The Secret Wife

A sash window above them was noisily opened. ‘Rosie? What did you do with all the towels?’ Maurice shouted down.

Constantine stiffened and took a step back, the better to get a view of the half-naked young man leaning out of the window. Rosie looked up too, absently conceding that from that angle Maurice looked rather like a blond version of King Kong.

‘Sorry..’ Maurice muttered, belatedly taking in the male with her and withdrawing his tattooed biceps and extremely hairy chest from view. ‘I didn’t know you had company—’

‘Who the hell is he?’ Constantine Voulos raked at Rosie, a rise of dark blood emphasising the savage line of his cheekbones.

‘Do you want me to come down and handle this, Rosie?’ Maurice enquired.

‘When I need you to fight my battles for me, I’ll be six feet under!’ Rosie bawled back, mortally offended by the offer.

The sash window slid reluctantly down again.

‘Anton is scarcely cold in his grave and already you have another man in your bed!’ Naked outrage had turned those brilliant black Greek eyes to seething gold.

Rosie’s hand flew up and connected with one hard masculine cheekbone with such force that her fingers went numb. Stunned by the blow, Constantine Voulos stared down at her with blatant incredulity.

The thunderous silence chilled her to the marrow.

‘I’m sick of you insulting me,’ she muttered through chattering teeth, almost as stunned as he was by the violent response he had drawn from her. ‘And if you touch me Maurice will pulverise you!’

‘He didn’t pulverise Anton...did he?’

Even hot with shame at having used Maurice as a threat to hide behind, Rosie registered the oddly roughened quality of Constantine Voulos’s deep, dark drawl and the indefinable change in the charged atmosphere.

The tall Greek stared broodingly down at her, smouldering golden eyes alarmingly intent. Involuntarily she met that molten gaze and her heartbeat thundered, her throat closing over, heat igniting in the pit of her stomach. She pressed her thighs together in sudden murderous unease.

‘That ... that was d-different,’ she stammered, utterly powerless in the hold of that entrapping stare which was somehow making her feel things she had never felt before. Sexual things, sexual feelings which filled her not only with astonishment but also with appallingly gauche confusion. Why ... how ... she didn’t understand because she couldn’t think straight any more.

Constantine Voulos took a fluid step back, his lean, powerful length emitting an electric tension. Inky black lashes dipped, closing her out again, severing her from the power source that had made every pulse in her treacherous body leap and leaving her disorientated and trembling.

‘I haven’t got time to play games, Miss Waring. I’ll give you twelve hours to think over your position... and then I’ll put the pressure on where it hurts most,’ Constantine warned in a soft drawl that sent a shiver down her rigid spine. ‘With a little help from me, life could become exceedingly difficult. This property is rented. What happens to the junkyard business if the lease isn’t renewed?’

Dawning perception filled Rosie’s shocked eyes. ‘You can’t be serious.’

A cold half-smile briefly slanted his hard mouth. ‘If I was free to follow my natural inclinations, you’d be begging on the street for your next meal. I’ll call again tomorrow morning.’

‘How did you know we rented this place?’ Rosie prompted helplessly as he walked away from her.

Constantine spun gracefully back. ‘And may I put in a special request?’ he murmured silkily, ignoring the question. ‘You strike me as a woman who knows how to please a man. So have a bath before I show up again.’

Rosie’s breasts swelled as she sucked in a heady gush of air. ‘Why, you—!’

The door of the limousine shut with a soft, expensive clunk. Her head whirling, Rosie stalked into the cottage and threw herself down at the kitchen table. Frustrated fury was hurtling about inside her. For an instant she genuinely thought she might explode. He had actually dared to try and threaten her! But then the stakes he was playing for sounded very high ... What had Anton been worth in terms of cold, hard cash? She shuddered with revulsion. Anton had owned a boatyard, a hotel and a chain of shops in Greece. His business dealings within the UK had been tied up in various speculative property ventures. That nonsensical will! But how very like her father... impulsive and overprotective as he had been.

Her eyes smarted with stinging tears and she gulped. Anton had talked so much about Constantine and always with pride, affection and more than a hint of awe. Wealthy Greek parents expected to have a healthy say in their children’s choice of a life partner... he had told her that too.

“Just as well you’re Spanish!” she had teased.

“Mallorquin,” her father had reproved, still proud as punch of his birth in Majorca even after forty years of living in Greece.

Dear heaven, but she despised Constantine Voulos! Her small hands curled into fists on the table-top. Tramp, whore, trash, tart. And, most unforgivably of all, he had accused her of subjecting Anton to such anxiety that she had shortened his life. Her stomach heaved. Well, he could sling his very worst threats and he would find her immovable. Rosie smiled a little to herself then, her smile slowly growing into a decided smirk. Their landlord was, after all, Maurice’s uncle. No way was she going through some disgusting charade of marriage just to help Constantine Voulos circumvent her father’s will and profit from it!

‘That was the brother from hell...am I right?’ Maurice dropped down opposite her and ruefully appraised her hotly flushed face and over-bright eyes. ‘Who else do we know rich enough to travel around in a stretch limousine? Not only your dad’s substitute son but also large enough and verbal enough to make you so mad you are spitting tacks—’

‘Yes, he was Anton’s favourite, wasn’t he? But then I only had four months, not twenty years to make an impression!’ Rosie condemned painfully, and then she crammed an unsteady hand against her wobbling mouth, ashamed of the bitter envy she could hear splintering from her words.

‘Did you tell him who you were this time?’ Maurice enquired gently.