The Kouvaris Marriage

by Diana Hamilton

  Her breathing shallow and fast, her skin turning clammy, Maddie struggled to come to terms with what she had heard. Irini had called, and as ever he would drop everything to go to her, be with her. The undeniable fact dealt her a body-blow, left her in mind-numbing shock.

  The pain around her pelvis stabbed wickedly, and white-hot horror engulfed her at that precise moment. Was she about to lose her precious baby? It mustn’t happen! She wouldn’t let it!

  Opening her mouth to alert him to the alarming possibility, she closed it again as he turned to her, his voice sounding as if it were in an echo chamber. ‘I’m sorry, but I have to go. Don’t wait dinner for me.’

  He mustn’t! She needed him! But he was already turning towards the open doorway again. Maddie blurted the first thing to come into her head. ‘Don’t go—I need you!’ Panic accelerated her heartbeat. He must put her first, he must!

  But he turned back to face her, and she was sure he wasn’t actually seeing her. He couldn’t wait to leave. ‘I have to. Irini needs me. She’s threatening—’ He caught the words back between his teeth. ‘One day I’ll tell you why, I promise. But not now. I don’t have time for this. I’m sorry.’

  That did it. Cleared her brain. When Irini called he had no time for his wife. Ice-cold now, her mind crystal-clear, she stated, ‘Leave now and I’ll take the other option you mentioned. I’ll leave this marriage.’ And she meant it, even though she felt her knees might buckle beneath her at any moment.

  While there had been hope that they had a chance of finding happiness together she had been willing to do everything in her power to make it happen. But she would not be second best to that hateful woman for the rest of her days!

  Dimitri went still. ‘I don’t accept ultimatums. Know that about me. I made a promise. I’m not about to break it.’

  The ice in his tone chilled her to the depths of her being, and then he lobbed over his shoulder, already walking away from her, ‘If you can make such childish threats then our marriage can’t count for much, can it? Think about it. We’ll talk later.’

  Her brain buzzed and fizzed with dizziness, and blackness claimed her just after she watched him walk out through the door.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  DIMITRI left Maddie’s gynaecologist with a terse word of thanks and strode out of his office, where he’d been given a reassuring update on her condition, and along the length of the wide hospital corridor to the private room where Maddie had been for the last two days.

  Hating him? Lying there, frightened for their baby, fuming because he hadn’t been at her side?

  Or planning to carry out her threat to walk away from their marriage as soon as she was back on her feet?

  He would never understand what went on inside her head! Until that ultimatum she’d thrown at him—in an inexplicable fit of pique, or so he had supposed at the time—everything had been more than fine between them as far as he knew.

  As far as he knew!

  His jaw clenched. The hidden thing! Her untold initial reason for asking for a divorce.

  He had categorically refused to hear her tell him those reasons. Stubbornly not wanting to know, and just as stubbornly believing that he had no need to know something that might be a constant source of distaste and sorrow in the new start he had determined they embark upon.

  Something on the lines of a greedy plan to gain her freedom and take him to the cleaners at the same time? A scenario his aunt had immediately hit on, and one that he, albeit reluctantly, had almost accepted, unable to see any other.

  He hadn’t wanted to know, had hated the thought of having to accept that the woman he adored saw him as little more than a gold-plated meal ticket.

  Head in sand, or what?

  His fault!

  And now that she was again threatening to end their marriage, it, whatever it was, had to be forced out into the open.

  At least she hadn’t lost the baby. And, according to her doctor, provided she took things easily for the next two or three weeks, the remainder of her pregnancy should proceed without a hitch.

  And come hell or high water he’d be around to make sure she and the baby were fine.

  His lean, strong features grim, he paused as he approached the room she had been given, ran his fingers through his already rumpled hair, over his stubble-roughened chin, and mentally cursed Irini and her problems. Problems she’d landed on him, gaining his reluctant promise to tell no one else, hysterically vowing that the only way she’d agree to taking the professional help she so obviously needed was on hearing his promise that no one else should hear about it.

  It had been young Eleni who had found Maddie crumpled on the floor two days ago, who’d rushed to alert the housekeeper, who had then had the presence of mind to phone for an ambulance.

  Two days. Forty-eight long hours while his Maddie had suffered. Waiting, alone, in a fever of anxiety through a whole slew of tests to discover if the tiny life inside her was safe.

  Two unforgivable days since his aunt had seen fit to stir herself, lift a phone to reach his mobile and tell him of the emergency!

  Two days while he’d been pandering to the needy Irini, convincing her that life was worth living, that her threatened overdose was foolish talk, eventually persuading her that at long last her parents must be told of the drug problem she had vowed was sorted.

  Had he had the slightest idea that his Maddie was in danger of losing their baby he would not have answered Irini’s hysterical call for the help she’d always insisted he alone could give her.

  His teeth clenched until his jaw ached.

  Had he known what he knew now the wretched woman would have been left to sort her own problems out. But at the time—to his own deep shame—he had put what he had mentally named Maddie’s tantrum down to her mysterious jealousy of the other woman.

  Cursing himself to hell and back, he dragged in a deep breath, expelled it slowly, relaxed his tautly held shoulders and opened the door.

  Propped up against the pillows, Maddie had another stab at concentrating on the magazine one of the nurses had given her to look at. But she still felt a little drowsy from the mild sedative she’d been given yesterday, to help her relax, and the magazine—Greek language, but glamorous fashion shots—couldn’t hold her interest.

  Besides, she couldn’t imagine herself ever trying to shoehorn herself and what she’d always considered to be her over-generous curves into any of the skinny garments so enticingly displayed. They all seemed to be designed to be worn by the models pictured—walking skeletons! Women like Irini!

  Despite her earlier good intentions, tears scalded her eyes. Dimitri hadn’t even bothered to phone her and see how she was doing, let alone visit. Too bound up with that dreadful woman to give a single thought to his second best wife. Had it come down to this? That Irini was even more important to him than the fate of their baby? It certainly looked like it!

  A lump the size of a house brick formed in her throat. She swallowed it angrily and scrubbed at her eyes with a corner of the cotton sheet.

  Enough!

  What had she promised herself?

  That he wasn’t worth a single tear and Irini wasn’t worth so much as a glancing thought. That she would think about only really positive things. Her hand moved to rest gently on her tummy. Her baby was safe. Nothing else mattered.

  Certainly not a low-life like her husband, with his sordid obsession with a stick insect!

  As soon as she felt able she would take the second option he’d offered back on the island. Leave him. But she would return to England, pass the waiting time at her parents’ new home, where her mother would pamper her and love her. And understand.

  No way would she agree to his stipulation that she stay in Greece to enable him to have frequent and ongoing access to his child. Seeing him often would keep raw wounds open and bleeding. She wouldn’t do it. It would have to be a clean and total break.

  By flying to Irini’s side when she, his wife, had pleaded with him to
stay with her, he had forfeited any rights.

  And if he decided to take her to court to challenge her right to custody she’d fight him down to the last breath in her body!

  Oh, for pity’s sake, calm down! she told herself. Getting in a state over an unworthy slimeball would do nothing but harm. Sinking back against the pillows, she closed her eyes and tried to visualise peaceful things, like gentle waves lapping on a soft shoreline, or tranquil woodland carpeted with bluebells that swayed in an early May breeze.

  But all she could see was his face!

  When she heard the door open she opened her eyes, expecting to encounter a nurse, come to take her blood pressure. Again. And opened them wider when she saw the real thing, not the image that seemed indelibly printed on her retina.

  Had she had a missile heavier than a mere magazine she would have thrown it at his head! As it was, she had to be content with muttering fiercely, ‘Go away!’

  Dimitri had to summon all his reserves of self-control to stop himself striding over to her and enfolding her in arms that ached to do just that. Hold her close and never let her go.

  She had every right to be angry. But she was overwrought, and it was imperative that she stay calm. There were dark smudges beneath the blue brilliance of her eyes, and a new fragility marked her delicate skin. His throat tightened as his hands made fists at his sides.

  ‘You have every right to be angry,’ he verbalised, his voice steady, much against his expectations. ‘I only learned of what had happened half an hour or so ago, when Aunt Alexandra decided she could be bothered to contact me. I have informed her that she has to make other living arrangements before the end of the month, if not sooner. Like today!’

  Maddie’s fingers clutched at the edges of the sheet. She met the golden glitter of his eyes with icy determination. ‘That won’t be necessary,’ she said flatly. ‘Since there’s no need to pussyfoot around now, I can tell you the truth. Your aunt’s hated and despised me since she first met me. But I won’t be around for her to be less than kind to, will I? Our marriage is over—remember?’

  Not while he had breath in his body! Dimitri bit back that slice of information. For the next two or three weeks Maddie had to be soothed, not rendered over-emotional through arguments and recriminations.

  Schooling his hard features into a mask that verged on indifference, he reminded her, ‘Nevertheless, I insist you return with me—home—where you can be guaranteed peace and quiet for the baby’s sake. Just until you regain your strength and we know there will be no further problems.’

  And while that was happening, while he saw she was wrapped in cotton wool, was pampered, treated as if she were made of the most delicate spun glass, he would get to the bottom of the unholy mess they seemed to have created between them.

  ‘I have spoken to your doctor and he is sure everything will be fine now—provided you take things easily for the next few weeks. That I can guarantee. You are to be discharged this evening into my care. I will collect you at six,’ he added, with measured cool.

  He turned then, congratulating himself that he had handled that without even a hint of an emotion that might have set her off into a frenzy of telling him that she would go nowhere with him because their marriage was dead as a dodo.

  But there was little joy in that achievement, and not even the sternest self-lecture could stop him turning back at the door, his voice riven with painful regret as he announced, ‘Had I had the slightest idea that a miscarriage threatened I would have told Irini in no uncertain terms to sort her own problems out. I would not have left your side for one moment!’

  She had done the right thing for her unborn child, Maddie assured herself for the umpteenth time. Not for her own sake, because seeing him, being around him, nearly tore her in two.

  But haring back to England the moment she was discharged from hospital would have been an irresponsible thing to do the way things were. Hadn’t she been told by the best gynaecologist money could buy that she needed regular check-ups, but most of all, rest and tranquillity?

  She was getting rest in spades. But tranquillity?

  For the last two weeks she’d been doing her best to achieve that enviable state.

  Dimitri, too, seemed to be doing his best in that regard, she acknowledged, with a dismaying lack of satisfaction.

  On her return from hospital he had flatly relayed the news that his aunt was now living with Irini’s parents while she looked for a suitable apartment in town and engaged a companion. Other than that there had been nothing personal, nothing that touched on their past or their future.

  She saw very little of him. He appeared briefly each morning while she breakfasted, to politely ask how she was feeling. Then again at the evening meal, which they shared, imparting snippets of general information—innocuous stuff, mostly, about his friends and business colleagues, which went in one ear and out of the other because, inevitably, she itched to discuss the future, to get her life sorted, fix the date of her departure for England.

  But he had made sure that didn’t happen, and she knew why. He was anxious for their baby. And all that talk of making their marriage work, the future children they might have together, had to have been a con trick to make her feel secure enough to stay with him until the birth, when he would have put his cruel plan into action.

  The coming child and Irini came first with him, and always would. She was simply a disposable and distant second. He had said he wouldn’t have dropped everything to be with that wretched woman, had he had the benefit of hindsight, but she wasn’t about to believe that. When Irini called he would go, no matter what! Otherwise he would do anything, say anything, to make sure Maddie didn’t get in a state of agitation and thereby, in his mind, threaten the wellbeing of their baby.

  As if she could help it!

  Because although she saw so little of him, was stuck in an uncomfortable limbo, his hand was everywhere—and it churned her up!

  There in the parcel of English novels by her favourite authors which had appeared as if by magic, in the gorgeous bouquets of flowers that graced the suite they had once shared, the bowls of fresh fruit and posies of blossoms that found their way to wherever in the house or gardens she opted to settle.

  This morning, restless, she had walked the perimeter of the huge grounds. The weather was pleasantly cooler now, and the emphatic expert opinion, after her latest check-up the day before, was that everything was going along just fine, absolutely as it should. She was to get on with her life as normal. That made her unaccountably edgy. Almost as if she didn’t want to leave him. When she knew darn well she did!

  What had been totally unexpected had been Dimitri’s reaction to the welcome news. He had stared at the doctor as if hearing something deeply unpalatable, his features assuming a chilling distance, and he had barely exchanged a word with her on the drive home, engrossed in private thoughts. And last night he hadn’t dined with her as usual. The housekeeper had imparted the information that he had been unavoidably detained and that she wasn’t to wait for him.

  So what? She shrugged slim shoulders in an effort to put him right out of her mind as she came full circle, back to the terrace. She had the all-clear. There was now nothing to stop her leaving, making flight arrangements to take her back to England and away from him, making a new life for herself and her baby, leaving him to his obsessive passion for the stick insect!

  Opting to rest on one of the loungers instead of going inside the house, she closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable.

  Eleni with her tray! No doubt the staff had instructions to keep an eye on her. One of the gardeners would have relayed the information that she was back at base! Dimitri’s orders, naturally. He wouldn’t want her doing a disappearing act with her precious cargo.

  Hearing footfalls, Maddie let her mouth curve in a smile. She had grown fond of the young Greek girl, and they had tentatively begun teaching each other their own languages. It could be hilarious, and provided a more than welcome respit
e from her tangled emotions where Dimitri was concerned.

  Turning her head in the young girl’s direction, Maddie opened her eyes—and her heart bumped to a standstill, then thundered on.

  Him!

  She never laid eyes on him between breakfast and the evening meal. And not always then. And now, as ever, his stupendous sexiness set off a totally unwanted leap of sensation deep in her pelvis, almost pulverising her with longing.

  Hoisting herself up on her elbows, all thoughts of relaxation flying, she watched as he put a tray on a small glass-topped table within easy reach.

  Coffee, for two, a plate of the little sweet cakes that were so delicious she was developing a needing-to-be-watched passion for them, the never absent small posy of flowers, and a bowl of fresh fruit.

  She tensed. Speechless. Now was the perfect opportunity to put him in the picture regarding her set-in-stone decision to end their marriage. But the words wouldn’t come. Her mind was in chaos.

  When he sat on the end of the lounger she moved her legs sideways at the speed of light. Physical contact would make the chaos worse!

  Turning to her, the force of his steely will holding her unwilling sapphire eyes, he stated flatly, ‘Our child is no longer in any danger. That being the case, we have to talk. And I want the truth—the whole truth. I’ve been too blinkered to want to hear it. But now it’s time.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  MADDIE’S heart leapt like a landed fish. Her hand lifted automatically to her breast, where she could feel it bumping through the fine white organza of her sleeveless top.

  Why now, when everything was over between them? When she could walk away with some dignity, without laying her broken heart before him, suffering his scorn or—heaven forbid—his pity?

  Yet—her brow furrowed with indecision—maybe telling him what she knew, had known for ages, would be a catharsis, a cleansing. Keeping it locked inside her, where it would fester for the rest of her life, would do her no good at all, deny her any kind of closure.