by Lynne Graham
Lindy introduced the two men with a pronounced casualness that brought a gleam to Atreus’s dark watchful gaze. Ben recognised the name at once, and immediately adopted a more businesslike manner.
‘Chantry House almost burnt down last night. A crowd of us helped to clear up,’ Lindy explained.
‘But Lindy offered the most valuable assistance,’ Atreus imparted.
Lindy stiffened in surprise when Atreus curved a light arm to her spine. Ben noticed, and sent her a frowning questioning glance. Her cheeks burned.
‘I’d like to take you out for lunch as thanks for putting up with Pip,’ Ben announced.
‘Unfortunately Lindy is already booked,’ Atreus breathed silkily.
‘Sorry,’ Lindy muttered, wondering why on earth Ben should have suddenly invited her out for a meal and then understanding as she picked up on the bristling attitude between the two men: Ben was curious. She felt like a bone between two dogs, and was thoroughly irritated, both by Ben’s unprecedented invitation and Atreus’s arrogant assumption that his last-minute invitation would take priority with her. But it did take priority, she conceded ruefully, even if she disliked his methods.
‘I’ll call you later,’ Ben told her stiffly.
‘No, you can’t leave yet. I’ll make coffee for us.’
His stunning dark eyes cool as ice water, Atreus opened the front door. ‘I’ll pick you up at twelve.’
‘What the blazes are you playing at with that guy?’ Ben demanded within seconds of the door shutting in the Greek tycoon’s wake.
Lindy was tempted to tell Ben to mind his own business, and had to remind herself that close friends were entitled to ask awkward questions.
‘He’s been flirting with me…that’s all,’ she replied lightly, finding it quite impossible to even consider telling Ben the truth.
‘Of course that’s all,’ Ben agreed with wounding conviction. ‘I would very much doubt that you have what it takes to tempt Atreus Dionides into anything more. He’s a billionaire shipping tycoon and he only dates stunningly beautiful women.’
‘Coffee,’ Lindy pronounced through clenched teeth, resisting the humiliating urge to tell Ben that while he might not find her attractive Atreus certainly did.
Ben didn’t stay long, because Lindy wanted time to get dressed for lunch. He was not as relaxed with her as he usually was, and she wondered if it was insane of her to suspect that the suggestion that another man might be interested in her had thoroughly irritated her platonic friend.
Lindy put on the smartest outfit in her wardrobe—an elegant black trouser suit. Atreus had let his bodyguard come to the door for her, and when she got into the limousine he treated her to a thirty-second appraisal before saying, ‘I prefer skirts on women.’
‘Do you?’ Lindy bridled at that untimely comment. ‘Am I supposed to write that down in a little black book and never wear trousers again?’
‘Where does Ben fit in?’ Atreus enquired, neatly sidestepping her tart response.
Lindy gave him a puzzled frown and then laughed. ‘I thought he was the love of my life when I was a student of eighteen, but unfortunately, he didn’t see me in the same light. I got over him, we became friends, and we’ve been friends ever since.’
Atreus lowered lush black lashes over his shimmering dark golden gaze. He had not taken to Ben, and the admission that she had once been in love with the other man simply underlined his reservations. But Atreus was proud of the fact that he had never experienced the urge to be possessive with his lovers. He met her strained violet-blue gaze and suddenly smiled, because he could read her like a book. She was pleased that he had invited her to lunch, but still nervous of being seen out in his company.
‘We’ll eat in the hotel suite,’ Atreus murmured, closing a hand over hers to urge her across the depth of seat separating them.
‘Atreus…’ she gasped, in the aftermath of a long, drugging kiss that left her feeling intoxicated. ‘Throughout the history of the world there couldn’t be two people less suited than us.’
‘You have such old-fashioned ideas, but I like them,’ Atreus growled, his mouth following a line down her neck to her throat that made her shiver violently, every nerve-ending screaming on high alert. ‘Just as you like this—don’t you?’
‘Well…er…’
‘Tell the truth,’ he prompted lethally.
‘It just feels indecent, and that’s not who I am or what I’m like!’ Lindy protested with the shattered incomprehension of a woman suddenly finding herself flat on the backseat of a limo in broad daylight.
‘But the bottom line is that you like it, glikia mou,’ Atreus replied with irrefutable logic. ‘As for you not being like this, what would you know about who you really are when you waited so long to take a lover? Educating you promises to be a very exciting exercise.’
A lean hand sketched a provocative line along the tautness of her inner thigh below her trousers and she honestly thought she might spontaneously combust from the level of heat and longing centred at the heart of her. Her lashes slid down. What had come over her? Where had all her common sense and caution gone? Into twenty-six years of clean living, low self-esteem and loneliness, a little voice answered. Not a bad life, but undeniably a life without any breathtaking highs.
‘Do we have to eat first?’ Atreus said huskily in an erotic growl.
Lindy tried and failed to swallow. Excitement was clawing at her, and no matter how hard she fought it she could already see how much influence he had over her and how much she was changing. If that was the effect he could have in twenty-four hours…But it wouldn’t, couldn’t, last long between them. It was a kind of madness, an attraction of opposites: sudden, startling and sexy, but surely destined to burn out fast. And when it was over she would be miserable….
Lindy looked up into his lean, dark beautiful face and decided that she could live with the prospect of that misery if it meant that she had him all to herself for a little while.
Four months later, Lindy and Atreus were still together almost every weekend.
By now Lindy was madly in love, and so happy she wakened with a smile on her face. But her mood was punctured suddenly one day by the sight of a photo in a gossip column. Atreus with another woman. It had been taken at a charity ball and the beautiful brunette was curved round Atreus like a second skin. Lindy felt quite sick looking at the photo, but she told herself that she would make no mention of the matter. She did not want to act possessively. The very idea of it hurt her pride, and she knew he would have a low tolerance threshold for such behaviour.
But after a couple of nights of disturbed sleep she realised she could not keep silent. They were lovers, and she needed the assurance that she was the only one in his life. When she dined with Atreus at Chantry House that weekend, Lindy planned to use subtlety to introduce the delicate subject of what he did when he was away from her during the week.
The graceful Georgian mansion had been restored to its former splendour in record time by builders and decorators working round the clock in shifts. Standing on the sidelines, Lindy had found that efficient restoration project highly educational. Atreus had not lowered his standards of excellence by so much as an inch, and the feat had been completed in a timeframe which most people had deemed impossible.
When no useful opening to the controversial topic occurred during their meal Lindy became increasingly restless and distracted.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ Atreus asked as they vacated the dining table.
Feeling like a total coward for having failed to raise the subject, Lindy glanced at him uneasily. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re very quiet, mali mou. It’s not like you.’
‘There was a photo of you with another woman in a gossip column this week.’ In spite of her intention to make a light, non-accusatory enquiry when it came to the point, Lindy simply blurted out the facts and then cringed at her lack of skill.
Even though he knew exactly who, when and wh
ere, and even which newspaper, Atreus was too practised at keeping his own counsel with women to admit the fact. ‘Was there?’
‘You attended a charity ball with her.’ Taut with tension and anxiety now, Lindy spun round in the drawing room, where drinks were being served and stared at him with strained eyes. ‘Who was she?’
‘A friend…I have many,’ Atreus responded smoothly.
Painful colour lit Lindy’s cheeks. ‘You don’t think I have any right to ask, do you? But I don’t expect to be one of a crowd when I’m sleeping with you,’ she shared, in an awkward rush of words.
The conscience that rarely troubled Atreus stung him in the face of that honest admission. Although he had found it safest and easiest never to define the boundaries of relationships, or make promises he might not wish to keep, her naive candour on the issue and her obvious concern pierced his emotional armour.
‘Lindy—’
‘Just tell me the truth. I have to know. To be honest, I’ve hardly slept a wink since I saw that photo,’ she confessed unevenly.
Atreus reached for her hand and used it to propel her under his arm, ignoring her taut, stiff posture. ‘I thought you would be more sensible,’ he reproved. ‘I only ever have one lover at a time, but I have many female acquaintances who act as my companions at various charitable and stuffy social engagements.’
Her heart still beating very fast with the apprehension that had built up in her since first seeing that photo, Lindy breathed easily again. She felt quite light-headed with relief. I only ever have one lover at a time. That was the one thing she had needed to hear. It shook her to appreciate that she had set no parameters at all in their relationship. Then she had fallen into it and then fallen crazily in love so fast she had never thought about rules. In any case Atreus, she recognised ruefully, was the sort of guy who would probably want to break a rule as soon as anyone was foolish enough to try and impose one on him.
In the early hours, she lay awake while he slept. Her body was heavy with tiredness, languor and sensual satisfaction. Her heart was light with love and contentment. But her mind was still racing over the conversation they had had after dinner. Although his response had given her peace of mind, she was convinced she had lost stature in his eyes by betraying her desperate need for reassurance. She could not escape the suspicion that she had ended up looking weak and insecure, which was not an impression that she wanted to give for Atreus was much more intrigued by strong, confident women. And that was what she was now, Lindy consoled herself. Strong and confident and not in need of reassurance. It was not a slip she would make a second time.
Over a year after Lindy reached that decision, Ben Halliwell made one of his increasingly frequent unannounced visits to The Lodge. Having abandoned the pot pourri she had been bagging in the cellar, Lindy invited him in for coffee. He polished off two homemade cheese scones before coming to the point.
‘If you really want to know where you stand with Atreus Dionides, you need to look at this.’ Ben settled a page torn from a magazine down on the table in front of Lindy.
Caught unawares, Lindy stared and saw an image that shot the equivalent of a flaming arrow of pain right through her heart. Her skin broke out in perspiration and nausea made her tummy lurch. Once again it was a photograph of Atreus with another woman on his arm: a very beautiful blonde with jewels at her throat and a fancy evening gown. With a clumsy hand Lindy thrust the picture back at Ben in rejection, a look of reproof in her steady gaze. After all, it was not the first time she had seen such a photo, and she reckoned that it would not be the last. But she was annoyed with Ben, who never missed an opportunity to criticise Atreus or to try and show him in a bad light.
‘Atreus was attending a charity benefit for a children’s hospice on Monday night,’ Lindy explained. ‘That woman is probably one of the organisers.’
‘Stop telling yourself whoppers and making excuses for him!’ Ben’s exasperation was unconcealed. ‘Carrie Hetherington is a wealthy, well-connected socialite, and he’s obviously not ashamed to be seen out in public with her—’
‘Atreus is not ashamed of me, either,’ Lindy argued vehemently. ‘You’re not being fair to him. I was the one who asked him to be discreet about our relationship, not the other way round. I didn’t want to be seen out and about with him…I didn’t want people gossiping about us, and I would die if my photo appeared in the newspapers!’
Ben groaned out loud. ‘How can you still be so naive? He’s not being discreet, Lindy. He’s made you a dirty little secret in his life.’
Lindy rammed her hands down on the table surface and plunged upright. ‘That’s a horrible thing to say!’
Momentarily, Lindy saw stars as a bout of dizziness engulfed her. Assuming she had stood up too quickly, she breathed in slow and deep until the feeling of being light-headed receded.
‘Whether you like it or not, it’s the truth,’ Ben continued, without even noticing how pale she had become. ‘You’re his mistress, not his girlfriend, and he only ever sees you at weekends, when he’s down here. He never takes you out.’
‘I’m not his mistress!’ Lindy hissed back at Ben in passionate rejection of that label.
‘But you’re not a size zero hottie from his world, either. So exactly where do you fit in?’
Wounded by Ben’s cutting reference, Lindy studied him with pained eyes. ‘Why are we even having this conversation? Why are you always attacking Atreus?’
‘We’ve been friends for years and Atreus has spent the last eighteen months messing you around. It’s a dead-end affair. The way he treats you he might as well be a married man, and you might as well be his bit on the side.’
‘Atreus treats me very well!’ Lindy argued, dropping back down into her chair.
‘He’s a billionaire. He can afford to be generous.’
‘I’m not talking about money,’ she said with distaste. ‘You don’t understand what we have.’
‘I think you’re the one who doesn’t understand. You fell in love with him and started living in a cosy little dream world. You seem to have suspended every critical faculty you ever had. I’m only trying to wake you up. You’re wasting your time with Dionides. He’s not going to give you what you want,’ Ben completed with ringing conviction.
‘You don’t know what I want.’
‘Don’t I?’ Ben gave her an ironic look. ‘This life is all wrong for you. You want marriage and security, but you’ve settled for an affair that you persist in viewing as the height of romance. Answer me one question. If you’re so happy with Atreus, why have you still not got around to introducing him to Elinor and Alissa?’
‘Elinor and Alissa aren’t in the UK very often,’ Lindy said defensively. One of whom lived in the Middle East and the other also spent a fair amount of time abroad.
‘Do they even know that Dionides exists?’
Lindy reddened, because he had come closer to the truth than she was prepared to admit with that question. Only a few weeks had passed since she had finally phoned Elinor and Alissa to tell them about Atreus. ‘Yes, of course they do, but I don’t want to talk about this any more. I get very annoyed when you criticise Atreus, and I can’t possibly discuss my relationship with him with you.’
‘Just think over what I’ve said,’ Ben urged. ‘Or ask Dionides where your relationship is going. I guarantee that you won’t like the response he gives you.’
To change the subject, Lindy asked him about his recent advancement at work. No topic could have been closer to Ben’s heart. Her tension began to evaporate, but a leaden, hollow feeling still sat in her stomach.
‘I have my boss’s wedding to attend two weeks from now,’ Ben informed her when he was on the brink of leaving. ‘I thought of you immediately because it’s being held at Headby Hall, which is only a few miles from here. I know it’s short notice, but will you come with me as my partner?’
Lindy looked at him in surprise. ‘I don’t know. I—’
‘Please,’ Ben sighed. �
�I would look sad, turning up on my own.’
Lindy laughed at the image of Ben looking sad, while dimly wondering why his once busy love-life had slowed down so much of late. He no longer had a new woman in his life every few weeks and, with more time on his hands, she had seen a great deal more of him in recent months. ‘All right, give me the date and I’ll mark it on my calendar.’
‘Will it cause trouble between you and Atreus?’ Ben asked with a hint of mockery.
‘Of course it won’t cause trouble.’ Her chin tilted. ‘Atreus doesn’t question what I do.’
Brave words, Lindy acknowledged after Ben’s departure. In truth she rarely did anything at weekends that would disrupt her time with Atreus, and he and Ben had not hit it off at their one and only meeting. Her mood had been buoyant before Ben’s arrival, because it was a Friday and she would be with Atreus again in just a few hours. But Ben’s comments had hit home hard. He had spoilt her day by making her question her relationship with Atreus.
As a rule Lindy lived from weekend to weekend, and nothing in between really mattered. It was just time to be got through before she saw Atreus again. Until Ben had cruelly thrust that wretched photo beneath her nose she had managed to pretty much ignore the reality that Atreus inhabited another world entirely when he was away from her. Was that because she had stopped buying newspapers and magazines after seeing Atreus in print with another female companion?
That was a tough question, and one that Lindy couldn’t answer. Atreus had long since explained the reality that those acquaintances were of a social rather than intimate nature. The more she got to know Atreus the more she had grown to trust him, and the affair that she had once assumed would swiftly burn out had lasted and deepened.
In fact Lindy had lived on a high of happiness for almost eighteen months. Atreus phoned her almost every day. And he genuinely cared about her. He did. He might not show it in an emotional manner, for he was not a man given to issuing constant compliments or verbal reassurances, but he certainly demonstrated his concern in other ways. Hadn’t he flown back from Greece when he’d learned that she was in hospital because she’d been knocked off her bike by a car? Hadn’t she wakened to find him seated by her bed in the middle of the night? Hadn’t she come home to find a brand-new hatchback car waiting to glide into the parking space being cut out of the lawn that bounded the drive for her benefit?