The Kouvaris Marriage

No way would she agree to his stipulation that she stay in Greece to enable him to have frequent and ongoing access to his child. Seeing him often would keep raw wounds open and bleeding. She wouldn’t do it. It would have to be a clean and total break.

By flying to Irini’s side when she, his wife, had pleaded with him to

stay with her, he had forfeited any rights.

And if he decided to take her to court to challenge her right to custody she’d fight him down to the last breath in her body!

Oh, for pity’s sake, calm down! she told herself. Getting in a state over an unworthy slimeball would do nothing but harm. Sinking back against the pillows, she closed her eyes and tried to visualise peaceful things, like gentle waves lapping on a soft shoreline, or tranquil woodland carpeted with bluebells that swayed in an early May breeze.

But all she could see was his face!

When she heard the door open she opened her eyes, expecting to encounter a nurse, come to take her blood pressure. Again. And opened them wider when she saw the real thing, not the image that seemed indelibly printed on her retina.

Had she had a missile heavier than a mere magazine she would have thrown it at his head! As it was, she had to be content with muttering fiercely, ‘Go away!’

Dimitri had to summon all his reserves of self-control to stop himself striding over to her and enfolding her in arms that ached to do just that. Hold her close and never let her go.

She had every right to be angry. But she was overwrought, and it was imperative that she stay calm. There were dark smudges beneath the blue brilliance of her eyes, and a new fragility marked her delicate skin. His throat tightened as his hands made fists at his sides.

‘You have every right to be angry,’ he verbalised, his voice steady, much against his expectations. ‘I only learned of what had happened half an hour or so ago, when Aunt Alexandra decided she could be bothered to contact me. I have informed her that she has to make other living arrangements before the end of the month, if not sooner. Like today!’

Maddie’s fingers clutched at the edges of the sheet. She met the golden glitter of his eyes with icy determination. ‘That won’t be necessary,’ she said flatly. ‘Since there’s no need to pussyfoot around now, I can tell you the truth. Your aunt’s hated and despised me since she first met me. But I won’t be around for her to be less than kind to, will I? Our marriage is over—remember?’

Not while he had breath in his body! Dimitri bit back that slice of information. For the next two or three weeks Maddie had to be soothed, not rendered over-emotional through arguments and recriminations.

Schooling his hard features into a mask that verged on indifference, he reminded her, ‘Nevertheless, I insist you return with me—home—where you can be guaranteed peace and quiet for the baby’s sake. Just until you regain your strength and we know there will be no further problems.’

And while that was happening, while he saw she was wrapped in cotton wool, was pampered, treated as if she were made of the most delicate spun glass, he would get to the bottom of the unholy mess they seemed to have created between them.

‘I have spoken to your doctor and he is sure everything will be fine now—provided you take things easily for the next few weeks. That I can guarantee. You are to be discharged this evening into my care. I will collect you at six,’ he added, with measured cool.

He turned then, congratulating himself that he had handled that without even a hint of an emotion that might have set her off into a frenzy of telling him that she would go nowhere with him because their marriage was dead as a dodo.

But there was little joy in that achievement, and not even the sternest self-lecture could stop him turning back at the door, his voice riven with painful regret as he announced, ‘Had I had the slightest idea that a miscarriage threatened I would have told Irini in no uncertain terms to sort her own problems out. I would not have left your side for one moment!’

She had done the right thing for her unborn child, Maddie assured herself for the umpteenth time. Not for her own sake, because seeing him, being around him, nearly tore her in two.

But haring back to England the moment she was discharged from hospital would have been an irresponsible thing to do the way things were. Hadn’t she been told by the best gynaecologist money could buy that she needed regular check-ups, but most of all, rest and tranquillity?

She was getting rest in spades. But tranquillity?

For the last two weeks she’d been doing her best to achieve that enviable state.

Dimitri, too, seemed to be doing his best in that regard, she acknowledged, with a dismaying lack of satisfaction.

On her return from hospital he had flatly relayed the news that his aunt was now living with Irini’s parents while she looked for a suitable apartment in town and engaged a companion. Other than that there had been nothing personal, nothing that touched on their past or their future.

She saw very little of him. He appeared briefly each morning while she breakfasted, to politely ask how she was feeling. Then again at the evening meal, which they shared, imparting snippets of general information—innocuous stuff, mostly, about his friends and business colleagues, which went in one ear and out of the other because, inevitably, she itched to discuss the future, to get her life sorted, fix the date of her departure for England.

But he had made sure that didn’t happen, and she knew why. He was anxious for their baby. And all that talk of making their marriage work, the future children they might have together, had to have been a con trick to make her feel secure enough to stay with him until the birth, when he would have put his cruel plan into action.

The coming child and Irini came first with him, and always would. She was simply a disposable and distant second. He had said he wouldn’t have dropped everything to be with that wretched woman, had he had the benefit of hindsight, but she wasn’t about to believe that. When Irini called he would go, no matter what! Otherwise he would do anything, say anything, to make sure Maddie didn’t get in a state of agitation and thereby, in his mind, threaten the wellbeing of their baby.

As if she could help it!

Because although she saw so little of him, was stuck in an uncomfortable limbo, his hand was everywhere—and it churned her up!

There in the parcel of English novels by her favourite authors which had appeared as if by magic, in the gorgeous bouquets of flowers that graced the suite they had once shared, the bowls of fresh fruit and posies of blossoms that found their way to wherever in the house or gardens she opted to settle.