The Secret Wife

‘You will with me.’

‘I want my clothes back!’ Rosie slammed back at him as she leapt upright, no longer able to stand him towering over her.

He reached for her.

‘I hate you...get your lousy hands off me!’

Those same hands framed her wildly flushed cheekbones. Glittering black eyes slashed down into hers in rampant challenge. ‘You were clinging to me like a limpet when I woke up, pethi mou. I had to give you the pillow to clutch instead.’

‘If you weren’t so much bigger, I’d knock your teeth down your conceited throat!’

‘You see ... you’re learning already. A week ago you would have physically attacked me,’ Constantine murmured with raw satisfaction.

Rosie shuddered with rage and turbulent confusion. Constantine let both of his hands slowly slide into her bright hair and at the caressing brush of those long brown fingers on her scalp she shivered convulsively, like a woman caught up in a violent storm. He released her with a wolfish smile, dark, measuring eyes scanning her with disturbing intensity. ‘You can bite all you like tonight, little rag-doll. I’m very adaptable to new experiences in bed.’

As the door closed, Rosie fell back against the bed for support. Of course he hadn’t meant tha t... he couldn’t possibly be telling her that he expected to make love to her tonight. All she had to do was to say no if he made any advances...all? Hurriedly, she repressed the suspicion that saying no to Constantine might not be that easy.

What on earth had happened to her barely formed desire to begin trying to civilise relations between them? Within thirty seconds he had had her at screaming pitch again. Why the new wardrobe? And why more clothes than even a rich, spoilt socialite could surely wear in the space of two short months? On their weddi

ng day, Constantine had complained because she wasn’t wearing one of the snazzy outfits which he had correctly assumed that Anton had bought her... and now?

Now it appeared to be a hanging offence for her to possess a single garment which Anton might have paid for! Her head was aching. It was tension ... pounding, throbbing tension and that awful sense of being horribly out of her depth again.

CHAPTER SEVEN

PERSPIRATION dewed Rosie’s short upper lip as she walked the length of the big, dark dining room with its massive carved furniture, tracked every step of the way by Constantine’s coolly appreciative appraisal. Was it madness to think that there was a gleam of ownership in that look? Was it even greater madness to consider lunging across the table at him to insist that he stop looking at her like that?

‘I knew that colour would look stunning against that wonderful hair.’

Rosie flushed, murderously self-conscious in her finery. Expensive or not, it was a plain little green summer dress and she had chosen it in preference to half a dozen more revealing outfits, only to discover that once the fabric was filled with living female flesh it outlined every slim curve with disturbing clarity.

‘Why did you bring staff here ... surely you’re not planning to stay long in a house you described as a ruin?’ Rosie prompted tautly as she took a seat opposite him.

‘The other wing of the house is uninhabitable but I believe we can manage to exist with the privations in this wing for a few weeks—’

‘A few weeks?’

‘Why not? What could be more conventional than a newly married couple seeking the seclusion of a mountain villa?’ Constantine watched her bridle with the indolent cool of a sunbathing big cat.

‘Why do you have to keep on reminding me about that stupid wedding ceremony?’ Rosie snapped.

Disturbing amusement flared in his brilliant dark gaze. ‘I think it’s time we called a truce.’

‘A ... truce?’ Rosie echoed uncertainly.

Constantine released his breath in a hiss of impatience. ‘I had every excuse to be outraged by the terms of Anton’s will. Possibly I overreacted but Anton was more dear to me than my own father. It was a great shock to learn that he had another woman in his life.’

‘He didn’t. How many times do I have to say it? I was not his mistress! You were in that house,’ Rosie pressed in a tone of frantic appeal. ‘You must have noticed that we had separate bedrooms!’

Constantine shifted a broad shoulder in a fluid shrug but his strong face hardened. ‘Your sleeping arrangements were of no interest to me.’

‘But—’

Constantine slung her a chilling look. ‘I have never slept a night through in a woman’s bed. Does that mean that I am a celibate?’ he traded with sardonic emphasis.

It did not but the information somehow stabbed Rosie like a knife. She veiled her eyes from his but nothing could wipe out a fleeting, distressing image of Constantine sliding out of the lovely Louise’s arms in the early hours to head home. ‘You’re such a cold fish,’ she condemned helplessly. “The minute you’ve had what you wanted, you take off. You should be ashamed to admit that.’

An arc of faint colour scored Constantine’s cheekbones. His mouth clenched hard. ‘Sex is an exchange of mutual physical pleasure—’