by Lynne Graham
‘It’s too late for lies.’ His rich dark accented drawl roughened the tenor of that warning. ‘You must’ve known there were two wills. You played a starring role in your grandmother’s revenge because she made it financially worth your while to do so.’
Ophelia was shattered that he could suspect her of having been a party to her grandmother’s deception from the outset. ‘That’s not true. For a start, she didn’t confide in me and I—’
‘You’re wasting your time trying to act innocent—’
‘For goodness’ sake, it’s not an act! Why should I have known that there was another will? How could I have guessed that?’ Dry-mouthed, Ophelia lifted what she thought was a bottle of water from the bar set up in one corner and filled a glass to drink. But when the liquid hit her throat, her eyes watered and she had to swallow fast and painfully to ward off an embarrassing fit of coughing and spluttering, because what she had mistaken for water was actually alcohol.
His lean, tanned face harsh, Lysander watched his bride knock back a large shot of neat vodka. He recalled her prim insistence that she did not drink and he wondered how he had believed for one second that he could trust her.
‘You’re misjudging me,’ Ophelia told him steadfastly.
‘I don’t think so.’
Lysander had a hauteur that even royalty would have been challenged to equal and he did derision to the manner born as well. Stung raw by his cold look of incredulity, Ophelia wanted to shout, while at the same time wanting to squirm. With taut hands she opened a genuine bottle of water to rinse the acrid taste of alcohol from her mouth. ‘Believe me, I knew nothing about any of this,’ she argued. ‘I was never that close to my grandmother.’
‘You were close enough for her to leave you everything she possessed. All you had to do to win that prize was play along with her warped plans and go through with marrying me.’
Ophelia spun angrily back to him. ‘You’re the one who asked me to marry you! How can you accuse me of having plotted this?’
‘Easily. Even your parrot is obsessed with revenge,’ Lysander derided.
Her crystalline eyes flared. ‘Just you leave Haddock out of this!’
His deep, dark eyes were cold as the depths of a river. ‘Let’s cut to the bottom line—how much will it cost me to buy the house from you?’
Colouring beneath the contempt etched in his lean strong face, Ophelia flung her golden head high. ‘I’m not even sure I’m willing to sell it any more!’
His worst expectations and darkest suspicions confirmed by that statement, Lysander murmured something sibilant in Greek. The tense silence hung like a sheet of glass about to crash.
‘Everything’s changed!’ Ophelia was struggling not to be intimidated by his mood and the daunting force of will he emanated. ‘And it’s not my fault.’
‘Isn’t it?’ Lysander breathed. ‘Even your supposed reluctance to marry me was faked to allay any suspicions I might have had of your motives.’
‘I didn’t fake anything! My grandmother fooled me as well and landed me into this mess with you!’ Ophelia flung back with spirit.
‘But it’s a very lucrative mess from your point of view. You qualified for your inheritance and you’ll profit even more from the pre-nuptial contract you signed with me.’
Eyes bright with anger, Ophelia snatched in a sustaining breath. ‘I wasn’t planning on accepting that cash…actually—’
Lysander loosed a derisive laugh. ‘I liked you better when you were honest about your love of money.’
‘Oh, did you indeed? So you’re still fully convinced that I’m a thoroughly grasping little gold-digger, are you?’ Her nails biting into her palms, Ophelia shot him a look of seething resentment.
Black-lashed metallic eyes rested on her in cutting consideration. ‘You said it, glikia mou.’
Temper shot through Ophelia’s slender frame like an adrenalin charge, since there was no way that she could prove that she hadn’t known about the two wills. He infuriated her and the urge to outdo him and have the last word ruled supreme. She was fed up with being pushed around and insulted. She had apologised, she had tried to explain and he wasn’t interested. Well, she was done with being humble with this guy, who had now accused her of being a fraud, a liar and a cheat! If he wanted to believe that she was an evil, greedy schemer, he was welcome to.
‘Well, that’s all right then,’ Ophelia fired back full throttle. ‘I’ll rip you off for every penny I can get because that’s exactly what you deserve!’
‘You can try.’ A dark light had kindled in Lysander’s bronze gaze. Her defiance, allied with that overconfident admission, hurled the kind of challenge that no woman had ever dared to give him. He was used to soft words and submission, flattery and feminine coaxing.
‘You’re a bad loser.’ Ophelia was in no mood to take back her angry words. Just then the guise of a gutsy gold-digger seemed infinitely preferable to continuing to whine that she had known nothing about anything. Anyway, what use was the truth with a guy who refused to listen?
‘Naturally. But be warned, I’m superb at turning a losing hand into a winning one,’ Lysander countered smooth as glass.
‘I’m going upstairs to get out of this stupid dress!’ Ophelia flung back at him, out of all patience.
An urgent knock sounded on the door into the outer hall. As it was already lying open, Ophelia wondered who had been outside listening to the bridal couple fight like cat and dog and she reddened. A heavily built older man with a troubled expression appeared on the threshold. He gave her a respectful nod of acknowledgement and then turned to address Lysander in a voluble flood of Greek. Ophelia walked away—while Lysander discovered that the bad news wasn’t over yet.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘OPHELIA!’ Lysander growled just as Ophelia reached the top of the carved staircase. ‘Come down.’
For a split second, Ophelia hesitated. That note of command bit at her resolve. But she was now in full resistance mode to Metaxis authority and so she sped on. She reminded herself that she wasn’t really and truly married to Lysander, except on paper, and every passing minute was giving her another good reason to celebrate that truth.
‘Game over,’ Lysander breathed rawly, striding past her to block her passage down the corridor.
‘Games are fun…being married to you is anything but!’ Ophelia hurled back. ‘Now get out of my way!’
‘I have questions I want answered,’ Lysander imparted.
‘What you want isn’t always what you get—let me past.’
Lysander stayed where he was, his lean muscular frame as large, still and formidable as a cliff face. The atmosphere hummed.
Enraged at his persistence, Ophelia tried to sidestep him, but when he remained in her path she gave him a tiny meaningful push. In answer to that very restrained hint that he remove himself at speed, Lysander closed his hands round her waist and lifted her right off her feet.
‘Put me down!’ Ophelia shouted at the top of her voice, feeling remarkably foolish with her legs dangling.
‘Not until you cool off.’ Arms outstretched as he held her back from him, Lysander studied her with icy self-containment.
‘You’re behaving like a bully!’ Ophelia snapped furiously across the narrow divide that separated them.
‘You assaulted me,’ Lysander drawled, lush ebony lashes low above eyes that were blaze-bronze.
Ophelia was thoroughly disconcerted by that reminder. She collided with his smouldering gaze and it was as if all the air that there was to breathe had suddenly burned up in the atmosphere. Warmth curled through her in an enervating surge that scared her. ‘I’m calm,’ she framed, taken aback by a physical response that even rage couldn’t suppress.
Lysander lowered her to the floor again with exaggerated care. Anger was storming around like a caged animal inside him. He had planned to confine the marriage to one tiny compartment of his life and now that convenient arrangement was no longer possible. Even worse, he would h
ave to maintain the pretence for the benefit of his family. ‘The grounds are crawling with paparazzi,’ he imparted.
‘Papa-what? Oh, those photographers that chase celebrities,’ Ophelia mumbled, her brows having pleated in momentary mystification. ‘What are they doing here? Oh, right, they followed you down from London—’
His scorching eyes were welded to her. ‘No. Try again.’
‘Try what?’
‘Acting dumb. So far you’re not being very convincing.’
‘What are you trying to insinuate?’ Ophelia took the opportunity to snake past him with the agility of an eel. ‘Well, I’m not listening to one more nonsensical word!’
As Ophelia thrust open the door of her bedroom Lysander closed a hand like a steel manacle round her narrow wrist.
‘Tomorrow the newspapers will be full of the story of our marriage,’ he breathed in a wrathful undertone.
Wide-eyed, Ophelia turned back to look at him, his imprisoning hold forgotten. ‘Did they find out about the two wills as well?’
‘No. Only that we got married today, which is more than sufficient.’
‘But how did it get out? I mean, we’ve taken such care—’
Lysander studied her with sizzling force. ‘Stamitos, my head of security, already has a suspect and it isn’t anyone in my employ. The story was leaked by someone who knew the score. The woman who lives in the gatehouse—your friend…’
‘Pamela Arnold? What’s she got to do with this?’
‘She has a brother who works on a tabloid newspaper.’
‘Yes, but she hardly ever sees him.’ But dismay at that reminder had frozen Ophelia to the spot and she had paled. Although she had sworn her friend to secrecy, she was painfully aware that Pamela had found the entire wedding scenario, not to mention Lysander’s wealth, hugely exciting. Nobody loved to talk more than Pamela. Could her friend have accidentally let information slip in the wrong quarter?
‘By tomorrow morning the whole world will know that I have taken a wife.’
‘I really don’t think the whole world is likely to be that interested.’ An uneasy conscience, however, ensured that Ophelia’s comeback was less feisty than usual. Then her thoughts were sidetracked by the startling discovery that her bedroom looked unfamiliar—the bed had been stripped and her possessions were no longer in view. ‘Where have my things gone?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Half my stuff has vanished from my room!’
‘Wives don’t sleep on the other side of the house.’
Her hackles came up, since nobody had consulted her on what she assumed to be a move to another bedroom. ‘I’m not a wife.’
‘You are now and it’s obvious that the status of being my wife is what you wanted all along.’ His lean, tanned face granite hard, Lysander turned her back to him. ‘Clearly you planned the maximum possible exposure for our marriage in the media.’
Ophelia discovered that she was fighting a very irrational urge to giggle. Just at that instant she didn’t feel she could have planned her way out of an open space. The alcohol she had imbibed had gone straight to her head, for she had had nothing to eat since breakfast. ‘You’re so distrustful—of course I didn’t plan it! Why would I have wanted people to know about this crazy arrangement?’
‘So that you could become my wife in reality.’
‘In reality? Meaning?’ Ophelia queried as he strode down the passage, trailing her willy-nilly in his wake.
Lysander swung into the Long Gallery. ‘Plan B is about to go into operation.’
‘Plan B? Where on earth are you taking me?’
Lysander thrust wide the door of Madrigal Court’s principal bedroom. The huge room had not been used by Ophelia’s family, who had found the Victorian wing at the back of the house easier to heat. Now a fire leapt and glowed in the giant grate below the stone chimneypiece, sending shadows snaking and flickering over the oak-panelled walls. A fabulous four-poster bed, wholly in keeping with the feudal splendour of the new décor, sat centre stage.
Ophelia had never been the slightest bit domesticated. She was untouched by any desire to rearrange the furniture or shop for new curtains, but she had occasionally been conscious of a wistful yearning for her surroundings to be warmer, more comfortable and inviting. Now she stared in astonishment at the imposing bed, draped in flamboyant golden fabric.
‘Your employees have contrived the most amazing transformation. I’ve been so busy in the garden I haven’t had the chance to keep up with all the improvements.’ Her smooth brow indented. ‘Why did you bring me in here?’
‘This is our room.’
‘Our…room?’
Lysander shot Ophelia a long, lingering appraisal that made her skin prickle. ‘The marital bedroom.’
‘We don’t have a marital bedroom because, well…what would we do with one?’ An uneasy laugh was wrenched from Ophelia, who was recalling his crack about the sort of boots he liked a woman to wear. She really didn’t like his sense of humour.
‘All the usual things, glikia mou,’ Lysander murmured lazily. ‘Not much else to do at this season in the country and at least it would keep us warm.’
‘Let me get this straight…you are expecting me to share a room with you?’ Ophelia gasped.
Grim amusement gripped Lysander. She was amazingly good at acting the naïve country girl while simultaneously contriving to look quite extraordinarily beautiful. ‘Even if our marriage had remained our secret we would still have had to share a room when I was here. How else could we ever have pretended that it was a normal marriage?’
Ophelia was bemused. ‘But I had no idea you were expecting me to share a room with you!’
‘We have an agreement.’
‘Yes, but everything has changed now—’
‘Only the will. You are still my wife and, since that is no longer a secret, we are much more married than I ever expected to be,’ Lysander delineated with cold emphasis.
Discomfited pink winged across her cheeks. ‘Yes, I appreciate that.’
Lifting a lean, elegant hand, Lysander skimmed the troubled pout of her upper lip with a careless fingertip. ‘Do you?’
Her colour fluctuated and her tummy turned a somersault. The deeper note in his rich dark drawl reverberated down her taut spine. It took conscious effort not to lean closer and invite further contact. ‘Other people knowing about us will make a difference.’
‘More than a difference. Marriage has never been on my to-do list. I enjoy my freedom,’ Lysander continued, ‘but for the foreseeable future I have no choice other than to behave like a newly married man.’
Now Ophelia sensed the inner tempest of the emotions that he had previously kept hidden; neither Gladys’s second will nor the paparazzi had provoked him into a loss of temper. Firelight gilded his eyes to pure gold and threw his strong bone structure into prominence. He was a natural born predator, she reflected helplessly, and as dazzling and dangerous as a glossy jungle cat in his prime. Even when every inner alarm bell was urging her to back off she couldn’t bring herself to do it.
‘I’m surprised you have so much respect for the conventions.’
‘Only in that one field, glikia mou.’ Lysander slid long brown fingers into her hair and eased her up against him with a calm belied by the heat of his gaze. He was already fiercely aroused: he wanted her. The angrier she made him, the more he wanted her and the more determined he became to stamp her as his. He didn’t understand the connection but he didn’t waste any time thinking about it either. Any thought and any desire that had a sexual angle was self-explanatory and absolutely natural in Lysander’s opinion.
Her heart was pounding, her breath fluttering in her throat. As her slim body connected with his hard muscular frame a dozen pulse points of desire were ignited. She was so tense her lower limbs felt numb and she had to dig her fingers into his shoulder to stay upright. A battle was being fought inside her. She knew she should retreat but the bold challenge of his br
onze eyes and the sweet taunting heaviness low in her pelvis kept her where she was.
He brought his sensual mouth slowly down to hers. Impatience grabbed her and she strained up to him on tiptoe without even thinking about it. A husky laugh sounded low in his throat. In a total change of approach, he plundered her mouth with a passion that left her dizzy. The erotic thrust of his tongue made her tremble and cling, response leaping through her with firecracker energy.
Between driving kisses, Lysander shed his tie and shrugged out of his jacket. He closed his hands over hers and tugged her towards the bed.
Doubtful, Ophelia said anxiously, ‘This can’t be right—’
‘Theos—what could be more right?’ Lysander reasoned. ‘This is our wedding night.’
That truth silenced her for an instant. ‘But I don’t feel married.’
‘You soon will.’ His arrogant dark head bent and he pried her lips apart for another heady taste that made her senses swim.
‘But you think I’m a liar and a ch-cheat,’ she stammered.
Lysander angled a wolfish smile down at her. ‘Nothing’s perfect in this world.’
His smile had a charisma that welded her gaze to his lean, darkly handsome features. ‘Be serious. I don’t even like you!’
Lysander laughed out loud. ‘But you want me the same way I want you. From the first look the first day you saw me, yineka mou.’
The awesome truth of that instant contradiction cut through Ophelia’s protests like a knife. The hunger had started in the same second she had first laid eyes on him. An unsettling, embarrassing, maddening hunger that bore no resemblance to anything she had ever felt before. It was a visceral reaction that had nothing to do with conscious consideration. In any case, she registered in belated acknowledgement, he was never absent from her thoughts for longer than a few minutes. Just when had she become so obsessed with him?