now his prey was firmly back in the steel web of his making? His pride demanded that he would end the marriage at his convenience, not at hers. He’d made that very plain.
Fumbling for the door release, she all but fell out onto the wide gravel sweep, her stomach full of butterflies on speed.
‘You are now in haste to reclaim your position as mistress of our home, when yesterday you couldn’t wait to leave it, and me?’ Dimitri queried in dry amusement, taking only seconds to reach her side and cup a proprietorial hand beneath her elbow.
‘That’s not funny!’ she objected unsteadily, knowing she was too exhausted and feeble to shake his hand off with any hope of success, but standing her corner. ‘I just want to go to bed and sleep—alone,’ she qualified with pointed emphasis. ‘It’s been a long day.’
A long, hard, horrible day, she thought with misery. Roused from a scant hour of sleep which had felt more like a heavy coma, she had been unsurprised to find Dimitri already up and dressed, speaking in his own language on his mobile, pacing the room with long, unhurried strides, one dark brow had elevated in her direction as she’d unrolled herself with difficulty from the patchwork bedspread, which seemed to have developed as many tentacles as an octopus during the long uncomfortable night.
Reaching the en suite bathroom, she’d clung to the washbasin, feeling queasy and light-headed, meeting the hollow look in her reflected eyes with unaccustomed and demeaning resignation. She hated to admit it, but he had won hands down. Was it any wonder she felt nauseous?
She would get her divorce, but only when it suited him. When she’d given him the heir he so desperately needed. Which wasn’t going to happen, because no way would she share a bed with him again. So it would depend on how long that message would take to get through his thick, arrogant skull.
When it finally hit him she would be history. And what price her parents’ security then?
Remembering her family’s combined and overwhelming gratitude when Dimitri had announced that the sale was going ahead, that everything was in the hands of his English lawyer, who would shortly be in touch with theirs, Maddie felt sick.
Somehow she was going to have to warn them that their days on the farm that was now the property of her husband were numbered. She hadn’t had the heart to get her parents on one side and give them that slice of bad news, to advise them to start looking for somewhere affordable to rent and promise she would do all she could to help on the financial front because the generous allowance Dimitri had given her was largely untouched.
It would have to wait until her father was much stronger.
While she’d been helping her mother to make lunch, Joan Ryan had asked, ‘Is everything all right? Between you and Dimitri? I was horrified when he told me you’d left him. It was just one blow too many.’
Meeting her anxious eyes, Maddie had mentally crossed her fingers. ‘Sorry, Mum. It was just a silly misunderstanding. You know how stubborn I can be! I’m going back with him this afternoon. Don’t worry about me. Just concentrate on getting Dad to chill out and take things easily.’
And Dimitri’s Oscar-worthy act as one half of a newly reunited happy couple after a silly spat had obviously completely allayed her family’s anxieties on that score, but it had made her feel sick with loathing him to see the ease with which he wore his cloak of deceit.
‘You will behave as I expect my wife to behave. With dignity.’ Dimitri’s hand now tightened in warning against her arm. ‘As usual, we will dine as a family. You have just over half an hour to shower and change. And then, and only then, will you make your polite excuses and retire.’
He couldn’t physically force her to sit at that lavishly laid table beneath the glittering chandelier in the vast dining room. Force her to endure the seemingly endless ritual of many courses, the sideways inquisitive looks of the staff who served them, the disdain and disapproval permanently etched on Aunt Alexandra’s haughty features. Of course he couldn’t, Maddie consoled herself, and tried to believe it as he ushered her through the brightly lit but echoingly empty hall.
Empty until Irini Zinovieff emerged from the arched doorway that led to Aunt Alexandra’s rooms. As impossibly svelte and lovely as ever, her tall, slender body was clad in black that glittered, and her scarlet lips parted in a tremulous smile as her eyes locked with Dimitri’s and held fast.
What the hell was she doing here? Maddie fumed, taking no comfort whatsoever from Dimitri’s evident surprise, the sudden drag of air deep into his lungs, the way his body tensed. He hadn’t expected her to be here but no way was he going to keep up his former pretence and treat the woman he really loved as a casual visitor. His hand dropped from Maddie’s arm as the Greek woman glided towards him, her long white hands outstretched as if in supplication.
Dimitri took her hands and spoke in his own language, the words rapid, questioning. Irini shook her head, mumbled, managing to look contrite and pitiable. Maddie wanted to slap her! And, as if that thought had penetrated their absorption in each other, the other woman appeared to notice her for the first time.
Hard malicious black eyes belied the sweet tone. ‘So you decided to come back? Alexandra told me you’d left and wanted a divorce. I came straightaway—’ She swallowed, paused and purred on, ‘I came to see if I could be of any help. Perhaps she was mistaken?’
Ignoring Dimitri’s sudden look of fury, Maddie countered, ‘Then I’m afraid you had a wasted journey.’
Her cheeks streaked with angry colour, she headed for the stairs and took them, her head held high. At least it was coming out in the open now. Her all too brief bid to end their marriage had obviously removed the need for him to show her any consideration at all.
Irini only had to call and he’d drop everything to speed to her side, assure her that he loved her.
Irini only had to hold out her hands to him and she was the focus of all his attention. More ammunition—as if she didn’t have enough already—to hurl at him when—if—she decided to tell him why she really wanted to get right out of his life!
But when she told him she would have to be feeling far less raw and betrayed than she did now, the severe hurt somehow miraculously soothed into indifference. No way would she let her pain show, give his massive ego the satisfaction of knowing how much she had once loved him.
Entering the magnificent master bedroom, the room she had shared with the man she had loved more than life, she felt her soft mouth wobble. Everything in here had once been touched with magic. Now it seemed unbearably tawdry. The soft words, seductive caresses, the loving—all slimy lies. Instinct told her to gather her belongings and seek one of the many other rooms.
Her mouth firmed. No. No way! She wouldn’t scuttle away and hide like something unspeakably vulgar, not fit to be seen in polite society. She wouldn’t be banished from the sacrosanct master bedroom. He would!
Crossing to a gilded table, she lifted the house phone and briskly instructed the English-speaking housekeeper to remove the master’s belongings to another room. She replaced the receiver immediately, unwilling to listen to objections or questions, then walked into the sumptuous marble and gleaming glass bathroom to strip and head for the shower while her orders were being carried out.
She had never ordered any of the staff to do anything for her before—hadn’t liked to put herself forward to that extent. Hadn’t Alexandra more than hinted that her status in the household came slightly below that of the humblest daily cleaning
