Locked up tight somewhere, to be enjoyed only in the strictest privacy, Maxie translated, deeply unimpressed.
‘I know you don’t believe me, but I was never Leland’s mistress—’
‘Did you call yourself his lover instead?’ Angelos derided.
Maxie swallowed convulsively. ‘No, I—’
Grim black eyes clashed with hers in near physical assault. ‘Theos...how blind I have been! All along you’ve been scheming to extract a better offer from me. One step forward, two steps back. You run and I chase. You tease and I pursue,’ he enumerated in harsh condemnation. ‘And now you’re trying to turn the screw by playing me off against another man—’
‘No!’ Maxie gasped, unnerved by the twisted light he saw her in.
Angelos growled, ‘If you think for one second that you can force me to offer a wedding ring for the right to enjoy that beautiful body, you are certifiably insane!’
His look of unconcealed contempt sent scorching anger tearing through Maxie. ‘Really...? Well, isn’t that just a shame, when it’s the only offer I would ever settle for,’ she stated, ready to use any weapon to hold him at bay.
Evidently somewhat stunned to have his worst suspicions so baldly confirmed, Angelos jerked as if he had run into a brick wall. He snatched in a shuddering breath, his nostrils flaring. ‘If I ever marry, my wife will be a lady with breeding, background and a decent reputation.’
Maxie flinched, stomach turning over sickly. She had given him a knife and he had plunged it in without compunction. But ferocious pride as great as his own, and hot, violent loathing enabled her to treat him to a scornful appraisal. ‘But you’ll still have a mistress, won’t you?’
‘Naturally I would choose a wife with my brain, not my libido,’ Angelos returned drily, but he had ducked the question and a dark, angry rise of blood had scoured his blunt cheekbones.
Maxie gave an exaggerated little shiver of revulsion. The atmosphere was explosive. She could feel his struggle to maintain control over that volatile temperament so much at war with that essentially cool intellect of his. It was etched in every restive, powerfully physical movement he made with his expressive hands and she rejoiced at the awareness, ramming down the stark bitterness and sense of pained inadequacy he had filled her with. ‘You belong in the Natural History Museum alongside the dinosaur bones.’
‘When I walk through that door I will never come back...how will you like that?’
‘Would you like to start walking now?’
‘What I would like is to take you on that bed upstairs and teach you just once exactly what you’re missing!’
Wildly unprepared for that roughened admission, Maxie collided with golden eyes ablaze with frustration. It was like being dragged into a fire and burned by her own hunger. She shivered convulsively. ‘Dream on,’ she advised fiercely, but her voice shook in self-betrayal.
The noise of a car drawing up outside broke the taut silence.
Angelos inclined his arrogant dark head in a gesture of grim dismissal that made her squirm, and then he walked.
CHAPTER SIX
MAXIE drifted like a sleepwalker through the following five days. The Ferrari was retrieved by a tow-truck and two men who laughed like drains throughout the operation. She contacted a builder to have the roof inspected and the news was as bad as she had feared. The cottage needed to be reroofed, and the quote was way beyond her slender resources.
She dined out with Patrick Devenson. No woman had ever tried harder to be attracted to a man He was good-looking and easy company. Desperate to feel a spark, she let him kiss her at the end of the evening, but it wasn’t like failing on an electric fence, it was like putting on a pair of slippers. Seriously depressed, Maxie made an excuse when he asked when he could see her again.
She didn’t sleep, couldn’t sleep. She dreamt of fighting with Angelos. She dreamt of making wild, passionate love for the first time in her life. And, most grotesque of all, she dreamt of drifting down a church aisle towards a scowling, struggling Greek in handcuffs. She felt like an alien inside her own head and body.
She sat down and painstakingly made a list of every flaw that Angelos possessed. It covered two pages. In a rage with herself, she wept over that list. She loathed him. Yet that utterly mindless craving for his enlivening, domineering Neanderthal man presence persisted, killing her appetite and depriving her of all peace of mind.
How could she miss him, how could she possibly? How could simple sexual attraction be so devastating a leveller? she asked herself in furious despair and shame. And, since she could only be suffering from the fallout of having repressed her own physical needs for so long, why on earth hadn’t she fancied Patrick?
At lunchtime on the fifth day, she heard a car coming up the lane and went to the window. A silver Porsche pulled up. When Catriona Ferguson emerged, Maxie was startled. She had never in her life qualified for a personal visit from the owner of the Star modelling agency and couldn’t begin to imagine what could’ve brought the spiky, city-loving redhead all the way from town.
On the doorstep, Catriona dealt her a wide, appreciative smile. ‘I’ve got to hand it to you, Maxie...you have to be the Comeback Queen of the Century.’
‘You’ve got some work for me?’ Maxie ushered her visitor into the front room.
‘Since the rumour mill got busy, you’re really hot,’ Catriona announced with satisfaction. ‘The day after tomorrow, there’s a Di Venci fashion show being staged in London...a big splashy charity do, and your chance to finally make your debut on the couture circuit.’
‘The rumour mill?’ Maxie was stunned by what the older woman was telling her. One minute she was yesterday’s news and the next she was being offered the biggest break of her career to date? That didn’t make sense.
Having sat down to open a tiny electronic notepad, Catriona flashed her an amused glance. ‘The gossip columns are rumbling like mad...don’t you read your own publicity?’
Maxie stiffened. ‘I don’t buy newspapers.’
‘I’m very discreet. Your private life is your own.’ However, Catriona still searched Maxie’s face with avid curiosity. ‘But what a coup for a lady down on her luck, scandalously maligned and dropped into social obscurity... Only one of the richest men in the world—’
Maxie jerked. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Catriona raised pencilled brows. ‘I’m only talking about the guy who has just single-handedly relaunched your career without knowing it! The paparazzo who had his film exposed howled all over the tabloids about who he had seen you with—’
‘You’re talking about Angelos...’
‘And when I received a cautious visit from a tight-mouthed gentleman I know to be close to the Greek tycoon himself, I was just totally amazed, not to mention impressed to death,’ Catriona trilled, her excitement unconcealed. ‘So I handed over your address. They say Angelos Petronides never forgets a favour...or, for that matter, a slight.’
Maxie had turned very pale. ‘I...’
‘So why are you up here vegetating next door to a field of sheep?’ Catriona angled a questioning glance at her. ‘Treat ’em mean, keep ‘em keen? Popular report has it that this very week he dumped Natalie Cibaud for you. Whatever you’re doing would appear to be working well. And he’s an awesome catch, twenty-two-carat gorgeous, and as for that delicious scary reputation of his—’
‘There’s nothing between Angelos and me,’ Maxie cut in with flat finality, but her head buzzed with the information that Angelos had evidently still been seeing the glamorous French film actress.
The silence that fell was sharp.
‘If it’s already over, keep it to yourself.’ Catriona’s disappointment was blatant. ‘The sudden clamour for your services relates very much to him. The story that you’ve captured his interest is enough to raise you to celebrity status right now. So keep the people guessing for as long as you can...’
When Maxie recalled how appalled she had been at the threat of being captured in newsprint with Angelos and being subjected to more lurid publicity, she very nearly choked at that cynical advice. And when she considered how outraged Angelos must be at the existence of such rumours, when he had demanded her discretion, she sucked in a sustaining breath.
Catriona checked her watch. ‘Look, why don’t I give you a lift back to town? I suggest you stay with that friend in the suburbs again. The paparazzi are scouring the pavements for you. You don’t want to be found yet. You need to make the biggest possible impact when you appear on that catwalk.’
It took guts, but Maxie nodded agreement. The old story, she thought bitterly. She needed the money. Not just for the roof but also to pay off Angelos as well. Yet the prospect of all those flashing cameras and the vitriolic pens of the gossip columnists made her sensitive stomach churn. Money might not buy happiness, but the lack of it could destroy all freedom of choice. And Maxie acknowledged then that the precious freedom to choose her own way of life was what she now craved most.
Scanning Maxie’s strained face, Catriona sighed. ‘Whatever has happened to the Ice Queen image?’