lie. ‘Terrific…just a bit tired.’
That was the first time she concealed her feelings from him, but not the last time. She even got quite good at it though her acting talents were stretched to the limit when he dropped one particular bombshell on her.
Angolos went to Paris, this time on business and without her. ‘I’d love for you to come with me, of course I would, but this is business. You do understand…?’
On his return he casually mentioned, in a ‘you’ll never guess who I bumped into’ sort of way, that he had had dinner with his ex-wife while there.
Georgie, who had already been force-fed a daily dose of Sonia-worship by her in-laws, wanted to scream, but instead she smiled and said quietly, ‘How nice.’
The following month he announced he had invited Sonia up for the weekend. That his ex arrived late seemed to be taken for granted. Georgie could have accommodated her tardiness, but she could never forgive their guest for being poised, self-assured and, it went without saying, drop-dead gorgeous. In fact she had all the qualities necessary to be Angolos’s wife—heck, she even still had her ring; she’d just swapped fingers!
In other words she was everything Georgie longed to be and wasn’t.
She was also very tactile, always touching and stroking. Georgie was forced to watch as she stroked Angolos’s arm or ran her fingers over his lean cheek. It seemed to Georgie that every time she walked into a room they were there, laughing in a corner, sharing their jokes and their secrets. Feeling totally alienated, she retreated into her shell.
‘You never struck me as sentimental.’
She turned her head towards Angolos and smiled. Unexpectedly recalling the traumatic events made her realise just how much she had changed in the intervening years. It was quite an empowering experience to realise that if she found herself in that situation today she would not creep away to feel slighted and sorry for herself in the corner.
No, she would tell the other woman to lay off. She would confront Angolos—at best his behaviour was insensitive, at worst he still had feelings for his ex. She would demand he decided whom he wanted, because she wasn’t playing second fiddle to anyone!
‘I was being ironic. The watch—’ she glanced at her wrist ‘—is a good investment, much more likely to rise in value than money in the bank, or so I was told.’ By her dad when he’d returned the watch, having taken it to be valued without her knowledge.
‘You had it valued?’
She nodded; her father had been shocked that she’d been walking around wearing something that was, as he’d put it, ‘worth as much as a two-bedroomed house’, without any insurance.
‘My finances were tight.’
‘You seem to have a more practical attitude to money than you once did.’
‘Practical?’ She thought about the wild flowers, carefully pressed and preserved alongside other treasures in the velvet-lined box. Angolos had picked them for her the first time they’d walked through the sand dunes. ‘I’m working on it. But I don’t think I’ll ever care about money for its own sake and I don’t put a price on things the way you do.’
‘Not even your virginity?’
Heat flooded her face as her furious flashing eyes flew to his face. ‘Don’t you dare make out I held out to make you marry me!’ she snapped. ‘You always put a higher value on that than I did,’ she reminded him. ‘You could have had it for nothing, Angolos—you didn’t have to marry me.’
In the long simmering silence their eyes locked. His chest lifted as he expelled a long sibilant sigh.
‘I know.’ She would never know what it had cost him not to accept what she had been so anxious to give him.
‘Then why…?’
He pressed his fingers to the groove above his masterful nose and scanned the stretch of beach. It was empty but for a few people walking dogs.
‘Why did you marry me, Angolos?’
‘Do you want to walk?’
She released a hiss of frustration through clenched teeth. ‘You’ve no intention of telling me, have you?’
The disturbing smile that played around the corners of his sensual lips neither confirmed nor denied her husky accusation. ‘Walk…?’
‘Walk?’ In contrast to the restive energy that Angolos was projecting, she felt utterly drained.
‘You know—put one foot in front of the other.’
It really ought to be that simple, but her shaking knees didn’t have the strength or co-ordination to move her from the spot. ‘You’re impossible,’ she accused.
‘But cute?’ he suggested.
She only just stopped herself responding to his smile. ‘I never thought I’d hear you say “cute”.’
‘Is that a yes?’
‘No.’
One winged dark brow arched. ‘No to cute or a walk?’
‘Both.’ She sat down rather hurriedly.
‘As you wish.’
Angolos followed suit but with less haste and considerably more grace. As she tucked her knees under herself and arranged her skirt around her legs Georgie was aware of his dark eyes watching her. She was aware of just about everything about him, including the warm male scent that made her oversensitive nostrils twitch.
‘Don’t try and charm me, Angolos. I’ve got immunity. Anyway, you’ve no need to butter me up. Like I said, I already know what this is about.’
Her head lifted, their eyes connected. Angolos’s expression was wary; it cost her a supreme effort to smile. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to make a fuss, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
Angolos looked at the envelope she handed him but made no effort to take it.
‘I think I’ve signed all the places I need to.’
He still didn’t react, just carried on looking at it with a total lack of recognition in his eyes.
‘For heaven’s sake.’ She leant across and deposited it in his lap. ‘I found it, it must have fallen out of your pocket. Did you think you’d lost it?’
He took the envelope and turned it over in his hand cautiously as though he expected it to burst into flames. Georgie found his manner bewildering.
‘Dios, I had totally forgotten about this.’ After his meeting with Paul he had contacted his lawyer. The papers were already prepared; they had been for two years.
‘How long will it take to be…final? The d…divorce.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
ANGOLOS’S glance
