The Kouvaris Marriage

He cupped her face in his hands and Maddie noticed the strain etched on his tight features, the set of his sensual mouth. ‘I will never be able to get within two miles of that woman without wanting to throttle her!’ His voice was roughened, the sexy accent more pronounced than she had ever heard it. ‘She did you great harm. Can you ever forgive me for failing you when you most needed me?’

For answer Maddie leaned into him and wound her slender arms around his neck. ‘I already have!’ Her smile was radiant. He loved her, and she loved him to pieces! And the feared Irini was just an irritating thorn in his side! ‘You didn’t know what was happening to me. It had only just dawned on me—that I might be about to miscarry, I mean.’ His fantastic eyes were beginning to lose that self-condemning harshness, so she pressed on, ‘You were doing the honourable thing—looking out for someone in distress. I know you’d never understood why I disliked Irini—how could you? And when I threw that panicky ultimatum at you, naturally you decided I was throwing a jealous tantrum.’

He closed both arms tightly around her and she laid her bright head against his shoulder and murmured, ‘Try not to think too harshly of Irini. Her head must have been really messed up. After our marriage she could see her prop—you—being taken away so she lashed out at me.’

That fairy story had probably been wishful thinking. Irini had been in love with Dimitri for years, hanging on to his protective concern for her for grim life, because that was all he’d ever offered, privately hoping for his love. But Maddie wouldn’t offer that piece of logic. Why burden him with it when in the past he had been unable to see what was right under his nose?

‘You are too generous, chrysi mou. Every day, every hour, I love you more and more, until I think I will explode with it!’

She could feel his heart thumping against hers. Her breathing quickened. She could afford to be generous when she had the blessing of his love. When she knew he would avoid the other woman like the plague in future. She lifted her face to his, her eyes drenched with emotion. ‘I love you more than I can ever tell you,’ she confessed.

His beautiful eyes were intense. ‘Then our marriage is safe?’

‘As the Bank of England! Please kiss me!’

So he did. He took her lips with an aching tenderness that brought tears of joy to her eyes and she wriggled closer to him and felt his body leap at the contact. The kiss deepened until she quivered with longing and just had to lie back against the pillows, making sure he came with her. In no time at all he was reverently sliding the fabric of her top away from her shoulders, until something stilled his hands and made his voice emerge on a determined tone.

‘Did you really mind about having a quiet wedding? If I deprived you, then I will arrange a blessing—a fabulous designer gown, bridesmaids, flowers and bells, a zillion guests in fancy hats! Just say the word!’

Giggling at his extravagance, Maddie ran her fingers through his rumpled hair. ‘I loved our wedding! I don’t go a bundle on splashy displays. And I promise I only threw that at you because your aunt tried to use it to make me feel inferior!’

Pushing her tumbling fringe out of her eyes, he kissed her again, briefly, then held her eyes with his and said ruefully, ‘If I’m honest, then I have to tell you that had I had my way we would have had a wedding to rival royalty! I wanted to show you off to the whole world! But…’ His lips compressed. ‘Your father is the most stubborn of men.’ His sudden smile dazzled her. ‘I think you inherited the pride gene from him! Imagine my dilemma when, as father of the bride, he insisted that he should pay for the wedding—every last penny. I guessed he didn’t have money to throw around, so what could I do but settle for the most low-key celebration known to man and announce that that was what we wanted—much though it went against the grain?’

‘Not just gorgeous, but sensitive and caring! Oh, Dimitri, I do love you!’ She tipped her head to drop kisses along his tough jawline. ‘Now, shut up, do! Stop tormenting me—and carry on where you left off!’

So he did. To her complete satisfaction. And his.

Maddie walked up through the gardens. Sweltering. Her knees were grubby where she’d been kneeling in the earth. Her face would be smeared with perspiration and dirt, too. But she couldn’t be happier. Her work on the neglected hollow of land at the far end of the grounds had afforded her great satisfaction, and Dimitri had looked on with interest and pride as she’d transformed it into an oasis of perfumed lilies, jasmine and lavender. The loveliest of places to sit in the cool of the evening, talking, laughing and relaxing together over a shared bottle of wine.

She couldn’t be happier if she tried, she reflected as, reaching the terrace, she saw her darling little Nik wriggle down from Eleni’s arms and scamper towards her on his sturdy little legs.

Lifting him up, she cuddled him closely. At sixteen months old he showed definite promise of becoming the spitting image of his handsome father.

Dismissing the smiling Eleni in the Greek she had been at pains to acquire, she dropped a kiss on the end of Nik’s little nose and reverted to English, ‘Time for your afternoon nap, sweetheart. And Daddy will be back to play with you after tea.’

Dimitri had proved to be a very hands-on father, and her heart wriggled inside her as she thought about the news she had to give him. But telling him he was about to be a father again would wait until they were on their special island tomorrow. And this year they would be taking Nik, which would be wonderful.

Alerted, as she always was, she looked up to see Dimitri emerging into the sunlight from the cool interior of the house. Wearing an immaculate dove-grey business suit, he was handsome as all-get-out. And when he gave her that slow, sexy smile of his and remarked, ‘Tatty old shorts, dirty face. And freckles,’ her heart just turned to treacle.

He loved her to bits, no matter how dishevelled she looked. And tonight she would be in a completely different guise. Wearing a sleek and beautiful designer gown, jewels at her throat, her hair tamed and piled on top of her head, she would be ready to mingle with the great and the good at the glittering charity gala that marked the end of the social season before everyone who was anyone fled Athens for cooler climes.

Because Dimitri treated her like a princess her self-confidence had returned in spades, and she was comfortable in any company.

Their eyes held as he took his excited little son into his arms and told her, ‘I’ll settle him for his nap while you get ready to take a shower. Then I’ll join you. I’ve got the feeling that some pretty extensive work with a soapy hand is called for.’

Meeting the devilment in those fabulous gold eyes turned her grubby knees to water, and, in a fever of excitement, it was all she could do to get up to their room, where she stripped off and felt her breasts tighten in anticipation. The liquid, wanton heat pooling between her thighs was sizzling, the sizzling intensifying a thousandfold as he walked in to join her.

His tie had been discarded, and he’d left his suit jacket somewhere, and his lean hands were already dealing with the buttons of his pristine shirt as his eyes drifted over her with possessive intent and he said, ‘Serious soapy attention, indeed…’