The Unfaithful Wife(24)

Leah paled. ‘Is there something wrong?’

‘How did you guess?’ His deep voice shook perceptibly with the force of the emotions he was visibly tamping down.

‘What is it?’ Her heartbeat had shifted up into the region of her throat.

‘Come here,’ he murmured flatly. ‘I have something to show you.’

She had a terrible craven urge to run away but she quelled it and crossed the room.

Then she saw them—would have had to be blind to miss them. A collection of glossy photographs was fanned out across the desktop. Leah blinked, leant closer, steadying herself with one small hand. Her stomach gave a violent lurch and dropped down to somewhere near her toes. Shock reverberated through her. The photos were of her and Paul.

In disbelief she stared and pushed one aside to examine another...and then another. Paul and her walking hand in hand down a crowded street, kissing in the wine bar, glued together in a doorway, smiling euphorically at each other. She squirmed, feeling as if Jaws had jumped out of a puddle at her and bitten a large chunk out of both her lower limbs. Her knees threatened to fold. Her eyes stung painfully. Why now? she wanted to scream in a sudden surge of anguished resentment. Why now when they had been so happy?’

‘Where did they come from?’ she whispered sickly.

‘Did you know that you had a photographer on your trail?’

‘No...’

‘Do you know what photographs of my wife with another man are worth on the open market?’

Her marriage? Leah looked numbly into space, temporarily shorn of reaction by shock. In spite of all her ridiculous precautions she had been recognised, followed and captured on film. And not once had she even suspected it.

Nik quoted a fantastic sum and then waited as though he expected some kind of response. She made none; could think of absolutely nothing to say.

‘These photos were offered to one of the tabloids,’ Nik grated. ‘If the owner of that rag had not been one of my closest friends and his editor aware of that fact they would have been published!’

‘You bought them,’ she gathered, a slender hand lifting to press against her throbbing temples.

‘You’re my wife! What choice did I have?’ he raked at her with raw aggression, every bitten-out syllable expressing his fury. ‘Cristo!’

‘Stop shouting at me!’ she gasped in growing distress. ‘I’m sorry about this but I couldn’t have stopped it happening...and anyway it’s over with Paul! It was over before I walked out on you in London. I probably should have told you that before now—’

‘Spare me your lies,’ he cut in with ruthless, icy precision.

Leah froze, lifting darkened eyes to his. ‘I’m not lying. It is over.’

‘You would tell me anything to protect him. I see that here!’ A brown hand slammed down on the photos in emphasis. His glittering gaze was alight with cold hostility, his handsome mouth compressed with distaste.

‘You’re not listening to me...you don’t believe me,’ she whispered dazedly.

‘It’s unimportant, immaterial,’ he dismissed in a tone that cracked like a whiplash. ‘But never in my life have I been more humiliated!’

Her relationship with Paul was ‘unimportant, immaterial’? Her throat closed convulsively as she gaped at him. Paul meant nothing at all to Nik? She saw her cosy, silly fantasies about their marriage shatter into pieces around her stupid feet, exposed by hard reality. Nik was only concerned about his public image, his macho sense of honour, his hypocritical belief that, while it had been all right for him to celebrate his extra-marital interests abroad, she should have been above reproach.

She felt sick. All at once she deeply regretted her attitude of guilt and apology. Her sole desire had been to limit the damage caused to their relationship but now Nik had made it brutally clear just how empty a charade their marriage was on his side.

In a surge of pain, she lashed out. ‘If you call this humiliation, you’ve had a very easy ride through life!’

He stilled. The silence of his disbelief pulsed like a live wire between them.

Leah lifted her head and clashed with glittering jet eyes. Something had snapped inside her. ‘I’ve had five years of humiliation in newsprint...everybody knows just how much you valued your marriage, Nik. You made very sure of that. But when the boot is on the other foot it’s suddenly a hanging offence. Just be grateful you had the connections and the money to save face; I had neither,’ she told him with bitter dignity. ‘And I had to stand the pitying glances and the innuendoes of your guests at your dinner parties as well!’

He had gone white, his strong bone-structure prominent beneath his golden skin. ‘I did not consider myself married.’

Leah cast a speaking glance down at the wretched photographs, refusing to betray her embarrassment or her anguished regret. ‘Well, neither did I—’

‘That is different.’ Nik did not yield a logical inch, he was still in such a rage.

‘Yes, I was more sensitive,’ Leah conceded shakily, sudden tears of turmoil threatening and willed back. ‘And too much of a coward to do anything about it. But I’m not going to bow my head like a sinner and I’m not going to say sorry either—’

‘Theos mou...’ He slung something at her in guttural Greek, both fists clenched.

‘Because I’m not sorry. In fact in the mood I am in now I wish your friend had printed them and you had to live for just a few weeks with what I had to live with for five years!’ She threw back at him in a wild surge of bitterness and distress. ‘Surprised, Nik?’

‘You bitch...’ Breathing rapidly, he stared at her with sudden total impassivity, as if he had switched off every emotion. A faint tremor ran through him, a dark rise of blood accentuating the savage slant of his hard cheekbones.

‘But then it’s just one of those things a man couldn’t possibly understand. A stage I had to g-go through.’ She slung his own cop-out back at him with helpless venom, wanted to shut herself up and discovered that she couldn’t. ‘And, just like you, I went through it later than most! Only I wasn’t as sneaky, slippery and downright devious as you are about justifying yourself and I never set out to deliberately hurt or humiliate anybody! I was too busy being what you call a “lady”...and much good it did me turning the other cheek!’

He swung on his heel without a word and left her standing there alone, shaking and sick inside, wondering dazedly where all that spite had come from. From inside her, she registered in shock. Five years of suppressed bitterness and pain had leapt out when it was least welcome and she knew exactly what had sent her over the edge.

Nik had been solely concerned about the threat of a loss of face. A tremendously important issue to a Greek with both feet still set squarely in the Neanderthal caves. His precious pride, nothing more in the balance. He had wanted her sobbing for forgiveness at his feet. Nothing less would have satisfied. The very last thing he had expected was defiance and a reminder of his own indiscretions. One rule for him, another for her.

Leah covered her hot face with spread hands, a feeling of despairing emptiness enclosing her. Once more she had made an outsize fool of herself. Nik had had to dissuade her from walking out again. So he had swept her off to bed, switched on the charm...and she had fallen for it hook, line and sinker! It had taken a crisis for her to see just how little she really mattered to him. And dear God but it hurt; it hurt so much to be forced to face the reality that the man she loved didn’t give a damn about her.





CHAPTER NINE


THE LIMOUSINE travelled at a snail’s pace through the heavy Athens traffic. Out of the corner of her eye Leah noticed Nik helping himself to a drink. He passed her one without being asked. She drank without examining the contents. It tasted like pure orange. Meanwhile the silence smouldered. The atmosphere was explosive. She felt like a straw doll with a flame-thrower aimed at her. Menace threatened on all sides.

Where had he slept last night? When she had finally drifted off around dawn she had still been alone. He hadn’t put in an appearance at lunch either, not that she could say that she had been disappointed by his absence. It had taken ice cubes, cold cloths and every cosmetic technique she possessed to conceal the reddened state of her eyes. She didn’t feel in any fit state to meet Nik’s family. Her nerves were jangling like piano wires.

When she simply didn’t think she could bear the silence one minute longer, she settled on what she saw as a safe subject. ‘When we get back to London,’ she murmured tautly, ‘I’m going to check out that writing bureau. It’s a long shot, I know, but Max did tell me to guard it well. It might just have a—’

‘Secret drawer? Or maybe a hidden coded map with X marks the spot?’ he cut in in a growling tone dripping with sarcasm. ‘I doubt if Max was as deeply into Enid Blyton as your imagination appears to be. Take an axe to it if you like! It won’t get you anywhere.’

If it killed her she would find that certificate, she swore to herself, her cheeks burning. It wasn’t fair that she should be held hostage to protect someone in his precious family from having some past transgression exposed. And it was positively paranoid of Nik to fear that even though Max was dead that secret might still be a threat, likely to be dragged out into the light of day if they broke up!