down to where the water bubbled into a natural stone basin. The gauzy cotton skirt she was wearing, in shades of primrose, pale blue and cream moved against the lovely legs that had acquired a healthy tan over the week they had spent here. He adored looking at her. He only had to look at her to want her.

  Their time here together during this past week had been perfect. Their marriage was back on track.

  Or almost.

  Swimming in the pool or in the gentle waters of one of the small bays, exploring the island and the dozens of tiny beaches, lazy afternoons and languid evenings, hot sex—everything was pointing to her willingness to put the recent past behind them, to make a fresh start, as he had wanted, for the sake of the coming child.

  Except…

  He missed her once-ready, infectious laughter. Had caught the wistful look in those clear blue eyes, quickly extinguished when his eyes connected with hers. But it was there, all the same, in his memory.

  It troubled him. But no way was he prepared to question her.

  Because he wouldn’t like the answer?

  The thought came unbidden. She’d wanted a divorce. Since the news of her pregnancy there was no chance of that. And even if he strongly suspected her reasons, he would have to live with those suspicions and do his damnedest to disregard them. If she’d wanted her freedom with the financial cushion of a hefty slice of alimony he didn’t want to hear her confess it, not now!

  He’d said they were to make a fresh start, wipe the slate clean. Every child had a right to a close, loving family, the care of both parents, and he had a duty to provide it.

  And that was how it was going to be. His decision. End of story. Their future and that of the coming child was all that mattered—unsullied by a knowledge he didn’t want to have.

  Thrusting the unwelcome and rare bout of introspection out of his head, he strode towards her. She was kneeling by the spring, her hands gliding slowly back and forth in the cool clear water. As he reached her she glanced up at him from beneath the wide brim of the straw hat he insisted she wear and smiled. Her smile touched his heart, turned it over. It always did.

  ‘It’s lovely! So cool!’

  His heart twisted, the breath in his lungs tightening. The band of freckles across her neat little nose was more pronounced, and perspiration dewed her short upper lip. The blue of her eyes between those thick fringing lashes was clear and perfect. She was the loveliest thing he had ever seen.

  Leaning forward, she cupped her hands in the water and sluiced it over her face in one graceful movement, then rose to her feet, gasping just a little as her hat tumbled off her head.

  Her skin glistened. Droplets trickled onto the soft, tempting skin between firm breasts that were partly exposed by the buttons she’d undone at the front of the sleeveless, cream-coloured fine cotton cropped top she was wearing. With him she was so uninhibited, her sexuality so natural. It blew his mind.

  Instinctively, his hands went to her upper arms to steady her. He heard the tiny huff of expelled breath as her soft lips parted at his touch, felt the inevitable answering excitement tighten his body.

  Those soft, full lips promised passion—the spectacular passion that neither of them could deny. He bent his head and touched them with his own, revelled in her immediate response. Driven as he always was with her, he parted his mouth from hers, going lower, to capture the crystal droplets that sparkled between her breasts. His hands followed. Hands and mouth.

  His hunger for her was as intense as ever, but, mindful of the tiny life inside her, he was now more than ordinarily gentle as he lowered her to the cool green earth. Ignoring the way her body arched impatiently into his, he slowly removed her clothing, the fever grew in her beautiful eyes as fine tremors of tension rippled over her gorgeous nakedness when his hands, a whisper of motion, moved over her engorged, divine breasts, down over the slight curve of her tummy to rest, trembling now, on the springy nest of curls between her parted thighs.

  He heard her near-desperate sigh of need just as he felt control slip away from him, and he breathed her name, thrusting with as much tenderness as he could find deep inside her as she wrapped her legs around his narrow hips in eager welcome.

  Later—how much later Maddie neither knew nor cared—Dimitri moved in her arms, his own arms releasing her, the smile he gave her soft an
d satisfied. Precisely mirroring her own, she guessed.

  It was always like this for them. They only had to touch each other and hot passion, driven need took over, Maddie dreamily acknowledged as he got to his feet, locating his stone-coloured chinos and getting into them with the economy of movement that was so much a part of him.

  ‘We forgot the picnic. Xanthe will be irredeemably upset if we take it back untouched.’ Humour warmed his fantastic amber eyes as they caressed her flushed features. ‘Get dressed, chrysi mou, while I sort it out.’

  Hoisting herself up on one elbow, the lush grass cool beneath her naked body, the slight breeze from the sea caressing her skin, she watched him move away to the lip of the green hollow where he had left the picnic bag Xanthe had filled for them this morning, missing his physical closeness already.

  A too-familiar ache took possession of the region around her heart. His absence from her side, short-lived though it was, still felt like a pain.

  When she was with him, close, talking, swimming, lazily exploring the island, touching, hands clasped, fingers entwined she could forget—lose herself in the wonder of him, even convince herself that he wanted a happy, stable marriage as much as she did, that she came first with him and always would.

  And their frequent lovemaking had nothing to do with primal animal lust. At least to her it always seemed so. There was passion, yes, but tenderness too, a feeling of closeness, of a bond of deep love that couldn’t be broken.

  And yet…

  Separated from him, even for a short while, at such a small physical distance, as she was now, she felt the doubts return, chilling her, eating into her. And the searing near-unbearable sorrow.

  At the start of this week she had made up her mind to go along with his fresh-start dictate, because that would put him off guard, make it much easier for her to bring her plans to fruition, to make her bid for freedom when they returned to Athens and put herself and her coming baby right out of his and Irini’s reach.