Friends? Rion had to be joking after the way he had treated her. She recognised the basic all-masculine gleam in his eyes—she had seen it in many a man’s eyes in the years they had been apart. She wasn’t a naive teenager any more, and she knew it wasn’t a friend he wanted. But she couldn’t prevent the sudden tightening in her chest or the throb of her pulse. Anger, she told herself, and swallowed hard. She was unable to speak for a moment, or tear her gaze away.
Rion took a glass of wine from the tray of a passing waitress and handed it to her.
‘Here—join me in a drink for old times’ sake. As I recall we had our moments …’ he drawled, his gaze roaming brazenly over her body.
Selina knew exactly the moments he was referring to. Without thinking she took the glass. Their fingers brushed and a shiver snaked down her spine. Quickly she raised the glass to her lips and took a sip. Long-buried memories were resurfacing in her mind. The connection she had felt the moment she saw him, their first kiss, their lovemaking, his tanned, naked body, all muscle and sinew … He had been like a Greek god to her, with his thick, silky black hair and his soulful eyes with their curtains of black lashes …
Damn—what was she thinking? Selina blinked. There was nothing soulful about Rion. Soulless, more like. She took another gulp of wine. Why on earth was she recalling the good times they had shared when the bad had far outnumbered everything else?
Selina had been married to Rion for eight weeks when his father had retired and set off with Helen on a world cruise. They had moved from Rion’s apartment to stay at the family home and watch over his half sister Iris for a the last couple of weeks of her summer vaca
tion, and then see her safely returned to the international school she attended in Switzerland. During the second week, Rion had gone to Saudi Arabia on business.
Iris had asked if she could invite some friends over on the Thursday evening, for a farewell party before she returned to school. Rion had not been due back until the Friday night, so Selina had agreed—she hadn’t seen any harm in Iris having a little party.
Selina could still recall every minute detail of the whole mortifying scene when Rion had returned unexpectedly very early the next morning. Hearing her name called, she had woken from a deep sleep to glimpse a half-naked man dashing out of her room. Rising up on her elbows, she’d seen Rion standing at the foot of the bed, his dark eyes blazing with fury, rage etched in every line of his hard face.
‘Rion …’ She’d shaken her head in confusion. ‘What …? Who was that …?’
‘Your lover,’ he snapped, his eyes as hard as jet, his face suddenly an expressionless mask. ‘Get up, clean up and get out. The marriage is finished. I never want to see or speak to you again.’
‘You can’t mean that—this is some ghastly mistake!’ she’d cried.
But it had been no mistake. He’d spun on his heel and left without another word.
She remembered the utter humiliation she had felt when she’d realised Rion had instructed the staff to escort her from the house before noon and ordered a car to send her back to her grandfather in disgrace—the adulteress wife on her nineteenth birthday, of all days. She’d tried to get in touch with Rion but it had been hopeless. As he had sworn on the morning he threw her out, he wouldn’t see her, wouldn’t listen and wouldn’t speak to her.
The final disillusionment had come a day later, when she’d managed to meet Iris. Selina had told Iris she was sure she had not had sex with the boy, Jason, as that evening she had gone to bed early, with a couple of painkillers for cramps. The next morning, confused and in tears after Rion’s dismissal of her, she had stumbled into the shower and realised the feminine protection she wore was still firmly in place.
Iris had just laughed and said she knew anyway. Then she had admitted that Jason, the neighbours’ gardener, was her boyfriend. After Selina had gone to bed the rest of them had continued drinking. Iris had told Jason to wait until everyone had left and then give her ten minutes before following her up to her bedroom, the second on the left. Unfortunately the idiot had taken the second on the right, ended up in Selina’s bed and passed out.
Jason had told her the sound of footsteps in the hall had awakened him, and when he’d seen a redhead instead of Iris’s black hair on the pillow next to him he’d been horrified. Panicking, he had leapt out of bed, pulling on his pants, and had run for the door just as Rion had walked in. Head down, he hadn’t stopped running until he was out of the house.
Selina had begged Iris to tell Rion the truth but she’d flatly refused, saying her life would not be worth living if she did. Rion would tell her parents and she would be grounded for months—if not years. To justify her refusal Iris had told Selina that Rion had already arranged to take her back to school tomorrow and fly on from Switzerland to the USA, for an unspecified length of time. Selina would be better off going back to England and to university, she’d told her, and getting on with her life. Because Rion didn’t really love her. He had only married her to seal a business deal with her grandfather.
Iris had overheard her parents talking about it when they’d thought she was asleep in the back of the car on the way home from Selina and Rion’s engagement party at a deluxe Athens hotel. She’d added that Rion would never be faithful anyway, because much as she adored her brother he was a confirmed womaniser. To prove her point she’d got out her laptop and shown Selina some of the pictures and comments Rion’s female friends had posted on social websites.
Reading what other women said about their relationships with Rion had been mortifying. One had been a posting by a woman called Chloe, pictured with Rion in a dimly lit club. The date was a date that was engraved on Selina’s mind: the night she had first met Rion and he had kissed her. He had lied even then! He had not hurried off after dinner for a conference call but to meet this woman …
But what had finally convinced Selina was a shot of Rion arguing with a photographer outside a nightclub with a woman named Lydia looking on. Iris had told her that Rion had been in love with Lydia, and wanted to marry her years ago. But she had married a banker, Bastias, instead.
Sickeningly, Selina had realised, that Rion had introduced her to this Lydia and a woman friend in a restaurant on one of the rare occasions he had taken her out to dinner. Her heart, already cracked, had finally shattered into a million pieces, her love destroyed and turned to dust.
She’d been left devastated, but angry with herself for being such a fool, and on returning to England Selina had determined to get back at Rion through his arrogant pride. Amazingly, she had succeeded—and though it had not mended her broken heart it had gone a long way to restoring her confidence, Selina thought now as she drained her glass of wine. She was a much stronger woman for the experience, and she had no need to fear Rion any more. He wasn’t worth a moment of her time.
Rion had fooled her and used her. It was that simple. The words bartered bride sprang to mind …
‘You and I were never friends, Rion,’ she said bluntly. ‘And I never needed your forgiveness. If anything it was the other way round. But, as you said, it was a long time ago and long forgotten.’
‘Oh, come on, Selina.’
His hand reached around her waist and pulled her closer. She felt the heat of his body through the few inches of space separating them and her heart skipped a beat.
‘I found you in bed with another man, not the other way round as you tried to imply in the divorce.’
It was the arrogant drawl and the mockery that cooled her senses. ‘I didn’t have to try. Anyone knowing your reputation with women believed me. Whereas you leapt at the chance to name me an adulteress wife simply because a drunken boy passed out in the wrong bed,’ Selina shot back flippantly, though she was battling to still her suddenly racing pulse.
‘You know me so well, it seems, Selina,’ Rion said, his lips twisting in a smile as his hand fell from her waist. He straightened up, and there was not a hint of amusement in the dark eyes that clashed with hers. They were as hard and cold as ice.