'Alex, I've made a mistake.' The words were out before she could stop them. She straightened her shoulders and turned to face him. Truth was the only way. She tilted her head back to look up into his handsome face. 'I should never have married you.'
'Say that again.' He shook his head in disbelief, one lock of black hair falling over his broad forehead.
'I want to go back to England. We can get the marriage annulled and forget it ever happened,' she said in a tight, nervous voice. She turned and walked towards the door, but Alex's arm around her waist halted her, hauling her back against his hard body.
'You're nervous,' he said softly. His dark head bent and he nuzzled the soft line of her neck, but she pulled free, stepping away from him.
'No, I mean it.' She reached for the door-handle and was suddenly swept off her feet and into Alex's arms.
'Foolish girl. It's just natural bridal nerves. Hell, surprisingly enough, I'm nervous myself!'
If his words had been meant to reassure her they didn't. She struggled in his arms, crying out, 'I am not nervous, damn you! Put me down.' And he did, dropping her on the bed. She lay flat on her back staring up at him, trying to find the words to extricate herself from the mess she had made of everything.
'Sorry.' Inadequate, she knew. 'I really am sorry, Alex I thought. . .' She paused then began to talk and could not stop. 'I thought I could marry you and hurt you the way you have hurt so many people by your determination to make money legally or otherwise. I wanted to make you suffer like my friend Eve. To take you for every penny I could get.' But I realised I loved you, was what she wanted to say but couldn't, because the one thing she had recognised while she had been agonising over her marriage the last few hours was that Alex did not love her. His reasons for marrying her were not much better than Saffron's had been originally. Instead she added in a flat voice, 'You see, I know all about Studio 96.'
His dark head jerked back. 'You know Studio 96?' he rasped, his eyes narrowed on her pale face.
At least he had not attempted to deny it, Saffron thought dully, sitting up and swinging her legs over the side of the bed, her feet finding the floor. 'Yes, I know it.' She ran her small hands through her hair, brushing it back from her face, and glanced up at Alex, He was standing perfectly still as if carved in stone, his rugged face expressionless. 'I know you owned that disgusting massage parlour.' There; she had finally said it.
'I see, and were you an employee?' he ground out scathingly.
Saffron stared at him. 'I lasted exactly fifteen minutes, the length of time it took me to realise what kind of health club it was, and you, Alex, showed me the door. Unfortunately my best friend Eve was not so lucky. I lost touch with her and then a few months ago a policeman arrived at my door to tell me Eve had died of an overdose and left a letter for me. Working in that supposedly high-class health club had destroyed her, while men like you get rich on the proceeds.'
Her green eyes searched his face in puzzled frustration. 'Why, Alex? You have so many other business interests, why a sordid massage parlour?' She shook her head; it didn't make sense. 'Greed?' she queried, but did not really want to hear his response.
Confession was supposed to be good for the soul, but Saffron was having serious doubts. She stood up, and would have walked past Alex but he reached for her, his fingers digging cruelly into her arm. He spun her round, his other hand curvad around her neck, and she raised her eyes to his, and what she saw made the blood freeze in her veins.
'Of course; the young platinum—' He stopped. He had finally recognised her from the past. Shaking his head as if to dispel some image, he carried on coldly, clinically, 'Am I to understand you married me today as some kind of revenge for the death of your friend, and now you want out? So what has changed your mind, Saffron, dearest?' he demanded with chilling cynicism. "The thought of sleeping with me too much for you to stomach?' he ended in a snarl.
r /> 'I. . . No. . .' She didn't know what to say; his hand was curved around her throat, his black eyes glittered with an unholy light, and for a second she feared for her life.
'My sweet Saffron, the epitome of all innocence, and more Greek than I when it comes to revenge.' A harsh laugh escaped Mm as his hand moved under her chin, forcing her head back. His glittering gaze clashed with hers. 'Tell me, you bitch, when did you decide on this plan of yours—the minute we met or before? Is that why you worked for my mother?'
'No—no—I. . .' Saffron was petrified. Alex's hand slid from her arm to curve around her waist, holding her manacled to the hard, muscular length of his body. His hand at her chin was hurting her jawbone, and the icy fury in his* eyes, the harshly forbidding expression on his ruthless face made her want to cry out in terror.
'Answer me,' he grated.
'I—I didn't recognise you until we left the yacht. The business suit, navy. . . Before, I thought I knew you but the suit and briefcase. . . I realised who you were and ha—' She almost said 'hated you' but stopped herself in time. She was alone in the bedroom with a furiously angry male. This was not going at all as she had hoped. How idiotic of her to expect that a man like Alex would let her just walk away. She must have been out of her tiny mind. . . But then it felt as if she had been in that state ever since she'd clapped eyes on the damn man! she thought helplessly.
'Hated me? Then I think I should give you reason.' His pitiless intention was obvious, and even as Saffron tried to struggle she was once more on the bed, but this time Alex was beside her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
'No, Alex, you don't understand. I changed my mind. I should. . .' Her words were stilled by his mouth covering hers in a bitter parody of a lover's kiss. When it was over she lay panting on the bed, his strong body half covering hers as he swiftly removed her jacket and dispensed with her skirt with ruthless efficiency.
'Understand? I understand too damn well, you little cheat. "I changed my mind"?' he mimicked scathingly, and all the time his gaze never left her face, until she was half demented by the probing black eyes which seemed intent on devouring her. 'I hate to tell you, darling, but you don't have that choice,' he grated with seething sarcasm, the straps of her camisole snapping like matchsticks as he tore the garment from her body, exposing her naked breasts to the brightly lit room. 'Yes, Ales, please, Alex,' he sneered. 'I'll have you begging for it, you little bitch.'
But the cold fury in his voice, his tight mouth, the dull flush on his high cheekbones revealed the massive effort he was exerting to gain self-control and not to take her there and then.
Perspiration broke out on her temples. 'No, please. . .' But her plea fell on deaf ears as she tried to struggle, lashing out at him with feet and hands, her efforts fruitless because he was so much larger and rage lent him added purpose.
'You're sorry?' he snarled. 'You want to leave?' He slid off the bed but kept her pinned to the mattress with one large hand in the middle of her chest; with the other he removed the test of his clothes, carelessly throwing them to the floor. 'I'll show you sorry, Saffron,' he vowed ruthlessly, his black eyes roaming over ter face and almost naked, trembling form with lascivious intent. '
You can't be serious,' she cried inanely. He towered over her, his nude body gleaming golden in the artificial light, and to her horror a blush ran from her head lo her toes. He was so beautifully male that even in her terror she still reacted to him.
'I have never been more serious in my life.' He joined her on the bed and she kicked out at him, but one hard thigh quickly trapped, her flailing limbs.
'Did you rally think you could get revenge on a Greek? We are past masters at the art. You should have remembered that Saffron.' He rolled over on top of her and, catching her hands, held them pinned to the pillow above her head in one of his, his full weight pressing the breath from her body, but still she shivered at ite intimate brush of his mat of chest hair against her naked flesh.