Just as suddenly she pushed him away and stepped back to emphasise her point. ‘No,’ she told him flatly.
‘You’re here, you’re with me,’ Sander pointed out huskily. ‘Why not?’
Shock and annoyance at being challenged like that ricocheted through Tally. ‘You know why not.’
‘What’s the point of trying to punish me for something that happened well over a year ago while we were living apart?’ Sander demanded.
Hectic colour was forced into Tally’s cheeks. She could barely credit his nerve, but she also recognised that Sander’s hot-blooded libido required little in the way of encouragement. ‘I am not trying to punish you, Sander.’
‘You’re pushing me away again and I won’t accept it,’ he gritted with a flash of even white teeth against his bronzed skin while he surveyed her with hard masculine tenacity as though she were a puzzle that sufficient contemplation might resolve.
‘You may not have a choice.’
‘There is always a choice and this is not one that you are going to make for me,’ Sander intoned, his Greek accent very strong as he made that admonition. ‘You’re still my wife—’
Tally folded her arms defensively. ‘On paper—’
‘Yesterday, we were on a mattress, not on paper,’ Sander reminded her with sardonic cool. ‘You chose to come back to me. You were willing then to give our marriage another chance.’
That unwelcome reminder made her small face set hard as ice in a polar blast, her pride squirming with mortification. ‘It’s not quite that simple.’
Sander towered over her, all the stubborn aggression of his strong temperament in his challenging stance. ‘It’s exactly that simple.’
Angry resentment at the level of his scorching confidence roared through Tally in a dizzy rush and without even pausing to think about it she hit back as hard as she could. ‘Well, actually, it’s anything but simple. If it wasn’t for the pressure that Anatole put on me, I would never have come back to you in the first place!’
Ebony brows pleating in mystification at that declaration, Sander frowned down at her. ‘What are you talking about? What’s your father got to do with anything?’
And, just as quickly, a sharp pang of regret infiltrated Tally, for she had never intended to tell him that truth.
‘Tally …’ Sander prompted impatiently.
She breathed in deep, recognising that she had boxed herself into a corner with her taunt. Now she had no alternative other than to tell him the whole story. ‘Mum did something dishonest when she was living in Monaco. She had debts and to pay them she forged cheques that belonged to Roger, the man she was living with. When he found out, he threw her out and sent a solicitor to tell her that if she didn’t repay the money she had stolen the police would be involved,’ she explained ruefully. ‘Of course, Crystal didn’t have any money and I wasn’t in a position to help either. Everything I’ve got is tied up in the business.’
Sander was frowning but her admission about Crystal’s dishonesty did not appear to have surprised him that much. ‘Why didn’t you come to me for help? She’s your mother and I would’ve understood.’
‘Because, at the end of the day, I’m not sure there’s much to choose between you and my father. Neither of you is a fan of the something-for-nothing concept. You’re both tough businessmen. My father thinks being married is good for me. He agreed to give me the money to replace what Crystal stole if I agreed to give our marriage another go. Just as Anatole wanted something in return for his generosity, I assumed that you would as well.’
As she spoke Sander’s vibrant skin tone had slowly taken on an ashen shade as his natural healthy colour receded. ‘I wouldn’t have chosen to hold your mother’s fraud over your head and blackmail you into coming back to me.’
Tally looked unimpressed. ‘You like to get what you want when you want it. I’m not so sure …’
‘You may be sure in this instance.’ His bright eyes flared to a hot gold that positively sizzled between the curling luxuriance of his black lashes. ‘I wouldn’t bloody well want any woman on terms which meant I had to bribe her to be with me!’ he shot back at her in fierce rebuttal. ‘That includes you.’
‘Oh … is that a fact?’ Tally fielded, although she was more shaken by the strength of his reaction than she was prepared to show.
‘I would’ve given you that money without strings attached,’ Sander informed her, still very much taken aback by what he had just learned. ‘Crystal is not self-supporting and never has been. I knew that when I married you and I knew she would need my help sooner or later. I’ll take care of repaying Anatole.’ His dark brows drew together in a heavy frown. ‘Is that the only reason you came back to me? Because your father demanded it as condition of your receiving that money?’
Almost energised by the fact that she was the one surprising him for a change, Tally sent him an unapologetic look of challenge. ‘Anatole seems to be convinced that if I divorce you I’ll end up on my own like Mum and never settle down again. Obviously he likes to see you as a stabilising influence.’
Long black lashes dipping low over his shrewd gaze, Sander swung away, his lean hands clenching into fists as he swallowed back a guttural surge of outraged Greek condemnation. His wily father-in-law was responsible for negotiating his wife’s return to his side. That was who he had to thank for his second chance at marriage. Dark fury made Sander light-headed. He wanted to hammer the wall until it cracked beneath the force of his anger and wounded pride. The blood was pulsing hotly through his veins and the pounding behind his brow made him feel as though a steel band were tightening round his temples. It took tremendous self-discipline for him to suppress his rage.
‘And wha
t was the price that bought you back into my bed?’ Sander murmured with lethal cool, turning back to her with eyes dark as pitch and with no glimmer of volatile gold showing.
‘That’s not how it was,’ Tally protested stiffly, beginning to wish that she had kept her mouth shut and resenting that sarcastic comment calculated to make her feel like a slut.
‘How much?’ Sander pressed with harsh emphasis.
And she told him in the hope of closing the subject.
It was a paltry amount on Sander’s terms. He whistled long and low under his breath and rested derisive golden eyes on her strained face. ‘No offence intended, but I got you back on the cheap. I’m surprised that you didn’t turn to Robert Miller for help. I think he would have enjoyed the opportunity to ride to your rescue like a knight on a white charger.’
‘I didn’t want to drag Robert into my family problems. Mum was guilty of fraud, she stole … approaching Robert didn’t seem appropriate,’ Tally told him uneasily.
‘So once again we owe the ongoing fact of our marriage to your father’s scheming.’ Sander released an un-appreciative laugh. ‘Anatole’s good at intrigue and so are you, moli mou. It didn’t even occur to me to suspect that you might have another motivation when you agreed to come back to me.’ His darkly shadowed, strong jaw line hardened, his sensual mouth twisting. ‘It’s most unlike me to be naïve, but clearly I was naïve not to appreciate that you have your price like every other woman I’ve ever met.’
Her colour receded, her fine bone structure prominent as she fought to retain her composure. If it was his intent to make her feel cheap and easy he had succeeded with that cynical crack about her moral fibre. In her heart, Tally had long since accepted that her father’s proposition had merely given her the excuse to do what she wanted to do anyway. She had wanted Sander back but, being too proud to admit the fact, had found it easier to tell herself that she was only returning to him because her father had given her no other choice. What did that say about her? The extent of her self-deception shamed her but in the current climate wild horses could not have dragged that truth out of her and made her share it with him. Her head high, her eyes cloaked in self-defence, she spun on her heel and headed back to her room.