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A slight frown began to divide his sleek ebony brows again. ‘A façade?’
‘For the sake of the children. We’d share everything to do with them and you could do as you liked with other women.’
Giannis tensed. He didn’t know what she was about to say next. Knowing her views, he was extremely suspicious of such uncritical candour. She had also managed to make that option sound sleazy rather than liberated. ‘What are you getting at?’
‘Well, it would be sort of marriage-lite, as I see it. We’d pretty much lead separate lives.’
‘Separate?’ Giannis was getting disturbing vibes about the offer of marriage-lite, as she called it. It sounded like a poisoned chalice.
Maddie flushed. ‘Well, obviously we wouldn’t be sharing a bedroom—’
Giannis shook his arrogant dark head in instantaneous rejection. ‘Sounds more like marriage-hell than marriage-lite. Don’t ever take a job as a saleswoman.’
‘But if you can’t commit to fidelity that sort of marriage will suit you best.’
Giannis stretched back against the door like a hungry predator, wakening to find a three-course lunch parading past. His brilliant eyes gleamed.
His silence put Maddie more on edge. ‘There would be obvious benefits. At least we’d be accepting each other as we are.’
‘Me the eternal sinner and you the suffering saint of restraint?’ Giannis quipped with rich cynicism
‘No. Eventually we’d forget…well, you know…that we had ever slept together,’ she muttered self-consciously. ‘And then we’d be able to be friends.’
Giannis shook his handsome head in vehement rejection of that hope, and jerked his thumb down like a Roman emperor ordering the death penalty. ‘I take it option two is following my marriage vows or being fined millions and millions for breaking your rules?’
Maddie winced. ‘That’s a very emotive way of putting it.’
‘How would you describe it, glikia mou?’
‘I just need you to take marrying me seriously,’ she admitted.
‘Marriage-heavy?’ Giannis breathed in silken derision. ‘If I do as I’m told, you’ll condescend to share my bed? Forget it…Greece doesn’t breed wimps who let their women call the shots.’
‘Where is it written that a Greek tycoon has to have a mistress?’ Maddie suddenly launched at him in furious frustration. ‘Aren’t I enough for you? How would you feel if I got another man?’
All pretence of relaxation banished, Giannis flipped away from the doorframe and strode forward, dark eyes bright with aggression. ‘Don’t even think about it. I wouldn’t tolerate even a flirtation. Not for one moment!’
Maddie sent him a winging glance. ‘I won’t make the obvious comment.’
‘Theos mou…are you calling me a hypocrite?’
‘I don’t suppose it much matters—since we probably won’t be getting married now anyway. After all, it doesn’t look like either of us is going to sign that pre-nup.’ There was a tiny catch in Maddie’s voice, for it was not the conclusion she had dimly envisaged. Unfortunately she had not thought through to the likely end result of her strategy. Why hadn’t it occurred to her that she was dealing with a virile male to whom machismo was a matter of pride and honour? There she had been, thinking she was so smart, but she had boxed herself into a corner with her own options.
In the uneasy silence Giannis expelled his breath on a slow hiss. Darkly handsome features bleak, he surveyed her with level deep-set eyes that had an extraordinary intensity. He wasn’t backing down; he never backed down.
Without another word he walked out of the room. He took the stairs two at a time and called for the limo to be brought round. While he waited he poured a brandy. He was so angry he paced the room like a tiger trapped in a cage. When he was told that the car was waiting, he found himself reluctant to take advantage of it. He had come down to stay the night, and he would stay. She was the one who ran away from problems. He frowned. Had she had any other choice? He had put too much pressure on her and damaged her ability to trust him. Was it fair to blame her for that? He no longer had a mistress in his life.
Giannis brooded on his ferocious dissatisfaction over a second brandy, and soon found more suitable culprits to hold responsible. It was the lawyers who had brought them to this unhappy pass! How could Maddie understand an agreement which had primarily been designed to protect his great wealth? She hadn’t a greedy bone in her body. She was the only woman he had ever met who ignored his riches and dealt with him as a man. That might often have proved to be an uncomfortable experience, but she was not the potential gold-digger that the pre-nup had been drawn up to frustrate. Nor, he was convinced, would she ever do anything to harm their children.
He wondered if she was aware that the history of marriage in the Petrakos clan was a long and unhappy one. Bitter divorces, court battles for custody and explosive scandal had dogged every generation but one. His great-grandparents had been the last happily married couple in his immediate family. Rodas Petrakos had married his childhood sweetheart, Dorkas, in the teeth of all opposition. There had been no pre-nup and, although by all accounts it had been a volatile marriage, the couple had stayed together. Along the way both parties must have made compromises and trade-offs, but the legal profession had been kept out of it. Perhaps, Giannis decided, it was unwise to allow such private matters to be dealt with by third parties. In fact perhaps all that talk of negative expectations had merely made Maddie feel threatened, insecure and unappreciated.
When a knock sounded on the door, Maddie pulled herself awkwardly up against the pillows. ‘Yes?’
Giannis strolled in, shorn of his jacket and tie, his blue designer shirt open at his strong brown throat.
Maddie blinked in surprise, for she had heard the limo driving round from the garage block and had honestly believed that he was gone. ‘You’re still here?’
Giannis inclined his arrogant dark head. ‘I have an early flight tomorrow. It would make no sense to leave. Even I need to sleep.’
‘Oh.’ It dawned on her that her eyes had to be pink and swollen, because she had been crying, but mercifully he was not looking directly at her. Indeed he seemed to be extremely interested in the carved post at the foot of the bed. ‘Is there something up?’
His proud dark head came up at that enquiry, liquid golden eyes wary beneath the heavy fringe of his spiky lashes. ‘No, but I have reached a decision. We will dispense with the pre-nuptial agreement. It is surplus to requirements.’
She had breathed in deep when he said he had reached a decision, bracing herself as if she was waiting for the roof to fall down and crush her. But when he mentioned dispensing with the agreement she was bemused. She almost parted her lips to ask about the marriage choices she had offered, and then she sealed them shut again. Was he avoiding the issue? Saving face? Or still thinking his options over? Why not get him past the altar and then settle down into reforming him from the ground up? It was a low, sneaky thought, and she was ashamed of herself,
but she was fast reaching the conclusion that direct confrontation was unproductive. He was an Alpha male high-achiever, programmed to compete and fight when challenged. She needed to be more subtle. After all, no matter how annoyed she got with him, she loved him to bits and knew all too well how unhappy she would be without him.
‘All right…’ Maddie agreed, her attention lingering on the blue-black shadow of stubble darkening his strong jawline. He looked drop-dead gorgeous, and her pulses quickened along with her heartbeat. ‘You need a shave. You look like a pirate,’ she added without thinking.
Relief that he was not being greeted with a barrage of questions brought a smile of amusement to his handsome mouth. ‘I do have a yacht.’
‘I saw it on television,’ she confessed.
A sleek ebony brow elevated in polite surprise. ‘How? When?’
Maddie went pink and grimaced. ‘After I got back from Morocco I saw a documentary about you and Krista.’
‘You watched that tacky programme?’ Giannis demanded.
Maddie nodded ruefully.
His tension dropped yet another notch. Now he knew why she saw him as a womaniser. No wonder his marriage proposal had got a cool reception, he reflected, glad to have that egozapping truth clarified. ‘It was full of nonsensical errors and wild exaggerations about my lifestyle. I was misrepresented.’
‘All those supermodels?’
‘I’ve moved on from that stage in my life,’ Giannis drawled with supreme cool.
Maddie knew that she could not compare to such women, and she tried hard to avoid that train of thought. She could see little point in bemoaning the reality that she was not taller, thinner, more traffic-stoppingly good-looking. In choosing his companions from the ranks of the most beautiful women available he had only done what other rich young men tended to do. But it was difficult to avoid the reflection that he was only with her because she had conceived his children.
Giannis was noticing the pale purplish shadows below her reddened eyes. Exhaustion and strain were etched in her pallor, and suddenly he was furious with himself, not only for allowing her to get in that condition but also for contributing to her distress. ‘It’s the early hours of the morning, pedhi mou,’ he murmured quietly. ‘You should be resting.’
