The Greek's Marriage Bargain

by Sharon Kendrick

  She’d felt uncomfortable then and had lapsed into silence herself and not long afterwards she had excused herself from the table and gone off to bed. And when he had followed her he had seemed reluctant to have any kind of conversation. Instead he had started to kiss her in a hungry, almost angry way and she couldn’t prevent herself from kissing him back and after that it had just rocketed out of control.

  But now she couldn’t get that kiss out of her mind, or the explosive love-making which had followed. And she needed to. She needed to forget the slide of his fingers on her flesh and the way his lips sought out her most sensitive places. She remembered the way his head had burrowed in between her thighs last night. She’d put her hand on his hair to stop him because at that moment it had seemed almost too intimate an act, especially when she was trying to distance herself from him.

  But he hadn’t stopped. He had just moved his tongue all the way along the trembling skin of her inner thigh and she had let him. He had ignored her little gasp of outraged pleasure when his lips first located that hot and aching little bud. He’d pretended he hadn’t heard her muffled question about whether this was such a good idea. And then she had fallen back against the bed, her thighs parting wide and her fingers clutching at him greedily as she soared up into an intense orgasm which left her body racked with exquisite spasms.

  How did he do that? she wondered. Dominating her so utterly and completely and turning her into both a compliant and active lover. She thought how easy it had been to slip back into the physical compatibility which had always been a huge part of their marriage. Yet when she stopped to think about it, even that side of their relationship had never really been equal. He had come to the marriage with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the opposite sex while hers could have been written on the back of a postage stamp. He was the only man she’d ever been intimate with and that had pleased him far more than it should have done. She knew that because he’d told her, in that unashamedly boastful Greek way of his.

  She’d once asked him if he would have married her if she hadn’t been a virgin and there had been a momentary hesitation before he had reassured her that, yes, of course he would. But Lexi had never really been convinced by that reassurance. Her virginity was all tied in with Xenon’s desire for a wife-on-a-pedestal. The textbook partner for a fundamentally old-fashioned man.

  And she was not that wife. She could never be that wife.

  Diving beneath the surface of the pool, she opened her eyes to the bleached blue light as she swam almost an entire length underwater before emerging, spluttering, into the fresh air.

  She wondered what would lie ahead when she left here, with Jason’s debts paid off and her whole life in front of her. She had her career and her home, but no emotional security. She wondered if she would ever find happiness with another man or whether she was doomed to become one of those women who always carried a torch for their first and only love. A little like Marina...

  Hauling herself out of the pool, she squeezed the excess water from her hair and rubbed herself dry with a giant towel before walking back to the villa.

  Xenon was standing in the doorway as she approached, a cup of coffee in hand and an inscrutable expression on his face as he watched her. Wearing nothing but a pair of faded jeans, his big body looked tense and powerful. Sunlight gleamed on the muscular arms and honed torso and Lexi was suddenly filled with an almost unbearable sense of lust. She was going to miss this. Damn it, she was going to miss him.

  ‘That bikini doesn’t leave much to the imagination,’ he observed drily.

  ‘You’d prefer to give your imagination something to work on, would you?’

  ‘That depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  Broad shoulders rose and fell in a shrug but none of the tension left them. ‘On what you have in mind to get it fired up.’

  She looked straight into his eyes. ‘How about this for starters?’

  She pushed him inside and shut the door before taking his cup from him, putting it down with miraculously steady fingers. Then she put her hands onto his bare shoulders and started to kiss him.

  His mouth opened instantly. He groaned as she slicked her tongue inside and began to slide it over his teeth. Her fingers moved down from his shoulders and began to explore his bare flesh. They skated lightly over his torso. She could feel the hard muscle which underpinned the silken skin and with her thumb and her forefinger she teased each of his nipples, the way he’d so often teased hers, and she heard his shuddered sigh.

  ‘Lex—’

  ‘Shh,’ she whispered.

  Downwards her fingers tiptoed, as slowly as she could make them. So slow that it was barely a move at all. She could feel him shift his body impatiently as she finally reached his belt, before moving her hand away as if she had changed her mind.

  ‘Lex,’ he moaned.

  ‘I can’t hear you.’

  Xenon shut his eyes. He knew exactly what she was doing. She was playing a power game. The same game he’d been playing last night when he’d been trying to work out just what it would take to get through to her. Really get through to her. He swallowed. ‘I’m not going to beg you.’

  ‘That’s okay.’ She flicked her fingers lightly over his straining crotch. ‘We’re not in any hurry.’

  The sustained teasing went on for several minutes before Xenon thought that he might explode. A hot rush of breath escaped from his lips and suddenly begging seemed like the best option in the world. ‘Please.’

  ‘Is this what you want?’ Her hands moved down to the buckle of his belt.

  ‘Yes. God, yes.’

  ‘I think I’d better get these off quickly, don’t you?’

  ‘Lex—’

  ‘Shh.’

  She began to pull the zip down over his straining hardness and, carefully, her fingers freed him. She heard him groan again before she sank to her knees in front of him and the stupid thing was that the note of vulnerability in his voice just twisted at her heart. Physically, she’d never felt so in control, but emotionally she was only just hanging on by a thread as she slithered down his jeans.

  He was very aroused, she thought. And so very big. She closed her eyes as his erection nudged against her cheek. Her hands splayed over his bare buttocks and she pressed her mouth against his hardness, her tongue licking a feather-light trail as it whispered down over his steely shaft.

  ‘Lex,’ he groaned, his hands clutching the side of her head as she took him deep into her mouth.

  She cupped her hand around his balls and stroked them as she began to suck him. He tasted salty and he felt exquisitely hard and Lexi felt the hot rush of excitement flooding through her veins. She could never be the wife he needed but she could still make this powerful man groan helplessly beneath her lips.

  She teased him and taunted him; licked him until he muttered something urgently in Greek and she felt the imperceptible change in his body. He tensed. The fingers which were tangled in her hair were now pressing urgently against her head. She heard him draw in a shuddering breath and then hold it as if it were the last breath he might ever take, before he began to convulse helplessly. She heard the low cry he made as that first warm, salty taste of him spurted into her mouth and she sucked on it greedily, as if it were lifeblood.

  She waited until he was still and then drew her mouth away, trying to compose herself, but it wasn’t easy.

  For a moment he said nothing, just rested his hands on top of her still-damp hair as if he was conferring some sort of blessing. Then he pulled her to her feet before bending to yank up his jeans, wincing slightly as he zipped them up.

  But his eyes were serious as he tilted her chin with his hand, capturing her gaze so that she could look nowhere but at him.

  ‘You’re very good,’ he said.

  She licked her lips and she could still tast
e him. ‘I was taught by the best.’

  His gaze followed the movement of her tongue as predictably as a cat watching a piece of dangling string. ‘As an example of how well you’ve learned, you certainly couldn’t have bettered that little demonstration.’

  She wanted to say that it hadn’t been a demonstration—but how else would she describe it? Lust, certainly. But not just lust. Lust alone didn’t make your heart pound with a power which made you feel dizzy. Nor did it make you want to touch your lover’s face with a tenderness which might just give away how much you really cared. How much you really loved. Still. Even now.

  But none of it mattered. Time was running out. After the christening she would be free to go, because that was what Xenon had told her would happen and he never reneged on a deal.

  She managed a smile—a bright beam of a thing which went no further than her lips. ‘I’m glad you enjoyed it. It’ll be something to remember me by when I’m gone. And while we’re on the subject—I’d like to get away as soon as possible tomorrow. I’m happy to go back on a commercial flight if that would be less hassle.’

  There was a pause. He seemed to be picking out his words with particular care. ‘And what if I said I didn’t want you to go?’

  Lexi wrinkled her nose. ‘But we can’t stay here.’

  ‘I’m not proposing we do. But we can go back to London, can’t we? We can even go to your place in Devon if that’s what you want.’

  ‘Together?’

  ‘Why not?’

  For a moment, Lexi got a bizarre image of what it might be like with Xenon trying to blend into village life. She pictured him standing in a queue in the little corner shop while he waited to buy a loaf of bread. Playing darts in the local pub. Confused now, she stared at him. ‘I don’t know what you’re suggesting.’

  ‘I want to make it with you, Lex,’ he said simply. ‘I want to give our marriage another chance.’

  ‘But we’ve already talked about it. We’ve said everything there is to say.’ Her words sounded miraculously strong but she could see from the look on his face that he wasn’t really listening to them. And maybe this was inevitable. Maybe she needed to expose the one last, weak link which would sever their relationship for ever.

  ‘No,’ he said and his face was filled with a dark determination which made Lexi’s heart begin to sink. ‘We haven’t talked about how we might heal the past. I saw your face when you held Ianthe yesterday. I saw the sadness in your eyes and I understood what you were feeling. But it doesn’t have to be this way, Lex. We can start again. We can have another baby—’

  ‘No!’ The word came out more violently than she had intended. She could see that its vehemence shocked him—it even shocked her. ‘I can’t have another baby, Xenon. Don’t you understand? That’s why this marriage could never work then—or now. Because I can’t give you the baby you’ve always wanted.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THERE WAS COMPLETE silence as Xenon stared at Lexi with incomprehension in his dark eyes.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The baby was...was...’ Her voice began to wobble. What words could she possibly use that wouldn’t insult the memory of that little scrap? ‘They did...tests. They said that he had a genetic abnormality. Something was wrong with his chromosomes and that was why it had happened. That his condition was not...’ She sucked in a shuddering breath as the corrosive truth came out in a bitter rush. ‘Was not compatible with life.’

  There was a long, disbelieving pause while he looked at her as if he’d never really seen her before. ‘And why didn’t you tell me this at the time?’ he demanded. ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me, Lex? A secret as big as this and yet you kept it from me?’

  Pain ripped through her. And guilt. So much guilt. ‘Because you weren’t there to tell!’ She shook her head. ‘Oh, I’m not blaming you for the fact that a volcanic ash cloud brought the global aviation system grinding to a halt—even you couldn’t overcome that. But I was having difficulty getting my own head around what the doctors had told me and when you got back you were so...distant.’

  ‘Because I didn’t know what to say,’ he gritted out.

  ‘I know that!’ Her voice was wobbling now. Didn’t he see? Didn’t he understand that there was a reason she had spared him the bitter truth? ‘But I also knew you wanted another baby. And that’s the bottom line. Because I can’t give you that baby, Xenon.’

  He was staring at her warily, as if he wasn’t quite sure what she might do next. ‘I still don’t understand where you’re going with this,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t you? It’s really very simple.’ She took a deep breath, which seemed to scorch its way right down into the base of her lungs. ‘The reason our baby died was my fault, okay? It was my fault. Do you understand now?’

  He shook his head. ‘You can’t know that!’

  ‘Yes! Yes, I can!’ Lexi dug her nails into her palms, wishing that she could just close her lips and refuse to say any more because it was so painful. But she knew she could not let this go until he accepted the truth. Because she owed him that. He needed to understand that there was no magic wand to be waved to give him what he had always wanted. ‘The doctors told me that you can change a lot of things—but you can’t change your genetic make-up. And there’s something in me which makes it impossible to carry a baby to term. Don’t you hear what I’m saying, Xenon? That I’m damaged goods and I’ll never be able to guarantee you the son and heir you’ve always longed for.’

  ‘You’re not damaged,’ he ground out. ‘You’re whole and you’re beautiful—inside and out!’

  He moved to hold her but she held up her hand to stop him. ‘No. I’m not. I wish I was, but I’m not.’ She backed away from him, wanting to put physical distance between them. Terrified that if she didn’t she would weaken and she loved him too much to short-change him for the rest of his life. ‘This is your let-out clause, Xenon, don’t you see? Don’t let some misplaced sense of loyalty or pride make you feel you’ve got to make it work with me. Don’t allow my physical shortcomings to crush your dreams. Go away and find another woman—the right kind of woman—and have a baby with her.’

  His breathing was rapid and his eyes were glittering with a hectic blue fire but the words he bit out were strong and steady. ‘And what if I told you that I want you, anyway? That, contrary to what your ridiculously low self-esteem might tell you, I did not marry you because you were a “brood mare”? I married you because I loved you. I still do.’

  ‘Don’t.’ The word came out in a low moan of pain. ‘Please don’t make this even harder.’

  ‘I’ll make it as hard as it damned well needs to be. I’ll do whatever I have to do to make you see sense.’

  ‘I am being sensible,’ she said stubbornly.

  ‘No, you’re not. Listen to me, Lex. Yes, I wanted a baby with you—I can’t deny that. But maybe there’s still a chance we can. We can get a second opinion. We can have access to the best doctors in the world—’

  ‘No.’ And maybe the certainty in her voice made him realise that she was serious because suddenly he tensed. She hugged her arms around her bikini-clad body but beneath it she was still shivering. ‘Don’t you realise that this is something your money can’t buy, or fix? I can’t have your baby, Xenon—that’s the beginning and the end of it—and because of that, we have no future together.’

  His body was tense now; his face dark and brooding. ‘So I don’t get any say in this?’

  She shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘Do you love me?’

  Lexi hesitated. Say no, she urged herself. Tell him that all your love has gone—worn out and washed away. But as she looked into his blue eyes she knew she couldn’t lie. Her body might have failed him, but her heart would always be true. ‘I’ll always love you,’ she said. ‘And it’s because of
that that I’m setting you free.’

  ‘How very magnanimous of you,’ he said. ‘You castigate me for being a control freak and now you’re telling me it’s over without considering any other option.’

  ‘Because there is no other option!’

  ‘Oh, but there is. It’s just one that neither of us has considered until now.’

  ‘And that is?’

  ‘That is that we don’t go down the baby route. We’ll forget about a family—’

  ‘Xenon—’

  ‘Plenty of couples have decent and fulfilled lives without children. If you want—if you want—we can think about adoption some time in the future. Or we can just enjoy our niece and the children my cousins will one day have. The children that your own brothers might have. Because I love you, too, Lex—and that love is unconditional. I want you—just you—and whatever comes with having you is all right by me.’

  His words were soft with conviction and Lex’s heart sang with hope as for a moment she allowed herself to dream for one unbearably beautiful moment. Only this wasn’t a dream. It was real. Xenon loved her and she could have his love. She could live with him for the rest of her life. Lexi and Xenon.

  But the shadow of reality darkened her thoughts, because how long before their love was spoiled by the nagging recognition of what they were missing? Wouldn’t the day come when Xenon would look around and realise he wanted a child, no matter what he said now? Mightn’t he decide that he’d made the wrong decision and find himself a fertile woman who could give him his heart’s desire? She doubted that people would blame him if he did that.

  Her voice was tight—mainly because her heart was beating so fast that she could barely speak. ‘My mind is made up,’ she said. ‘And you aren’t going to be able to change it. I can’t do it, Xenon. You can’t see it now, but one day you’re going to thank me for this.’