by Lynne Graham
Tally grimaced at that frank admission. ‘I’m not in the dark. I met Oleia once and it was a memorable occasion. There’s not much she wouldn’t do to get Sander back, so I’m not surprised there’s gossip doing the rounds.’
‘This is more serious than gossip. There’s a rumour that there’s a child,’ Cosima almost whispered.
‘A child?’ Tally gave her pretty sibling an arrested look and her eyes widened with disbelief. ‘Sander and Oleia’s? That’s outrageous. Of course there isn’t a child!’
‘If you’re sure.’
There was an angry sparkle now in Tally’s green eyes. ‘Of course I’m sure. Where did you hear this ridiculous rumour?’
‘I heard my father discussing it with my mother. Before you ask, he had no idea whether it was true or not and I was forbidden from mentioning it to you or anyone else,’ Cosima confided with a grimace. ‘He was furious I’d overheard their conversation.’
Renewed shock had made Tally’s heartbeat thud so loudly in her ears that she thought it might stop dead and never start again. The reference to Anatole, whom she knew to be a fertile source of all kinds of confidential information in Greek society, disturbed her. Naturally she had no very clear idea of what Sander had been doing during their separation, but she was convinced that an ambition to father a child with Oleia Telis would not have featured. Nor, considering his feelings for his one-time girlfriend, could she credit that he would have chosen to get involved with the glamorous brunette again.
In fact, self-evidently, Cosima was repeating a nasty, malicious rumour and Tally considered herself to be too sensible to pay heed to that sort of nonsense. Someone knew about Oleia’s obsession with Sander and had spitefully put that together with the fact that Sander’s first child had been stillborn. What other connection could there be? She did not think she had ever heard a more unpleasant piece of gossip!
‘I just thought that if it was me in your position, I’d want to know,’ Cosima told her silent companion awkwardly in the humming silence. ‘Oh, Tally, should I have kept quiet?’
Tally assured her half-sister that it was only a silly story and not worth getting upset about. She hoped the hollow note in her own voice was not recognisable. Keen to seem impervious to what she had been told, she remarked on how hungry she was and ordered a snack for lunch, only to push it round the plate, praying that Cosima was too intent talking about her latest boyfriend to notice that Tally had mislaid her supposedly healthy appetite.
Obviously the reference to a child was manufactured twaddle to add drama to the scandals that had once dogged Sander’s every footstep as a single man. All the same, Tally reasoned, it was not unlikely that Sander might have met up with the beautiful Greek girl again and not impossible that the attraction between them could have revived. Her glass held like a shield in a white-knuckled grip, Tally sipped her wine and thought and fretted about Sander, whom she loved with an all-consuming passion that sometimes scared her …
Sander, who often did the unexpected and whose thoughts and actions she could never second-guess. Sander, who could be as volatile as petrol sprayed on a blazing fire …
CHAPTER SIX
ON THE flight back to London on his private jet, Sander was served with a tasty early dinner. He felt like the condemned man being presented with a last meal and eventually nudged the plate away untouched.
Lili was an unforgettable presence because she cried throughout the flight. The combined attentions of her nanny and the cabin crew made no impression on her and the playful sallies and compliments the baby attracted soon dried up. Regardless of whether she was held, rocked or fed, Lili sobbed inconsolably. Sander decided the child needed a doctor to check her over and possibly a nanny with a more nurturing approach. Lili had not inherited her mother’s cute factor and her incessant crying and seeming unresponsiveness to her handlers would have taxed the patience of even the keenest carer. But it was first and foremost his job to look out for her needs, he recognised grimly.
Tally would never forgive him.
The thought sliced like a rapier through his brain, shooting him back on target to reality with a stinging jolt. Sander drew in a shuddering breath and bolted down another whisky without appreciating the flavour of its rare vintage. He had to tell Tally about Lili before someone else did because Lili’s existence would unleash the kind of feverish speculation that the gossip columnists and, it had to be admitted, many of his friends revelled in. But how could he tell his wife that he had fathered a baby by another woman after their own child had died? It would be too cruel to tell her such a thing, yet to remain silent was equally impossible. No, he decided heavily, there was no escaping the inevitable and there were no adequate words to describe such a departure from good taste and acceptable behaviour.
Tally had made a conscious effort to get home early that afternoon in order to dress up for Sander’s return. When she was a teenager she’d had a different attitude, deeming the urge to put on an artificial show for a man degrading. But she had learned to think differently while married, once she’d seen how a glimpse of sensual lingerie or a revealing outfit could light a fire in Sander’s eyes that he couldn’t control. It had given her a taste of feminine power that she liked very much. And, in the vicinity of a male who could leave her dry-mouthed and breathless with one winging glance, she had enjoyed that sense of equality.
Of course, lighting fires carried the obvious cost of extinguishing them again, she acknowledged with pink cheeks as she chose a dress made of a stretchy purple fabric that moulded the swell of her breasts and hips and slid her feet into velvet open-toed stilettos. Cosima’s tale had seriously rattled the bars of the cage that held her insecurity. Tally could have done without the knowledge that a rapacious beauty like Oleia was out there ready to move in and take full advantage of Sander’s relatively recent availability. Sander was a very attractive, very wealthy, man and the promises inherent in the wedding rings they had once worn had been damaged by their separation. This time around Tally felt that she could not afford to take anything for granted. It would take time and effort to build the bonds of trust again. And, in the short term, she could not take Sander out of circulation, she could only hope that he valued their marriage enough to respect it.
Sander knew exactly what he was going to say when he got home; well, he knew it right up until he walked into the bedroom where Tally, one stiletto heel braced on a chair, was straightening a gleaming silk stocking the colour of a freshwater pearl on a slender thigh. Stockings and suspenders really did it for him but she rarely wore them because she found them uncomfortable. The startling surge of response in his groin as he glimpsed the taut strip of fine fabric between her thighs sent his brain reeling into a plunge bath of sensual awareness that did nothing to sharpen his wits. He knew an invitation when he got one and he almost groaned out loud in his frustration because he knew he dared not touch her just then: but, conversely, he also knew he might never touch her again once he had finished telling her what she had to be told. The reflection threatened to tear him in two with rare indecision.
‘Sander … I assumed you’d be later than this.’ As she met the stunning golden gaze welded to her with such explicit appreciation a hot ache stirred low in Tally’s pelvis. Sander was watching her intently from the threshold of the room. With an impatient hand he thrust the door open wider, striding in and angling a hip back against the door to close it: a lean powerful figure in a designer suit with hard bronzed features and eyes full of predatory fire. Her Greek husband was all male and irresistible. His attention did not once waver from her and she trembled with pronounced awareness. He was so damn beautiful he made her skin tighten over her bones, her heartbeat thump like a panic alarm shrieking through her treacherous body. She understood why Oleia had never got over losing him and knew she intended to hang onto him, whatever it took.
‘The jet got an earlier take-off slot … love the stockings,’ Sander husked, coming to a halt and lifting the leg she had lowered to b
race it back on the edge of the chair again. ‘Loved the view of you standing there. Like my every fantasy brought to life even more, yineka mou.’
The brush of his fingertips against her thigh made her shiver. She stared up at him, raspberry tinted lips slightly parted, and he bent his handsome dark head and tasted her mouth with hungry driving brevity. It only made her want his mouth more and she lifted a hand to snare it in the springy depths of his black hair and draw him back to her again. He kissed her with devastating urgency while he trailed long brown fingers up the length of her raised leg, sliding below the hem of her dress and pushing it out of his path. Knowing that if she looked down she would see her knickers exposed, she felt shameless, but her body was pulsing on red alert. A fingertip skated over the most sensitive area of her entire body and she stopped breathing, time suspended as he lingered on the tiny cluster of nerve endings that controlled her. He released her mouth long enough for her to moan in response and watched her as she pushed against his teasing hand.
‘I want you so much,’ Sander admitted in a roughened undertone, tugging the thin band of silk away from her overheated flesh.
He cast off his jacket, wrenched loose his tie and dropped down on his knees. She made a muffled sound of protest, which he ignored as he trailed down her knickers with determined hands. The first brush of his tongue at the moist heart of her sent a violent shiver of response through her and he closed supportive hands to the backs of her thighs, gently but firmly easing her back against the bed until she folded down backwards on it.
Tally lay back, legs spread, feeling wanton, her hands clutching into the bedspread below her fingers. Sander teased her with his mouth and tongue and a kind of strangled gasp escaped her, arousal shoving surge after surge of heat through her trembling length. Her body went out of control incredibly fast and she hit a shattering climax that roared through her like a tornado.
Seconds later, Sander sank into her still frantically aroused body and she could not resist the hunger he reignited. She was conscious of her intense pleasure when he reached the same completion in the circle of her arms. Afterwards she lay against him listening to the solid reassuring thump of his heart beneath her cheek while her limp body still hummed from a surfeit of excitement.
‘The only really sensible thing I ever did in my life was marry you,’ Sander muttered shakily, his broad chest heaving as he struggled to catch his breath again.
‘And even then my father had to twist your arm to get you to the altar,’ Tally could not resist reminding him.
Brilliant dark eyes welded to her flushed face, Sander closed his arms round her in a crushing embrace and pressed his mouth to her smooth brow in a soothing benediction. Marmalade strands of hair tickled his chin. ‘He didn’t do you a favour, yineka mou.’
A little surprised by that uncharacteristic burst of self-mockery, Tally luxuriated in his affection and wrapped her arms round him.
Sander released her to sit up. ‘I need a shower.’
Closing his bleak gaze, he sprang off the bed without further ado to head into the bathroom. Reality had reasserted its cruel hold on him. When he reappeared still towelling himself dry, Tally was dozing and he leant down to shake her awake.
‘What?’
‘Get dressed. We need to talk about stuff … you and I,’ he extended flatly.
The rarity of such an announcement from Sander, who never talked about anything relationship-orientated if he could avoid it, sent Tally’s sleepy eyes flying back open. She pushed up on an elbow and frowned at him. ‘Talk?’
Sander nodded silently as though he had already used up his entire allotted vocabulary for the day. His lean strong face was taut and grim, his handsome mouth compressed.
A chill ran through Tally. ‘Something’s wrong,’ she guessed.
‘I probably shouldn’t have taken you to bed,’ Sander conceded, a line of dark colour accentuating the stunning slant of his cheekbones. ‘But I couldn’t resist the temptation.’
Tally, engaged in peeling off the stockings, which, now they’d worked their magic, she was keen to dispense with, shot him a troubled glance. ‘Is this serious?’
His gaze avoided hers and she could see that he was paler than usual below his golden skin tone. ‘Very. I’ll wait for you downstairs.’
Tally had the fastest shower on record while she ran through all the possible bad things that could have happened to bring that austere aspect to her husband’s handsome dark face. Sander was usually bombproof, untouched by the colossal insecurities that afflicted other less confident personalities, so she discarded the idea that he might be exaggerating the situation. Could it be a business disaster? Business was the most important element in Sander’s world and if anything went wrong he would regard it as a personal failing, which he would feel duty bound to confess. A major row with his father? A necessary parting of the ways?
If he had had to leave Volakis Shipping, he would undoubtedly have to rethink his financial outgoings, she reflected ruefully—her pensive gaze scanning the undeniable luxury of her surroundings. Sander had considerable pride, and retrenchment would strike him as humiliation. But Tally, raised by a mother whose finances were meagre, invariably unreliable and built on false hopes, was unconcerned by the prospect of a less indulgent lifestyle. But then Tally had considered herself to be comfortably off when she could simply pay her bills without having to follow a strict budget.
In the drawing room, Sander realised that he wanted another drink and he resisted the urge. Right now that was not the support he needed. He was painfully aware that the amount of alcohol he had consumed during his flight home had already dangerously clouded his judgement. How else could he explain the scene he had instigated in the bedroom? He should have restrained himself. His lack of control and foresight shocked him. He was convinced that he had made an already bad situation worse.
As relaxed as her husband was tense, Tally strolled in. She still looked deliciously tousled and flushed from their lovemaking and the figure-hugging purple dress looked stupendously sexy on her shapely curves. Her green eyes were sparkling. Regret cut through Sander like winter ice, burning and cutting wherever it touched because he knew that the warmth he had rekindled in Morocco would be killed by what he had to tell her.
‘I have a confession to make,’ Sander breathed starkly, ready to plunge straight in at the deep end.
Tally’s happy conviction that nothing she really needed to worry about was amiss took a beating at that moment with Sander poised in front of her as though he were facing a firing squad. Raw tension vibrated from every lean-muscled inch of his tall powerful physique. ‘I didn’t think you did confessions,’ she muttered uncertainly, ‘and I’m not sure they’re always a good idea.’
‘Soon after we broke up, I slept with Oleia Telis,’ Sander admitted stonily.
Tally received that admission as though she had been punched when she least expected it. Strive though she did to seem strong and untouched, she flinched and the colour drained from her cheeks. Cosima’s story had made her wonder on the basis that there was rarely smoke without fire. But she would have very much preferred to have been left wondering. It would have been more bearable, she reflected dully, to be left ignorant of what might have taken place between Sander and the young woman he had loved and given up as a teenager.
Tally could not help picturing the tiny, fairy-like brunette in her mind’s eye. Unfortunately, Oleia Telis possessed that lethal brand of intense femininity and flawless beauty that would always turn male heads. At the very thought of Sander in bed with Oleia nausea rippled through Tally’s tummy. Her imagination did not want to go there and her thoughts refused. Even so, a mindlessly ferocious wave of bitter hurt was speedily engulfing her. Of all the women Sander could have turned to, why had he had to choose Oleia? The very woman Tally felt she could least overlook. She knew enough about Sander’s perverse relationship with Oleia to be convinced that anything he had shared with Oleia would not have been either meaningless o
r forgettable.
‘I ran into her at a party here in London. We have … had… so many mutual friends,’ Sander advanced with reluctant precision. ‘It was a one-night stand, Tally. A mistake on my part—’
‘A … mistake,’ Tally echoed with an unintentionally jagged laugh of disagreement at that choice of word.
‘One I very much regret,’ Sander continued curtly. ‘She was the last woman I should have got involved with.’
Green eyes, sharp as knives, collided with his. ‘So, why did you?’
Sander knew exactly what had driven him into Oleia’s arms. It was actually very simple. But he did not think at that moment there was any point in sharing his reasoning, which had, admittedly, been of the very basic masculine variety. He felt he had said enough about that night and that to say more with regard to the detail lent the issue too much importance.
‘When you walked out on me in France, the whole frame of my life was based on our marriage, on my being a married man, a husband. Without that frame I felt … strange.’ The word was voiced with a grimace of discomfiture. ‘I needed company and distraction and I was drinking a lot … I was on a bender the weekend I ran into Oleia,’ he confided in a driven undertone, the words ricocheting from him like a volley of bullets. ‘I hardly remember anything about that night.’
‘That’s convenient,’ Tally remarked flatly, struggling not to think of him blundering around drunk and vulnerable within reach of Oleia’s cunning, calculating little claws. It made her feel unduly and distressingly responsible; as if she had handed her husband over to the other woman, who’d long wanted him back on a plate.
Sander sent her a level glance. ‘You may see it as convenient but it also happens to be the truth.’
‘Before we got married you told me that you’d never get involved with Oleia again, that you couldn’t forgive her for sleeping with someone else when you were dating as teenagers,’ Tally reminded him curtly. ‘So, naturally, I’m surprised that you should’ve ended up with her again.’