Greek Tycoon's Disobedient Bride

‘Acting dumb. So far you’re not being very convincing.’

‘What are you trying to insinuate?’ Ophelia took the opportunity to snake past him with the agility of an eel. ‘Well, I’m not listening to one more nonsensical word!’

As Ophelia thrust open the door of her bedroom Lysander closed a hand like a steel manacle round her narrow wrist.

‘Tomorrow the newspapers will be full of the story of our marriage,’ he breathed in a wrathful undertone.

Wide-eyed, Ophelia turned back to look at him, his imprisoning hold forgotten. ‘Did they find out about the two wills as well?’

‘No. Only that we got married today, which is more than sufficient.’

‘But how did it get out? I mean, we’ve taken such care—’

Lysander studied her with sizzling force. ‘Stamitos, my head of security, already has a suspect and it isn’t anyone in my employ. The story was leaked by someone who knew the score. The woman who lives in the gatehouse—your friend…’

‘Pamela Arnold? What’s she got to do with this?’

‘She has a brother who works on a tabloid newspaper.’

‘Yes, but she hardly ever sees him.’ But dismay at that reminder had frozen Ophelia to the spot and she had paled. Although she had sworn her friend to secrecy, she was painfully aware that Pamela had found the entire wedding scenario, not to mention Lysander’s wealth, hugely exciting. Nobody loved to talk more than Pamela. Could her friend have accidentally let information slip in the wrong quarter?

‘By tomorrow morning the whole world will know that I have taken a wife.’

‘I really don’t think the whole world is likely to be that interested.’ An uneasy conscience, however, ensured that Ophelia’s comeback was less feisty than usual. Then her thoughts were sidetracked by the startling discovery that her bedroom looked unfamiliar—the bed had been stripped and her possessions were no longer in view. ‘Where have my things gone?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Half my stuff has vanished from my room!’

‘Wives don’t sleep on the other side of the house.’

Her hackles came up, since nobody had consulted her on what she assumed to be a move to another bedroom. ‘I’m not a wife.’

‘You are now and it’s obvious that the status of being my wife is what you wanted all along.’ His lean, tanned face granite hard, Lysander turned her back to him. ‘Clearly you planned the maximum possible exposure for our marriage in the media.’

Ophelia discovered that she was fighting a very irrational urge to giggle. Just at that instant she didn’t feel she could have planned her way out of an open space. The alcohol she had imbibed had gone straight to her head, for she had had nothing to eat since breakfast. ‘You’re so distrustful—of course I didn’t plan it! Why would I have wanted people to know about this crazy arrangement?’

‘So that you could become my wife in reality.’

‘In reality? Meaning?’ Ophelia queried as he strode down the passage, trailing her willy-nilly in his wake.

Lysander swung into the Long Gallery. ‘Plan B is about to go into operation.’

‘Plan B? Where on earth are you taking me?’

Lysander thrust wide the door of Madrigal Court’s principal bedroom. The huge room had not been used by Ophelia’s family, who had found the Victorian wing at the back of the house easier to heat. Now a fire leapt and glowed in the giant grate below the stone chimneypiece, sending shadows snaking and flickering over the oak-panelled walls. A fabulous four-poster bed, wholly in keeping with the feudal splendour of the new décor, sat centre stage.

Ophelia had never been the slightest bit domesticated. She was untouched by any desire to rearrange the furniture or shop for new curtains, but she had occasionally been conscious of a wistful yearning for her surroundings to be warmer, more comfortable and inviting. Now she stared in astonishment at the imposing bed, draped in flamboyant golden fabric.

‘Your employees have contrived the most amazing transformation. I’ve been so busy in the garden I haven’t had the chance to keep up with all the improvements.’ Her smooth brow indented. ‘Why did you bring me in here?’

‘This is our room.’

‘Our…room?’

Lysander shot Ophelia a long, lingering appraisal that made her skin prickle. ‘The marital bedroom.’

‘We don’t have a marital bedroom because, well…what would we do with one?’ An uneasy laugh was wrenched from Ophelia, who was recalling his crack about the sort of boots he liked a woman to wear. She really didn’t like his sense of humour.

‘All the usual things, glikia mou,’ Lysander murmured lazily. ‘Not much else to do at this season in the country and at least it would keep us warm.’

‘Let me get this straight…you are expecting me to share a room with you?’ Ophelia gasped.

Grim amusement gripped Lysander. She was amazingly good at acting the naïve country girl while simultaneously contriving to look quite extraordinarily beautiful. ‘Even if our marriage had remained our secret we would still have had to share a room when I was here. How else could we ever have pretended that it was a normal marriage?’

Ophelia was bemused. ‘But I had no idea you were expecting me to share a room with you!’

‘We have an agreement.’

‘Yes, but everything has changed now—’

‘Only the will. You are still my wife and, since that is no longer a secret, we are much more married than I ever expected to be,’ Lysander delineated with cold emphasis.

Discomfited pink winged across her cheeks. ‘Yes, I appreciate that.’

Lifting a lean, elegant hand, Lysander skimmed the troubled pout of her upper lip with a careless fingertip. ‘Do you?’

Her colour fluctuated and her tummy turned a somersault. The deeper note in his rich dark drawl reverberated down her taut spine. It took conscious effort not to lean closer and invite further contact. ‘Other people knowing about us will make a difference.’

‘More than a difference. Marriage has never been on my to-do list. I enjoy my freedom,’ Lysander continued, ‘but for the foreseeable future I have no choice other than to behave like a newly married man.’

Now Ophelia sensed the inner tempest of the emotions that he had previously kept hidden; neither Gladys’s second will nor the paparazzi had provoked him into a loss of temper. Firelight gilded his eyes to pure gold and threw his strong bone structure into prominence. He was a natural born predator, she reflected helplessly, and as dazzling and dangerous as a glossy jungle cat in his prime. Even when every inner alarm bell was urging her to back off she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

‘I’m surprised you have so much respect for the conventions.’

‘Only in that one field, glikia mou.’ Lysander slid long brown fingers into her hair and eased her up against him with a calm belied by the heat of his gaze. He was already fiercely aroused: he wanted her. The angrier she made him, the more he wanted her and the more determined he became to stamp her as his. He didn’t understand the connection but he didn’t waste any time thinking about it either. Any thought and any desire that had a sexual angle was self-explanatory and absolutely natural in Lysander’s opinion.

Her heart was pounding, her breath fluttering in her throat. As her slim body connected with his hard muscular frame a dozen pulse points of desire were ignited. She was so tense her lower limbs felt numb and she had to dig her fingers into his shoulder to stay upright. A battle was being fought inside her. She knew she should retreat but the bold challenge of his br

onze eyes and the sweet taunting heaviness low in her pelvis kept her where she was.

He brought his sensual mouth slowly down to hers. Impatience grabbed her and she strained up to him on tiptoe without even thinking about it. A husky laugh sounded low in his throat. In a total change of approach, he plundered her mouth with a passion that left her dizzy. The erotic thrust of his tongue made her tremble and cling, response leaping through her with firecracker energy.

Between driving kisses, Lysander shed his tie and shrugged out of his jacket. He closed his hands over hers and tugged her towards the bed.

Doubtful, Ophelia said anxiously, ‘This can’t be right—’

‘Theos—what could be more right?’ Lysander reasoned. ‘This is our wedding night.’

That truth silenced her for an instant. ‘But I don’t feel married.’

‘You soon will.’ His arrogant dark head bent and he pried her lips apart for another heady taste that made her senses swim.

‘But you think I’m a liar and a ch-cheat,’ she stammered.

Lysander angled a wolfish smile down at her. ‘Nothing’s perfect in this world.’

His smile had a charisma that welded her gaze to his lean, darkly handsome features. ‘Be serious. I don’t even like you!’

Lysander laughed out loud. ‘But you want me the same way I want you. From the first look the first day you saw me, yineka mou.’

The awesome truth of that instant contradiction cut through Ophelia’s protests like a knife. The hunger had started in the same second she had first laid eyes on him. An unsettling, embarrassing, maddening hunger that bore no resemblance to anything she had ever felt before. It was a visceral reaction that had nothing to do with conscious consideration. In any case, she registered in belated acknowledgement, he was never absent from her thoughts for longer than a few minutes. Just when had she become so obsessed with him?