The Greek Millionaire's Marriage (13 page)

It seemed an awful compromise. And she wondered if that was why Marina seemed so bitter about life. ‘Were you happy at all?' she asked gently, astonished
that her mother-in-law had told her such an intimate confidence.

There was a fleeting flash of anguish tightening the gaunt face. ‘No,' she admitted. ‘And I confess I probably made him miserable with my sharp tongue and drove him even further from me. But I couldn't help it, I loved and needed him so much. Maybe I even drove him to another woman's arms in the first place. I was intensely possessive.'

Olivia could feel Marina's sorrow because she knew the same pain of rejection and humiliation. On an impulse, she put her arms around her mother-in-law in an understanding hug.

‘I couldn't do what you did. You're much stronger than me,' she confided.

‘Or more pig-headed,' Marina said with a rueful sigh. She pushed away slightly and looked at Olivia with sympathy as she tucked an escaped strand of hair behind Olivia's ear in an almost gentle, motherly gesture. ‘But I couldn't bear being cast aside so I pretended not to know the truth. It seems that Dimitri is like his father. Let him have his freedom. You must decide on your course of action. Either divorce him—or stay married and ignore his absences.'

Olivia gazed at Marina helplessly. ‘I can't live without him,' she admitted. ‘Yet I can't live
with
him if he's having affairs. Or even one affair. How could I lie in bed wondering if he was coming home, wondering who he was with? It would crucify me. And yet I don't really feel I'm alive without him. Oh, Marina!' she whispered, as the finality of the situation began to hit home. ‘I have to go. Help me, I beg you—'

‘There you are!' The two women jumped at the sound of Dimitri's strong voice. He stared in amaze
ment at their friendly embrace. ‘What on earth is going on?'

Olivia's mouth tightened into a thin, hard line. ‘Character assassination on my part.'

He looked puzzled by her hostility. And so sublimely innocent that her knees automatically weakened. He was utterly desirable to her as he pushed a hand through his silky hair and it tumbled boyishly onto his broad forehead.

‘But…I thought you… We were going out somewhere today—'

‘Oh, is that still on?' she asked coolly. ‘I imagined you had better things to do or other people to see.'

There was a tightening of his face. His lashes dipped and lifted again and he shot his mother a sharp glance. To Olivia, he looked taken aback—and highly embarrassed. Proof, if she needed it, of his guilt.

‘The phone call! Of course. I'm sorry I had to leave you.' He smiled with agonisingly tender affection and she melted, as she always did, her heart pounding with love, her head, however, bursting with ungovernable anger. ‘But I'm here now, and we have the day ahead of us. You choose where we're going—'

‘
We
are going nowhere. I am leaving this house and getting out of your life for good,' she said, ice dripping from every word.

He was instantly alert. ‘Leaving? I don't think so,' he sliced at her.

Tactfully, Marina muttered something and slipped from the room past the granite-faced Dimitri.

‘Watch!' Olivia spat out.

He folded his arms across his chest, his entire body taut with menace. ‘Care to tell me the reason for your change of mind?'

‘With pleasure! I'm sick and tired,' she ground out, ‘of being used by you!'

‘You might be tired but that, I imagine, is because you were unusually enthusiastic last night,' he growled, looking offended that she'd apparently forgotten the eager part she had played.

‘I like sex!' she hurled. Liked? Adored it passionately—with him—until she had come to her senses after that phone call and realised that she was probably nothing but a toy for him to play with!

Dimitri's eyes narrowed. She had reduced a memorable day and night to basic lust. His heart pounded as he realised with mounting dismay that for him it had been a deeper experience. Fool that he was. He knew she had never loved him. She'd made that perfectly clear.

His fists clenched. Every instinct was now driving him to punish her. To exact some kind of revenge. He would break her. He had to. No woman was going to treat him with such contempt.

‘You don't need to tell me you like sex. I'd noticed for myself,' he drawled.

She flushed. ‘I respond to you because you're good at it. I hear that comes of continual practice. But what we did last night doesn't mean I like you, or that I accept your peculiar morality—'

‘Just a minute. What has my mother said?' Putting two and two together, he moved forward, till he was just a foot away, studying her with shrewd eyes. Olivia had radically changed her mind about their arrangement. There could be only one explanation. ‘I thought she was happy for me that you were staying. But…has she offered you money to go?'

Olivia gasped and cracked her hand across his face.
He caught it a second too late, and for a moment she was terrified by the black glitter in his eyes. Then he did something extraordinary. He pulled her against him, tipped her head back roughly and kissed her hard.

She fought him—and herself. Felt her body sliding against his. The fierce beat of his heart. He cupped one breast and bent her backwards, dominating her, firing her with his skilful, hateful caresses till she sank into them, her defiance blown away by her own body's betrayal.

‘You want me!' he gritted. ‘That's obvious. OK. We'll deal. Shall I offer you even more money to stay?'

Olivia drew her head back, hot blue eyes blazing into his. ‘I can't be bought or bribed!' she grated. ‘I don't want your mother's money or yours—'

‘You took the maintenance I sent you,' he said in a cynical drawl.

Her eyes widened in utter bewilderment. ‘What maintenance?'

‘Paid into the English bank where we had a joint account, remember? Or was that small change for you?' he scathed.

‘You don't know which bank I use! I go to a different one in—' She firmed her mouth, remembering not to tell him where she'd been for the past three years. ‘If you've put money in our old bank,' she said grimly, ‘then it's still there untouched, with the rest of the cash we'd put by. There are probably statements heaped up on the mat of your London apartment. Haven't you been there?'

‘No. Avoided it like the plague,' he muttered. His eyes narrowed. ‘Are you telling me you haven't taken a penny?'

She applauded. ‘Well done.'

He scowled at her sarcasm but he looked uncomfortable. ‘I thought—'

‘I know what you thought,' she snapped. ‘That I worship money.'

‘Don't you?'

‘No more than the next woman. Of course I like new clothes and eating in restaurants and trips to New York. Of course it was wonderful to have financial security. But that came at a price—'

‘Me.'

‘You,' she agreed, deciding not to elaborate any more.

His mouth tightened. ‘How did you manage when you left?'

She glared. ‘I told you. On my own earnings. I don't need a man to provide for me. Does that tell you something about my money-grabbing tactics? Does that suggest I might
not
have taken a bribe from your mother?'

Clearly surprised, he touched his face where the marks of her fingers still lingered. ‘I deserved this, it seems,' he said stiffly.

‘And more!' she muttered.

His eyes flashed but he nodded. ‘I apologise. However, it doesn't explain why you are so determined to leave. Only last night you seemed perfectly reconciled to amusing yourself with me for an indefinite period.'

‘And now I want to go home,' she muttered, not daring to tell him that his cavalier attitude to women distressed her. He might think she cared—and that was the last thing she wanted him to know.

‘This is an attempt to wring more alimony out of me, isn't it? Yes,' he said when she opened her mouth to protest, ‘I know you haven't touched the mainte
nance, but that's because you didn't know it was there. The fact remains that you admit you like financial security. Your lawyer has already accepted a substantial sum on your behalf which you want to increase—'

‘I don't want it!' she snapped.

His eyebrow arced up in surprise. ‘Really? Then ring him. I am calling your bluff, Olivia.'

‘I don't know what time it is—'

‘Excuses, excuses.'

‘All right!' Eyes glittering, she picked up the phone on his desk and made the call, instructing the astonished Paul that she didn't want one penny from Dimitri.

‘He's forced you to do this!' Paul protested. ‘Olivia, if he's seduced you with the sole purpose of—'

‘Maybe he has, maybe he hasn't,' she snapped. ‘I don't care any more. I just want to wash my hands of everything connected with him as soon as I possibly can. I refuse to be accused of whoring. As far as I'm concerned, whatever has the Angelaki stamp on it is contaminated and poisonous.' Shaking, she put the receiver down. ‘Satisfied?' she flung at Dimitri. ‘You can't accuse me of marrying you for your money now. Or divorcing you for it.'

‘Why the devil did you marry me, then?' he flung angrily.

‘If you don't know, I sure as hell am not going to tell you!' she yelled.

He went very still. His eyes searched hers. ‘Love?'

It was the way he said the word that made her tremble, imbuing it with such tenderness that she felt her heart would break.

‘Love,' she agreed, her face mournful. ‘It's terrible when it dies.'

So that was it. She had loved him once—maybe in
the early days of their relationship. But when they were married she'd been restless. After she'd run away, the passage of time must have killed whatever feelings she'd once had for him. At least now he knew the truth and could act accordingly. She would regret ever giving him the impression that their love had been reignited.

His teeth clenched. She looked suddenly vulnerable, her lashes thick crescents on her cheeks. Her mouth seemed carved in sorrow and he had the urge to kiss it into smiles. Instead, he scowled and sought to bind her to him. Because he wasn't finished with her yet.

‘We're getting nowhere. The plain fact is that you can't leave,' he said in cutting tones, ‘because you would be breaking your promise.'

She stared at him in loathing. ‘I didn't promise that I'd live here!'

‘No,' he said, his mouth savage. ‘But you agreed that you'd pretend we were in love until Eleni gave up her quest to be the next Mrs Angelaki. And lovers don't live in separate places, not if they're married and rebuilding their relationship.'

She swallowed the ache in her throat. Tried to ignore the nausea swirling around in her stomach. He looked utterly ruthless and determined. The set of his body and the hardness of his eyes intimidated her. He actually wanted her to stay around and flatter his ego in bed and out of it, while she slowly died inside!

‘You can't and you won't hold me to that!' she cried, distraught.

‘Believe me, I can and I will,' he growled, his brows a dark line above coal-black eyes. ‘It was a promise. And one I'll make you keep.'

‘I can't bear to be near you!' she cried raggedly.

His eyes flashed a warning, and then his hands descended on her shoulders as if intent on crushing her slender bones.

‘Do it,' he gritted. ‘You want this farce of a marriage annulled in record time. It's the only way.'

‘I can't keep the pretence going! I feel sick at the thought of being touched by you—'

‘Then,' he said, frighteningly tight and angry, ‘I have to congratulate you on your performance to date. You almost convinced me that you enjoyed every second.'

‘Let me go,' she said feebly.

‘No. You won't wriggle out of this.'

She gave a helpless groan. ‘Please, Dimitri!'

‘Nothing would give me more pleasure than to see the back of you,' he snapped. ‘But you have a job to do. I'll make it easier for you, though. You will continue to live here. We will leave for trips together and return together. This place is a hotbed of gossip and Eleni will soon discover that we are rarely separated—'

‘I'm not spending all day with you—'

‘You'll do whatever I say,' he growled. ‘At night—'

‘I won't sleep with you!'

‘I can't remember us sleeping much before,' he said drily. ‘But I agree. You will sleep in my room for appearances' sake, but I will go elsewhere—'

‘Where?' she demanded, thinking of Athena.

‘Anywhere. Does it matter?' he said impatiently. ‘Agree to this and I'll get my lawyers working around the clock. You'll soon be free of me. And I will be free of you,' he finished under his breath.

If only she hadn't given her word. He had trapped her in an impossible situation. She lifted a haunted face.

‘I have no choice,' she muttered. And ran from the room before she burst into tears.

T
HE
boat sped once again across the aquamarine sea, leaving behind the small community where her happiness had been found and lost for the second time. The white houses faded against the background of olive trees covering the hills and soon the harbour and the little boats there were no longer visible.

The contrast between how she felt on this day and how she had felt the previous day was too painful to contemplate.

She knew that Eleni had watched them leave the house from the drawing-room window. And Olivia had felt a pang of sympathy for her, knowing what that misery was like and how horribly it could possess and destroy. She didn't like what she was doing—and wished it were all over.

They headed for a sickle-shaped beach backed by tamarisk trees where they had spent many glorious hours in the past. She tried hard not to think of those days. What was the point? They'd been a fantasy strictly of her own making, after all.

Dimitri killed the engine and let the boat drift on the gentle swell towards the shore. Like her, he wore beige shorts, though his T-shirt was blue not white, and more close-fitting, hugging the contours of his broad chest.

He might have been a fisherman but for his imperious manner that marked him out as a man used to being obeyed. With a shiver of apprehension she watched him leap into the crystal water. The muscles
of his arms stood out as he hauled the boat further up the beach and she jerked her head away to stare at the distant islands out to sea because she didn't want to moon over him any more. Those days were over.

‘Take my hand.'

So many times they had done this. She had ended up in those strong, supposedly loving arms and they had kissed and murmured their adoration while the water swirled around their legs.

‘No.'

Determined to be independent of him, she stood up, preparing to jump into the shallow water.

‘Olivia,' he snapped, ‘she can see us from the house.' He jerked his head at the promontory. Of course she knew that. She could easily make out the mansion rising from the trees. ‘Just do it.'

She did. With bad grace. And she didn't know how it happened, but one minute she was upright, the next she had fallen into two feet of water. On top of Dimitri. They surfaced, spluttering. His arms held her securely. Too securely.

For a moment she responded, her mouth seeking his in a terrible knee-jerk reaction. How wrong could her instincts be?

‘Very good,' he rasped, fastening his mouth greedily on hers.

She could feel the anger in him and fought to be free, gasping when the water swirled over their partly submerged bodies.

‘That'll do.'

Abruptly he let her go. Clamping his hands on her waist, he hauled her up. Water streamed down his contorted face. His eyes were small black chips of glass, his mouth a tight, grim line.

She had never seen him so close to losing control. He bit out a single word with frightening venom.
‘Bitch.'

Blindly she staggered to the shore and concentrated on twisting her hair to wring out the water. She was trembling, afraid of what he would do. And suddenly she knew she couldn't stay here all day, in full sight of the house. He'd be demanding that they gave a convincing performance of two lovers enjoying themselves and she shuddered to think how far he expected her to go.

‘I refuse to sit on a beach all day while you pretend to make advances and Eleni watches, poor girl,' she said stubbornly. ‘I'm not an exhibit. And I won't have you grope me more than you have to! Take me somewhere else.'

With a mutter of irritation, he swept his palms over his wet face and shot, ‘Where, then?'

‘I don't know. Anywhere would be hell,' she snapped.

‘Helpful,' he clipped.

Her temper flared. ‘If we
have
to go anywhere together, I'd prefer a drive into the hills. I can sit on one side of a mountain and you can sit on the other, out of my sight,' she said coldly.

‘You're right,' he growled to her surprise. ‘I'd prefer not to touch you. Get into the boat. We'll return to the house and change our clothes—and our destination.'

Mutely she obeyed. In a horrible, deadly silence, they returned to the harbour. Clearly in a filthy mood, Dimitri helped her to the quayside.

‘Face me.'

‘No.'

Ruthlessly he grabbed her arms and stared into her
mutinous eyes. ‘A few minutes of simpering, that's all we need,' he bit. ‘My arm around you while we walk to the house. Your head leaning on my shoulder. And if you imagine I'm enjoying this, then think again. I have finally discovered what you are, Olivia. A cold-hearted little tramp who seeks only to satisfy her own selfish needs.'

‘And you,' she slashed, ‘are a swaggering bully, with no concept of love or decency, who must hate women because all you do is betray them and hurt them!'

His arm wrapped around her waist. Stiffly they moved up the little road. Olivia knew she couldn't keep this up. Being with him like this was a living nightmare.

To her relief, there was no sign of Eleni when they reached the house. When Dimitri enquired, he was told that she had gone out with a young man in a sports car. Perhaps their ruse was working. She hoped so.

Walking indoors, she changed into a blue cotton sundress and met Dimitri by the garage block.

‘I suppose this stupid trip is necessary?' she asked haughtily.

‘I wouldn't be doing it otherwise. I'd rather be sitting behind my desk dealing with a mountain of mail,' he snapped. ‘But I'm prepared to do this to get you out of my hair. Get in.'

He looked cool in stone cotton jeans and T-shirt, but when their fingers brushed as he opened the car door for her she discovered that his skin was burning hot. She snatched her hand away and cradled it on her lap as if it had been scorched.

The moment Dimitri flung himself into the driver's seat she felt crowded. A hurried, slanting glance at his
granite face told her that the hostility between them had reached epic proportions.

Silent and rigid with tension, she cringed back in the seat and clipped on the safety belt. He drove with grim concentration into the mountains. Miserably she stared out of the window, hardly noticing the scenery. Ruined classical temples flashed by. Tiny domed churches, secret villages designed to be hidden from marauders and the Ottoman tax collectors. The road zigzagged up a steep hill terraced with vineyards and they only came to a stop when a flock of goats blocked their way.

‘Health to your hands,' Dimitri said courteously to the men amiably moving the goats along, and smiles and greetings returned his traditional acknowledgement.

It was sickening the way everybody adored and admired him, she thought bitterly. He was a fraud. A man without a heart.

The car crawled along at a snail's pace till Olivia felt like screaming. Her head ached from the tension and misery she was keeping under tight control. This hideous situation was making her ill and she resented that.

‘Where are we going?' she muttered through her teeth.

‘I've no idea.'

She drew in a sharp breath. ‘Find somewhere quickly where we can stop. I'm not spending the whole day cooped up in this car with you.'

‘I'm killing time. If you have any ideas, then share them,' he said sarcastically.

‘Any hill will do, providing you're on the other side of it!' she muttered.

He stabbed a hard finger at the radio. The soft strains
of a sad love song murmured through the icy silence. Olivia closed her eyes, squeezing them tightly to stop the tears from escaping. Unable to bear the tug on her emotions any longer, she punched the ‘off' button and slumped back miserably in the seat.

He shot her a quick glance and wished he hadn't. Her lashes were wet with tears and there was a tell-tale shiny trail shimmering down her cheek to the corner of her mouth. Why her distress should upset him, he didn't know. But it did. He wanted to scoop her up into his arms and soothe her, to say that everything would be all right—when he knew full well that in a few days they'd be parting for ever.

And what of his revenge? He had meant to make her dependent on him. To hunger for him and beg to be loved in return. Then he had intended to reject her so that she knew what it was like to feel passionately for someone and be callously dismissed, as she had dismissed him. But now he couldn't do that. His feelings were too raw, his own emotions too disturbed. She was slowly destroying him. All his instincts were telling him to call a halt to the charade they'd agreed to play. He couldn't stand this disruption of his mind and body any longer.

‘Olivia,' he began huskily.

A movement told him that she had averted her head. Quickly estimating where they were, he pulled off at the next turning and drove down a bumpy track. They had to work out a strategy for ending this as soon—and as painlessly—as they could.

Nikos was already lining up eligible young men for Eleni—and apparently she had dates every night that week. He was sure that soon she would no longer be a problem.

That meant he could risk putting Olivia on the plane home that evening. As that thought permeated his consciousness, his eyes widened at the sharp contraction in his chest. Astonishingly, his head seemed to explode with pain. And he screeched to a stop in a flurry of dust and burning rubber.

‘What?' yelled Olivia, clutching her chest. ‘What on earth are you doing? You nearly broke my ribs!'

Slowly he turned, dazed, stunned by his realisation. In her anger she looked unbelievably beautiful, her huge blue eyes fixed on him in searing fury. There were small freckles on her gold-tinged nose, winging across her cheekbones in such a heartbreakingly appealing way that he felt his hand move out to touch them before he knew what he was doing.

‘Keep your hands off me!' she stormed, slapping it away. ‘And explain why you're practising emergency stops!'

Such a soft mouth. Designed for kissing. The heat in his loins intensified and he had to look away. He needed to think. To talk to her. To put an outrageous suggestion to her.

The risk to his pride was incalculable, but if he didn't he'd never forgive himself.

‘I'm sorry. I had an idea,' he croaked, his mouth dry with nerves.

‘Let's hope it involves imminent separation.'

Muttering something rude under her breath, she folded her arms and waited for him to drive on.

It took a moment before he could clear his brain and find the gearstick. When he did, his gaze lingered on the long, tanned length of her leg and he knew he'd do anything to keep her.

Olivia felt the heat of his eyes and tugged her skirt
down over her thigh. ‘Don't even think it,' she snapped.

Without a word, he put the car into gear and drove on carefully down the rutted track, at the end of which he parked.

‘I think we should talk,' he said quietly.

‘Is that so? First, I don't trust you,' she muttered. ‘Second, it's a bit late for that. Third, I have nothing to say.'

‘I have, though. I think I will surprise you.'

A quick glance at his face told her what she'd feared on hearing his low, seductive tones.

‘You sit here and surprise yourself, then,' she said, flinging open the door. ‘I'm going for a walk. Alone.'

The way her body moved as she strode away just made his breath choke in his throat. She held herself proudly, the tilt of her beautiful head a little too high on that slender neck. The stiff swing of her arms and the jerky movements of her legs were touchingly childlike in their anger. That, more than anything else, made his heart do a small skip.

There was no woman like Olivia. Dazed, he watched the resolute figure of his wife, with her blonde hair flying in the breeze, and prepared to use every weapon at his disposal to persuade her to stay.

When she reached the top of a small rise Olivia found herself looking down on a small circular theatre, rather like the one at Epidauros but with only ten rows of marble seats. It had been poorly preserved and had become overgrown with scrub and wild flowers, though the central court—where the actors had stood perhaps two thousand years earlier—was still intact.

Determined to while away the time until she could return to the privacy of her own room at the mansion,
she began to walk around the upper rim, blanking her mind to everything.

The tread of her feet disturbed brightly coloured lizards, their quick, darting movements making it look as if they were jewels flashing in the bright sun. As she brushed the low bushes of thyme and velvety sage their leaves released powerful oils, scenting the air heavily.

Her heart jerked. She would miss so much. There would be perhaps one or two days left here and then she would be going home. Away from Dimitri…

The pain in her bruised heart stole her breath, and she sat down on the cold marble seat. Everything had been so perfect. Dimitri, the love she'd thought they'd shared, this beautiful, fierce blue sky, the warmth of the sun on her aching body, the fabulous views and fascinating history.

‘I want you to listen to me, Olivia.'

She blinked and looked down to the source of the voice. Dimitri stood in the circular court below, as he had in Epidauros that fatal day when he'd said he loved her—shortly before she had discovered him with Athena. The acoustics were perfect. Although he spoke quietly, she could hear every word.

Coldly she stared down at his dark head. He had nothing to say that would touch her. Not now.

‘It doesn't matter that you don't love me,' he said, his face lifted up to where she stood. She tensed. He looked as if he was pleading with her. ‘The fact is…' He sighed, with a helpless spread of his hands. ‘I don't think I can bear it if you go…'

Liar! Rage and pain seared through her. Turning her head away, she tightened her jaw. Now what? Did he need half an hour of sex? She would have left him there, spouting his lies, but she felt suddenly bone-
tired. Let him ramble on. It wouldn't make any difference.