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‘It’s always been there, Diana, right from the start. That flame between us. Oh, it was hardly visible at first—I know that—but I know, too, that you were not indifferent to me, however much you might have been unaware of it at a conscious level. And, Diana...’ his voice dropped ‘...believe me, I was the very opposite of indifferent to you from the very moment I first saw you. But it took the desert, Diana, to let that invisible flame that has always run between us flare into the incandescent fire that took us both.’
He strode around the table. Clasped his hands around her shoulders. Gazed down into her face. Her taut and stricken face. He ached to kiss her, to sweep her up into his arms and soothe the panic from her, to melt it away in the fire of his desire—of her desire.
‘We can’t deny what’s happened, and nor should we. Why should we? We’re man and wife—what better way to seal that than by yielding to our passion for each other? The passion you feel as strongly as I do. As powerfully. As irresistibly.’
His voice was low, his mouth descending to hers. He saw her eyelids flutter, saw a look almost of despair in them, but he made himself oblivious to it. Oblivious to everything except the soft exquisite velvet of her lips.
He drew her to him, sliding his hand around her nape, cradling the shape of her head, holding her for his kiss—a kiss that was long and languorous, sensual and seductive. He felt the relief of having her in his arms again, of making everything all right. It was a kiss to melt away her panic, her fears. To soothe her back into his embrace.
He heard the low moan in her throat that betokened, as he now knew, the onset of her own arousal—an arousal he knew well how to draw from her, to enhance with every skilled and silken touch. His hand slid from her shoulder to close his over her breast, which ripened at his touch, the coral peak straining beneath his gentle, sensuous kneading. He groaned low in his chest, feeling his own arousal surge. Desire soared in him—and victory. Victory over her fears, her anxieties. He was melting the ice that was seeking to freeze her again, to take her from him. To lock her back into a snow-cold body, unfeeling, insensate.
He would never let her be imprisoned in that icy fastness again! In his arms he would melt away the last of her fears. The ice maiden was never to return.
He heard again that low moan in her throat and he deepened his kiss, drawing her hips against him, letting her know how much he desired her and how much she desired him.
The low moan came again—and then, as her head suddenly rolled back, it became a cry. Her face was convulsing.
‘Nikos! No!’
He let her go instantly. How could he hold her when she had denied him?
She was backing away, stumbling against the edge of the mahogany table, warding him off with her hand. Her face was working...she was trying to get control of her emotions. Emotions that were searing through her like sheet metal, glowing white-hot. Emotions she had to quench now—right now.
He talks of a flame between us as if that makes it better—it doesn’t! It makes it worse—much, much worse! It makes it terrifyingly dangerous! Just as I’ve feared all my life!
So whatever it took, however much strength she had to find—desperately, urgently—she had to keep him at bay. Had to!
‘I don’t want this,’ she said. Her voice was thin, almost breaking, but she must not let it break. ‘I don’t want this,’ she said again. ‘What happened in the desert was a...a mistake. A mistake,’ she said bleakly.
There was silence—complete silence. She took another razoring breath, then spoke again, her voice hollow. Forcing herself to say what she had to say.
‘Nikos, if I had thought...realised for one moment that you intended our marriage to be anything but a marriage in name only, that you intended it to be consummated, I would never have agreed to marry you.’
Her jaw was aching, the tension in her body unbearable, but speak she must. She had to make it crystal-clear to him.
‘It wasn’t why I married you.’
She forced herself to hold his gaze. There was something wrong with his face, but she could not say what. Could do nothing but feel the emotions within her twisting and tightening into vicious coils, crushing
the breath from her.
The silence stretched, pushing them apart, repelling them from each other.
As they must be.
There was incomprehension in his eyes. More than that. Something dark she did not want to see there that chilled her to the bone.
Then he was speaking. The thing that was wrong in his face, in his eyes, was wrong in his voice, too. It had taken on a vicious edge of sarcasm that cut into her with a whip-like lash.
‘I thank you for your enlightening clarification about our marriage,’ he said, and coldness iced inside him. ‘In light of which it would therefore be best if you returned to the UK immediately. Tonight. I will make the arrangements straight away.’
He turned, and with a smothered cry she made to step after him.
‘Nikos! Please—don’t be like that. There’s no need for me to leave. We can just be as we were before...’
Her voice trailed off. The words mocked her with the impossibility of what she was saying.
We can never be as we were before.
