‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said, then cleared her throat. ‘Did I see your father arrive?’
‘You did.’ An odd expression darkened his face. ‘But he couldn’t stay.’
‘Oh? Was he—?’
‘I don’t want to talk about my father, Tamsyn,’ he interrupted, and suddenly his voice sounded urgent. ‘I just want to be alone with you.’
Her heart felt like it wanted to break when she heard the note of hunger she heard in his voice, but she couldn’t stop herself from responding to it. ‘Xan,’ she said, mock-sternly. ‘We have guests.’
‘I don’t care about the guests.’ His voice dipped. ‘There’s only one thing I care about right now.’
His smile was hard and his eyes gleamed with an unspoken message. It reminded her that Xan remained a man who always got what he wanted, and right now he wanted sex. Tamsyn shivered as he traced a finger down her arm, knowing she should refuse to go along with it, especially in view of what his father had said earlier.
You get what you pay for.
But her mind was made up. She wasn’t going to ruin the night by dwelling on the negative and besides, she wanted him just as much as he wanted her. Maybe even more. Xan had no idea this was going to be the last time, but she did—and wasn’t it crazy not to want to make the most of every precious second with him?
‘Then what are we waiting for?’ she questioned huskily, as she went into his warm and waiting arms.
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘WHAT ARE YOU talking about?’ Xan stared at his housekeeper in disbelief. ‘What do you mean, she’s gone?’
But he barely listened to Manalena’s distressed explanation as he stormed up to the bedroom because the evidence was there for him to see. He shook his head with disbelief as he pulled open one of the closet doors. Only the most basic of Tamsyn’s clothes were missing—all the fancy ones remained. His throat dried as he reached out to touch the white gown she’d worn at their wedding party, which he’d almost torn in his eagerness to remove it from her body last night. Her unread books were no longer in a pile beside the bedside table and that wide-toothed comb thing she used to rake through her unruly curls in the mornings was nowhere to be seen.
He dismissed the housekeeper as he saw a note she must have left lying on the pillow, striding across the room to pick it up and resisting the desire to crush it to a pulp within the palm of his hand. It was short and to the point. Was that deliberate? Was she mocking him for that terse note he’d once left her in a faraway desert palace?
Xan,
I’ve decided to go sooner rather than later and I didn’t want the bore of saying goodbye, I’m sure you’ll understand.
Below you’ll find all my bank details and I look forward to hearing from your lawyer.
Yours, Tamsyn.
He stared at it, his eyes scanning the words in disbelief, as if there had to be some kind of mistake. But there was no mistake. There it was, in black and white. A stark farewell, which seemed mainly concerned with getting her payment for their short-lived marriage.
His mouth twisted. He’d gone back to the office this morning, strangely reluctant to leave the seductive warmth of his wife’s body and the lazy caress of her arms after their surprisingly satisfactory honeymoon. The day had seemed to drag in a way he wasn’t used to and several times he’d found himself picking up the phone to ring her, just to say hello, before reminding himself that wasn’t his style and putting it down again. He’d told himself it was normal to be physically aching for her, because they’d been having so much amazing sex since the day of their marriage and they’d been together exclusively for fourteen days and nights. Elena had looked startled when he’d suddenly announced he was leaving early and his heart had been beating like a drum as his car had been driven at high speed to the estate, only to discover that his wife had gone. And to discover just how she had spent her day...
A bitter taste coated his throat. She must have been silently planning her get-away. How long had she been plotting that, he wo
ndered? While his own driver had been busy ferrying him around the city, she had persuaded Manalena to call her a cab to take her into Athens, supposedly on a shopping trip—before slipping away to the airport to catch a regular flight to London. Had she been laughing quietly as her lips had locked against his that morning, knowing what a surprise she was about to spring on him? Was that why her hand had slid between his legs to find his hardness—he was always hard for her—and guided him inside her slick, waiting heat for one last, bone-melting time?
He paced over to the window but the bright beauty of the Aegean failed to stir his heart, for his rage and incomprehension were all-consuming. Didn’t she owe him the common courtesy of telling him she was breaking their agreement by leaving early, or at least explaining why?
He told himself not to do anything. To give himself time to calm down. But even as he thought it, he found himself lifting his phone and barking out instructions to Elena to have his private jet made ready. He didn’t know what he was going to say to his runaway bride, all he knew was that he had to say something.
* * *
Tamsyn stared at the photograph, as if doing so could help. It was that old trick of voluntarily subjecting herself to pain before anyone else got the chance to do it. As if that could somehow make her immune to it.
Some hope. The photograph was from a gossip column and had obviously been taken at the wedding party. She didn’t imagine Xan’s friends were the type who sneaked photos at exclusive social events, but there had been a lot of outside caterers there that night and maybe one of them had captured the moment. And, oh, what a moment to have captured.
Beneath a headline which proclaimed Greek Tycoon Weds at Last! was a photo of her and Xan. She thought how dreamy she looked and how happy she seemed as she stared up into his face. And Xan? Tamsyn sighed. His darkly contoured features gave little away, but maybe it was good to recognise that. To reinforce that she’d done the right thing in running away from his luxury estate, because if she’d stayed around, growing fonder and fonder of him—then her heart would have been truly broken.
Yet didn’t it feel a little bit broken now?
From a long way downstairs she heard the doorbell ring, but she didn’t move. It wasn’t her house—she was just lucky that her friend Ellie from the Bluebird Club had an attic room going free and had told Tamsyn she was welcome to stay there until she’d found her feet again. Funny expression, really. As if someone could lose their own feet. She couldn’t imagine going back to waitressing, yet neither could she summon up the enthusiasm to enrol in college to get herself a late-in-the-day education, despite Xan’s faith in her. And the craziest thing of all was that, having married just to get her hands on his money, she now found herself reluctant to take any of it. The deliberately cold note she’d left for him had been nothing but bravado—done to ensure that he would ultimately despise her and leave her in peace.