She Can't Say No to the Greek Tycoon. Annie West
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. His voice was smooth as silk he told her, ‘No one makes demands of me—not even my wife. Understand that and you’ll be a wiser woman.’
With an effort he kept his cool. She had never asked for anything—had made no demands. Hadn’t needed to. He’d given her everything, and gladly. High status, an assured position in Greek society, wealth beyond avarice, jewels—and she’d thrown the lot back in his face.
His heart thumped with the outraged anger of savaged pride. Because she wanted even more. The sort of divorce settlement that would keep her in luxury for the rest of her life without the burden of having a husband. Until she came up with another plausible reason for leaving him, it was the only motive that made any sense.
He was taunting her, Maddie deduced with mounting horror, her skin crawling with the onset of panic. No doubt he would tell her what he’d meant by that threat in his own good time.
But she didn’t have time, she thought wildly. Draining tiredness, the beginnings of a thumping headache and the awful emotional trauma of the day meant that any minute now she would break down, scream and throw things, or dissolve in floods of helpless tears, betraying how desperately unhappy his betrayal and cynical manipulation of her had made her. She wouldn’t be able to prevent it happening if she had to suffer this unwanted confrontation, this not knowing, for much longer.
Dimitri set his glass down with an irate click. The gold of his eyes frosted. Time she learned she couldn’t make him look a fool, shame and dishonour him. Time she knew who called the shots.
‘You are my wife. There will be no divorce. You will return with me to Greece. If the marriage ends at some time in the future, as seems likely, then I will be the one to end it. I demand that much. I will not be made to look a fool in front of my friends and colleagues.’
Because she hadn’t given him an heir, Maddie translated, chilled to the bone by his harshly decisive delivery. Hanging on to her rapidly fleeing composure, she managed, ‘You can’t stop me suing for divorce. Or make me go anywhere I don’t want to be.’
Fully expecting a blistering statement of the opposite—because the rich and the powerful had ways of getting everything they wanted—she was speechless when he gave a slight shrug of his magnificent shoulders and uttered blandly, ‘True.’
With one hand he loosened his tie and settled back in his seat, graceful in his relaxation. He was more gorgeous than any man had a right to be, she decided in utter misery—then gave herself a sharp mental kick. The days of her overwhelming love for him were over. He was no longer the light of her life, and she no longer felt herself melting inside when she looked at him.
‘But?’ she all but snapped at him. It wasn’t in the nature of the beast to simply cave in. There had to be a ‘but'.
There was.
‘But, if you follow that road be sure that your parents will be homeless by the end of the month. It’s in my power to prevent that happening. I will do so—but only if you agree to everything I ask of you. And if you think that you can divorce me, claim a large settlement and help your parents financially, live the high-life, forget it. Any lawyer I employ will make sure you receive absolutely nothing.’
CHAPTER THREE
APPALLED by that implied insult, Maddie could only stare at him, feeling her face redden. It showed how little he thought of her! Was proof—if she had needed any after what she’d been told—that outside the bedroom he viewed her with contempt, a necessary evil.
She fisted her hands in her lap—a labourer’s hands: short nails, slightly callused palms, as his aunt had commented with acid—and took a long breath. She wasn’t interested in his insults. He couldn’t hurt her more than he already had done, and she certainly wouldn’t lower herself by telling him she’d had no intention of asking him for anything except her freedom because he wouldn’t believe her. Why waste her breath when there were more important questions to ask?
The eyes she at last dragged from