by Lynne Graham
‘I wasn’t acting! I love Nicky!’
‘He was your passport to another world. You used him,’ Alex condemned in a low growl. ‘You used him to get what I denied your sister!’
‘That is not true. Yes, OK, I wanted revenge but I never dreamt you’d agree!’ Sarah protested fiercely. ‘Then when you did I saw that our marriage was the best possible solution for Nicky’s needs—’
‘You forced yourself on me.’ His striking dark features set with angry distaste. ‘I did not believe that any woman could be that shameless.’
‘You must have led a very sheltered life.’
‘Wealth and status were your price. You sold Nicky to me.’
Aghast by the charge, Sarah plunged upright. ‘How dare you accuse me of that?’ she gasped.
‘Not that I expected anything more from the harridan who had the effrontery to face me in my office five months ago—’
‘Who are you calling a harridan?’ Sarah spat with disbelief, her green eyes firing with outrage.
‘Neither you nor your wretched sister gave a damn about Androula. What kind of reception did you expect from me?’ Alex demanded very drily. ‘Damon already had a wife and a family and you knew that from the beginning of their sordid affair!’
Her eyes were huge pools of emerald in her hectically flushed face. Slowly, painfully slowly, the pink began to drain from below her skin. ‘A wife and a f-family...then?’ she stammered out, her tongue feeling too clumsy to assist her speech accurately. ‘You are telling me that five months ago Damon had been married long enough to have a child? I don’t believe you!’
‘This pretence of ignorance will gain you nothing,’ Alex stressed with stinging contempt. Your sister met Androula and my nieces before she worked her way into my brother’s bed. The babysitter...hmm? Your sister was the babysitter from hell!’
Sarah was shaking so badly she had to set her wine glass down. ‘You are lying. You are making up this crazy story to desecrate my sister’s memory!’ she accused unsteadily. ‘She could never have met your sister-in-law...she couldn’t even have known she existed! Callie did not know that Damon was married and neither did I.’
‘Of course you knew.’
‘But Damon asked Callie to marry him. He even gave her an engagement ring!’
Alex uttered a very rude word, signifying his disbelief.
Sarah flew tempestuously upright again. ‘Don’t you dare use language like that in front of me!’ With a trembling hand, she braced herself on the chair behind her and vehemently shook her head, a cascade of silver hair shimmering round her in a luxuriant curtain. ‘I don’t know what you think you’re playing at with these lies.’
Alex was lounging back in his carved chair, disturbingly still, dangerously silent with his night-dark eyes trained intently upon her distressed and defensive face.
Sarah thumped the table with a clumsily coiled fist, barely able to think straight. ‘There is no way, absolutely no way my sister would have knowingly become involved with another woman’s husband!’
She knocked over her wine glass as she lifted her hand again. Stinging tears lashed her shocked eyes. She dashed them away with furious fingers, sending him a glimmering look of naked reproach and condemnation.
‘Your sister met Androula first.’
‘My sister could never have met Damon’s wife! She’s never been to Greece in her life!’ Sarah practically sobbed, afflicted by an emotional turmoil more overwhelming than anything she had ever experienced. How dared he malign Callie’s memory? Damon must have lied and lied and lied again to protect himself, heaping all the blame on to Callie. It was obscene...inexcusable.
‘I have proof.’
‘What proof?’
Alex uncoiled his long limbs and fluidly arose from the table to walk the length of the room, six feet three inches of self-command and complete authority. He paused at the door. ‘Are you coming...or don’t you think you could keep this farce up faced with the evidence?’
Sarah’s teeth clenched together. She fought to get a grip on her wildly flailing emotions. ‘I am not afraid of any evidence that you could produce!’ she asserted.
He crossed the hall and she practically had to trot to keep up with his powerful stride. He entered a room shelved on all sides by books, a library with a large desk set in front of the windows. Then he pressed something on the carved edging of one set of shelves in the corner and Sarah’s eyes widened as the shelves swung back, revealing an entrance.
‘I keep the evidence in the safe,’ he revealed.
Sarah smoothed her damp palms down over her skirt and held her head high. She was not afraid—no, she was not afraid that he could show her anything that might damage her faith in her late sister!
She waited by the edge of his desk, her stomach churning sickly with tension and the extent of her distress. Damon had been married...Damon had been married from the outset! That in itself was a severe shock. But what was even more shocking was that Alex appeared to believe that Sarah and Callie had known that fact!
Alex fanned out a selection of glossy colour photos on the highly polished surface of the desk. ‘They were taken in Oxford. Androula and the children flew over to spend a few weeks with Damon.’
Sarah’s eyes fell on the uppermost photo and it was as though someone had punched her in the kidneys. Callie was standing beside a dark-haired young woman and each of them held the hand of a dark-haired little girl, one toddler size, the other possibly four or five years old. Everybody was smiling like mad. Sarah felt physically sick.
A long forefinger skimmed that photo out of reach and lined up the rest. Callie featured in all of them, playing with the children in a park or some such place, and in the final one she was sitting on a swing beside Damon, each of them with a child on their lap. Finally Sarah turned her head away, shutting out the photos.
‘Andy mislaid one of my nieces in a shop and your sister found her. That’s how they met,’ Alex divulged with raw derision. ‘Andy made the mistake of taking her home to dinner...and then she babysat for them once or twice. My sister-in-law returned to Greece, leaving your sister with a clear field.’
To accept that Callie had known all along that Damon was a married man, had indeed even met his wife, been befriended by her, trusted by her and had played with their daughters...it was a shock of such resounding savagery that Sarah was utterly silenced for several long seconds, the victim of immense pain and guilt. Dear God, where had she herself gone wrong in raising Callie? Where had the voice of conscience been when Callie embarked on such an affair?
‘She was only eighteen...she did love him.’ Sarah wasn’t talking to Alex. She was reasoning with herself, seeking a defence for the sister she loved, the sister she had believed she understood. ‘And heaven knows he encouraged her. The first time I met Damon he said that he loved her and he wanted to marry her—’
‘Damon denies that there was ever any discussion of marriage.’
‘He’s lying... Dear lord, she lied too!’ Sarah conceded painfully. ‘How long has Damon been married?’
‘Since he was nineteen. Andy was eighteen. It was not my wish. Indeed I strongly advised them to wait. Damon was far too young,’ Alex admitted flatly. ‘But Vivien supported them and my father saw no reason to withhold his consent.’
Sarah folded her arms protectively round herself, still white as a sheet, still in shock.
‘You might as well have these. Unopened, you will note.’ Alex extended a bundle of letters. Callie’s letters. Sarah recognised her sister’s copper-plate neat handwriting on the envelopes.
‘He never received them,’ Sarah whispered.
‘I did not believe that she was pregnant,’ Alex reminded her shortly.
‘He did! You had no right to withold those letters,’ Sarah told him tremulously. ‘Callie wasn’t some Mata Hari who seduced him away from home and hearth! She was a teenager and he was a lot older! Whether he was married or not, Callie was also his responsibility...’
Alex dealt her a sardonic appraisal. ‘I am not my brother.’
‘But you interfered—’
‘There were innocent children involved as well as the peace and stability of my entire family,’ Alex spelt out, defending his own behaviour with neither apology nor regret. ‘It has always been my opinion that it is the woman’s place to say no—’
‘You hypocritical—!’ Sarah slung up at him.
‘Your sister knew that Damon was married. She made her choice...and my brother made his. He went back to his wife.’
Sarah passed an unsteady hand over her throbbing temples.
‘Dinner,’ Alex reminded her drily from the door.
‘I’m not hungry any more... I think I’ll go to bed,’ she mumbled.
‘Alone...on our wedding night?’
Sarah’s dazed eyes connected involuntarily with smouldering gold and it was as though he had jerked a string and she was a puppet. Every muscle jerked tight, every nerve-ending quivered with suicidal energy. I’m not feeling well, she thought; that’s why I feel peculiar.
‘I’ll be up later,’ Alex murmured very softly, and swung on his heel. ‘I just can’t wait for you to lie back and think of the greater glory of Greece.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
But she was talking to an empty room.
CHAPTER SIX
SARAH lay back in the vast bed, her eyes trained rigidly on the door. He’d been joking—of course he had been joking, most probably trying to deprive her of a good night’s sleep. A man had to be sexually attracted to a woman to want to make love to her. Alex was not attracted to her. That compartment in Alex’s life was already filled to overflowing with willing and no doubt beautiful women. He had a lousy sense of humour. It was not as though she was his wife...not his real wife.
Callie... Her mind gave way to another upsetting surge of thoughts. Sarah had never been so confused, could not yet credit that this woman being torn in two by indecision and uncertainty and guilt was actually herself. Sarah had always known where she was going, always been quietly very sure of her own judgement and direction...until now, that was.
Before tonight, before Alex’s revelations, Sarah had been convinced that Callie had been used and abused and brutally abandoned. But now the picture had blurred and shifted and she was no longer sure of anything. Callie had deliberately concealed the truth of her relationship with Damon and, the night she had brought Damon to meet Sarah, Callie and Damon had been united in that deception. Callie had knowingly become involved with a married man and then moved in with him while his wife was abroad. Clearly, Damon had promised to get a divorce and then, probably when the heat of the affair ebbed on his side, he had changed his mind. Had her sister at that point allowed herself to become pregnant in an attempt to force the issue to the conclusion she desired?
Sarah attempted to envisage her sister without rose-tinted glasses. Callie had been very strong-willed, arrogant from an early age, when she’d discovered that beauty was a source of power over the male sex. Callie would have found rejection almost impossible to accept. Callie had always been the one to do the rejecting. And she had genuinely loved Damon. Had he ever loved Callie? Did it really matter now? She would destroy those letters unread. She knew enough, had no need or desire to know any more.
All of a sudden she was far more concerned by her own behaviour. In retrospect, she perfectly understood Alex’s cruelty when she had gone to his office that day with Callie. It would have been effrontery indeed had Sarah known that Damon was another woman’s husband and the father of two young children. Small wonder that Alex had reacted incredulously to the idea that his very much married brother had given her sister an engagement ring! Nevertheless, that was what had happened.
It was that day that Sarah had learnt to hate Alex, falsely seeing him as the barrier that stood between her sister and the man she loved. But, without even suspecting it, Alex and Sarah had been talking at cross-purposes and now she knew why Alex had repeatedly condemned her own moral principles. Naturally he had believed she was encouraging Callie in her pursuit of his brother.
Losing the very foundations of hatred was a chastening experience, Sarah discovered. All that had happened since Callie’s death could now be seen in a different light. Alex had wanted to protect his sister-in-law from the humiliation of that affair being exposed by the media...quite understandably. Androula had already suffered enough. And what had Sarah done? She had threatened him and his family with tabloid exposure. Sarah winced, deeply ashamed, and yet how could she have guessed the truth when Alex assumed she already knew the truth?
No wonder he had called her a malicious shrew, no wonder he seethed with rage around her. Yet he had attended Callie’s funeral and had probably enforced Damon’s presence. And right from the outset his most overriding concern had been for Nicky. Judging Sarah to be an unacceptable guardian, Alex had been equally determined that Nicky should not suffer for the sins of his parents. In an impossible situation, Alex had tried his damnedest to remove Nicky from her care. It would have been much easier for him to offer her financial assistance towards Nicky’s support and simply forget their existence. But Alex had cared too much about his nephew to be satisfied with such a conclusion.
‘I am a man of my word...a man of honour.’ Oh, dear lord, if that was true, where did that leave this crazy marriage she had demanded? They would have to talk, straighten out all these stupid misunderstandings, and then she would offer him an annulment. What else could she decently do?
That decision reached, Sarah felt more at peace with herself. She was reaching out to put out the light when the door opened. Her suddenly weak hand dropped back on the pillow with a dulled thud, her soft mouth opening on a soundless exclamation of disbelief.
Did Alex pause for effect in the doorway or was that her imagination? Paralysed, Sarah surveyed him from beneath her lashes. He was fully clothed... Her racing heartbeat steadied a little. He wanted to talk to her, had probably noticed her light was still on...that was all. Really, Sarah, a little voice piped up very drily, what else did you think he might be doing in your bedroom?
Alex braced two lean hands on the footboard of the bed and studied her, exactly as he had studied her that day in the hall at Gina’s. Her heartbeat thumped against her breastbone in protest. I am lord of all I survey. That belief was etched unashamedly in those smouldering dark golden eyes wandering over her with a hot, earthy sensuality that was so blatant, it took her breath away.
In the fathoms-deep silence, she watched long fingers slowly travel up to his bow-tie and jerk it free, and he did not remove his intense appraisal from her expressively incredulous face for a split-second.
‘No,’ Sarah said breathlessly.
He cast aside the tie, shrugged wide shoulders fluidly out of his dinner-jacket and continued to watch her. A slashing smile of primal purpose curved his hard-edged mouth, the innate savagery that lay at the very heart of Alex’s volatile temperament freely visible, confidently displayed. He was, she noted dazedly, very much in his element in a woman’s bedroom. He unbuttoned his shirt, exposing a broad, muscular chest, golden-brown in colour and liberally sprinkled with curling black hair.
Sarah’s fingers clenched tightly into the bedspread below her hand. She would stare him down if it killed her, because he just could not be serious. She rested her head to one side, striving for an appearance of cool amusement, but she could feel a blush slowly colouring up her pale skin, starting at her dry throat and moving up in an unstoppable tide.
‘If you have a desire to expose yourself in a centrefold, you don’t need to audition for my benefit,’ Sarah commented, struggling for a tone of irony.
‘You’d buy the magazine and hide it under the bed,’ Alex asserted with grim amusement. ‘I warned you many weeks ago that I could handle you with one hand tied behind my back...but that you wouldn’t like my methods. Why didn’t you listen?’ Alex breathed in a velvety purr, strolling gracefully across the room to drop his
shirt and his jacket across a chair.
‘Your sexual machismo leaves me cold, Alex.’ Sarah despised the tremor running through her voice.
‘The first time we met, I noticed what beautiful eyes you had. The second time, I remember thinking, What a truly sensational pair of legs. And the third time, you let me see that glorious hair.’ His accent thickened tellingly as she stared back at him, patently stunned by this wholly unexpected confession. ‘You revealed yourself to me piece by exciting piece and the chemistry between us was explosive—’
‘What ch-chemistry?’ she stammered jerkily.
‘You didn’t even recognise it for what it was. You had programmed yourself to tune out all sexual messages and ignore them. But what you did feel unnerved you,’ Alex murmured lazily. ‘And I thought, I want this woman but she is the one woman I cannot have.’
‘Alex...this is a male fantasy running riot.’ Her hurt and mortification that he should pretend to find her attractive were intense. ‘You are trying to justify your quite unjustifiable presence in my bedroom. And shall I tell you why?’
‘If you like.’
Very pale, Sarah breathed, ‘I hurt your ego—’
‘A bomb wouldn’t deflate my ego,’ Alex inserted smoothly.
‘I hurt your ego,’ Sarah repeated tightly, ‘and you want to level the score.’
‘I left scoring behind in my teens, along with not phoning when I said I would and lusting hotly after everything in a skirt between sixteen and thirty.’
‘I imagine you were fairly successful,’ she muttered helplessly.
‘Very...but I did grow out of it and you are my wife...’
Unwarily, Sarah glanced up, registered that he wasn’t wearing a stitch and hurriedly looked away, knowing that that image of Alex naked was imprinted indelibly on her memory for life. But then it had not previously occurred to her that the male physique could be that magnificent...or that disturbing.