AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Unwillingly she recalled Nicky’s boisterous behaviour the night before. It was true that he was much too used to being the centre of attention, but she still felt that she was being punished through her son for standing up to Alex yesterday. How could she feel otherwise? She had no wish to develop a closer relationship with Alex. It was an impossibility, and in its own way a potential trap. If she ever opened up to Alex again, he would hurt her, and she couldn’t take that a second time. How did he even have the gall to imply that it was her duty to fulfil his expectations?
But she was forgetting that she was a second-class citizen in Alex’s eyes. Remarrying an adulterous wife was no mean concession in his book. He undoubtedly thought that she ought to be eating grateful and humble pie for the rest of her days. Yes, sir, no, sir, three bags full, sir.
“Even had I discussed this with you, you would have said no,” he continued. “Ask yourself how we can deal with Nicky when we are still at each other’s throats? And then tell me I am being cruel to him.”
Colour fluctuated wildly in her cheeks. “This is simply blackmail in another form,” she condemned.
His eyes narrowed, his jaw clenching. “I would not use our son in that way,” he contradicted icily.
“You used him in that contract, didn’t you? You keep on forgetting that I am here against my will,” she whispered dully.
Alex thrust back his chair and walked out of the room, rather than giving vent to his temper. Kerry went upstairs, feeling curiously empty of satisfaction. He hadn’t liked the truth being hurled at him. And, much as it galled her to admit it, she had made a pointless reminder. She could talk about duress until the cows came home, but they would still be married.
* * *
“HOW LONG ARE WE to stay on Kordos?” she asked during the flight to Athens.
“One week…two.” He eyed her with cool implacability. “When we return for Nicky we won’t have this atmosphere between us.”
“I never realised that you believed in miracles.”
The sardonic look she earned washed pink into her cheeks. “You will make the effort that I am making. Neither of us could possibly be content in the mockery of a relationship that you appear to want,” he asserted.
Her soft mouth moved tremulously. Oh, Alex, you really had it all once and you threw it away, she thought sadly. She had loved him very deeply. She had had him on a tall pedestal, and she had never ceased to marvel that he had chosen her. But he had broken her heart and her spirit. He had taught her how to be bitter.
Her hostility had ironically been exacerbated by Vickie’s confession. Was it fair of her to feel that he should have given her a hearing? In his position, would she have? She doubted whether she could have walked away when denying Alex meant denying everything that was important to her. Thank God that it wasn’t like that for her still, she allowed gratefully.
Kerry had never visited Kordos before. A trip had been suggested on several occasions, but business or family had always intervened. She watched the jewelled green speck Alex pointed out suddenly expand in size against the deep blue of the Aegean. A small and picturesque fishing village straggled round the harbour. The helicopter cast a long shadow over the dark pine trees which shrouded the steep hills behind the village. Up on the cliffs sprawled a long, white villa with a red-tiled roof. It was ringed on its rocky height by flagstone terraces. They dropped down on the helipad set into the level ground to the front.
The staff had emerged from the villa to greet them. Sofia and Spiros, who ran the house, and a gaggle of dark-eyed, giggly maids were duly introduced to her. But it was Alex who guided her into the shade of the house ahead of them and said, “I will show you to your room.”
“I’m actually getting one of my own?”
“Why should I wish to share a room with you?” A satiric brow quirked. “I, too, like my privacy. I do not deny you yours.”
It was a concession she had not expected and nor had Sofia, the housekeeper, who protested that the room was not properly prepared. He left Kerry alone, as she struggled against an unjustifiable tide of pain and despondency. Why on earth should she feel insulted? It was a step in the right direction, removing them from the dangerous intimacy she had feared. She stared out of the arched windows at the magnificent view of rock and sea and skyline merging majestically together.
Alex reappeared a few minutes later and insisted upon showing her around before she changed for dinner. She duly admired the clean, tiled floors scattered with priceless Persian rugs, and the air of comfort and tradition which adhered to the sparse furnishings in their plain, earthy colours. After that she took herself off for a short nap and ended up rushing to get dressed in time for dinner.
“You look rested,” Alex saluted her mockingly with his glass. “Has it improved your humour?”
In exasperation, she stiffened. “There was nothing wrong with my mood. How am I supposed to react to a place like this? What are we going to do here?”
Alex burst out laughing, white teeth flashing against brown skin. “Do you really want me to tell you?”
It was a setting for lovers, not for two people who could hardly speak to each other civilly. “All I plan to do here is read some of the books I brought with me,” she warned in dulcet dismissal.
He absorbed her mutinous face with arrogant amusement. “You want to punish me for persuading you into my arms before the wedding. But it was inevitable that the force of our emotions would bring us together. It brought me peace…” he stressed. “The past is over, cara. Why can’t you accept that?”
Angrily, she began to eat. It had brought him peace. It had torn her apart. He had received the ego-boosting response he required from his recalcitrant wife. He had conquered his own distaste and her reluctance. He made no apology for the cruelty of his words to her that night. Why should he apologise? In his mind, he would always have the perfect excuse to employ that rapier tongue if she got out of hand. The past is over. No, he was wrong. The past had made the present for them both.
“I’m not sleeping with you, Alex,” she asserted.
“Inevitably you will. You see, you want me.” Golden eyes held hers steadily. “Why should you be ashamed of that?”
How could he ask her that after his admission that he despised her?
“How many times must I tell you that the past is finished?” His lean, strong features were harshly set. “You made one mistake, but we both paid dearly for it. Some day I will forget that other day, but I promise that I will never throw it at you in anger again.”
Her mouth twisted. “And what are you doing right now?” she flared.
He slammed his wine glass down. “What do you think I am trying to do? I am trying to talk to you, I am trying to be civilised!” he gritted in the most uncivilised snarl.
“You’re in the wrong century. I’ve had enough to eat.” She rose with unhurried grace and left the table.
In her room she paced the floor. She had almost screamed her innocence at him. But she would only have demeaned herself in his eyes. He would never believe her and she had no evidence. Naturally he saw no good reason why she shouldn’t abandon herself to pure physical gratification in his bed. In the depths of Alex’s subconscious would always lurk the reflection that if she could do so with a stranger, she certainly wasn’t in a position to deny a husband.
When she emerged from her bathroom later, swathed in a light cream satin peignoir, Alex was reclining fully dressed on top of her neatly turned-down bed.
“What do you want?” she demanded.
