The Secret Wife

A lean hand whipped out and closed round her forearm to stay her. ‘Is that all you have to say to me?’ he gritted.

Angry green eyes flashed into his. ‘You miscalculated, Constantine. You’re so used to saying and doing whatever you like with women that you thought you could do the same with me.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ he growled.

A bitter little laugh was dredged from her tight throat. ‘You assumed that you could be honest and get away with it. In fact, not only did you think that, you actually thought that putting me down would make me try harder to please...’ Her strained voice shook and she compressed her lips to silence herself.

For a split second, Constantine stared down at her, inky black lashes low on his stabbing gaze. ‘That is not true—’

‘I don’t believe you. You’re arrogant and selfish and inconsiderate of other people’s feelings,’ Rosie asserted unsteadily. ‘And I don’t care how rich or how powerful you are... I wouldn’t give daylight to any man who talked to me like that!’

‘Is that a fact?’ Reaching out for her with two determined hands, Constantine urged her up against him and sent every skin cell in her taut body leaping. ‘You will give me a lot more than daylight before I am finished, pethi mou!’

His vengeful mouth was hot, hungry and hard and her knees gave way. His tongue delved between her lips with an erotic thrust that tore a whimper of delight from her. Raw excitement electrified her, releasing the uncontrollable flood of her own hunger. She shuddered convulsively and her heart raced so hard and fast that she clung and clutched at him to stay upright.

And then just as suddenly she was freed, left to find her own support on wildly wobbling legs, dilated green eyes pinned to him in shock. That separation was as painful and as unwelcome as an amputation when every shameless, sensitised inch of her quivering body craved more—so much more that she was in torment.

She focused in appalled fascination on the grimy set of fingerprints which now marred his silk shirt, sweeping up from his waist, glancing across his broad chest in an obviously lingering caress and then indenting clearly across his wide shoulders where she had clung. Those marks were now exhibited for all to see, like a public badge of her shame and surrender.

‘You need to change your shirt,’ she mumbled shakily.

‘I shall wear it with pride,’ Constantine confided with disconcerting amusement. ‘There don’t seem to be many parts of me that you overlooked—’

‘Change it,’ Rosie muttered in a heartfelt plea, hurriedly sidestepping him to head back towards the house. ‘I’m going for a bath.’

‘I’ll see you upstairs,’ Constantine murmured smoothly.

She stiffened and then grasped his meaning. He had to change and half his clothes were in the wardrobe in her room, even though he slept in a bedroom across the landing. Her head was still spinning. One kiss and she had been so far gone, Constantine could have done anything with her! Not a bit of wonder he was laughing! She was his for the taking and he knew it.

A taxi was waiting in the courtyard and as Rosie entered the hall a maid was showing a grey-haired man with a briefcase into the drawing room. Momentarily, the man stilled, shooting Rosie an almost startled glance. Then, just as abruptly, his keen dark eyes veiled and he inclined his head in a polite nod of acknowledgement before disappearing from her view.

Rosie looked curiously at Dmitri where he stood bedow the stairs. ‘Who was that?’

“Theodopoulos Stephanos. Mr Voulos’s lawyer.’

No doubt the man had stared because she looked such a fright in her gardening clothes ... hardly the image he might have expected from Constantine’s wife, temporary or otherwise.

In the bathroom, she stripped off. An agony of self-loathing engulfed her and for long, anguished minutes she simply stood there, tasting the painful reality of her supreme unimportance in Constantine’s life ...

Not a wife, not a girlfriend, not even a mistress. You’re a puddle of self-pity, a little inner voice scolded drily as she washed herself. Maybe he had been telling the truth when he’d said he just hadn’t been ready to answer questions about their relationship. Maybe, in her defensive insecurity, she was her own worst enemy. Angry confusion shrilled through her then. Now she was making excuses for Constantine and blaming herself!

Anchoring a fleecy towel round her in a careless swathe, she walked back into the bedroom...and stopped dead. Her bed was occupied. Constantine was in it, every muscular line of his lithe body fluidly indolent, his bronzed skin startlingly dark against the pale bedlinen. Eyes huge, Rosie gaped at him. A smile of intense amusement curled his wickedly sensual mouth.

‘I don’t know what you think you’re doing here—’

‘Theos ...’ Constantine ran deceptively sleepy eyes of gold over her and her heart took a frantic, convulsive leap against her breastbone. ‘You need me to state my intentions?’

‘I’ve got a very fair idea of your intentions, Constantine,’ Rosie spluttered, stalking over to the door, intending to throw it wide in an invitation for him to leave.

‘It’s locked.’

Rosie spun round. Constantine displayed a large, ornate key for her inspection. ‘We wouldn’t want to startle the staff again.’

‘Give me that key!’ Rosie launched at him furiously.

‘Come and get it ...’

Rosie hesitated.