The Greek's Blackmailed Mistress

by Lynne Graham

  Elvi was stunned, listening in shaken silence to that unexpected confession because she had not appreciated how deep Xan’s guilt over making her his mistress went. ‘You make everything so complicated. You were behaving like one of those men who deliberately treats a woman badly to ensure that she breaks things off and saves him the trouble of doing it,’ she mumbled in bemusement.

  To be fair to her, her brain was working on more than one thought train. She was still thinking about Xan’s surprising admission that needing her to such an extent had seriously worried him, which suggested to her that Xan had been feeling something more than lust for her, something strong enough to ignite his fear of a deeper commitment.

  ‘But I’ve got you now,’ Xan pointed out with unashamed satisfaction as he closed a powerful hand over hers and tugged her up out of her seat. ‘I won’t be treating you badly because I definitely don’t want you to leave me—’

  ‘You’re sure of that?’ Elvi checked. ‘No more Angies or major affairs lurking in your past?’

  ‘Not one. She burned me too badly. I protected myself after that,’ Xan confessed huskily, his attention locking to Elvi’s ripe pink mouth with smouldering intensity. That fast, he was aroused and aching for her.

  He leant down to taste her in an exploratory foray that was supposed to be teasing, but which swiftly turned into a breathtakingly sensual assault. He plucked at the inviting fullness of her lower lip, traced the sealed line of her mouth with the teasing tip of his tongue and then plunged deep between her lips with the kind of hunger that made her tremble in his arms. A nagging hollow sensation deep down inside forced her to clamp her thighs tightly together.

  ‘Were you jealous of Joel?’ Elvi asked hopefully.

  Xan drew back from her frowning. ‘Of course not. I’ve never been the jealous type and since you won’t be seeing him again—’

  It was Elvi’s turn to freeze. ‘I beg your pardon?’ she interrupted.

  Xan shrugged. ‘You can’t see him again until he’s got over you. If you keep on seeing him, you’ll be encouraging him to continue wanting what he can’t have. That would be cruel—’

  ‘I can see him if I want to.’

  ‘Not if I have anything to do with it,’ Xan sliced in squarely. ‘And why would you want to see him? He doesn’t want to be your friend, he wants to be your lover.’

  Elvi reddened uncomfortably, unable to escape the maddening reality that Xan was making valid points.

  ‘He’ll get over it eventually,’ Xan forecast carelessly. ‘If he had really loved you, he would have taken the risk and told you how he felt about you. But if you want my opinion—’

  ‘I don’t,’ Elvi told him cuttingly.

  ‘He knew if he told you how he felt about you he’d be plunging himself into a serious relationship and he wasn’t ready for that. He kept you on ice for the future, encouraged by the fact that you weren’t putting yourself out there for other men. He missed his chance.’

  ‘You walked away from me too,’ Elvi reminded him tightly.

  ‘No, I made you walk away from me and it cost me. I’ve gone through a month of hell without you,’ Xan murmured hoarsely, startling her with that grated confession. ‘I haven’t even looked at another woman since the day you came into my office—’

  Elvi shook free of her disconcertion and treated him to an unimpressed appraisal. ‘Angie?’

  ‘I was faking it,’ Xan said drily.

  Elvi settled down into her seat. ‘You fake it well,’ she responded, stamping on the nugget of hurt that even thinking about that day recreated.

  ‘I wanted you to believe I’d moved on.’

  Purely because he had a guilty conscience about her? Or had he had other more personal reasons? Elvi speculated, not quite convinced that conscience could have driven Xan into creating a false picture when the more obvious solution would’ve been to let her go immediately. Had a desire for more sex been his sole motivator? There was so much she wanted to ask but Xan had that distant look back in his eyes again, suggesting that he had already given up enough in explanations for one day.

  An SUV whisked them from the airport to the villa in the South of France. It was rural, which surprised her, a picturesque stone property surrounded by rolling lavender fields. A housekeeper greeted them. Xan went off for a shower while Elvi wandered round the cool interior, impressed by the clever mix of contemporary and antique that came together to create a relaxed atmosphere.

  ‘Why did you buy this place if you hardly ever use it?’ she asked him as he was getting dressed in lightweight chinos and a cotton shirt.

  ‘I thought it would do me good to take holidays, but every time I came here I ended up working, so eventually I stopped coming,’ he admitted wryly.

  ‘I won’t let you work while I’m here,’ Elvi told him playfully.

  Xan rested vibrant amber-gold eyes on her animated face. ‘I don’t want to work when you’re around. You’re bad for me.’

  Elvi smiled at that very serious admission and, drawn by the glow of that encouraging teasing smile, he stalked across the room and grabbed her up into his arms, settling down again on the side of the bed with her cradled across his hard, muscular thighs.

  ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that, not when you’re pregnant,’ Xan breathed tautly. ‘I need to be more careful—’

  ‘The doctor told you I was perfectly healthy and strong,’ Elvi reminded him.

  Very deliberately, Xan splayed long brown fingers across her lower stomach. ‘As far as I’m concerned, you’re glass and breakable now,’ he contradicted, smoothing her flesh gently. ‘That’s our child in there and we won’t be taking any unnecessary risks.’

  Warmth stole into Elvi, his concern banishing her fears. ‘You really want this baby,’ she murmured.

  ‘As much as I want you, moli mou.’ Xan lifted her up again and set her down on her feet with careful hands. ‘Even if it was an unexpected development, it feels right now. Let’s go downstairs and get dinner.’

  Elvi gazed up into brilliant amber eyes and her heart skipped a beat. His fingers engulfed hers as he tugged her towards the stairs. He wanted their baby and he wanted her. It was sufficient to power a healthy start for any marriage, she told herself soothingly. Shame pierced her when she recalled why she had agreed to marry him, because she suspected she had fretted herself into an unreasonable state of paranoia when she worried that Xan might try to take her child from her.

  Dinner was served out on the candlelit terrace. It was a light meal because neither of them was especially hungry. Over coffee, Xan studied her with hooded dark eyes, his lean bronzed face sombre. ‘Why did you suddenly change your mind and decide to marry me?’ he asked, sharply disconcerting her. ‘I mean, you were saying no and so set against the idea and me and then, all of a sudden, you—’

  It was now or never, Elvi registered, and, although she quailed at the prospect of telling him the unlovely truth, she also felt that she had to be honest. ‘I was in a panic that day. I’d just found out I was pregnant,’ she reminded him carefully in her own defence. ‘I was very conscious that your father took you from your mother and I was scared that if we didn’t get married, you might try to take our child from me at some time in the future.’

  Xan frowned, staring at her in patent disbelief.

  ‘I told myself that wives have more rights than unmarried mums and that your mother may not have fought for you but I would fight to hold on to any child of mine. I thought I’d be safer as a wife from that threat.’ Her voice ran out of steam, her apprehension rising at the look of angry disbelief growing on his lean dark features.

  ‘You can’t be serious...’ Xan intoned in a driven undertone.

  ‘I’m not thinking that way any longer,’ Elvi admitted ruefully. ‘But unfortunately that is how I was thinking that day when I agreed—’

  ‘I can
’t believe this,’ Xan grated with a shake of his handsome dark head as he rose upright to stare across the table at her. ‘I can’t believe you actually thought that I would do that to you and my child after what I went through myself as a boy.’

  ‘Yes, you did say you never felt secure—’

  ‘It was a lot worse than that!’ Xan objected, swinging away from her, suddenly short of breath and desperate to be alone. ‘I’m going out for a drive—’

  Elvi leapt out of her seat. ‘Not without me, you’re not!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘I’m not in the mood for company right now, Elvi,’ Xan admitted harshly as he belatedly recognised that the mess of emotions he was experiencing all boiled down to that awful, ego-zapping word hurt, and the shock of that recognition hit him even harder.

  What had he thought? That somewhere deep down inside Elvi had come to care for him? Care for the male who had virtually blackmailed her into his bed, into her first experience of sex and landed her into unplanned motherhood at the same time? Naturally, caring had had nothing to do with her decision to marry him. Knowing nothing good of him, she had decided to protect herself in advance from any further wrong he might choose to inflict on her. How could he blame her for that?

  Elvi planted herself in his path to the front door. ‘No, Xan, you shouldn’t be driving anywhere when you’re upset—’

  Stormy amber-gold eyes locked to her. ‘I’m not upset! Now move away from the door.’

  ‘No.’ Elvi stood her ground and when he tried to lift her to shift her to one side she swarmed up his lean, powerful body like a monkey climbing a tree and clung, her arms wrapping round his neck. ‘Please talk to me, please don’t walk away...don’t hide things—’

  His strong jawline setting hard like granite, Xan wrapped his arms round her to secure her and he carried her upstairs, where he lowered her down onto the bed. Or at least he tried to lower her, but Elvi was clinging like a limpet and when he tried to loosen her grip, she dropped her head and kissed him instead.

  ‘No, Elvi,’ he began doggedly.

  Elvi threw her weight against him to unbalance him and he backed down on the bed to ensure that he didn’t lose his balance. ‘You don’t mean no,’ she told him with all the conviction of a woman who had come into contact with the noticeable bulge in his trousers. ‘I won’t let you leave me when you’re upset.’

  Xan groaned out loud and momentarily closed his eyes, trying to deny everything he was feeling. Meanwhile, Elvi hugged him tight and peppered his face with soothing kisses.

  ‘Thee mou...what are you trying to do to me?’ Xan ground out, engulfed by warm clingy woman and finding it surprisingly pleasant.

  ‘Make you talk. I’ve explained myself as best as I can. I had to be honest. I won’t lie to you,’ Elvi stated. ‘I was all over the place emotionally the day you asked me to marry you. I was still getting over the pain of you flirting with Angie and I didn’t feel I could trust you at all. I was scared, confused and then I thought about how your father had taken you away from your mother and it petrified me.’

  ‘I would never do that to you,’ Xan intoned grimly. ‘I had a hellish childhood living with my father.’

  ‘Yes, I gathered that, but only recently. Initially you made your childhood sound idyllic.’

  Xan groaned again, lush black lashes lifting on sombre amber-gold eyes. ‘I always lie about it for my mother’s sake. I don’t like to hurt her. I don’t want to make her feel guilty for not fighting for me because she really didn’t have much choice,’ he said grimly. ‘My father replaced her with another woman and then insisted on keeping me as well. My grandparents persuaded Mum to go back to university to finish her Masters in the USA. She needed to get away from the island and she needed a new future to focus on. I have never blamed her for cutting her losses and running. She was still only a girl—’

  Still perched on top of his big powerful body, Elvi ran gentle fingertips across the tightness of his wide sensual mouth as she bent over him. ‘So, Ariadne went to America—?’

  ‘And wrote and sold her first archaeology textbook. It was a bestseller—’

  ‘While you were doing what?’ she queried.

  ‘Getting used to my first stepmother, Hana and Lukas’s mother. That broke up when I was six and Dad moved another woman in. She didn’t last but she gave birth to Tobias before she left. Wife number three came next and so it went on throughout my childhood and adolescence. Helios couldn’t be faithful for five minutes and on a couple of occasions, between women, he even drifted back to Mum, causing her great distress,’ he confided bitterly. ‘He was a liar and a cheat and he pretty much ruined her life. She focused on her career and I saw very little of her until I reached my teens.’

  ‘That must’ve been very difficult for you and your mother.’

  ‘I’m very fond of her. She has a huge heart. She coped with losing me by burying herself in her studies and travelling round the world to work on archaeological digs—’

  ‘What was it like for you growing up in such an unsettled household?’ Elvi pressed, helplessly curious.

  ‘Imagine what it’s like to come home from school and discover your bedroom has been taken off you and given to a new step-sibling instead,’ Xan urged. ‘Nothing was permanent, nothing was private, nothing in the house on Thira truly belonged to me. I was at the mercy of Dad’s latest wife or lover. It made me a loner, who didn’t trust anyone. I always thought my father married my mother too young and that’s why he made such a mess but now I think he was just an easily bored womaniser.’

  Elvi was drinking in every word, finally understanding how the boy had grown into a man with a colour-coded wardrobe and a powerful need for privacy. Deprived of order, control and security as a child, Xan had made order, control and security his first goals as an adult.

  ‘Being a womaniser entails messy, dramatic relationships so I went the mistress route instead,’ Xan confided. ‘I suppose it was sleazy—’

  ‘It was sleazy,’ Elvi told him.

  Xan shrugged a shoulder. ‘It worked for me until you burst onto my horizon and then I blew it... I didn’t want you in the same apartment where I’d been with other women. I didn’t want to treat you the same way...’

  As the silence dragged unbroken, Elvi stroked his lips apart with a tender fingertip and bent down to kiss him. ‘If you talk, you get rewarded...and the more you talk, the bigger the reward gets,’ she whispered encouragingly.

  Xan arched his hips up beneath her, letting her know that his erection had not subsided. ‘Tell me more, moli mou—’

  ‘No, you bring out a side of me I don’t know,’ Elvi mumbled, suddenly embarrassed by her forward behaviour.

  ‘You do the same to me. Unnerving, isn’t it?’ Xan prompted. ‘I want you more than I’ve ever wanted a woman in my life—’

  ‘Angie?’ Elvi challenged shamefacedly.

  ‘Angie was never a challenge. You were... Will you quit bringing her up?’ he demanded impatiently.

  Elvi nodded seriously. ‘OK.’

  ‘I thought you and I were just about good sex until I tried to make myself give you up. I felt huge guilt about depriving you of your virginity, but I still couldn’t bring myself to let you go or admit that what I had with you was different from anything I’d ever had with a woman,’ Xan told her, reaching up to untie the narrow shoulder straps of her sundress and tug her bodice down inch by dangerous inch.

  ‘Stop it...we’re talking!’ Elvi protested.

  ‘Can’t we play at the same time?’ Xan questioned, giving the dress a rough yank to free her full breasts, and then groaning out loud as her bountiful pale curves filled his hands to overflowing. ‘I mean...let’s be honest...at this moment... I will tell you anything you want to know—’

  Her breath caught in her throat as he rubbed her swollen nipples between finger and thumb, sending a flash of heat shooting
through her. ‘Why were you trying to run away earlier?’ she demanded shakily.

  ‘I was...’ Xan flung his tousled dark head back and breathed in deep and slow. ‘When you told me you’d only married me because you were scared I might try to take our child away from you, I was...’ Again he hesitated.

  ‘You were...what?’ Elvi prompted in frustration.

  ‘Hurt... OK? I was hurt!’ Xan finally got that word out and grimaced. ‘Because by the time I got to our wedding today I knew I wanted and needed you round the clock and that somehow you had made me fall passionately in love with you, which explains why I continue to screw everything up. Passion and logic don’t work well together and the way you make me feel often leaves me feeling like I’m clinging to sanity by my fingernails alone.’

  Elvi gazed down at him in awed incredulity. ‘You love me...seriously?’

  ‘Serious as a heart attack.’ Xan flipped over, carrying her with him, reversing their positions at the same time as he endeavoured to remove her dress. ‘I think I started falling for you the minute I saw you, which is why I was so eaten up with guilt when I first took you to bed. Suddenly I was seeing every wrong thing I’d done and said to you in horrible Technicolor and I didn’t know how to sort it out and start again.’

  ‘You were hurt when you believed I’d married you just to safeguard my position.’ Elvi smoothed gentle fingertips along his strong jaw while with her other hand she ran down the side zip on her dress to facilitate his manoeuvres. ‘And I told myself I was agreeing for that reason, but I suspect that I was really giving myself a good reason to do what I secretly wanted to do because I love you. Do you deserve my love?’ she asked for herself. ‘No, you probably don’t, but you can work at deserving it for the rest of our lives—’