him, her head high. True, she wasn’t here of her own free will—but she’d be damned if she was going to let herself down and act like a victim.
‘We can talk in the lounge.’ Her voice as firm as she could make it, Maddie gestured towards a partly open door. The steel grille was lowered over the bar, but there were comfy lounge chairs grouped around the tables, and the light from the foyer gave sufficient illumination.
Totally ignoring that sensible suggestion, just as if she’d never spoken, Dimitri started up the uncarpeted broad oak staircase, and Maddie, biting back a howl of fury, followed.
Arrogant low-life!
Still seething, Maddie caught up with him as he opened a door and reached in to switch on a light.
‘In.’
Her stomach clenched painfully. This icily intimidating side of him was alien to her. But she was going to have to get used to it—at least for as long as it took him to spell out what had to be, surely, his groundless threats.
Slightly comforted by that slice of common sense, Maddie stepped into a room that looked as if it hadn’t had a makeover since the sixteenth century. And all the better for it, she approved, making an inventory of the jewel-coloured rugs laid over wide, highly polished oak boards, the ornately carved four poster bed and linen press, the tapestry-like curtains. It took her weary mind off being here with the husband she had loved to distraction and now hated with a vehemence that made her bones tremble.
An overnight bag stood at the foot of the bed. So he must have checked in here before driving out to her parents’ home. To wait. Somehow he had known that she must contact her folks on her arrival back in the UK, stay with them or in the vicinity until the divorce came through, she deduced tiredly—though the reason for his precipitate actions escaped her. And how had he arrived ahead of her?
She would have already been waiting for her delayed flight when he’d returned at lunchtime, making for the bedroom as usual and more of the sex he was so good at—the hoped for end result his son and heir—and finding her note instead.
And yet he had been ahead of her, waiting for her. His private jet—of course! Why hadn’t she remembered that? Because she’d never rated the outward signs of his financial clout, only the man himself. The super-wealthy had the means for getting things done that humble peasants could only dream of, she decided with resignation, as a firm hand in the small of her back propelled her towards two wing chairs at opposite ends of a low, dark oak table.
She sat, was grateful to. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this weary and drained in her life before. Dimitri was hovering over her, his hands in the trouser pockets of his superbly tailored pale grey suit, the fabric pulled taut against his pelvis.
Smothering a groan as a hatefully familiar, ultra-responsive frisson lurched through her entire body at his sexy magnetism, Maddie closed her eyes to shut him out. She didn’t need that kind of betrayal from her own body—not now, not ever again. All she needed right now was the healing oblivion of sleep.
And if he was waiting for her to ask him to explain himself, to instigate some kind of conversation, then he could wait. This—whatever it was—was his idea, most certainly not hers.
She heard the discreet knock at the door, sensed him move and opened her eyes reluctantly in time to see the night porter place a tray on the table. Something changed hands—a tip, presumably—and Dimitri sat in the chair opposite, surveying her with golden eyes lacking in expression over a lavish platter of sandwiches, a wine bottle and glasses.
Her lungs aching with the effort to hold back a hysterical peal of laughter, Maddie gripped the arms of her chair to keep herself grounded. An outraged husband about to read the Riot Act and explain vile threats to his runaway wife and the first thing he thinks about is his stomach! The situation was farcical!
But there was nothing off-the-wall about his containment as he poured wine into two glasses and slid two sandwiches onto a delicate china plate and put it in front of her. There was even a hint of a smile on that devastatingly handsome mouth as he imparted, ‘If, like me, you haven’t eaten since breakfast, you’ll need this.’
‘Not hungry.’ Maddie eyed the food with disdain, her stomach rolling sickly as she experienced total recall of precisely why she hadn’t been able to face breakfast, or the thought of food since then.
As usual, he had risen first, full of vitality, leaving her to come awake more slowly, stretching luxuriously in the rumpled bed, sated with the passion of the night before. She had pushed away the uncomfortable thought that their time in bed together was the only time she was truly happy. The rest of the time everything conspired to make her feel purposeless, a thing of little use, an unsavoury intruder into a rarefied atmosphere.
She had followed him down, a silk robe covering the naked voluptuous body he always seemed so wild for—gratifyingly belying the snide rumours and wicked lies she’d been fed just lately—expecting to share a pot of coffee with him before he left for his high-tech head office in the city, as she always did. She’d needed her Dimitri fix to carry her through the morning before they enjoyed a long and intimate lunch-break together.
Slipping silently into the sunny room where the first meal of the day was taken, her eyes had gone soppy at the sight of that tall, commanding figure, dressed that morning in pale grey trousers that hugged his narrow hips and skimmed the elegant length of his strongly muscled legs, his white shirt spanning wide shoulders, his suit jacket draped over the back of one of the dining chairs.
His broad back to her, he had been speaking into his cellphone. He hadn’t seen her—as the contents of a conversation that was to turn her life upside down soon evidenced.
‘Be calm, Irini,’ he had soothed. ‘We discussed this. It will take time. Please be patient.’ A short silence from him, then, decisively, ‘I will be with you in less than five minutes, and of course I love you. You are—’ Another silence while he had listened to what was being said, then, his voice full of soft emotion, ‘Be calm, sweetheart. Five minutes.’
Heart pounding, blue eyes stunned, she’d watched him snatch up his suit jacket and stride out through the open French windows, heading for the woman he did love, leaving the woman who was just a commodity clutching the doorframe for support, the lies turned into truth, the rumours into hard, hateful, hurtful fact. The last straw.
At least he hadn’t lied. He had never said he loved her, had he?
Now, Dimitri helped himself from the platter, golden eyes assessing beneath the thick dark sweep of his lashes. She was pale, her skin ashen beneath the light golden tan, the band of freckles across her nose standing out starkly. He had always found those freckles endearing—those and the caramel curls now delightfully tamed by the best hairdresser in Athens. The fierce, rapacious need for her wildly sensuous body, his need to soften the raging heat of lust into something infinitely more tender, more fulfilling, made him furious with his body for responding to his thoughts. Blisteringly angry with her for what she had seemingly proved herself to be, he said, with more force than necessary, ‘Eat before you pass out.’
Never one to respond positively to anything smacking of bossiness or bullying, Maddie flattened her mouth stubbornly. She crossed her arms over the breasts he had once said he worshipped, and clipped out at him, ‘I didn’t come here to eat with you. I came because you made threats against my parents and I demand to know how you think you can threaten them.’
‘So, she finally speaks.’ Dimitri was lounging back now, holding a wine glass in one beautifully crafted hand.
