Wife For A Night

by Devine, Angela

  'I think it's time you came and warmed my bed,' he growled huskily.

  Taking her by the hand, he led her upstairs to the bedroom. Lifting her bodily off her feet, he flung her down on the bed, stripped her clothes off her and flung them aside. Then he stood gazing down at her with narrowed dark eyes. His breath was coming hard and fast as if he had run in a long and gruelling race, and there was no longer any sign of humour in his face.

  'I'm going to make you mine, body and soul, Katarina,' he said fiercely. 'And if you ever do this with another man I swear I will kill him.'

  His intensity frightened her and she shrank back against the pillows, smiling uncertainly.

  'Don't joke like that, Philip,' she pleaded.

  'It's no joke,' he replied grimly.

  Then with a single swift movement he tore off his dressing-gown and climbed on to the bed beside her. Hesitantly she reached out her arms to him, but she found herself swept into an embrace that both thrilled and alarmed her. It was useless for Philip to pretend that he was tame and civilised like the men she had known in the past. Her own body, melting and throbbing and crying out under his caresses, told her differently. He was a man as primitive and passionate as the land which had borne him. And, as he brought her to a moaning, sobbing climax more intense than any she had ever experienced, Kate knew that she would not want it any other way.

  Coming slowly down to earth and finding her fingers tangled in his thick, dark hair, Kate smiled through her tears. His body was hard and lean and powerful on top of her, his heart was pounding wildly against her, and her name still lingered on his lips. Soon, very soon, they would be man and wife. A profound sense of joy and contentment welled up inside her.

  'I'm so glad you're back, Philip,' she whispered fervently. 'Now I'm sure that nothing can go wrong.'

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THEY were lingering over breakfast on the terrace the following morning when the bombshell struck. It was a perfect morning. Sunlight danced on the blue waters of the sea, birds sang in the trees, scarlet geraniums rioted over the edges of their terracotta urns. And the air was filled with the mingled fragrance of hot coffee, sesame rolls, and sweet honeysuckle. Yet the moment Kate heard the garden gate clang shut and saw Dorothea hurrying up the path she knew instinctively that something had gone horribly wrong.

  'I've never seen Dorothea look so agitated,' she said anxiously, crossing to the edge of the terrace. 'I wonder what's happened.'

  'Probably nothing serious,' replied Philip.

  But he too rose to his feet and moved across to meet Dorothea as she came panting up the steps, brandishing a newspaper.

  'What is it?' he demanded. 'More of Irene's antics?'

  'Worse!' replied Dorothea, thrusting it into his hands and turning a hostile glance on Kate. 'How could you?' she said with a catch in her voice. Then, pressing a handkerchief to her face, she fled towards the hotel.

  Baffled, Kate turned back to Philip. To her dismay she saw his initial calm give way to violent outrage as his eyes skimmed down the page. He swore softly in Greek, and his powerful hands crumpled the newspaper into a shapeless mass.

  'What is it?' asked Kate, appalled. 'What does it say?'

  His head came up, and the rage in his eyes terrified her.

  'Do you really need to ask?' he demanded brutally. 'Surely Stardust's hottest reporter Leon Clark told you what he was going to write when you sold him the interview?'

  'Leon?' echoed Kate in horror. 'Oh, no, I don't believe it!'

  Her legs seemed to buckle beneath her. She collapsed dizzily into a chair, feeling as sick and faint as if somebody had punched her in the stomach.

  'What does it say?' she whispered again. 'Read it!' retorted Philip savagely.

  He thrust the mangled newspaper in front of her and strode across to the balustrade, where he stood with his palms outspread and his jaw clenched.

  Kate cast one swift, agonised glance at his angry profile and then smoothed out the crumpled paper and began to read. Almost at once she had to stop, as a violent trembling overtook her.

  'I can't!' she breathed, clapping her hands over her mouth.

  'Too sensitive to read it, are you?' snarled Philip. 'Well, let me oblige!'

  He tore the newspaper out of her unresisting hands and paced around the terrace, his voice resonant with fury as he read out the offending headlines.

  'Australian sex kitten to wed Greece's most eligible bachelor?

  Stardust International's hottest reporter Leon Clark offered unknown photographer Kate Walsh $100,000 for the exclusive rights to her life story. Walsh, a Sydneysider, hit the headlines when she ousted Greek heiress Irene Marmara in the affections of Greek multimillionaire Philip Andronikos. According to Walsh, the romance is serious. She and Andronikos plan to tie the knot in the village church at Ayios Dimitrios before Christmas. To learn all about the girl from Down Under who ousted an heiress, turn to page fifteen for Kate Walsh's life story, illustrated by her own frank and fearless photos...'

  Philip paused and looked down at Kate with a glance that froze her to the marrow.

  'You disgust me!' he said contemptuously. 'Do you mean to tell me you even sold them photos?'

  'I didn't sell them anything!' blazed Kate. 'You can't possibly believe this lunacy, Philip!'

  But Philip was already leafing furiously through the newspaper and did not deign to answer her. Then suddenly his search came to an abrupt end. With a low gasp of anger he looked across at her, and his gaze seemed to cut through her like a knife.

  'Oh, no?' he said softly. 'Then how do you explain this, Katarina?'

  His forefinger stabbed the page, but for a moment Kate's eyes were so blurred by tears that she could see nothing. Then she blinked and the full horror of Leon's treachery became clear to her. There, in the middle of the newspaper for everyone to see, was the joyful portrait of her and Philip in the jacuzzi. She gave a gasp of dismay.

  'I don't understand this!' she exclaimed in bewilderment. 'Leon wasn't even in the sitting-room. Only in the front hall.'

  'So he did come here, did he?' demanded Philip. 'And you gave him all this information?'

  'Yes,' said Kate in a dazed voice. 'I mean. ..no. He was here, Philip, but only at the front door. I told him to go away. Of course I didn't give him anything.'

  'Then how do you explain this photo?' insisted Philip.

  'I can't explain it!' cried Kate wildly. 'I don't understand it myself. I stuffed the photo down the sofa cushions and I didn't think he'd seen it, because it was still there later. But he must have taken a photo of it.'

  Philip shook his head at this tangled explanation.

  'Why did you stuff it down the sofa?' he asked.

  'Because somebody came to the front door and I didn't want him to see it.'

  'Leon Clark?' demanded Philip.

  'No. Somebody else.'

  She flushed, conscious that any mention of Stavros could only worsen her case.

  'Who?' demanded Philip relentlessly.

  'Stavros!' she blurted out.

  Seeing Philip's face harden, she babbled on. 'Stavros came to ask me to play tennis and I went down to the courts with him.'

  'That was all?' rapped out Philip. 'He didn't come inside?'

  Kate hesitated. The thought of the necklace disturbed her, but she pushed it away. She was in enough trouble with Philip already.

  'No!' she said sharply.

  'Go on,' ordered Philip. 'How does this Clark fellow come into all this? Who is he? What connection does he have with you? Or is he a total stranger?'

  Kate let out a long, ragged sigh.

  'He was a current-affairs reporter,' she said wearily. 'He came out from Britain last year to join a TV station in Sydney. I was one of the camera crew for his programme and we were thrown together a good deal at work.

  We started going out together and eventually one thing led to another. Our affair lasted three or four months, and then one night he invited me out to dinner. He said he had s
omething special he wanted to say to me.' Her voice wobbled.

  'Go on,' insisted Philip in a hard voice.

  'I thought he was going to ask me to marry him. Silly, isn't it? Instead he told me, oh, so casually, that his wife and children would be coming out to

  Australia to join him within a month, but that we could still keep our affair going provided we were discreet about it.'

  'What did you do?' asked Philip.

  Kate tossed her head.

  'Oh, I behaved very discreetly!' she said through clenched teeth. 'I told him to drop dead, dumped a plateful of hot moussaka into his lap and stormed out of the restaurant. Two days later I received my retrenchment notice.'

  'You think he was behind it?' demanded Philip.

  Kate shrugged.

  'Probably,' she said wearily. 'Anyway, that was the last I saw of him until he showed up here. I didn't even realise he'd left Australia.'

  She cast a swift, apprehensive glance at Philip. Ever since their dinner together at Porto Carras she had agonised over whether she should tell him about Leon. And deep down she had expected some kind of stormy response from him if he ever heard the news. Rage, jealousy, even sympathy, perhaps. Instead he was treating her to a cold, impassive scrutiny and the only sign of emotion on his face was the tightening of the muscles around his mouth.

  'So how did this... ex-lover of yours get into my house?' he rapped out.

  Kate took a deep breath.

  'I don't really know,' she admitted. 'I went out for a while, and when I came back he was already here. He told me he'd forced one of the windows with a nail-file.'

  Philip gave a sharp bark of laughter.

  'A nail-file!' he said scornfully. 'You'll have to think of a better story than that, Kate! Those are security windows. Nobody could possibly break in through them with a nail-file.'

  Kate's lips trembled.

  'Well, maybe I hadn't locked one of them properly!' she cried. 'How do I know? All I know is that I found Leon Clark here in the entrance hall, he made me his slimy proposition about exclusive rights for my story and I told him to get lost. I thought it was all over and done with. Instead I wake up and find all this awful stuff in the paper about me, not to mention that horrible photo. And now you seem to think I wanted all this to happen. I just can't bear it, Philip!'

  Her voice rose as she came to an end, and she choked on a sudden rending sob. Burying her face in her hands, she wept despairingly. There was a long silence, broken only by her soft, gulping breaths. Then Philip's hand came slowly down on her shoulder.

  'So you didn't ever invite Leon Clark inside or deliberately tell him any of this?' he demanded sternly.

  She raised her tear-stained face to his and shook her head.

  'Of course I didn't!' she said vehemently. 'You must believe me, Philip!'

  There was another long silence, then Philip gave a long, shuddering sigh.

  'Whatever I may or may not believe,' he said at last, 'I'm going to crucify Leon Clark for writing this stuff about us. Give me that paper. My lawyers will need it.'

  Swallowing, Kate picked up the newspaper and turned to pass it to him. But Philip had maltreated it so badly that it was falling to pieces, and as it changed hands a single sheet fluttered free. Philip bent to retrieve it. As he straightened up his face turned ashen with fury.

  'I thought you said you only saw Clark at the door?' he murmured dangerously.

  'Y-yes,' agreed Kate, mystified.

  'Then how the hell do you explain this?' snarled Philip.

  He held the single page in front of her, and she gave a cry of disbelief. In the centre of it was a photo of herself in a lacy nightdress, lying seductively on her side in the middle of Philip's huge four-poster bed. Perched on the bed beside her, with one hand on her naked shoulder, was Leon Clark. Above the photo was the caption 'Kate Walsh shows her paces for Stardust reporter Leon Clark.'

  Kate gave a groan of dismay.

  'That unprincipled swine!' she cried. 'It's a trick photo, Philip. He took it in Sydney last year, and he's obviously superimposed it on a shot of your bedroom... It's quite an easy technique—any photographer could do it.'

  But Philip was staring at her bleakly.

  'Y-you don't believe me, do you?' she faltered.

  He gave a hoarse groan, somewhere between a laugh and a cry of pain.

  'No, I don't!' he said savagely. 'And to think you almost fooled me! The tears, the white face, the quivering lips... You missed your vocation, Kate.

  You should have been an actress, not a photographer. But this is too much even for me to swallow.'

  He turned scornfully away and strode towards the house.

  'Philip!' she cried desperately, springing after him.

  He paused, with her hand on his sleeve.

  'It just won't wash, Kate,' he said sadly, looking down at her with liquid dark eyes. 'Rather a pity, really. Do you know, I really thought you were different from other women? That you really cared about me? But you're just as bad as the rest of them—only interested in money and fame and notoriety. Why did you decide to sell out on me, Kate? Was it because you thought I was going broke? I could have made another fortune, you know.

  You didn't have to betray me like this for a miserable hundred thousand.'

  'It's not true, Philip,' whispered Kate in an agonised voice. 'I didn't betray you. I'd never do such a thing!'

  'Wouldn't you?' said Philip contemptuously. 'I'm sorry, agapimou, but I just don't trust those big green eyes and those little quivering lips any more. So why don't you just take yourself off and we'll call it quits?'

  Kate stared at him, aghast, but pride was beginning to stir inside her.

  'All right,' she said through her teeth. 'If that's what you want, that's fine with me!'

  'Good!' replied Philip cuttingly. 'I'll tell Dorothea to make up your cheque for the photographs and you can collect it from the office.'

  'Don't bother!' retorted Kate. 'I wouldn't take money from you if I had to starve first!'

  And, turning on her heel, she rushed inside to pack.

  By the time Kate climbed aboard the bus from Ayios Dimitrios a curious aching numbness had replaced her earlier rage and despair. She was conscious of a couple of furtive glances from the handful of curious villagers on board, but she turned her head away and took no notice. Yet, as the bus climbed up the winding road leading from the Hotel Ariadne to the highway, she felt a brief pang of misery so intense that she bit her lip and clenched her fists until her nails dug into her skin. Leaning her head against the cool glass of the window, she gazed back at the place that had come to

  mean so much to her. A brief whiff of pine needles assailed her, she caught a glimpse of a sapphire-blue swimming-pool, then it all vanished behind her.

  The next two hours passed in a daze for Kate. There was only one possible place she could go. Too proud to accept payment from Philip, she had hardly any money, but she knew she would find refuge at the archaeological dig. She remembered Charlie's warm invitation at their parting: 'Now remember, you can always come back here if things don't work out at Ayios Dimitrios.. .you're always welcome.' The trouble was that she felt so raw and humiliated that she didn't even want to face her friends. As the bus jolted over the rough country roads she came to a painful decision. Her airline ticket back to Australia was still in the money belt around her neck.

  True, she wasn't due to fly back until just before Christmas. But she would change her booking and go straight home.

  The wild, beautiful Greek countryside flashed past her, unseen. She scarcely noticed the sunlight striking the sea and turning it to shades of gold and lavender, the purple heather, the white villages, the brown floppy-eared goats scattering out of the path of the bus. All she could see was a dark, angry face and brown eyes that blazed with scorn. She had left Philip Andronikos readily enough, but it was not so easy to leave her memories behind.

  At last the bus came to a halt in the village square at Nyssa. The recent
rain had left huge muddy ruts in the dirt road, and the driver had to back the bus carefully round a corner to avoid bogging it. As Kate climbed down she recognised one of the workmen from the archaeological site, dressed in his best clothes and chatting to a friend under a fig tree.

  'Yasu, Angelos,' she said. 'Where is Dr Lucas? Pou ine Kyria Lucas? Ine etho?'

  He looked baffled.

  'Ohi. Dhen ine edho. Ine i Kiriaki simera.'

  Kate groaned.

  'She's not here because it's Sunday today?' she asked. 'What about Andrew?

  Kyrios Cameron?'

  We,' replied Angelos. 'Kyrios Cameron ine edho.'

  'You mean Andrew is still here?' cried Kate. 'Oh, thank goodness!'

  Leaving her backpack at the cafe near the village square, she hitched her camera bag over her shoulder and began the long climb up through the village to the archaeologists' rented house. She had been dreading the stares of the villagers, but she need not have worried. People evidently did not read newspapers in Nyssa, or at any rate not the sort of newspapers that Leon Clark produced. Everywhere she went she was greeted by courteous smiles and cries of ' Kalimera!' Children ran out of houses, shouting, 'Hello!

  What your name?' and danced along beside her. Even a stray dog with a matted black coat and a deep bark bounded up to escort her.She could not help feeling slightly cheered by the welcome.

  When she reached the house Andrew was standing at the mesh table on the terrace, sorting fragments of pottery. Catching sight of her, he dropped a large terracotta handle and came hurrying over to meet her.

  'Oh, Kate!' he cried, folding her in a bony hug. 'That swine Clark ought to be hung, drawn and quartered! I tried to telephone you this morning, but I couldn't get through.'

  'You've seen the papers, then?' asked Kate shakily.

  He nodded glumly.

  'Cheer up, love,' he said with false heartiness. 'The bubbles in the jacuzzi hid just about everything, and nobody takes any notice of that yellow Press rubbish anyway.'