by Lynne Graham
His breathtaking smile lit his lean, strong features and made her heart hammer like a road drill. ‘And I have something I have to say to you.’
‘Me first,’ Katie countered hurriedly, keen to get her little speech over with. ‘I’m not going to sleep with you tonight. Now, please don’t get mad about that.’
Alexandros had gone very still. Dense black lashes dipped almost to his stunning cheekbones, then slowly lifted again on glittering golden eyes filled with level enquiry. ‘This is our wedding night. Why would you decide not to sleep with me?’
Katie closed her hands tightly in on themselves. ‘Because you blackmailed me into marrying you, and that was wrong.’
‘Blackmail is an evocative word. I wanted to marry you, and I cut through all the…nonsense.’ Alexandros selected that final word with care, and squared his stubborn jawline. ‘And here we are, married and with our whole lives before us. Please don’t tell me that you’re planning to destroy that.’
Katie made a tiny movement with a jerky hand, her normal relaxed motion restricted by the reality that the level of tension in the room was truly horrendous. ‘I’m not planning to destroy anything—’
‘Then why give me grounds for divorce on our wedding night?’ Alexandros demanded wrathfully ‘What is all this?’
CHAPTER TEN
ANGER burnishing his challenging gaze, Alexandros was unable to wait for her to answer that demand for clarity. ‘This is some petty revenge because I saw what was right for us and I went for it on my own. You didn’t like my methods?’ he queried. ‘Tough. My methods get results. If I’d left you in charge, we’d still be in limbo and nothing would be decided!’
‘Well, it’s good to know that your conscience won’t be keeping you awake at night,’ Katie responded, fighting the fact that her nerves had gone into panic mode at that reference to divorce. ‘You need to accept that what you did was wrong, Alexandros—’
‘How’s it wrong? You’re my wife now. My children will take on my name—’
‘I want our relationship to be about us, not about the children—’
‘Then stop behaving like a child!’
Katie breathed in deep, mentally buckled herself into defensive armour and held up a finger. ‘One…I married you because you threatened to contest my custody of the kids—’
‘I wouldn’t have done that to you!’ Alexandros grated, with a flash of his even white teeth. ‘Don’t you know anything about me yet?’
‘Two—’
‘Siopi…quiet!’ Alexandros cut in. ‘Holding up fingers and counting is bloody irritating.’
‘Two…’ Katie launched defiantly. ‘I don’t want to sleep with a guy who makes me feel that I’m only good enough for sex!’
‘I don’t want to sleep with a wife who thinks that she can use her body like a bargaining chip!’
‘Three,’ Katie continued doggedly. ‘I—’
Alexandros threw up both hands in an explosive demonstration of rage. ‘I’m out of here!’
‘No…don’t be like that!’ Katie gasped, racing past him at breakneck speed to plant her back against the door and block his exit.
‘Move.’
‘But we need to talk—’
‘I’m not in the mood. Move.’
‘No…’
In response, Alexandros scooped her up off her feet, crossed the room in two strides and dumped her down on the bed. He came down over her and she lay there, looking up at him with huge green eyes full of surprise and uncertainty. ‘Alexandros…’
‘When you say my name it’s an invitation.’ Tawny eyes smouldering gold with aggression, he took her lips with a passionate urgency that melted her body into a honeyed compliancy that tore giant holes in her defences.
With a sob of regret in her throat, Katie pulled free.
Alexandros surveyed her with a savage condemnation that seemed to her to be all out of proportion to what she had done. His lean bronzed face might have been chipped out of granite, and he was pale below his dark skin.
‘I swore I’d never marry again. I changed for you. I swore I’d never have children. I learned to accept and love our sons,’ he breathed, with a bleakness of tone that made her break out in a sweat. ‘And I thought you were different. Loving and giving and truthful. Well, where the hell has that all gone?’
His fierce bitterness cut through every layer of her skin. Suddenly she felt very much in the wrong, even if she did not quite comprehend exactly what that wrong was. What she did grasp was that in his eyes she had let him down, betrayed him, and that accusation hurt like hell. Who had he thought she was different from? She had never seen him reveal that much emotion before, and it shook her inside out.
The door closed. He was gone. She had done what she’d set out to do. She had stood firm, stuck like glue to her convictions. But she had not got to state the finer points of what she had intended to say. However, she had got across the basic message, she reminded herself, and, considering the hostility of her audience, that had been quite an achievement.
Her muscles were aching with the stiffness of extreme stress. Slowly, clumsily, she flopped back in her floral bower. She was still clad in her exquisite dress and tiara. He would have taken them off. Without any warning at all, she was racked by the most terrible doubts, and the tears started flowing.
The next day, Katie went down to breakfast at eight.
At one in the morning she had gone looking for Alexandros. Searching a house that contained two hundred and thirty two rooms had ultimately become too much of an embarrassing challenge as she’d run into or disturbed various members of the household staff. She’d rung his mobile, but it was switched off. Even if she had run him to earth, she had no idea what she would have said to him, and feared that, in the mood he had been in, she might actually have made things worse.
During the night, she had not slept a wink. She’d lain awake, hoping that Alexandros might come back to talk to her, and fretting herself to death when she had been left in splendid isolation. Suppose Alexandros demanded a divorce? Suppose he had left the country? Would he even go ahead with the honeymoon now?
She had got up at six to double-check her packing, then spent ages trying to hide the redness of her eyes with make-up. She’d put on a green skirt and top that she wasn’t that fussed about but had bought purely because he liked her in short skirts.
The dining room was empty. She comfort-ate her way through a huge breakfast.
The wave of relief that assailed her when Alexandros strolled in, casually elegant in beige cargo pants and an Italian knit sweater, left her dizzy.
‘Are you ready?’ he asked.
A second wave of relief washed over her; the honeymoon was still on the travel schedule.
‘Like the skirt,’ he murmured, as she clambered with the greatest difficulty into the limo.
‘Are you still talking to me?’
‘Got any more skirts like that in your luggage?’
‘Alexandros—’
He leant over and rested a silencing finger against her soft pink mouth. ‘No—don’t say it again, agape mou. “We need to talk” has to qualify as the phrase most likely to make the average guy run like hell.’
Green eyes huge, she nodded slowly. He lounged back into his corner, contriving to look absolutely gorgeous. She swallowed hard. They did need to talk, but now she was too scared to risk it. The night before he had told her that he had changed for her, and that declaration had shocked her, giving her another, not entirely welcome perspective of their relationship. Did he mean that marrying her and learning to be a father had been major sacrifices? She reckoned that he might well do, and she felt cut to the bone. There she was, always asking for more from him, and she knew that that was unfair and unreasonable.
A large contingent of the press awaited them at the airport. They were kept at a distance by Cyrus and his men. Alexandros closed a protective arm round Katie and ignored the questions flying their way. Someone said something about �
They boarded his private jet. She saw the neat rows of newspapers on the desk and riffled through them, to emerge with the trashiest—which bore a rather grainy depiction of them kissing on the dance floor.
Alexandros rested a lean brown hand over hers before she could lift the publication. ‘Don’t waste your time,’ he advised.
But Katie was a glutton for punishment. She leafed through to find the centre spread. As far as embarrassing photos went, there was only one more, showing her in her bridal finery, but every detail of their special day was now public knowledge. Her eyes watered like mad and she stared into space, fighting for self-control. She felt so terribly to blame. She had been stupid and sentimental to trust Leanne again.
‘I’m sorry about this,’ she mumbled tightly.
‘Forget it.’
But his forbearance was too much for her. Before the tears could overflow, she told him that she was going to lie down, and fled into the sleeping compartment. Sitting on the side of the bed, she struggled to hold the sobs back. The door opened thirty seconds later.
Alexandros sat down beside her and tugged her back against him. ‘It’s no big deal.’
‘Everyone went to so much trouble and expense trying to keep our wedding private, and I blew it all sky-high!’ Katie sobbed. ‘I shouldn’t have invited her—’
‘You thought she was your friend.’
‘That’s what hurts…’
‘Shush…’ Alexandros sighed. ‘I know.’
‘Why aren’t you furious with me?’
‘I like the fact that you’re like a chocolate with a soft centre,’ he confided. ‘If you were as tough as I am, you wouldn’t be the same person, agape mou.’
She gulped in oxygen. ‘Why are you being so nice?’
‘I wasn’t nice last night?’
A choked laugh was dredged from her, and she squirmed round to curl more intimately into the solid heat and strength of him. Love was running through her like a riot, and lust was following a close second. She was his, absolutely his, at that moment. She shifted closer, the tips of her breasts rubbing against the solid wall of his chest.
Alexandros reached down and straightened a pillow. He edged her away from him and slowly lowered her head down on to it. ‘You’re exhausted. You should get some sleep.’
‘Where were you last night?’ she whispered.
‘Getting drunk.’
‘Oh…’ Katie just could not imagine that. And, knowing how much he liked to stay in control, could only feel that she had driven him into an act that was out of character.
‘For what it’s worth,’ Alexandros announced from the doorway, lean, strong face grim, ‘you were right about the blackmail. It was cruel. It was wrong. And I make no excuses. I knew what I was doing. I wasn’t prepared to do the courtship thing…I wasn’t even sure I could do it…I just wanted it—you and I—sorted.’
Katie wondered what ‘the courtship thing’ might have entailed. He had wanted it sorted? Yes, she understood that. He was very impatient, very stubborn, and very dominant—particularly in any field where he believed that he knew best.
‘What do we do next?’ she whispered.
‘The honeymoon.’
Alexandros owned a private island. They flew in on a helicopter, which he piloted himself. From the air he showed her a sprawling white house, set in wooded ground above a white stretch of beach, and flew across the island to let her see the village. Down in the harbour, a ferry had docked. As they turned to head back inland a fisherman waved from a brightly coloured blue boat.
‘We’ll spend the rest of the week here, and then, if you feel like something more lively, we’ll hit Ibiza at the weekend.’
At the house, cushioned wicker seating furnished the tiled terrace below stone arches that looked out to sea. The freshwater infinity pool shared the same incredible view. Decorated in Mediterranean blue and white shades that took on amazing clarity in the clear light, the interior of the house was pure enchantment. Rustic antiques were set off by natural cotton draperies and inviting sofas. And beyond the characterful charm and simplicity lay marble bathrooms to die for and a kitchen that a world-class chef would not have disdained.
‘I love it…I really love it.’
Alexandros settled her luggage down in the fabulous master bedroom. ‘As do I…it’s always been a special place for me.’
Had he brought Ianthe to the island? Intelligence told her that he most probably had, and she scolded herself for being envious of a dead woman. But still she fell victim to mental images of the exquisite Ianthe posing out on the veranda, or draped elegantly across an opulent sofa, while Alexandros watched with helpless admiration.
They dined by candlelight on the terrace, and she sipped champagne. She wore the emerald and diamond ring and flaunted it as much as she dared. She had noticed that he was not touching her, and he hadn’t put his luggage in the same room. Suddenly being apart from him felt really dangerous. If the distance between them got too great, maybe she would lose him altogether, she thought feverishly. All her insecurities were steadily mounting to the surface.
‘Why won’t you talk about Ianthe?’ she asked him abruptly, and she really hadn’t meant to say it. But there the controversial subject was, out on the table, like a giant rock suddenly surfacing from a clear sea.
Alexandros frowned in surprise and the silence stretched. He thrust back his chair and stood up. ‘Why would I talk about her?’
Her nerves on edge, Katie forced a rueful smile. ‘You were with her for the best part of a decade.’
Lean, darkly handsome face taut, Alexandros vented a sardonic laugh. ‘And perhaps that’s something I’d prefer to forget.’
That suggestion hung there while she gaped at him with steadily widening green eyes. ‘Are you…? I mean, what you just said…er…I don’t understand,’ she fumbled shakily, unable to believe what he had just implied.
Alexandros shook his handsome dark head in apparent wonderment. ‘Are honeymoons always this bad?’
Katie froze, and turned pale as milk.
Without another word, Alexandros strode off in the direction of the beach.
After a moment of paralysis, Katie scrambled up and chased after him, kicking off her high-heeled sandals to plunge into the soft sand in his wake. It was a clear night, and the full moon was shedding a lot of light. ‘You can’t blame me for being curious. You didn’t tell me about her in Ireland, when we first met, and later, when I wanted to know more about her, you told me that I didn’t have the right to know anything about your marriage!’ she reminded him in a feverish rush.
‘That was way back at the beginning. In Ireland I had no reason to talk about her. I knew you would be upset if you knew I’d been married and, like most men, I avoided the issue. I don’t talk about her because I don’t want to.’
‘But I thought that if you’d really loved someone and lost them you’d want to talk about it…at least sometimes. Wouldn’t that be healthier?’
‘It wasn’t like that between Ianthe Kalakos and I.’ Alexandros stuck his hands deep in his pockets and stared out to sea, his bold, bronzed profile bleak.
‘Then please tell me how it was,’ Katie muttered. ‘I really need to know.’
‘I was twenty years old. She was twenty-four. My friends thought she was gorgeous, and they all said how lucky I was when she set her sights on me. She was up for anything, and at that age that was all I needed. I thought it was a casual thing. She said it was too. I was about to finish it when she told me she was pregnant.’ Hearing Katie gasp, he turned his dark head and said grimly, ‘Been there, done that, got the T-shirt…is that what you’re thinking? It didn’t turn out to be that simple, thespinis mou.’
But what he had already told her seemed to explain so much that Katie was knocked for six. He had been through the unplanned pregnancy scenario long before she came along with the twins. No wonder he had been so reluctant to credit that it could happen to him again. Lightning, it seemed, could strike twice in the same place. ‘What happened?’
‘I didn’t even hesitate…I was a well-brought-up Greek boy. I married her, made two families very happy. A month after the wedding I accompanied Pelias to London for a business meeting, and when I got home Ianthe told me she had lost the baby.’
Katie winced. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Don’t be. Ianthe was immediately determined to have a baby to replace the one she said she’d lost. I wasn’t as keen. I was too young. But, had a child been born, I would have done my best. I did try to be as supportive of her needs as I could be. Five years after the marriage we were still childless, and I went with her to see her latest consultant because I was concerned by the weird treatment she was having. Quite accidentally I learned that she had never been pregnant in her life.’
Katie pressed a hand to her parted lips. ‘Oh, my word…she lied to you about having conceived?’
‘All that time we’d been living her lie. I couldn’t believe that I’d been such an idiot. I was too naive to even think of asking her for proof before I agreed to marry her.’ Alexandros sighed.
‘You know…I imagined that you had had the perfect marriage with Ianthe,’ Katie whispered apologetically.
‘On the surface it did look perfect to a lot of people. Ianthe didn’t have close friends, and our marriage was a perfect fantasy in her mind. But when I found out that she’d lied about the pregnancy, I told her I wanted a divorce…and she responded by trying to kill herself.’
‘Oh, no…’ Katie gasped in horror.
‘That was when I realised that Ianthe wasn’t really responsible for what she did. She was unstable—a fantasist who was obsessed with me,’ he admitted, with a bleakness of tone that made her tummy clench. ‘She couldn’t bear to be on her own, and never stopped telling me how much she loved me.’
‘And you felt trapped.’ Katie was finally realising why such declarations weren’t his style. Damon Bourikas had remarked that Alexandros had become a workaholic after his marriage. She imagined he had used work as an escape from the pressure of a relationship that must always have demanded more than he was able to give. For someone with his reserved nature, such emotional histrionics must have been an even greater challenge.
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