Anger coursed through his veins. Red-hot. Relentless. And too instinctive to realise that it was also ill-advised.
He grabbed her wrist and spun her round to face him.
‘It doesn’t matter how often you remind yourself of what I am, or how hard you try to convince yourself that I’m the one whose desire is an inconvenient truth, it’s never going to go away.’
Libby’s head shot up and her heart began to pound in her ears. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘This.’
His arm came around her back to hold her steady, encouraging her to arch slightly, so that the whole column of her throat was exposed and her head lay back at the perfect angle for him to take her mouth.
It was hard, punishing, and sexy as hell.
And Libby didn’t have a clue what it meant. She tried to unravel what he’d said, but her mind was too fuzzy with desire—the desire she’d kept locked up for days, but which was now spilling out and into their kiss. It made no sense. He wasn’t supposed to desire her when she was being compliant—unless he was so frustrated that she was repressing the woman she’d been that afternoon and he wanted to let her out.
But then he broke away from her, and when the world stopped spinning she realised in horror where they were. Surrounded by the people of Metameikos, all heading towards the soaring mayoral residence before them, all witnessing their public display of affection. She blushed furiously, but it wasn’t the dent to her modesty which hurt. It was the realisation that they were the reason he’d kissed her. It stung so badly that she forgot she was supposed to be being demure.
‘Oh, of course,’ she said acidly. ‘We’re in public again.’
Rion’s mouth hardened. ‘And what? You think you can use that as an excuse to keep pretending that what’s between us isn’t real?
‘No. I think I’ve spent the last week being exactly the kind of wife you thought you wanted me to be, but it hasn’t appealed to you in the slightest.’
He looked her in the eye, knowing his comeback could be a dire mistake, but too incensed to let it go. ‘Or maybe that’s just what I let you think.’
Libby stared at him, fresh horror crashing through her, demolishing everything.
He’d known what she was trying to do, and he’d spotted that so long as he left her to it he would get exactly what he wanted—a wife ‘gracing the marital home’ for the duration of his campaign. She felt sick. How had she spent the last week failing to see that he was using her again? That light at the end of the tunnel—that glimpse of the Rion she remembered—had been a mirage after all. He did just want to control her.
‘Ah! Mr Delikaris.’ Libby spun round to see an old man who looked a bit like Father Christmas in black tie approaching them. ‘And this beautiful young woman must be your wife.’ He smiled at her benevolently.
Rion nodded. ‘This is Libby. Libby, it’s my great pleasure to introduce Georgios Tsamis.’
For the first time in her life Libby was grateful that social niceties had been so drummed into her as a child that they came naturally, even now, when her mind was in complete disarray. She held out her hand. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you.’
‘And mine to meet you,’ Georgios said sincerely. ‘And may I say—if you don’t mind—how pleased I am to hear that the two of you have recently been reunited.’ He leaned towards them with a wink. ‘What a joy it is to see two people so in love.’
Libby’s nausea rose with a vengeance. Oh, of course—Rion wouldn’t have put himself through kissing her just for the benefit of a few citizens. He must have seen the Mayor approaching from a distance and timed his move exactly.
‘The staff here will see that your bags are taken to your room,’ Georgios explained, looking over to where the valets were carefully parking cars and loading luggage onto trolleys. ‘And if you make your way through the main atrium you will see that food and drinks are being served in the Rose Garden. Anything else you need, please just ask. For the next twenty-four hours I want you to think of this as your home.’
‘Thank you.’ Rion smiled, pressing his hand stiffly into the small of Libby’s back. ‘I’m sure we will.’
‘Wonderful.’ Georgios beamed. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me…’ He looked a little sheepish. ‘Mr and Mrs Spyros have just arrived.’
Rion’s face was the picture of civility. ‘Of course.’ He nodded, motioning for him to go ahead and take his leave.
‘How convenient that Georgios is such a poor judge of character,’ Libby hissed as they walked through the main house towards the garden. ‘Else it would have been obvious that I’m only here because you’re blackmailing me.’
Rion’s whole body tensed. He glanced around to check whether anyone else was in earshot, but thankfully no one seemed to have heard. Yet. Gamoto! Thanks to his damned pride, he’d tripled the risk of having her here—and for what?
He swooped on two glasses of rosé from the tray of a passing waitress, handed one to Libby, and took a large gulp of his own. But just as he was about to attempt some serious damage control, Eurycleia came bounding towards them.
‘Oh, how delightful to see you both!’ She kissed them both affectionately on each cheek. ‘Now, I know you’ve probably got a hundred important people to see this evening, but I just had to come over and see that you’re well.’ She furrowed her brow in motherly concern. ‘Is there anything you need? I can bring round some more biscuits if you’re short. I’d only need to pop in for a minute—’
‘Thank you for the kind offer,’ Rion interrupted, ‘but Libby’s been keeping us fully stocked in the biscuit department.’
Eurycleia clapped her hands together in delight. ‘Oh, but of course—just as it should be.’ She turned back to Rion. ‘Though you mustn’t let her spend too much time in the kitchen. A woman must have her own life too, you know.’
‘My thoughts exactly,’ Libby replied gravely. ‘And I have no doubt that Rion will soon have every reason to beg for your return.’
Rion scowled at her as Eurycleia’s face lit up.
‘You just enjoy your time off,’ he said gruffly, then tilted his head to look at the man watching her from across the lawn with a twinkle in his eye. ‘I don’t doubt Petros is keeping you busy.’
Eurycleia looked back at him and rolled her eyes affectionately. ‘I dare say he is.’
‘He looks as though he really dotes on you,’ Libby added. She’d meant it to come out jovially, but she could hear the wistfulness in her own voice. Thankfully, neither Eurycleia nor Rion seemed to notice.
‘Oh, he’s just come over all protective because I’ve been talking to that charming young man who works for you,’ Eurycleia said to Rion. ‘Now, what’s his name…? Stephanos? Yes, that’s it. He was telling me how you and he-who-I-shan’t-even-name are now neck and neck in the opinion polls. I mean, really, as if a young man like that is going to be interested in me!’
She threw her hands in the air in exasperation, and then clapped them back together again.
‘Oh, listen to me—waffling on. I’ve already taken up too much of your precious time.’ She reached out to squeeze their hands in turn. ‘If you need anything, you know where to find me.’ She winked, held up two sets of crossed fingers, and then scuttled back across the lawn.
Libby watched her go, taking in the garden’s swirling mix of fairylights and flowers for the first time. It reminded her of some of the parties her parents had held in the grounds of Ashworth Manor—the ones where they’d invited every wealthy family in the south of England with sons about her age. But here there was no such discrimination; the designer-clad of the new town were mixed with the home-made Sunday best of the old town, exactly the way she would have preferred those other parties to have been. Yes, she recognised that some people didn’t look a hundred per cent comfortable in their surroundings, but save for a few of Spyros’s clan everyone seemed to be making the effort to mingle.
In fact, it looked exactly what it was supposed to be: a celebration of democ
racy. Except it wasn’t, was it? she thought miserably. Democracy was about the freedom to choose, but the people of Metameikos had no choice. This election was between one deceptive, power-hungry fat cat and another; she had no doubt about that now. And she couldn’t bear the thought of being a part of it.
She took a swig of wine from the glass in her hand and turned back to face him. ‘I told you from the start, Rion, I’m not prepared to lie for you. Especially when as far as I can see you’re no better than Spyros.’
Rion gritted his teeth. ‘I’m not asking you to lie for me.’
‘You’re asking me to stand by your side and look like I want to be there. That’s a lie.’
‘Is it?’ he murmured scathingly. ‘It didn’t feel like you ever wanted to be anywhere else when you were making love to me.’
Libby shook her head wretchedly. ‘And that became a lie the second you used it as nothing more than an aid to your campaign.’
Rion’s anger turned to puzzlement, and then his face stilled. ‘When I rang the office I told them I’d missed the call because the meeting overran, that was all.’
Her cheeks flushed. God, she wanted to believe him. But how could she? He’d say whatever it took to stop her from leaving, from ruining his chances of success. He had done so from the start.
‘No.’ She shook her head again, more fiercely, and felt her whole body begin to sway from side to side. She took a step backwards, but he grabbed onto her wrist and pressed his lips to her ear.
‘You want honesty, Libby? The truth is this isn’t about the election, or what it says about our marriage on paper. This is about you and me. It always has been—’
‘No!’ She wrenched herself away from him so fiercely that a sharp pain shot through her shoulder. She’d believed that for so long, but tonight just proved that was the biggest lie of all. ‘I can’t do this, Rion!’
She had to go. If she didn’t, her poor battered heart might never recover.
She was surprised he didn’t haul her back and physically bar her escape, but as she began to dart through the crowds, clattering her half-empty wine glass onto a passing silver tray, she supposed it made sense. Holding his wife by force would do even more damage to his precious reputation than her absence altogether.
She didn’t know where she was going, except to somewhere wide and free and as far from him as possible—which meant away from here. But, just as she was about to run into the main house and back through the door they’d used to come in, she spotted a side passage by a laurel tree, to the far left of the building, which had initially been obscured as she’d crossed the garden. From this angle, it looked as if it would lead back to the road a lot more quickly, and cut out the possibility of her running into anyone she knew.
She quickly made her way towards it, but just as she was about to turn into the passageway she heard hushed voices and stopped dead in her tracks.
‘Come on—I hardly think pocket money is going to cut it. I’ll have to close their precious museum and turf at least fifty of them out of their homes.’
It took her a few moments to place it, but as she concealed herself alongside the tree she realised that the sly, unpleasant voice belonged to Spyros.
Ever so slowly, clutching on to the trunk so that she could lean forward without making a sound, Libby peered down the passageway. She could just make out a lanky man she didn’t recognise removing a roll of notes from the inside of his jacket pocket and adding it to the bulge already in his hand.
‘That’s more like it,’ Spyros declared lustily.
The man continued to cling onto the cash, despite Spyros’s outstretched palm. ‘And the planning permission?’ he said expectantly.
‘Will be on your desk by the end of the week.’
The man looked annoyed. ‘And what if you are no longer in charge of Metameikos by the end of this week?’
Libby saw Spyros flinch and run his chubby forefinger around the back of his collar.
‘You think I’m worried about Delikaris?’ He forced a laid-back laugh. ‘A boy from the slums who thinks a new hospital will bring back his brother?’
Libby’s eyes widened in disbelief. Brother? What brother?
‘But even Stamos said he was beginning to think that—’
‘Do you want to build your luxury apartments or not?
Libby strained to hear, strained not to cough.
And then suddenly a hand grasped her waist from behind.
CHAPTER TEN
LIBBY gave a yelp as she was lifted off the ground, limbs thrashing helplessly. But as her assailant dragged her past the laurel tree and through a gate in the wall an unmistakable scent filled her nostrils. Rion’s.
‘Put me down!’ She struggled out of his grip, her relief swiftly turning to anger. ‘I just saw something!’
She tried to dart back through the gate of the smaller walled garden they now found themselves in, but Rion placed his hands on her upper arms, easily restraining her. ‘I guessed.’
‘Spyros,’ she said breathlessly, ‘taking a bribe…to pass planning permission for some luxury apartments…in the old town.’
His face remained unmoved. ‘Like I said, he’s corruption personified.’
‘If we go back now I can tell everyone what I’ve seen!’
Rion said nothing, simply continued to hold her there. She found it so maddening that she tried to push past him a second time. But when he held her firm again she forced herself to question why, and suddenly it was obvious.
Running back into the main garden screaming treason at the eleventh hour would do more harm to Rion’s reputation than to Spyros’s. The fastest, most effective way of putting an end to his corruption wasn’t to slander him, it was to beat him in the polls.
Libby’s eyes remained on Rion’s face, dimly illuminated in the pale moonlight. Ten minutes ago she hadn’t been able to bear the thought of staying here a second longer, had believed it would make no difference who won. But now she had unequivocal proof that Spyros was everything Rion said he was. And Rion?
She took a deep breath, hating that she had to ask such a basic question of the man she’d been married to for five years. ‘Spyros said something else too…something about you having a brother.’
‘What about my brother?’ he shot out, his voice loaded with venom.
So it was true. Part of her heart soared at the possibility that he was driven by something other than just power and success. The other part wished it had been a lie, because it proved that even now there was still so much they didn’t know about one another. But most of all she wished it wasn’t true because she could see the pain in his eyes and it tore at her heart.
She chose her words carefully. ‘He said you wanted to build the new hospital because of him.’
Rion said nothing, simply continued to stare out into the darkness.
‘It’s true, then?’ she ventured after several moments.
He gritted his teeth. Thanks to that creep Spyros it looked as if he had no choice but to tell her, did he? Not that it mattered. It wasn’t as if he could fall any lower in her estimation. Besides, she’d already made up her mind that she was leaving.
He nodded sharply. ‘His name was Jason. We were twins.’
Twins? They’d been even more than brothers, then. Libby looked up into his face. It felt as if she was seeing him for the first time. ‘What happened?’
‘He caught pneumonia the winter we both turned twelve.’ He mistook her frown of sorrow for one of incomprehension. ‘Mum, Jason and I—my father left before we were even born—shared a place with another family. Eurycleia’s,’ he explained abruptly. ‘It was damp, freezing cold, and a wonder any of us survived.’
Libby’s eyes fluttered down to meet her cheeks. Whilst you grew up in the log-fire warmth of Ashworth Manor, she added to herself, knowing that was what he was thinking and suddenly racked with guilt for ever bemoaning her upbringing. Was that why he’d always coveted the house where he lived now? Not because it
was the most luxurious in Metameikos but because it was the perfect family home?
‘We took him to hospital, where we were told to wait,’ Rion continued, his voice loaded with bitterness. ‘And we waited. Whilst every other patient, no matter how trivial their condition, nor what time they’d arrived, was seen before us. On the third day Jason was the only one left in the waiting room. But the doctors still refused to see him.’
Libby winced as the grossly inappropriate sound of laughter from the party drifted over the wall.
‘They wanted their palms greased. Believed, I suppose, that my mother would find the money.’ He shook his head. ‘She worked day and night for a pittance, just to be able to feed and clothe us. She had nothing to give but a few coins and a mother’s love, and no friends or relatives with anything more.’ A look of pain began to cloud Rion’s eyes. ‘In her desperation she did the only thing she could think of. She went to Spyros’s father—the leader of Metameikos at the time—to beg for help.’ The look of torment was instantly replaced by one of loathing. ‘He told her that life, like everything else, had a price. He was right. Jason died right there in the waiting room.’
Libby’s heart twisted in empathy. She wanted to go to him and wrap her arms around him, but he was looking at her as if there was no way she could ever understand. And in a way maybe she couldn’t.
‘My mother almost died of grief,’ he went on. ‘I believe that was what killed her in the end, but it would have happened ten years earlier if we’d stayed here. Eurycleia’s husband worked on the docks; he helped us stow away to England.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Libby whispered, but the words had never seemed more inadequate. She was sorry for so much: that he’d been through all that; that her assumptions about why he was doing this had been so far off the mark; that she hadn’t given him her support when his motives were so admirable.
Rion looked at her resentfully. ‘I don’t want your pity, Libby.’
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