The Greek Tycoon's Unexpected Wife

CHAPTER THREE

TESSA’S pulse galloped, loud in the raw silence that echoed with his words. Her hollow stomach cramped.

‘You’re not joking, are you?’ she whispered at last when she found her voice.

The mocking slant of his eyebrows betrayed scorn. That expression of disdain on his hard, aristocratic face made him look like some superior pagan god.

‘I do not joke about such things.’ He leaned back against the leather sofa and crossed his arms over his deep chest. Scepticism and impatience radiated from him.

And still she felt the sizzle of heat where his hands had encircled her skin.

‘Are you sure?’ she was desperate enough to ask. ‘Absolutely sure?’ That day had been so chaotic after all.

‘Your show of astonishment is truly touching,’ he murmured. ‘But don’t keep up the act on my account.’

She winced as his sarcasm flayed her fragile self-possession. The man’s tongue was pure poison.

‘You really believe I would make a mistake about something like that?’ He paused, his eyes narrowing as he scanned her features. ‘I even have the wedding certificate to prove it. Signed, witnessed and legally binding.’

Tessa sank back into the embrace of soft leather, her mind racing.

She was married? Had been married for four years?

She pressed a hand to her chest where a sharp knot of shock bruised her. She was married to him?

‘But why did you use a justice of the peace? It didn’t have to be a real marriage. Just something to…’

‘To get you out of prison?’ No mistaking the sneer in his tone. It matched his frosty eyes and the curl of his lip. His expression was judgemental, dismissive.

‘Any stranger would have done.’ Tessa refused to be cowed. If this was true, this ridiculous situation was his fault, not hers! ‘There was no need actually to marry me!’

‘Believe me,’ he leaned close and the wrath simmering in his eyes forced her back away from him, ‘if there’d been an alternative, any alternative, I would have taken it.’

His gaze held her in a grip so powerful she could barely breathe. She felt as if her ribs were in a vice, constricting the flow of air to her lungs.

‘It may have escaped your notice,’ he said, ‘but a little town the size of San Miguel can be remarkably short of helpful strangers willing to perjure themselves in order to rescue a foreigner from the local gaol.

‘Time was short and I’d already had enough trouble persuading your gaolers to let me see you, let alone permit a wedding on the premises.’

Her head swam and she shut her eyes. She’d walked into a nightmare. If only she hadn’t given in to the compulsion to see him again, the man she’d believed for years had given his life to save hers.

‘It was a real marriage or nothing,’ he continued, his voice like rough velvet against her abraded nerves. ‘As you very well knew.’

Her eyes snapped open. They were back to that again. He was a man of such persistent suspicion. For a fleeting moment Tessa wondered what had made him so distrustful.

‘I knew none of this. Nothing at all until just now.’

She watched the shimmer of disbelief glaze his eyes and his jaw harden impatiently. There was no way she’d ever convince him. He was determined to believe she’d somehow deliberately trapped him into marriage.

If the idea weren’t so fantastic, and so appalling, she’d be laughing her head off. Her snaring some uppity billionaire with an ego the size of South America! As if!

‘Why didn’t you say something at the time?’

‘What?’ He shook his head. ‘You wished me to apologise within earshot of the celebrant and the prison guards that our hasty plans had changed? That we’d have to make do with a real wedding and worry about dissolving the marriage later? You really think they’d have let us proceed?’ His dark brows arched in mock-surprise.

She squeezed her eyes shut against the spinning sensation that accelerated when she met his glare. If she could just sit here alone. Get her breath. In time she’d work something out. She was a survivor. She had years of practice keeping herself alive. A furious Greek tycoon with an ego problem and a marriage certificate were nothing after what she’d been through. Right?

Tessa clenched her fists, trying to dredge up some energy to deal with this situation. But she was exhausted.

‘Here, drink this!’

She opened her eyes to find him leaning over her, filling her vision with his wide shoulders and massive chest. His accusing eyes.

A skitter of sensation scudded down her spine. Trepidation? Anger?

Or something else?

‘No, thank you. I don’t need—’ she spluttered as he pressed a small glass against her lips and a rocket of aniseed fire blasted into her mouth and down her throat.

Her eyes streamed and she gagged.

‘And again.’ His fingers fastened around her chin, tilting it up towards the glass. His hand was warm and easily encompassed her jaw. Against the tempered strength of his hold she felt appallingly vulnerable. Her pulse raced beneath his touch.

She blinked and met his gaze. It was implacable, as relentless as the large hand holding her steady while he tipped another mouthful of liquid between her lips. Heat scorched all the way down to her belly and she shuddered.

‘No more.’ Her voice was a hoarse gasp. ‘What is that stuff?’

‘Ouzo. Fierce but effective. It’s an acquired taste.’

Tessa wondered who’d be desperate enough to acquire it. But he was right. She wasn’t numb any more. Delicious warmth spread through her veins and her stiff muscles relaxed. A strange lassitude invaded her body.

Abruptly he moved away and she almost sighed in relief. She couldn’t think when he loomed like that, vibrating dark impatience and animosity.

‘Here.’ His voice was rough as he pushed a plate into her hand. It was laden with food. She hadn’t even noticed anyone come to the door with a tray.

Could that be caviar on the tiny buttered squares of bread? And there were shrimps, savoury pastries, a whole range of delicacies. She swallowed as her salivary glands kicked into gear.

‘Eat.’ His tone was brusque as he turned away, his stiff back and rigid shoulders eloquent of dismissal.

‘I have things to do, but I’m sure you’ll make yourself at home in my absence.’ No mistaking his sarcasm. ‘Just don’t think about leaving this room. There will be a guard stationed right outside.’ His voice was silky with threat and she shivered, guessing he’d like nothing more than to ‘deal’ with her if she disobeyed him. His anger was so fiercely controlled she imagined he’d welcome an excuse to unleash it.

He didn’t even glance at her as he left. The door closed with a decisive click and Tessa slumped bonelessly into the sofa cushions.

Where did he think she’d go? Did he think she’d prowl through his home? All she wanted was to collect her pack with her passport and the last of her cash, and leave.

But what was the point? They needed to sort out a way to dissolve the marriage—she and Stavros Denakis.

Her mind shied away blindly from the word husband.

Tessa stared out of the window to the formal garden, the panorama of dark sea and cloudless sky. Even the air was balmy, scented with salt and the perfume of orange blossom.

It didn’t seem right that everything should look so peaceful when she was a mass of jangling nerves, raw from the corrosive memories of last night’s confrontation.

Where did that man get off, treating her as though everything were her fault? As if she’d connived to put in him an embarrassing predicament when all she’d wanted was to do the right thing?

She squeezed her eyes shut, appalled at her naïvety. At her spur-of-the-moment impulse, cashing in her airline ticket to Sydney and instead travelling to Greece. As if high-and-mighty Stavros Denakis would be interested in her gratitude after all this time.

She drew in a shuddering breath and blinked to clear her blurred vision, appalled at how near to crying she was. Last night, for the first time in years, hot tears had threatened to fall. Now they stung her eyes again. This weakness after all she’d been through was inexplicable.

Today her actions seemed nothing short of foolish. So what if it had seemed like a sign, like fate, when she’d opened that discarded magazine in the airport lounge and stared straight into the eyes of the man who’d haunted her for four years? The man who’d been at the centre of her secret hopes and dreams as she’d struggled daily against privation and poverty and the temptation to give up hope.

She was no innocent kid. You’d think years of hardship would have taught her there was no point in spinning foolish dreams. Except she hadn’t been able to deny those secret fantasies of him. Those unsettling night-time imaginings that had been her only solace. Dreams of strong arms, of a determined, powerful saviour coming to her aid. Dreams that had left her edgy and burning with a heat that belied the chilly mountain nights.

Tessa clenched her jaw and straightened. No way would the real Stavros Denakis protect her ever again. Not after his fury last night. He must be deeply in love with his fiancée, and enormously protective of her, to view Tessa as any sort of threat.

She breathed deeply, sloughing off a sneaking twinge of self-pity. That would get her nowhere.

She’d spent the morning in a deep, exhausted sleep, waking to a visit from a doctor, organised by her host. As if Stavros Denakis actually cared how she was! He was probably just checking she hadn’t brought some highly contagious disease with her from South America.

Her first instinct had been to refuse to be examined, but the doctor had been persuasive and Tessa just anxious enough about her strangely emotional state to comply. It was a relief to have her fears allayed. She was fine. All she needed was time to recover her strength.

But now it was late afternoon and she’d achieved nothing. She’d better contact the Australian embassy in Athens. They’d help her with the legalities and her return to Sydney. Not that there was anything waiting for her there. But she’d be home, where she’d longed to be for years. She’d have access to her bank account, could start rebuilding her life while the lawyers sorted out a divorce.

Tessa swung round from the window to look for a phone, wondering how difficult it would be to place a call to the embassy when she spoke no Greek.

She stopped dead when she met Stavros Denakis’ storm-grey eyes.

Her lungs seized up as she met his probing gaze, then she lifted her chin and drew in a slow breath, refusing to be daunted by the sight of him.

He stood just inside the room, his shoulders almost as broad as the closed door behind him. She blinked, realising he’d entered without a sound. A shiver of trepidation trickled down her backbone at the knowledge he must have the soundless tread of a predator. Like a jungle jaguar.

It made her feel vulnerable. But she shoved her hands into the pockets of her baggy trousers, resisting the impulse to curve her arms defensively around herself.

His expression was shuttered, totally unreadable. Somehow that was more worrying than the blaze of wrath he’d directed at her last night. Fury and bullying she could stand up to. But what was going on in his mind now?

She wasn’t foolish enough to believe he’d seen the error of his ways and accepted the truth about her intentions. No, there was a waiting stillness about him, as if he were a hunter sizing up his prey, that sent its own wordless message across the humming silence between them.

Yet to her horror, his patent distrust wasn’t enough to prevent the spark of excitement that flared into life deep inside her. He did that to her without even trying.

She’d only ever experienced the sensation with this man: a thrill, a yearning that made her seem a stranger to her own body. It scared the hell out of her.

Stavros watched her eyes widen, the pupils dilating in those green depths, and felt a stab of savage satisfaction. Even from here he sensed her fear, though she stood ramrod-straight, her jaw angled up defiantly.

Good. She deserved to worry about his next move. He’d been tempted to have his staff call the police. They’d keep her locked up while they dealt with the charges. Trespass at least. No doubt they could arrange a few others, perhaps threats of violence or attempted blackmail?

But much as he’d prefer to be rid of her disturbing physical presence, Tessa Marlowe wasn’t going anywhere. If he released her into police custody there was a chance her story would leak to the Press. Some tantalising snippet aimed at persuading him to be generous in his settlement.

No. Ms Marlowe would stay right here where he could keep an eye on her.

He rolled his shoulders, still stiff with the strain of repressed anger that had escalated through the night.

Every congratulatory comment at last evening’s party, every good wish for a fruitful union, had notched the tension in his gut tighter. For the first time in his life he’d felt a fraud, lying to his family, his friends and to the woman he’d decided to take as his wife.

He didn’t like the feeling one iota. Or the sensation of matters being beyond his control. That he, who prided himself on his well-regulated world, should be caught in this preposterous situation, barely one step removed from bigamy—it was untenable!

‘What do you want?’ Her voice was a fraction rough, proof that she wasn’t as calm as she tried to appear.

He paced into the room, ignoring the spike of heat in his bloodstream as he approached her. That was the ultimate insult to his pride and his intelligence. The fact that, even recognising her as a greedy opportunist, he wanted her, with a potent longing that astounded him.

Lust had never been so urgently consuming. He had to fight the raw compulsion to reach out and feel her soft flesh beneath his, lose himself in her.

He, a man of honour. Who had just vowed to marry another woman!

No matter that he’d chosen his fiancée because of her impeccable credentials in meeting his requirements for a wife, hostess and mother of his children. No matter that their emotions weren’t engaged, or that they’d yet to consummate their relationship. He owed her his loyalty.

He’d spent the night coming to terms with the unpalatable fact that it was Tessa Marlowe who stirred his blood, not his fiancée, Angela. He wouldn’t grant this woman the satisfaction of realising it.

‘I’ve come to see if you need anything.’

Her fine brows arched up and the look she sent him could have befitted a supercilious monarch. She really did have attitude.

But they both knew it was a bluff. He had the power to break her if he chose, despite the fact of the marriage contract they’d signed. Money spoke loud and clear. Always. And his sort of wealth could achieve almost anything. She’d do well to remember that.

‘What more could I need when my host is so…generous with his hospitality?’

Despite himself, Stavros felt his mouth kick up at one corner in appreciation of her reckless courage. Obviously, despite the doctor’s concerns, she was fit enough to fight.

He’d come in here expecting to see her languishing at death’s door. Severe physical and mental exhaustion, the doctor had said, plus borderline malnutrition and the after-effects of giardia from drinking tainted water.

For a while there, Stavros had seriously questioned whether he’d misjudged her. But, seeing her now, it seemed clear the doctor had taken her word about the symptoms and been duped by an excellent actress. As for the malnutrition—starving herself in order to get her hands on several million dollars wasn’t out of the question. Unfortunately Stavros had first-hand experience of women unscrupulous enough to do even that. He was long past the age when a sob story and a show of feminine weakness might impress him.

‘Don’t get too comfortable,’ he said abruptly, his deep voice vibrating with disapproval. His straight brows arrowed together and Tessa knew instinctively that he held on to his temper by a thread. ‘You’ll remain just as long as it takes to devise a solution to this problem.’

‘The solution is simple.’ She’d worked out that much already. ‘All we need to do is annul the marriage. There must be grounds for that.’

He stalked closer and immediately the spacious room shrank around them.

‘Non-consummation, perhaps?’

Tessa’s whole body thrummed in reaction as she looked up into those watchful grey eyes. They weren’t cold any more, she suddenly realised. There was more fire than ice in his expression, and a flash of something that made her insides twist.

Tentatively she slid one foot back a fraction, but there was nowhere to go with the window right behind her. He was still a pace away from her but the intensity of his gaze made her feel cornered and way too vulnerable.

‘That’s an option.’ Tessa had to tilt her face higher to look him in the eye.

‘Ah, but that might be difficult to prove. What evidence can we provide?’ One sleek, dark eyebrow winged upwards, emphasising his sardonic expression.

‘I’m sure the authorities would be willing to accept our word for it. After all, we were only together for a couple of hours—’

‘That’s not convincing.’ Slowly he shook his head but his gaze remained fixed on her, riveting her to the spot. ‘A couple of hours are more than enough time to consummate a marriage.’ His voice dropped a notch so the words rolled across her flesh like an echo of distant thunder. Tessa shivered as she watched his eyes narrow and his expression change. There was something dangerous about that glint in his eyes. Something feral.

‘Or are you, perhaps, doubting my virility?’ he added in an undertone.

He didn’t move, didn’t approach, yet she felt him encroach further into her space. Tessa found her hands splaying wide for support on the window ledge behind her.

‘Don’t be absurd! I…’

He did crowd her then. With a single long stride he obliterated the distance between them and his heat blazed, raw and unnerving, against her trembling body.

Tessa’s nostrils flared in response to the spicy, masculine scent of his skin. Her chest heaved as she sucked in a calming breath and she forced her gaze to flick away from the intimidating wall of his chest, mere centimetres from her breasts. A wave of sensation washed through her, a purely feminine awareness. Her nipples puckered and tightened as if with cold. But she wasn’t chilled. Instead her flesh was heating. A wave of fiery warmth spread from her chest up her throat, and Tessa knew that any second now she’d be blushing.

‘Or perhaps it’s a personal demonstration you’re after?’ The words contained a sharp, sarcastic sting.

Automatically Tessa shook her head, horrified at how fast the conversation had got out of hand.

‘No!’ The denial burst from her mouth, strident and appalled.

Reluctantly she focused on his eyes, dark now with unholy anger. Or was it amusement?

She drew in a sharp breath, forcing herself to ignore the graze of her chest against his linen shirt as he leaned closer.

The devil was baiting her! Deliberately toying with her, testing her limits with the unspoken threat of his big body. He wanted her to panic.

‘This has gone far enough.’ She struggled to sound calm, knowing that was the best way to end this torment. ‘I wasn’t questioning your masculinity. I was simply observing that the circumstances of our…wedding would support us when we said it was a marriage in name only.’

There, she sounded reasonable. Only a little breathless.

He scrutinised her as if he could read her every secret in her face.

‘So you believe the circumstances prove we didn’t have sex?’

Her eyes widened. ‘It was hardly the time or the place. A civil war had just broken out around us!’

‘And yet it’s a proven fact that in situations of extreme danger, people find comfort in the sexual act. I believe it can be quite a compulsion.’

Had he leaned closer? Or had she swayed towards him? She couldn’t be that unsteady on her feet.

‘But we didn’t even know each other!’ Any logical person would see that theirs had been a paper formality, not a real marriage.

‘Interesting.’ He spoke unhurriedly and she watched his mouth form the word. Despite her uneasiness there was something almost hypnotic about the way those firm lips moved. ‘So your contention is that strangers don’t have sex? I don’t find that particularly convincing. Or are you arguing that you would never do such a thing?’

Again, that interrogatory tilt of an eyebrow. It reinforced the imposing, dominant angles of his face, reminding her irresistibly of a fallen angel, beautiful and oh-so-dangerous.

Tessa’s hands balled into fists as she repressed the panicky need to try to force him away from her. She knew it would be futile. He was larger, stronger and far nastier than she was. He’d probably enjoy watching her flail against his superior strength. But she wouldn’t give him that cheap satisfaction.

Instead she’d be calm, reasonable, in control. She’d ignore his provocation. No way would she rise to his baiting about her morality.

It was on the tip of her tongue to blurt out that, contrary to his sneering assumption, she could provide the evidence to prove their marriage had never been consummated. It was something she’d far rather avoid. It would be a last resort, but if that was what it took to be free of this man then she’d do it.

In the meantime there was no way she’d reveal anything so personal to Stavros Denakis. She didn’t even want to think about his derision if he realised her experience was so limited. The mood he was in, he wouldn’t believe her.

‘My contention,’ she responded, looking at a point over his shoulder, ‘is that the authorities will have no reason to doubt our story when we explain it to them.’

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