Playboys

‘Ophelia …’ Lysander murmured sotto voce.

Ophelia froze on the bridge. She hated the way he said her name. She hated that quiet expectant note of absolute command, which implied that only the most unforgivably rude or stupid person would dare to defy him. Slowly she turned round and retraced her steps.

‘I just don’t see the point of these stupid photos,’ she vented under her breath.

‘Smile,’ Lysander urged, closing an arm round her small rigid figure, which had all the yielding qualities of a steel bar. ‘You can do better than that, Ophelia …’

A few minutes later, he eased her round to face him. She looked up for she could do little else. His eyes were pure glittering gold in the fading light. He leant down and grazed her mouth with the lightest touch of his. With the utmost delicacy he pried apart her full lips to make way for the invasive stroke of his tongue. It was the most erotic experience she had ever had. A second before she had been trying not to shiver from the cooling effects of a brisk April breeze on her bare skin. Asecond later she was in his arms, ensnared by the onslaught of piercingly sweet pleasure. She trembled, her breath mingling with his, her heart racing so fast she was dizzy. Exhilaration leapt and danced through her veins like stardust.

And then Lysander freed her again. Blinking rapidly, Ophelia recognised the photographer’s smiling satisfaction over the shots he had captured before she saw the sardonic amusement that briefly coloured her bridegroom’s stunning dark deep-set eyes. Hot, painful pink flooded up below her fine skin. She had forgotten who she was, where she was and why she was acting the part of a bride. But Lysander had forgotten none of those things and his cold opportunism chilled her to the marrow. She shivered. The late afternoon light was fading fast into dusk as she walked back into Madrigal Court.

‘I really don’t think that was necessary,’ she said flatly.

‘We’ve cut enough corners,’ Lysander fielded drily, annoyed that he had not exercised more restraint. ‘The conventional touches will make us look more convincing.’

A waiter greeted them in the porch with a tray bearing a pair of elegant champagne flutes. Ophelia frowned. ‘I don’t drink.’

Lysander shot her a cool glance and slotted a champagne flute into her hand regardless. ‘Make an effort. This is a special occasion.’

Rigid with anger and an awareness of him that inflamed her even more, Ophelia held the flute so tightly she was afraid it would break between her fingers. In a sudden movement she drank the contents down in an unappreciative gulp and set the glass down again. No doubt it wouldn’t do her any harm this once. She looked around: the Great Hall was full of lawyers enjoying the generous array of drinks and food on offer. Lysander was soon engulfed by his legal team, so Ophelia headed straight for her solicitor.

Haddock announced his presence in the corner by breaking into an off-key rendering of ‘Here Comes the Bride'. Heads turned, supercilious brows lifting. Ophelia almost groaned out loud, for she had brought the parrot upstairs only because he was lonely in the kitchen. Unfortunately that well-known melody sent a chill down Ophelia’s spine because she had grown up with a mother who always burst into tears when she heard it. She continued her journey over to her solicitor.

‘I have the letter here,’ Donald Morton told her cheerfully.

‘Thanks.’ Ophelia clutched the surprisingly fat envelope and hesitated before ripping it open. When she unfolded the document within, a small piece of notepaper that had been attached to it fluttered free and fell to the floor. She bent to scoop it up and frowned when she saw the single handwritten sentence it carried.

Molly had been put up for adoption.

There was nothing else, no opening preamble, no signature, nothing other than that brief bald admission in her grandmother’s spidery scrawl.

Ophelia was shaken by a possibility that she had not previously considered. Her sibling had been adopted? Had the story about Molly’s father taking her only been a convenient piece of fiction? Ophelia stilled while she pondered: unless Molly chose to look into her own past and seek out birth relatives, Ophelia’s sister might well be lost to her for ever. Her eyes stung with sudden tears of regret and frustration. She looked numbly down at the other document in her hand and read the first few lines of it over and over again before she could accept what she was reading. Disbelief attacked her and she re-approached her solicitor, who was being served with food at the buffet.

‘There’s what looks like another will in the envelope,’ she told him shakily.

The older man was astonished and he immediately set down his plate. ‘May I have a look?’

Still bound up in her disappointment, Ophelia passed over the document. She knew she should have known better than to get her hopes up about the letter. While she had finally learned the truth behind her sister’s disappearance, she felt as if Molly was more out of her reach than ever.

‘May I speak to you in the drawing room, Miss Carter … sorry, er, Mrs Metaxis?’ Donald Morton had assumed his more formal manner again. Ophelia and her solicitor were fast becoming the centre of attention and silence was slowly spreading across the Great Hall.

‘Metaxis bounder—good-for-nothing swine!’ Haddock squawked with gleeful abandon. ‘There’ll never be a Metaxis at Madrigal Court!’

Impervious to the shock value of Haddock’s announcement, Ophelia watched dully as Donald Morton approached one of the other lawyers. A look of consternation crossed the man’s face and he quickly went into a huddle with his colleague.

The drawing room was now barely recognisable to Ophelia. Its former shabbiness and clutter had been banished in favour of wonderful paintings and handsome furniture. Beautiful curtains hung at the windows. She pressed clammy hands to her tense face. The implications of the existence of another will were finally sinking in. What new torment had Gladys Stewart planned with the provision of a second will that would invalidate the first, if it post-dated it?

‘Ophelia …’ Lean, strong face hard, Lysander strode into the room and towards her. ‘What is happening? What is this about? A second will?’

‘I don’t know … I really don’t know,’ she said tautly,dragging her attention away from him, hastily burying the memory of that wide sensual mouth playing with hers. Playing was the operative word, she told herself unhappily. She had let her guard down. She hastily buried the reflection that she was now married to Lysander. The very thought embarrassed her, trespassing as it did over the barriers she was determined to erect in her mind. It wasn’t a marriage; it was an ‘arrangement'.

Lysander startled Ophelia by closing a lean hand over hers when she tried to turn away. Flustered and flushed, she collided with his brilliant questioning gaze and snaked her fingers free, turning her head away in angry discomfiture. She suppressed the sense of connection she felt to him, stamping it out like a spark that threatened to cause a conflagration. There might be a ring on her finger but, in essence, it was meaningless.

Donald Morton arrived to confirm, ‘Mrs Stewart appears to have had another will drawn up by a London firm. It’s signed and witnessed and it is of a more recent date.’

‘Which means it takes precedence over the first,’ Lysander said flatly.

‘You’re not mentioned as a beneficiary in this will, Mr Metaxis,’ the older man told him heavily.

Ophelia frowned. ‘Then what does it say?’

A few minutes later, Ophelia sank down on a nearby chair because her knees felt too weak to support her. She was too stunned to know quite what she was feeling—her grandmother had left her Madrigal Court in its entirety.

Cold wrath held Lysander still and silent, his attention shooting straight to his bride. Ophelia didn’t look at him. There she sat, delicate as a tiny porcelain doll with baby-blue eyes, in an attitude of shock. Lysander wasn’t impressed. Ofcourse she must have known about the second will! The very fact that he was forced to operate within time constraints had given Ophelia an advantage, Lysander reflected rawly. He had gone against legal advice in pushing the marriage through so quickly. If background checks on the Stewart family had been made, they might have revealed facts that would have given him pause for thought or picked up on the late Mrs Stewart’s dealings with another legal firm. But, be that as it may, Lysander was quick to regroup under threat; he always had a contingency plan to fall back on.

The Metaxis legal team joined them. The situation was discussed in Greek. When the lawyers began to wrangle in two languages, Ophelia rose and went back out to the Great Hall. Honest and straightforward as she was, she was appalled by the cruel cunning of her grandmother’s trickery.

‘Hello, Ophelia,’ Haddock said chirpily.

Ophelia took the parrot back down to the kitchen. She recalled Gladys Stewart’s triumphant forecast that Madrigal Court would make her granddaughter’s every hope and dream come true. But Ophelia had dreamt only of being able to find her sister and the freedom to get on with her life. And that latter dream she had never shared with anyone, as it had made her feel guilty. That she had unwittingly become the instrument of her grandmother’s revenge appalled her. The older woman had not cared who might suffer when it came to striking a lethal blow against the Metaxis family. She had set up her granddaughter alongside the son of her greatest enemy. The end result was unarguable: Lysander Metaxis had married Ophelia for nothing!

Ophelia pondered the explosive truth that she was now the new and outright owner of Madrigal Court! But before a sense of joy could take hold of her, the most awful guiltassailed her instead. Because of the terms of the previous will, Lysander had been expecting her to sell her share of the house to him and, of course, she could not have afforded to do otherwise. The entire picture had changed, however; now that the whole house was hers, surely she had more options. A heady sense of challenge was already bubbling inside her. Could Madrigal Court be turned into a paying proposition so that she could keep her inheritance? What the heck was she going to do? What was fair? And would she still be fair to Lysander, even if being so meant going against her own inclinations?

The guests had departed and the house seemed eerily silent when Ophelia finally walked back up the basement stairs. Darkness had fallen and elegant new lamps glowed in corners. She almost switched them off to save electric and then winced, recognising how engrained her need to save money had become. Lysander was poised by the giant stone fireplace in the Great Hall. She came to an abrupt halt, apprehension gripping her, for she still had no idea what her ultimate decision would be.

‘Where did you sneak off to?’ Lysander demanded icily.

Ophelia bristled like a cat stroked the wrong way. ‘I didn’t sneak anywhere! I had to have a chance to think things over.’

Bronze eyes dark and hard as granite, Lysander focused on her with punitive force. She had yet to learn that he fought fire with greater fire. She couldn’t win against him. Nobody ever did and many had tried. His attention lingered on the luscious curve of her lips and the ripe swell of her pale breasts above the silk bodice of her wedding gown. He remembered the feel and the taste of her. Sexual heat pooled in his groin and sizzling anticipation burned the edge off his anger.

Ophelia felt horribly uncomfortable and guilty even though she knew that she had done nothing wrong. ‘You have every right to be livid. I’m very sorry about this situation.’

His cold contemptuous gaze cloaked, Lysander studied the brandy swirling in the fine glass between his fingers. Of course she wasn’t sorry. He had no doubt that she planned to hold the house like a gun to his head to achieve the highest possible sale price. He wondered how generous and sweet she would feel when she realised how powerless she really was. She had overlooked a powerful counterbalance: she was his wife. While she might not be behaving like a wife as yet, she would soon learn her boundaries.

The tense silence pounded in Ophelia’s eardrums and played havoc with her nerves. When she could stand it no longer she broke into speech. ‘After my mother was jilted, my grandmother became obsessed with the idea of getting her own back on your family. Perhaps I didn’t take her feelings seriously enough,’ she conceded heavily. ‘But then I didn’t see how she could do any real damage and I had no idea that she was capable of going to these lengths—’

‘It’s too late for lies.’ His rich dark accented drawl roughened the tenor of that warning. ‘You must’ve known there were two wills. You played a starring role in your grandmother’s revenge because she made it financially worth your while to do so.’

Ophelia was shattered that he could suspect her of having been a party to her grandmother’s deception from the outset. ‘That’s not true. For a start, she didn’t confide in me and I—’ ‘You’re wasting your time trying to act innocent—’ ‘For goodness’ sake, it’s not an act! Why should I have known that there was another will? How could I have guessed that?’ Dry-mouthed, Ophelia lifted what she thought was a bottle of water from the bar set up in one corner and filled a glass to drink. But when the liquid hit her throat, her eyes watered and she had to swallow fast and painfully to ward offan embarrassing fit of coughing and spluttering, because what she had mistaken for water was actually alcohol.

His lean, tanned face harsh, Lysander watched his bride knock back a large shot of neat vodka. He recalled her prim insistence that she did not drink and he wondered how he had believed for one second that he could trust her.

‘You’re misjudging me,’ Ophelia told him steadfastly.

‘I don’t think so.’

Lysander had a hauteur that even royalty would have been challenged to equal and he did derision to the manner born as well. Stung raw by his cold look of incredulity, Ophelia wanted to shout, while at the same time wanting to squirm. With taut hands she opened a genuine bottle of water to rinse the acrid taste of alcohol from her mouth. ‘Believe me, I knew nothing about any of this,’ she argued. ‘I was never that close to my grandmother.’

‘You were close enough for her to leave you everything she possessed. All you had to do to win that prize was play along with her warped plans and go through with marrying me.’

Ophelia spun angrily back to him. ‘You’re the one who asked me to marry you! How can you accuse me of having plotted this?’

‘Easily. Even your parrot is obsessed with revenge,’ Lysander derided.

Her crystalline eyes flared. ‘Just you leave Haddock out of this!’

His deep, dark eyes were cold as the depths of a river. ‘Let’s cut to the bottom line—how much will it cost me to buy the house from you?’

Colouring beneath the contempt etched in his lean strong face, Ophelia flung her golden head high. ‘I’m not even sure I’m willing to sell it any more!’

His worst expectations and darkest suspicions confirmed by that statement, Lysander murmured something sibilant in Greek. The tense silence hung like a sheet of glass about to crash.

‘Everything’s changed!’ Ophelia was struggling not to be intimidated by his mood and the daunting force of will he emanated. ‘And it’s not my fault.’

‘Isn’t it?’ Lysander breathed. ‘Even your supposed reluctance to marry me was faked to allay any suspicions I might have had of your motives.’

‘I didn’t fake anything! My grandmother fooled me as well and landed me into this mess with you!’ Ophelia flung back with spirit.

‘But it’s a very lucrative mess from your point of view. You qualified for your inheritance and you’ll profit even more from the pre-nuptial contract you signed with me.’

Eyes bright with anger, Ophelia snatched in a sustaining breath. ‘I wasn’t planning on accepting that cash … actually—‘

Lysander loosed a derisive laugh. ‘I liked you better when you were honest about your love of money.’

‘Oh, did you indeed? So you’re still fully convinced that I’m a thoroughly grasping little gold-digger, are you?’ Her nails biting into her palms, Ophelia shot him a look of seething resentment.

Black-lashed metallic eyes rested on her in cutting consideration. ‘You said it, glikia mou.’

Temper shot through Ophelia’s slender frame like an adrenalin charge, since there was no way that she could prove that she hadn’t known about the two wills. He infuriated her and the urge to outdo him and have the last word ruled supreme. She was fed up with being pushed around and insulted. She had apologised, she had tried to explain and he wasn’t interested. Well, she was done with being humble withthis guy, who had now accused her of being a fraud, a liar and a cheat! If he wanted to believe that she was an evil, greedy schemer, he was welcome to.

‘Well, that’s all right then,’ Ophelia fired back full throttle. ‘I’ll rip you off for every penny I can get because that’s exactly what you deserve!’

‘You can try.’ A dark light had kindled in Lysander’s bronze gaze. Her defiance, allied with that overconfident admission, hurled the kind of challenge that no woman had ever dared to give him. He was used to soft words and submission, flattery and feminine coaxing.

‘You’re a bad loser.’ Ophelia was in no mood to take back her angry words. Just then the guise of a gutsy gold-digger seemed infinitely preferable to continuing to whine that she had known nothing about anything. Anyway, what use was the truth with a guy who refused to listen?

‘Naturally. But be warned, I’m superb at turning a losing hand into a winning one,’ Lysander countered smooth as glass.

‘I’m going upstairs to get out of this stupid dress!’ Ophelia flung back at him, out of all patience.

An urgent knock sounded on the door into the outer hall. As it was already lying open, Ophelia wondered who had been outside listening to the bridal couple fight like cat and dog and she reddened. A heavily built older man with a troubled expression appeared on the threshold. He gave her a respectful nod of acknowledgement and then turned to address Lysander in a voluble flood of Greek. Ophelia walked away—while Lysander discovered that the bad news wasn’t over yet.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘OPHELIA!’ Lysander growled just as Ophelia reached the top of the carved staircase. ‘Come down.’

For a split second, Ophelia hesitated. That note of command bit at her resolve. But she was now in full resistance mode to Metaxis authority and so she sped on. She reminded herself that she wasn’t really and truly married to Lysander, except on paper, and every passing minute was giving her another good reason to celebrate that truth.

‘Game over,’ Lysander breathed rawly, striding past her to block her passage down the corridor.

‘Games are fun … being married to you is anything but!’ Ophelia hurled back. ‘Now get out of my way!’

‘I have questions I want answered,’ Lysander imparted.

‘What you want isn’t always what you get—let me past.’

Lysander stayed where he was, his lean muscular frame as large, still and formidable as a cliff face. The atmosphere hummed.

Enraged at his persistence, Ophelia tried to sidestep him, but when he remained in her path she gave him a tiny meaningful push. In answer to that very restrained hint that he remove himself at speed, Lysander closed his hands round her waist and lifted her right off her feet.

‘Put me down!’ Ophelia shouted at the top of her voice, feeling remarkably foolish with her legs dangling.

‘Not until you cool off.’ Arms outstretched as he held her back from him, Lysander studied her with icy self-containment.

‘You’re behaving like a bully!’ Ophelia snapped furiously across the narrow divide that separated them.

‘You assaulted me,’ Lysander drawled, lush ebony lashes low above eyes that were blaze-bronze.

Ophelia was thoroughly disconcerted by that reminder. She collided with his smouldering gaze and it was as if all the air that there was to breathe had suddenly burned up in the atmosphere. Warmth curled through her in an enervating surge that scared her. ‘I’m calm,’ she framed, taken aback by a physical response that even rage couldn’t suppress.

Lysander lowered her to the floor again with exaggerated care. Anger was storming around like a caged animal inside him. He had planned to confine the marriage to one tiny compartment of his life and now that convenient arrangement was no longer possible. Even worse, he would have to maintain the pretence for the benefit of his family. ‘The grounds are crawling with paparazzi,’ he imparted.

‘Papa-what? Oh, those photographers that chase celebrities,’ Ophelia mumbled, her brows having pleated in momentary mystification. ‘What are they doing here? Oh, right, they followed you down from London—’

His scorching eyes were welded to her. ‘No. Try again.’

‘Try what?’

‘Acting dumb. So far you’re not being very convincing.’

‘What are you trying to insinuate?’ Ophelia took the opportunity to snake past him with the agility of an eel. ‘Well, I’m not listening to one more nonsensical word!’

As Ophelia thrust open the door of her bedroom Lysander closed a hand like a steel manacle round her narrow wrist.

‘Tomorrow the newspapers will be full of the story of our marriage,’ he breathed in a wrathful undertone.

Wide-eyed, Ophelia turned back to look at him, his imprisoning hold forgotten. ‘Did they find out about the two wills as well?’

‘No. Only that we got married today, which is more than sufficient.’

‘But how did it get out? I mean, we’ve taken such care—’

Lysander studied her with sizzling force. ‘Stamitos, my head of security, already has a suspect and it isn’t anyone in my employ. The story was leaked by someone who knew the score. The woman who lives in the gatehouse—your friend …’

‘Pamela Arnold? What’s she got to do with this?’

‘She has a brother who works on a tabloid newspaper.’

‘Yes, but she hardly ever sees him.’ But dismay at that reminder had frozen Ophelia to the spot and she had paled. Although she had sworn her friend to secrecy, she was painfully aware that Pamela had found the entire wedding scenario, not to mention Lysander’s wealth, hugely exciting. Nobody loved to talk more than Pamela. Could her friend have accidentally let information slip in the wrong quarter?

‘By tomorrow morning the whole world will know that I have taken a wife.’

‘I really don’t think the whole world is likely to be that interested.’ An uneasy conscience, however, ensured that Ophelia’s comeback was less feisty than usual. Then her thoughts were sidetracked by the startling discovery that her bedroom looked unfamiliar—the bed had been stripped andher possessions were no longer in view. ‘Where have my things gone?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Half my stuff has vanished from my room!’

‘Wives don’t sleep on the other side of the house.’

Her hackles came up, since nobody had consulted her on what she assumed to be a move to another bedroom. ‘I’m not a wife.’

‘You are now and it’s obvious that the status of being my wife is what you wanted all along.’ His lean, tanned face granite hard, Lysander turned her back to him. ‘Clearly you planned the maximum possible exposure for our marriage in the media.’

Ophelia discovered that she was fighting a very irrational urge to giggle. Just at that instant she didn’t feel she could have planned her way out of an open space. The alcohol she had imbibed had gone straight to her head, for she had had nothing to eat since breakfast. ‘You’re so distrustful—of course I didn’t plan it! Why would I have wanted people to know about this crazy arrangement?’

‘So that you could become my wife in reality.’