AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And she had been vulnerable. Like a small shoot pushing its way up towards the light, she had needed careful nurturing. It had been the only time Theo had ever met a woman who had been totally without agenda. She had been warm and giving. Her ripe innocence had been her both her strength and her shield and, from the start, he had felt an overpowering protectiveness towards her. His simplistic view of what constituted a ‘good’ woman had been personified in the curly-headed virgin who had responded so passionately to his kisses.
And so he had waited—even though it had half killed him to do so. His determination not to possess her fully until she was his wife had driven him. It had been yet one more achievement to add to his list.
‘I agreed to what was, in effect, a dowry,’ he said slowly, ‘because I knew that unless I did so, your grandfather would refuse to let me have your hand in marriage.’
‘Oh, how very admirable!’ Those Aegean eyes sparked blue fire at him. ‘So you did it out of the goodness of your heart?’
‘Think about it,’ he came back at her. ‘I was a modestly paid bank worker at the time—certainly not able to keep you in the manner in which you deserved to be kept!’
‘I am not an animal, I don’t need to bekept,’ she retorted, her voice shaking. ‘I didn’t need his land. I didn’t want it!’
‘And neither did I,’ Theo ground out, the words rushing from his lips like a swollen river breaking through the banks and suddenly he realised how long he had repressed this. All this time he had lived with the knowledge that she’d thought so little of him and it seemed she still did. He felt the fierce fire of injustice and allowed the cold swamp of anger to blot it out. ‘Don’t you know why he did it, Mia? Why he made me that offer?’
Silently, Mia shook her head, taken aback by the sudden bitterness in his voice.
‘Because he thought if he gifted you the land, then your mother would manipulate you and wrangle it away from you.’ His gaze bored into her like a dark laser. ‘And subsequently sell some of the most valuable coastal real estate in Greece to some disreputable property developer, who would fill the place with high-rise hotels and turn this haven of a place into a tacky holiday destination. Can you imagine what that would have been like? All this beauty which surrounds us vanquished, and in its place all-day breakfasts and happy hours.’
Her breath was coming thick and fast and as Mia stared at him uncomprehendingly, the world as she knew it was suddenly upended. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’
‘Because I was waiting for our wedding night, when we would finally be alone. As your husband, I was planning to sign it all over to you. Every. Damned. Acre. But you didn’t stop to ask, did you?’ His mouth twisted into a bitter line. ‘You just assumed I was bad and greedy and manipulative. It was as though you’d been waiting for something like this to happen. Something to condemn me in your eyes.’
And to her shame, Mia couldn’t deny his words. Shehadbeen in a state of disbelief. She hadn’t believed it possible that a person could make her feel as good as Theo did and ofcourseshe had suspected his motives from time to time. Her mother’s carping criticisms had worn her down over the years, like the drip-drip of water against the walls of a cave. She’d accepted all those negative assessments about her appearance because, deep down, she’d known they were true. Shewasdumpy and dull. Shewasa very average pupil at school. She had been angry with Theo for having deceived her, but even angrier with herself for allowing herself to be such a pathetically easy target. And that anger and hurt had fuelled the words she had flung at him.
‘Do you remember what you said to me that night?’ he questioned coldly, again tapping uncomfortably into her thoughts.
She bit her lip so hard she could taste the metallic slick of blood. Of course she could remember. No matter how hard she’d tried to forget, fragments of those accusations had remained in the recesses of her mind—branded like fire onto her memory. She had hissed at him like a cornered possum. Told him he had let himself down and shown his true colours. That his gutter mentality had come to the fore and thank goodness she had found out in time. And she hadn’t stopped there. She’d been high on fear and rage and hurt, and the words had continued to come rushing out in a vitriolic spill. Words she hadn’t really understood but which she realised afterwards must have been spoken by her mother and she must have subconsciously soaked them all up, like a sponge. She had accused him of being a fortune-hunter. A thief. And a gigolo. It had been that single word which had caused the final rupture before she had run off into the night. She had seen him recoil, and his mouth flatten with a look she’d never seen before, but once the anger had fled from his black eyes, he had recovered his composure with remarkable speed.
‘Hardly a gigolo,zouzouri mou,’ he had drawled, somehow managing to make the formerly tender endearment into a vicious insult. ‘I didn’t actually havesexwith you in exchange for the land—no matter how many times you begged me to.’
Something had twisted and died inside her—was it her hopes and her dreams, or just the realisation that she had been punching above her weight all along?
Mia had fled from the room. Even now the memory of his response made her want to run away again. She would have given anything to have escaped Theo’s modern mansion and the teeming painful memories and the penetrating gleam of his black eyes. But where would she go? She had accepted his hospitality in order to see her dying grandfather. She mustn’t let his words get to her. He shouldn’t still have that power over her.
She turned from his dark gaze to stare out of the window again, oblivious to the bluebell tint of the sky. ‘I should have stayed right here and faced the music,’ she said, and couldn’t stop herself from wondering if the outcome would have been different if she had done. Would she have remained as his wife if she had been honest with him? Hisrealwife? Would they have created the family she’d longed for, the family she’d never really had? A dark wave of longing washed over her and she had to swallow down the lump in her throat before she could continue. ‘But I was young,’ she husked.
‘We were both young,’ he said, his voice gravel-hard. ‘Tell me what you did next.’
‘I went back to England,’ she said slowly. ‘And realised there was no way I could carry on living with my mother. Anyway, she’d met a rich American by then. A sugar daddy. Her words, not mine.’ She gave a short laugh. ‘So she went to Florida to live with him, hoping he would marry her, though he never has.’
‘And you? What did you do, Mia?’
She shrugged. ‘I needed independence and to find my own way in the world, but of course I had no money.’
‘Not quite so straightforward without the cushion of cash, is it,zouzouri mou?’ His lips curved. ‘Weren’t you tempted to come back, to ask for some proceeds from the estate? Or to demand that I sell up the land and give you the proceeds?’
‘With my tail between my legs?Beggingyou?’ she questioned proudly. ‘Never in a million years! I’d had it with that kind of life, Theo, so I decided to do what most people in that position do. I started looking for a job and, since I didn’t have very much in the way of qualifications, I found one as a maid.’
‘A maid?’ he echoed.
The disbelief in his voice was unmistakable and it riled her, because hadn’t she encountered this kind of prejudice time and time again? ‘It’s a very worthwhile job,’ she defended staunchly. ‘Creating order out of chaos and enhancing people’s enjoyment of their stay. Nobody’s ever going to object if someone else is making their bed for them, are they? I mean, there are a lot of...um...’ she pulled a face ‘...unsavoury things which people leave in their rooms, but mostly—I liked it.’
‘So you left me standing at the altar in order to become a maid?’ He gave a cynical laugh. ‘I suppose I should be offended, but instead I find it rather...amusing. Tell me—does your grandfather know about the unexpected career you have chosen?’
‘He wouldn’t take my phone calls, and he never answered any of my letters, so I don’t know if he read them. I suppose I must just be grateful that he wants to see me now.’
His expression suddenly became closed and he crossed the room to open the French doors, which led out onto a large and leafy terrace. And although Mia told herself she was grateful he’d put some distance between them, the change of perspective was making her aware of things she’d been trying very hard not to focus on before.
Emphasised by the bright sunlight streaming in from behind him, his body was outlined with heart-stopping definition. Through the fine material of his silk shirt the musculature of his broad-shouldered back was plainly visible. Against her will, her gaze travelled over the powerful shafts of his long legs and the ebony gleam of his thick hair. As she watched him, she could feel a silken flicker begin to pulse deep inside her. Her heart was jumping all over the place and her cheeks felt hot and flushed. Mia told herself she should be over him by now—so why was her stubborn body refusing to listen? As he turned round, did he catch her practically drooling over him? Was that why his eyes glinted with dark fire?
