The Good Greek Wife? (11 page)

‘I mean, I'm no hot-shot businesswoman. I'm a secretary—a very junior secretary at that. And when a company loses its chairman to sudden death—an accident at sea—and there is no one ready and trained to take his place, then apparently the values of shares waver—people wonder about their connections with the firm. Didn't you hear? I mean, I assume that you did a lot of investigating, checking on facts—looking into things before you came back to Ithaca. Just so that you knew what was going on.'

She actually paused and looked up at him, waiting for his answer. Not that she needed it. She knew already that he must have checked out all the details of what was happening on Ithaca before he had even thought about coming home. That was the sort of man Zarek was. He never made a move until he had all the facts.

‘You didn't know!' she exclaimed as his head went back in shock. ‘You really didn't find out about that?'

‘I knew.'

Zarek's confirmation was a low growl as she made herself turn and head towards the kitchen with the dirty plates. She wouldn't allow herself to look back but she heard the pad of his bare feet on the tiles as he came up behind her.

At least the simple task of loading the plates and cutlery into the dishwasher meant that she could keep her back to him, focusing hard on the job in hand. But all the same she felt as if she could sense the tension coming off him in waves and directed at the back of her head, so sharp that it almost penetrated her skull.

‘Then you'll understand why it felt like a millstone round my neck. And all the time I had Hermione and your stepbrothers on my back too. Telling me that nothing I did was right. That the company needed a man in control. So, yes, in the end I gave in. I'd had enough. I was going to walk away, go back to England. Start my life over again. Yes, I know you never wanted them to have the company, but what else could I do? It's not as if I had a child whose inheritance I had to fight for too.'

Too late she realised just what she had said, the minefield into which she had wandered. And the silence from behind her was so deep, so intense that she could practically feel it closing around her, sealing off her lungs, taking the breath from her body.

‘No, you made sure of that.'

His voice had turned to ice. Icy shards that seemed to slash at her exposed and vulnerable skin.

‘You knew I wanted a child. You led me to believe you wanted one too.'

Washing-powder tablet…rinse aid… Penny forced herself
to focus on the mundane details to stop her mind going into meltdown as she hunted for an answer.

‘I didn't want your heir.'

She could answer him this way while she had her back to him and he couldn't see her face. It meant that she couldn't see his expression but that hardly mattered. It was much more important that he didn't know her answer for the half lie that it was. She hadn't wanted only to provide him with an heir, but the thought of a small baby with Zarek's black hair and deep brown eyes almost destroyed her. Her eyes were blurred with focusing on the front of the dishwasher so fiercely rather than let any tears form.

‘But that was why we married—why I became your husband.'

Slamming the dishwasher door shut—the noise and force deliberate this time—Penny pushed herself up from the squatting position and pressed the start button fiercely.

He was leaning against the worktop, arms folded across his powerful chest, but the tension in the long body showed the position to be anything other than the relaxed one it appeared to be.

‘But there's so much more to being a husband than just declaring it.'

Did something change in those eyes or was it just the flicker of the candlelight throwing a different set of shadows into them?

‘What was missing? Was I cruel to you? Did I treat you badly—not give you everything you wanted?'

‘You gave everything I could have dreamed of.'

If they were talking about material things. But from the moment that she had known how much she needed his love, then marriage, his beautiful homes, all the riches he had were as nothing compared with what she wanted most in all the
world. And she had more pride than to beg for something he couldn't give her.

‘And yet you didn't want to stay—you didn't want a child.'

Just as she couldn't read his face, she couldn't interpret his tone.

‘We didn't have a marriage to bring a child into. A child has the right to have two parents who are happy to be together, and not just because of the life they had created between them.'

Two parents who loved each other.

She'd finished drying her hands on a towel and now she tossed it down onto the marble surface beside the sink. She'd prevaricated for as long as she could, avoided meeting his eyes until she could do so no longer. If she didn't turn now and look him in the face it would be so obvious that she was avoiding him that she would not be able to dodge it any more.

‘I was wrong to marry you. My parents married just because I was on the way and it was a terrible mistake. They tore each other apart—and I was always caught in the crossfire.'

‘We didn't even get that far,' Zarek murmured dryly.

‘No—because I realised I should never have said yes in the first place.'

‘So why did you stay when I was declared missing?'

‘Someone had to hold things together. I discovered that you had left everything to me in your will. And there was always just the possibility that you might come back.'

‘And now that I am back?'

‘I really don't know.'

Simple honesty was all that she was capable of. In spite of the sleep she had had earlier that day she was suddenly desperately tired. It was as if the tension that had been holding her upright and keeping her going in all the time that Zarek had been away had now totally evaporated, taking with it her
spirit and the strength of her spine. Her mind seemed hazed, her thoughts muddied.

‘You don't know why you married me?' Zarek questioned sharply, throwing her even further off balance.

How was she expected to answer that without bringing the L word into things? Right now, attack seemed the better form of defence.

‘Don't you think it's a little late to be asking that now? It never occurred to you to ask it when you were about to put a ring on my finger? Well, no, I don't suppose you did. Because for you it was all cut and dried, wasn't it? A cold-blooded business deal. You wanted me and you wanted a child. Marry me and you'd get both.'

Zarek shifted his weight from one hip to the other, but apart from that his expression remained unchanging.

‘Not all such deals are cold-blooded.'

‘No, of course not—we were pretty hot-blooded most of the time. And that gives you the reason why I married you. Great sex.'

When he dared to frown as if he needed more explanation she lost her grip on her tongue and really let him have it.

‘I was twenty-two. You're pretty gorgeous—and rich. What's not to like?'

‘Yes, there was that.'

‘There definitely was.'

Somehow the defiance she dredged up from deep inside her made it easier than she thought to face that dark-eyed gaze.

‘But while you've been away I've had time to grow up. And…and…'

Watching him wipe the back of his hand across his face, she found she was stumbling over her words. If she was tired
then he looked drained, and she recognised the way that he pressed his fingers to the scar at his temple as a warning sign.

Looking at him more closely, Penny saw the shadows under his eyes, the faint cloudiness in the polished jet gaze. She thought that she knew how he felt. It was now well past midnight and she felt as if she had lived through several lifetimes in less than twenty-four hours. Right now she felt as if she was losing her grip on being able to control where the conversation went and what, underneath it all, it might mean.

‘But I don't think now is the time to discuss it. It's been a long day. And we've both had so much adjusting to do since you came back.'

Dear heaven, was it only this morning? Just a few short hours before and yet she felt as if he had been back for ever. As if he had never been away. But he
had
been missing and that had had such an effect on her life that she had no idea quite when she would feel as if her existence was back under her control once more.

‘We do need to talk more. But not tonight. It's late—and I'm—I'm tired.'

She accompanied the words with a stretch and a yawn to emphasise them but the truth was that she didn't have to put on any sort of a show. Now that she thought about it she was worn out, aching with tiredness right through to the bone, her head spinning nauseously.

Or perhaps it was the result of the stress of the day. A long day of trying to adjust to all that had happened, a day of shocks and bewilderment that had kept her feeling raw and on edge with every hour that passed.

S
HE
didn't expect that Zarek would allow himself to be diverted but to her surprise he nodded his head and stepped backwards towards the door.

‘You're right. It is late, and I'll admit that I'm looking forward to sleeping in my own bed after all this time.'

Perhaps it was her own fatigue, or perhaps it was the way that they went up the stairs, Argus trotting beside her and Zarek switching off the lights behind them as he mounted the stairs, that blurred Penny's mind. They had done this so many other times in the past, when they had been married. Wandering upstairs in companionable silence at the end of the day, having shared a meal, a glass of wine and now heading for bed. But it was not until she reached the wide landing and turned towards the bedroom that reality hit home again reminding her of the truth of how things really were and making her stumble slightly, banging into the wall as she fought to keep her balance.

‘Careful.'

Zarek put a hand out to support her, taking hold of her elbow and helping her to straighten up.

‘Thank you.'

It was stiff and tight, the muscles in her throat clenching
in response to the feel of the heat of his palm against her skin, the burn of his touch along every nerve. In flashes of memory the scene in the bedroom earlier that night came back to haunt her, overlaid by older but no less vivid memories of the nights that Zarek had taken her to bed in the past. During their marriage. Starting with the heated passion of their wedding night that had left her weeping with joy and disbelief that such stunning passion could ever exist.

And now Zarek clearly expected that he would share her bed again. That they would sleep together in the wide soft marriage bed with its huge, ornately carved wooden headboard. And after his casual, ‘Yes, there was that,' that was more than she could bear.

Coming to a halt before she actually reached the master suite door, she half turned towards Zarek and tried for what she hoped was an appeasing smile.

‘I'll get you some clean towels and bring them to your bedroom. The blue suite is made up and ready.'

‘The blue suite?'

Appeased was the last thing Zarek looked. His black brows drew together in an angry frown and the flash of something dangerous in the depths of his eyes made her legs tremble beneath her.

‘I think not.'

‘Oh, but…'

Protesting was a mistake. As was thinking that he was ever going to be persuaded on this one. Ruthless rejection of what she had planned was stamped in hard, cruel lines on his face, burning in that cold-eyed glare that he turned on her.

‘Oh, but nothing. Not if you are trying to say that you think I should sleep elsewhere.'

His hand was already on the door, twisting the handle with
a force that spoke of the anger he was working to hold in check. But what made Penny's stomach tense and twist itself into tight, painful knots was not the thought of the dark fury he might feel but the demonstration of the ruthless power he was determined to exert to control it. The force of will it spoke of made her quail at the thought of it being used against her.

And which way would it be used? Earlier today he had wanted to take her to bed and she had been unable to resist. Only at the last minute had common sense reasserted itself, the much-needed sense of self-preservation kicking in to make her react in the rational way at last. If Zarek turned the sheer power of his seductive persuasion on her once more she might not be able to hold out this time.

Just the memory of the feeling of drowning in his kisses, in his touch, gave her the sense of going down for the third time. She could feel the dark heated waters of sensuality swirling about her dangerously once again.

‘Where else would I sleep,
glikia mou
?'

The bite on the last two words took them to a point light years away from any real term of affection.

‘This is my home, this is my bedroom. My bed. The bed I have dreamed of sleeping in again ever since I realised just who I was. There is nowhere else I intend to sleep tonight—or any other night.'

And there was no way at all she could refute that argument even if she dared to try.

‘So—what about me?'

‘What about you?'

The coolly assessing stare he turned on her moved from the top of her head, down to her toes where they curled nervously on the polished wooden floor, then swept back up again to linger on her uneasy face, looking straight into her frowning eyes.

‘Where—where am I expected to sleep?'

‘Expected?'

There was a dark note of mockery in that single drawled word, one that scraped over her nerves like the sound of fingernails on a blackboard, making her wince inwardly.

‘I expect nothing from you,
agapiti mou
. I would be all kinds of a fool if I did. But as to where you should sleep—'

If the faint shrug of one shoulder was meant to be casual then it failed completely. As Penny suspected it was meant to. Instead she was sure that it was an indication of the fact that he didn't give a damn one way or another.

‘The normal place that a wife sleeps is at her husband's side.'

‘Normal!' Penny's anger was like a red haze in front of her eyes.

Once again Zarek was staking his claim to everything as he had been doing from the moment that he had walked back into her life that morning.

Back into
his
life. Into his house.

His room. His bed.

His wife.

And as his wife she was expected to warm his bed because that was what was normal. For normal read that Zarek would get what he wanted.

‘We never had a normal marriage. And even if we had, you've been gone a long time. Long enough for you to be…'

No, her tongue wouldn't frame the word and she choked to a halt, watching the black frown that snapped his dark brows together.

‘Long enough for what?' He pounced on the words like a hunting big cat on its prey. ‘For me to be
what
?'

Something in her face gave her away and she saw those brilliant eyes narrow until they were just hard slits in a drawn
face where white lines of anger and rejection were etched sharply around his nose and mouth.

‘Oh, no, lady,' he said with savage control, the bite of the icy fury in his voice lashing against her skin so that she shivered in miserable reaction. ‘You are not going to accuse me of being unfaithful to you. I respected my marriage vows even when I did not know that I had made them.'

‘All that time—on Malta…?'

‘All that time. Even though there was temptation.'

Of course there had been temptation. Zarek was a gorgeous man. A glorious, devastating specimen of manhood. Wherever he was, women were drawn to him like moths to a flame. He had only to direct one burning glance from those stunning, heavy-lidded eyes or flash a single wide, brilliant smile and every breathing female within reach was reduced to a molten pool of honeyed sensual response.

‘So you're saying…'

‘Not saying.' Zarek's delivery was brutal. ‘Telling you. I have never broken my marriage vows to you.'

Could he really mean it? Mean that there had been no one else. Not even when he hadn't known who he was, whether he was married or not?

‘And you expect me to believe that?'

‘Why not? I believed you.'

It was so unexpected it hit her like a slap in the face, making her reel back.

‘I thought you were dead,' was all she could manage.

Zarek pushed one hand roughly through the shining darkness of his hair, shaking his head slightly.

‘You thought I was dead. You believed you were a widow. Even if you had met someone new while I was away. I couldn't expect you to wait for ever.'

‘But I didn't—' Penny began, but Zarek persisted, talking across her as if she hadn't spoken.

‘I understand that Jason saw an opportunity to step into my shoes, in more ways than one. And I have no doubt that he was fully prepared to use you to do just that. If you'd let him.'

‘He helped me run the company. I certainly didn't have the experience to do so.'

‘And he was kind.' Zarek pronounced the word as if it were a foul, bitter taste in his mouth and suddenly Penny's temper flared out of control.

‘Yes, he was kind—and because of that I might have been tempted. So perhaps you might like to stop and think about your part in that.'

Oh, that had got his attention. His head went back as if she had slapped him in the face and if his eyes had seemed to burn before now they practically seared off a fine layer of her skin, leaving her raw and unprotected underneath.

So raw that she no longer cared what she said or how she said it. She only knew that she had had enough for tonight. That she couldn't go on but she needed to escape to somewhere dark and private. To some silent sanctuary where she could lick her wounds for a while and try to come to terms with everything that had happened today. To face up to everything that had changed—and everything that had still remained so agonisingly the same. Perhaps after some time alone, time for thought, she might just be able to face whatever came next. Whatever the future—and Zarek—decided to throw at her.

‘The reasons why I might want someone who could be
kind
rather than a man who is so determined to lay claim to his home, his bed—
his wife
. To have them all under his control like his precious company. Someone who thinks that he can
walk back into my life and demand that the woman he married should be at her husband's side, in her husband's bed, whether she wants to be there or not.'

But she'd overstepped the mark there. From the way Zarek's lips thinned, his jaw tightening ominously, she knew exactly what was coming even before he shot the question at her viciously.

‘And are you saying that you have no desire at all to be in my bed? Are you saying that what happened between us earlier this evening was totally what I
demanded
? That it was simply you
under my control
—with no say in what was going on? That it was not what you wanted at all?'

‘No—yes…'

Oh, how did she answer that? The truth was that she had wanted it. Wanted it until she had felt she was going to shatter into tiny pieces with the yearning that was eating her up inside. And yet at the same time it was exactly what she did
not
want. The sensual enticement Zarek offered was such a blend of temptation and danger that it would destroy her if she gave into it as she had done when she had rushed into marriage with him without thinking about the possible consequences. But at the same time, somewhere deep in her heart she had the terrible feeling that it would also devastate her if she never knew it again, never experienced just once more the sexual magic that Zarek could bring to her body, the total ecstasy of fulfilment he could give her in the heat of their marriage bed.

‘You can say what you like about our marriage, about the past—but don't ever lie to me about that,' Zarek stated with icy precision. ‘What there is between us in bed is special. I've never known anything like it. And I at least am not going to deny that.'

‘I…'

Twice she opened her mouth to answer him, and both times her voice failed her completely. She didn't know how she could explain it to him anyway without ever using the three words that explained everything. The three words he didn't want to hear. She couldn't share his bed knowing that she loved him and that he had no feelings for her other than the powerful desire he had just stated so coldly.

Unable to use the words
I love you
, and finding it impossible to tell the man who had just demanded that she didn't lie to him, she gave up totally on speaking and could only shake her head in silent, desperate despair.

She knew just how he had interpreted her response by the way that his lips compressed hard and a revealing muscle tugged sharply in the right side of his jaw.

‘All right,
glikia mou
, tonight you have it your way. Tonight we sleep alone. I will allow you the fact that we have been apart for two years—that we are like strangers again—for tonight at least. But I suggest that you take the night to think—to decide whether you want this marriage or not. Because after this, if we stay as husband and wife, then we stay in a real marriage, with everything that entails.'

A real marriage.
The words were like a slap in the face, making her head spin nauseously. To her, a real marriage was one that was made in love and caring. A union of equals who each had given their heart to the other, But to Zarek, a
real
marriage was one that gave him the sexual satisfaction he sought, and the precious heir he had wanted all along.

And once he had that heir, just how long would that ‘real' marriage last anyway?

‘Zarek…'

But she was speaking to the back of her husband's head. He had turned away from her, wrenching open the door and
stepping into the bedroom, striding away from her without even glancing back.

‘Goodnight, Penny,' he said, cold and hard and totally distant. ‘Sleep well.'

With a firm movement of his hand he slammed the door shut right in her face, giving it an extra push when closed as if needing to be sure.

What had he expected? Penny wondered bitterly. Did he think that she would be unable to cope with one night without him and that she would start to beg to be let back in? To beat on the door with her fists, begging and pleading.

Well, if he did then he was going to be bitterly disappointed. She knew when she had been dismissed and she had more pride than to go begging for him to change his mind, to open the door to her. Besides, this was exactly how she wanted things, wasn't it? To be free from the sexual enticement that she seemed to breathe in with the air that surrounded her long-lost husband and that had come straight back to torment her from the moment that he had walked into the house? She had meant what she said—that she didn't know him, and that she couldn't sleep with a man who didn't care about her.