A Stormy Greek Marriage (5 page)

‘What the hell are you doing in here?’ Alexei demanded in a wrathful undertone. ‘Do you realise that I was able to just walk into this house? I could have been anyone…’

‘You’re probably the only person I know on the island who wouldn’t bother to knock on the door and wait for an invitation,’ Billie contradicted without hesitation.

‘Where’s your brain? I could have been a bloody paparazzo! Don’t you realise how aggressive the press are now? You’re not safe here without security. Get out of the bath,’ he instructed her, extending a towel. ‘I’m taking you home.’

‘This
is
my home,’ Billie protested, sitting firm and resolutely resisting a modest urge to cover her bare breasts, which she knew would provoke his scorn.

Alexei dealt her a splintering appraisal, his tough jaw line clenching at her defiance. ‘You’re my wife—you don’t belong here any more.’

‘You told me I was a disgusting liar and you walked out on our wedding night,’ Billie reminded him tightly. ‘I don’t feel like your wife any more.’

‘I’ve got the perfect cure for that.’ Alexei strode forward and sank his hands below her arms. Before she could even work out what he was doing he had scooped her wet, resisting body out of the bath, set her down
and enveloped her most efficiently in the folds of the towel.

‘Stop it!’ Billie shouted at him full throttle, trying to clumsily slap away his hands at the same time as she kept hold of the towel.

‘If I walk out of here without you, I’m not coming back,
yineka mou
,’ Alexei swore between clenched white teeth.

Billie froze as if an avalanche had suddenly engulfed her, stopping her in her tracks and depriving her lungs of oxygen. ‘You can’t threaten me like that!’

‘It’s not a threat, it’s the truth,’ Alexei countered harshly. ‘Either you’re with me, or you’re not. I won’t play games.’

In mute frustration, she watched him tug her wrap from the hook on the back of the door and extend it to her. He had the subtlety of an army tank on a battlefield. He had walked out on her and she longed to take a rebellious stance and defy his warning. But life just wasn’t that simple, she acknowledged, digging damp arms into the sleeves of the wrap while letting her towel drop to her feet. She didn’t know how to behave with him now, but he knew so well how to cut through all the aggravation to what really mattered. And what really mattered now was that she cared about him and loved him with all her heart, she reflected painfully. In his defence he was trying to bridge the gulf between them and their living in two separate houses would scupper any attempt to achieve that end.

‘This isn’t where you should be,’ Alexei told her, his husky accent roughening his vowel sounds into a sexy growl as he backed her into the corner, wrenched the ties
she was fiddling with from her grasp and knotted the sash with deft hands. ‘You’re coming home with me.’

And those words sounded so unexpectedly good to her that tears prickled at the backs of her aching eyes. The past fortnight of stress, gossip-column headlines and wild speculation had drained her strength and awakened her worst fears for the future. He contemplated her down-bent head and tipped up her chin so that he could see her triangular face again. The anxiety in her expressive eyes disturbed him but it didn’t put a lid on the seething desire he was struggling to restrain. He had no idea why he wanted her so much at that moment. He only knew that her absence from his home where he had expected to find her had enraged and unsettled him to a degree that he was deeply uncomfortable with. Half-formed thoughts and jagged responses he didn’t like were travelling through him, giving him an edgy and unfamiliar out-of-control sensation that he despised.

The atmosphere was so thick that Billie could taste it. He was frowning down at her, lean hands settling down on her shoulders with authority, the heat of him burning through the fine fabric of her wrap. She collided with scorching golden eyes and the quickening awareness low in her pelvis made her press her thighs together on the ache stirring between her legs. Uneasy with that piercing arrow of sheer wanton lust, she pulled away from him. ‘I’ll get dressed.’

‘No.’ Alexei closed a hand over her arm, pulling her back. ‘There’s no need. The car’s outside. Someone will come over and pack for you.’

On the threshold of her bedroom, she stilled. ‘What about Nicky?’

Alexei’s big powerful body was resting lightly against
hers, but when she posed that particular question he went rigid and his handsome dark visage set hard. ‘He stays here.’

She twisted round, anguished eyes seeking his. ‘I can’t do that. He’s my son,
my
responsibility.’

‘You can visit…when I’m not around,’ Alexei breathed with a raw note in his rich dark drawl. ‘I’ll cover his every need. He can have round-the-clock nannies, every luxury…’

‘You can’t ask me to choose between you!’ Billie exclaimed wretchedly, suddenly grasping the devil’s bargain he was laying down for her like a cruel gin-trap for the unwary foot.

Remorseless golden eyes struck her disbelieving gaze head-on. ‘That’s the deal for now and it’s your choice.’

‘I’m so sorry to interrupt,’ another quiet familiar voice intervened and Hilary stepped into view in the living area, her face flushed with discomfiture. ‘But you needed to know that you weren’t alone any more. I’ll take care of Nicky, Billie. You don’t need to worry about him.’

Alexei thanked her aunt with grave courtesy and Billie flung a questioning glance at the older woman, wondering why she was encouraging Alexei in his callous conviction that the obstacle of Nicky’s very existence could be neatly set aside. And then it dawned on her that, within a few days at most, her son’s paternity would no longer be in doubt. ‘I don’t want to leave him,’ she admitted shakily.

‘You and Alexei should have time alone as a couple. There’s no harm in that,’ Hilary murmured soothingly
as if the situation were the most natural thing in the world.

Alexei directed Billie towards the back door as if the last definitive word had been spoken and was now etched in stone.

‘I’m in my bare feet!’ Billie objected jerkily.

‘You don’t need shoes!’ Alexei countered, unwilling to countenance spending even five more minutes in what felt like the enemy camp. He bent down and swept her up off her feet into his arms.

‘Please put me down,’ Billie urged between compressed lips while her aunt opened the door to smooth the progress of their departure.

Wearing a beaming smile, Helios stepped out of the huge black SUV outside to flip open the passenger door in readiness. Alexei stowed Billie into the rear seat and climbed in beside her. She gritted her teeth, horribly conscious of the reality that she was wearing neither make-up nor proper clothes. Impervious to any sense of awkwardness, however, Alexei made use of the brief drive to instruct Helios to organise a separate security team to watch over his wife.

‘That’s really not necessary,’ Billie argued as the SUV swung up the driveway to the villa’s imposing entrance.

‘I know what’s necessary,’ Alexei asserted, settling a large domineering hand over hers where it rested on the seat. ‘Whether you like it or not, you’re at risk now as my wife and I want to know that you’re safe, regardless of where you are.’

The presence of Helios and the driver made Billie restrain her snort of disagreement as she could not imagine what possible harm could come to her on Speros.
Anatalya already had the front door open wide, and the housekeeper’s eyes shone with satisfaction when she saw Billie inside the vehicle. Alexei scooped Billie out and strolled up the front steps into his home as if it were an everyday event to walk in carrying a wife clad in a dressing gown. He had always had that kind of ultimate cool, even as a boy, she recalled, and a sharp little pain stabbed through her as she thought of all that she stood to lose if their marriage broke down. Oddly enough, until that moment it had not occurred to her how deeply embedded Alexei was within even her life memories. Pausing only to instruct Anatalya to have Billie’s clothes removed from her home and ask when dinner would be ready, Alexei took Billie into the master bedroom suite.

Billie sucked in a steadying breath as Alexei set her down on the carpet. ‘We can’t just act like these past two weeks never happened.’

Alexei swung round, his keen dark gaze grim. ‘For the moment, why not? Of course, you could cut a lot of the **** out of this by just telling me the truth now. I would rate you higher for that than if you force me to drag the truth out of you
after
the DNA-test results.’

With a rueful sigh, Billie sank down on the side of the stylish big bed. ‘It would have been easier if you had just left me where I was for now. Why did you insist on bringing me back here tonight?’

Doffing his jacket and wrenching off his tie, Alexei sent her a darkling glance of warning as though she had strayed into a conversational no-go area. Muscles rippling through the fine silk of his shirt, he bent to remove his shoes. ‘I want a shower before dinner…’

Billie tried to avoid the temptation of watching him
undress, but she learned that she hungered for even that small intimacy. Black hair tousled, strong jaw shadowed by blue-black stubble, he was stripping off his clothes without a hint of self-consciousness. ‘I’ve nothing to wear here,’ she pointed out. ‘I left half my clothes on
Sea Queen.
’

Alexei laughed. ‘I would be quite happy for you to dine with me naked.’

‘It’s not going to happen.’ Billie knotted her hands together and watched him lift the house phone by the bed to issue a command and then discard his shirt and shoes. Every lithe movement of his lean bronzed body mesmerised her: he was utterly gorgeous. A knock sounded on the door and he strode over to answer it and accept the garment bag and boxes he was handed. He dumped them on the bed.

‘That’s the clothing problem solved,’ he said with distinct satisfaction.

‘These are for me?’ Astonished, Billie unzipped the garment bag and pulled out a flamboyant, strappy scarlet dress. ‘You bought this for me? But when?’

‘I saw it in a window in Paris. You wear drab colours. I thought that I would enjoy seeing you in something bright for a change.’

Once again, Alexei had contrived to confound her expectations. He might have met up with Calisto in Paris, but while he’d been there he had also contrived to go shopping on his wife’s behalf. She pulled open the other packages and her complexion warmed when she saw the zingy red lingerie and high heels, which carried a much more sexual message.

‘Those items were pure self-indulgence,’ Alexei agreed without a shade of remorse.

‘Why did you bring me back here?’ Billie pressed uneasily, utterly disconcerted by his unpredictable behaviour.

His ebony brows drew together. ‘That’s a silly question. You’re my wife. Until I decide otherwise, this is where you belong,
yineka mou.
’

He was a Drakos and possessive of what was his. But he was talking as though she were a prized car or some other item that he owned and he would keep her close…
until I decide otherwise.
Those words of cold warning sent a cold shiver down her sensitive spine and she was no longer so certain that staying at the villa with him was the right thing to do. ‘I felt more comfortable in my own home,’ she told him tautly.

‘Sleeping alone? Get over yourself!’ Alexei quipped with daunting disbelief, striding like a bronzed naked statue brought to life into one of the twin en suite bathrooms.

She remembered that picture of him with Calisto in Paris and discovered that she didn’t want to ask him about that just at that moment. Not right now when everything felt so fragile and uncertain between them that she feared the wrong word or query might lead to a quarrel that could end their marriage for good. Her lies, her silence when she should have spoken up, had already put them on that dangerous slippery slope. Living in separate houses would not mend their differences and get them back together again, she recognised ruefully.

Even so she was walking on eggshells and could hardly bear the knowledge that to see Nicky she would have to leave the villa. It had proved a relief rather than a sacrifice to end the pretence that Hilary was Nicky’s mother and, after all, she’d had only two weeks to
luxuriate in the joy of being a full-time mum again for the first time since she had left London after her son’s birth. And even though that fortnight had been a strain because of the situation between her and Alexei, Billie had adored having the comfort of her child within reach at all times.

Before Alexei was even out of the shower, two maids arrived with suitcases from her home. While they got busy in the dressing room, Billie went into the other bathroom with the outfit Alexei had bought for her. Thirty minutes later, she was ready for dinner and far from happy with her appearance. The scarlet dress was much more revealing than what she usually wore, cut away at the bust to make the most of what she had and very short, showing off her legs to well past mid-thigh. She checked her reflection, her brow furrowing while she wondered if the dress was a gift with a sting like a scorpion. Was this how Alexei saw her now? As a sexually provocative and available woman? As yet another in a long line of women prepared to wear whatever he bought and behave however he wanted if it pleased him?

Alexei watched Billie walk into the dining room with keen attention. He shifted an authoritative hand to make her twirl for his appraisal and his brilliant gaze shimmered gold because he very much liked what he saw: Billie, as he had always wanted to dress her for his own private enjoyment, no longer the efficient office machine in her crisp buttoned-up blouses and low sensible pumps. Scarlet looked amazing against her porcelain redhead’s skin and the cut of the dress enhanced the curves of her ripe rounded breasts and slender thighs. The reaction at his groin was instantaneous and he
suppressed a groan as his trousers tightened. In that moment, he knew exactly why he had come home to reclaim his deceitful bride. Lust that powerful had an appetite and a drive all of its own.

The chef had put on a spread worthy of a banquet for the reunited couple. Nervous as a cat on hot bricks, Billie wondered how on earth she could match Alexei’s stubborn refusal to acknowledge that anything was wrong between them. But, in fact, conversation flowed freely as Alexei told her about his latest deal and the changes he had decided to make in the command structure at his London headquarters. Intrigued, Billie asked eager questions, made a couple of suggestions and was duly impressed by the deal he had cut on the super-tankers.