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‘I’m sure it will.’ But Maddie was not prepared to back down. If Giannis was determined to marry her, he would have to make choices too. He could not have everything his way.
‘What sort of a financial figure do you have in mind as a disincentive to a straying husband?’ he enquired.
‘A figure that would hurt.’
The lawyer could hardly wait to lay that tantalising and explosive prospect before the haughty Petrakos legal team, who had made it clear that they expected the pre-nup to be signed immediately and without even a minor quibble. He wondered which fall guy would get the thankless task of briefing Giannis Petrakos on his bride-to-be’s punitive take on adultery.
After his departure, Maddie went for a walk in the grounds of the house. Harriston Hall was a very comfortable Edwardian mansion that had been remodelled so extensively inside that very little of the original property remained. It was as sumptuous as a hotel, and its staff could not do enough to make her feel comfortable. After several nights of undisturbed sleep and regular meals, her bone-deep tiredness and almost all the sickness had gradually faded away. She was feeling healthier and stronger. Since she had left London she had seen Giannis only once, and that had been in the first few days when he had flown in for lunch en route for Brussels. Her coolness had washed off him like ice-cream left out in the sun. He had nerves of steel. But she was pretty certain that the clause she wanted inserted in the pre-nup would bring Giannis down to visit again. She was looking forward to that prospect…
That evening, Maddie was enjoying a long, lazy soak in her en-suite bathroom when a sharp knock sounded on the door. She sat up with a start, water sloshing noisily around her. ‘Yes?’ she called out.
‘It’s Giannis…’ The door swung open.
Maddie let out a muffled shriek and crossed her arms over her rounded tummy. ‘Don’t you dare come in!’
‘Don’t keep me waiting,’ Giannis intoned. ‘Can you manage on your own? Or would you like me to play lady’s maid?’
‘I’m not the size of a house yet!’ Maddie exclaimed, standing up, water streaming off her in rivulets as she snatched frantically at a towel. She got a glimpse of herself in the mirror and very nearly groaned out loud. She was pink all over, like a freshly boiled lobster, and her mass of curls was anchored to the top of her head by a lime-green clip in the shape of a dog.
From the other side of the bedroom Giannis studied her as she emerged, swathed from neck to toe in a very large towel. The silence literally screamed.
‘If you give me five minutes, I’ll get dressed,’ she told him in a rush.
‘In those rags?’ Giannis scooped up the shortie pyjamas lying on the bed, and tossed them down again in contemptuous dismissal. The sight of that familiar set acted as an inflammatory reminder of Morocco, where matters had swung from paradise to hell and out of his control. ‘You reject everything I give you…you reject who I am!’
Maddie gulped. ‘I—’
‘What interest have you even taken in your own wedding?’ His complete incomprehension on that score was as palpable as the truth that he had been deeply offended by her display of uninterest. ‘If you ruin it, you can’t have it over again!’
Maddie found herself squirming. The flash of masculine bewilderment she recognised in his penetrating gaze made her feel bad. Her sole intent had been to demonstrate to him that she wasn’t prepared to act the joyful bride when she had given her consent under duress. But hadn’t she already decided that she would marry him anyway? Was it his fault he hadn’t appreciated that she had no intention of letting him go free? And was she prepared to let her pride spoil her wedding day?
‘But what I cannot excuse is that you should choose to denounce my standards of behaviour through my own lawyers!’ Giannis raked at her in condemnation. ‘How could you do that?’
CHAPTER NINE
HIS strong face clenched, Giannis was even angrier than Maddie had anticipated.
‘I thought it was okay to say anything I liked to a solicitor hired to represent my interests.’
‘What gave you that idea?’ Giannis challenged, without skipping a beat ‘The word “anything” covers a lot of ground that I would not have taken into the public arena!’
‘Well, you didn’t have a problem with me being told that if our marriage broke up you would get to keep the children,’ Maddie reminded him. ‘How much more personal can you get?’
Giannis stilled for a moment in his restive passage round the spacious room and shot her a dark-as-midnight glance that revealed nothing. ‘That is not the point.’
‘It’s exactly the point,’ she declared. ‘That was a major part of the pre-nuptial agreement. Yet you didn’t see any need to discuss those terms with me in private beforehand. Of course you don’t discuss anything.’
Even though he was well aware of his evasive tactics in that department, Giannis growled, ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘How dare you let your lawyers sit and talk over how I’m going to lose my children when you’re the one most likely to wreck the marriage in the first place!’
At that ringing indictment of his character, dulled coins of colour accentuated the superb line of his classic Petrakos cheekbones. ‘I don’t accept that.’
‘Marriage is something that I take very seriously.’ Maddie lifted her chin.
His dark eyes had the icy glitter of stars, and she knew his temper was under wraps again. ‘As do I…hence the pre-nup. But I take very strong exception to the demands that you saw fit to voice through your lawyer!’
‘You didn’t give me much of a choice about marrying you, but at least I have more sense than to go plunging into it without foreseeing the pitfalls and trying to avoid them!’ Maddie launched back at him with conviction.
‘But all you ever see is pitfalls and problems! What happened to trust and optimism? I believe that I will be an exceptional husband.’ Giannis slung that assurance back at her without hesitation, for he had spent every free moment during the past ten days trying to decide on the wedding details that she had yet to show the smallest interest in. ‘But face it now…I will not stoop to sign an agreement which tries to tell me what I can and cannot do in my life!’
‘Has anyone ever tried to impose boundaries on you?’ Maddie was genuinely curious on that score, because it seemed to her that Giannis had always done exactly as he liked while utterly refusing to acknowledge his mistakes.
His stubborn jaw line squared. ‘I have complete faith in my ability to choose my own boundaries,’ he spelt out grittily.
‘Do you think that attitude might possibly explain why you’re now on the brink of a shotgun marriage?’ Maddie dared, fighting back with all her might. ‘Engaged to one woman, sleeping with another? It was a recipe for disaster.’
Pure outrage at that unbelievably tactless reminder assailed Giannis. His golden eyes smouldered like the heart of a fire, his ferocious pride stung. ‘I will not discuss this with you any more,’ he framed thickly, striding towards the door. ‘I cannot—’
‘Yes, you can,’ Maddie protested, dismayed that he was planning to walk out on her.
‘You are a pregnant woman and you shouldn’t be getting upset. I can’t argue with you like this!’
Pregnant or not, Maddie made it to the door ahead of him. She plastered her back to it and spread her arms as if she was ready to barricade him in and hold him prisoner if necessary. ‘Don’t be daft…of course you can argue with me! I’m tough. I can take it. What do you think I’m made of? Glass?’
‘Glorious curves.’ His masculine attention was unashamedly locked to her voluptuous shape. As she’d raced across the room her towel had slid down several inches, and the luscious swell of her creamy breasts was now shockingly prominent over its fleecy edge.
Maddie met his stunning eyes and a wicked little coil of heat spread wanton fingers of awareness through all the tender, responsive parts of her body. Knowing that if she stayed there one second longer Giannis would be more than
willing to employ sex as a distraction, she stepped away from the door and put some sensible space between them.
‘We don’t have to argue…we just need to talk,’ Maddie reasoned soothingly.
Giannis didn’t want to talk. He just wanted to take her towel off and sink himself into her delicious pink and white body until the tumult of his irate thoughts stilled and the tormenting ache of lust was quenched.
‘Please don’t go,’ Maddie urged, desperate to keep him with her. ‘I really do want our marriage to work.’
A tiny amount of his sceptical tension ebbed, and he swung back to face her again.
‘You see…it’s not a matter of anyone trying to tell you what to do. You picked that up all wrong,’ she assured him winningly. ‘I know that wouldn’t work.’
Giannis felt reassured enough to let his rigid shoulders rest back against the solid wood door.
‘I mean, the way I see it the choice is all yours. We can have a marriage that’s just a façade—’
