She Can't Say No to the Greek Tycoon: The Kouvaris Marriage / The Greek Tycoon's Innocent Mistress / The Greek's Convenient Mistress

This close, she could feel the enervating potency of his lean, hard masculinity, the power of him. That, plus the news of her father’s illness, shattered her into honesty, her voice cracking as she cried, ‘What choice? I’m between a rock and a hard place!’

‘You put yourself there,’ he reminded her flatly. ‘It’s make-your-mind-up time. Return to Greece with me, as my wife, or deny your family the opportunity to make a new life for themselves.’ He thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and drawled, ‘Tough, isn’t it? Turn your back on your hopes of a massive divorce settlement, or—’

‘You can be so stupid!’ she blistered, stung again by his insulting suggestion that she only wanted rid of him because of what she could get out of him. She could put him straight on that score, but the truth would gain her nothing and lose her the only thing she had left. Her pride. And, what option did she really have, especially now that the sneaky wretch had raised her parents’ hopes to stratospheric heights? How could she face them with the news that her soon-to-be-ex-husband had withdrawn his generous offer? And heap a bucketload of stress on her father? She couldn’t do that to them. Deliberately closing her mind to what she was letting herself in for, she gritted, ‘OK—have it your way! And you can keep your obscene fortune intact! Satisfied?’

Not waiting for his response, and hating him for having the upper hand, she turned on her heels, snatched up her bag, headed for the door and said, as coolly as her frustration would allow, ‘Take me home. I’ve got my own key. I can let myself in without disturbing them.’

‘You have the regrettable tendency to behave like someone who has had her brain surgically removed—did you know that?’ Dimitri enquired silkily, narrowing the distance she had put between them. ‘As we have kissed and made up, as far as your parents are concerned, it would look very odd if we did not spend the night together, don’t you think?’

Chagrin made her clamp her teeth together. He was right. Give her family one inkling that her husband was blackmailing her and they would close ranks, refuse to accept the lifeline he was offering. And how would that affect Dad’s health?

It didn’t bear thinking about. Her whole system shuddering with reaction, she suffered the indignity of having him remove her jacket, the nerve-racking way those golden eyes drifted over her upper body, where her T-shirt clung to her generous curves, and would have moved smartly away if her legs had had any strength left, and didn’t feel and behave as if they were made of wet cotton wool.

‘It’s been a long day,’ he remarked, as casually as if they were an old married couple, perfectly in tune with each other. ‘I suggest we turn in. In the morning we will break the good news of our reconciliation to your family, and I will make that farmer an offer he can’t refuse.’

He turned away then, a man completely and aggravatingly in control, removing his tie as he reached for his overnight bag, magnanimously offering, ‘Use the bathroom first.’

Scooping up her own bag, Maddie scuttled for the en suite bathroom and closed the door firmly behind her, regretting the lack of a lock.

It was small, nothing like the luxury she was used to—a huge marbled and mirrored space, an elegant shower room and a spa bath big enough to swim in, surrounded by potted plants with shiny green leaves and glass shelves holding luxurious toiletries—but it was sanctuary.

Her emotions all over the place, she stood for a while, her breathing shallow and fast as she reflected that she’d been right. He’d decided that he might as well get an heir with the wife he did have rather than waste time finding another! And his macho Greek pride came into it, too. Of course it did. He would end the marriage when it suited him. Anything else would be unthinkable.

Battening down hysteria, she informed herself that she held the trump card. As long as she didn’t get pregnant—and she’d make sure he never laid a hand on her again—his hateful plans would take a nosedive. Ignoring her past susceptibility where he was concerned, she felt comforted by the control she had in her hands, and opted for a soothing wallow in the bath rather than the quick shower the lateness of the hour dictated.

She stayed in the water until it began to cool. She had hoped it would soothe her, but it couldn’t. The knot of pain inside her intensified until she felt she would die of it. She had loved him so, and now that love had turned to acid, burning her insides. As she heard Dimitri tapping on the door, calling her name, another thought hit her like a falling brick wall, and she jerked upright in sick horror. He had mentioned caring for her family only as long as they were his family through marriage.

Refuse to give him an heir and he would cut his losses and end their marriage.

Give him an heir and still he would divorce her, take her child from her, no doubt using top lawyers and low-down lies to prove to a court that she was an unfit mother.

What price his so-called duty of care then? Her parents and brothers would be out of his property at the speed of light.

She was in a no-win situation. She caught her lower lip between her teeth to stop herself screaming and the door crashed open, to reveal six foot plus of Greek male magnificence, clad only in boxer shorts, and glowering like thunder.

Two paces brought him looming over her as he got out through clenched jaws, ‘Why didn’t you answer? I thought you might have passed out, hurt yourself! Instead—’ Throwing her a look of utter disdain now, he plucked a towel from the heated rail and tossed it to her. ‘Cover yourself,’ he said, reminding her, to her shame and confusion, that she was stark naked, rivulets of water coursing down her too generous figure. ‘If I want what still appears to be on offer, I will take it. But don’t hold your breath.’

Humiliated beyond bearing, fingers fumbling, Maddie wrapped herself clumsily in the towel, clambering out of the bath patronisingly aided by one large strong hand around her upper arm.

She shook his supportive hand away as soon as her feet hit the bath mat. He thought she’d planned this. Remembering how in the past she had always responded to her adored and beautiful husband’s sexual overtures with greedy, hedonistic delight he would think that!

Would think she had decided she might as well enjoy that side of marriage if it would help her towards a large chunk of alimony.

A gold-digger and a harlot!

Smothering a yelp of distress, she darted into the bedroom and stared at the room that had become her prison with wild blue eyes. Impossible to swallow her pride and tell him why she had really left him. Show him the open wounds of the love he had savagely killed, reveal herself to be a victim, still bleeding from his cruel betrayal. Everything in her rebelled against it.

Let him think she wanted a large part of his fortune if he wanted to. But let him think she still wanted him sexually? No way!

In next to no time she had whipped the patchwork quilt off the bed, leaving him with the duvet, snatched one of the pillows and curled herself into a ball on the floor, a bundle of misery as she contemplated a future that looked bleak from every angle. She was fighting tears as she heard him give a low, derisive laugh when he exited the bathroom and encountered her sleeping arrangements, heard the dip of the mattress as he availed himself of the comfortable bed.

And, on a surge of rage, she wanted to go and hit him!

Silence.

A thick silence that expanded suffocatingly as the floor beneath grew harder and sleep was impossible to find.

Unable to handle the fact that he should be sleeping the sleep of a man who had got his own way, while his subjugated commodity of a wife lay on the floor like a pet dog, she shot at him, ‘Tell me why you would go to so much trouble and expense to keep a wife who only wants rid of you! It doesn’t make sense!’

To her it did. Perfect sense from his point of view. But she wanted to force the truth out of him. All she got was a drowsy but blood chilling, ‘You are my wife. You will stay my wife until I decide otherwise. There is nothing more to be said on the subject.’

CHAPTER FOUR

AS THE chauffeur-driven limo eased to a well-bred halt in front of the magnificent Kouvaris mansion Maddie woke with a start, then momentarily stilled in shock when she discovered that her comfortable pillow was Dimitri’s wide, accommodating shoulder, his close proximity teasing her senses with the sensual heat of him, the evocative scent of his maleness.

Extricating herself from the curve of his supporting arm with more haste than dignity, Maddie hurled herself upright. The last thing she remembered was their being met off the Kouvaris jet at the private airstrip by Milo and the limo, then collapsing onto the soft leather upholstery, overcome by black waves of fatigue.

He was still too close. She could sense him watching her in the gathering evening dusk. Gloating now his prey was firmly back in the steel web of his making? His pride demanded that he would end the marriage at his convenience, not at hers. He’d made that very plain.

Fumbling for the door release, she all but fell out onto the wide gravel sweep, her stomach full of butterflies on speed.

‘You are now in haste to reclaim your position as mistress of our home, when yesterday you couldn’t wait to leave it, and me?’ Dimitri queried in dry amusement, taking only seconds to reach her side and cup a proprietorial hand beneath her elbow.

‘That’s not funny!’ she objected unsteadily, knowing she was too exhausted and feeble to shake his hand off with any hope of success, but standing her corner. ‘I just want to go to bed and sleep—alone,’ she qualified with pointed emphasis. ‘It’s been a long day.’

A long, hard, horrible day, she thought with misery. Roused from a scant hour of sleep which had felt more like a heavy coma, she had been unsurprised to find Dimitri already up and dressed, speaking in his own language on his mobile, pacing the room with long, unhurried strides, one dark brow had elevated in her direction as she’d unrolled herself with difficulty from the patchwork bedspread, which seemed to have developed as many tentacles as an octopus during the long uncomfortable night.

Reaching the en suite bathroom, she’d clung to the washbasin, feeling queasy and light-headed, meeting the hollow look in her reflected eyes with unaccustomed and demeaning resignation. She hated to admit it, but he had won hands down. Was it any wonder she felt nauseous?

She would get her divorce, but only when it suited him. When she’d given him the heir he so desperately needed. Which wasn’t going to happen, because no way would she share a bed with him again. So it would depend on how long that message would take to get through his thick, arrogant skull.

When it finally hit him she would be history. And what price her parents’ security then?

Remembering her family’s combined and overwhelming gratitude when Dimitri had announced that the sale was going ahead, that everything was in the hands of his English lawyer, who would shortly be in touch with theirs, Maddie felt sick.

Somehow she was going to have to warn them that their days on the farm that was now the property of her husband were numbered. She hadn’t had the heart to get her parents on one side and give them that slice of bad news, to advise them to start looking for somewhere affordable to rent and promise she would do all she could to help on the financial front because the generous allowance Dimitri had given her was largely untouched.

It would have to wait until her father was much stronger.

While she’d been helping her mother to make lunch, Joan Ryan had asked, ‘Is everything all right? Between you and Dimitri? I was horrified when he told me you’d left him. It was just one blow too many.’

Meeting her anxious eyes, Maddie had mentally crossed her fingers. ‘Sorry, Mum. It was just a silly misunderstanding. You know how stubborn I can be! I’m going back with him this afternoon. Don’t worry about me. Just concentrate on getting Dad to chill out and take things easily.’

And Dimitri’s Oscar-worthy act as one half of a newly reunited happy couple after a silly spat had obviously completely allayed her family’s anxieties on that score, but it had made her feel sick with loathing him to see the ease with which he wore his cloak of deceit.

‘You will behave as I expect my wife to behave. With dignity.’ Dimitri’s hand now tightened in warning against her arm. ‘As usual, we will dine as a family. You have just over half an hour to shower and change. And then, and only then, will you make your polite excuses and retire.’

He couldn’t physically force her to sit at that lavishly laid table beneath the glittering chandelier in the vast dining room. Force her to endure the seemingly endless ritual of many courses, the sideways inquisitive looks of the staff who served them, the disdain and disapproval permanently etched on Aunt Alexandra’s haughty features. Of course he couldn’t, Maddie consoled herself, and tried to believe it as he ushered her through the brightly lit but echoingly empty hall.