The Husband Test. HELEN BIANCHIN
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as the curtain rose.
Katrina focussed on the stage, the actors, and blocked out everything else. It was a technique she’d learned at a young age, and now it served her well.
Between acts she gathered with her mother among patrons in the lobby, sipped a cool drink, and indulged in conversation. Siobhan owned a boutique in exclusive Double Bay, and had in the years since her divorce become an astute and extremely successful businesswoman.
‘I’ve put something aside for you,’ Siobhan relayed.
Her mother’s taste in clothes was impeccable, and Katrina proffered a warm smile. ‘Thanks. I’ll write you a cheque.’
Siobhan pressed her hand on that of her daughter. ‘A gift, darling.’
A prickle of awareness slithered down Katrina’s spine, and she barely caught herself from shivering in reaction.
Only one man had this effect on her, and she turned slowly, forcing herself to skim the fellow patrons with casual interest.
A difficult feat when all her body’s self-protective instincts were on full alert.
Nicos Kasoulis stood as part of a group, his head inclined towards a gorgeous blonde whose avid attention was almost sickening. Two men, two women. A cosy foursome.
Yet even as she was about to turn away he lifted his head and captured her glance, held it, those dark eyes steady, mesmeric, almost frightening.
He had the height, Katrina conceded, the breadth of shoulder, the stance, that drew attention.
Sculptured facial bone structure inherited from his Greek ancestors—wide cheekbones, strong jaw, not to mention a mouth that promised a thousand sensual delights and eyes as dark as sin—merely added another dimension to a man who wore an aura of power as comfortably as a second skin. Thick dark hair worn longer than was currently conventional added an individualistic tone to a man whose strength of will was equally admired as well as feared among his contemporaries.
If he thought to intimidate her, he was mistaken. Katrina lifted her chin, and her eyes flashed with green fire an instant before she deliberately turned her back on him.
At that moment the electronic buzzer sounded, heralding patrons to return to their seats.
Katrina’s focus was shot to hell, and the final act passed in a blur of dialogue and action that held little consequence. Her entire train of thought was centred around escaping the auditorium without bumping into the man who’d stirred her to passionate heights, the mere thought of which caused her equilibrium to crash and burn.
An escape Nicos would contrive to allow, or not, as the mood took him.
Not, she perceived as they made their way through the lobby to the front entrance.
‘Katrina. Siobhan.’
His voice was like black satin, dark and smoothly dangerous beneath the veneer of sophisticated politeness.
‘Why, Nicos,’ her mother breathed with delight as he bent to brush his lips to her cheek. ‘How nice to see you.’
Traitor, Katrina accorded silently. Siobhan had been one of Nicos’s conquests from the beginning. Still was.
‘Likewise.’ He turned slightly and fixed Katrina with a deceptively mild gaze. ‘Dinner tomorrow night. Seven?’
Bastard. The curse stopped in her throat as she caught her mother’s surprise. Nicos, damn him, merely arched an eyebrow.
‘Katrina hasn’t told you?’
She wanted to hit him, and almost did. ‘No.’ The single word escaped as a furious negative.
Siobhan looked from her daughter to Nicos, who merely inclined his head in silent deference to Katrina.
Grr! She wanted to scratch his eyes out, and for a wild nanosecond she actually considered it.
He knew, darn it. She could tell from the faint musing gleam evident, the slight quirk at the edge of his mouth as he waited for her to pick up the ball and play.
There was no way around it, and better the truth than prevarication. ‘Kevin, in his infinite wisdom,’ she declared with heavy irony, ‘has made it a condition of his will that I reside in the same house with Nicos for a year. If I don’t, Nicos gains a majority control of Macbride.’ She threw him a dark look that would have felled a lesser man. ‘Something I absolutely refuse to let happen.’
‘Oh, my,’ Siobhan voiced faintly, her eyes clouding as she glimpsed her daughter’s simmering temper.
Siobhan knew her ex-husband well. The iron will beneath the soft, persuasive Irish charm. It had been a time ago, and she’d long forgiven him. For the one good thing to come out of their union had been Katrina.
‘The man’s a meddling fool,’ she said quietly, and saw her daughter’s wry smile. But a smart one. Oh, yes, Kevin Macbride had been nothing if not astute. And he’d developed an instant liking for the attractive Greek his daughter had wed. Maybe, just maybe, the father might achieve in death what he hadn’t been able to achieve while he’d been alive.
Siobhan, how could you? Katrina seethed silently. While I’m capable of slaying my own dragons, I expected you to stand beside me, not welcome the enemy with grace and charm.
Nicos discerned each and every fleeting expression on his wife’s features. She’d lost weight, her skin was pale, and at the moment she was a seething bundle of barely controlled fury. A bundle he was hard-pressed not to heft over one shoulder and carry kicking and cursing out to his car. And ultimately into his bed.
Katrina glimpsed the intent in those dark eyes, and wanted to hit him. ‘Goodnight.’
The word was evinced as a cool dismissal. Icy, with a tinge of disdain meant to convey the edge of her temper.
She saw what he was going to do an instant before his head descended, and he anticipated her move, countered it, and captured her mouth with his own in a kiss that destroyed her carefully erected defences.
Brief, possessive, evocative, it brought a vivid reminder of what had been.
And would be again.
The purpose was there, a silent statement that was neither threat nor challenge. Merely fact.
Then he straightened, and his lips curved into a musing smile as he caught the unmistakable edge of anger in her glittering green gaze.
‘Seven, Katrina,’ he reminded her with deceptive quietness, and saw her chin tilt fractionally.
Cool, control. She’d had plenty of practice at displaying both emotions. ‘Name the restaurant, and I’ll meet you there.’
One eyebrow arched. A silent, faintly mocking gesture that put a serious dent in her bid for independence.
‘The foyer of the Ritz-Carlton.’
An established, élite hotel situated a few blocks from her Double Bay apartment, negating the need to take her car.
She had no doubt it was a deliberate choice on his part, and she was sorely tempted to stamp her foot in childish repudiation. Instead, she offered him a cool glance and kept her voice neutral. ‘Fine.’
Nicos inclined his head towards Siobhan, then he turned and began weaving his way through numerous patrons converging near the entrance.
‘Don’t say a word,’ Katrina warned in caution as they gained the external pavement.
‘Darling, I wouldn’t dream of it,’ her mother evinced with a soft chuckle.
CHAPTER TWO
THE evening was warm, the air like silk on a soft breeze whispering in from the sea as Katrina locked her car and set the alarm.
The hotel entrance lay ahead, its elegant façade attesting élite patronage in an established, moneyed