The Secret Wife

Compelling dark eyes probed her dreamy face. His fingertips lightly traced the delicate curve of her jawbone and she turned her cheek slowly into his palm, a wondering light in her gaze as she recalled his eagerness to leave her the first time they had made love. In the heart-stopping silence, he rearranged a straying curl to his own satisfaction and let his thumb lightly caress the reddened pout of her lower lip.

He collided with her fascinated scrutiny and a faint, rueful smile curved his wide mouth. ‘I can’t stop touching you...’

That charismatic smile turned her heart over and inside out.

‘And I want you all over again,’ he confided.

As he pulled her back into his arms, she quivered in helpless response. Her fingers delved into his luxuriant hair. Held fast by his dark golden eyes, she was conscious of an extraordinary surge of happiness.

‘It was a really good idea to give the staff the rest of the day off,’ Rosie mused, seated on the edge of the scrubbed table, watching Constantine struggle to find a tidy way of finishing off the doorstep-sized sandwich she had made. ‘But I didn’t realise you would be so helpless without a chef.’

Constantine looked wary. ‘I thought you could cook.’

‘I know, and look where it got you. I live on salad, fruit and convenience food. Your chef does not use convenience food and he deserves a medal for serving up such wonderful menus on that prehistoric cooker. Still, at least I can make coffee,’ she murmured with dancing eyes, flicking a meaningful glance at the undrinkable tarry brew he had prepared when challenged.

‘You also look very good on a kitchen table,’ Constantine told her.

Rosie swung up her jean-clad legs and lay on her side, posing like a fifties film starlet, her bright head propped on the heel of her hand. A slow smile curved his mouth and he laughed. ‘You like sending me up, don’t you?’

‘You’ve only just realised?’

‘Slow learner,’ he murmured, studying her with appreciative eyes as she slid in one fluid, impulsive movement off the table again. ‘But I hope you’re not heading for a window, pethi mou.’

‘A window?’ And then she reddened and ran her fingers restively through her hair, recalling the manner in which she had left his home in Greece and the quick escape she had made the day she’d gone down the mountain with Maurice.

‘In certain moods you’re like a cat burglar.’

‘I’ve had a lot of practice over the years.’ She laughed uneasily, not liking the turn the conversation had taken.

‘Running away? It’s a waste of time with me,’ Constantine informed her with deep conviction. ‘The more you run, the harder I chase. It’s an elemental response. I can’t seem to beat it.’

‘You just want to catch up with me so that you can tell me what you think of me for doing it in the first place.’

‘You only do it when I have upset you,’ he returned with a perception that shook her. ‘Or got too close. Now I can stop doing the first but I’m definitely not going to stop doing the second.’

‘Is that a threat?’

He tugged her into his arms with insistent hands. ‘I don’t make threats any more,’ he said softly. ‘I make promises. I want to know everything there is to know about you, agape mou.’

The tenderness in his steady dark appraisal made her heart sing. He was being so open, so honest. A little twinge of shame filled her as she lowered her own gaze. She was the one with the secrets, not him. Soon she would need to tell him all over again that she was Anton’s daughter...but not just at this moment when she was revelling in the awareness that he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

The thunderous slam of a door jolted Rosie awake. Blinking bemusedly in the lamplight, she pulled herself up against the pillows and focused hazily on Constantine where he stood at the foot of the bed, bare-chested, only a pair of faded tight jeans riding low on his lean hips. A tender smile curved her lips. He looked so spectacular, he always looked so spectacular, that she could even forgive him for carelessly wakening her up from the first sound sleep she had enjoyed in days.

Ferocious dark eyes slashed into hers. Rosie stiffened in dismay, her smile dying, her tummy muscles clenching. Seething tension emanated from Constantine in waves.

‘What’s wrong?’ she whispered.

‘I was hungry. I got up to get something to eat and on the way downstairs I began wondering what was so important about those papers that Theo thought it necessary to fly over and personally place them in my hands...and if they were worthy of that importance why didn’t he say so and why was he so keen to make an exit again?’

Rosie’s attention slowly dropped to the bulky brown envelope clasped in one lean brown hand. Her heart jumped into her mouth.

‘But now I understand. Theo was embarrassed,’ Constantine continued in the same murderously quiet drawl. ‘Because when I gave him the licence to empty a certain safety-deposit box held in Anton’s name neither one of us was expecting anything of a confidential nature to emerge...’

He lifted his other hand and something fluttered down onto the bed. Rosie snatched the item up. Her hand trembled. She was looking at a small colour snap of herself as a toddler.

Black eyes blazed condemnation at her, his lean, dark features clenched hard. ‘You wanted revenge, didn’t you? You were going to wait right to the bitter end to throw your paternity in my face!’

CHAPTER TEN