The Kouvaris Marriage

by Diana Hamilton

  Would think she had decided she might as well enjoy that side of marriage if it would help her towards a large chunk of alimony.

  A gold-digger and a harlot!

  Smothering a yelp of distress, she darted into the bedroom and stared at the room that had become her prison with wild blue eyes. Impossible to swallow her pride and tell him why she had really left him. Show him the open wounds of the love he had savagely killed, reveal herself to be a victim, still bleeding from his cruel betrayal. Everything in her rebelled against it.

  Let him think she wanted a large part of his fortune if he wanted to. But let him think she still wanted him sexually? No way!

  In next to no time she had whipped the patchwork quilt off the bed, leaving him with the duvet, snatched one of the pillows and curled herself into a ball on the floor, a bundle of misery as she contemplated a future that looked bleak from every angle. She was fighting tears as she heard him give a low, derisive laugh when he exited the bathroom and encountered her sleeping arrangements, heard the dip of the mattress as he availed himself of the comfortable bed.

  And, on a surge of rage, she wanted to go and hit him!

  Silence.

  A thick silence that expanded suffocatingly as the floor beneath grew harder and sleep was impossible to find.

  Unable to handle the fact that he should be sleeping the sleep of a man who had got his own way, while his subjugated commodity of a wife lay on the floor like a pet dog, she shot at him, ‘Tell me why you would go to so much trouble and expense to keep a wife who only wants rid of you! It doesn’t make sense!’

  To her it did. Perfect sense from his point of view. But she wanted to force the truth out of him. All she got was a drowsy but blood chilling, ‘You are my wife. You will stay my wife until I decide otherwise. There is nothing more to be said on the subject.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  AS THE chauffeur-driven limo eased to a well-bred halt in front of the magnificent Kouvaris mansion Maddie woke with a start, then momentarily stilled in shock when she discovered that her comfortable pillow was Dimitri’s wide, accommodating shoulder, his close proximity teasing her senses with the sensual heat of him, the evocative scent of his maleness.

  Extricating herself from the curve of his supporting arm with more haste than dignity, Maddie hurled herself upright. The last thing she remembered was their being met off the Kouvaris jet at the private airstrip by Milo and the limo, then collapsing onto the soft leather upholstery, overcome by black waves of fatigue.

  He was still too close. She could sense him watching her in the gathering evening dusk. Gloating now his prey was firmly back in the steel web of his making? His pride demanded that he would end the marriage at his convenience, not at hers. He’d made that very plain.

  Fumbling for the door release, she all but fell out onto the wide gravel sweep, her stomach full of butterflies on speed.

  ‘You are now in haste to reclaim your position as mistress of our home, when yesterday you couldn’t wait to leave it, and me?’ Dimitri queried in dry amusement, taking only seconds to reach her side and cup a proprietorial hand beneath her elbow.

  ‘That’s not funny!’ she objected unsteadily, knowing she was too exhausted and feeble to shake his hand off with any hope of success, but standing her corner. ‘I just want to go to bed and sleep—alone,’ she qualified with pointed emphasis. ‘It’s been a long day.’

  A long, hard, horrible day, she thought with misery. Roused from a scant hour of sleep which had felt more like a heavy coma, she had been unsurprised to find Dimitri already up and dressed, speaking in his own language on his mobile, pacing the room with long, un-hurried strides, one dark brow had elevated in her direction as she’d unrolled herself with difficulty from the patchwork bedspread, which seemed to have developed as many tentacles as an octopus during the long uncomfortable night.

  Reaching the en suite bathroom, she’d clung to the washbasin, feeling queasy and light-headed, meeting the hollow look in her reflected eyes with unaccustomed and demeaning resignation. She hated to admit it, but he had won hands down. Was it any wonder she felt nauseous?

  She would get her divorce, but only when it suited him. When she’d given him the heir he so desperately needed. Which wasn’t going to happen, because no way would she share a bed with him again. So it would depend on how long that message would take to get through his thick, arrogant skull.

  When it finally hit him she would be history. And what price her parents’ security then?

  Remembering her family’s combined and overwhelming gratitude when Dimitri had announced that the sale was going ahead, that everything was in the hands of his English lawyer, who would shortly be in touch with theirs, Maddie felt sick.

  Somehow she was going to have to warn them that their days on the farm that was now the property of her husband were numbered. She hadn’t had the heart to get her parents on one side and give them that slice of bad news, to advise them to start looking for somewhere affordable to rent and promise she would do all she could to help on the financial front because the generous allowance Dimitri had given her was largely untouched.

  It would have to wait until her father was much stronger.

  While she’d been helping her mother to make lunch, Joan Ryan had asked, ‘Is everything all right? Between you and Dimitri? I was horrified when he told me you’d left him. It was just one blow too many.’

  Meeting her anxious eyes, Maddie had mentally crossed her fingers. ‘Sorry, Mum. It was just a silly misunderstanding. You know how stubborn I can be! I’m going back with him this afternoon. Don’t worry about me. Just concentrate on getting Dad to chill out and take things easily.’

  And Dimitri’s Oscar-worthy act as one half of a newly reunited happy couple after a silly spat had obviously completely allayed her family’s anxieties on that score, but it had made her feel sick with loathing him to see the ease with which he wore his cloak of deceit.

  ‘You will behave as I expect my wife to behave. With dignity.’ Dimitri’s hand now tightened in warning against her arm. ‘As usual, we will dine as a family. You have just over half an hour to shower and change. And then, and only then, will you make your polite excuses and retire.’

  He couldn’t physically force her to sit at that lavishly laid table beneath the glittering chandelier in the vast dining room. Force her to endure the seemingly endless ritual of many courses, the sideways inquisitive looks of the staff who served them, the disdain and disapproval permanently etched on Aunt Alexandra’s haughty features. Of course he couldn’t, Maddie consoled herself, and tried to believe it as he ushered her through the brightly lit but echoingly empty hall.

  Empty until Irini Zinovieff emerged from the arched doorway that led to Aunt Alexandra’s rooms. As impossibly svelte and lovely as ever, her tall, slender body was clad in black that glittered, and her scarlet lips parted in a tremulous smile as her eyes locked with Dimitri’s and held fast.

  What the hell was she doing here? Maddie fumed, taking no comfort whatsoever from Dimitri’s evident surprise, the sudden drag of air deep into his lungs, the way his body tensed. He hadn’t expected her to be here but no way was he going to keep up his former pretence and treat the woman he really loved as a casual visitor. His hand dropped from Maddie’s arm as the Greek woman glided towards him, her long white hands outstretched as if in supplication.

  Dimitri took her hands and spoke in his own language, the words rapid, questioning. Irini shook her head, mumbled, managing to look contrite and pitiable. Maddie wanted to slap her! And, as if that thought had penetrated their absorption in each other, the other woman appeared to notice her for the first time.

  Hard malicious black eyes belied the sweet tone. ‘So you decided to come back? Alexandra told me you’d left and wanted a divorce. I came straightaway—’ She swallowed, paused and purred on, ‘I came to see if I could be of any help. Perhaps she was mistaken?’

  Ignoring Dimitri’s sudden look of fury, Maddie countered, ‘T
hen I’m afraid you had a wasted journey.’

  Her cheeks streaked with angry colour, she headed for the stairs and took them, her head held high. At least it was coming out in the open now. Her all too brief bid to end their marriage had obviously removed the need for him to show her any consideration at all.

  Irini only had to call and he’d drop everything to speed to her side, assure her that he loved her.

  Irini only had to hold out her hands to him and she was the focus of all his attention. More ammunition—as if she didn’t have enough already—to hurl at him when—if—she decided to tell him why she really wanted to get right out of his life!

  But when she told him she would have to be feeling far less raw and betrayed than she did now, the severe hurt somehow miraculously soothed into indifference. No way would she let her pain show, give his massive ego the satisfaction of knowing how much she had once loved him.

  Entering the magnificent master bedroom, the room she had shared with the man she had loved more than life, she felt her soft mouth wobble. Everything in here had once been touched with magic. Now it seemed unbearably tawdry. The soft words, seductive caresses, the loving—all slimy lies. Instinct told her to gather her belongings and seek one of the many other rooms.

  Her mouth firmed. No. No way! She wouldn’t scuttle away and hide like something unspeakably vulgar, not fit to be seen in polite society. She wouldn’t be banished from the sacrosanct master bedroom. He would!

  Crossing to a gilded table, she lifted the house phone and briskly instructed the English-speaking housekeeper to remove the master’s belongings to another room. She replaced the receiver immediately, unwilling to listen to objections or questions, then walked into the sumptuous marble and gleaming glass bathroom to strip and head for the shower while her orders were being carried out.

  She had never ordered any of the staff to do anything for her before—hadn’t liked to put herself forward to that extent. Hadn’t Alexandra more than hinted that her status in the household came slightly below that of the humblest daily cleaning woman? That this first instruction would cause ripples among the staff went without saying. And it would infuriate Dimitri, prick his inbred Greek pride. He would hate to think that he was the subject of backstairs gossip and whispered speculation.

  Spiteful? Perhaps. But comforting. Paying him back for canoodling with that woman right under her nose!

  It was an edgy sort of comfort that lasted until, towel-wrapped, she returned to the bedroom to find the housekeeper standing just inside the door.

  ‘Anna. Finished?’

  ‘Kyria Kouvaris.’ The middle-aged woman’s brows met in a slight frown. ‘Had you stayed speaking, I would have told you that your husband had already phoned ahead to ask for his things to be moved from this room. It is done already. Of course, if there is something else I can do for you, I am here.’

  ‘Nothing. Thank you.’ How she managed to get the words of dismissal out through her tight-as-a-vice jaw Maddie didn’t know. Once again he had wrong-footed her, spoiled her tiny revenge—she wanted to throw things! Instead, she dried her hair on the edge of the towel until it stood on end in unruly spikes.

  Seething with scalding emotions, she considered her options. Curl up in bed and refuse to budge when Dimitri, black-tempered, tried to command her to join them for dinner? Or behave with dignity and go down to take her place at that table with all flags flying—show them that the lowly little nobody wasn’t going to hide in a corner out of shame at her lower-than-a-cleaning-lady status.

  As she had seen, Irini was wearing black, the subtly glittering fabric draping her impossibly slender figure. The way she was dressed had pointed to the fact that she wasn’t planning going anywhere soon. Her guess was that the woman would be eating dinner with them. So—

  Marching to the enormous hanging cupboard, she plucked out the vivid scarlet dress that Dimitri had said should carry an X certificate.

  It was one of the mountain of designer clothes he had picked out—confiding after she’d modelled it for him in that exclusive boutique, that he had never seen anything so sexy in the whole of his life. The husky edge to his thickening drawl had made her flush to the soles of her feet, sending her scuttling to model the remainder of the garments he had picked out with her head in an impossible spin, and totally vindicating her immediate mental denial of the things Irini had said to her the night before—the night of the intimidating meet-the-bride party she had been faced with on her first night in Athens as Dimitri’s brand-new wife.

  She had been living in a fool’s paradise back then, she acknowledged with savage self-contempt as she slipped into the dress, the cool fabric lovingly moulding breasts that felt slightly fuller than before, strangely tingly.

  Nerves. Just nerves, she told herself as she moodily surveyed her reflection, the way the fine silk clung to her body, hugging her small waist, the narrow-fitting long skirt emphasising the lush feminine curve of her hips, the central slit that denied all demureness displaying glimpses of her legs almost to the level of her creamy thighs.

  A wave of cowardice almost had her removing the dress with all haste and finding something much less revealing—until the recollection of how overawed and humble she’d been made to feel when first arriving here as Dimitri’s bride stiffened her resolve.

  She’d been overawed by the splendour of the mansion, convinced that the whole of her parents’ home would fit into the immense marbled paved hall with room to spare.

  As if sensing her dismay when faced with a platoon of servants, Dimitri had tightened his arm around her waist and bent his dark head to hers as he’d whispered, ‘Courage! They don’t bite!’, then introduced a tall, imposing woman with greying hair, ‘Meet Anna, our housekeeper. Her English is fluent. Be sure to ask her to deal with any changes in household routine you require.’ She had known she wouldn’t dare! But Maddie had smiled as the rest of the staff had been introduced, the names going in one ear and out of the other, wondering how she would cope with having a horde of servants to feather-bed her life when she was used to getting stuck in and doing things for herself.

  But with Dimitri at her side she had been sure she could do anything! She was a married woman; the fact that her husband was a mega-wealthy shipping tycoon needn’t intimidate her. Even now her head was still spinning at the speed and cloaked-with-charm determination of his courtship, the way he’d dispelled her doubts, confessed or hidden, the effortless ease with which he’d made her admit she was head over heels in love with him. She had told her mother that, like him, she saw no reason to postpone the wedding he was insisting on before he had to return to Greece, was secretly appalled by the thought that she might lose him if she insisted that they wait.

  But she hadn’t been able to help feeling overwhelmed when Dimitri had ushered her into a huge salon furnished with what just had to be priceless antiques, murmuring, ‘My aunt is waiting to greet you. Remember I told you that she moved here, into the family home, and brought me up after my parents died? She lives here still, but in her own rooms. She can be a touch acerbic, it is her nature, but take no notice. She will soon grow to value you, as I do.’

  But doubts on that score had lodged in her brain as a small, rigidly upright elderly woman had turned from a deep window embrasure. She had been exquisitely dressed in black, her expression like perma-frost. ‘So you are the Kouvaris bride?’

  Maddie had smiled and held out her hand. It had been ignored. Was that a look of contempt, or was it her normal expression? she had thought hysterically as the intimidating elderly woman had raised one carefully plucked eyebrow. ‘I missed the wedding, of course. But then I was not invited. I would have liked to have met your family. In our circles family is of the greatest importance.’

  To have given them the once-over, Maddie had translated, trying to keep a straight face even as she’d wondered what the impeccable Alexandra Kouvaris would have made of the tiny village church, Mum’s best blue coat, Dad’s shiny-elbowed suit, her big raw-bo
ned brothers, and Anne—obviously pregnant—trying to control her little son, who thought that sitting still and keeping quiet was an overrated pastime.

  Instinctively, she had moved closer to Dimitri, but he had given his aunt all his attention, his voice suggesting a rapid loss of patience as he’d pointed out, ‘I believe I explained that, having found Maddie, I saw no point in waiting. I had to be back in Athens on business. To have delayed the marriage until I was freed up would have been intolerable to me. Now I suggest you ask Anna to bring refreshments and then—’ he’d turned to Maddie, his eyes not smiling, still touched with annoyance ‘—I will show my wife over her new home.’ As his aunt vacated the room, her head at a decidedly regal angle, he’d said stiffly, ‘Her greeting was less than warm. I apologise.’

  Maddie had reached for his hand. ‘You did warn me! And don’t be too hard on her. She’s probably miffed because she’s been deprived of a big splashy do and a splendid new outfit!’

  She’d made light of it then, but all her attempts to reach some kind of rapport with the elderly woman since had come to nothing. Oh, she’d always been polite when Dimitri was around, but on all other occasions she’d been at pains to point out that she wasn’t fit to clean her husband’s boots.

  Not wanting to create family discord, Maddie hadn’t complained to Dimitri, had done her best to ignore the insults, to discount what Irini said as pure spite, trying to adjust to her new lifestyle. But gradually, like the dripping of water on a stone, her self-confidence had been eroded, and that overheard phone call had been the final confirmation of her painful suspicions.

  It was almost laughable, but on that morning she had made her mind up to unburden herself, tell Dimitri what Irini had said and wait for him to dispel those initial doubts about why a man such as he should be so determined to make a very ordinary girl his wife. Doubts that had been systematically fanned by his aunt. But that phone call had forced her to face the truth.