harshly. ‘You are my wife still, and in my country that counts for a little more than it does in yours!’
‘Are you threatening me, Dion?’
She squared her shoulders bravely, but the pressure of his fingers through the thin cotton of her shirt was agonising. She would have bruises there tomorrow, she thought tremulously. Dion did not know his own strength, and once she would have gloried in the raw passion of his nature. But now she was aware of so many other things, of the savagery in his face, and the anger in his voice, of the power he possessed to destroy her at will, and the painful awareness that he was the only man who could make her run the whole gamut of so many conflicting emotions.
He looked down at her and saw the apprehension in her face, the uneasy anticipation of what form his retribution might take, and a low groan escaped him. He had never struck a woman, and despite the chasm that yawned between them, he could not strike her now. His eyes, boring into hers, clouded with impatience, and her lips parted to allow a tiny gasp of relief to escape her.
‘I should kill you!’ he muttered, his teeth grating together. ‘You tell me you do not want a child yet, that it is too soon, that we need time to be alone together, before we assume such a responsibility. And I agree with you! I am happy to have you to myself——’
To possess me,’ put in Martha unevenly, and winced as his fingers tightened.
‘Etsi—to possess you, as you say,’ he agreed harshly. ‘And was not that possession to your liking also?’
‘Dion, please …’ Martha’s cheeks flushed, but he ignored her.
‘No matter,’ he said, his lips twisting. ‘The truth is, you betrayed me with another man, you let him give you the child that you denied me. And for that you deserve more than my contempt!’
Martha shook her head. ‘There’s no point to this discussion——’
‘Is there not?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Why should you care if I enjoy—torturing myself in this way?’
Martha tried to twist away from him, but it was to no avail, and with a feeling of desperation she exclaimed: ‘You’re not torturing yourself, Dion. You’re torturing me! You’re hurting me! Will you please let go of my arms?’
‘Why should I?’ Instead of doing so, he jerked her towards him, and now she could feel the bones of his legs against her shaking knees, could smell the clean masculine aroma of his body, mingling with the heat of his breath. ‘I have anticipated this moment since your letter to my father arrived. I wanted to hurt you, to humiliate you, to see your disappointment when we saw through your puny schemes.’ He paused, his eyes dropping briefly to the panting rise and fall of her breasts. ‘And I wanted to see how the years had treated you, to see whether you had suffered, as you made me suffer!’
‘Dion!’
She gazed up at him helplessly, conscious that against her will, he was arousing her awareness of him as a man, a man moreover who had been her husband, and who had once been able to weaken her limbs by the simple exchanging of a glance. She didn’t want to remember these things, she didn’t want to acknowledge that instinctive attraction between them, that had tom down the barriers of race and society, and made them both prisoners of its urgent expression. It was not love, it had never been love, on his part at least, she exhorted herself, but that didn’t prevent the devastating effect he was having on her senses.
‘The child?’ he muttered huskily, holding her eyes with his. ‘Is she like you? Does she have your colouring? Your slenderness? Your determination?’
Martha trembled, pressing her hands against her chest, keeping them away from him with a supreme effort of will power. ‘Y-yes,’ she admitted at last, ‘she is like me. She’s quite tall for her age, and slender, and she does have a very definite will of her own.’
He nodded, slowly, his mouth taking on a downward curve, as remorse twisted his expression. ‘I knew she would,’ he averred hoarsely, as the hostility faded from his eyes to be replaced by a tormented bitterness. ‘Your daughter was bound to be like you. Just as wilful, just as independent, and just as beautiful …’
Martha’s breath caught in her throat. There was no mistaking the violent emotion that dragged that word from his lips, and she was scarcely surprised when their mutual awareness became too much for him, and with a moan of self-disgust, he brought her body close to his. She could not avoid touching him now. Her hands were crushed against the hardness of his chest, only lightly disguised beneath the maroon silk of his shirt, and as his hands slid down her spine, she could feel the stirring muscles of his thighs.
It was his mouth that truly possessed her, parting her lips beneath its moist invasion, exploring and searching and inspiring a response that she had no will to resist. Maybe if she had had more time, she thought, hanging on to coherence with only a shred of control, if she had been prepared for the effect he would have on her. But she would never have believed that he could do this to her, and all the old magnetism came flooding back, to envelop her in a drowning web of sensual feeling. The pressure increased, became passionate, enfolding them both for a spell in hungry, mindless abandon. His hands were on her thighs, arching her body, moulding her to his maleness with an ease born of their knowledge of one another. And she wanted him, she realised. Wanted him so badly there was a physical ache inside her, as there had been in those awful weeks after she left him.
‘Martha,’ he groaned, releasing her mouth to seek the scented hollows behind her ear. ‘Who is the father of your child? Don’t I have the right to know?’ and in the emotive tenor of the moment, she betrayed herself completely and whispered huskily:
‘You are!’
His withdrawal was so abrupt, it left her bemused and speechless, staring at his contorted face without really understanding why he looked so balefully furious.
‘Theos!’ he grated disbelievingly. ‘Mou theos! Say it is not so?’
Martha blinked, and put a dazed hand to her head. It was difficult to bring her mind to normal things, when every nerve and tissue in her being was still crying out for a satisfaction it had not received. Her hair felt reasonably tidy, she thought unsteadily, and her fingers fumbled to fasten the button of her shirt which had come loose in their ardent exchange. Her face was probably bare of all make-up, but that didn’t really matter, although her lips felt bruised from the hungry pressure of his. What did matter was that somehow he had tricked her once again, and this whole fiasco had been staged to discover the truth behind Josy’s conception. It was cold and ruthless, but typical of the man he had become, and she felt soiled and abused, and totally abased.
‘Martha!’ He was speaking to her again, but she refused to answer him, turning away, picking up her handbag which had fallen to the floor, extracting her handkerchief to scrub the taste of his lips from her mouth.
‘Martha!’ His response to her ignoring of him was to snatch the bag and the handkerchief out of her hands, throwing them to the floor with a cold disregard for their well-being. ‘Martha, I demand an answer!’
She backed away from him, too stunned to say anything. He had seduced her into betraying herself, and her thoughts ran wildly in all directions, seeking escape from the awful implications of the situation. Did he believe her? How could he not, when she had confessed so emotionally? She had sworn he would never get that information from her, not unless she had chosen to tell him, and now he had cajoled it from her, in the most degrading circumstances ever.
The
