“No.” Cool fingers twitched up the magazine and tossed it arrogantly aside. “You should have thought of that before you shared my bed a few nights ago. We cannot for ever throw recriminations at each other. What is done is done. This marriage is a new beginning, not a continuation of hostilities. I will accept nothing less.” The hawk-gold gaze rested calmly on her infuriated face. “That is all I have to say for now.”
He strolled into the bathroom, leaving her a prey to temper. Alex had turned sanctimonious. At least in his contempt and anger and need for revenge that night at the apartment, he had been honest with her. But now he realised that he had been too honest and that she had more backbone than he had given her credit for possessing. Naturally, he didn’t want a wife who loathed him. He didn’t want the arguments, either. He could afford to be generous now that he had got what he wanted. Having taken her in lust, honour was now more or less satisfied. If he could convince her that he was now magnanimously prepared for a fresh start without retrospective glances into the past, what did it really cost him?
Alex could be very charming and very credible. Until she had offended, she had had no idea that nine-tenths of the real Alex was hidden beneath an indulgent and sophisticated surface. Having learnt painfully at first hand how merciless and hard he could be, she must never be taken in by pleasantries again. He couldn’t possibly be practising sincerity. Not after the cruel intimidation and derision he had employed to get her to the altar. She had to admit that from the moment that ring went on her finger again, Alex had been extraordinarily civil. But then that was for Nicky’s sake and his family’s. No, she couldn’t afford to trust him. At heart, he despised her still.
When he came to bed, Kerry was pretending to be asleep.
“Goodnight,” he murmured softly, without coming near her.
In the darkness she grimaced. He certainly wasn’t burning with desire for her! Anger and revenge had powered his previous hunger into a physical catharsis. Those fierce emotions slaked, only masculine pride would make Alex demand repetition. It would never happen again, she promised herself. Now that she was free of the shackles of the old guilt, she was her own person again, and self-preservation came first.
“GREECE?” she mumbled sleepily.
He had shaken her awake, and with difficulty. She had finally dropped off about four in the morning. Opening her eyes to Alex’s leaping vitality and the intimacy of the bedroom scene sharply off-balanced her. He had further dismayed her by announcing that they were leaving this morning for the island of Kordos, which had come to Alex by inheritance via his Greek grandfather. “Greece?” she said again.
Alex shifted a broad shoulder sheathed in white silk. “We have to spend some time together.”
“To satisfy convention?” she taunted.
His perfectly chiselled mouth firmed. “We need time to bridge the gap of years. Time to relax and become acquainted with each other again, if you like, and we certainly do not require an audience while we accomplish that feat.”
“I don’t want to go to Greece.”
“That’s unfortunate,” he murmured drily. “We are going, and when we leave the island, we will return to our home in Florence. I still have the house there. You’re going to be late for breakfast if you don’t get up,” he completed, sweeping up his jacket and departing.
Alex, you rotten, manipulative swine, she thought. He had saved it all up and delivered it as stated fact. A honeymoon in Greece and a return to Florence. It was a shock to learn that he still owned the house they had once chosen together. She had assumed that he would have sold Casa del Fiore.
She had to rush to get downstairs in time for breakfast, and Nicky was nowhere to be seen.
“Mario has taken Nicky and Carina’s boys out for breakfast. He’s also going to take them to the zoo,” Alex supplied. “I explained to Nicky that we would be away for a while. He will have plenty to occupy him here.”
As it sunk in that Nicky was not coming to Kordos with them, disbelief fired her almond-shaped green eyes.
“Alex and you need some peace,” Athene ruled down the table. “And Nicky is too attached to you.”
“How can a child be too attached to his mother?” Kerry enquired spiritedly. “We will talk about this in private,” Alex threw her a warning glance.
“Mamma did not mean to offend,” Carina soothed under the general cover of conversation. “But it is right that you should have time to spend as a couple before you become a family again.”
Kerry set her teeth together. How dared Alex arrange to leave Nicky behind without even consulting her? Indeed, having foreseen her objections, he had simply chosen to go over her head.
“I hate to tell you this, but Nicky is becoming a spoilt little brat,” Alex dropped when everybody else had deserted the table. “When he was with you he had all your attention, and when he was with me it was the same. I could not play the strict father then because I was afraid to destroy the relationship I did have with him. Everybody has spoilt Nicky because we were divorced.”
“But that’s going to change, right?” she gathered shakily.
“Gradually it will, as he adjusts to the presence of both of us.” He refused to rise to her anger, and he sighed. “You know as well as I do that what I say is true, but the main reason I made the decision that he should remain here is that if it were otherwise, he would inevitably become aware of the conflict between us, and I will not have that happen.”
Unwillingly she recalled Nicky’s boisterous behaviour the night before. It was true that he was much too used to being the centre of attention, but she still felt that she was being punished through her son for standing up to Alex yesterday. How could she feel otherwise? She had no wish to develop a closer relationship with Alex. It was an impossibility, and in its own way a potential trap. If she ever opened up to Alex again, he would hurt her, and she couldn’t take that a second time. How did he even have the gall to imply that it was her duty to fulfil his expectations?
But she was forgetting that she was a second-class citizen in Alex’s eyes. Remarrying an adulterous wife was no mean concession in his book. He undoubtedly thought that she ought to be eating grateful and humble pie for the rest of her days. Yes, sir, no, sir, three bags full, sir.
“Even had I discussed this with you, you would have said no,” he continued. “Ask yourself how we can deal with Nicky when we are still at each other’s throats? And then tell me I am being cruel to him.”
Colour fluctuated wildly in her cheeks. “This is simply blackmail in another form,” she condemned.
His eyes narrowed, his jaw clenching. “I would not use our son in that way,” he contradicted icily.
“You used him in that contract, didn’t you? You keep on forgetting that I am here against my will,” she whispered dully.
Alex thrust back his chair and walked out of the room, rather than giving vent to his temper. Kerry went upstairs, feeling curiously empty of satisfaction. He hadn’t liked the truth being hurled at him. And, much as it galled her to admit it, she had made a pointless reminder. She could talk about duress until the cows came home, but they would still be married.
“HOW LONG ARE WE to stay on Kordos?” she asked during the flight to Athens.
“One week…two.” He eyed her with cool implacability. “When we return for Nicky we won’t have this atmosphere between us.”
“I never realised that you believed in miracles.”
The sardonic look she earned washed pink into her cheeks. “You will make the effort that I am making. Neither of us could possibly be content in the mockery of a relationship that you appear to want,” he asserted.
Her soft mouth moved tremulously. Oh, Alex, you really had it all once and you threw it away, she thought sadly. She had loved him very deeply. She had had him on a tall pedestal, and she had never ceased to marvel that he had chosen her. But he had broken her heart and her spirit. He had taught her how to be bitter.
Her hostility had ironically been exacerbated by Vickie’s confession. Was it fair of her to feel that he should have given her a hearing? In his position, would she have? She doubted whether she could have walked away when denying Alex meant denying everything that was important to her. Thank God that it wasn’t like that for her still, she allowed gratefully.
Kerry had never visited Kordos before. A trip had been suggested on several occasions, but business or family had always intervened. She watched the jewelled green speck Alex pointed out suddenly expand in size against the deep blue of the Aegean. A small and picturesque fishing village straggled round the harbour. The helicopter cast a long shadow over the dark pine trees which shrouded the steep hills behind the village. Up on the cliffs sprawled a long, white villa with a red-tiled roof. It was ringed on its rocky height by flagstone terraces. They dropped down on the helipad set into the level ground to the front.
The staff had emerged from the villa to greet them. Sofia and Spiros, who ran the house, and a gaggle of dark-eyed, giggly maids were duly introduced to her. But it was Alex who guided her into the shade of the house ahead of them and said, “I will show you to your room.”