The Greek’s Chosen Wife

demanded in return was that I marry you!’

‘I didn’t know…I swear I didn’t know.’ Nik’s lean, strong face had set into hard, forbidding lines. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that you were under that kind of pressure?’

It was Prudence’s turn to be taken aback. ‘You really didn’t know?’

‘How could I know what nobody bothered to tell me?’ Nik demanded fiercely.

‘But you didn’t ask…I just assumed you knew…I mean, I knew about your family’s financial problems. But you didn’t discuss that with me and, well…I wasn’t in any more of a hurry to talk about the mess my mother was in,’ she protested.

‘I had heard that your mother had abused alcohol in the past, but by the time I met her she was almost an invalid and she was no longer drinking. I was not aware that her problems had been so recent, or that Theo didn’t take full financial responsibility for her before our marriage.’

‘He despised Trixie. All we ever got from my father’s side of the family was the right to live at the farm. Don’t get me wrong…over the years I learned to be very grateful for that security.’ Prudence was marvelling that Nik could have remained in ignorance of the true facts behind their marriage for so many years without either of them appreciating the fact. Yet even as she grasped that reality, her defensiveness was replaced by a sudden surge of cringing dismay. ‘Hold on a minute…you actually thought that I was so infatuated with you that I was willing to grab the first chance I got to marry you?’

Nik was stunned by the discovery that she had been as much of a victim of circumstance as he had been when they first married. ‘Ne…yes,’ he admitted in Greek. ‘What else could I think?’

Prudence turned white with raging humiliation. ‘So, in essence, you did think that my grandfather had bought me a husband. That I was so desperate I would take you on any terms!’

‘I need a shower, glikia mou.’ For the first time in his life, Nik saw retreat as the most tactful response. He had believed that and, hot-headed and arrogant as he had been, it was a conviction which had filled him with considerable scorn and defiance. After all, the more cynical of his relatives had congratulated him on his good fortune on having the pulling power to attract an heiress. His pride had been battered because, like it or not, she’d had the power to rescue him and his family. Ultimately, however, he had excused and forgiven Prudence for taking him on such terms because he had always believed that she loved him. In fact, he had taken that fact absolutely for granted.

Now the picture had radically changed and Nik felt suddenly as though he had strayed into an earthquake zone. He might want to destroy Theo Demakis for treating Prudence with such callous cruelty, but he was fiercely aware that he had resorted to equally brutal tactics when Prudence asked him for a divorce. Had Prudence ever loved him? Or had it just been the crush she had said it was? After what he had just found out about their marriage eight years back, a decent guy would let her go free. His lean brown hands clenched into imprisoning fists. Well, so much for decent. What if she was in love with Leo Burleigh? She would just have to get over it, Nik decided with ferocious resolve.

Tears of frustrated fury and hurt in her eyes, Prudence curled up in a heap of throbbing mortification. How dared Nik have believed that she had been so pathetic? So mad for him that she would consent to such a marriage? Once again she was being made to appreciate how very tenuous their relationship had been when they first married. Both of them had been too proud to lower their defences and the chance to break that deadlock had never come.

At the time of their marriage, Nik’s apartment had been undergoing major renovations and they had been forced to embark on married life beneath his parents’ roof. They had slept in adjoining bedrooms, separated by a locked door. Surrounded by Nik’s cool, distant family, she had felt more isolated and wretched than ever. Within weeks she had used the excuse of her mother’s ill-health to leave Athens. She and Nik had never got to share anything. A honeymoon would certainly have made a difference.

Was she now about to let pride come between her and what might be the best chance she ever had to make something of their marriage? Shouldn’t she be pleased that Nik wanted to take her away and spend time with her? Suddenly she saw how her own negative attitude might bring about what she most feared, and in dismay she scrambled out of bed. Her head swam for a split-second and she wondered if she had stood up too fast. Hearing the shower in the bathroom switch off, she pulled on Nik’s discarded shirt. It smelt of his skin with a hint of the designer cologne he used. That fragrance was awesomely familiar to her and she drank it in greedily until she realised what she was doing and turned hot pink with shame over the level of her addiction to him.

‘Nik…?’ she said hesitantly from the threshold of the vast bathroom. Seeing it for the first time since viewing the house, she blinked in astonishment. The Victorian fittings were still in evidence but an all-singing, all-dancing array of contemporary equipment had been installed on the other side of the bathroom. ‘My goodness…’

‘His and hers.’ Nik slicked back his wet black hair with a graceful movement of one hand. ‘It’s temporary until the architect comes up with a better solution.’

Prudence discovered that it was an exercise in self-denial to take her eyes from him. With a towel casually linked round his lean brown hips and crystalline drops of water caught in the black curls hazing his pectorals, Nik looked breathtakingly gorgeous.

‘I’ve been thinking-er-reconsidering the honeymoon idea,’ she mumbled. ‘Possibly I was a bit, well, more than a bit ungracious. I do fuss about the sanctuary. However, with a farm manager here on the estate, I know there’s no need.’

Smouldering dark golden eyes ran over her. ‘None,’ he confirmed. ‘You look so good in my shirt I want to take it off, thespinis mou.’

He closed his hand over hers and drew her closer. Her mouth ran dry, her throat tightening with helpless excitement as a deep inner quiver slivered through her taut frame. She knew she should be asking him when they were leaving, but as he began to peel her out of his shirt she could not find the strength to voice the question.

Getting dressed up felt strange to Prudence: Nik had bought her a designer wardrobe before they even embarked on their honeymoon, but she had scarcely worn most of the outfits. Indeed, for almost three weeks she had lived in the barest minimum of garments. At that reflection, a bemused smile spread over her full red mouth.

Nik had brought her to Tuscany to stay in an old villa surrounded by silvery olive groves. It was a timeless place and in every sense a hideaway where the rest of the world seemed as remote as the stars. Since their arrival, Prudence had got used to being happy. As each long, lazy day melted into the next, they had become a couple. She had desperately missed that bond of friendship and affection while they had been at daggers drawn. Although they were very different personalities they held surprisingly similar opinions on many topics, but occasionally she deliberately took an opposing viewpoint just for the fun of arguing with him.

Passion simply added a very stimulating extra layer to their relationship. Even so, she was now so hooked on Nik she felt like his shadow. Every day she wakened with the same incredible sense of joyful discovery. Early- morning sunlight would filter through the shutters, casting slanting arrows of light and shadow over Nik’s magnificent bronzed length, and he would stretch like an indolent tiger. Studying her with slumberous dark golden eyes, he would give her a smouldering smile and tug her back into his arms to make love to her.

Only a few weeks ago she had been afraid to trust him. Since then, however, she had learnt to be impressed by his unswerving belief that their marriage had a strong future. They spent so much time together yet they still got on like a house on fire. When they dined out in picturesque hill villages, he would walk hand-in-hand with her through the cobbled streets. That closeness, that wonderful physical warmth and acceptance, meant so much to her. Most days he had had to excuse himself for a couple of hours to deal with business matters and he would act as if her ability to amuse herself with a walk or a book or a swim was an amazing achievement.

‘Maybe you’re only used to helpless, dependent women,’ she had contended.

‘Or maybe I would like it if you acted as if you needed me occasionally.’

‘Sorry…not my style.’ There was a cheeky sparkle in her blue eyes and she veiled them, for she often wrapped herself round him like a vine in the middle of the night when he was fast asleep. But she reserved all such revealing demonstrations of love and need for stolen moments. After all, Nik liked to be challenged. Betraying weakness, letting him know how much she loved him, would change the balance of power forever.

Surfacing from her abstraction, Prudence reached for the turquoise sun dress she wanted to wear and put it on. It was their last day. An ache stirred in her heart and she scolded herself. Such privacy, such round-the-clock togetherness could not last forever and it would be selfish to wish that it could. The British banker Robert Donnington was an old friend of Nik’s and when he had realised that Nik was in Italy he had invited them to lunch at