Theo Demakis’s granddaughter-’
His lean, intelligent face set taut with tension while his stunning dark eyes took on a forbidding aspect. ‘Don’t say it,’ he breathed. ‘Don’t go down that road to insult me.’
Prudence was too upset to heed that warning. Her every instinct was urging her to fight back. ‘Perhaps you still believe I could be a financial asset to you. My grandfather may not be speaking to me right now but-’
‘I threw Theo out of my office last week. He was in a rage about your divorce plans. He seemed to think you had phoned him to tell him that news out of pure malice and he informed me that he had cut you out of his will.’
‘You threw him out…oh,’ Prudence mumbled uncomfortably, unable to meet his gaze, for she was ashamed of herself for throwing the slur that would draw the most blood. She knew it had no basis in fact. Nik was very proud and his sense of honour strong. He would never have married her to save his own financial skin but he had found it impossible to stand by and watch his family suffer the ignominy of bankruptcy. As for that news about her grandfather’s will, she spared it barely a thought because she had never dreamt that anyone who disliked her so thoroughly would consider leaving her anything.
‘So, you don’t figure as a profitable enterprise in any way. In fact, staying married to you might even be bad for business because Theo is a very bitter man right now,’ Nik imparted between clenched teeth of restraint. ‘As you’re also aware, it’s several years since I paid back your dowry with interest. I owe Theo nothing and, when he’s as rude as he was about you last week, not even the time of day.’
Prudence winced at the revelation that defending her name had pitched him into a battle with the older man. ‘I know…I accept that. I shouldn’t have said that about the money-’
‘But you did say it and I won’t forget it,’ Nik swore darkly. ‘I’m well aware that my family profited from our marriage in a way that you and your mother did not. But you have stonewalled my every attempt to redress that balance. You have always refused to accept an allowance from me-’
‘Oh, Nik, please, don’t say any more,’ Prudence urged in a stifled voice of distress and regret that she had reduced their relationship to such a mercenary level that he felt he had to defend his own behaviour. ‘We didn’t have a proper marriage, so I couldn’t possibly have accepted money from you. It just wouldn’t have felt right. You helped out in lots of other ways. When Mum was ill, with the nursing expenses, and other things-when I needed shelters for the animals and extra food…’
‘I am only asking you to give our marriage a chance,’ Nik ground out in a driven undertone. ‘What would that cost you?’
Prudence let her strained blue eyes linger on his lean, bronzed features for a split-second and hurriedly looked away again. But even that one stolen appraisal dazzled her, just as he had dazzled her the very first time she saw him eight years ago. If he had had the slightest idea what it would cost her he would not have asked that question. Once she had been obsessed with him. Was that the Demakis blood in her veins? Was that why she had found it so very hard to let go of loving Nik? But, having mastered that love and distilled all that energy into friendship and acceptance that she could never have anything more, she was terrified of exposing herself to that much pain again.
‘I can’t…I just can’t,’ she said flatly and, glancing down with relief at her watch, she began walking hurriedly to the door. ‘I must go-’
‘You’ve only been here half an hour-’
‘I have to meet Leo at six and you and I have already said all there is to say. I don’t want to say the things I’m saying to you…it’s upsetting me,’ she condemned chokily.
Incensed at the very mention of the other man’s name, Nik caught her hand to pull her back before she could make it out through the front door. ‘And doesn’t that tell you something?’ he growled in a driven undertone. ‘If you fight me you will get hurt, and that isn’t what I want either.’
‘I can’t believe that you know
‘Don’t I? Am I so bad at putting my message across?’ A dangerous light in his shimmering dark golden eyes, Nik brought his sensual mouth crashing down on hers.
Astonishment gripped her, for there was nothing cool or sophisticated about caveman tactics. But she found that scorching onslaught as shockingly exciting as the domineering way he hauled her up against him. She kissed him back with bittersweet fervour, opening her mouth for the ravishing quest of his tongue. Her heart was pounding into a crazy crescendo. Her body felt tight and hot and oversensitive. She was pushing closer, burrowing in the hard-muscled contours of his powerful frame. And then her subconscious mind served up an image that cut right through that passion. Her memory leapfrogged back to her wedding day and the moment that she had seen Nik kissing Cassia Morikis. That was when she had truly understood that even a wedding ring could not bind Nikolos Angelis to her and make him hers in the way she needed him to be.
Yanking herself free of him, she rubbed a hand across her reddened lips as if to deny the taste of him. ‘You shouldn’t have done that!’
Prudence tottered into the lift on wobbling legs and let it carry her down to the ground floor. She felt emotionally battered, but her body was still alight with the passion Nik had awakened and the ache of desire made her despise herself even more. It was the stuff of nightmares for her to emerge from the building and find that she was the target of cameras and shouted questions from a crowd of journalists wielding microphones. For a split- second she was paralysed, as blind and helpless as a rabbit caught in car headlights.
‘Is it true you’re divorcing Nik, Mrs Angelis?’
‘Does Nik want to marry someone else?’
‘Any truth in the rumour that your grandfather begged him to stay married to you?’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘DON’T BE STUPID!’ Prudence heard herself say before she got wise and simply turned on her heels and ran for her life.
She did not stop until she had outrun the pack of journalists following her down the street. Gulping in fresh air, she took a careful look around her and slowed her pace; the paparazzi had gone. It had been an enervating episode for a woman who was not accustomed to media interest. Her face had only made it into the newspapers twice since her marriage-and only then at private events held to bring in funds for the sanctuary. It shook her to acknowledge that Nik lived with that kind of attention every day.
For the first time she allowed herself to mull over the astonishing fact that Nik had been willing to run the risk of getting her pregnant to keep her. At heart Nik could be very basic. Naive as well, she thought ruefully. According to what she had read, it was quite common for couples to have to spend a year trying for a baby. The same gloomy book had informed her that even though she was only in her late twenties, her most fertile years already lay behind her. On that basis she thought there was virtually no chance that conception could have taken place on the strength of a single occasion.
When she met up with Leo again, he looked as grim as she felt.
‘What’s up?’ she asked.
‘I ran into a friend of Stella’s at the lecture. She let drop that Stella’s actually going out on a date tonight with some guy…she just didn’t know how to tell me and thought I would disapprove.’
Prudence winced and tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. ‘Oh, dear. Mind you, she has been on her own for two years now.’
‘I know that.’ Leo settled frustrated brown eyes on her. ‘Give me the female viewpoint. Advise me on my next move…’
‘I can’t…I can’t!
‘I’ve got too much to lose,’ Leo sighed. ‘Look, let’s have dinner before we drive back. It’s not like I’ve got anything better to do.’
‘How did you get on with Nik this afternoon?’ he finally enquired while they were studying their menus in the restaurant.
Prudence tried to hoist her usual bright smile onto her mouth and failed. She thought of the fact that her relationship with Nik now lay in broken pieces. She thought of the fact that he was cruelly forcing her to continually
