by Anne Mather
‘Ariadne trusts me,’ he declared harshly, stung by the way she could put him on the defensive. ‘What? You think I didn’t tell her where I was going? That I had—how do you say— sneaked up here to see the woman I can’t wait to be free of without letting Ariadne know of my intentions?’
Jane pursed her lips. ‘No.’ She was defensive now.
‘Good. Because you couldn’t be more wrong.’ Demetri didn’t know where this anger had come from, but he was suddenly furious. Jane was here, in his parents’ house, looking more beautiful than he’d ever seen her, and he resented it. He didn’t want her here, he told himself. He didn’t want to be reminded of what they’d once had. ‘Ariadne and I understand one another.’
‘Well, goody for you.’ Now Jane felt a stirring of indignation, which was infinitely better than the embarrassment she’d felt before. ‘So, if that’s all you came to tell me, what are you waiting for? I’d really like to get to bed.’
Demetri’s nostrils flared. And, just when he was sure he had himself under control, he asked the unforgivable, ‘Why did you come here, Jane?’
Her eyes widened then. She was shocked. He could see it. And why not? It was a stupid question.
‘Why did I come here?’ she echoed, shaking her head. ‘You know why I came, Demetri. Your father asked me to!’
‘You could have refused.’
‘Refused a dying man!’ Jane was astounded. ‘What do you think I am?’
‘I don’t know, do I?’ Demetri’s teeth ground together. ‘What are you, Jane? Saint or sinner? I can’t quite make up my mind.’
Her lips parted, and then, a note of contempt entering her voice, ‘Well, at least I don’t have that dilemma, Demetri. You’re totally selfish through and through.’
‘And you’re not?’ Demetri’s lips curled, not sure why he felt this pressing need to pursue this, but unable to let it go. ‘I suppose this means you’ve justified your reasons for walking out on me? Or do you have to keep reminding yourself why you made such a colossal mistake?’
‘It wasn’t a mistake!’
‘Okhi? Why do I find that hard to believe? Isn’t there something hypocritical about holding the moral high ground, when a few weeks ago you were flat on your back, letting me screw your brains out?’
The words sounded so much worse, laced as they were with his accent, and Jane gasped. Before she could prevent herself, her hand connected with his cheek.
Demetri made no attempt to deflect the blow and she watched, with a feeling of disbelief, as the clear marks of her fingers appeared on the left side of his face.
She regretted it instantly. She didn’t do things like this. But it was too late to have second thoughts. Her hand had barely moved in a gesture of subjugation when Demetri’s uncertain control snapped. With a savage exclamation in his own language she didn’t understand, he locked hard fingers about her wrist and dragged her relentlessly towards him. ‘If that’s the way you want to play it, who am I to complain?’
‘Demetri,’ she cried, but it was no use.
‘Skaseh,’ he said harshly. Shut up!
‘But you can’t—’
‘Ipa skaseh,’ he repeated, grasping a handful of her hair and tipping her head backward. And then his hot mouth fastened itself to hers and she knew she was lost.
Anger, and the frustration he was feeling, made it impossible for him to be gentle with her. As he backed her up against the wall behind her, his tongue forced its way between her teeth. He pushed into her mouth, tasting her blood when his savage possession ground her lips against her teeth, but he had no mercy. He wanted to tear the bathrobe from her and bury himself inside her, and her fragile vulnerability was no deterrent, he found.
The moan she gave should have shamed him, but it didn’t. The sounds she was making only served to drive him completely over the edge. Tearing the sides of the robe apart, he feasted his eyes on dusky-tipped nipples, already swollen and painfully erect, and on the slight swell of her stomach and the tight curls that hid her sex.
‘Isteh oreos,’ he muttered thickly. ‘You are beautiful! Keh ti thelo!’ And I want you!
Jane’s hands had been trapped between them but now she dragged them free to rake frantic fingers across his cheek. Thankfully, she didn’t draw blood, but when her nails scraped across his scalp he uttered a groan of protest.
‘Do not pretend you do not want me, too,’ he said unsteadily, and, although her hands had fastened in his hair with the intention of jerking his head away from hers, the shaken timbre of his voice tore her resolution to shreds.
‘I—I don’t,’ she got out fiercely, but her lips told a different story when he kissed her again. Passion built between them with every sensual thrust of his tongue, and when he sucked her lower lip between his teeth, she could only clutch his neck and hang on.
‘This is why you really came here, isn’t it?’ he demanded, his hands sliding possessively up her arms to tip the robe off her shoulders. ‘You are determined to destroy me.’
‘No,’ she protested, as the robe fell to the floor, but Demetri wasn’t listening to her. His fingers slid over her shoulders and down her back, caressing her hipbones briefly, before moving on to her bottom. Filling his hands with the rounded globes, he brought her deliberately against him, rotating his hips so she was made unmistakably aware of the pressure of his erection.
‘Do you feel that?’ he asked, his voice thick with emotion. ‘Yes, of course you do. But do you have any idea what it’s like to be this close to you and not be a part of you?’
‘Demetri—’
‘You drive me crazy,’ he went on, as if she hadn’t spoken, thrusting his thigh between her legs. ‘Stark, staring crazy, and I still want you even closer to me, under me, spreading your legs for me, to give me some relief from this torment you’re putting me through.’
‘Demetri—’
‘Do not try to tell me I don’t know what I’m saying,’ he snarled. ‘I know. I know, Jane. Believe me.’
‘Demetri, please—’
The husky tone of her voice vibrated through him, but he was too far gone to listen to reason. Tucking a hand beneath the tumbled silk of her hair, he tipped her head up to his, his mouth silencing any further protest.
The kiss was deep and erotic, an affirmation of everything he’d been saying, seducing her to a place where nothing mattered but that he should go on kissing her and caressing her, drenching her body in the mindless heat of her own arousal.
She wondered afterwards if he would have taken her there, against the wall of her sitting room, if they hadn’t been interrupted. Demetri was already using his free hand to tear his shirt open, dragging off his tie to send it spiralling across the room. And she—God help her!—was encouraging him, cupping his warm neck between her palms, digging her nails into taut flesh that smelled hot and sweaty and deliciously male.
She was rubbing herself against him, delighting in the sensual brush of his body hair against her breasts, when there was a tentative knock on the door.
For a moment, neither of them moved. It was as if they were suddenly frozen, blood cooling to weld them to the spot. Demetri, his face buried in the scented curve of her shoulder, breathed a word that could more politely be described as ‘Damn!’ and slumped against her. And Jane tipped her head back against heavy silk damask, grateful for the wall’s support.
‘Jane!’
Her mouth went dry. The momentary fear that it was Demetri who’d spoken, alerting whoever was on the other side of the door to his presence, making her feel weak. But almost immediately she realised that Demetri was too enraged to say anything civil. It was another voice that was disconcertingly like Demetri’s who had spoken her name.
With a strength she hadn’t known she possessed, Jane managed to push Demetri’s head back so he could see her lips. ‘It’s your father,’ she mouthed, the consternation evident in her face, and with a resigned gesture he muttered, ‘I know.’
‘So what are you going to do a
bout it?’ she continued as he dragged himself upright and raked back his hair. She bent to snatch the bathrobe from the floor and quickly put it on. ‘He can’t find you here. Not like this. You’ve got to go.’
‘Go where?’ He was sardonic. ‘Do you expect me to hide in the bathroom until he’s gone?’
‘That’s one idea, certainly.’ Jane swallowed and nodded her head, but Demetri only gave her a scornful look.
‘Apoklieteh!’ he whispered harshly. ‘No way!’
‘Jane!’ There was a pregnant pause and then Leo Souvakis spoke again. ‘Is someone with you, kiria? I can come back later, if you would rather?’
‘No, I—’
Jane struggled for an answer, gazing beseechingly at Demetri, begging him to get out of sight.
But all he did was finish fastening the buttons on his shirt and stuff it back into his trousers. Then, to her horror, he walked across to the door and swung it open.
CHAPTER EIGHT
TO HER surprise, Jane slept amazingly well.
She hadn’t expected to. After the day—and evening—she’d had, she’d anticipated lying awake for hours, mulling over everything that had happened. But instead, she’d lost consciousness the moment her head hit the pillow.
A clear conscience? She didn’t think so. What she’d done—what she’d allowed Demetri to do—had been unforgivable. She’d deserved to spend the night berating herself for her foolishness.
No doubt the fact that she was pregnant had had something to do with the ease with which she’d fallen asleep, she reflected ruefully. Now, rolling onto her back, she found the sun streaming through the crack in the curtains she’d drawn the night before. While she’d been in London, fretting over the alternatives she was faced with, such sleep as she’d had had been restless and plagued with tortuous dreams. But last night she’d been so exhausted, she hadn’t been able to keep her eyes open.
In consequence she felt rested, more rested than she’d done in a long time. Not since Demetri had come back into her life, in fact.
However, it was time to get up and face the day and it wasn’t just the familiar nausea that was causing her stomach to quiver in protest. Dear God, what had Demetri’s father really thought when his son had thrown open her door and stormed out of her apartments without a word of explanation the night before? Just a terse ‘Papa’ in passing, and then he strode away towards the stairs as if he at least had no intention of answering any questions about his reasons for being there.
What Leo Souvakis must have thought, finding his son with the woman he was supposed to be divorcing was anyone’s guess. And not ‘supposed to be divorcing’, Jane amended. Was divorcing. Hadn’t she received the initial papers the day before she’d left for Kalithi? Just because she hadn’t signed them yet didn’t make them any the less real.
Pushing back the covers, she discovered she’d slept without the man-size T-shirt she invariably wore. But being left to face Leo’s obvious confusion when his son had passed him with barely an acknowledgement had been humiliating, so it was no wonder she’d been bewildered after he’d gone. At the time, however, Demetri’s father had gazed after his son as if he didn’t understand the situation. And then he’d looked at Jane and found she was wearing only a bathrobe and an expression of understanding had crossed his lined face.
Jane’s own face had been burning. She’d been all too aware that her lips were bruised and she had stubble burns on her cheeks. Leo wasn’t a fool. He must have guessed exactly what he’d interrupted. Which was why he’d refused when she’d invited him in.
‘Ah, not tonight, Jane,’ he’d said, glancing once again along the landing, almost as if he’d expected his son to reappear. ‘If you have everything you need, I’ll wish you goodnight. Sleep well, my dear. Kalinikhta.’
He’d obviously decided now was not the time to indulge in casual conversation. But as Jane had said goodnight, she’d wished she’d had the nerve to say It’s not what you think! Yet it was what he’d probably thought, she admitted unhappily. How could she pretend otherwise? And what he’d thought of her behaviour, let alone his son’s, was not something she was looking forward to finding out.
A maid brought her breakfast while Jane was taking her shower. She found the tray containing fruit juice, sweet rolls and coffee on her bedside table when she came out of the bathroom. She hoped the girl hadn’t heard anything she shouldn’t, but if she had, what of it? People were sick for various reasons, not all of them suspicious.
The smell of coffee was offputting, but, breaking off a corner of one of the rolls, she popped it into her mouth. It was good. It even made her feel a little better, and she remembered that she’d read somewhere that food could help morning sickness.
She ate two of the rolls and drank the fruit juice, her spirits improving all the time. She even swallowed half a cup of coffee and by the end she was feeling pretty good.
The maid who’d unpacked her clothes had folded all the casual items into a drawer. Jane pulled out a sleeveless tanktop, in pink with matching shorts. The colour suited her and she secured her hair with a long-toothed comb. Then, feeling a little apprehensive, she left her room. It was after nine, so perhaps someone would be about.
She wasn’t thinking about Demetri, she told herself as she descended the stairs, though she couldn’t help wondering if he’d left. But it was Stefan she saw first, picking out a tune on a magnificent baby grand piano in the music room, where long arched windows opened to the terrace beyond.
Crossing the hall, she paused in the entrance, and, although he couldn’t have heard her silent approach, he lifted his head. ‘Jane!’ he exclaimed, getting up from the stool to reveal that like her he was wearing shorts and a casual shirt. He came towards her, smiling warmly. ‘Did you sleep well? You were not too tired after—after your journey?’
His hesitation was telling, but Jane chose not to notice it. ‘Very well,’ she said, wondering if his mother would approve of the air kisses he bestowed on each of her cheeks. ‘I gather you’re not working today.’
When she’d left the island, Stefan had been acting as his father’s secretary. But, knowing Leo as she did, Jane couldn’t believe he’d approve of Stefan’s attire if he was working with him.
‘Not today,’ he agreed, without offering any further explanation. ‘Have you had breakfast? I can ask Angelena—’
‘I’ve eaten, thanks.’ Jane glanced about the sunlit salon. ‘This is a lovely room. And so quiet. I’d forgotten how quiet Kalithi could be.’
‘How dull, you mean,’ said Stefan drily, and Jane wondered if she’d only imagined the bitterness in his voice. The night before, he’d seemed reasonably happy. But now there was a distinct air of melancholy about his plump features.
‘I suppose that depends what you’re looking for,’ she murmured, not really wanting to get into any in-depth discussion about his life.
‘So what are you looking for, Jane?’ Stefan’s brows arched and his tone was faintly malicious. ‘Is being a success in business really all you want from life?’
‘I don’t know what I want,’ said Jane bluntly, and it was nothing but the truth. ‘Um—where is everyone? Having breakfast?’
‘My father rarely comes down before lunch,’ replied Stefan carelessly. ‘My mother usually spends the morning with him, though, with Ariadne being here, she may decide to change her routine. Yanis has returned to the seminary, and—my other brother left over an hour ago.’
‘Demetri?’ Jane was amazed. She hadn’t even heard the helicopter. But also relieved, she told herself. It had to be easier now he was gone.
‘Demetri,’ Stefan agreed. ‘He expects to be back tomorrow evening.’
‘Tomorrow evening!’
‘Yes, tomorrow evening.’ Stefan regarded her with some amusement. ‘So, how do you propose to entertain yourself until then?’
Jane’s colour deepened. ‘I don’t know what you mean. I didn’t come here to see Demetri.’
‘No?’ He didn’t s
ound convinced and she wondered if that was what his father and mother thought, too. Not to mention Demetri himself. But she didn’t want to think about him.
‘Your father asked to see me,’ she said now. She linked her hands together. ‘I couldn’t—I didn’t want to refuse.’
‘Humph.’ Stefan shrugged his shoulders. He was of a shorter build than Demetri and there was something essentially feminine about his mocking smile. ‘If you say so, who am I to disagree with you? Perhaps I’m allowing Mama’s influence to colour my judgement.’
Jane shook her head and would have retreated into the hall in search of friendlier company, when he spread his arms disarmingly. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m a bitch, I know. You mustn’t take any notice of me, Jane. Come: let me take you for a walk. We can go down through the garden and onto the beach.’
Jane hesitated. ‘Oh, I don’t know whether—’
‘Please.’ Stefan could be charming when he chose. ‘Or we could sit by the pool. I know how you like to swim.’
She might have taken that as another sly comment but at present putting on a swimsuit might be unwise. In consequence, she decided to accept Stefan’s former offer. ‘A walk sounds—appealing,’ she said, crossing her arms and cupping her elbows in her palms. It had to be better than hanging about here waiting for her mother-in-law or Ariadne to appear.
They left the house through sliding doors that opened from the morning room. This part of the villa looked much the same as Jane remembered, with duck-egg-blue walls, yellow and white pottery on glass-topped tables and a cool marble floor. Half-drawn Roman blinds in shades of green and brown and orange should have clashed with the vivid décor, but they didn’t. It was a cheerful room, spoilt only by the memory of the argument she and Demetri had had here the morning before she left the island for good.
Or what she’d thought was for good, she reflected, preceding Stefan through the sliding doors. Now there was so much confusion inside her, she didn’t know what she thought.
Thankfully the terrace held no such horrors. Italian tiles, vine-hung trellises, marble steps leading down to a huge circular pool. They bypassed the steps and the cedar-wood cabins that housed both showers and a sauna, following a path that led between lawns that were presently being watered by an efficient sprinkler system. The lawns were edged with bushes of flowering cactus, the path paved and immaculately free of any weeds.