did travel wherever Max travelled. She did live-in, if that phrase could still be innocent after the rude interpretation Andreas had put on it. And the pictures did look pretty intimate, she allowed reluctantly.
‘I don’t sleep with him,’ she insisted.
‘Who mentioned sleep?’ he spun to rake back. He was vibrating with anger now, riding on a river of it. ‘The guy romantically proposed to you on top of the London Eye in front of a thousand guests—I watched the replay on the internet!'
The way his fingers shook as he scraped them through his hair almost made Louisa feel sorry for him—if he hadn’t roughed out a very rude word that stiffened her spine on an offended jolt.
‘It was six guests, and it was a publicity stunt,’ she corrected, refusing to admit how angry she’d been with Max for pulling the silly stunt at all. ‘He works in the media! He lives a very high-profile life!'
‘With my wife as his sexy little sidekick—am I supposed to be pleased to see you with him like that?'
‘How come you didn’t see the London Eye thing when it happened?’ she retaliated hotly. ‘It went worldwide at the time, so what were you doing in June last year while I was being proposed to, Andreas—hiding away in your island retreat with one of your floozies?’
‘Did you want me to see you?’
The challenge locked her eyes on his face, her mouth dropping open on a gasping quiver of shock.
‘Tall, dark, handsome media mogul, older than me but not by much, filthy rich,’ he listed, using each word like a punch. ‘Have you been using him as a substitute for me because you missed me, agape mou … have you spent the last four years waiting for me to notice you with him so I would come and claim you back?'
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘YOU conceited devil,’ Louisa whispered.
But could what he said be true? Had she been using her working relationship with Max as a safe substitute for the man she loved—had she unconsciously wanted Andreas to see her happy with Max?
Unconsciously done or not, the mere idea devastated her, it glazed her blue eyes and whirled her into a cold, dark, empty place of hopeless self-deceit. If that was what she’d been doing, she might as well have turned to drugs and hidden from herself that way. She might as well have stayed hysterical and let them lock her away in a padded cell because this was worse—these years of hidden pining were oh, so much worse!
‘Well, I am here now, so you can forget about Landreau.'
Louisa blinked, slow to open her eyes again on this horrible new view of herself he was making her face. When she did manage it she found that Andreas had moved closer; in fact, he was standing right over her with his glinting dark gaze fixed on her pale, too expressive face.
‘You think you are better than him,’ she realised shakily.
‘I know I am better than him,’ he responded arrogantly. ‘Within hours of us meeting again you were all over me as if we had never been parted.’ Reaching out, he brushed a silken strand of freshly washed hair behind her ear in that achingly familiar tender gesture she’d always read as a form of apology—this time it felt like an act of contempt. ‘Whatever he did for you, it was no substitute for the real thing, was it? One kiss in the dark in a dusty car park and you were mine again.'
He said that as if it were a foregone conclusion. Well, it wasn’t! Shuddering, she reached up to knock his hand away. ‘If you’re this sure of me, then why go after Max at all?’ she challenged, indicating Max’s life spread out on his desk.
‘Insurance,’ he said. ‘He might decide to come chasing after you and you might decide to be stubborn and continue to lie to yourself as well as to him. How did you find out what I’ve been doing here?’ he then asked curiously.
Pressing her lips together, Louisa folded her arms around her body then told him about Max’s phone call.
‘Good, he’s panicking,’ Andreas declared in flat satisfaction. ‘He might have a lot going for him but he knows I can bring him crashing within twenty-four hours if I so wished.'
He was that sure of himself, Louisa noted bitterly—that powerful now? The knowledge shook her. ‘But you don’t wish to, do you?’ She lifted her head to watch a grimace twist the ruthless line of his mouth.
‘I want my wife back without the risk of a scandal.’
And there was the threat, she heard. She played it his way or else Max paid the price. How could she have let herself forget his vengeful desire to make others pay for their interference in their lives—for their lost five years? His family, her family … now Max had been added to the list.
This wasn’t about the two of them recapturing what they had used to have, it was about Andreas winning. It was a cold, cold moment when Louisa looked at him and finally accepted how much he had changed. His father must be proud of him; his son had grown tougher and more ruthless than the great Orestes himself.
‘All this work you’ve done is for nothing,’ she heard herself murmur in a shaky voice as bitter as the truth she had just been made to face. ‘You see, you picked the wrong fight, because I am not coming back to you.'
With that she pushed past him.
‘You are choosing him over me? This is mad.’ His hand caught her back. ‘Do you think your substitute lover will take you back now that I have him hanging by his fingernails? You should have told him who you really belong to, Louisa.'
Louisa swung round. ‘Max has always known about you,’ she fired back furiously. ‘And we have never been lovers!’ she all but screeched.
‘Four years in his constant company? Of course you slept with him!’ he dished out with yet more of that hurtful contempt. ‘Why can’t you just be honest with me about it?'
Honest? She tugged her wrist free. ‘Can you stand right here in front of me, Andreas, and honestly state that you have never taken another woman to your bed?'
The air grew thick with his pulsing stillness, the skin covering his face went tight. Shaking, simmering, refusing to let go of his diamond-hard eyes, Louisa waited for his answer while it throbbed and prickled and rattled around inside her because—
‘You know you cannot,’ she finally said for him. ‘Especially when I saw you with my own eyes, shacked up with that woman in our apartment in Athens, in our bed!'
He went so pale Louisa thought he was going to keel over—in fact, she wished that he would!
‘No,’ he denied. ‘You could not—’
‘Now who’s hiding the truth?’ she laughed, spinning away from him, only to spin right back to add bitterly, ‘I have told you once already that I knew about her,’ though he’d so conveniently forgotten that she’d said it at all! ‘I came back here to the villa to you, but the only people here were Kostas and your dear brother Alex.’ She had to stop to draw in a thick breath. ‘Alex told me you were living in Athens, that you had not been back to the island at all! So I asked him to arrange me a flight. He warned me not to bother. I was history, he said. You’d
