face was suffused. ‘I could have done that better,’ he admitted huskily.
‘Is that your version of grovelling?’ She gave her head an impatient shake. ‘Even if you crawled on your hands and knees I’d never forgive you for what you did.’
His face had that closed, unreadable expression as he said tautly, ‘I think I should tell you why I asked you to—’
He’s going to say it. Divorce…once he said it, it would be real. She suddenly went icy cold. Maybe I’m not ready to hear this after all…?
How long do you need…?
‘I know why you’re here,’ she cut in quickly.
His dark brows drew together in a straight line above his masterful nose. ‘You do…?’
‘For goodness’ sake, don’t drag it out. I need to get back.’ She raised her wrist and evinced astonishment at the hour, even though she couldn’t see her watch through the warm mist of unshed tears.
‘You kept it.’
Her shimmering gaze lifted. ‘Kept what?’
Angolos tapped the diamond-encrusted face of the watch he had bought her on their honeymoon. His hand dropped away, but not before the tips of his long brown fingers had trailed lightly along the inner aspect of her slender wrist.
It was barely a touch yet her body reacted like that of an addict given the scent of her drug of choice, only to have it snatched away. Inside the loose cotton bodice her breasts ached and craved the touch of hands and lips. Buried memories resurfaced and the ache low in her pelvis became a physical pain.
‘I’m sentimental that way.’ Let him never know how true that was.
The week in Paris, their honeymoon, had been utter bliss; she treasured the memory of every single moment of it. She had been a nervous bride the first night, but the moment he had touched her she had quickly lost her inhibitions. Her introduction into a sensual world she hadn’t known existed had left her in a daze. Every morning when she’d woken up tangled up with the warm, lithe body of her incredible lover she’d felt as if she had died and gone to heaven.
For a week everything had been magical. Georgie had tried, but had never been able to recapture that magic.
The first cracks had appeared when they’d arrived in Greece. It had been here that the scale of Angolos’s wealth had hit Georgie for the first time. They had landed on his private heli-pad, for goodness’ sake! In her world people who had two cars were well off; Angolos had casually revealed that he had a yacht, which was presently being refitted.
From the air she had been able to see that the estate, located on a peninsula, covered acres and acres. The main house itself and the gorgeously landscaped grounds with their tennis courts and pools were palatial, and the setting beside the sea was totally stunning.
‘Not disappointed, are you?’ Angolos had teased.
‘It’s all incredible.’ So was a museum.
Georgie, who had been brought up in a standard 1930s semi-detached house, was actually daunted by the sheer scale of everything. She had thought there might be a housekeeper or some help in the garden, but to discover there was an army of live-in domestic help to run the place came as a nasty shock.
This wasn’t the sort of house where you nipped down to the kitchen to make yourself a sandwich in the middle of the night. She seriously doubted that Angolos knew where the kitchens were!
Within ten seconds she knew that she wasn’t going to acclimatise to her new life overnight. It was going to be a steep learning curve, but she reasoned if she had Angolos there to help her she would be all right. She didn’t know at the time that he wouldn’t be…that his work would occupy most of his waking moments.
She walked around the place making the right admiring noises, but she couldn’t imagine ever thinking of this place as home. And on top of that there was his family, who had been there in force when she’d arrived.
‘Sorry about tonight,’ Angolos said when they lay in bed later that night. ‘They wanted to inspect my new bride, and who,’ he suggested throatily, ‘can blame them?’
‘I don’t think they were very impressed.’
‘Don’t be silly. They’ll love you…why wouldn’t they?’ Angolos impatiently dismissed her concerns. ‘You just need to relax a little.’
‘You don’t think I was relaxed… Did I come over as—?’
He laid a finger against her lips. ‘Forget about my family; it doesn’t matter what they think. They’ll be gone tomorrow.’
She breathed a sigh of relief. Angolos seemed different in this environment, but she was sure that once they were alone everything would be all right. She couldn’t wait.
‘Good…that is, I’m sure they’re very nice, but there was an awful lot of them.’ There was no way she was going to remember the names of all those aunts and uncles and cousins. As Angolos was kissing his way up her neck she was hard-pressed to remember her own name.
‘I really don’t want to talk about relatives,’ he said, pausing halfway up.
‘Me neither,’ she admitted huskily as he peeled off her transparent nightgown to reveal glowing skin.
‘Theos, but you are beautiful.’
His words drove everything else from Georgie’s mind. She melted.
The sex was spectacular, but the problem was still there the next day in the shape of his mother and sister. They were still there at lunch-time.
Short of packing their bags for them, what could she do?
As she walked out to the helicopter pad with Angolos, who had explained he had to go into the office, she took the opportunity to casually enquire, ‘When are your mother and sister going home?’
Angolos threw some instruction to his assistant, a polite, nice-looking young man who was distantly related. As the younger man hurried ahead Angolos directed a puzzled frown at Georgie’s face.
‘Home…?’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t follow.’
‘I was wondering when your mother and Sacha were going back home.’
He threw back his head and laughed. ‘They are home, yineka mou, didn’t I say? They live here.’
Somehow the strained smile stayed glued to her face. ‘No, you didn’t say.’ The realisation that they would be sharing a home with his family made her spirits plummet. It had taken about five minutes for her to realise that she and her mother-in-law were never going to be pals, and that her sister-in-law, whom Georgie considered horribly indulged, looked down her aristocratic little nose at her.
‘Mother will be a big help while you’re settling in, and Sacha is your age—you’re bound to have a lot in common.’
Georgie, who seriously doubted either of these claims, responded to the kiss he planted on her
