Greek Affairs. Кейт Хьюит
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one other woman out there who shares his bed when you are not in it,’ he extended brutally. ‘Can you live with that?'
‘And how many lovers have passed through your bed, Andreas?’ she flung right back. ‘One or two, a dozen—a hundred—?'
His mouth took on that grim flat line in refusal to answer and he went to turn away again. On a blazing flare of anger Louisa walked back to him and grabbed hold of his arm to swing him back. ‘You demanded honesty between us, so answer the question!'
‘So fierce.’ He laughed oddly.
‘Tell me!’
‘Have I taken other women to my bed?’ suddenly he was all sardonic arrogance. ‘Of course,’ he responded. ‘Five years is a long time to spend celibate.'
She let go of his arm as if it repelled her, inside she was a shivering, quivering wreck of hurt and disgust. ‘So the old Greek double standard is still alive and kicking,’ she breathed acidly. ‘I hope you enjoy living up to it.'
With that she walked back to the door on legs that felt as unstable as the tears she was fighting.
‘What is that supposed to mean?’ he roughed out.
‘You said it first—five years apart?’ Fingers taking a white-knuckled grip on the door handle, she sent him a deriding look. ‘You don’t really think that I haven’t been playing the field like you and Max, do you.?’
She watched him tense, watched his beautiful bronzed skin whiten, watched him turn himself into a block of stone. That she could also see he actually believed what she was saying sent the death rattle of her love for him rolling through her heart and across her throat.
‘If I’m pregnant I’ll let you know—if you’re still interested by then,’ was her final cold volley before she walked out.
Kostas and Pietros were nowhere to be seen, which suited her fine because she didn’t want to see anyone. She just wanted to get away from here and never come back.
Isabella was about to get her dearest wish, she thought bitterly as she stepped down from the shady veranda into the fierce midday heat.
Tugging in a thick breath of air, she set off walking down the long driveway without a single clue as to where she was going to go. The other house was out of the question, she even shuddered at the idea of going back there. The hotel was out too, since there was no way she was going to be able to put on a nice, polite face for everyone there.
Which left only one other place for her to go and it drew her like a homing pigeon, keeping her moving down the long driveway, and she was not—not—not going to cry! she told herself.
The angry roar of a car engine coming up fast from behind stiffened her backbone. Her chin shot up, eyes hot and dry, mouth quivering, her insides heaving and twisting with the multitude of emotions playing havoc with her as she quickened her pace.
The open-top car came to a screeching stop beside her. ‘Get in,’ Andreas commanded harshly.
Louisa just kept on walking. There was a curse and a click then he was out of the car and around the bonnet and blocking her path before she could manage to draw breath.
‘Get in the car, Louisa, if you don’t want me to pick you up and put you in!’ he rasped out angrily.
She heaved in a deep breath. ‘I don’t—’
He picked her up and dumped her in the car seat right over the top of the door. The sheer shock of it stung through her in a trembling fizz that chased up and down her limbs.
She was still trembling when he got in beside her and threw the car into gear then shot off down the drive. ‘You are going to have to stop walking away from me,’ he growled roughly.
‘Me walk away from you?’ Shaken up, hair flying as she swung her flashing blue eyes up to glare at his face, only to have her heart dance off in a skittering flurry when she found herself staring at an Andreas she had never seen before.
His lean golden profile stood right on the cutting edge of murder—tense and tight, the steel-rimmed sunglasses covering his eyes filling her head with fantastical images of hard, handsome hit men of the coldly ruthless kind. Something else sprang to life inside her and sizzled, making her look away again quickly, not happy at all to feel the full impact of his attraction in such a way.
‘We both have to stop walking away from each other, then,’ he amended tightly. ‘Whatever. It stops right here!’ Hot tears were beginning to take her over, she watched them blur out her vision. ‘So we can flog this marriage to death some more?’
With a jerk, he pulled the car to a stop at the junction with the road to let an ancient truck pass by. It struggled on the slight incline, belching out diesel fumes and its old engine growling like a great angry mammoth.
‘It isn’t dead yet.’
It was in Louisa’s opinion! ‘I don’t want to stay married to a man who can’t even trust me when I tell him the truth,’ she said, conveniently forgetting the lie she had tossed at him just before she’d left.
The old truck rolled past. Andreas made no answer, just eased his foot off the brake in the wake of the lorry’s lumbering upheaval and swung them out onto the road.
‘You’re going the wrong way again,’ she told him thickly. ‘I was going to visit Nikos.'
A muscle flicked in his taut jaw, other muscles clenching elsewhere at the same time as he gave the engine more speed. Barely thirty seconds later and he was slowing down again to swing the car onto a narrow track that would take them up the hill behind the luxury villas. Instant recognition as to what exactly lay on the other side of that hill made Louisa tense in her seat.
‘No,’ she gasped out. ‘Andreas, you can’t do this!’
He turned to look at her through those steel-rimmed sunglasses. ‘When are you going to recognise that I can do very much as I please?'
The coolly delivered statement left Louisa gasping. True alarm caused a whole new set of senses to spring into life inside her, most of them circling around the knowledge that he hadn’t just said that to score points.
He was different. From the moment she’d stepped into that hi-tech study in the family villa she’d been looking at and dealing with a completely different man from the one he had let her see while they’d been living in that crazy bubble they’d created around themselves at the other house. Now the bubble had burst it was like dealing with a stranger, a stranger hell-bent on doing what he wished.
‘But I w-want to visit Nikos.’ It broke from her in a tearful, pained plea.
It was as if she’d stuck pins in him the way his muscles flinched, but it didn’t stop him driving them over the peak of the hill. A moment later he turned them off the track and drove through a pair of security gates that swung open by some invisible command.
Louisa found herself staring at the Markonos private heliport complete with hangar tucked neatly into the bowl of the hill. A shiny white helicopter stood idle on the concrete helipad. As they shot to a halt beside it she could see a pilot already ensconced in the cockpit, and over by the hangar several employees were loitering, awaiting their arrival.
‘Wh-when did you arrange all of this?’ she breathed unsteadily.
‘Before I came after you.’
With a long-limbed, lithe grace he climbed out of the car, leaving her sitting there coming to terms with this new view of him. He came round the car and opened her door for her then bent to unfasten her seat belt. An engine started up, rotor blades whirred into life.
‘I’m not getting on that,’ she refused as he drew her to her feet.
He turned to toss the car keys at one of the loitering men. His hand still manacled her wrist. She gave a tug to get free but, like the last time, his fingers tightened. He was playing