Greek Affairs: To Take a Bride: The Markonos Bride / The Greek Tycoon's Reluctant Bride / Greek Doctor, Cinderella Bride

‘You need a doctor—’

‘Oh, that’s right,’ Louisa sighed out, ‘bring in Dr Papandoulis and let’s start that great scandal you were so concerned about, when he discovers your estranged wife lying in the bed you usually reserve for your stupid mistresses!'

‘Parakaló?’ He straightened up with a violent jerk.

‘You might well beg my pardon!’ she shivered out, feeling so cold now she just wanted to crawl beneath the pale blue bed covers and curl up in a tight little ball. ‘The last magazine I saw with you splashed across it you had some lush little starlet hanging on to you like a limpet as you set off for your island retreat!’

‘I don’t bring women here.’ Blood surged into his taut face as he said it.

Not believing him, Louisa wanted to hit him. Then she suddenly shot upright and to her feet as another thought hit her full-on.

‘Did you sleep with her in this bed …?’

She was staring at the bed in horror.

‘No—You—’

‘Is that why you’ve had this villa built—so that you can bring your women here? Keep them separate from the family?’ She was becoming hysterical and she knew it but just didn’t care! ‘No wonder this place is barely furnished—you only needed a bed! Did you ever have cause to bring Dr Papandoulis out to one of them while they lay sick here?’ ‘Louisa, you—’

‘Don’t speak to me.’ Shaking as well as shivering now, she continued, ‘Y-you’ve already said enough. How dare you demand the last five years back when within weeks of deserting me you were shacked up with some woman while I hid and wept?'

He’d gone from red to white in as many seconds. ‘Agape mou, don’t—'

‘I can’t believe we did what we did on the hill the other night,’ she shook out. ‘I can’t believe I let you touch me at all after I’ve had to read every rotten detail of every rotten other woman you’ve been with in the last five years!'

‘It was not like that—’ He reached for her.

‘Don’t touch me!’ She pulled back. ‘I don’t feel well. I w-want to go h-home.'

‘You’re not well enough to go anywhere,’ he told her anxiously.

‘Well, I am not getting into that bed!’

‘Theos!’ he exploded. ‘The bed is new!’ Leaning past her, he tossed the pale blue covers back. ‘I had it flown in yesterday along with all the other furniture because I knew you would not want to stay with me at the family villa!—This house is not even ready for occupation!’ he added tautly as he straightened up again. ‘But I thought we could manage with the essentials. And I have never brought any woman to this island!’ he barked. ‘And you should know better than to believe everything you read in some sick glossy rag! Now, get into that bed before I murder you, Louisa!'

With that he turned and slammed out of the room, leaving her to sink weakly down on the bed in a mess of shaken limbs and emotions.

She had not even wanted to say any of that yet it had all just come pouring out! Fresh shivers overtook her, her burning skin quivering with prickly heat. On a low, angrily frustrated groan she just about managed to remove her skirt and top before she keeled over onto the cool linen then tugged the covers up to her chin. Her head was pounding, her stomach joining in, and hating Andreas for all she was worth only made her wriggle restlessly in the bed, which in turn made her wince when the movement irritated her burnt skin.

As soon as she was feeling fit enough she was getting out of here, she vowed fiercely. And he could take his lousy revenge-ridden proposition and his philandering self and offer them to some other woman—a woman who was probably as overused as him!

‘Here,’ a stiff voice prompted.

Peeling her heavy eyes open, Louisa discovered Andreas standing over her like some dark entity.

‘What?’ she mumbled aggressively.

Nothing flickered on his hard mask of a face as he held a glass out towards her. ‘To help the dehydration,’ he said.

Sending the liquid in the glass a dubious look, Louisa pulled herself up and took it from him.

‘And this …’ His open palm showed her a small pill. ‘Antihistamine to help cool your blood and take the sting out of your sunburn,’ he explained in the retracted tone of someone in no mood to take another argument.

‘I’m not sure if I should be taking …’

‘I checked with a doctor friend in Athens,’ he inserted. ‘The antihistamine might make you drowsy but it will not be harmful in any other way.’

He meant to a baby if there was one, though he was being very careful not to use the word now. Clearly, she’d shaken him up when she’d spat all of that out about his other women, so now he was playing it cold and stiff.

‘Thanks,’ she muttered and grudgingly took the pill from him then swallowed it down with the drink.

The drink tasted a bit odd but wasn’t too unpleasant. Handing the glass back to him, she sank down on the pillows, rolling carefully onto her side so she wasn’t facing him, then tugged the covers up over her burning shoulders and shut her eyes.

He did not move. Tension began to zip around them. Louisa had a feeling he was still standing there because he had something he wanted to say.

Well, she did not want to hear it.

‘Go away,’ she husked, desperately wanting to shiver and shake and put in a few miserable groans but refusing to let herself give in to the need while he stood there.

First she heard his heavy sigh, then the sound of his footsteps taking him back to the door, and absurdly she wanted to burst into tears.

What she did was drop like a stone into a deep slumber.

When next she awoke she was aware of something cool being smoothed into one of her arms. She opened her eyes to find Andreas sitting beside her on the bed, his dark eyes hooded and his mouth very grim.

‘Stay calm,’ he said as she made to stiffen. ‘I am not about to ravish you. I am merely applying a lotion to your burns.'

The effect was so wonderfully soothing that she didn’t want to do anything but lie there and let him continue. ‘You seem to be prepared for anything,’ she said drowsily.

‘Mm,’ was all he replied. But it was a very sexy mm, the kind of deep-bodied mm that vibrated up from his chest then across her senses and made her move restlessly between the sheets.

‘Be still.’

He was holding her arm out and was working the cooling lotion into her skin with all the gentleness of a masseuse. Eyes half-shut and still heavy with sleep, she watched him for a little while, unbelievably relaxed and unbelievably contented to just study him while he twisted her arm this way and that. She didn’t even mind when he reached the really hot spot on her shoulder though she was wearing no bra and was aware that the covers were slipping lower the higher up he worked.

A grateful sigh eased from her as the lotion began to neutralise the heat. ‘You’ll get it on the bedding,’ she thought she’d better point out when he finally allowed her arm to settle on the bed.

‘I would rather ruin the bedding than watch your skin peel off.’ He reached across her to pick up the other arm. ‘I thought you had learned to be more careful with your fair skin years ago.'

‘I used a sun-block before I left the hotel,’ she defended. ‘I just lost track of the time I’d been out, that’s all.'

He glanced up as she looked at him. Their eyes locked and her breathing stilled as a fine electric current began to pass between the two of them. It was sexual, they both knew that. Just as they both knew that if they did not break eye contact this was going to shift to a different all-consuming level.

He broke the eye contact first, his long lashes folding downwards as he twisted his body so he could begin work on her other arm. And because the antihistamine was making her feel like this, she told herself, she closed her eyes and just lay unmoving as he continued smoothing lotion into her until the sexual tug faded and without her knowing it she sank back into a relaxed sleep.

Leaving Andreas to grimace at the nagging sexual tug he was suffering from, which had no intention of relaxing its grip on him. He completed his task by gritting his teeth together before gently easing the cover down a little so he could smooth lotion into the slope of her breasts, where the skin was pink but not hot, he was relieved to discover.

After that he paused for a moment to study her sleeping face with her soft, slightly parted mouth and her dusky eyelashes resting against the delicate bones in her cheeks. Her face had escaped the sun’s heat by some miracle but just in case, and with infinite care, he smoothed the lotion into her forehead and her small, straight nose.