The Secret Wife

‘Majorca?’ Rosie repeated unsteadily, her bright head slowly lifting.

‘Son Fontanal, the former Estrada home, complete with contents and a thousand stubbly, infertile acres fit only for a mountain goat,’ Constantine recited half under his breath, his lingering incredulity at such a move palpable. ‘The ruin even comes complete with an embargo on further development because it stands in an environ-mentally protected area. It was all but worthless to anyone but Anton. The heirs of the late owner saw him coming...’

‘Anton bought back Son Fontanal?’ Rosie whispered in breathless shock.

‘He was always a deeply sentimental man,’ Constantine conceded tautly but with the air of a male striving without success to comprehend such feelings.

But Rosie understood...Rosie understood as if her father had been in the room talking to her. This was what Anton had wanted his daughter to have. Son Fontanal, sold out of necessity by his widowed mother when Anton was only fifteen. Her father might have spent the rest of his life in Greece but his deep pain and regret at the loss of his ancestral home had never left him. As a powerless, frustrated teenager, Anton had sworn over his father’s grave that if he ever got the chance he would mortgage his soul to bring Son Fontanal back into the family again.

‘He loved that house,’ Rosie muttered softly. ‘No price would have been too high.’

‘It was an act of financial suicide. Had he lived ...’ Constantine’s hard mouth clenched, a muscle pulling at the corner of his lips as his deep voice roughened with suppressed emotion. ‘Had Anton lived, he would have had a choice between bankruptcy or coming to me. I like to think that he would have overcome his pride and approached me for help—’

‘Not his wife?’

Constantine shot her a look of naked disbelief. ‘Christos...what man would want to borrow money from his wife? Why am I discussing these private matters with you?’ he grated with sudden ferocity. ‘Go and put on that dress you wore last night. We are leaving this hotel.’

‘Forget the “we”...I’ll call a cab to take me home.’

Constantine loosed a derisive laugh. ‘You’re coming to Greece with me. That is the only option I have left... and believe me,’ he intoned with merciless black eyes, ‘if I have to drug you and tie you up to get you there I will do it.’

‘G-Greece...?’ Rosie stammered incredulously.

‘A short meeting with Thespina will be necessary now.’ Constantine dealt her a ferocious look of antipathy. ‘That is rather unfortunate when I have already told her that our fake engagement was broken and that we had parted.’

‘I don’t care how you choose to explain yourself but I am definitely not going to Greece,’ Rosie assured him flatly as she got up.

‘If necessary I will strip you and dress you myself.’

Rosie collided with black eyes of shamelessly steady threat. She went into the bedroom. Constantine strode in after her and detached the phone from its socket. ‘From now on you will not be communicating with the rest of the world. Now get dressed,’ he instructed.

Haunted eyes looked back at her from the bathroom mirror. How could Maurice have done such a dreadful thing? How could he have contacted the Press? He would know exactly how she would feel about that betrayal. He knew that she had been determined to protect Thespina from any further distress. She opened the bathroom door again and peered out.

Constantine was shrugging his broad shoulders into a superbly tailored jacket. Her mouth ran dry as she watched the sleek-toned muscles ripple beneath the fine silk of his shirt and noted the dark, tantalising shadow of the hair-roughened chest she had glimpsed during the night when he’d woken her up.

‘Why aren’t you changing?’ he demanded.

Her cheeks hot as hellfire, Rosie regained her wandering wits and muttered frantically, ‘Please let me phone Maurice ... I have to speak to him.’

Densely lashed dark eyes of outrage landed on her. ‘No.’

‘Please,’ Rosie persisted.

‘The first rule of a Greek wife is obedience,’ Constantine delivered, moving towards her with the predatory grace of a prowling leopard. ‘And if you don’t jump when I say jump, little rag-doll, I will take action to reeducate you and after a very little while in my undiluted company crawling across the floor of my bedroom like a submissive slave will come entirely naturally!’

Rosie slammed the door and locked it for good measure.

‘I can’t go to Greece,’ Rosie told him again in the lif

t.

‘I’ll content myself with beating Maurice to a pulp and putting him out of business, shall I?’ Constantine smiled down at her shaken face. ‘And don’t you doubt that it can be done. Discreet enquiries have revealed that much as Maurice’s old uncle likes his nephew Maurice got his profiteering instincts from the same source, and for the right price Uncle Dennis would regret the necessity but he would shove the pair of you out into the snow!’

Rosie was shattered that Constantine was already aware of the fact that their landlord was related to Maurice. ‘You knew—?’

‘I never make a threat I can’t carry through on. You step out of line, I take action in progressive degrees of unpleasantness. I will make Maurice Carter sorry he was ever born and even sorrier that he once shared a bed with you.’

‘You’re angry...you don’t know what you’re saying...’