For Pleasure...Or Marriage?

Her voice was dead.

He didn’t budge. His eyes rested on her, cold as iron.

‘Not till you tell me his name. Then I’ll go. I won’t break his neck, or beat him to a pulp. After all…’ He gave a stark, hollow laugh, with no humour in it. ‘You went to him willingly.’

She shook her head slowly, decisively.

‘Just go.’

For one long, hideous moment she held his gaze. Then, with an abrupt turn of his heel, he strode to the door. She felt completely frozen.

He wrenched open the door. For a moment she thought he was just going to walk straight through. Then at the last moment he wheeled round.

The expression on his face shocked her.

‘Oh, God, Vanessa—why did you do it? How could you have believed her? How could you have trusted me so little? We had so much together, and you threw it all away. All of it!’

Almost, she pitied him. Then, deep within her, she felt her child move and flex. Her hand clasped her abdomen, sheltering it.

‘Please go,’ she said.

And this time he did.

Markos reached out his hand and closed it like a vice around the bottle of whisky. But before he could refill his glass another hand grasped his wrist, pinioning him.

‘Getting plastered won’t help.’

Markos swore. It was in Greek, rich and inventive.

‘Lay off me, Leo!’ he finished.

His cousin prised his fingers off the bottle and removed it.

‘Damn you to hell,’ said Markos, and slumped back in his chair. ‘And damn Vanessa, too. Especially her.’ His eyes flicked to his cousin, sitting opposite him in the London apartment. ‘How could she do it, Leo? How could she believe that manipulative harpy? How could she just walk out on me? Without a word! Without giving me a chance to explain what the hell Constantia Dimistris and my father were cooking up!’ His face contorted. ‘If she’d just trusted me, I’d have told her in a second it was just a lie. If she’d just trusted me enough to ask—’

‘And what would have happened after you’d answered her, Markos?’

The voice that spoke was not his cousin’s. It was female, sharp as a stiletto. His head swung in the direction of the voice.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ he demanded.

Anna Makarios folded her arms across her chest.

‘It’s a simple enough question. Supposing Vanessa had come running to you, and you’d explained that, no, as it happened you were not about to get married to Apollonia Whatever-her-name-is—what would have happened next?’

Markos stared at her. ‘What do you mean, what would have happened? Everything would have been all right again. That’s what would have happened.’

Anna pressed her lips together. “‘Everything would have been all right again,”’ she echoed. ‘How very convenient for you. Vanessa would have kissed you besottedly, and gone on being devoted and adoring. The best mistress you’d ever had—wasn’t that what you called her?’

‘Anna…’ Her husband’s voice was placating. ‘Look, I know you don’t like the word, but—’

She didn’t even look at him as she spoke. ‘Shut up, Leo. This is important. It’s not about a word, it’s about an attitude. Your cousin had what to common-or-garden people like me and Vanessa was a relationship. For God’s sake, they lived together for half a year—she shared his life! She wasn’t his bloody mistress. At the very least she was his live-in lover, his partner, and calling her his mistress is a disgusting insult! Yes—’ she cast a quelling look at Leo, who was trying to speak ‘—I’m well aware there are women who are mistresses, who leach off rich men to get a lifestyle they can’t afford themselves, who trade sex for diamonds. But if you dare tell me that Vanessa was one of them I swear I’ll clock you! She hasn’t an avaricious bone in her body. She was just besotted with Markos, hopelessly in love with him—that’s all!’

Viciously, Markos reached for the whisky bottle, which Leo had incautiously let go of, and refilled his glass. He knocked back a large mouthful and slammed the glass back on the coffee table.

‘So besotted she walked out on me straight to another man!’

Two pairs of eyes turned on him incredulously.