Marching with her head down, her eyes blind, fighting a bitter little battle with herself not to give in, Becca couldn’t believe what she’d heard. He couldn’t believe that all she wanted was money, and if he did then why on earth, even now, would he say that if she asked for money he would give it to her?
In confusion and bewilderment she turned, forcing herself to make one last, desperate attempt. But even as she swung round, it was already too late. Andreas had stepped back into the house, and as she watched he slammed the door shut, hard and fast, in her face.
She had to have heard wrong anyway, Becca decided. He couldn’t have said what she thought he’d said. It didn’t make sense.
But then nothing about this whole terrible evening made sense. The day had started out so wonderfully, with so much joy, so much hope. She had been looking into a great future—and now all that potential was over, in the past. Instead, the life she was facing seemed to have nothing to offer. And the future she had dreamed of was dead and gone.
And so she’d made herself keep walking. Walking away from the marriage she’d thought she was going to have. Away from the man she’d thought she’d loved.
The man she now tried to convince herself that she hated.
She’d walked away from the house, dragging her case with her and trying to hate him. She’d made the long journey home back to her stunned family, her bewildered friends, needing to hate him if she was to survive.
And the truth was that coming back here had proved to her in the most painful way that she hadn’t succeeded.
She couldn’t hate Andreas, in spite of a year of trying; it just wouldn’t work. She was still every bit as much in love with him as on the day that she had married him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ANDREAS was sick and tired of waiting.
How long had it been since Becca had headed for the pool house? And how long did it take to get into a swimming costume, for God’s sake?
Or was there a problem? She had looked uncomfortable, edgy, when she had been sitting beside him on the edge of the pool. She’d definitely been too hot—and she had such fair skin…
The thought had barely formed in his mind before Andreas pushed himself to his feet from the sun lounger on which he had been relaxing and headed in the direction of the pool house himself, padding silently across the tiles on bare feet.
She was sitting on the wooden bench that ran along the white-painted wall. Her head was bent, her eyes downcast, staring at the floor, and her hands clasped together in her lap. She had changed into the costume and once again he was aware of the pallor of her skin, barely touched by the few days she had spent with him in the sun. And with the thought came a sudden vivid mental image of the two of them in bed together, her pale limbs entwined with his darker, stronger ones.
‘What is it?’
Without thinking he spoke in Greek, the sudden burn of his libido too strong to allow enough thought for translation into English.
The sound of his voice brought her head up fast, sea-blue gaze locking with his in an instant. But there was something in that look that he didn’t understand. Something new and different that told him without words that a change had taken place in the time she had spent away from him.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, fine.’
The words sounded all wrong, strangely staccato and somehow unconvincing. And the smile that she turned on him flashed on and off like some neon advertising sign. As soon as it subsided, her face was stiff and unresponsive.
‘Did it fit?’
It must have done—she was wearing the damn thing. So why was she sitting here, inside, instead of out in the sun?
‘Well…yes…’
She gestured to herself with a hand that was not quite steady.
‘I could get into it—but…’
The look in her eyes intensified, turned them into sea-deep pools under a sweep of dark, curling lashes. She seemed wary, as if unsure of how he was going to react.
Of course. She needed reassurance. She felt unsure of herself, of the way she looked.
‘Stand up…let me see.’
At first he thought she was going to refuse and that she would insist on staying where she was. But then, slowly and reluctantly, she got to her feet and turned towards him. For a moment her hands fluttered nervously and then she forced them down to her sides, obviously having trouble submitting to his appraisal. Watching her, Andreas felt his heart take up a heavy, pounding beat, one that sent the blood rushing to his brain and set his thoughts swimming.
He hadn’t realised quite what a spectacular body she had been hiding under the loose, floating dresses and skirts she had been wearing since she had arrived at the villa a few days before. It had been obvious that her shape was supremely feminine, curved in all the right places, but he hadn’t been able to guess at this. If he had noticed the pallor of her skin a moment before, now he saw how the flow of her blood just beneath the surface flooded her smooth flesh with a soft pink glow that gave it a lustre like the finest pearls. Against that paleness, the gleaming darkness of her hair was shocking, especially when combined with the unique soft colour of her eyes.