by Lynne Graham
‘Are you happy?’ Liz pressed anxiously.
‘Incredibly…’ Well, about as happy as she could be when it had been six days, fourteen hours and thirty-seven minutes since she had last laid eyes on Angelos, Maxie reflected ruefully. But to vegetate alone, abandoned and neglected on Chymos, would’ve been even worse.
‘Do you think Angelos might come to love you?’
Maxie thought about that. She had set her sights on him loving her but she wasn’t sure it was a very realistic goal. Had Angelos ever been in love? It was very possible that she might settle for just being needed. Right now, all she could accurately forecast was that Angelos would be in a seething rage because she had left the island without telling him and hadn’t made the slightest effort to get in touch.
But then that was what a mistress would do when the man in her life departed without mention of when he would return. A mistress was necessarily a self-sufficient creature. And if Angelos hadn’t yet got around to putting in place the arrangements by which he intended to see her and spend time with her, then that was his oversight, not hers. No mistress would tell her billionaire lover when she would be available…that was his department.
Maxie had tea with Liz and then she called a cab. With the mountain of luggage she had acquired, it was quite a squeeze. She directed the driver to the basement car park of the building Angelos had informed her was to be exclusively hers. She was a little apprehensive about how she was to gain entry. After all, Angelos didn’t even know she was back in London yet, and possibly the place would be locked up and deserted.
But on that point she discovered that she had misjudged him. There was a security man in the lift.
‘Miss Kendall…?’
‘That’s me. Would you see to my luggage, please?’ Maxie stepped into the lift to be wafted upwards and wondered why the man was gaping at her.
When the doors slid back, she thought she had stopped on the wrong floor. The stark modern decor had been swept away as if it had never been. In growing amazement, Maxie explored the spacious apartment. The whole place had been transformed with antique furniture, wonderful rugs and a traditional and warm colour scheme. King Kong on stilts couldn’t have seen over the barriers ringing the roof garden and, just in case she still wasn’t about to bring herself to step out into the fresh air, a good third of the space now rejoiced in being a conservatory.
The apartment was gorgeous. No expense had been spared, nothing that might add to her comfort had been overlooked, but, far from being impressed by Angelos’s consideration of her likes and dislikes, and even her terror of heights, Maxie was almost reduced to grovelling tears of despair. Angelos had had all this done just so that they could live apart. Looked at from that angle, the lengths he had gone to in his efforts to make her content with her solitary lot seemed like a deadly insult and the most crushing of rejections.
Maxie unpacked. That took up what remained of the evening and her wardrobe soon overflowed into the guest-room next door. She took out the two-page list of Angelos’s flaws that had become her talisman. Whenever she got angry with him, whenever she missed him, she took it out and reminded herself that while she might not be perfect, he was not perfect either. It was a surprisingly comforting exercise which somehow made her feel closer to him.
How long would it take him to work out where she was? She lay in her sunken bath under bubbles, miserable as sin. She wanted to phone him but she wouldn’t let herself The perfect mistress did not phone her lover. That would be indiscreet. She put on a diaphanous azure-blue silk nightdress slit to the thigh and curled up on the huge brass bed in the master suite.
The arrival of the lift was too quiet and too far away for her to hear. But she heard the hard footsteps ringing down the corridor. Maxie tensed, anticipation filling her. The bedroom door thrust wide, framing Angelos.
In a black dinner jacket that fitted his broad shoulders like a glove, and narrow black trousers that accentuated the long, long length of his legs, he was breathtakingly handsome. Her heart went thud…and then thud again. His bow tie was missing; the top couple of studs on his white dress shirt were undone to reveal a sliver of vibrant brown skin.
Poised in the doorway, big hands clenched into fists and breathing rapidly as if he had come from somewhere in a heck of a hurry, he ran outraged golden eyes over her relaxed pose on the brass bed as she reclined back against the heaped-up luxurious pillows as if she hadn’t a single care in the world.
‘You’re here on my first night back…what a lovely surprise!’ Maxie carolled.
CHAPTER TEN
MOMENTARILY disconcerted by that chirpy greeting, Angelos stilled. His lush black lashes came down and swept up again as if he wasn’t quite sure what he was seeing, never mind what he was hearing.
Having learned some very good lessons from him, Maxie took the opportunity to sit forward, shake back her wonderful mane of golden hair and stretch so that not one inch of the remarkably sexy nightdress hugging her lithe curves could possibly escape his notice.
‘What do you think?’ she asked gaily. ‘I bought it in—’
His entire attention was locked on her, darker colour highlighting his taut high cheekbones and the wrathful glitter of incredulity in his brilliant eyes. ‘Where the hell have you been for the past week?’ he launched at her with thunderous aggression as he strode forward. ‘Do you realise that I flew back to Chymos before I realised you’d left the island?’
‘Oh, no,’ Maxie groaned. ‘I would’ve felt awful if I’d known that!’
‘Why the blazes didn’t you phone me to tell me what you were thinking of doing?’ Angelos demanded with raw incredulity. ‘You can shop any time you like but you don’t need to do it in time that you could be with me!’
‘Why didn’t you phone me to tell me that you were coming back?’ Maxie’s eyes were as bright as sapphires. ‘You see, I couldn’t phone you. None of the villa staff spoke a word of English and I don’t have your phone number—’
Angelos froze. ‘What do you mean you don’t have my number?’
‘Well. you’re not in the directory and I’m sure your office staff are very careful not to hand out privileged information like that to just anybody—’
“Theos…you’re not just anybody!’ Angelos blazed, in such a rage he could hardly get the words out. ‘I expect to know where you are every minute of the day! And the best I could do was follow your credit card withdrawals as they leapfrogged across Europe!’
What Maxie was hearing now was bliss. She had been missed. ‘I think it really would be sensible for you to give me a contact number,’ she said gently. ‘I’m sorry, but I honestly never realised how possessive you could be—’
‘Possessive?’ Angelos snatched in a shuddering breath of visible restraint, scorching golden eyes hot as lava. ‘I am not possessive. I just wanted to know where you were.’
‘Every minute of the day,’ Maxie reminded him helplessly. ‘Well, how was I to know that when you didn’t tell me?’
Angelos drove raking fingers through his luxuriant black hair. ‘You do not ever take off anywhere again without telling me where you’re going…is that clear?’ he growled, withdrawing a gold pen from the inside pocket of his well-cut jacket and striding over to the bedside table.
To her dismay he proceeded to use the blank back page of her list of his flaws to write on. She had left it lying face-down on the table. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I am listing every number by which I can be reached. Never again will you use the excuse that you couldn’t contact me! My portable phone, my confidential line, the apartment, the car phones, and when I’m abroad…’
And he wrote and he wrote and he wrote while Maxie watched in fascination. He had more access numbers than a telecommunications company. It was as if he was drawing up a network for constant communication. Mercifully it had not occurred to him, however, to take a closer look at what he was writing on.
‘I got the news that you had reappeared while I was
entertaining a group of Japanese industrialists,’ Angelos supplied grittily. ‘I had to sit through the whole blasted evening before I could get here!’
‘If only I’d known,’ Maxie sighed, struggling to keep her tide of happiness in check. Angelos was no longer cold and remote. He had been challenged by the shocking discovery that she did not sit like an inanimate object stowed on a shelf when he was absent. He had been frustrated by not knowing where she was or exactly when or where she might choose to show up again. As a result, Angelos had had far more to think about than the argument on which they had parted on Chymos.
Angelos was still writing. He stopped to sling her a penetrating look of suspicion. ‘You were in Rome…you were in Paris…who were you with?’ he demanded darkly.
‘I was on my own,’ Maxie responded with an injured look of dignity.
Angelos’s intent gaze lingered. A little of his tension evaporated. Dense lashes screened his eyes. ‘I was pretty angry with you…’
She knew that meant he had been thumping walls and raising Cam. From the instant he’d found her absent without leave from the island, he had been a volcano smouldering, just longing for the confrontational moment of release when he could erupt.
‘I’d offer you a drink but I’m afraid all the cupboards are bare,’ Maxie remarked.
‘Naturally… wasn’t expecting you to move in here.’
Maxie frowned. ‘How can you say that when this entire apartment has obviously been remodelled for my occupation?’
Setting down his pen, Angelos straightened and settled gleaming dark eyes on her. ‘Look, that was before we got married…you might not have noticed, but things have changed since then.’
Maxie looked blank. ‘Have they?’
Angelos’s beautiful mouth compressed hard. ‘I’ve been thinking. You might as well come home with me. I’ll stick a notice about our marriage in the paper—’
‘No…I like things the way they are.’ Saying that was the hardest thing Maxie had ever done, but pride would not allow her to accept the role of wife when it was so grudgingly offered. ‘I love this apartment and, like you, I really do appreciate my own space. And there is no point in firing up a media storm about our marriage when it’s going to be over in a few months.’
Angelos studied her intently, like a scientist peeling layers off an alien object to penetrate its mysteries. And then, without the slightest warning, his brilliant eyes narrowed and the merest hint of a smile lessened the tension still etched round his mouth. ‘OK…fine, no problem. You’re being very sensible about this.’
Inside herself, Maxie collapsed like a pricked balloon. He sounded relieved by her decision. He saw no point in them attempting to live as a normal married couple. Evidently he still saw no prospect of them having any kind of a future together. But Maxie wanted him begging her to share the same roof. Clearly she had a long way to go if she was to have any hope of achieving that objective.
‘But I would appreciate an explanation for your sudden departure from Chymos,’ Angelos completed.
Maxie tautened. ‘I didn’t know when you were coming back. You were furious. It seemed a good idea to let the dust settle.’
‘Do you know why I came back to London?’ Strong face taut, Angelos drew himself up to his full commanding height, the two-page list still clasped in one hand and attracting her covert and anxious attention.
‘I haven’t a clue.’
‘I had to sort out Leland.’
Quite unprepared for that announcement, Maxie gasped. ‘Leland?’
With an absent glance at the loose pages in his hand, Angelos proceeded to fold them and slot them carelessly into the pocket of his jacket. Utterly appalled by that development, and already very much taken back by his reference to Leland Coulter, Maxie watched in sick horror as her defamatory list disappeared from view.
‘Leland had to be dealt with. Surely you didn’t think I planned to let him get away with what he did to you?’ Angelos drawled in a fulminating tone of disbelief. ‘He stole a whole chunk of your life and, not content with that, he ripped you off with that loan—’
‘Angelos…L-Leland is a sick man—’
‘Since he had the bypass op he is well on the road to full recovery,’ Angelos contradicted grimly. ‘But he’s thoroughly ashamed of himself now, and so he should be.’
‘You actually confronted him?’ Maxie was still reeling in shock.
‘And in Jennifer’s presence. Now that she knows the real story of your dealings with her husband, she’s ecstatic. Leland had no plans to confess the truth and his punctured vanity will be his punishment. He trapped you into a demeaning, distressing charade just to hit back at Jennifer!’ Angelos concluded harshly.
‘I never dreamt you would feel so strongly about it,’ Maxie admitted tautly.
‘You’re mine now,’ Angelos countered with indolent cool. ‘I look after everything that belongs to me to the very best of my ability.’
‘I don’t belong to you…I’m just passing through…’ Hot, offended colour had betrayingly flushed Maxie’s cheeks. She wanted to hit him but, surveying him, she just gritted her teeth because she knew that the instant she got that close she would just melt into his arms and draw that dark, arrogant head down to hers. Almost seven days of sensory and emotional deprivation were making her feel incredibly weak.
Poised at the foot of the bed, lean brown hands flexing round the polished brass top rail, Angelos rested slumbrous yet disturbingly intent dark eyes on her beautiful face. ‘Leland and Jennifer do, however, lead one to reflect on the peculiarity of the games adults play with each other,’ he commented levelly. ‘What a mistake it can be to underestimate your opponent…’
A slight chill ran down Maxie’s backbone. Games? No, surely he couldn’t have recognised what she was trying to do, she told herself urgently, for, apart from anything else, she did not consider herself to be playing a game. ‘I don’t follow…’
‘Leland neglected his wife. Jennifer had a silly affair. She wouldn’t say sorry. He was too bitter to forgive her. So they spent three years frantically squabbling over the terms of their divorce, enjoying a sort of twisted togetherness and never actually making it into court. Neither one of them allowed for the other’s intransigence or stamina.’
‘Crazy,’ Maxie whispered very low.
‘Isn’t it just?’ Angelos agreed, flicking a glance down at the thin gold watch on his wrist. He released a soft sigh of regret. ‘I’d love to stay. However, I did promise to show my face at my cousin Demetrios’s twenty-first celebration at a nightclub…and it’s getting late.’
Maxie sat there as immobile as a stone dropped in a deep pond and plunged into sudden dreadful suffocating darkness. ‘You’re…leaving?’ she breathed, not quite levelly.
‘I lead a fairly hectic social life, pethi mou. Business, family commitments,’ Angelos enumerated lazily. ‘But the pressure of time and distance should ensure that the snatched moments we share will be all the more exciting—’
‘Snatched moments?’ Maxie echoed in a strained and slightly shrill undertone as she slid off the bed in an abrupt movement. ‘You think I am planning to sit here and wait for “snatched moments” of your precious time?’
‘Maxie…you’re beginning to sound just a little like a wife,’ Angelos pointed out with a pained aspect. ‘The one thing a mistress must never ever do is nag.’
‘Nag?’ Maxie gasped, ready to grab him by the lapels of his exquisitely tailored dinner jacket and shake him until he rattled like a box of cutlery in a grinding machine.
‘Or sulk. or shout or look discontented…’ Angelos warmed to his theme with a glimmering smile of satisfaction. ‘This is where I expect to come to relax and shrug off the tensions of the day… I’ll dine here with you tomorrow night—’
Maxie was seething and ready to cut off her nose to spite her face. ‘I’m going out.’
‘Maxie…’ Angelos shook his imperious dark head in reproof. ‘Naturally I expect your entir
e day to revolve round being available when I want you to be.’
‘For snatched moments?’ Maxie asserted in outrage. ‘What am I supposed to do with myself the rest of the time?’
‘Shop,’ Angelos delivered with the comforting air of a male dropping news she must be dying to hear. ‘Any woman who can spend for an entire week without flagging once is a serious shopaholic.’
Maxie flushed to the roots of her hair, assailed by extreme mortification. She had spent an absolute fortune.
‘And if it’s a phobia, you should now be very happy,’ Angelos continued bracingly. ‘With me bankrolling you, you won’t ever need to take the cure.’
Maxie was mute. Her every objective, her script, everything she had dreamt up with which to challenge him over the past week now lay in discarded tatters round her feet. As yet she couldn’t quite work out how that had happened. Angelos had started out angry, fully meeting her expectations, but he was now in a wonderfully good mood…even though he was about to walk out on her.
During that weak moment of inattention, Angelos reached out to tug her into his arms with maddeningly confident hands. Maxie was rigid, and then she just drooped, drained of fight. He curved her even closer, crushing her up against him with a groan of unconcealed pleasure and sending every nerve in her body haywire with wanton longing.
‘If it wasn’t for this wretched party, I’d stay…’ Angelos pushed against her with knowing eroticism, shamelessly acquainting her with the intensity of his arousal. Maxie’s heartbeat went from a race into an all-out sprint. Heat surged between her thighs, leaving her weak with lust.
‘I could throw you down on the bed and sate this overpowering ache for fulfilment—’
Maxie said, ‘Yes…’
‘But it would be wicked and unforgivable to make a snack out of what ought to be a five-course banquet.’ Even as he talked Angelos was tracing a passage down her extended throat with his mouth in hot, hungry little forays. He slid a long, powerful thigh between hers to press against the most sensitive spot in her entire shivering body. ‘I really do have to go…’