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With an effort, Dimitri forced his hands to relax, flatten against the grainy surface. Joan Ryan was obviously as much at sea as he was.
Forget the acid burn of anger inside him. Clearly the poor woman was worried sick. He liked Maddie’s parents—admired their capacity for hard work, their honesty, their love for their family. He couldn’t bring himself to tell Joan that her beloved daughter was a sly, scheming gold-digger, marrying him only for what she’d decided she could screw out of him!
He wouldn’t have believed it himself until today. Women had been coming on to him since he’d hit his late teens, and he’d learned to suss out gold-diggers from a hundred paces. He would have staked his life on Maddie being genuine, wanting him only for himself, wanting children as much as he did. Had his brain gone soft that first time he’d seen her, wanted her as he’d never wanted any other woman, his heart and soul telling him that here was the one woman in the world he could trust implicitly?
But what other explanation could there be? Colour scorched across his angular cheekbones. Until today their marriage had been fantastic. Not a cross word, just soft words and smiles. Laughter, joy. She’d been just that little bit quieter of late, he’d noted, and once, when he’d gently asked if there was anything wrong, she’d turned that lovely smile on him, reached for him, and assured him that everything was perfect.
An obvious and utterly devious truth—because everything had been going to her greedy plan. He truly didn’t want to believe that of her—not of her. But, lacking any other explanation, he had to face it.
Joan pulled out a chair, sat heavily, and poured the tea with a shaking hand. Compassion for her distressed state forced him to say, ‘Try not to worry. She’ll turn up. She would have taken a scheduled commercial flight, so it would take her much longer to get to Heathrow and then make her way here than it took me. Where else would she go?’ He’d checked the departure times of flights to the UK, guessing she would be heading for home. ‘Can you think of anywhere else?’
Unable to speak for the lump in her throat, Joan shook her head. The lump assumed monumental proportions as Dimitri supplied reassuringly, ‘She’ll turn up here. I’m sure of it. But should she phone ahead I must ask you not to tell her I’m here. I need to talk to her, to sort things out.’
Carefully, keeping his tone gentle, schooling out the anger, the outraged pride of the Greek male, he covered her workworn hand with his own—because Joan Ryan was a patently good woman, and none of this was her fault. ‘You mustn’t worry.’
Kindness was her undoing. She’d genuinely had no intention of burdening him with her family’s problems—certainly not while he was so upset over Maddie’s desertion. But Joan couldn’t stop the torrent of sobs that racked her comfortable frame, and then her handsome, caring son-in-law fetched the box of tissues from the windowsill, slid it in front of her and put a compassionate hand on her shoulder.
‘What’s wrong, Joan?’ he asked. He’d expected her to be puzzled and upset by her daughter’s behaviour, but not to the extent of breaking down entirely. ‘Tell me. I might be able to help.’
It all came pouring out.
It was late, and as dark as a country night could be. The taxi driver was grumbling under his breath as he negotiated the twisting, narrow, tree-hung lanes. Maddie, leaning forward, had to give him directions.
‘It’s about a mile ahead,’ she told him as he took the left-hand fork she’d just indicated. ‘I’ll tell you when we get there.’ She subsided, stuck with her own thoughts. And they weren’t pleasant company.
The journey from Athens had been a complete nightmare. She wasn’t going to think about her broken marriage—it hurt too much—so she’d think about the trials of her flight to freedom instead. Her departure from Athens had been delayed by a couple of hours. Eventually reaching Heathrow, she’d queued for ages to get her euros changed to sterling, then headed for Euston and sat over a cup of what was supposed to be coffee while she’d waited for a train to Shrewsbury. She had phoned home to say she’d be arriving—probably at midnight at this rate, after the difficulty of finding a driver willing to take her way out to the sticks.
Mum had sounded a bit odd on the phone. Maddie hadn’t told her that her marriage was over—that would have to be done face to face. It would upset her parents; she knew that. They thought she’d made the perfect marriage.
And it could have been so perfect. She’d loved him so very much. Enough to push her doubts as to why he should want to marry so far beneath him out of her mind. Doubts that had trickled slowly but inexorably back on her return to Athens as his bride. Her insides twisted painfully, and she had to stiffen her spine and remind herself that she would not be used. That she would never regret walking out on him, that she would not weep for him.
Did he think she was without pride? Did he think that she was too stupid to discover the truth? That she was too besotted with him, too enthralled by his magnificent body, his lovemaking, the things he could give her, ever to go looking for it?
As the headlights picked out the driveway to the small stone house she rocketed thankfully out of her pointless mental maunderings and stated, with feeling, ‘You can drop me here.’
Tears of weak relief blurred her eyes. Home at long last! To the beginning of a new and independent life. Apart from starting divorce proceedings, she need never allow a single thought centring on Dimitri Kouvaris into her head again.
Stumbling with fatigue, she headed up the short track after paying off the driver, and in the total darkness bumbled into the rear of a car parked beside the two beat-up Land Rovers belonging to her father and brothers.
Muttering, Maddie bent to rub her bruised shins. She registered the slam of a car door, and looked up to find the dark, strangely intimidating figure of Dimitri blocking her path.
‘Get in the car.’
The terse command sent a shiver prickling down her now rigid spine.
Her mind was a chaotic jumble of shock. What did he think he was doing here? Didn’t he understand a simply written statement that their marriage was over? Her throat worked convulsively, and her, ‘I’m not going anywhere with you!’ emerged on strangled, breathless tones that made her cringe at her seeming indecisiveness. She spoke more firmly, with effort. ‘I am g
oing home. Let me pass.’ This because he had pinioned her arms in strong, masterful hands, and his touch still had the power to melt her.
‘Your family have retired for the night,’ he relayed. ‘We have discussed the issue and have agreed that it is best that you go with me to my hotel. We need to talk.’
‘No!’ Maddie bit out in mutiny. ‘There’s nothing to talk about.’
As she knew from painful experience, he could talk her into believing black was white, and despite her staunch intention to put him out of her life she knew that as yet she was too raw and hurt to keep to that resolve if he decided to use his devilish charm to make her change her mind. For his own despicable ends.
‘You can’t make me go anywhere with you,’ she flung in challenge.
‘No?’ Still sounding measured—conversational, almost—he parried, ‘I have been waiting in that car for over half an hour now, and patience is not my strong point. I have never forced any woman to do anything against her will. But—and this I promise—should you refuse, your family will be homeless by the end of the month. You have the power to stop that happening. It is your choice.’
