by Jennie Lucas
“Why are you acting as if you suddenly hate me?”
He closed the laptop with a loud snap. “I’m not going to discuss this right now, Eve.”
“Then when?”
His phone rang. He looked down at it before he gave her a narrowed glance. “You’ll know everything soon enough.” Turning from her, he opened the phone and barked, “Xenakis.”
As he spoke on the phone in Greek, she glanced down at the bright diamond ring on her finger. It sparkled at her, sharp facets without a soul. With a sense of foreboding, she looked up through the window at the darkly sprawling city of ancient white buildings and olive trees surrounded by cragged mountains.
Why would Talos marry her if he intended to treat her like this?
She placed her hand on her belly, where their baby was growing inside her. Her stomach was starting to grow more rounded beneath the swell of her breasts.
I wouldn’t have given him my virginity unless he was worthy of my love, she told herself.
How do you know? the gleefully sadistic whisper asked. How do you know what sort of person you are?
Shut up, she told the voice sharply. I know.
But it was too late. Fear had already crept inside her, a dull poison of fear she could neither dispel nor reason away.
She hadn’t wanted to marry him so quickly. She’d tried to resist, to delay. But he’d kept insisting. Courting her. Wooing her.
He’d been so loving. So patient. So perfect.
And then he’d kissed her on the bridge in Venice, and all of her objections had been swept away in a storm of fierce, blind desire unlike anything she could possibly withstand. His embrace had stolen her strength away, leaving her abject in his arms, with no choice but to surrender to his will.
Now, it seemed there would be no more kisses.
Had she made a horrible mistake marrying Talos?
You’re right to be afraid, he’d said with that strange light in his eyes.
Was it possible he’d married her just because she was pregnant with his child? Or for some other, darker reason of his own?
It couldn’t be for love—not when he acted like this!
The Bentley pulled up outside an elegant fin de siècle building, nine stories high, on an imposing square in the center of the city. Talos got out without a backward glance. For the first time, he allowed the chauffeur to assist her from the car.
Stepping out on the sidewalk, Eve looked up at the building and the Acropolis, lit up on the high crag above them. She nearly jumped at Talos’s voice behind her.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
She whirled around to see him looking at her with a cruel amusement.
“Yes,” she said over the lump in her throat. Beautiful and haughty and a bit savage, just like him.
As his driver and the bellman dealt with the luggage, Talos stepped closer to her. He was so close she could feel his breath, feel the warmth of his strong body beneath his clothes. Leaning forward, not touching her, he whispered, “You’ll love the view from the penthouse.”
She shivered as he leaned forward.
“It’s where you first gave yourself to me,” he whispered in her ear, brushing his lips against her tender flesh. “For weeks, we never left our bed.”
He stood away from her, his dark eyes gleaming. And though she tried to hide the reaction he’d caused in her, she knew he could read her tension. Her desire.
It infuriated her. Defiantly, she lifted her chin. “Well, I hope you enjoyed it, because it won’t happen again.”
His eyes darkened at her challenge. He grabbed her hand, and though she tried to pull it away, he would not release her. As the staff and bodyguards trailed them, they went through the exquisite lobby and up the elevator.
It was only when they were alone in the large penthouse condo that he released her.
She rubbed her wrist, staring at him. “Why were you so determined to marry me right away, Talos?” she demanded. “Why? I want the truth right now!”
“The truth?” he said tersely. “What a novel idea where you’re concerned.”
She pushed aside the little pain at his jab. “Was it because I’m pregnant?”
He looked away. “I will always protect my child.”
Pain went through her. Not love, then. Nothing to do with love. “If it was only for the baby’s sake, why did you lie?” she said hoarsely. “Why did you say you loved me?”
“I never lied to you.” His mouth pressed into a hard line as he stared down at her. “I said I wished to marry you and give the baby a name. Both of which are true.”
She shook her head, fighting unbidden tears. “You made me believe you loved me,” she whispered. “You tricked me into marriage. Don’t you have any sense of honor—any honor at all?”
“Honor!” Their faces were an inch apart as he looked at her with a sneer. “You accuse me of dishonor!”
She felt suddenly afraid, trapped, his hard body over hers, his strong hands like shackles on her wrists.
Then she felt his breath on her skin. Heard his breathing change as the mood between them electrified, changing from anger to something else. His grip on her wrists tightened, his gaze dropping to her mouth. Her heart stopped in her chest, then began to flutter wildly. Thum-thumm. Thumm-thum. She tingled from her lips to her breasts down to her deepest core.
With a savage intake of breath, he dropped her wrists.
Turning away from her, he walked down the hall. His footsteps echoed heavily against the marble floor. A moment later, he returned with something flimsy and silver that sparkled in his hands.
“Get dressed,” he said, his lip curling with scorn. He tossed the silvery fabric at her. “Wear that.”
For a moment, she just stared at him, holding the sequined fabric close to her chest. Behind him, the floor-to-ceiling windows revealed the majestic Acropolis, lit up with brilliant lights on the cragged mountain like a torch above the city. She could see the white stone buildings below them, interspersed with palm and olive trees. Her heart was still pounding, her brain in a fog from his closeness a moment ago.
Then she held up the tiny cocktail dress, metallic and shiny and silver. It was dead sexy—and hard. Just like all the clothes she’d given away in Venice.
“No.” She lifted her chin. “I told you. I don’t want to dress like that anymore.”
“You’ll do what I tell you.”
“I’m your wife, not your slave.”
Crossing the room in three strides of his powerful legs, he grabbed her by the shoulders. “You’ll obey me, or—”
She tossed her hair back, revealing her neck as she glared at him. “Or what?”
Their eyes locked, held. She heard the quickening of his breath, the gasp of her own.
He wanted to kiss her. She knew it. She could feel it.
But abruptly, he released her. His expression became a mask and he looked almost bored as he glanced at his expensive platinum watch.
“You’d best hurry. We leave in ten minutes.” He paused at the door. “Look your best, won’t you?” he said coolly. “A special friend of yours will be at the party.”
“Party? What party? What special friend?”
But he left her without answer, leaving her to change her clothes alone.
Alone, she thought bitterly.
She hadn’t even known what that word really meant until she became a wife.
CHAPTER EIGHT
HE’D been too gentle with her, Talos thought grimly.
As he sat next to Eve on the short drive west toward the nearby neighborhood of Monastiráki, he ignored her angry, shallow huffs of breath beside him. He’d been tempted to tell her everything in the penthouse, but he’d held back for the sake of his child in her belly. For fear the shock would cause miscarriage.
Ridiculous, he thought now, grinding his teeth. Eve was too strong for that. His ex-mistress—his wife, he corrected himself—was as hard as steel. A force of nature. Ridiculous to worry about an em
otional shock causing injury to their unborn child, when the Eve he’d known had no feelings whatsoever!
But in mere moments, she would finally remember everything—and be forced to admit everything—when she saw her lover.
Clenching his jaw, he stared out the window. The Bentley drove past the dark alley, not too far from Constitution Square where he’d committed his one and only criminal act. At fifteen, two months after his mother had died, he’d smashed the window of an expensive car. It had not gone as planned. The owner of the car had stumbled upon Talos on the sidewalk, holding the ripped-out car stereo in his hands.
Talos hadn’t tried to deny his crime. He’d openly confessed and, with as much charm as his self-taught English could muster, suggested he’d done the man a favor. “I think a different brand of stereo might suit you better.” Then, with a bowed head, he’d waited for him to call the police.
Instead, Dalton Hunter had hired him on the spot. “Our Athens office could use a kid like you,” he’d said with a laugh. And Talos had soon found himself the new messenger and office boy for the American CEO’s worldwide shipping corporation.
From that day, remembering his crime with shame, Talos had been obsessed with justice.
After climbing the corporate ladder and making some lucky investments, he’d made his first million by the age of twenty-four. The father who’d abandoned his mother when she was pregnant with Talos had read about him in the newspaper and had contacted him.
Not to ask for money, he’d said. Just for a visit.
Talos had refused even to speak with him.
A man earned the circumstances of his life. He got what he deserved.
And Yiorgos had caused Talos’s mother financial and emotional distress which had ultimately led to her early death. The man might share Talos’s DNA, but that was all. Dalton Hunter had been far more of a father to him than that man had ever been.
At least so Talos had thought until eleven years ago, when Dalton had turned out to be utterly corrupt.
But when it came to corruption, one woman had beaten them all.
He glanced at Eve. She looked coldly beautiful in the tiny silver cocktail dress and stiletto heels. Her lips were scarlet as blood, her eyelashes black as night against her white skin. Just like the ruthless mistress he remembered. As if nothing had changed.
Wasn’t that what he’d wanted?
The car stopped in front of an old white building, once part of a thirteenth-century monastery, now an art gallery nightclub started by a friend. Talos climbed out of the car, straightening the cuff links on the white shirt beneath his black blazer as he waited. The chauffeur opened Eve’s door, and she walked up to him on stiletto heels with a graceful swing of her hips.
“What is it?” she said acidly, tossing her head. Her lip curled. “Aren’t you happy with how I look?”
Was he happy? He looked down at her. Eve’s glossy dark hair had been pulled back into a severe ponytail that revealed the perfection of her bone structure and her creamy skin. Silver earrings dangled against her long neck. A tight silver cuff coiled up her bare arm in the shape of a snake.
She was a cold goddess.
Breathtaking.
Powerful.
“You’ll do,” he said evenly. He yanked her toward the door.
The asymmetrical straps of her silver dress hung askew on her shoulders, apparently threatening to fall at any moment to reveal her amazing breasts. He knew it was only a cunning artifice of design, but as they walked into the crumbling white building, and he heard the tap-tap-tap of her six-inch-high silver stiletto heels beside him, he watched men get whiplash from turning their heads to gawk at her.
Eve lifted her chin stonily, pretending not to notice. She was graceful, full of dignity. But he could feel her simmering fury rising from her beautiful body in waves.
Talos glared at them with a snarl curling his lip.
In the past, he’d been arrogantly proud to have the woman that every other man wanted. He’d taken it as his due—other, lesser men always envied what Talos possessed.
That had changed in Venice. And now, when he saw men craning their heads to look at her, pure rage washed over him.
Why? Why was he so angry and possessive? Because she was his wife?
Wife in name only, he told himself fiercely. And tonight, he would finally get his revenge. Once she saw her old love, she would remember everything. He would see her face crumple when she realized how she’d been caught.
“Talos!” The hostess, a thirtysomething socialite married to a Greek tycoon three times her age, came forward to greet him with a big smile. “What a wonderful surprise, darling! Your assistant sent your regrets. And—” She looked at Eve and her eyes went wide. “Oh my goodness. Eve Craig. I didn’t expect—I never thought you might—”
“Is Skinner here?” Talos interrupted.
The woman had been staring at Eve in consternation, but now she whirled to face Talos, biting her lip. “I heard you were in Australia. I never would have invited him otherwise,” she implored. “Please, darling, I don’t want trouble!”
“Don’t worry, Agata,” he replied, gritting his teeth into a smile. “We’re just going to have a bit of a chat.”
She exhaled. “I’ll hold you to that.” She eyed Eve, then as photographers came close to take their picture, put her arm around her and smiled before giving her an air kiss. “I didn’t realize you and Talos were still an item, Eve darling.”
“We are,” Eve replied coldly, then folded her arms as she waited for Talos.
Clenching his jaw, he looked downstairs over the railing. The cavernous white stone building was decorated with candles and modern-day icons looking up mournfully from gilded frames. All of the international party set was here to celebrate Agata’s twenty-ninth birthday—her third such party, if he recalled correctly. Suddenly, across the room, past the dance floor and the colorfully painted wooden bar with Agata’s handselected shirtless bartenders, Talos saw his rival—Jake Skinner.
Talos glanced quickly at Eve, waiting for her to see the tall American tycoon. Instead, she was staring up at him with an angry frown, searing him with her violetblue eyes.
“Enjoying yourself?” she said acidly. “Is this why you married me? So you could parade me at parties like your little doll?”
“I can do whatever I want with you,” he said coldly.
Cupping her bare arm, he steered her down the stairs and straight across the room to Jake Skinner. With a flicker of his eyes, Talos looked between them, waiting for recognition to cross Eve’s beautiful face at the sight of the man she’d dated before Talos. The man who held her loyalty. The man she loved.
Whirling around, the rugged American playboy nearly gasped at the sight of Talos. He looked around nervously for the exits. “Xenakis, it’s a public place. Don’t even think about—”
“Relax. I’m here to enjoy myself.”
Skinner visibly exhaled.
“No hard feelings, right?” he said in a jocular voice. “I only gave that document to the press because it seemed as if you were breaking the law.”
That, plus he’d hoped to gain massive profit for his own shareholders, Talos thought. He bared his teeth into a smile. “Of course, I understand. For all you knew, I might have been guilty. And no one—” he looked down at Eve “—should remain unpunished for their crimes.”
Eve’s brow furrowed as she stared up at him, as if trying to understand the meaning beneath his words. She didn’t seem to have any interest in Jake Skinner whatsoever.
Why wasn’t this working? Skinner was the love of her life. He had to be. There could be no other reason for her cold-blooded betrayal of him in June. So why wasn’t she reacting at the sight of him? Why wasn’t she crying out his name, gasping out her sudden memory, turning to Talos in horror and realizing she’d been irrevocably caught?
Clenching his jaw, Talos turned to give his rival a hard smile. “And just to show you there’s no hard feelings, Skinner, here�
��s a little peace offering.”
He shoved Eve toward him. She stumbled in surprise, nearly tripping on her six-inch stiletto heels.
The American’s jaw dropped, and his voice hit a high octave as he gasped, “Your peace offering is—Eve?”
“Forget it, you bastard,” Eve said furiously, whirling back to face Talos. “I won’t do it. I won’t even dance with him—”
“You will.”
She sucked in her breath, and for a moment he thought she meant to slap his face.
Then she straightened her spine with graceful dignity.
“What a lovely idea,” she said coldly, turning to Skinner with a smile on her scarlet lips. “Shall we dance?”
“Yes,” the man breathed. “Oh, yes.”
His eyes held such flagrant desire that Talos’s hands clenched into fists at his sides. He watched as his business rival collected his wife, taking her hand in his own, and escorted her to the dance floor.
And as the music started, Talos was unable to look away.
Eve was a beautiful dancer. She always had been. Every step she took caused the silvery sequined dress to move in waves over her luscious body. Without touching the other man, she moved slowly, sensually, in front of him, holding her arms over her head. The bottom of the dress barely brushed her thighs as she swayed her hips, closing her eyes.
Jake Skinner, along with nearly every other man on the dance floor, had stopped to gape at her, slack-jawed. The other women on the floor, many of whom were also very beautiful, noticed their men had frozen in place and they, too, turned to glare.
With her eyes still closed, Eve swayed to the music.
She moved like the seductive siren of every man’s hungry dreams.
Talos suddenly felt as though he was choking for air—or dying of thirst. Grabbing a martini from a waiter who’d stopped in front of him to stare at his wife, Talos gulped it all down at once.
Then he looked back at Eve. Every man in the room was staring at her. He felt a sudden stabbing pain against his palm and looked down, realizing he’d just shattered the martini glass in his hand.
“Me singkorite!” With a gasp, a nearby waiter turned and scurried to grab a broom.