The Greek's Forbidden Bride

by Cathy Williams

  So now another day had been tacked on. Worse, her desire to see the back of him was not what she would have wanted. Instead, a certain amount of pleasure had crept in at the thought of having him around for one more day. Where had that come from? She uneasily told herself that it was simple gratitude at his generosity in staying with her when there was no need. It was difficult not to have some warm feelings towards a person who had put himself out.

  And then there was no opportunity to think more about it because Jamie was in the car, gabbling away about what he had done, producing pictures he had drawn like a magician drawing rabbits from a hat, asking his usual relentless blend of practical questions and ridiculous ones that always made Abby smile.

  ‘Where does he get all that energy from?’ Theo asked at one point and Abby grinned at him. She was having a delightfully easy ride due to her foot and was more than happy to watch how Theo coped with a child. Quite differently, she noted, from Michael. Whereas Michael was always happy to do sedentary things, like playing with Lego and building puzzles, Theo’s solution to the problem involved kicking a ball in the garden, pretending not to hear her advice about windows and neighbours’ gardens, then there was a ride in his car to the local fast food burger joint, which involved some token lip service paid to her concerns about junk food, and later a bath which, from where she was reclining in front of her book, was an adventure in water rather than a functional clean.

  There was something to be said for a vigorous approach to childminding, however. By seven, Jamie’s eyes were closing and she was halfway through a story when he nodded off completely and was taken upstairs by Theo.

  ‘Have you had fun?’ Abby asked when he re-appeared five minutes later and sprawled wearily down on the chair. Theo looked at her through half-closed eyes and thought that he hadn’t experienced such simple fun for a very long time. His very adult fun was measured, sophisticated and highly costly.

  ‘I’ve cancelled Michael,’ he said, avoiding the question. ‘I told him that you weren’t quite up to visitors yet.’

  ‘You said…what?’

  ‘You heard me,’ he drawled. ‘I will see my brother before I leave and, since you two obviously have a friendship beyond my simple comprehension, you can see him any time you want. Just not tonight.’

  ‘And you did that without consulting me?’

  ‘Correct. Tell me what you want to eat for dinner. I can do my best with pasta but anything more complex might be inedible. Michael, I’m afraid, inherited all the culinary genes.’

  ‘You can’t just…just…cancel my arrangements without asking me first!’

  ‘I already have.’ He looked at her calmly while she spluttered herself into resignation.

  ‘It would have been nice…I would have thought that you might have wanted to see your brother! It’s hardly as though you two are in constant touch! Michael would have been horribly offended…I need to call him, explain that it wasn’t my idea…’

  ‘You don’t have to explain anything to Michael.’ Theo could feel his temper beginning to unravel. What the hell was going on here and why did he get the feeling that he wasn’t completely in the picture? ‘And why are you so concerned about what my brother thinks? Does he have something over you? Are you afraid of him for some reason?’ Black eyes narrowed on her face and Abby looked at him with genuine astonishment.

  ‘How could I ever be afraid of your brother? He’s the kindest person I’ve ever met!’

  ‘Then he’ll understand why you need to rest,’ Theo grated.

  The way he was looking at her sent a thrill of gut-wrenching excitement through her and the latent aggression in his voice was sending her messages which her brain struggled to decipher. When he took a couple of steps towards her, her heart began to beat quicker. She licked her lips nervously and stared at him, quite unable to tear her eyes away from his staggering masculinity.

  ‘Besides…’ his voice was a thick, husky murmur, intensely sexy, intensely destabilising ‘…maybe it’s a good thing my brother isn’t going to be around tonight. He might be the good sport who took his broken engagement on the chin but how would he feel about the atmosphere between us?’

  ‘What atmosphere?’ One small part of her wanted to burst into hysterical laughter at the response Michael would have, the last response Theo would have expected. The greater part of her was trying hard to grapple with what was unravelling in front of her and with the steady thump of desire that was increasing in her by the second.

  ‘You know what atmosphere.’ Theo was now standing right over her, looking down, noticing with satisfaction the quickening of her chest as she nervously gulped in air. He reached down and delicately stroked her forearm with his finger. He could almost hear her sigh and it was a turn-on beyond his wildest imaginings. ‘It was there in Greece,’ he murmured, giving her no time to recover from what he was saying. He dropped to his knees and bent to kiss the delicate jut of her collarbone.

  Abby shivered and managed to utter a weak ‘No.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You want me in a way you couldn’t possibly ever want my brother. I proved that once and now I want more…’

  ‘You can’t…’

  ‘Because you don’t want it? Because you don’t want me? Why don’t you tell me that I’ve been imagining your reactions to me? I am beyond the point of telling myself that it’s all a figment of my imagination. God help me, this is the last thing I expected, but then how true the motto that the unexpected is always lying just around the corner…’ His mouth traced the curve of her jawbone. ‘Tell me you don’t want this and I’ll leave you in peace for ever. No tabs kept over my brother. If you decide to walk up the aisle with him, no matter your reasons would be misguided, you won’t find me interfering.’

  ‘I’m not the kind of girl who…sleeps around…’

  Theo was quick to pick up on the incongruity of her statement. ‘But you’re the kind of girl who would marry a man she isn’t attracted to physically simply for the sake of security. A far more dubious morality, some might think.’

  Abby twisted away from him. There was no answer to his bald statement. ‘It isn’t all about sex.’

  ‘I’m going to take you upstairs. This is no place to make love and, don’t worry, I will be very gentle with you.’

  Abby was melting. With every step up those stairs, which he mounted as silently and as quickly as a cat, she could feel her body roaring in wild response, wanting him in a way she had never thought she could ever want a man again, wanting him more than she could remember ever wanting Oliver, but then that would be, she guessed, because she had been untouched for years.

  He pushed open her door with his shoulder, locking it behind him, and then lay her on the bed. Her silence was as telling as a flurry of words. Her brain was telling her to stop but her body didn’t want to listen. Theo turned on the small lamp by the chest of drawers, which was just bright enough to show the silhouettes of their figures, and wondered what he would do if she turned him away now. His body was screaming for satisfaction, but he would walk away, admittedly to have a very cold shower, and once he had started walking he wouldn’t stop. But, God, that thought rocked him more than he cared to admit.

  ‘Your time for outrage and protests is fast coming to an end,’ he said roughly, pausing at the foot of the bed and devouring her hungrily with his eyes. The soft folds of her very sensible knee-length skirt had ridden up to expose the slim paleness of her thighs and her eyes were very wide. To be stared at like that, unwilling but compelled, made his groins ache with desire. He slowly began to unbutton his shirt, looking at her looking at him. He removed it and tossed it on the ground without taking his eyes off her face, only pausing as his fingers rested at the waistband of his trousers. Beyond this point there would be no going back but, God, it was difficult, when every instinct made him want to rip his clothes off and take her, caveman style. Forget about the art of seduction and finesse. He just wanted to be in her and to feel her enclose him.


  ‘Don’t stop,’ Abby whispered. Her words dropped into the thick silence with the finality of a door closing, and she didn’t care. Didn’t care if sex was the only dish on the menu, didn’t care if he thought her a woman of dubious principles, didn’t care about anything but having this big man possess her utterly and completely.

  He had said that he would be gentle with her and she knew he had to be, although her foot felt fine, but she was shocked to discover that she didn’t want gentle, she wanted hot and rough.

  She watched as he continued to remove his clothes and groaned softly when the last item of clothing finally joined the gathering bundle on the floor. The man was magnificent. Broad shoulders, hard, well-toned torso, tapering to a manhood that left her in no doubt that he was as turned on by her as she was by him. When he lightly touched himself she couldn’t help a full-throated groan escaping her lips. She felt more than damp. One touch and she would explode.

  ‘Like what you see, Abby?’ he asked thickly and she nodded.

  ‘Your turn now.’ He gave her a slow smile and she smiled back shyly.

  ‘You might not care for what you see, Theo. I’m not one of your voluptuous types.’

  ‘I’ve already had a sneak preview, in case you’d forgotten, and believe me I liked what I saw. And no, don’t take anything off. I want to savour that myself.’

  Conscious of her foot, Theo moved over her until he was straddling her, then he helped her off with the T-shirt. When she would have unclasped the bra from behind, he stopped her.

  ‘Bit by bit,’ he whispered. Lord, his hands were shaking, like a teenager having his first sexual encounter! Amazing. The consummate lover had suddenly turned into a rash, green youth barely able to contain himself! He had thought about those breasts so often, but as he pulled down the straps of her bra he was flooded with a powerful surge of lust. Those sexy big nipples with their stiffened peaks were the pinnacle of beauty. He would taste them soon enough, enjoy the pleasure of licking them and the heady thrill of feeling her squirm under his exploring tongue. But for now there was more to see, so much more. He removed her bra, freeing those wonderful breasts fully to his gaze and for a few moments was content to just devour them with his eyes, noting the way her chest rose and fell with her hot, quick breathing.

  Then, slowly and carefully, he pulled down the elasticated skirt. Her body was slender and firm with a boyish grace to it that made him wonder how he could ever have found those full-chested curvaceous bodies a turn-on. He hooked his fingers into the sides of her briefs and very slowly drew those down and breathed in sharply as her nakedness was finally exposed. Fair, soft hair covering the place he needed so badly to taste. It took mammoth will-power to remember that he had to be very gentle. And gentle he was, as he leaned down over her to kiss her parted mouth, thrusting his tongue against hers but taking his time, working his way downwards from mouth to neck, from neck to breasts, where he lost himself in the delight of suckling on them. Then lower still, to trail his tongue against the flat planes of her stomach, to circle the delicate indent of her navel, then down to the honeyed moistness between her legs. He placed his hands on the sides of her thighs and, with a muted groan, inserted his questing tongue into that slit, seeking and finding the little bud and teasing it until she could no longer contain her soft moans, little whimpers urging him on as her hand pressed against the back of his head and her legs widened to accommodate his hungry mouth…

  CHAPTER NINE

  ABBY watched lazily from the bed as Theo got dressed. She loved this and hated it. Loved it because she just loved watching him and hated it because it marked the end of the weekend, and the end of every weekend brought her closer to losing him.

  She still found it hard to believe that she was in the position she now found herself, in thrall to a lover who didn’t love her, addicted to his personality with a compulsion that wasn’t reciprocated and terrified of the inevitable loss. Not once in the past six weeks had he murmured any meaningful endearment to her. Not even in the throes of passion, and surely there was no passion beyond what they had shared?

  He enjoyed her and he told her so, but love…? No. He might not see her as the classic gold-digger, but at the back of his mind she was still the woman who had been happy to sell her own personal principles for the sake of financial and emotional security. She had used his brother, whether she wanted to admit it or not, and so he had no qualms about using her.

  It was the worst of all possible situations but she still accepted it because she just couldn’t help herself.

  He travelled to see her on the Friday, sometimes on Saturday, and he always, always left on the Sunday night, after Jamie had been settled in bed. Whether he was in Athens, or more frequently than not in London, he made the journey.

  But it was all about the sex. At least for him. She wasn’t even sure that he liked himself for the weakness. There were times at the height of their lovemaking when he would refer to her as his little witch and she was sadly aware that the words were not spoken as a compliment.

  But here she was, loving him more with each passing weekend, and knowing that she was a fool. He might not have been married like Oliver but he was as dangerous to her health. More. Because what she had felt for Oliver had been an insignificant infatuation compared to what she felt for the man lazily slipping on his trousers with his back to her.

  ‘I can feel you thinking,’ he drawled, not turning round to look at her, busying himself with putting on his shirt, which he didn’t bother to tuck into his waistband. ‘What are you thinking about?’

  About us and where we’re going, she wanted to answer. About what will happen to me when you get bored with me and decide to move on. Will you even let me know or will you just fail to turn up one evening when I’m expecting you? After all, a woman with no moral ethics doesn’t deserve the dignity of a farewell, does she?

  ‘Oh nothing. Work tomorrow, I guess. I hate Mondays.’

  ‘You could always quit.’ Theo turned to face her and continued buttoning up his shirt before leaning against the squat wrought iron rail at the foot of her bed.

  ‘Oh, yes. What a good idea. I can quit and spend my time waiting for the money to start growing on the trees in the back garden.’ She laughed to find that he wasn’t laughing back. ‘You’re kidding, aren’t you?’ She felt his eyes roving over her naked body. He liked looking at her when he dressed and she had discovered that she liked it too, liked that wanton feeling she got when he was fully clothed and she had not a strip on.

  ‘I’m a rich man.’ He shrugged casually but his eyes were sharp and watchful. ‘I can afford to support you.’

  Abby struggled not to react to his words as though they were a slap in her face.

  ‘You mean you can afford to buy me.’

  ‘I don’t need to buy you, Abby. You are already mine for the taking.’

  ‘God, Theo.’ She rolled over on to her side and yanked the duvet cover over her. ‘Sometimes you amaze me.’ Tears pricked the back of her eyelids and she bit down on them.

  ‘I’m merely stating a fact.’ He moved around the bed and sat next to her, swinging her round to face him when she would have turned away. ‘You’re exhausted by the end of the week. What’s so wrong in a man wanting to do something about his mistress’s exhaustion? It makes perfect sense to me.’

  ‘Which just shows what different planets we live on, because it makes no sense to me whatsoever. I like my independence, I like earning my own money and not being reliant on anyone.’

  ‘You were prepared to be reliant on my brother,’ Theo pointed out. Bad idea, he thought, bringing Michael into the conversation when he was about to leave. He knew that she still saw him occasionally during the week, that he would sometimes take her and Jamie out for a meal somewhere, or else just treat them to a seat in one of his restaurants so that he could sit with them and chat even for a few minutes at a time. All’s fair in love and war, Theo had thought. Michael had lost her, however much they made of their frie
ndship, but the thought still nagged away at him like a slow-burning fire that was always too close to shooting up sparks for his comfort.

  Abby looked at him and remained stoutly silent. She and Michael had kept their secret but she knew that their continued relationship got on Theo’s nerves. He wasn’t jealous; no, that wasn’t it. She was his disposable object of desire. What he didn’t like was that the situation between her and Michael should have ended in something final. The fact that it hadn’t made it messy as far as Theo was concerned.

  ‘Well?’ Theo pressed home, ignoring the voice in his head telling him to leave it alone. ‘If anything, I am in a far stronger financial position to take care of your needs, so where’s the problem?’ He could feel the slow-burning fire begin to gather momentum. ‘I also think that Jamie should go to a private school. He’s too bright for any old school.’

  Abby was momentarily distracted by the mention of her son. Theo rarely discussed him, but he was brilliant with Jamie. He seemed to have just the right knack of knowing how to communicate with him, man to boy, and Jamie adored it.

  Another complication she would have to address some time soon.

  She had originally started off with all the right intentions. She had yielded to their overpowering attraction for one another and had told herself that there was nothing wrong in clutching at some passing happiness and enjoying the freedom of a purely sexual relationship. She had tried to keep Jamie out of the picture but it had been hard. Now, during the day, they did things as a threesome and it was so enjoyable watching her son light up like a Christmas tree whenever Theo was around that she had lowered her defences and gone along for the ride.

  Somewhere along the line, things had begun to go badly wrong and she had not made a move to stop any of it.

  ‘My son’s education is none of your business, Theo.’

  Theo felt his body tense and then immediately told himself that she was absolutely right and thank God for that. ‘I’m merely putting forward a point of view.’