The Kouvaris Marriage

hen I’m afraid you had a wasted journey.’

Her cheeks streaked with angry colour, she headed for the stairs and took them, her head held high. At least it was coming out in the open now. Her all too brief bid to end their marriage had obviously removed the need for him to show her any consideration at all.

Irini only had to call and he’d drop everything to speed to her side, assure her that he loved her.

Irini only had to hold out her hands to him and she was the focus of all his attention. More ammunition—as if she didn’t have enough already—to hurl at him when—if—she decided to tell him why she really wanted to get right out of his life!

But when she told him she would have to be feeling far less raw and betrayed than she did now, the severe hurt somehow miraculously soothed into indifference. No way would she let her pain show, give his massive ego the satisfaction of knowing how much she had once loved him.

Entering the magnificent master bedroom, the room she had shared with the man she had loved more than life, she felt her soft mouth wobble. Everything in here had once been touched with magic. Now it seemed unbearably tawdry. The soft words, seductive caresses, the loving—all slimy lies. Instinct told her to gather her belongings and seek one of the many other rooms.

Her mouth firmed. No. No way! She wouldn’t scuttle away and hide like something unspeakably vulgar, not fit to be seen in polite society. She wouldn’t be banished from the sacrosanct master bedroom. He would!

Crossing to a gilded table, she lifted the house phone and briskly instructed the English-speaking housekeeper to remove the master’s belongings to another room. She replaced the receiver immediately, unwilling to listen to objections or questions, then walked into the sumptuous marble and gleaming glass bathroom to strip and head for the shower while her orders were being carried out.

She had never ordered any of the staff to do anything for her before—hadn’t liked to put herself forward to that extent. Hadn’t Alexandra more than hinted that her status in the household came slightly below that of the humblest daily cleaning woman? That this first instruction would cause ripples among the staff went without saying. And it would infuriate Dimitri, prick his inbred Greek pride. He would hate to think that he was the subject of backstairs gossip and whispered speculation.

Spiteful? Perhaps. But comforting. Paying him back for canoodling with that woman right under her nose!

It was an edgy sort of comfort that lasted until, towel-wrapped, she returned to the bedroom to find the housekeeper standing just inside the door.

‘Anna. Finished?’

‘Kyria Kouvaris.’ The middle-aged woman’s brows met in a slight frown. ‘Had you stayed speaking, I would have told you that your husband had already phoned ahead to ask for his things to be moved from this room. It is done already. Of course, if there is something else I can do for you, I am here.’

‘Nothing. Thank you.’ How she managed to get the words of dismissal out through her tight-as-a-vice jaw Maddie didn’t know. Once again he had wrong-footed her, spoiled her tiny revenge—she wanted to throw things! Instead, she dried her hair on the edge of the towel until it stood on end in unruly spikes.

Seething with scalding emotions, she considered her options. Curl up in bed and refuse to budge when Dimitri, black-tempered, tried to command her to join them for dinner? Or behave with dignity and go down to take her place at that table with all flags flying—show them that the lowly little nobody wasn’t going to hide in a corner out of shame at her lower-than-a-cleaning-lady status.

As she had seen, Irini was wearing black, the subtly glittering fabric draping her impossibly slender figure. The way she was dressed had pointed to the fact that she wasn’t planning going anywhere soon. Her guess was that the woman would be eating dinner with them. So—

Marching to the enormous hanging cupboard, she plucked out the vivid scarlet dress that Dimitri had said should carry an X certificate.

It was one of the mountain of designer clothes he had picked out—confiding after she’d modelled it for him in that exclusive boutique, that he had never seen anything so sexy in the whole of his life. The husky edge to his thickening drawl had made her flush to the soles of her feet, sending her scuttling to model the remainder of the garments he had picked out with her head in an impossible spin, and totally vindicating her immediate mental denial of the things Irini had said to her the night before—the night of the intimidating meet-the-bride party she had been faced with on her first night in Athens as Dimitri’s brand-new wife.

She had been living in a fool’s paradise back then, she acknowledged with savage self-contempt as she slipped into the dress, the cool fabric lovingly moulding breasts that felt slightly fuller than before, strangely tingly.

Nerves. Just nerves, she told herself as she moodily surveyed her reflection, the way the fine silk clung to her body, hugging her small waist, the narrow-fitting long skirt emphasising the lush feminine curve of her hips, the central slit that denied all demureness displaying glimpses of her legs almost to the level of her creamy thighs.

A wave of cowardice almost had her removing the dress with all haste and finding something much less revealing—until the recollection of how overawed and humble she’d been made to feel when first arriving here as Dimitri’s bride stiffened her resolve.

She’d been overawed by the splendour of the mansion, convinced that the whole of her parents’ home would fit into the immense marbled paved hall with room to spare.

As if sensing her dismay when faced with a platoon of servants, Dimitri had tightened his arm around her waist and bent his dark head to hers as he’d whispered, ‘Courage! They don’t bite!’, then introduced a tall, imposing woman with greying hair, ‘Meet Anna, our housekeeper. Her English is fluent. Be sure to ask her to deal with any changes in household routine you require.’ She had known she wouldn’t dare! But Maddie had smiled as the rest of the staff had been introduced, the names going in one ear and out of the other, wondering how she would cope with having a horde of servants to feather-bed her life when she was used to getting stuck in and doing things for herself.

But with Dimitri at her side she had been sure she could do anything! She was a married woman; the fact that her husband was a mega-wealthy shipping tycoon needn’t intimidate her. Even now her head was still spinning at the speed and cloaked-with-charm determination of his courtship, the way he’d dispelled her doubts, confessed or hidden, the effortless ease with which he’d made her admit she was head over heels in love with him. She had told her mother that, like him, she saw no reason to postpone the wedding he was insisting on before he had to return to Greece, was secretly appalled by the thought that she might lose him if she insisted that they wait.

But she hadn’t been able to help feeling overwhelmed when Dimitri had ushered her into a huge salon furnished with what just had to be priceless antiques, murmuring, ‘My aunt is waiting to greet you. Remember I told you that she moved here, into the family home, and brought me up after my parents died? She lives here still, but in her own rooms. She can be a touch acerbic, it is her nature, but take no notice. She will soon grow to value you, as I do.’

But doubts on that score had lodged in her brain as a small, rigidly upright elderly woman had turned from a deep window embrasure. She had been exquisitely dressed in black, her expression like perma-frost. ‘So you are the Kouvaris bride?’

Maddie had smiled and held out her hand. It had been ignored. Was that a look of contempt, or was it her normal expression? she had thought hysterically as the intimidating elderly woman had raised one carefully plucked eyebrow. ‘I missed the wedding, of course. But then I was not invited. I would have liked to have met your family. In our circles family is of the greatest importance.’

To have given them the once-over, Maddie had translated, trying to keep a straight face even as she’d wondered what the impeccable Alexandra Kouvaris would have made of the tiny village church, Mum’s best blue coat, Dad’s shiny-elbowed suit, her big raw-bo

ned brothers, and Anne—obviously pregnant—trying to control her little son, who thought that sitting still and keeping quiet was an overrated pastime.

Instinctively, she had moved closer to Dimitri, but he had given his aunt all his attention, his voice suggesting a rapid loss of patience as he’d pointed out, ‘I believe I explained that, having found Maddie, I saw no point in waiting. I had to be back in Athens on business. To have delayed the marriage until I was freed up would have been intolerable to me. Now I suggest you ask Anna to bring refreshments and then—’ he’d turned to Maddie, his eyes not smiling, still touched with annoyance ‘—I will show my wife over her new home.’ As his aunt vacated the room, her head at a decidedly regal angle, he’d said stiffly, ‘Her greeting was less than warm. I apologise.’