The Greek's Blackmailed Wife

‘So now are you convinced that I want you?’ he drawled softly, stroking her tangled hair away from her flushed face.

Lauranne closed her eyes, shaken to the core by the intensity of the experience they’d just shared.

She knew he wanted her, but she wanted it to be more than that—

So much more than that.

Determined not to dwell on the impossible, she snuggled closer to him and closed her eyes, making the most of the moment.

For a brief second she felt him tense and braced herself for rejection but surprisingly he didn’t push her away. Instead he hesitated briefly and then dropped a kiss on her damp forehead.

‘That was utterly incredible,’ he groaned hoarsely. ‘The best sex I’ve ever had.’

The best sex—

His words collided uncomfortably with the soppy thoughts she’d been having, but she pushed them away and snuggled closer still, trying to ignore his slight resistance to her affection.

Too tired and sated after his passionate lovemaking to worry about the future, Lauranne felt her eyes drift closed and decided that cuddling Zander was absolutely her favourite way in the world to fall asleep.

* * *

As her soft body curled trustingly around his, Zander lay stiff as a board trying to work out what was happening to him. As a Greek who prided himself on his self-control, he was uncomfortably aware that he’d been displaying very little of it since the day he’d walked into Lauranne’s London office.

Telling himself that the only reason he wasn’t pushing her away was because he didn’t want to wake her up when she was clearly very tired, he stared up at the ceiling and tried to make some sense of the situation.

Bringing her to the island had not been a good idea, he admitted, struggling to explain to himself exactly what had prompted such an uncharacteristically impulsive decision. He was taking a ridiculous and unnecessary risk. She was totally capable of blowing the whole deal for him.

Forced to concede that for the first time in his life his libido had been involved in a business decision, he consoled himself with the thought that it was perfectly natural for a red-blooded male to be occasionally distracted by an exceptionally beautiful woman.

And Lauranne was exceptionally beautiful. And spirited. And clever. And interesting. As the list of her qualities grew alarmingly long, Zander switched tack and concentrated hard on her down points.

After several long frustrating minutes during which all he managed to come up with was the fact that she’d been the one to end their relationship five years before, he decided that maybe that was the key to his current behaviour.

Accustomed to being the one in the driving seat, he’d always been the one to decide when a relationship ended. Which made his current obsession the result of a perfectly understandable masculine desire to be in control. And on top of that the sex was mind-blowing and, as he was a normal male with a healthy appetite in that direction, it was perfectly natural to seek every opportunity to enjoy what was on offer.

But despite his attempts to rationalise his behaviour a tiny, nagging portion of his mind kept reminding him that, no matter how good the sex in previous relationships, he’d always managed to make it to the bed before seducing a woman. With Lauranne he’d barely managed to close the door behind them before subjecting them both to the hottest, most elemental sexual encounter he’d ever experienced.

What the hell was happening to him?

She gave a little moan in her sleep and rolled away from him and Zander waited for the feeling of relief that always came once the necessary post-coital affection was over. Instead he found himself fighting an alien impulse to drag her back against him.

Utterly discomforted by the direction of his own thoughts, he sprang out of bed with a fluent curse and made his way to the shower, turning the setting to cold.

The simplest solution to all this was to get her out of his system as fast as possible, he decided, gritting his teeth as needles of freezing water cooled his decidedly overheated body.

After all, he’d successfully worked every other female of his acquaintance out of his system with remarkably little problem.

Why should Lauranne be different?

Sex and then divorce. No problem. He absolutely wasn’t developing feelings for her.

* * *

Lauranne awoke to find Zander fully dressed and watching her as if she were an extremely dangerous and unpredictable animal.

‘Great. You’re awake.’ He spoke with a disturbing degree of brisk detachment given the intimacies they’d shared only an hour earlier. ‘Now we can go for a walk.’

A walk?