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Realising he had to make some attempt to rescue the situation, Demetri forced himself to take the chair opposite his wife. Then, balled fists digging into his spread thighs, he said tersely, ‘I suppose Ianthe told you she’d flown to England with Theo Vasilis and myself?’
Jane nodded. ‘Yes.’
And that would be another strike against him, Demetri reflected malevolently. Had she really come here to challenge him again about something that had never happened?
He scowled. It didn’t help that she was looking particularly lovely this evening. There was a glow about her, some-how, an inner warmth that made him curse the mess he’d made of both their lives. He’d never stopped wanting her, never stopped loving her. Even when he’d told himself he hated her, he’d known it was just his own pitiable need that was driving him on.
Her hair was longer, he noticed, his eyes devouring every item of her appearance. One strand curled invitingly over the shoulder of her woollen jacket; he wished she’d take the jacket off. He was a fool, he knew, but he wanted to see her breasts. They’d always been such a giveaway of the way she was really feeling.
Jane was aware that Demetri’s eyes had slipped down her body and she felt the heat of his dark gaze like a fire against her skin. He’d always had this effect on her and never more so than tonight. Knowing what she did about him, knowing he had never lied to her, knowing what a stupid fool she’d been.
‘You say Ianthe came to the gallery,’ he prompted at last and she nodded again.
‘That’s right.’ Then, rather than get to the point of her visit, she launched into an explanation of what had happened. ‘It was just as well she did,’ she said fervently. ‘Alex was there—Alex Hunter, that is—and he was being a nuisance.’
Demetri’s eyes narrowed. ‘A nuisance? How?’
She should have been warned by the comparative mildness of his tone, but Jane was so relieved that he was talking civilly to her that she went on. ‘Oh—in the usual way,’ she said ruefully. ‘He—well, he wouldn’t accept the fact that I didn’t want to see him again. Socially, I mean. If—if Ianthe hadn’t come into the gallery as she did—’
‘You are saying this man—this cur—molested you?’Demetri swore, springing to his feet with a violent oath of frustration. ‘I will find him and I will kill him! How dare he lay a hand on my wife? I will make him wish he had never been born!’
Jane couldn’t sit still with him towering over her. ‘Am I still your wife, Demetri?’ she whispered, rising to face him, and he looked at her with dark, avenging eyes.
‘For the present,’ he muttered harshly, subduing the urge he had to touch her. ‘In any case, that is not important. This man, Hunter, will learn that no one assaults a member of my family and gets away with it.’
‘He didn’t—assault me, Demetri.’ She sighed. ‘He frightened me, that’s all.’
‘Aliti!’ Bastard! Demetri swore again, raking restless fingers through his hair. ‘So this time I must be grateful to Ianthe for her intervention, no?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ironic, is it not?’
‘Perhaps.’ Jane swallowed and gestured towards the sofa. ‘Could we sit down again? I’ve got something to tell you.’
‘And you think perhaps it will rob me of the strength to stand on my own two feet?’
‘No…’
‘Because I warn you, Jane, if you’ve come here to spread more of Ianthe’s poison—’
‘I haven’t!’ She put a nervous hand on his arm, feeling the muscles clench beneath her fingers. ‘Please, Demetri, you have to listen to me.’
Demetri looked down at the hand resting on his arm and wondered how that tentative touch could spread an electric charge throughout his body. The desire to touch her in return, to touch her and taste her and feel that slim, lissom body yielding to the pressure of his caused an actual constriction in his chest. His pulse was racing, his heartbeat quickening in concert with his rising blood pressure. Theos, how the hell was he going to compose himself sufficiently to attend a business dinner in the Souvakis boardroom in less than half an hour, when all he could think about was taking her to bed?
‘All right,’ he said at last through clenched teeth, and she withdrew her hand and subsided onto the sofa again.
He lowered himself into the seat beside her, resisting the urge to crowd her. Even so, when she moved, her thigh was disturbingly close to his, and once again he was tempted to remind her of all they had once been to one another.
