The Wealthy Greek's Contract Wife(17)

A valet brought the car round, and within minutes of leaving, or so it seemed, they were back in the apartment.                       
       
           



       

‘I've set everything in motion for our wedding,' Ilios told her. ‘It   will be a civil ceremony, conducted at the town hall. Normally couples   having civil ceremonies go on to celebrate more traditionally with a   family party, but in our case that won't be necessary. I have let it be   known that it is because I am so impatient to make you my wife that we   are dispensing with a more lavish affair.'

Lizzie nodded her head, relieved that she had her back to him and he   wouldn't see the effect his words were having on her. Tonight, posing as   his wife, sometimes almost forgetting that she was simply playing a   part, she had felt filled with happiness and …

And what?

And nothing, Lizzie assured herself hastily as she removed the watch and   then took out the diamond earrings. Her hands were trembling slightly   as she remembered how she had felt tonight, standing at Ilios's side,   wanting him, wishing that he would turn to her and look at her with that   same longing and need she felt for him.

What she felt for him was quite simply lust. Very shocking, of course,   but even so far safer than becoming emotionally drawn to a man who   didn't want her.

One of the diamond earrings slipped from her fingers. Just in time Ilios   put his palm beneath her own and caught it. Caught it, as somehow he   had caught her in the net. If he knew he would throw her to one side,   like a fisherman throwing back an unwanted catch. Lizzie looked up at   him-and then wished she had not.

Not trusting herself to take the earring from him-because that meant   touching him-Lizzie held out the jewellery box to him instead.

Exactly what point was she trying to make by refusing to take the   earring from him? Ilios questioned as he dropped it into the box. That   she was sexually indifferent to him? If so, why should it make him want   to take hold of her and kiss her until her mouth softened beneath his   and she was pleading with him for more than mere kisses?

Silently Lizzie collected the scattered jewellery boxes and offered them to Ilios.

‘Keep them yourself. You will need to wear them again,' he told her curtly.

Lizzie shook her head. ‘I'd rather not. As I said before, they are far too valuable, and they should be in a safe.'

It was gone midnight. There was no reason for her to remain here in the   living room with him-not when being with him was so very dangerous for   her, she reminded herself sternly, just in case she was tempted to   linger. Her will-power seemed to have become far too fragile. She had   spent the evening pretending that they were intimately close, as lovers,   aided in doing so by the two and a half glasses of champagne she had   drunk at the gallery. All those bubbles were bound to have an effect on   anyone's system, never mind someone who was quickly discovering how   vulnerable she was to the man in front of her.

Her brief, ‘I'll say goodnight', merely elicited a brief nod of his head   from Ilios. His back was already turned towards her as she opened the   door into the corridor.

Maria had obviously been in, Lizzie noted, because the bed was made up immaculately, as though for a new guest.

She went into the dressing room and opened one of the wardrobe doors,   intending to undress and hang up her clothes, only the wardrobe was   empty. Quickly Lizzie checked the others, and then the drawers. They   were empty too. And her case had gone. Along with her toiletries and her   toothbrush.

She began to panic. What was going on? She'd have to tell Ilios.

She found him in the living room, standing in front of the glass wall in   his suit trousers and his shirt, a glass of wine in his hand. When he   turned round as she approached him the shirt pulled across the muscles   in his back, causing an aching sensation to slide through her lower   body.

‘I can't find any of my things,' she told him helplessly. ‘They've all   disappeared-everything, including my case and even my toothbrush. The   maid's been in, because the bed is made up.'

‘I know.'

‘You know?' Lizzie looked at him uncertainly. What was going on? Had he   decided he didn't like her new clothes after all and sent them back?

‘They're in my room.'

‘What?'

Ilios shrugged irritably. It had been as much of an unwanted discovery   for him to find Lizzie's things in the master bedroom as it had   obviously been for her to discover that they were missing from the guest   room. The main source of Ilios's irritation, though, was his own  slipup  in not realising that this might happen.

‘Maria obviously took it upon herself to move them. She'll have heard   that we are to marry, and it seems she has decided that since we are   probably already sharing a bed, she might as well make life easier for   herself by moving our things into my room.'                       
       
           



       

‘But we aren't. I mean we can't.' Lizzie was aghast. ‘Everything will   have to be moved back. I'll do it myself-tomorrow-when you aren't   here-but you'll have to tell her.'

‘I don't think that would be a good idea.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because the last thing we want is for her to start gossiping that we're sleeping in separate beds.'

‘But you said our marriage would be … that it wouldn't be … that we wouldn't be sharing a bed.'

‘I hadn't thought things through properly then,' Ilios was forced to admit.

He was actually admitting that he had got something wrong? Lizzie could scarcely believe it.

‘If you're concerned about what Maria might say, then why don't you tell   her not to come? I can do her work whilst I'm here,' she suggested   helpfully.

Ilios was already shaking his head.

‘And deprive Maria of her the money she earns? No. Maria's family are   dependent on her wages, and Maria enjoys a certain status in her   community because she works for me. It wouldn't be right or fair to   deprive her of those things.'

Lizzie had to gulp back the chagrin she felt at being reproved by Ilios   for her lack of awareness of the needs of others-chagrin that was all   the more intense because previously she had seen the one to point out   that lack of awareness to him.

‘But I don't want to share a … a bed,' she protested. How ridiculous that   she had to struggle to force herself to say the word bed. She, an   interior designer, who in the course of her work was perfectly familiar   with those three small letters. Familiar with the letters, but not   familiar at all with the way the word bed made her feel when she was in   the presence of Ilios Manos.

‘Do you think I do?' Ilios challenged her, immediately making her feel   humiliated. ‘We don't have any choice. Fortunately it is a very large   bed,' he told her grimly.

She should, of course, be delighted and relieved that her presence in   his bed was so unwelcome, Lizzie told herself. She wanted and needed him   not to want her-if only to protect her from her own feelings after  all.  But instead she was filled with an explosive mix of emotions and   sensations-heady excitement, tingling suspense, an irrational and   rebellious aching longing that defied all her attempts to subdue it, and   that was only the start of it. She could have written a list a metre   long of all the effects Ilios was having on her as a woman.

She wasn't immature or unread; she knew that it was perfectly possible   for a human being to experience sexual desire without necessarily being   in love with the person they desired. However, she had never somehow   expected to be one of those human beings who did feel like that. She had   assumed that only those women with a high sex drive were likely to  have  their hormones drooling with longing for a man to whom they had no   intention of becoming emotionally attached. But now, of course, she  knew  better. Much, much better. And what she knew told her very  definitely  that she could not risk sharing a bed with Ilios. Not under  any  circumstances. Of course she could and would attempt to control her   feelings, but what if she failed? What if she was tempted to-? But,   no-she must not, under any circumstances, allow those tormenting images   she had viewed before to slip into her head.

It was a large bed, Ilios had said. But far from tamping down the fire   running riot inside her, his words had only fed it. A large bed meant   more space in which to enjoy the sensuality of all the delights the   human body could provide.