by Lynne Graham
Hands were clapping in time to the music. Olympia glanced up just as Nik was urged from his seat by their host. He shrugged out of his jacket, discarded his tie and loosened his collar before striding across the floor to join the other men.
Olympia watched the men begin to dance, the music initially sombre, the tempo slow. Nik knew every step, every turn. He was as at home dancing shoulder to shoulder with fishermen in a taverna as he was talking business on board his fabulous yacht. A rare quality which inspired respect, but she was equally conscious of the appreciative female eyes fixed to him. Nik, with his vibrant dark looks and magnetism, the potent and inescapable sexuality of that lean, muscular body accentuated by the lithe, rhythmic grace with which he moved. And it was at that point, just as the music began almost imperceptibly to quicken, that the pain inside Olympia began to break through to the surface.
She did not believe that Nik loved Gisele Bonner. She did not even believe that Nik needed Gisele Bonner. But Nik had betrayed her all the same. Nik did not respect either his wife or his marriage. You have no right to resent anything. No, no respect there. What a fool she had been to think otherwise! She could have wept at her own eagerness to believe that something true and real might be made of a marriage which had only ever been a business deal! Nik had the Manoulis empire. Nik had a wife he believed he could treat like the dirt beneath his feet when it suited him.
He hadn't even thought to warn her about that tabloid newspaper article which Samantha had referred to with such naive dismissal. How could she love someone who treated her as if she was nothing'! How, knowing what he had done, could she have lain under him sobbing with pleasure? Her temples pounded as the music speeded up.
It was as if an explosion was taking place inside her. Suddenly she was being bombarded by all the images that she had shut out in self-protection. Nik pawing that skinny blonde tart in some South of France love-nest. That skinny blonde tart pawing Nik with the sort of expertise he was used to and which his wife didn't have. She felt sick to the stomach, wrenched by such violent bitter jealousy she shuddered.
The music reached a soaring crescendo and came to a sudden halt. In the outbreak of vociferous applause Olympia stood up and turned away from the table.
'Kyria Cozakis?' It was Damianos, clutching a mobile phone in one hand, who intercepted her on her passage to the cloakroom. 'Nik's luggage to go out to Aurora?' he queried uncertainly. 'The villa staff to go off duty in the middle of the evening? Have I got this right or has there been a mistake?'
All colour receded from Olympia's face. 'You've got it right.'
'But Nik has no plans—'
'I have other plans, Damianos.'
The older man gazed down at her, thunderstruck by the only possible construction he could put on that assurance.
'I suppose you're going to go and warn him now.'
'Not in a public place, kyria. Forgive me...' Damianos gathered steam, his appraisal of her set features betraying honest if incredulous concern. 'But can you have thought of what you are doing?'
Olympia nodded jerkily.
'He will go mad...'
Olympia breathed in deep and nodded. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Damianos walk away, shoulders and back still rigid with incredulity. He had been looking after Nik for twenty years and there was a strong paternal streak in the older man's make-up, but it had been foolish of her to worry that Damianos would interfere. He would play dumb sooner than add insult to mortal injury by revealing prior knowledge of Olympia's plans.
Markos and Samantha had already risen from the table. Working his way through the crowd, a rueful smile curving his lips, Nik reached for Olympia with a confident arm and pulled her close. 'I've been neglecting you,' he said with perfect truth, dropping a careless kiss down on the crown of her head.
A salutation of approval, she recognised with a squirming sensation that took her aback. She had not committed the heresy of trying to break in on the male bonding session. She hadn't pouted and sighed like Samantha had either. Nik was relieved and pleased. Nik, she registered as she climbed into the back of the Landcruiser with Samantha, had not a clue of what was coming his way.
Twenty minutes later, their guests seen off on their flight home, Olympia walked hurriedly back into the villa, her hand already digging into her handbag for the photos and the newspaper cutting. Nik was only a step in her wake...
CHAPTER NINE
After an instant of hesitation, Nik slung his jacket on a chair in the hall, ebony brows rising at the absence of the usual phalanx of servants who greeted his every arrival and departure. 'Where is everybody? This place feels like the Marie Celeste.'
Olympia snatched in a deep breath. 'I gave the staff the rest of the night off.'
Nik frowned. 'I hope you can cook...I'm hungry.'
Olympia's grip on the photos was threatening to crumple them. 'Nik—'
'Why don't you rustle-up something in the food department?' Nik qualified with a shift of a vague but expectant hand. ‘I could do with a shower.'
Olympia absorbed that expressive gesture. He had the body language of a male who had never needed to enter a kitchen in his entire life and who had not the slightest conception as to what went on there. Why that should strike her as endearingly naive rather than fantastically spoilt escaped her. Why, indeed, it should make her eyes sting with tears was even more of a challenge to work out. Unless it was his descent to the prosaic when she herself was wired to the skies with an impending sense of doom and drama.
One lean hand already resting on the balustrade of the staircase, Nik glanced back at Olympia, where she stood still and graven as a status. 'Olympia?'
‘There's no point in you going upstairs!' Olympia exclaimed abruptly. 'I've had all your clothes packed up and sent out to Aurora!'
'Have you gone crazy?' Nik enquired slowly, his bemusement patent.'
No, I haven't gone crazy,' Olympia said tautly. 'I got these this morning...'
Nik studied her outstretched hand with puzzled brows.
'And if you still think that my reserved manner was sufficient to embarrass you in front of your friends, you should be feeling like a very lucky guy right now,' Olympia informed him tremulously.
Nik gave her a withering look and still made no attempt to move forward and investigate what she was holding in her hand. In fact he was making a decided point of not even looking in that direction. 'But I sense I'm not going to be a lucky guy as we speak,' he derided with lashings of cutting cool, I also see that you were being less than honest earlier when you refused to admit that there was something wrong. But I still intend to have a shower, Olympia.'
'A shower?' Olympia echoed in a strangled undertone.
'And that gives you fifteen minutes max to get my clothes back off Aurora, because I want to change,' Nik extended gently. 'Or there's going to be a hell of a row.'
In sheer disbelief, Olympia watched Nik mount the stairs. Then frustration galvanised her frozen muscles into action and she sped upstairs as well, hurrying past him to reach the landing first.
'I am sure there's a very good reason why you're acting like a child desperate to throw a tantrum in my face—'
'Don't you send me up!' Olympia seethed as rage came to her rescue. She slung the crumpled photos and the newspaper cutting at his feet. 'There! You and your bunny-boiler! Now do you get the picture?'
'Bunny-boiler?' Nik repeated, deigning to glance down in the direction of the photos, only one of which had landed the right way up on the carpet, but not deigning to stoop to pick them up. 'What are you talking about?'
And Olympia hit him. She didn't plan to; she didn't think about it. Consumed by a head-spinning surge of rage, she clenched her fists and struck out wildly at him, connecting with his shoulder and his chest. So unprepared was Nik for that sudden attack that he almost over-balanced, and had to make a frantic grab for the banister to steady himself. Then he strode up on to the landing, snapped strong hands over her wrists a
nd held her back from him, outrage blazing in his eyes.
'Christos! Are you out of your mind?' he launched at her rawly. 'What does who I slept with before our marriage have to do with you?'
Shaking like a leaf in that firm hold, Olympia gritted her teeth, shocked at herself, shocked at the fact that she wasn't getting the reaction she had expected to get. He was acting as if she was nuts and he was innocent. 'You were with her the week after our wedding!'
Without making any response, Nik released her and crouched down to gather up the photos and the cutting, treating only the second photo, which had not appeared in print, to a proper appraisal. He sprang back up again. 'Where the hell did you get these photos from?'
‘The bunny-boiler.'
'The only female acting like a bunny-boiler is you,' Nik delineated with chilling cool. 'Now, take a big, deep calming breath and tell me how you got hold of these photos.'
'You're not going to talk your way out of this, Nik,' Olympia swore with quivering vehemence, and she went on to describe the message on the mirror and the magazine article which had been awaiting her in her state room on Aurora on their wedding day.
'And the photos?' Nik prompted, steady as a rock, but the line of his well-shaped mouth was forbidding and hard, his strong bone structure fiercely delineated beneath his bronzed skin, his increasing anger tangible.
'Planted in my handbag.'
Nik crunched the photos in a gesture of pure contemptuous dismissal and let them fall to the carpet again. Swinging on his heel, he strode downstairs with the speed and determination of a man who now had a purpose.
Both white-knuckled hands grasping the landing banister, Olympia watched him snatch his mobile phone from the pocket of his jacket, stab out a number and then start talking in Greek.
'What were you doing on the phone?' she demanded, when he finally slung the mobile aside again.
'Damianos will deal with this sleazy invasion of our privacy and identify the culprit,' Nik imparted with whip-like clarity, staring up at her with a thunderous frown. 'You should have told me about this immediately! That any employee of mine should have the insolence to play a part in such disgusting behaviour outrages me! I am not surprised that you are out of your head with...distress.'
'I'm not distressed, Nik...I'm so angry—'
'You can't punch straight...I got the message. You're very Greek when you're angry. Olympia.' Breathing in deep on that sentiment, Nik sent her a gleaming look of grim amusement. 'And as I can understand that this unpleasant campaign has been working on your mind, I .can excuse your loss of control, and indeed marvel at your ability to remain even polite in my radius today.'
'Do you think talking all round the real issue here is going to deflect me?' Olympia demanded, her wrath and confusion only rising to ever more dangerous heights at the lowering suspicion that she was being patronised. 'Do you think I'm stupid or something?'
'These photos were taken well over a year ago,' Nik murmured very dryly. 'Unfortunately the first I knew of their existence was when that tabloid chose to publish one of them. I was not with another woman that week. And, with regard to that offensive newspaper story, a retraction and a humble apology has since appeared in print. If I chose to discuss the matter with my lawyers rather than with you, put it down to my consideration for your feelings.'
'My feelings?' Olympia squeezed out shakily.
'I didn't want you to feel that you had been humiliated by a sleazy rag that calls itself a newspaper! I will tell you something else too,' Nik continued with a preoccupied frown. 'I can't see Gisele as the instigator of all this.'
Olympia looked unsurprised by his defence of the other woman. 'Naturally not.'
'I tell you...she's not the type. Gisele is not spiteful and we parted on good terms. Yet who else would have reason to target you like this?' Nik questioned for himself, mollifying Olympia slightly with that concession.
'Katerina...' Olympia suggested, unable to withhold the suggestion.
Nik's mouth compressed. 'Don't be ridiculous!'
Silence fell. Having now explained himself to his own satisfaction, Nik dealt Olympia an expectant appraisal.
A laugh with a ragged edge was torn from Olympia. 'Yes, you do think I'm stupid, don't you?'
Nik frowned. 'I've just about had enough of this, Olympia. Naturally I can produce the retraction and apology which were printed. I was not with Gisele the week after our wedding!'
Olympia was unimpressed. 'So you say. But you could've bribed the photographer to say he'd lied about where he took that photograph. You could have intimidated the newspaper editor with the threat of a big costly court case. Maybe that one photo they printed was the only proof they had and, let's face it, photos don't carry dates! Without further supporting evidence that you had been with Gisele, what could the newspaper do but cave in to your threats?'
'You're accusing me of lying...'
The way Nik stared at her, he couldn't seem to credit that she could dare.
'You warned me that you would do whatever you liked when you married me,' Olympia reminded him flatly.
'If I was doing what I liked right now you would be down at my feet begging me for forgiveness!' Nik exploded with an abruptness that shook her. 'How dare you doubt my word?'
'Being caught out once is careless. ..being caught out twice is one hundred per cent proof that you're a womaniser as far as I'm concerned,' Olympia informed him fiercely. 'And I have no intention of living with a womaniser!'
Nik strode back towards the stairs. 'Twice? Where the hell does that come from?'
'I was foolish enough to swallow your story about someone having spiked your drink ten years ago in that nightclub... but don't ask me to swallow another dose of the same nonsense where that flat-chested bunny-boiler is concerned!' Olympia spelt out bitterly.
'You are linking this peculiar business with Gisele back to—?'
'Why so incredulous, Nik? You couldn't even believe me once...you took everybody's word over mine about Lukas,' she reminded him in a voice that trembled with the force of her resentment and pain. 'If I was accused of the same thing again you would slaughter me where I stood and you wouldn't listen to any explanation I tried to give!'
'So we're back to squabbling over what did or did not happen in that bloody car park...I don't believe this!' Nik thrust long fingers through his luxuriant black hair, smouldering eyes fixed to her in dark, disbelieving fury.
'I don't trust you because you don't trust me. I don't trust you because we don't have a marriage; we have a business deal—'
'You shut up and you listen to me...' Nik broke in with barely leashed savagery.
Olympia shook her dark head. 'I've fulfilled my part of the deal.'
Nik threw both his arms wide apart in dark fury. 'If you use that word ‘deal’ just one more time—'
'I'm pregnant, and now I want you to get out of this house and leave me alone.'
Nik froze, his stunning dark-as-night eyes flying to her pale frozen face and staying there for long, timeless moments. 'You're pregnant?' he echoed in open disconcertion and doubt. 'Already?'
'Well, you put in a lot of overtime on the project, didn't you?' Olympia shivered with loathing and hurt, chilled to the bone.
Nik was appraising her with eyes that had turned dark liquid gold. 'You're so strung up you barely know what you're saying. Theos mou...you're pregnant,' he said again, still in shock from that revelation but beginning to show a growing sense of male satisfaction. 'You crazy, foolish woman, you could have hurt yourself hitting me!'
Olympia blinked in disconcertion.
Nik bent and lifted her off her feet with strong and very careful hands. 'You shouldn't be throwing scenes like this either. You need to lie down and stay calm...think of the baby,' he urged, taking advantage of her complete bewilderment at this sudden change in tack to stride down the corridor towards their bedroom.
'Nik...I just asked you to leave this house and me.'
'I do mean it!'
With a heavy sigh, Nik settled her down on the bed. 'You're hysterical.'
Olympia thrust her hands beneath her and reared up off the pillows. 'I am not hysterical!' she shrieked at him full blast.
'I'm not going to argue with you about this. Naturally you're upset. You're feeling suspicious and with good reason. You're right. Gisele was obviously a secret bunny-boiler who fooled me,' Nik conceded, spreading soothing hands, his calm, his control, his lack of anger now hitting her with striking effect.
'You think you've got me where you want me because I'm pregnant!' Olympia launched at him. 'Well, you haven't! My grandfather will look after my mother, so you can't get me on that, and if you don't get out of this house I'm going to take off in your yacht!'
'The crew are on leave...it would be difficult for anybody to take off anywhere in Aurora right now. Only the helicopter is available.'
Olympia trembled. 'You've got no right to do anything more to me than you have already done—'
'I hate to descend to this level...but if you feel like that, why did you let me make love to you this afternoon?' Nik angled a cool, enquiring scrutiny at her.
Her face burned as red as fire. 'That was sex. I used you because I felt like it!'
His ridiculously long black lashes lowered. He averted his head, stiffened his shoulders.
'You think that's funny, don't you? I bet you think I'm crazy about you and that this is just a lot of empty shouting and threatening...but it's not. Do you really imagine that I could be foolish enough to care in any way for a guy who married me just so that he get hold of my grandfather's money?'
Nik's proud head came up fast. If he had been trying to stifle amusement, he wasn't now.
'You're a laugh...you're a real laugh,' Olympia condemned with ferocious bitterness. 'So superior in every way, and yet you were willing to marry a woman you think of as a tramp to gain Manoulis Industries!'
Momentarily, Nik was immobile. Pallor was spreading round his rigid mouth. His eyes glittered like ice, his distaste palpable. The temperature had dropped to freezing point. Without another word, he swung on his heel and strode out of the room.