The bed, as Ilios had told her, was very big-wide enough, surely, for two parents and at least four children; plenty wide enough for two adults to sleep in totally separate. Even so, Lizzie looked at the large sofa on the other side of the bedroom and then, still wrapped in her towel, went over to it. One by one she carried the cushions from it over to the bed, where she laid them meticulously down the middle of the immaculate pale grey silk and cotton cover.
There! That should stop her, should she attempt to do anything silly in her sleep.
Now all she had to do was find the cotton pyjamas she had brought with her from home.
Ten minutes later, wearing the tee shirt top and cut-off trousers, Lizzie pulled back the bedclothes and got into ‘her' half of the bed.
Ilios rubbed his hands over his face to ease the tiredness from it and then looked at his watch. Almost two a.m. Lizzie should be asleep by now. Had he really needed to do this? an inner voice scoffed at him. After all, he was perfectly capable of ensuring that nothing happened that he did not want to happen. Wasn't he? Or maybe, given the lengths he was going to to avoid joining her, he wasn't as sure as he'd like to be.
He looked at the sofa. If that was how he felt, then he had better not take any risks, hadn't he? Picking up the cashmere throw that was draped just so over one of the sofas, Ilios lay down with the throw over himself, flicking the remote to switch off the lights.
This was certainly not something he had envisaged when he'd decided that Lizzie would make him a perfect pretend wife, Ilios thought grimly. Sleeping on the sofa whilst she occupied his bed, in order to protect her from herself …
Chapter Nine
‘COFFEE.'
It was a statement, not a question, and the familiar darkly smoky male voice in which it was delivered brought Lizzie abruptly out of her sleep.
Ilios, dressed in a white towelling bathrobe and smelling discreetly of clean, warm male flesh, was standing beside the bed-her side of the bed-holding out to her a stylish white china mug, obviously wanting her to take it from him. Obediently Lizzie struggled out of her warm cocoon of bedclothes to sit up, reaching for the mug with one hand whilst keeping the bedclothes pressed to her with the other.
‘I'm still not safe, then?' Ilios drawled, a gleam of something approaching amusement in the golden eagle eyes that held Lizzie spellbound.
He was actually smiling! Delight flooded through her, causing her to smile back at him before she could stop herself as she took the mug he was holding out to her. Until recollection of their conversation of the night before made Lizzie groan inwardly, and curse whatever had been responsible for her reckless folly.
Unable to come up with a suitably crushing and mature response, she looked away from him, almost sloshing coffee onto the bedding when she saw that the sofa cushions she had carefully put in place last night had gone.
Her eyes wide with disbelief and censure, she accused Ilios, ‘You took the cushions away.'
‘I had no other choice. I'm Greek! I have to think what it would do to my reputation as a man if Maria arrived and found that you had barricaded yourself on one side of the bed in isolation.'
‘You could have told her that we'd had a quarrel.'
‘I could have,' Ilios agreed. ‘But there is a saying that you should never sleep with your anger or without your wife. Maria is of the old school, and she would believe that the more intense the quarrel, the more passionate the making up. In Maria's eyes a quarrel between man and wife can result in only one thing-the arrival of a new baby nine months later.'
Lizzie shuddered inwardly and trembled outwardly. Why had he said that? He must know the effect it was likely to have on her after what she had told him. If this was his way of ensuring that she didn't give way to her desire for him, then Lizzie didn't think it was going to work very well.
‘There must be something you can say to Maria that would make her accept that we should sleep in separate rooms-after all, we aren't even married yet.'
‘No, there is nothing,' Ilios told her. ‘You must know that in Greece, especially this part of Greece, a man's maleness is something he must prove to all those who know him in order to win and maintain their respect. That means being the master of his own house. No Greek male would ever publicly admit that his wife's sexual advances were unwelcome.'
‘I wasn't suggesting that you that you told her that,' Lizzie informed him indignantly.
Ilios looked down at the bed. Make-up free, with her hair down round her shoulders and the part of her body that wasn't swathed in bedcovers shrouded by what looked like an oversized tee shirt, Lizzie looked nothing like a temptress of any kind. So why was his body telling him in no uncertain terms that she was, and that it was very tempted by her?
Absently glancing around the room, Lizzie noticed something she had not taken in before-the bedding on other side of the bed was pristinely neat. Untouched, in fact.
She turned accusingly to Ilios. ‘You didn't sleep with me, did you?'
When his eyebrows rose she corrected herself hastily.
‘I mean you didn't sleep in this bed last night.'
‘No. I didn't.'
‘So where did you sleep, then?'
‘On the sofa. It was late when I finished working, and I didn't want to disturb you. You see, you were sleeping on my side of the bed. I could have moved you in your sleep-without waking you, of course-but, given what you had told me, I didn't think it wise to run the risk of you waking up in my arms and thinking … '
‘That I'd reached for you in my sleep?' Lizzie guessed.
‘Something like that,' Ilios agreed tersely. What he had been going to say was that he hadn't wanted her waking up and thinking that he returned her desire and wanted her. Nor was he going to admit that the thought of holding her in his arms had tormented his body with such a savagely fierce sexual ache for her through the long, slow hours of the night that he hadn't been able to sleep.
‘I've been thinking that perhaps we should just be engaged. Not actually get married. And then-well, you could tell Maria that I'm not the kind of woman who shares a bed with her husband before he is her husband,' Lizzie told Ilios.
‘I need a wife, not a fiancée. You know that. And besides, it's too late.'
‘Too late?' Lizzie's heart had started to thump uncomfortably heavily. ‘What do you mean?'
‘We've got an appointment at eleven-thirty this morning with the notary who has arranged all the paperwork for our wedding. He will accompany us to the town hall, so that the formalities can be finalized, and then we can be married.'
‘Today? So soon? But surely that isn't possible? I mean, doesn't it take longer than that to arrange things?'
‘Normally speaking, yes, but when I explained to my friends at the town hall how impatient I am to make you my wife, they very kindly speeded things up for us. Manos Construction is currently contracted to do some refurbishment work on certain parts of the city, and the local government is keen to get that work finished ahead of schedule.'
‘You mean you bribed them into making it possible for us to get married so quickly?' Lizzie accused him.
‘No, I did not "bribe" them, as you put it.'Anger flashed in Ilios's eyes. ‘I do not conduct my business by way of bribes-I thought I had already made that clear to you. All I did was agree to do what I could to ensure the contract is finished ahead of time and to the highest standard. Something I always insist on. We are subject to earthquakes here. It is always important that this is taken into account on construction projects, although some less than scrupulous contractors do try to cut corners. Now, I shall get dressed whilst you finish your coffee, and then leave you in peace to get dressed yourself.'
Peace? How was it possible for her to have anything remotely approaching peace now that she had met Ilios? Lizzie asked herself grimly just over an hour later, when she stood in the dressing room she was now sharing with her soon-to-be husband, studying her own reflection.