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‘My desire was only for you. I couldn’t control it. Yet I was still foolish to think it was just sex…I only thought in terms of sex…’
Maddie could not resist tracing the hard slant of one classic male cheekbone with a wondering forefinger. ‘Oh, I know that. You were very vocal on that score. But what I don’t understand is why you were ready to marry a woman you felt nothing for?’
‘I had given up believing that there was a perfect woman out there for me, so when you came along I didn’t recognise you.’ Giannis sprang upright and shrugged. ‘I was bored with dating. I didn’t want to give a woman anything but money and position, and Krista was content with that. I thought it was a sensible arrangement.’
‘You were lonely—’
Giannis froze. ‘No, I wasn’t!’
But Maddie was convinced that he had been lonely, looking for something more than casual affairs and hoping that the stability of marriage with Krista would somehow fill that lack in his life.
‘I suppose I was lonely after you disappeared,’ he ground out grudgingly. ‘But that was because I’d got used to you.’
Maddie was too kind to ask him how she had contrived to become such a necessity after a mere thirty-six hours with him in Morocco.
‘I should have been much more honest about Krista. I was an arrogant bastard, and I did behave badly. But when you said to me that I had been your hero as a teenager, it hurt. Those words of disappointment would not leave me alone,’ Giannis admitted. ‘I was ashamed, but still too stubborn to say what I should have said.’
‘Why am I hearing all this now?’ Maddie queried in fascination. ‘You’ve never talked to me like this before.’
‘You weren’t the only person who heard Krista being interviewed on live television last night. I heard soon afterwards, and there was this deep feeling of panic, agape mou.’ Giannis shot her a speaking appraisal. ‘I knew that because I had not been more frank with you it would be very hard to convince you that Krista was lying. I was afraid that you would never believe me. When I asked myself what I would do if you walked out on me, I felt empty. I didn’t know what to do. I was going to drag Pirro back to Greece with me to clear my name. I’ve been up all night…’
A rueful smile tugged at Maddie’s tense mouth, for she could see the strain etched in his lean dark features now that she knew to look for it. ‘Just like me. I couldn’t bear to lose you—’
‘Or I you,’ Giannis confided thickly. ‘What a fool I’ve been! All those weeks on Libos and we were so happy—and still I didn’t tell you how much I cared about you, or how important you had become in my life.’
But all the time he had been showing her that he loved her in so many ways, Maddie reflected ruefully. Unfortunately she had been too intimidated by the spectre of Krista’s apparent perfection to appreciate that Giannis was so attentive, caring, affectionate and possessive because he had fallen in love with her.
‘You’re telling me now. I’m better with emotions than you,’ Maddie told him sunnily. ‘I knew I was falling for you in Morocco—’
‘But you still wouldn’t have anything to do with me!’ Giannis protested.
‘It wouldn’t have been right to do anything else when you were still engaged.’
‘The only problem being that the minute I got unengaged, you vanished!’ he reminded her darkly. ‘I was shattered by that, and when I couldn’t find you I started not sleeping. Sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night and wonder if you were with some other guy. I don’t ever want to live through an ordeal like that again.’
‘So behave,’ Maddie advised, relaxing enough to get cheeky. ‘I can’t credit that that’s how you really felt. You’re the man who told me that I had nothing to do with your decision to end your engagement.’
Giannis groaned at that timely reminder. ‘It had everything to do with you, but I wasn’t ready to admit that to you or myself.’
‘You’re so secretive,’ she scolded.
‘Not any more. You’ve got my every secret out of me,’ Giannis lamented feelingly.
‘It’s unhealthy for you to bottle things up,’ she said comfortingly. ‘You’ve got to know I’m mad about you.’
‘Barely ten minutes ago you flung your wedding ring at me!’
Maddie stuck out her finger for it to be replaced. He didn’t waste any time playing hard to get on that score.
‘I really, really love you,’ she told him earnestly.
‘Even after all that’s happened?’ he pressed. ‘And everything that’s gone wrong?’
Maddie pretended to think about that question, for her confidence was growing by leaps and bounds and she decided to tease him. ‘Well, there were times when I was worried it might just be sex…’
Giannis leapt upright and bent down to scoop her up like a parcel from the sofa. ‘We’ll go to bed and find out, shall we?’
‘Is that your answer to everything?’ Maddie giggled, thinking that they were wonderfully well matched in that department.
‘When you’re in my arms in bed you feel one hundred per cent mine. It feels amazingly good,’ Giannis confided, and he kissed her long, slow and deep, until her toes curled inside her shoes.
She wrapped her arms round his neck. ‘Hmm…’
‘I’m never going to let you go, agape mou,’ he swore, with satisfying fervour.
Almost eighteen months later, Maddie watched her children toddle about below the shaded loggia on the roof terrace of their Moroccan home. Her son, Rodas, had black curly hair and enormous energy. Always exploring, he needed careful supervision, and plenty to keep him occupied. Her daughter, Suzy, was as copper-haired as her mother and was as calm as her brother was over-active. A tolerant baby, she slept when she was expected to sleep, and played in an orderly manner. Maddie was grateful she had a nanny to give her a break when she needed one, or wanted to spend time alone with Giannis.
Giannis adored his children. From the instant the twins had arrived in the world, with remarkably little fuss, Giannis had been a devoted father. Some of their most happy moments had been family ones, when they’d fooled around with the twins, or paused to marvel at a first word or step. Time and love had given Maddie a lot more confidence in herself and in her marriage.
Krista had been through rehab and had recently married a Hollywood movie mogul twice her age. She was regularly featured in glossy magazines, wearing the latest fashion and arriving at the most exclusive events. She seemed happy, which pleased Maddie, who sometimes felt a little guilty about the extent of her own blissful contentment.
Giannis had been nagged out of being a workaholic. When he had discovered that babies had bodyclocks that disliked changing time-zones he’d begun to travel a lot less. Also, he disliked being away from his family for longer than a couple of days. They spent a great deal of time on the island of Libos, where Dorkas was a regular visitor to their home. Once the children reached school age, however, Giannis and Maddie were planning on settling at Harriston Hall during the week, for Maddie wanted them to enjoy an English education. Here, at the old fortress in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco, was where they always came to relax and take advantage of just being with each other.
With the help of the children’s nanny Maddie put the twins to bed for the night. That afternoon she had had a massage and beauty session. Now she shed her casual clothing and dressed to impress in a flimsy lingerie set, followed by an azure-blue cocktail dress and high heels. Smoothing the stretchy fabric over her hips, she smiled when she heard the helicopter coming in to land. It had taken hard work and will-power, and a personal trainer, but she had regained her waist. When Giannis walked in she was posed by the terrace doors.
‘I have died and gone to heaven,’ Giannis murmured, his deeply appreciative gaze locked to his red-headed temptress of a wife. ‘You look fit to ravish.’
‘You didn’t spend long with the twins.’
‘For once in their lives they’re both fast asleep on schedule,’ he told her huskily. ‘And, wonderful though my son and daughter are, it’s been three long days since I saw my wife.’
‘You’ve been counting?’
Giannis curved an admiring hand to the full curve of her derrière and eased her up against his lithe, powerful frame. For a moment he just held her close, with the affection that was becoming more and more natural to him. When he lifted his handsome dark head again, his dark golden eyes smouldered with possessive heat over her lovely face. ‘When I’m away I miss you. You’ve changed my life around, agape mou.’
‘And there’s me thinking I was being so subtle,’ Maddie teased, leaning into him with alacrity, loving the familiar feel and warmth of him.
Giannis set her back from him and lifted her wrist to clasp around it a shimmering diamond bracelet adorned with the letter M. ‘Happy birthday.’
‘It’s gorgeous.’
‘Like that outfit,’ Giannis remarked huskily, stepping back from the temptation of getting too close to her shapely body. ‘Hamid is waiting to serve a very fancy meal in honour of your special day.’
Maddie stretched up to kiss him, and that one taste led to another taste, and then she started wrenching at his tie—until she too remembered the birthday meal, and strove to behave with greater self-discipline.
‘I love you very much, Mrs Petrakos,’ Giannis murmured over the exquisitely presented dinner. ‘How am I doing in the hero stakes?’
‘You’ll have to show me,’ Maddie whispered, her attention glued to his lean, dark face with sensual intent.
‘So you work on a basis of continual assessment?’ Giannis drawled with a wicked grin.
Mid-meal, the long, languishing looks, the flirtation and the ever-increasing urge to touch triumphed, and they vanished into the bedroom. Giannis kissed her breathless and told her that she was the most irresistible woman alive. Maddie thought about how much she adored him, and decided that exercise would do her much more good than dessert.
