'Let's talk,' he urged, holding out a languid and rather wavering hand, which made her suspect that he was drunk. 'Who stole your big happy smile? I want you to tell me what's wrong. Van would kill me for walking by on the other side.'
Cheeks hot with self-consciousness as envious female eyes locked to her, Hope hurried over. 'Shush… there's nothing wrong… please keep your voice down.'
Ben locked both arms round her as much to keep himself upright, she suspected, as to prevent her walking away. 'Would you like me to take you home?' 'Thank you but no.'
'I got droves of women,' Ben confided lazily, bloodshot green eyes mocking her as she blushed and attempted to tug free of his hold. 'Do you think I could seduce you away from your Greek billionaire?'
'No chance. Nothing and nobody could,' Hope swore with fervour.
'Never say never… it's like challenging fate.' Scanning her pale, troubled expression, Ben sighed and dropped an almost paternal kiss down on top of her head. 'You're way too sweet and straight for Nicolaidis.'
Andreas was the restive centre of a crowd. He was bored; even at a distance she could tell. His stunning dark golden eyes picked her out when she was still moving towards him. Lean, extravagantly handsome face intent, he abandoned his audience without hesitation and strode forward to intercept her. 'Where the hell have you been?' he demanded.
'When the dialogue turns to gold prices and pork bellies, I feel a bit surplus to requirements.'
'Let's go, pedhi mou.' Closing a determined hand over hers, Andreas trailed her in the direction of the hall and remained wonderfully impervious to every fawning attempt to slow down his progress. 'We should never have got out of bed.'
As he hurried her down the steps into the cool night air the shameless sexual sizzle in his skimming appraisal made her tummy clench and her mouth run dry. Suddenly everything that had upset her seemed utterly unimportant. She loved him to death. What else mattered? In a spontaneous movement, she stretched up on her tiptoes to press a kiss to a bronzed cheekbone and she breathed in the heady male scent of his skin with the delight of an addict.
'Andreas? Please wait,' a soft voice interposed from behind them in Greek. 'I need to speak to you.'
Andreas tensed, ebony brows drawing together. He tucked Hope into the waiting limousine with scrupulous care and an apologetic smile. 'Give me five minutes… I' II say your goodbyes for you.'
Elyssa's approach had made Hope tense as well, but she was grateful to be released from the challenge of dealing with his volatile sister again. She had been surprised at how quiet and hesitant the brunette had sounded until it occurred to her that perhaps Elyssa intended to confide in her brother and admit that all was not well in her marriage. Hope liked that idea, for she felt bad about withholding what she had seen from Andreas. After all, he was very attached to his sister and her two young children. Cynical he might be, but Hope was convinced that he would make considerable effort to keep his sister's family together.
Perhaps Elyssa, who had married when she was still very young, had allowed a flirtation to get out of hand. Whatever, Hope reminded herself that the situation was none of her business. But even so the whole wretched tangle was liable to put Andreas in a very bad mood. Andreas was not tolerant of female mistakes in the fidelity line, Hope reflected ruefully. More than once she had heard him pass distinctly judgemental comments on that score.
It was fifteen minutes before Andreas joined her.
In the artificial light his vibrant olive skin tone had an unusually pale aspect. His brilliant eyes were dark and screened to a brooding glitter. Convinced that his sister had told him what had happened, Hope was unsurprised by his silence during the drive back through the city streets. He was fiercely loyal to his own flesh and blood and he had never discussed Elyssa with her.
When Hope recognised the tension in the atmosphere, she thought she had to be imagining it. Then doubt crept in. Had Elyssa accused her of snooping? Surely Andreas was too sensible to pay credence to that far-fetched idea? Her brow tightened even more with tension.
In the lift on the way up to the apartment, she met bold dark eyes cold as the Atlantic in winter. 'What's the matter?' she asked instantly.
'Why are you asking?' Andreas murmured sibilantly.
Hope had never heard that daunting inflection in his rich dark drawl before. Entering the hall, she kicked off her shoes as was her wont and hesitated. 'Hope?'
Slowly she turned round and stared back at him.
Andreas was still lodged at the far side of the spacious hall. Lethally tall and exotically dark and sexy, he looked so drop-dead gorgeous he took her breath away. Yet her sense of being under threat at that moment was so intense that she felt slightly queasy. Andreas strolled fluidly towards her. Brilliant dark eyes flashed shimmering gold. 'Did anything happen tonight that you would like to tell me about?'
CHAPTER THREE
HOPE gulped. Why was Andreas acting as if she had done something wrong? She had no desire to whinge about Elyssa's unkindness or indeed to tell tales about the younger woman. Yet if Andreas knew that she had seen his sister with another man, why was he making a mystery of that embarrassing event?
'No, nothing comes to mind,' Hope answered uneasily, wishing she did not feel quite so guilty about keeping quiet on Elyssa's behalf.
'You were seen with Ben Campbell,' Andreas imparted icily, but there was a dauntingly rough and unfamiliar edge to his intonation. Disconcerted by that reference to Ben, Hope turned pink and shifted uncomfortably, but she could see no reason to be the slightest bit apologetic on that score. 'Yes, I did speak to Ben for a couple of minutes.'
'Finlay, my brother-in-law, saw you with him. You were in Campbell's arms.'
That particular choice of wording sent a stab of sincere annoyance travelling through Hope. Could something so minor and innocent in every way be responsible for causing so much bad feeling? She had not even met Elyssa's husband. But she could not help thinking that there was surely something rather mean-spirited about a man capable of reading anything suspect into her brief chat with Ben. 'It wasn't quite as you make it sound-'
Andreas elevated a black brow. 'Wasn't it?'
Her usual calm chipping away at an ever-faster rate, Hope stared back at him in an effort to comprehend the mystery of his unusual behaviour. He had never shown signs of being unreasonably jealous or possessive. Now all of a sudden he was acting like a stranger. 'Of course it wasn't. For a start there were at least half a dozen other people nearby,' she pointed out. 'Ben wasn't even flirting with me, he was just fooling around.'
His lean bronzed features remained maddeningly uninformative. 'Was he?'
'For goodness' sake, Andreas,' Hope continued with gathering force, for a cascade of little mental alarm bells was beginning to go off inside her head. 'Ben probably put his arms round me because he had to hang onto me to stay upright. He was rather merry. There certainly wasn't anything else to it. In fact, I'm finding it very hard to believe that we're having this conversation. '
'We're having this conversation because five minutes after Finlay saw you getting cosy in public with Campbell, Elyssa surprised you getting cosier still in private,' Andreas delivered with grim clarity.
Hope stilled, the animated pink draining slowly from her shaken face. 'Say that again.'
'Surely I don't need to repeat it,' Andreas said, his disgust unconcealed. 'You went into a private room with Campbell.'
A tiny pulse had begun to go bang-bang-bang at Hope's temple and she was so stiff she might have been fashioned out of stone. 'I did not go into any room to be alone with Ben'
Something flashed in his hard, dark gaze: a sizzle of golden fury. 'This is grubby…this is beneath me!'
Andreas incised with a raw, slashing derision that cut her to the bone. 'At least admit the truth. When such behaviour is witnessed, there is no scope to lie or make excuses.'
'But I'm not lying or making excuses,' Hope fielded breathlessly, for sheer shock was making her feel as if
she had been punched squarely in the solar plexus. 'What am I supposed to have been doing with Ben?'
'You were kissing him-'
'I wasn't!' Hope gasped. 'Your sister is-' Andreas spread his arms in a sudden violent movement that shook her into silence. 'Don't offend me even more by daring to question my sister's integrity. She saw what she saw. You abused her hospitality and embarrassed her.'
'I did not…I swear I did not,' Hope muttered in bewilderment, her head swimming with too many thoughts at once. As she finally grasped how cruelly manipulative and unashamedly deceitful Elyssa Southwick had been, she felt sick to the stomach. For an instant she was simply shattered that someone she barely knew could be prepared to tell a lie of such appalling magnitude about her.
'Elyssa was very upset and she didn't know what to do. But after discussing the matter with her husband, she decided that I had a right to know that you were behaving like a slut behind my back!' Andreas bit out rawly, his wintry cool and control starting to crack.
Hope trembled. 'But it's not true. Not a word of it is true.'
'I want to hear you admit the truth before I leave.
You owe me that at the very least,' Andreas growled.
Even as she saw that her world was falling apart, Hope was sickly fascinated by the callous ruthlessness that Elyssa had employed to bring about the destruction she had threatened. 'I've been a real fool,' she mumbled in a daze. 'I always try to overlook other people's mistakes and not stand in judgement because I know I'm not perfect either. But I overlooked one very dangerous fact… your sister is as clever as you are and it seems she decided that I was a threat to her security.'
His handsome mouth curled. 'That's offensive nonsense. Have the decency to leave Elyssa out of this unpleasant business.'
'I don't think I can.' Yet Hope was also asking herself how she could possibly stage a creditable counter-accusation. Having got her story in first, Elyssa had backed it up most impressively with her husband's reference to having previously seen Hope in Ben Campbell's arms. It didn't matter that that latter incident had taken place in the most innocent of circumstances. The other man's additional testimony had made the case against Hope look irrefutable. On the other hand, she reasoned, perhaps the story might have looked unarguable to a stranger, but should Andreas not know her better?
'Don't you know me better than this?' she whispered out loud.
That question hit Andreas as hard as a blast of dynamite detonating inside a giant rock. Rage was like a clenched-tight fist inside him and it took all his concentration to keep it contained. He could not stand to look at her; yet somehow he could not make himself look away. He had trusted her. Until his sister had blown away his illusions he had had no idea just how deep his trust in Hope had run. The sleazy truth had come as a body blow. But then placing that amount of faith in a mistress was asking for trouble, he reflected bitterly. He had kept her around too long. He had let her rosy, cosy sentimentality infect him like a virus and blur the boundaries of what they shared; great sex, nothing more, and he could find equally great sex elsewhere.
'Andreas?' Hope breathed unevenly, a tumult of emotions thrust down as she fought a fierce battle not to lose control. 'Do you really think that I would do something like that?'
Insolent golden eyes zeroed in on her. 'Is it beyond impossible?' Andreas drawled smooth as silk. 'You did it with me in a barn the first night we met.'
All the natural colour bled from Hope's complexion to leave her pale as parchment. Pain exploded inside her. But on some level, she welcomed the hurt inflicted by his cruel derision. Perhaps it was a long overdue punishment for her recklessness that night. Evidently that bad beginning had come back to haunt her. He didn't respect her; he had obviously never respected her. Virgin or not, she had been too easy a conquest and he was now looking back at that as though it had been the first betraying symptom of her being a slut in the making. It was incredibly cruel of him to throw that first night back in her teeth. She had cherished the memory of the night she fell in love with him as the very essence of romance. But he had slung that same recollection back to her as a base and humiliating insult.
Her eyes felt horribly hot, dry and scratchy. Shock seemed to have driven all desire to cry out of her.
'Yes I did, didn't I?' she managed gruffly. 'But even if it wasn't special for you, it was for me.'
Emanating pure indifference on that issue, Andreas shrugged a broad shoulder in a gesture that was as careless as it was wounding.
Hope tried again. 'You have to listen to me.' 'No, I don't.'
'I didn't do anything tonight and I'm not lying to you. I have never kissed Ben Campbell,' Hope declared with vehemence.
'I expect you to find alternative accommodation by the end of the month. It's over,' Andreas countered with supreme derision.
Hope realised he was about to leave and horror galvanised her out of her paralysis into sudden action. She placed herself between Andreas and the front door. 'You can't leave!'
'Watch me-'
'No, I won't. I want you to stop and think about the person you know me to be. Ask yourself if I'd throw what we have away just for the chance to snog Ben Campbell!'
His strong jaw line clenched. 'Other women have.
He's wrecked several marriages with his little lost act. He's also famous for going after women who belong to other men.'
'But I don't fancy him… I never have. I imagine half of London has got to snog Ben when he's drunk. He's not exactly exclusive,' Hope pointed out in growing desperation, praying that the very tenor of her comments would force Andreas to see that she had never even thought of Ben Campbell as a potentially fanciable male. All he had ever been on her terms was Vanessa's rather dissolute and amusing cousin. 'If you won't believe me, ask Ben if anything happened tonight.'
Outraged by that suggestion, Andreas vented a harsh laugh of incredulity. 'Why would I lower myself to that level? Had you been my wife, I would have confronted him. I would've torn him apart for daring to lay a single finger on you!' he proclaimed with a disconcertingly vicious edge to his dark, deep drawl. 'But you're not my wife, you're my mistress and, as such, expendable with the minimum of fuss.'
Ashen-pale beneath the lash of his naked contempt, Hope looked back at him, distraught turquoise eyes sparkling with sudden angry denial. 'I am not and I have never been your mistress.'
'Then what are you?' Andreas purred like a panther ready to flex his claws and draw blood.
'A woman who fell in love with you and who never stopped to count the cost,’ Hope quantified jerkily, her generous mouth compressing. 'Some people would judge me harshly enough for that or call me a fool. But that doesn't make me your mistress.'
'A lot of women have told me they loved me,' Andreas murmured with sizzling scorn. 'Invariably they love what I can give them more.'
Her spine ached with tension. 'But I've never let you give me anything. With the exception of this apartment, I've kept your money out of our relationship and I never once looked for or accepted expensive gifts. Don't try to bundle me up with other women when I've always been true to you!' she told him, hearing the sharp, accusing undertone in her voice and unable to suppress it. 'And you can also stop insulting me for what I haven't done and talking at me in that bored, sneering way!'
'If I stop sneering, I might lose my temper,' Andreas asserted with a lethal quietness that made gooseflesh prickle at the nape of her neck. 'Now get out of my way… I'm leaving.'
Hope backed up against the door in a panic. 'Over my dead body. I won't let you leave until you listen to me. This is like a living nightmare and I won't let it happen to us.' 'There is no us now.' Without further ado, Andreas lifted her bodily out of his path and strode through the door.
Hope could not believe he was gone any more easily than she could accept what had just happened. Only a few hours earlier when they had left for the party, she had been so happy and secure. To accept that Andreas had dumped her, walked out on her, indeed finished with her a
bsolutely and for ever was more than she could bear to deal with at that moment.
Like someone lost in a strange land, she wandered round the big, empty apartment. Elyssa had told horrible lies about her. Such behaviour was so inexplicable to Hope that for the space of an hour she strove frantically to plan out how she might approach Andreas's sister and what she might say to persuade the young Greek woman that she had to retract her false accusation. But even an optimist like Hope could not cling to such a remote prospect for long.
After all, even before she had had the misfortune to catch Elyssa in compromising circumstances, Elyssa had made it clear that she despised her. The brunette had too much to lose from telling the truth and had triumphed with her lies. She had managed to destroy Hope's relationship with her brother and ensure that Hope was banished from his life.
Hope's hands closed tight in on themselves. She recognised that she was still in a stupor of shock. But she was already thinking that she ought to have told Andreas that she had seen his sister with another man. Whether he believed her side of the story or not, she needed to speak up in her own defence. Yet what realistic chance of success did she have? Any attempt she made to clear her own name would entail accusing Elyssa of, not only being a liar, but also being an unfaithful wife. She shivered at the prospect. Andreas was very proud and protective of his younger sister. Honour and family were all-important to the Greek male. Any attack on Elyssa would outrage him.
She tripped over the black shirt lying discarded by the bed and swept it up, burying her face in its crumpled cotton folds to draw in the scent of Andreas. He was gone. How could someone who felt like the other half of her leave and how could she still function? Terror spread into the void inside her for she could not imagine living without Andreas. A passion of grief dug nasty talon claws into her shrinking flesh. Her aching eyes finally overflowed and she threw herself down on the bed and cried until her throat hurt and she could hardly see through her swollen eyes. In the silence that followed, she was overwhelmed by a terrible sense of loss and emptiness.