by Lynne Graham
‘I had no way of making you believe me. I have no proof of who I am!’ Rosie protested fiercely.
‘Anton had the proof and you must have known that. You didn’t even care that this file might have fallen into Thespina’s hands!’ In unconcealed disgust, Constantine thrust her back from him again.
‘I didn’t even think about it, for heaven’s sake. Do you think I was expecting my father to die?’ Rosie prompted jerkily. ‘And Anton never mentioned any file to me... What’s in it?’
‘Your history from birth. Evidently he knew every damn thing about you before he even approached you!’
The news shattered Rosie. There had been so many painful events in her life which she had deliberately not shared with her father. She had wanted to protect him. And yet all the time he had known exactly what her life had been like.
‘How did Anton get involved with your mother?’ Constantine demanded.
Rosie’s legs wouldn’t hold her up any longer. She sank down dizzily on the side of the bed. ‘His secretary was sick. Mum was an agency temp. Their affair only lasted a few weeks before he finished it—’
‘Because my parents died and Anton and Thespina became my legal guardians. I imagine you’ve often thought how very different your life might have been had that not happened.’
It was strange, Rosie registered in deep shock, but she had never made that final connection until Constantine made it for her. Almost twenty-one years ago, she had been accidentally conceived when Anton’s marriage was on the rocks. And then ironically, within weeks of her conception, a tragic car crash had quite miraculously given her father and his wife the child they had both been longing for. A nine-year-old boy had become their shared responsibility and had effectively healed the breach between them. And that little boy had been Constantine.
‘I never appreciated that timing before...not properly,’ she admitted tautly. ‘But Anton had no idea that my mother was pregnant when they parted. He didn’t find out until it was far too late for him to try and help her.’
‘No, he got a photo and a cold little note through the post telling him that he was the father of a daughter he could never know because your mother had married another man. When the photos stopped coming, I assume that he couldn’t live with his curiosity any longer and he started looking for you.’
‘He didn’t even know my stepfather’s name... he had so little to go on and a couple of times he gave up.’
‘Christos ... you must hate me as much as you hate Thespina for the life you have led!’ Constantine ground out half under his breath. He swung violently away from her as if he could no longer bear to look at her. Every powerful line of his lean, muscular body sizzled with whip-taut tension.
‘I don’t hate anyone.’ But Rosie still felt ashamed because she could remember occasions before her father’s death when her resentment of his legitimate family had risen to explosive proportions... only that had been before she had met Constantine and Thespina and before she had made herself face reality.
‘Anton didn’t love my mother,’ she pointed out tightly. ‘He never stopped loving Thespina. Even if he had known about me, he wouldn’t have divorced her for my mother. I think she knew that and that’s why she never gave him a choice.’
‘You didn’t give me a choice either,’ Constantine condemned with ringing bitterness. ‘You allowed me to go on thinking that you had slept with Anton. Even when you knew that that belief was tearing me apart, you let me go on believing it!’
‘I kept on telling you that we weren’t lovers—’
‘While being aware that that made no kind of sense! The only other possible explanation for Anton’s will was the one I came up with. And you only have yourself to thank for the way I treated you.’ His hawk-like profile rigid with repressed emotion, Constantine dealt her a raw-edged glance. ‘But I have to live with the awareness that I cruelly and cynically misjudged Anton and did everything I could to evade the responsibility that he trusted me to accept. And that responsibility was for his daughter. I betrayed his trust in every way possible.’
‘You didn’t betray anything... it was outrageous of him to demand that you marry me!’ Her anxious eyes clung to the fierce cast of his features. ‘I know he had good intentions but it was still crazy!’
‘I was one bloody mixed-up kid when the Estradas got landed with me... They put up with me and straightened me out. Without their love and guidance, I’d have gone off the rails. You can never repay a debt like that.’ Pale beneath his dark skin, Constantine compressed his lips and turned away from her again to stride over to the window and yank open the curtains on the clear moonlit night beyond. The savage tension in his wide brown shoulders made her drop her aching eyes.
It was something of a shock for Rosie to appreciate that Constantine’s early years with his own parents might have been less than perfect. Yet she remembered him admitting that Anton had meant more to him than his own father. She stifled her curiosity because she was already squirming with all kinds of incredibly guilty feelings. Constantine had interpreted her silence as evidence of malice and a vengeful desire to put him in the wrong. He had even cherished the suspicion that she had been lying in wait for some kind of spiteful showdown with Thespina.
‘I’m sorry... maybe I should’ve spoken up again sooner, but you really cut me off that day when I tried to tell you, and then later, when you started talking about debts and stuff,’ Rosie framed tremulously, ‘I just couldn’t face—’
Abruptly, Constantine wheeled round and strode back across the room. Alarmingly strong hands closed over her shoulders and dragged her upright. Blazing golden eyes swept her shaken face in smouldering fury. ‘You were a virgin...but you would have died sooner than give me the pleasure of knowing that you had not been Anton’s woman first! Every way you could, you turned the screw on me! What a cold, vindictive bitch you are,’ he grated thickly. ‘And what a bloody fool I was to think differently!’
As the door thudded shut on his exit, Rosie stood there with slow, painful tears tracking down her quivering cheeks. Only hours earlier she had gone to sleep in his arms. She had felt so close to him, so... cherished. Cherished? A hiccuping sob escaped her, and then another. Why did she kid herself like that? Why was she so wretchedly naive? So Constantine was fantastic in bed and he was experienced enough to make a woman feel incredibly special, but that was all. It didn’t mean he had been falling in love with her or wanting to make their marriage a real one.
And now, he despised her. It had never occurred to her that the information she was withholding might have such a devastating emotional effect on him. What had she expected? Well, at the very least she had expected the chance to tell him herself and she had expected him to be incredulous and then probably apologising all over the place for not believing her claim the first time she had made it.
Constantine... filled with remorse and humility, shamefacedly apologising? Rosie squirmed. At the back of her mind, hadn’t she been looking forward to that highly imaginative moment and feeling slightly smug that he was in for a major shock? Hadn’t she been determined that he should want her for herself and not because she was Anton’s daughter? And hadn’t she even secretly hoped that by the time she got around to breaking the news at a carefully chosen optimum moment it might finally strike Constantine as terrific news? She winced in remembrance.
All along she had blithely ignored the nature of the male animal she was dealing with. In her hurt pride and insecurity, she had been selfish and insensitive. Constantine made a real virtue of candour and plain speaking. Her continued silence had been a form of deception and he could scarcely be blamed for assuming the worst about her motives.
After pacing the floor for what felt like hours, Rosie tried to get some sleep, but she found it impossible to still her uneasy conscience or to suppress the suspicion that she had made a poor showing in her own defence. Switching on the bedside light, she discovered that it was almost three in the morning. Would Constantine be asleep? Or
would he be lying awake like she was?
Clad in a faded cotton nightshirt, Rosie tiptoed across the landing and slowly opened the door. Moonlight shone through the windows onto the untouched bed. From the stairs, she saw a dim light showing beneath the drawing-room door. In the hall she hesitated, wondering what on earth she was going to say when she couldn’t bring herself to admit that she was head over heels in love with him...
Right now he hated her, and even if he got over that aversion the announcement that she was in love with him might scare him all the way back to Greece. A male who had never been in love and who was extremely wary of commitment was unlikely to feel comfortable with being loved, even by a temporary wife, who would be lying in her teeth if she said she didn’t have a hidden agenda.
Rosie tilted her chin and opened the door. Only one lamp was lit, leaving most of the vast room in gloomy dark shadow. Constantine was lying on a sofa. She crept over to him just as he muttered something slurred in Greek. His dense black lashes lifted and it appeared to be a struggle for him to focus on her.
‘Constantine?’
He blinked twice, a slow frown drawing his ebony brows together, and he responded to his name in his own language.
His black hair was tousled and a heavy blue-black shadow of stubble obscured his hard jawline. But it was the look of desolation in his eyes which punched a hole in Rosie’s heart. She dropped down on her knees by the sofa and reached for one lean brown hand. ‘I’m so sor—’
A flicker of movement stirred in the shadows and Rosie gasped, almost jumping out of her skin. Having risen from his seat behind the door, Dmitri strolled forward. ‘I’ll look after him, Mrs Voulos.’
‘Is he ill? I mean...’ She fell silent as she belatedly picked up the strong smell of alcohol. Her attention skimmed to the whisky bottle and glass lying abandoned on the rug and she froze in dismayed comprehension. ‘He’s... he’s—?’
‘A little under the weather. Go back to bed,’ Dmitri urged flatly. ‘I’ll stay with him.’
‘Does he make a habit of this?’ Rosie managed shakily, her small fingers curving possessively round one lean, unresponsive thigh.
‘I have never seen him like this before.’ Even in shock that Constantine could do something as uncharacteristic as get paralytically drunk, Rosie would have had to be blind to miss the coolness in the older man’s eyes and the protective way he hovered at the head of the sofa, as if she were some sort of a threat to his employer’s safety.
‘What’s he talking about?’ she pressed as Constantine shifted and muttered some more.
‘Rabbits,’ Dmitri informed her with extreme reluctance.
‘Rabbits?’ Rosie queried weakly.
‘I’ll take him up to bed...’ Dmitri stepped forward, forcing Rosie to relinquish her hold and scramble upright.
‘I’ll help you.’
‘Thank you but that won’t be necessary.’
Rosie backed away, dismayed by the bodyguard’s barely concealed hostility. He hesitated, clearly determined not to subject Constantine to the indignity of his assistance while she lingered. From the door, she glanced back. ‘It’s not the way you think it is,’ she said helplessly.
‘It’s not my place to think anything, Mrs Voulos.’
But condemnation was written all over him, his usual quiet friendliness chilled out by what she recognised as fierce defensive loyalty to Constantine. Only the conviction that Constantine was too damned macho and proud to want her around him when he was in that condition spurred Rosie back to her room.
She lay in bed, watching dawn break the skies. He was really upset ... he had to be to have drunk like that. And Rosie tried so hard to understand. Wasn’t she herself equally guilty of betraying Anton’s trust? She had only agreed to marry Constantine under duress, and would have run a thousand miles had she known what fate had in store for them in the morning after the ceremony.
And it wasn’t as if Constantine had tried to disinherit her or anything like that. Anton had got himself into serious financial hot water raising the loan for the Son Fontanal estate. Constantine must have used his own money to bail out his guardian’s business ventures and even the house needed a fortune spent on it. Indeed being Anton’s heir had undoubtedly proved to be a most unprofitable undertaking, but Constantine, famed in the business world for his ruthless pursuit of profit, would never admit that because to do so would be disloyal.
So why had her Greek tycoon drunk himself into a stupor? Guilt at not rolling out a red carpet for Anton’s daughter? Or suicidal depression at the knowledge that if he carried out his guardian’s last wishes he would be stuck with Rosie for ever?
Her sensitive stomach lurching, she got out of bed again. Pulling on jeans and a fresh cotton top, she paused only to drag a brush through her mane of fiery hair. She needed some fresh air and space. The motorbike she had hired was parked below the steps in the courtyard. She hadn’t been out on it since her arrival and maybe a ride down that mountain would blow the cobwebs away...
It was still very early when Rosie stopped in the shade of some sweet-smelling pine trees and ate the snack she had brought with her. The canned drink and the long bread roll filled with ham and luscious wedges of tomato satisfied her appetite but the hollow feeling inside her wouldn’t go away. She was struggling desperately hard to convince herself that there would be life after Constantine. What did they have in common, after all?
He was a domineering, arrogant, workaholic tycoon. He was everything she wasn’t. Rich, educated, pedigreed. He was far better-looking than she was. He also had loads of women running after him and Rosie was not the type to compete in a race. She had her pride, not to mention the painful experience of being brought down to earth with a severe bump only hours earlier.
If Constantine had had any feelings for her, she had killed them. So there was no point in concentrating on the more positive aspects of his personality. Like the fact that he could be incredibly charming and entertaining and give the most astonishing impression of being caring and supportive. That sort of stuff wasn’t relevant. That was her foolish heart talking, not her head. They didn’t have a real marriage. And their temporary arrangement was currently at breaking point.
A big black shiny limousine was parked outside Son Fontanal. Rosie rode past it into the courtyard and slowly, stiffly dismounted. She was removing her helmet when Constantine strode down the steps. Her treacherous heart performed a somersault. Attired as he was in an Italian-cut double-breasted cream suit that highlighted his black hair and golden skin, one look made her melt like chocolate left out in the sun.
Brilliant dark eyes swept over her and lingered, a curious stillness etched into his strong, dark face. ‘Did it even occur to you that I might be worried sick about you?’
Rosie reddened with discomfiture. ‘I was away before I thought about that.’
‘Where the hell did you get the bike?’
‘I hired it for a fortnight the day I arrived.’
‘I assumed it belonged to one of the workmen. Dmitri will see that it is returned. I don’t like the idea of you out on a motorbike on these roads,’ Constantine delivered, the faint pallor beneath his sun-bronzed complexion emphasising the tense line of his mouth.
As he stared at her, holding her there by sheer force of will, the silence mounted, thick and heavy. And suddenly she understood. He hadn’t thought she would be coming back but for some reason he wasn’t saying one half of what he wanted to say on that subject.
‘Thespina arrived ten minutes ago,’ he breathed in taut explanation.
Rosie stiffened and lost every scrap of colour. ‘Oh, no...’
‘I have decided that we have no option other than to tell her the truth,’ he admitted with grim emphasis. ‘Too many people know your identity now. A slip of the tongue and any lies or half-truths would be exposed. I cannot take that risk.’
Shock glued Rosie’s feet to the worn paving stones. Constantine closed a big hand round hers and drew her up the ste
ps into the hall. Rosie tried to pull free then. ‘You do it!’
‘This particular confession needs to come from both of us, pethi mou.’ His lean fingers retaining their determined grip, Constantine led her into the drawing room before she could utter another word of argument.
Thespina rose to greet her with a pleasant smile. Rosie’s stomach lurched and sank to her toes. Oh, dear heaven, she just could not face what was to come!
‘Come and sit down beside me,’ Thespina invited, settling back onto the sofa and patting it cosily.
A maid entered with a tray and began to pour coffee. Positioning himself by the big stone fireplace, Constantine embarked on a somewhat strained conversation. Everyone having been served, the door closed on the maid.
Thespina turned to look at Rosie and, with a slow shake of her dark head, she said gently, ‘I really feel this charade has gone on long enough. I have to confess that there was something rather endearing about Constantine’s efforts to explain the inexplicable and protect me but I should’ve spoke up sooner. Even as a boy, he could never lie and look me in the eye.’
In the act of sugaring his coffee, Constantine straightened so fast that half the contents of his cup slopped onto the saucer. He set it down with a stifled oath. ‘Are you saying that—?’
‘I’ve known about Rosie’s existence for almost twenty years,’ Thespina confirmed, tactfully removing her gaze from Constantine’s stunned visage and affecting not to hear Rosie’s strangled gasp. ‘You’ll have to forgive me for not immediately recognising you, Rosalie. But I knew that you were Anton’s child the instant Constantine said your name. The combination of your hair and that unusual name was too much for me to overlook and the two of you behaved very oddly. I’m afraid that I couldn’t help but know that you weren’t telling me the truth.’
‘Twenty years...?’ Constantine repeated in flat astonishment, still staring at the calm little Greek woman.
‘Anton was never very good at hiding his feelings. He was dreadfully upset after he received that first photograph of Rosie,’ Thespina proffered with a grimace. ‘I found it in his desk with her mother’s letter and then I understood. I was very distressed by what I learnt but in the end I was most concerned with keeping our marriage intact. I could’ve confronted him but what would I have achieved? His guilt and his fear of discovery were very obvious to me. I didn’t want to lose him. Perhaps I was wrong not to bring it all out into the open—’