‘I can think of a million ways in which you can be useful and none of them involve you balancing plates in a busy restaurant. I want no more talk about working and no more talk about paying me.’
‘This isn’t about you, Angelos.’ Her hair blew across her face and she anchored it with her hand. ‘It’s about me. Even if you hadn’t mentioned those other women, I still would have insisted on paying.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s necessary. To not pay would make me feel like a—’ She broke off, realising that she’d led the conversation up a dark, dangerous road that she didn’t want to travel ever again. But it was too late.
With a smooth movement he swung the wheel and stopped the car by the side of the road in a shower of dust. Then he turned towards them, his eyes dangerously stormy. ‘How would it make you feel? Tell me. I want to know.’
Her heart was thumping. ‘Well—’
‘Say it!’
‘As though you’re paying me to have sex.’
‘You are saying that I make you feel like a prostitute?’
The word made her shrink inside. ‘No! I’m not saying that—’
‘Have I ever offered you money in exchange for sex?’ His voice was harsh and she shook her head, struggling with the feeling of nausea that threatened to overtake her.
‘No, but—’
‘There is no but. The answer is just no.’ His mouth tightened. ‘Do you think I brought you to Greece with the intention of seducing you?’
‘No, but this is just normal behaviour for you, and you’re angry because I’m not conforming. You have relationships all the time and I’m willing to bet there’s a standard pattern. You sleep with a woman, you shower her with jewels until you become bored and then you move onto the next one.’ Why, oh why, had she ever started this conversation?
‘Normal behaviour?’ He watched her for a moment, a tiny muscle working in his lean jaw. ‘Let me remind you how “normal” my behaviour has been so far, agape mou. Four days ago I made love to you in my swimming pool, which just happens to be situated on the terrace in full view of most of the villa—’
Her cheeks warmed. ‘You’re a very sexual man.’
‘I’m also a very private man,’ he gritted. ‘With an extraordinarily short attention span and an antisocial work habit. All those traits seem to have vanished since you arrived in Greece.’
‘You’ve worked every day since we arrived.’
‘Since we arrived I have spent approximately eighteen minutes at my computer, and most of that was spent unravelling a problem I caused by not concentrating.’
As the significance of his words slowly dawned on her, she wondered whether the anger in his tone was directed at himself or her. ‘You’re having trouble concentrating?’
He was silent for a moment, his fingers drumming an impatient rhythm on the steering wheel. ‘Never have I spent so much time achieving so little.’ It was as if the confession had been dragged from him and she was silent while she tried to work out why that piece of information should make her feel light-headed.
‘I’m the reason your concentration is affected?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well—’ Discovering that her mouth was dry, Chantal ran her tongue over her lower lip and tried not to allow herself to read too much into it. ‘I suppose that’s pretty normal in a new relationship.’
‘It isn’t normal for me.’ He spoke the words with almost violent emphasis. ‘Neither is arguing in a public place, forgetting contraception, or taking the wrong road when I’m driving. None of those things constitute my normal behaviour.’
Chantal glanced over her shoulder, her heart bumping so hard she could hardly breathe. ‘This is the wrong road?’
Exasperation lighting his dark eyes, he gestured impatiently to the olive groves that clung to the mountain side. ‘Do you see a harbour?’
‘I assumed you’d come this way on purpose.’
‘I was so blind with anger to find you serving food to a lot of rude, ungrateful tourists that I turned left instead of right.’ He glared at her. ‘Why is that funny?’
The darkness inside her had melted away and she couldn’t stop smiling. ‘Can’t you see the funny side?’