The Good Greek Wife? (8 page)

‘What the hell…?'

If Zarek's eyes had been sparking irritation before, now they were positively incandescent. They burned with fury, turning a look on her that she felt really should have shrivelled her into a pile of dust where she stood, silhouetted against the window, the moonlight lighting her from behind.

‘You…'

Zarek stopped abruptly, clearly fighting to bring himself under control. With an effort he drew in a long harsh breath between his gritted teeth and raked an angry hand through his hair, sweeping it back from his forehead so that the harsh white line of the cruel scar showed up so much more clearly in stark relief.

‘What the hell is this?' he demanded again, his words
falling ragged and raw into the shocked stillness of the night. ‘What sort of game—?'

‘No game!' Penny put in frantically, suddenly terribly afraid that he might still consider this some risky sort of foreplay, designed to heighten anticipation, increase appetite, and decide to go along with what he thought she wanted.

She had had a narrow enough escape as it was, barely managing to escape before the dark seas of need had closed over her head completely, drowning her for ever. If he touched her again she didn't know if she had the strength to resist him.

‘No game at all! I'm deadly serious…'

The look he flung at her almost totally destroyed what little was left of her self-control, but, heaving in a desperate breath, she forced herself to face him with as much strength and defiance as she could muster.

‘This has gone far enough—too far. I don't want it. I don't want you.'

‘Liar!'

It was low and deadly and this time his eyes burned molten with rejection of every word she'd said.

‘You little liar. You wanted me every bit as much as I wanted you. You said so—'

‘I was wrong…'

‘And your body said so too. It's still telling the same story.'

A wild, contemptuous gesture in her direction emphasised the angry words.

‘You can't deny—'

‘Oh, but I can—I will!'

Her voice was pitched too high, too shrill. It sounded too despairing, too desperate to protect herself. Which was hardly surprising when she could barely bring her whirling senses
back under any degree of control. Her pulse was still pounding in her veins, sounding like thunder in her head.

‘You would?'

Cynical disbelief rang rough in Zarek's voice, making her shiver because she knew that she couldn't refute. He knew that she was lying and so did she.

‘You'd deny this…'

Before she could even realise that he had moved he was at her side in three long strides. Hard hands clamped around her naked shoulders, bruising fingers digging into the skin as he swung her round in front of him. This way she faced the big full-length mirror set into the wardrobe on the opposite side of the room.

‘You'd deny
this
?' Zarek repeated savagely. ‘Look at yourself!'

Penny closed her eyes tight. she didn't want to look—didn't need to look. She knew what he meant; knew what she would see. But a rough shake of her shoulders forced her to open them again. When she did so the first thing she saw was Zarek's dark eyes looking over her shoulder, meeting hers in the glass. That was bad enough but the burn of something dangerous in that glittering stare made her drop her gaze and face her reflection squarely, wincing in embarrassment as she did so.

It was worse than she had expected.

The green dress was bunched up around her waist, her wildly disordered clothing exposing her breasts. The creamy flesh still marked with red as the result of his kisses, the abrasion of his late evening stubble against the sensitive skin. Her hair was a wild bird's nest around her face, tumbling in tangled chaos on to her shoulders. Her nipples were still hard and flushed with pink, faintly gleaming with the moisture left on them by his tormenting mouth.

Her breasts stung where they were now exposed to the air and rapidly cooling from the heated response of just moments before. And between her legs the throbbing need his deliberately provoking caresses had awoken and then stoked with every touch was still a burning torture of demand. One that made her feel it might actually drive her to lose consciousness from the agonising frustration of having to fight it. Just for a second she felt weak enough to sag back against Zarek's strength and support, but realised in time how appalling a mistake that would be.

‘I mean—I can't deny that it happened. That I responded.'

It seemed that was not the response Zarek was expecting. The grip on her shoulders eased slightly, becoming loose enough for her to twist away. At least this way she didn't have to look at herself, or meet his darkly accusing eyes.

‘I'd be a fool to try and do that—wouldn't I? I mean—look at me…'

No, that was a mistake. Bringing his eyes to her exposed body, reminding him of how she looked, how he had made her look, was not going to help her in this. With a flare of hot embarrassment flooding up into her cheeks, she tugged at the skirt of her dress with one hand, the top of it with another, both movements having very little practical effect.

‘Here…'

To her total shock and consternation, Zarek moved across the room, snagged a blue silky robe from the back of the door, shook it out and held it open.

‘What?'

‘Put it on…'

At the sight of her wary-eyed hesitation, he muttered an imprecation in savage Greek.

‘I am not going to harm you.'

‘I know…'

Whatever else there might have been between them—or not—Penny knew Zarek was not was physically cruel or hurtful.

But these were not normal circumstances. She still had no idea at all what had happened to Zarek while he had been away. The whole time of his absence had started with the violence of the hijacking of the
Troy
by the pirates. Then there had been the ordeal of being held hostage in the tiny, enclosed boat, the bullet that had been meant for his head and had only by some miracle missed by inches.

And after that? That had all been in the very first week—God knew what had happened in the years afterward.

Oh, but the truth was that even when they had been together, she had never truly known him. She had married him in a rush, in the heat of the biggest crush she had ever had in her life. She had been wildly in love, with the emphasis on
wild
, but she had never really known the man she had married. That had been proved to her by later developments.

‘I'm sorry—I know you wouldn't harm me under normal circumstances!'

It was meant to be a peace offering, a verbal olive branch, and although Zarek nodded in acknowledgement it didn't subdue the blaze in his eyes or ease the tension in his jaw and shoulders.

‘Then cover yourself up and perhaps we'll be able to talk—
normally
.'

The bitterly cynical emphasis on the last word made Penny wince, as did the bleakly efficient way he was setting about restoring his appearance to—that word again—normality. The way he buttoned up his shirt, tucked it in where she had pulled it adrift at the waist, smoothed the disordered hair her clutching fingers had tangled, spoke very clearly of his instant withdrawal from her.

What had happened to the hot-blooded, fiercely passionate man who had carried her up to his bed just a short time before? Had he really existed? Or had she been deluding herself? Had that been just another sign of cool calculation on Zarek's part? Like the way he had decided to marry her in the past.

The way he had chosen her as the potential mother for his heirs.

S
HIVERINGLY
cold in spite of the warmth of the September evening, Penny stumbled across the room to where Zarek still held out the blue silk robe and pushed her arms roughly into the sleeves. It was all she could do not to snatch the robe away from him as he pulled it up around her shoulders, but the ordeal didn't take long. A moment later she was back over the other side of the room, dragging the sides of the robe together and belting it as tightly as possible around her waist. It was made of soft and thin material, so it was little use as protective armour against him, but at least she was covered and felt more secure that way.

‘You never needed to armour yourself against me.' Zarek's drawl stunned her with its hint of dark amusement. Even more so with its uncanny echoing of the word in her own thoughts. ‘And you never used to play games in bed—at least not those sort of games.'

‘I wasn't playing any sort of game.'

‘No?'

With the blue robe wrapped round her, Penny felt a little more secure and able to face his cold-eyed derision.

‘I wasn't playing at anything. I know I responded—there was always that spark—OK, more than a spark—of passion between us.'

‘As I recall, you couldn't keep your hands off me. And vice versa. But then I'm not the one denying the blatantly obvious.'

‘I'm not denying it,' Penny persisted. ‘I'd be a fool to even try. It's there, obviously it is—but that doesn't mean I'm going to act on it.'

Whatever else Zarek had been expecting, it was not that. His dark head went back sharply, his eyes narrowing till they were just gleaming slits in his tanned face.

‘I'm not someone who just jumps into bed with any man in the first moment I see him, no matter how strong the provocation.'

He knew that. She saw the acknowledgement of it in his eyes even though he said nothing in response. She'd come to him a virgin and, in spite of an almost overwhelming longing to change that situation before then, she had been a virgin on their wedding night.

‘I'm not just any man.'

‘But I don't know you.'

‘I'm your husband!'

It was a sound of fierce exasperation blended with total disbelief of what she was saying. Penny took several steps backwards, away from him, stopping short when she found that her back had come up against the wall. She could see from his face that he thought she had gone completely mad, right before his eyes, and even in her own mind her argument sounded weak and unsubstantial. But then he had got exactly what he wanted from their marriage. She wasn't yet prepared to open up her heart to him and confess the truth—that he wasn't the husband she needed.

She had more pride than to admit that until she knew more clearly exactly where she stood.

‘So you keep telling me.'

‘Are you saying you don't believe I am who I claim to be? What do you want—a DNA test?'

Penny flinched at the malign humour in his dark tones but, pushing her hands into the pockets of the silk gown and curling them into tight, defiant fists, she managed to find the strength to continue in spite of feeling that she was suddenly desperately fighting for her life.

‘N-no—I don't need that.'

‘Then start acting like you know me. I'm your husband—the man you married—and you damn well know it. And if you need any further confirmation—something we both know—then let me remind you that I am also the man who made sure that you—or at least an image of you—was added to the carving on our bed.'

One long tanned hand pointed back at the dishevelled bed they had just left.

‘Yes—as a mouse!' Penny flung back at him.

She knew he was referring to the ornately carved wooden headboard that had been one of the wedding gifts at their marriage. Apparently these carvings were a tradition in the Michaelis family and were usually made up of symbols and images to represent the bride and groom, their families and elements from their lives. When the headboard had been given to Zarek and Penny it had all seemed to be about boats and the sea, with very little that related to her personally. When she had protested, Zarek had said that he would make sure she was added. She had come back from her wedding reception expecting at the very least to see a rose or two for her English nationality, or even a soaring oak tree as a play on her maiden name of Wood.

It had taken her a long time to find the tiny field mouse almost hidden in one corner of the ornate bed head.

‘Was that what you thought of me? As a mouse? A creeping, sneaking, terrified little mouse?'

‘Well, certainly not now,' Zarek replied dryly, strolling over to a chair by the window and dropping down into it. ‘Right now you are—what is it that old film was called?—The Mouse that Roared.'

Was that actually a gleam of humour in the darkness of his eyes? Penny couldn't be sure and because of that she didn't dare risk rising to his teasing.

‘You have changed, Penny.'

If only he knew how much.

‘I've had to change—had to learn how to stand on my own two feet. One moment I was a new wife, embarking on a very different sort of life in an alien country—with in-laws who weren't exactly pleased to see me arrive in their home, but with my husband by my side to help me through. The next I was…'

Breaking off, she could only shake her head, twisting the tie belt of her robe round and round her fingers, tying it in knots and then tugging them free again.

‘The next you were what?' Zarek prompted when she couldn't find the words to go on. ‘You didn't seem to be struggling quite as much as you would have me believe. Certainly not with the in-laws.'

‘You think so?'

Outrage had Penny letting drop the narrow belt as she put her hands on her hips and faced him defiantly.

‘You want to try living with your stepmother complaining about every thing every minute of the day. With everything you do being wrong—and everything that dear Jason and Petros do is absolutely perfect.'

It was only when Zarek's mouth quirked up into an unex
pected and totally unguarded smile that she realised just how rigidly he had controlled his features from the time he had arrived until now. Even when he had been intent on seducing her, no trace of true emotion had shown through the tight muscles, only the burn in his eyes giving away any sort of feeling. It had been almost as if he had been determined not to show anything. So now she felt her insides twist, her heart lurch as she recognised the unexpected softening in his face.

‘I did,' he acknowledged dryly. ‘I lived with that constant carping from the moment my father first brought Hermione home. And then when he married her and moved her and her sons into the house…'

He shook his head slowly, mouth twisting again at the memories.

‘I was glad to escape to boarding school in England.'

‘How old were you?'

Penny knew that her voice sounded slightly breathless because she was struggling with a tightness in her chest that came from the fact that Zarek had actually opened up about something in his past. When they had married he had always insisted that the past was irrelevant. That it was the here and now that mattered.

‘Seven.'

‘So young!'

At seven she had gone to the small village school just down the road. She couldn't imagine how it would have felt not to be able to go back home at the end of each long, tiring day.

‘But I suppose you had Jason and Petros for company? No?' she questioned when Zarek shook his head again.

‘They never went away to school. They had private tutors here on the island.'

Catching the sound of her swiftly indrawn breath, he switched on another smile, one that was totally different from before.

‘I much preferred it that way. And if I could have stayed at school through the holidays I would have preferred that too.'

The words were flat, emotionless, but all the same Penny felt that she saw something of the reasons why Zarek had always been so totally set against his stepfamily, his unyielding resolve that they would never get their hands on Odysseus Shipping.

And that perhaps was some part of the explanation why he had been so determined on having a family—an heir—as soon as possible. But it did nothing to ease the sense of being used, seen not as a wife but as a womb to carry that child, which was how she had ended up feeling in their marriage. And that was why she had resorted to taking the contraceptive pill, the discovery of which had sent Zarek incandescent with rage just before he had left for the
Troy
.

‘And your father?' she asked and once more Zarek shook his head.

‘He gave Hermione whatever she wanted. He just wanted a quiet life and, to get that, he had to let her run things the way she wanted them.'

‘Then you'll understand why I was ready to get out of here. You walk back in and assume that I've just been sitting here quietly, waiting for you to return. Perhaps doing a little embroidery to pass the time.'

The realisation that she had in fact been doing something like that made her heart skip a little uneven beat. She didn't really expect an answer to her question and she didn't get one. Instead Zarek continued to sit as motionless as a statue, even his eyes hooded and opaque.

‘How do you know that I hadn't decided I'd had enough long ago and divorced you?'

‘On what grounds?' Cool and swift, it had a bite as lethal as that of a striking snake.

‘Desertion?' she parried sharply, refusing to let herself think of the way that he had never meant his marriage vows. Never intended to
love
and cherish. ‘You haven't been in contact for two years.'

Something had changed. She couldn't tell quite what it was, only that something in the atmosphere in the room was suddenly very different. Zarek hadn't moved or spoken but everything about his long, still body communicated a new and very different form of tension.

‘I believe that we have already established that I was hardly in a position to phone you or to send many text messages.'

The dry, slightly mocking words only added to the already strung-out way she was feeling, knocking her over from irritation into full-blown exasperation.

‘When you were captured originally, perhaps! But you got away from them. That same week, if I have it right. And after that? There are two whole years with not a word, not a message. Nothing to let me know that you were still alive.'

‘Perhaps that's because I didn't know that I was.'

‘What…? What do you mean? That doesn't make sense.'

But even as she asked the questions Zarek moved at last, getting to his feet and prowling restlessly across the room to stand by the window, staring out at the now moonlit waves. And as she saw his hand come up to rub at his head, at the ugly scar that marked his temple, she felt her heart thud just once, hard and cruel, at the reminder that he had been literally just inches away from death. How long it would have taken him to recover from that she had no idea.

‘I mean that for a long time even I did not know who I was,' Zarek said, still not looking at her so that he didn't see the way
that her hands had gone to her mouth as if she could wish her foolish words back. ‘When I hit the sea I had already blacked out. I have no idea how long I drifted. I was just lucky that I was eventually picked up by a man in his yacht. He took me back to his home in Malta.'

‘Malta!'

Penny felt she might choke on the word. Was that where Zarek had been all this time? When she had been imagining all sorts of horrors, the thought of his lifeless body tossed into the ocean with a bullet in his head, he had been on that beautiful Mediterranean island.

So near and yet so far.

And what had he been doing all that time while she had been left stranded, neither a wife nor a widow? Not knowing whether to mourn him or to wait for him.

‘Don't they have phones in Malta? Writing paper? Envelopes? A post office?'

That brought Zarek swinging round to face her, a faintly wry smile twisting his beautiful mouth in his shadowed face. That smile twisted a knife in her insides with its memory of how he had once looked, in the early days of their marriage, when he had been smiling at something she had said.

‘I wouldn't have known who to contact. At the start, when I was unconscious and ill from exposure, I had no identification on me, no way of anyone knowing who I was. And when I did come round, I was no help.'

‘Oh, come on…' Penny began, but then the full impact of just what he had said hit home to her and the words faded into nothing as her mind reeled in shock. ‘Do you mean…? Are you saying…?'

‘I'm saying I had amnesia—the wound on my head—the shock—exposure—any of it could all have caused it or added
to the effect—but I couldn't remember a damn thing. I knew I was alive—I was male and…'

He threw up his hands in a gesture expressing resigned acceptance of defeat.

‘That was it. So I couldn't help anyone by telling them who I was or who might be looking for me. I didn't know if I was married or single. If I had any family and where they were. I spoke English—that was what my rescuer spoke to me—but not Maltese. I also spoke French, Greek, Italian—so in which of those countries did I look for any clues?'

‘Amnesia…'

Penny could only echo the word in a sense of shock and bewilderment. It was so obvious now that she knew. It explained so many things, which was a relief.

And it also took away that feeling of outraged injustice at the thought that she had been left abandoned, suffering the torment of believing him dead when all the time he had been alive and well and living in Malta.

Suddenly it was as if that sense of outrage had been all that had been holding her upright. As if the removal of the indignation had been like tugging a rug from under her feet, throwing her totally off balance. Was it possible that her own lingering anger and hurt at all that she had found out about him just before he had left for the
Troy
had coloured her judgement, making her see hurts where none was intended, cruelty where he had never planned any?