Their eyes met again. She swallowed dryly, then got to her knees. Slowly she hooked a finger under one shoulder strap and slid it off. She slid off the second. There were three satin ties on the teddy, just between her breasts, and she reached for them.
Damian’s breathing quickened, but his eyes never left hers.
“One,” she said softly. “Two. Three...”
With a throaty growl, he tumbled her to the carpet. And then, for a long, long time, the only sounds in the room were the sighs and whispers of love.
* * *
He refused to believe that she could cook.
They discussed it, one afternoon, as Laurel sat in a field of daisies with Damian’s head in her lap.
She reminded him, indignantly, of the bread he’d found rising in her kitchen. He reminded her, not very gallantly, that it had resembled a science experiment gone bad.
Laurel plucked a handful of daisies and scattered them over his chest.
“I’ll have you know that I make the most terrific sourdough bread in the world.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What do you mean, ‘uh huh’? I do. Ask George. He loves my bread.”
“George,” Damian scoffed. “The man’s besotted. He’d say it was great even if it tasted like wet cardboard.”
Laurel dumped more daisies over him. “He is not besotted with anyone but his own wife.”
Damian sat up, reached for her hand and laced his fingers through hers. There was something he had to tell her, something he should have told her sooner. It meant nothing to him, but she had the right to know.
“It’s good, for a man to be besotted with his wife,” he said softly.
She smiled and brushed a daisy petal from his hair.
“Is it?”
“Did I ever tell you,” he asked, catching her hand and raising it to his mouth, “that I was married before?”
Laurel’s teasing smile vanished. “No. No, you didn’t.”
“Well, I was. For a grand total of three weeks.”
“What happened?” She tried another smile and hoped this one worked. “Don’t tell me. The lady served you a slice of wet cardboard, called it sourdough bread and you sent her packing.”
“Nothing so simple. It turned out we had nothing in common. She wanted my name and my money, and I...”
“And you? What did you want?”
“Out,” he said, with a little laugh, “almost from the beginning. The marriage was a complete mistake. I think we both knew it.”
“Why did you marry her, then?” A chill crept into Laurel’s heart, and she gave him a stiff smile. “Was she pregnant, too?”
She regretted the ugly words as soon as she’d said them, but it was too late to call them back. Damian sat up, his face cold and hard.
“No. She was not pregnant. Had she been, I can assure you, I would still be married to her.”
“Because it would have been your duty.” Laurel stood up and dusted the grass from her shorts. “Of course,” she said, and started briskly toward the house, “I almost forgot how noble you are, Damian. Sorry.”
“Theé mou!” Angrily he clasped her shoulders and spun her around. “What is the matter with you, Laurel? Are you angry with me for having divorced a woman I did not love? Or for admitting that I would have done the right thing by her, if I’d had to?”
“I’m not angry with you at all.” Her smile was brittle. “I’m just—you can’t blame me for being curious. Damian. After all, I only just found out you have an ex-wife.”
“I told you, the relationship was meaningless. We met, we thought we were in love, we got married. By the time we realized what we’d done, it was too late.”
“Yes, well, that’s what happens, when a person marries impetuously.”
“Dammit, don’t give me that look!”
“What look? It’s the only one I’ve got—but how would you know that?”
“Don’t be a little fool!” Damian glared at her, his face dark with anger. “There is no comparison between this marriage and the other. I married you because—because...”
“Because I was pregnant.”
“Yes. No. I mean...” What did he mean? Of course he’d married her because she was pregnant; why deny it? What other reason could possibly have made him ask Laurel to be his wife?
“You needn’t explain.” Laurel’s voice was frosty, a perfect match to her smile. “We both know what an honorable man you are. You married me for the sake of our child, and you’ll stay married to me for the same reason. Isn’t that right?”
Damian’s jaw knotted. “You’re damned right,” he growled. “I’m going to stay married to you, and you to me, until as the man said, ‘Death do us part.”’
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her just as he had the day he’d announced he was going to make her his wife. For the first time since they’d made love in the tower overlooking the sea, Laurel didn’t respond. She felt nothing, not desire, not even anger.
“You are my wife,” Damian said. Stone-faced, he held her at arm’s length and looked down into her face. “And nothing more needs to be said about it.”
Laurel wrenched free of his grasp. “How could I possibly forget that, when you’ll always be there to remind me?”
She swung away and strode up the hill, toward the house. Damian’s hands knotted at his sides. Dammit, what was wrong with her? He thought they’d gotten past this, that Laurel had made peace with the circumstances of their marriage, but it was clear that she hadn’t.
Had she been pretending, all those times they’d made love? Had she lain in his arms, touching him, kissing him, and wishing all the while that he’d never forced her into becoming his wife? Because he had. Hell, there was no denying it. He’d given her about as much choice in the matter as the rocks below gave to the ships they’d claimed, over the centuries.
His mouth twisted. So what? They were man and wife. She had to accept that. As for this afternoon’s pointless quarrel...she’d get over it when he took her to bed, tonight.
He took a deep breath, stuck his hands into his pockets and stood staring out to sea.
She hadn’t been pretending, when they made love. He would have known if those sweet sighs, those exciting whispers, had been false.
Of course, he would... Wouldn’t he?
* * *
Laurel sat at the dressing table in the bedroom where she’d spent her first night as Mrs. Damian Skouras, staring at her reflection in the mirror.
She hadn’t been back in this room since then. Every night—and a lot of long, wonderful mornings and afternoons—had been spent in Damian’s bed.
Her hand trembled as she picked up a silver-backed brush and ran it over her hair.
What had gotten into her today? Damian had been married before. Well, so what? She’d had a relationship before, too, and even if Kirk hadn’t treated it as a marriage, she had. She’d been faithful, and loving, and when she’d found out that he’d deceived her, her heart couldn’t have been more broken than if she had been Mrs. Kirk Soames. She’d loved Kirk every bit as much as if—as if—
A choked cry burst from her lips and she dropped the brush and buried her face in her hands.
It wasn’t true. She’d never really loved Kirk, she knew that now. What she felt for Damian made her feelings for Kirk seem insignificant.
And that was what this afternoon’s performance had been all about, wasn’t it?
“Wasn’t it?” she whispered, lifting her head and staring at her pale face and tear-swollen eyes in the mirror.
Damian had told her he’d been married before, that it had been an impetuous marriage and hadn’t worked out, and all she’d been able to think was that he’d married her the same way, impetuously, because it had been the right thing to do.
How she’d longed for him to deny it!
I married you because I love you, she’d wanted him to say, because I’ll always love you.
But he hadn’t. He’d married her because
he wanted his child to have a father, and even though part of her knew how right, how decent, that was, another part of her longed to hear him say he’d married her for love.
She picked up the hairbrush again and stared at her reflection.
But he hadn’t. She was Damian’s wife, but not his love. She had his name, and his interest in bed, but if she made many more scenes like the one she’d made today, she probably wouldn’t even have that, and never mind the Until death do us part promise. Her mouth turned down with bitterness. She knew all about men like Damian, and promises of fidelity. Oh, yes, she knew all about—
“Laurel?”
Her gaze flew to the mirror just as the bedroom door opened. Damian stood in the doorway, wearing a terry cloth robe. She knew from the experience of the past week that he had nothing on beneath it. His hair was tousled, his eyes were dark and she wanted nothing so much as to jump up and hurl herself into his arms.
Pride and pain kept her rooted in place.
“Yes, Damian,” she said. She smiled politely, put down the brush and turned around.
“Are you feeling better?”
She’d missed dinner, pleading a headache. It would never have done to have told him the truth, that what ached was her heart.
“Much better, thank you. Eleni brought me some tea, and aspirin.”
He nodded and stepped further into the room. “It’s late.”
“Is it? I hadn’t noticed.”
He paused beside her and lifted his hand. She thought, for a moment, he was going to touch her hair and if he had, that would have been her undoing. She’d have sighed under his hand like a kitten—but he didn’t. He only reached out, straightened the dressing table mirror, then put his hand into his pocket.
“Are you coming to bed?”
Laurel turned away and looked into the mirror again. He’d asked the question so casually but then, why wouldn’t he? So far as he was concerned, her place was in his bed. Not only was she his wife, but she’d made it clear she wanted to be there. Her throat constricted as she remembered the things they’d done together in that bed.
Why was it that loving a man who didn’t love you, knowing he’d never love you, could suddenly make those things seem cheap?
“Actually,” she said, picking up the brush again, “I thought I’d sleep in here tonight.”
“In here?” he repeated, as if she’d suggested she was going to spend the night on an ice floe in the North Sea.
“Yes.” Briskly, she drew the brush through her hair. “I still have a bit of a headache.”
“Shall I phone the doctor Glass man recommended on Ctete?”
“No. No, I don’t need a doctor.”
“Are you sure? Laurel, if you’re ill—”
“I’m fine. The baby’s fine.” She smiled tightly at him in the mirror. “It’s just an old habit of mine, Damian. Sometimes, I need a night to myself. Kirk used to say—”
“Kirk?” he said, and the way he said it made her heart stop.
Don’t, she told herself, oh, don’t do this...
“A man I used to live with. Well, actually, a man I thought about marrying. Didn’t I ever tell you about him?”
“No,” he said coldly, “you did not.”
She looked into the mirror again and what she saw in his face terrified her. The brush clattered to the mirrored top of the dressing table and she swung toward him.
“Damian,” she said quickly, but it was too late. He was already at the door.
“You’re right,” he said, “a night apart might be an excellent idea for the both of us. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Damian., wait...”
Wait? He stepped into the hall and slammed the door after him. She wouldn’t want him to wait, if she knew how close he was to smashing his fist into the wall. He stormed into his bedroom, kicked the door shut, then flung open the french doors that let out onto the terrace. The black heat of the Agean night curled around him like a choking fog.
All right, so she’d lived with a man. So what? It didn’t matter a damn. She’d married him, not Kirk, whoever in hell Kirk might be.
Married him under protest. Under the threat of losing her child to him. Under the worst kind of blackmail.
Damian spun around and slammed his fist against the wall. It hurt like hell, and he winced and put his knuckles to his mouth, tasted the faint tang of blood, and wished to God it was Kirk’s blood instead of only his own. What sort of name was that, anyway? A stupid name, befitting a man foolish enough to have let Laurel go.
Any man would want her. Would desire her. Would fall in love with her.
And, just that simply, Damian saw the truth.
He loved Laurel. He loved his wife.
“I love her,” he said to the night, and then he laughed out loud.
What a fool he’d been, not to realize it sooner.
And maybe, just maybe, she loved him, too.
He lifted his face to the moonless sky, as if the answer might be there, in the blazing light of a million stars that dotted the heavens.
It would explain so much, if she did.
The softness of her, in his arms. The passion she could never hide when he touched her. Even her reaction earlier today, when he’d so clumsily told her that he’d been married before.
His heart filled with hope. Maybe what had seemed like anger had really been pain. Maybe she’d felt the same jealousy at his mention of a former lover that he’d felt at the mention of Kirk.
But if she loved him, would she have chosen to sleep alone tonight? Would she have taken such relish in telling him she’d lived with another man and almost married him?
Damian took a deep breath. He’d always prided himself on knowing how to chart a direct path from A to B, but tonight he felt as if he were going in circles.
There was only one thing to do, by God, go back into Laurel’s room, confront her, drag her from that bed if he had to, shake her silly or kiss her senseless until she told him what she felt for him...
The telephone rang. Damian cursed and snatched it up.
“Whoever you are,” he snapped, “you’d better have a damned good reason for calling.”
It was Hastings, his personal attorney, phoning from New York.
Damian sat down on the edge of the bed. Hastings was not a man given to running the risk of waking his most important client in the middle of the night.
“I’m afraid we have a problem, Mr. Skouras.”
Damian listened and, as he did, the look on his face went from dark to thunderous.
“Gabriella is suing me for breach of promise? Is she crazy? She hasn’t got a case. What do you mean, she’s going to sell her story to ‘The Gossip Line’ unless I meet her demands? Who’d give a crap about...? What’s my marriage got to do with...?” His face went white. “If she drags my wife down into the mud, so help me God, I’ll—”
Hastings spoke again. According to Gabriella. Damian had made promises. He’d said he’d marry her. He’d been not just her only lover but her first lover, since her divorce, and her last.
Damian took a stranglehold on the telephone cord. “All right,” he said abruptly, rising to his feet and shrugging off his robe. “Here’s what I want you to do.” He rattled off a string of commands. Hastings repeated them, then asked a question, and Damian glared at the phone as if he could see the attorney’s face in it. “How the hell do I know who to contact? That’s why you’re on retainer, Hastings, because you’re the legal eagle, remember? Just get the information by tomorrow. That’s right, man. Tomorrow. I’ll see you in New York.”
Rage and determination propelled him through the next few minutes. He phoned Spiro on the intercom, called his pilot on Crete—and then he hesitated.
Should he wake Laurel, to tell her he was leaving? No. Hell, no. The last thing he needed right now was to explain to his wife that his vindictive former mistress was trying to stir up trouble by selling a story to some TV gossip show featuring herself as an aban
doned lover—and Laurel as a scheming, pregnant fortune hunter.
Spiro could deal with it. The old man could tell her he’d been called to New York on urgent business. She wouldn’t like it, but how long would he be gone? A day? Two, at the most. Then he’d be back, on Actos, and he’d take his wife in his arms, tell her he loved her and pray to the gods that she would say she loved him, too. And if she didn’t—if she didn’t, he’d make her love him, dammit, he’d kiss her mouth until all memory of Kirk whoever-he-was had been wiped from her mind and her soul, and then they’d begin their lives together, all over again.
He just had to see her once, before he left. The house was quiet, as he left his room; no light spilled from beneath Laurel’s closed door. Damian opened it and slipped inside.
She lay on her back, fast asleep.
How lovely she was. And how he adored her.
“Kalí mou,” he murmured, “my beloved.”
He bent and brushed his mouth gently over hers. She stirred and breathed a soft sigh, and it was all he could do to keep from lying down beside her and gathering her into his arms.
First, though, there was Gabriella to deal with.
Damian’s jaw hardened as he left his wife’s room and quietly shut the door after him.
And deal with the bitch, he would.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LAUREL AWAKENED to bright sunlight and a memory as ethereal as a wisp of cloud.
Was it a dream, or had Damian really entered her room in the middle of the night, kissed her and called her his beloved?
It seemed so real...but it couldn’t have been. They’d quarreled, and even though he’d held out a tentative olive branch, she’d rejected it.
She sat up, pushed aside the light sheet that covered her and scrubbed her hands over her face.
Rejected his peace offering? That was putting it mildly. She’d damn near slapped his face, then rubbed his nose in her relationship with Kirk for good measure.
Laurel puffed out her breath. What on earth had possessed her? The man she loved—the only man she’d ever loved—was Damian.
She dressed quickly, with little care for how she looked. All that mattered was finding a way to rectify the damage she’d caused last night. Damian didn’t love her, not yet, but she knew that he cared for her—at least, he had, until she’d instigated that ugly scene.
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