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AFTER the call ended Maddie stood immobile under the shower, her brow furrowed, as she grappled with Joan Ryan’s revelations, and what they meant.
Thanks to Dimitri’s generosity her parents’ home and livelihood were safe. There was, of course, huge relief because from the start he had led her to believe that her family would be out of their new home and business like a shot if she didn’t toe the line and stick with their marriage—but the question remained.
Why? Why had he done that?
To force her to resume her marital duties? Share his bed until the child he needed was conceived.
Obvious.
And yet …
That kind of thoughtful generosity didn’t gel with the kind of guy she had categorised him as being—a heartless blackmailer who would use any means to get what he wanted and suffer not one pang of conscience when he made her family face real hardship when he’d got it, because they were unimportant, mere peasants. He didn’t fit that box now.
It looked as if he were the kind of guy who would spend vast amounts of money setting her parents up in their own home and business, generously sorting out the difficulties they were facing and were financially and emotionally unable to cope with.
In the situation that had faced her parents any other needle-sharp, super-wealthy businessman with a philanthropic streak a mile wide might have done what he had done, she conceded, but he would have kept the deeds in his name, as an investment, one among many.
But Dimitri had gone one huge stride further. His generosity shook her, made her acknowledge that he wasn’t all as bad as she had named him. Far from it.
Could she have misjudged him in other aspects of their relationship?
Irini?
The attention he lavished on the other woman when she was around—which had always been far too often for Maddie’s liking—could be explained away by the fact that his aunt had counted her as one of the family from the time of her birth. And the relationship had rubbed off because for Dimtri family was all important.
Having lost both his parents at an early age, he was determined to create a family of his own. She could understand that because he would lavish care on anyone he considered part of his family, as witness how he had helped his parents-by-marriage.
But she couldn’t explain away that overheard telephone conversation when he had confirmed his love for the beautiful Greek woman, dropped everything and shot off to be with her. Nothing could. Or the way the two of them had vanished together during the week before he’d brought her here to this island. And, although he hadn’t confirmed it—or denied it either, come to that—the intimate-sounding phone call she’d interrupted had to have been to Irini, breaking the news of the pregnancy they had both waited so anxiously for.
And Irini’s spiteful warning on the night of that party, spelling out exactly why the man who was probably the most eligible bachelor in the whole of Greece had chosen to marry an insignificant nobody like her, was solid, irrefutable fact.
Her mind preoccupied, Maddie dressed and went down to find him, uselessly wishing yet again that she had never taken Amanda’s advice and kept quiet about Irini’s warning, sticking her head in the sand and putting it down to the malicious spite of a jealous woman.
Her pride had stopped her flinging what she knew and what she strongly suspected at him after he had flown to England to find her and force her to return to him. And now, it seemed, it was too late.
He had categorically stated that he no longer wished to know why she had left him. He wouldn’t listen and, knowing him, his masculine pride, she could understand why. In leaving him, demanding a divorce, she had rejected him and all that he was. His ego wouldn’t let him listen to why she had done it. Not if he wanted them to start over, wipe the slate clean. Make the marriage work.
Until the safe delivery of their child?
‘We’ll stop here. You mustn’t overtire yourself.’ A couple of days ago she had accused him of wrapping her in cotton wool. True, he conceded with a wry twist of his mouth. He simply couldn’t help himself. He took this pregnancy seriously, and his part in it was to cherish her.
Dimitri slid the strap of the picnic bag off one broad shoulder as they reached one of his favourite spots on the island. A gentle green hollow beside an abundant freshwater spring, shaded from the burning sun by a grove of ancient, long-neglected olive trees.
Golden eyes soft and slightly narrowed between thick black lashes, he watched her wander over the lush green grass, down to where the water bubbled into a natural stone basin. The gauzy cotton skirt she was wearing, in shades of primrose, pale blue and cream moved against the lovely legs that had acquired a healthy tan over the week they had spent here. He adored looking at her. He only had to look at her to want her.
Their time here together during this past week had been perfect. Their marriage was back on track.
Or almost.
Swimming in the pool or in the gentle waters of one of the small bays, exploring the island and the dozens of tiny beaches, lazy afternoons and languid evenings, hot sex—everything was pointing to her willingness to put the recent past behind them, to make a fresh start, as he had wanted, for the sake of the coming child.
Except …
He missed her once-ready, infectious laughter. Had caught the wistful look in those clear blue eyes, quickly extinguished when his eyes connected with hers. But it was there, all the same, in his memory.
It troubled him. But no way was he prepared to question her.
Because he wouldn’t like the answer?
