Australia: Gorgeous Grooms: The Andreou Marriage Arrangement / His Prisoner in Paradise / Wedding Night with a Stranger. HELEN BIANCHIN
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her eyes.
To sleep, hopefully.
Except images filled her head, past and present, merging into a scrambled mix that entered her subconscious with tortured clarity, rendering her helpless as the mental reel spun out.
CHAPTER SIX
LOUKAS dragged a hand through his damp hair and reached for a towel.
A shower had eased some of the muscular tension, but not the slow-burning anger existent, for there was a part of him that wanted to physically harm the man whose mistreatment had seeded fear in the woman he’d married.
There was a word for it. And legal redress.
The question was whether Alesha had pressed charges.
Possibly not, in a bid to avoid publicity.
His eyes narrowed as he pulled on boxers … nightwear he rarely donned. The women he’d bedded were comfortable with their nudity, as well as his own.
What in hell had Alesha’s ex done to turn a confident outgoing young woman into someone who had serious issues with intimacy?
Rape … physical abuse? Both?
His hands clenched into tight fists at the thought of her being subjected to either.
And paused momentarily to wonder why it affected him to this degree.
Had Dimitri known of his daughter’s mistreatment?
Subdued lighting greeted him as he re-entered the bedroom, and his gaze swept to the slender form beneath the covers of the bed adjacent his own.
Was she asleep … or merely contriving to give that impression?
Loukas slid between the covers of his own bed, closed the lights, then lay quietly as he reflected on his every move since their arrival home from the fundraiser.
She had kissed like an angel … and he was willing to swear her reaction to his touch had been genuine.
Until she had panicked and fought against him with a desperation born of fear. Hardly the action of someone who’d sought counselling and emerged whole.
It was a while before he slept, and he came sharply awake at a soft beeping sound that had him reaching for the security sensor unit.
The glass door leading onto the terrace was unsecured, and the heat sensor detected a human form occupying a chair.
He moved quietly to his feet, checked the adjoining bed and discovered it empty.
The luminous dial on his watch showed it was several minutes past three.
Alesha? It had to be, and he extracted jeans and pulled them on, then added a tee shirt, before going in search of her.
With sure movements he crossed the gallery and ran lightly downstairs.
Subtle garden illumination provided sufficient light for him to see the slight feminine form curled up on one of four cushioned cane sofas nestled around a glass-topped table.
He made a point of ensuring she heard his approach, and he caught the quick movement of her hands as she brushed each cheek before turning towards him.
Tears?
Somehow the thought of her needing to retreat out here to cry alone touched a place in his heart he’d previously considered beyond reach.
The night air held a faint chill, and he sank down onto the sofa beside her.
‘Unable to sleep?’ He kept his voice light, and caught the slight shake of her head.
‘I didn’t mean to wake you.’
‘The security sensor,’ Loukas corrected. ‘It beeped an alert when you opened the external door.’
His features were shadowed in the half-light, and in the distance the city breathed life with its coloured neon billboards, street-lighting … casting a dappled reflection over the dark inner harbour waters.
In a few hours the indigo sky would begin to lighten as dawn emerged, providing colour and substance to the new day.
‘It’s peaceful out here,’ Alesha offered, aware her voice was edged with tiredness. Hardly surprising since she hadn’t slept at all. Yet she didn’t feel inclined to move.
Nor did she particularly want to converse. The silence of the night, the solitude it offered, acted as a soothing balm, and most of all she simply wanted to close her eyes and let it wash over her, cleanse a little and ease the ache deep inside.
There was a psychological process she needed to travel, a series of steps that would lead her from the dark back into the light, and it was better she took them alone. Then she could sleep.
‘Go back to bed,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m fine.’
Sure she was.
‘Please.’
It was the please that reached him, but he merely looked at her. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
Okay, so she’d pretend he wasn’t there.
Difficult, when his presence acted as a compelling entity impossible to ignore. He radiated innate strength and vitality … a dramatic mesh, even in repose, that made her incredibly aware of him.
Fool, she denounced in silent self-castigation. Why … why did you go into orbit, when you’d mentally conditioned yourself to have sex with him?
Now you’ve created a wedge … oh, call it as it is … an emotional physical chasm so deep and wide, it’ll be almost impossible to breach.
There was a part of her that felt inclined to urge him to take her to bed and … just do it.
Sure. Like he was going to risk her freaking out again? What man would be willing to risk rejection after being so convincingly repelled?
How could she explain that as much as she’d wanted his possession … somehow at the crucial moment Seth’s angry image had superimposed Loukas’ own.
‘Did your ex rape you?’
His voice was quiet, steady … yet she flinched from the words, and it took a few long moments to gather herself together.
‘Rape conjures up a picture involving violence.’
Loukas took hold of her hand and threaded his fingers loosely through her own. ‘Sex between consenting adults should be consensual. Not a demand or used as a punishment.’
The shadows helped. His closeness provided security. And he deserved to know some of it. All of it, eventually, but for now some of it would be enough.
‘Seth played a convincing part,’ she began quietly. ‘He fooled me, but not my father, who was against the marriage from the start.’ She couldn’t look at him. ‘It began almost as soon as we were married, with insults at first—about my lack of spine in demanding a substantial salary package, perks. When I refused to comply, he became … rough.’
Loukas kept his voice even, in spite of the anger building inside him. ‘He hit you.’
‘Yes.’
‘More?’
‘Some,’ she admitted, and heard the breath hiss between his teeth.
That any man could hurt her … dammit, harm her physically and emotionally enraged him. Yet if he showed any sign of it, she’d retreat even further behind the barrier she’d erected in self-protection.
She needed time to trust him, and he could give her that … even if it killed him to do so.
Meanwhile, it wouldn’t be difficult to discover the date of her first marriage, and uncover any hospital records … if any of her injuries had required hospital attention.
It became