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All of a sudden the relationship she had believed so secure seemed to be built on sand foundations. He had never promised her fidelity. He had never sworn to be with her for ever. He had never said that he loved her. But he liked her, he laughed at her jokes, he looked after her—and from the moment he woke up until the minute he finally slept at night he couldn’t seem to keep his hands off her. Only that wasn’t love, was it? That was good old-fashioned lust, she reminded herself unhappily.
During the flight, Maddie planned exactly what she would say. She promised herself that she would be cool and dignified while she told him that she would not live with a man who carried on with other women. Particularly Krista. Hadn’t Krista warned her that Giannis always came back to her? The idea of Krista being with Giannis made Maddie feel hopelessly inadequate. Nothing had ever hurt her so much as the power of her own imagination.
Nemos picked her up at the airport. ‘The boss knows you’re on your way.’
Maddie was disappointed to have lost the element of surprise. When the limo dropped her off at the City apartment, she felt weak and shaky. But when she got into the penthouse lift a sudden tide of rage filled her. A giant tumult of agonised emotion was being born out of the anguish she was struggling to contain. She stepped into the magnificent hall just as Giannis appeared in a doorway.
‘I’m really pleased that you’re here, but I’m not at all happy that you flew all this way. You must be exhausted, pedhi mou.’
He looked breathtakingly handsome. A sleek ebony brow quirked in a questioning move that was so familiar it hurt like a knife twisting in her chest. All her cool and dignity died in that moment, along with the careful script of cutting but polite condemnation that she had planned to voice.
‘You rat…I hate your guts!’ Maddie launched at him, and she yanked off her wedding ring and threw it. ‘You don’t appreciate me. You don’t deserve me. I hope you’re absolutely miserable with Krista!’
For a split second he was stunned, and then he caught the ring in mid-air. ‘I would be miserable with her.’
‘Then why are you having an affair with her?’ Maddie sobbed.
‘I swear that there is no affair—’
‘I don’t believe you!’ Maddie dashed away the tears from her furious eyes. ‘I won’t forgive you either.’
‘I know you would not forgive me for infidelity, which is why you can safely believe that I will never betray you.’ His dark, deep-set eyes intense, Giannis grimaced. ‘I think I should have told you all this before today. But I had no idea that Krista would go to such lengths to save face.’
‘Save face? What are you talking about?’
The front doorbell was buzzing.
As a manservant answered the door, Giannis took Maddie into his office and urged her to sit down. ‘I believe that is Krista’s father arriving. He asked if he could come to discuss what his daughter did last night. Hopefully you will find it easier to believe him.’
Her eyes widened in bewilderment. ‘Her father? But what’s he got to do with this?’
A portly middle-aged man with a troubled expression entered the room, and came to a surprised halt when he saw Maddie.
‘Pirro Spyridou…my wife, Madeleine.’
Maddie was disconcerted when the older man immediately offered her his apologies for his daughter’s comments on television the night before. ‘I can’t excuse her for embarrassing us all in this manner. But Krista lives for media attention, and once the engagement ended people were no longer so interested in her, which hurt her pride. She also felt that she had been made to look foolish.’
Giannis nodded acceptance of that fact.
Pirro Spyridou sighed. ‘But the real problem is that she has been experimenting with drugs, and her behaviour has become more and more erratic.’
‘Drugs?’ Giannis ejaculated in consternation. ‘Are you certain?’
‘This morning Krista agreed to enter a clinic for treatment,’ the older man explained heavily. ‘It is not the first time she has needed help.’
‘I had no idea,’ Giannis admitted grimly. ‘I hope that I did not contribute to the problem?’
‘No. I feel that we were at fault for not warning you before the engagement.’
Equally troubled by what she was learning, Maddie described the phone call she had received from Krista on her wedding night.
Giannis frowned at Maddie. ‘I wish you had shared that call and its content with me. I would’ve acted then, and Krista would not have made defamatory statements on television last night.’ Turning back to Krista’s father, he told him about the visit his daughter had made to Maddie, and Krista’s proposition that she might adopt the twins and still marry Giannis.
Pirro was astonished by that story. He apologised for any distress his daughter might have caused, and began to discuss the wording of the retraction that he intended to have printed in a well-known newspaper. In that retraction, Krista’s misleading statements would be withdrawn.
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Giannis sighed. ‘You have enough to worry about right now. Let it go, Pirro. Go home to your family. Let us forget this unpleasantness.’
The older man was embarrassingly grateful for such a level of understanding. It was clear that he was at his wits’ end about how to handle his daughter’s problems. With a final apology he took his leave.
‘The day I finished with Krista I saw her screaming at a maid,’ Giannis recalled. ‘Some time afterwards I recalled that, and questioned the housekeeper about the incident. But the maid had been dismissed. Krista said she had found the maid taking drugs in her bedroom. She was probably lying. That wrong must be righted.’
‘How could you have known?’ Maddie was feeling distinctly shellshocked, and rather naked without the wedding ring she had thrown at Giannis. He was innocent of infidelity and blame. She had believed Krista rather than him.
‘I’m sure you are wondering why I gave Krista a small fortune in diamonds. I had acquired the set as a gift for her, and I felt that she should still have it,’ Giannis breathed heavily. ‘I felt guilty. Neither she nor I were in love, but I should never have asked her to marry me. She got on my nerves. I was eager to be free of her. It might have been kinder if I had been more honest.’
‘I don’t think being told that she got on your nerves would have helped,’ Maddie sighed
‘But had I told her that I had fallen hopelessly in love for the first time in my life, she might at least have seen that trying to get me back was a complete waste of time.’
Maddie had a mental image of her ears perking up high like a rabbit’s. ‘Hopelessly in love?’
Giannis crouched down at her feet so that he could see her face. His beautiful dark eyes were usually unguarded. ‘I didn’t realise it until I married you. But you were never out of my mind for a moment from the first day I saw you. There has not been another woman in my arms since that day either…’
‘Are you serious?’ Maddie whispered, practically mesmerised by what he was telling her, and yet scared to believe in it as well.
