away his illusions he had had no idea just how deep his trust in Hope had run. The sleazy truth had come as a body blow. But then placing that amount of faith in a mistress was asking for trouble, he reflected bitterly. He had kept her around too long. He had let her rosy, cosy sentimentality infect him like a virus and blur the boundaries of what they shared: great sex, nothing more, and he could find equally great sex elsewhere.
‘Andreas?’ Hope breathed unevenly, a tumult of emotions thrust down as she fought a fierce battle not to lose control. ‘Do you really think that I would do something like that?’
Insolent golden eyes zeroed in on her. ‘Is it beyond impossible?’ Andreas drawled smooth as silk. ‘You did it with me in a barn the first night we met.’
All the natural colour bled from Hope’s complexion to leave her pale as parchment. Pain exploded inside her. But on some level, she welcomed the hurt inflicted by his cruel derision. Perhaps it was a long overdue punishment for her recklessness that night. Evidently that bad beginning had come back to haunt her. He didn’t respect her; he had obviously never respected her. Virgin or not, she had been too easy a conquest and he was now looking back at that as though it had been the first betraying symptom of her being a slut in the making. It was incredibly cruel of him to throw that first night back in her teeth. She had cherished the memory of the night she fell in love with him as the very essence of romance. But he had slung that same recollection back to her as a base and humiliating insult.
Her eyes felt horribly hot, dry and scratchy. Shock seemed to have driven all desire to cry out of her. ‘Yes I did, didn’t I?’ she managed gruffly. ‘But even if it wasn’t special for you, it was for me.’
Emanating pure indifference on that issue, Andreas shrugged a broad shoulder in a gesture that was as careless as it was wounding.
Hope tried again. ‘You have to listen to me—’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘I didn’t do anything tonight and I’m not lying to you. I have never kissed Ben Campbell,’ Hope declared with vehemence.
‘I expect you to find alternative accommodation by the end of the month. It’s over,’ Andreas countered with supreme derision.
Hope realised he was about to leave and horror galvanised her out of her paralysis into sudden action. She placed herself between Andreas and the front door. ‘You can’t leave!’
‘Watch me—’
‘No, I won’t. I want you to stop and think about the person you know me to be. Ask yourself if I’d throw what we have away just for the chance to snog Ben Campbell!’
His strong jaw line clenched. ‘Other women have. He’s wrecked several marriages with his little-boy-lost act. He’s also famous for going after women who belong to other men—’
‘But I don’t fancy him…I never have. I imagine half of London has got to snog Ben when he’s drunk. He’s not exactly exclusive,’ Hope pointed out in growing desperation, praying that the very tenor of her comments would force Andreas to see that she had never even thought of Ben Campbell as a potentially fanciable male. All he had ever been on her terms was Vanessa’s rather dissolute and amusing cousin. ‘If you won’t believe me, ask Ben if anything happened tonight.’
Outraged by that suggestion, Andreas vented a harsh laugh of incredulity. ‘Why would I lower myself to that level? Had you been my wife, I would have confronted him. I would’ve torn him apart for daring to lay a single finger on you!’ he proclaimed with a disconcertingly vicious edge to his dark, deep drawl. ‘But you’re not my wife, you’re my mistress and, as such, expendable with the minimum of fuss.’
Ashen-pale beneath the lash of his naked contempt, Hope looked back at him, distraught turquoise eyes sparkling with sudden angry denial. ‘I am not and I have never been your mistress.’
‘Then what are you?’ Andreas purred like a panther ready to flex his claws and draw blood.
‘A woman who fell in love with you and who never stopped to count the cost,’ Hope quantified jerkily, her generous mouth compressing. ‘Some people would judge me harshly enough for that or call me a fool. But that doesn’t make me your mistress—’
‘A lot of women have told me they loved me,’ Andreas murmured with sizzling scorn. ‘Invariably they love what I can give them more.’
Her spine ached with tension. ‘But I’ve never let you give me anything. With the exception of this apartment, I’ve kept your money out of our relationship and I never once looked for or accepted expensive gifts. Don’t try to bundle me up with other women when I’ve always been true to you!’ she told him, hearing the sharp, accusing undertone in her voice and unable to suppress it. ‘And you can also stop insulting me for what I haven’t done and talking at me in that bored, sneering way!’
‘If I stop sneering, I might lose my temper,’ Andreas asserted with a lethal quietness that made gooseflesh prickle at the nape of her neck. ‘Now get out of my way…I’m leaving.’
Hope backed up against the door in a panic. ‘Over my dead body. I won’t let you leave until you listen to me. This is like a living nightmare and I won’t let it happen to us—’
‘There is no us now.’ Without further ado, Andreas lifted her bodily out of his path and strode through the door.
Hope could not believe he was gone any more easily than she could accept what had just happened. Only a few hours earlier when they had left for the party, she had been so happy and secure. To accept that Andreas had dumped her, walked out on her, indeed finished with her absolutely and for ever was more than she could bear to deal with at that moment.
Like someone lost in a strange land, she wandered round the big, empty apartment. Elyssa had told horrible lies about her. Such behaviour was so inexplicable to Hope that for the space of an hour she strove frantically to plan out how she might approach Andreas’s sister and what she might say to persuade the young Greek woman that she had to retract her false accusation. But even an optimist like Hope could not cling to such a remote prospect for long.
After all, even before she had had the misfortune to catch Elyssa in compromising circumstances, Elyssa had made it clear that she despised her. The brunette had too much to lose from telling the truth and had triumphed with her lies. She had managed to destroy Hope’s relationship with her brother and ensure that Hope was banished from his life.
Hope’s hands closed tight in on themselves. She recognised that she was still in a stupor of shock. But she was already thinking that she ought to have told Andreas that she had seen his sister with another man. Whether he believed her side of the story or not, she needed to speak up in her own defence. Yet what realistic chance of success did she have? Any attempt she made to clear her own name would entail accusing Elyssa of, not only being a liar, but also being an unfaithful wife. She shivered at the prospect. Andreas was very proud and protective of his younger sister. Honour and family were all-important to the Greek male. Any attack on Elyssa would outrage him.
She tripped over the black shirt lying discarded by the bed and swept it up, burying her face in its crumpled cotton folds to draw in the scent of Andreas. He was gone. How could someone who felt like the other half of her leave and how could she still function? Terror spread into the void inside her for she could not imagine living without Andreas. A passion of grief dug nasty talon claws into her shrinking flesh. Her aching eyes finally overflowed and she threw herself down on the bed and cried until her throat hurt and she could
