Читать онлайн книгу «Greek Tycoon, Wayward Wife» автора Sabrina Philips
Greek Tycoon, Wayward Wife
Sabrina Philips
The two-week marriage bargain Trembling with trepidation, Libby Delikaris braves the lion’s den to ask her Greek husband for a divorce. But he’s more merciless than Libby remembers, and she suddenly finds her plan has crumbled.The infamous Rion Delikaris knew Libby would return before long. He’s been patiently waiting. No longer the boy from the slums, he’s ready to show his wife what she’s been missing!Rion’s offer: a two-week reconciliation…and he’ll make sure she honours all her wedding vows!
‘I—’
‘Really ought to think very carefully about exactly what you want,’ he finished for her.
He reached for a slip of paper from the inside drawer of his desk and scribbled down an address. ‘I’m travelling to Metameikos on business tomorrow afternoon. Should you wish to join me, we leave from this airstrip at four.’
She did a double-take. ‘Sorry?’
‘I’m travelling to Metameikos tomorrow,’ he repeated, handing her the slip of paper. ‘Come with me and let me spend the next two weeks showing you why our getting divorced isn’t in the least bit logical. If I fail, then at the end I will sign.’
Libby’s mouth dropped open in shock.
Sabrina Philips first discovered Mills & Boon® one Saturday afternoon in her early teens at her first job in a charity shop. Sorting through a stack of preloved books, she came across a cover which featured a glamorous heroine and a tall, dark, handsome hero. She started reading under the counter that instant—and has never looked back!
A lover of both reading and writing since childhood, Sabrina went on to study English with Classics at Reading University. She adores all literature, but finds there’s nothing else quite like the indulgent thrill of a Modern™ Romance—preferably whilst lying in a hot bath with no distractions!
She grew up in Guildford, Surrey, where she now lives with her husband—who swept her off her feet when they were both just sixteen. When Sabrina isn’t spending time with her family or writing, she works as a co-ordinator of civil marriages, which she describes as a fantastic source of romantic inspiration and a great deal of fun.
A decade after reading her very first Mills & Boon, Sabrina is delighted to join as an author herself, and have the opportunity to create infuriatingly sexy heroes of her own, which she defies both her heroines—and her readers—to resist! Visit Sabrina’s website: www.sabrinaphilips.com
Recent titles by the same author:
VALENTI’S ONE-MONTH MISTRESS
THE SHEIKH’S BEJEWELLED BRIDE
PRINCE OF MONTEZ, PREGNANT MISTRESS
Greek Tycoon, Wayward Wife
By
Sabrina Philips
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Phil For planting the seed of an idea in my mind And for keeping me sane whilst it grew
CHAPTER ONE
‘I’M AFRAID, Mr Delikaris, that you are still behind Spyros in the opinion polls.’
Orion glared at the bar chart projected on the wall, and then at the pessimistic expression of his campaign manager, who sat beside him at the long, highly polished table. A nerve spasmed at his jaw in disapproval. Orion never allowed himself to contemplate failure. He expected the members of his team to think the same way. That was what he paid them for.
‘We have made progress,’ the man continued anxiously, sensing Orion’s displeasure, ‘Especially since the campaign has focussed on how much you are willing to invest in both affordable housing and the new hospital. It’s just not quite as much progress as we had estimated.’
He clicked the button in his hand and the image on the wall changed to a far more positively weighted graph, which only served to irritate Orion further, since it proved that his team’s predictions had been wholly inaccurate.
Orion pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘So, despite the fact that our policies are exactly what Metameikos needs, a man who is as corrupt as his father was before him is still the most popular candidate?’ He looked down the table at the rest of his team. ‘Would anyone care to volunteer a reason why?’
A long, uneasy silence followed.
Finally a voice came from the opposite end of the table. ‘Perhaps people are wary about voting for you.’
There was a collective intake of breath. Rion slowly raised his head to see who had spoken. It was Stephanos, an assistant press officer and the newest member of his team. He was also the youngest. ‘Go on.’
‘People see you as a billionaire bachelor who has decided overnight, or so it seems to them, that you want to be their leader.’ Stephanos paused, awaiting Rion’s condemnation, but it didn’t come. It gave him the courage to elaborate. ‘Your promises may be what people want to hear, but these results show they clearly don’t trust you’ll deliver them. Perhaps they think you’re simply running on a whim—to try and prove that you can succeed at anything you choose—or perhaps they think that if you do get elected you’ll be too tied up with your business in Athens to devote the necessary time to the role. It’s not true, of course, but they don’t know that. People would rather vote for the devil they know.’
Orion studied Stephanos thoughtfully. The boy had guts. He liked that. It reminded him of himself. He also understood that politics was different from business, that people voted with their hearts, not necessarily in conjunction with their heads. Orion had always understood that too, but it hadn’t occurred to him that people would instinctively stick with what they had rather than take an outside chance. He would always have taken the chance.
‘So, what would you have me do?’
The rest of the men around the table exchanged astonished looks. His campaign manager looked affronted.
Stephanos took a deep breath and continued. ‘For people to trust you they need to be able to relate to you, to see that your concerns, your values, are the same as theirs—good old-fashioned Greek values.’
Orion grimaced. His values were good old-fashioned Greek values—always had been. ‘I grew up in Metameikos,’ he said gravely. What had happened there had made him who he was.
‘Then convince them you still think of it as home,’ Stephanos replied animatedly. ‘That the house you’ve bought there isn’t just another property, but that you plan to settle down there.’
‘And how do you suggest I do that?’
‘Honestly?’ Stephanos paused, a note of hesitancy entering his voice for the first time, ‘In my opinion, the best solution would be to return to Metameikos with a wife.’
The receptive look on Rion’s face immediately vanished and his expression grew dark, ‘Then I hope you have an alternative solution,’ he ground out, ‘because that is not an option.’
Libby stared at the huge three-dimensional Delikaris logo rotating hubristically in its own fountain, at the enormous revolving glass doors which formed the entrance of his state-of-the-art office, and told herself again that this was the right thing to do. It was the same thing she’d been telling herself ever since she’d discovered that she’d be required to cover the Greek tours for the duration of Zoe’s maternity leave.
But she’d been finding excuses not to ever since arriving in Athens a week ago, and even now she still had the urge to run in the opposite direction. Which was completely and utterly ridiculous, because of course it was the right thing to do. It was time they both moved on for good. How could it be anything else when she and Rion hadn’t spoken in five years?
It was just that being back in Athens, having to pass the city hall, the old apartment block, had brought her memories to the surface—that was all. But that was all they were: memories. She just felt this way because they hadn’t seen each other since back then, and she was remembering the man she’d once been in love with, when the reality was she’d probably barely recognise him now.
If the exterior of his office was anything to go by, he’d be much changed. And so was she. Whilst she’d been off leading low-cost tours around the globe, with only a guidebook and a battered rucksack on her back, he mustn’t have spent a single day out of his suit, must have worked every hour since to achieve all this.
Was that why he’d never got his lawyers onto it, then? Libby wondered for the umpteenth time. Had he been so focussed on his work that the legalities had simply slipped his mind? As she finally forced herself to take on the revolving doors, and found herself deposited in a vast, gleaming reception area, she could well believe he had.
‘Can I help you?’ the glossy-haired receptionist ventured, shooting a condescending glance over her tiedyed dress and comfy leather sandals. Libby grew suddenly conscious that she was the only woman in the busy entrance hall who wasn’t wearing a pair of impossibly high, pointy stilettos and a designer business suit, but she didn’t let it faze her.
‘I was hoping to see Orion Delikaris—’
‘Have you an appointment?’
Libby knew that trying to speak to him at his office was hardly ideal, but without his address, or any means of obtaining it, she had no other alternative. ‘No, but as it’s lunchtime I thought—’
The receptionist tossed her head and gave a snort of laughter. ‘Then you thought wrong. Mr Delikaris does not have time for a lunch break. He is an exceptionally busy man.’
Libby didn’t need to be reminded. Didn’t doubt that he’d only got busier. But surely after five years he could spare her ten minutes?
‘Maybe you will be so kind as to call Mr Delikaris and let him decide whether he wishes to see me,’ she said, with emphatic sweetness. She’d once negotiated borrowing twenty-two camels to take an entire tour group across the desert at night, when a coach hadn’t turned up, so she’d be dammed if she was going to be frightened off by a woman whose deadliest weapon was immaculate grooming and an over-inflated sense of self-importance.
The woman exhaled through her teeth, wearily lifted the receiver of her phone and tapped a button with one perfectly manicured talon. ‘Electra, darling, so sorry to disturb you. I have a woman here who insists that we notify Mr Delikaris that she is in Reception. Mmm. Yes, another one. She seems to think if he knows she’s here he’ll agree to see her.’
She turned back to Libby. ‘Your name, please?’
Libby took a deep breath. ‘My name is Libby Delikaris,’ she replied. ‘I’m his wife.’
The office was silent.
‘I’m afraid there’s no alternative solution as far as I can see,’ Stephanos answered. ‘You can continue to spend as much time in Metameikos as possible; support local businesses, attend local events and keep trying to get the Mayor on side, but I don’t think anything but getting married is going to truly convince people you plan to settle down there.’
Rion grimaced. ‘I repeat. Marriage is out of the question.’
Stephanos was surprised that the man who’d sworn he would stop at nothing to win this election wouldn’t even consider his suggestion, but decided it would be wise to drop it. ‘Oh, well, even that would have been no guarantee. Without a long-term girlfriend it might have looked a little too much like a publicity stunt—especially so close to the election.’
The intercom on the desk behind Rion suddenly burst into life.
He swooped across to it, his voice curt. ‘Yes?’
‘I’m very sorry to interrupt you, Mr Delikaris, but there’s a woman in Reception who is demanding we inform you that she’s here.’
‘Who is it?’
There was a loaded pause. ‘She says her name is Libby Delikaris and that…she’s your wife.’
Rion didn’t move—couldn’t. The instantaneous flood of pleasure that ran over him was so profound it rendered him motionless.
At last she had returned. At last she deemed him worthy enough.
It was the moment he’d been waiting for—far, far too long. Not because he gave a damn about her opinion any longer, he qualified quickly. But because now, finally, he could take his revenge.
He straightened victoriously. As he did, he caught sight of his team out of the corner of his eye, and suddenly the fortuity of her timing struck him. She had chosen to come crawling back now, just when he needed to convince the world he was all about good old-fashioned Greek values. His eyes glittered, and his mouth curved into a sardonic smile. How convenient.
He pressed the button on the intercom and replied with perfect composure, ‘Thank you. Send her up.’
Rion sensed every eye in the room widen. It was understandable; he’d never mentioned her. But then he never spoke about failed ventures or the past. Since she fell into both categories, he did his best not to even think about her. Sometimes he even succeeded.
‘Apologies, gentlemen. I’m afraid we will need to continue this meeting at another time.’
The men cleared the room without another word. Only Stephanos lingered.
‘You know, an alternative way of convincing people you are the settling kind has just this minute occurred to me,’ he said wryly, looking Rion straight in the eye and walking backwards towards the door. ‘Nothing melts hearts like a reunion story.’
Libby hadn’t used his surname for five years; hadn’t called herself his wife for just as long. If the look of shock on the receptionist’s face was anything to go by, Rion hadn’t mentioned her existence either. Yet it seemed his instruction to send her up immediately was proof enough that she was telling the truth, for within seconds the receptionist had become politeness personified—even explaining in detail how Libby could get to his office on the top floor via the stairs when she mentioned she’d rather not use the lift.
As she ascended the stairs, Libby ignored the doubts churning in her stomach and told herself to get a grip. What they’d had once was already lost, the emotional side of it dealt with long ago. This was just a formality, bound to be nothing more than a slightly awkward but amicable exchange between two people who were virtual strangers to one another now, she tried to convince herself. Maybe when it was over she’d even feel the complete sense of freedom she’d always been searching for but had never quite found. She clung to that thought as she arrived on the top floor, passed through a landing area, and then proceeded along a corridor to knock on a large mahogany door emblazoned with his name.
‘Come in.’
Yes, in theory the emotional side should have been dealt with long ago, but the instant she saw him Libby knew that she had been seriously mistaken.
Of course she was well aware that Orion Delikaris was the most desirable man on the planet. She hadn’t expected that to have changed. But she had expected that age and wealth would have altered him at least fractionally. Instead, to her horror, save for the fact that his suit now looked ludicrously expensive, everything was exactly as she remembered. His strong, proud jaw, his resplendent dark hair, those liquid brown eyes that had fuelled her teenage fantasies and shaped her adult ones. Which had gazed right back at her on their wedding day, their wedding night.
She blinked, blocking out the memories, blocking out the urge to run again—away from feelings she shouldn’t be feeling any more. ‘Hello, Rion,’ she managed, somehow.
Rion ran his eyes over her, frustrated to find that the action induced the most powerful kick of arousal he’d felt in years. But he knew it was only because his body still saw her as the woman who’d rejected him, was just responding the way it did to any challenge. The second she started begging him to take her back his desire would evaporate. And yet it annoyed him that she should still get to him that way—especially when she looked so…different. The thick blond hair which had once hung in a silken curtain down her back was gone, now cut short in the kind of style he usually considered unfeminine, but which somehow made her features look even more delicate. Her petite, pale figure, which had once driven him to distraction, had also disappeared, but in its place was an even more enticing mass of toned, sensual curves tanned to a beguiling shade of golden-brown.
He gritted his teeth. Which suggested she spent her life on holiday. That would be about right: Caribbean beaches and designer shops, no doubt funded by her parents. Though somehow that image didn’t seem to fit with the clothes she was dressed in. Perhaps Ashworth Motors had fallen on hard times. A perverse part of him hoped that it had. It would make telling her no—after she’d been of use to him, of course—all the sweeter.
‘So tell me,’ he said, unable to fathom her delay if that was the case, ‘what took you so long?’
Libby was taken aback by his question, by his implacable expression that bordered on hostile, but she told herself it was understandable. She, for all the good it had done her, had at least been able to prepare herself mentally for seeing him again. He’d had no such luxury.
‘I took the stairs,’ she answered, looking up at the clock on the wall and noting that she’d only been five minutes. She was about to shoot out You know I don’t do lifts, but then she remembered that he didn’t know, that he’d really known so little about her, and she about him.
And they knew even less about each other now, which was why not doing this was ludicrous. ‘I apologise if this isn’t a good time.’
He gave a wry smile. ‘On the contrary, now is the perfect time—but that wasn’t what I meant. I’ve been expecting you for years, Liberty.’
Libby wanted to correct him, to tell him she never let anyone call her that any more, but the revelation that he’d been expecting her, that he obviously agreed this was the right thing to be doing, was so welcome that she let it pass.
‘You mean you have been trying to contact me? I’m sorry. I did wonder if you had, but I’ve been overseas almost permanently. Bank statements from three years ago are only just starting to catch up with me.’
‘If I had wanted to find you I would not have failed.’
But he hadn’t wanted to find her. What would have been the sense, when he’d always known she would come crawling back once he’d made it, that he would have his chance to turn the tables—make the humiliation hers instead of his? Yes, it had been far too long coming, but he wouldn’t have denied himself this moment for anything—would have waited fifty years if that was what it had taken.
Libby frowned.
‘I rather expected you to come back the first time my name appeared on the International Rich List. Or have you been waiting for me to reach the top ten?’
Her relief evaporated. He thought her coming here had to do with money? She stared back at him in disbelief, and in that instant she realised her initial appraisal had been wrong. He had changed. Grown harder, more cynical. Perhaps she ought to be relieved that he was the stranger to her she’d imagined after all. Instead she just felt sad. ‘I don’t read things like that. I never did.’
He gestured around his enormous office, to the rooftop garden adjacent and the incredible view of the Acropolis, and raised his eyebrow cynically. ‘You mean you weren’t aware that my circumstances have changed?’
‘Of course. But that has nothing to do with why I’m here.’
Rion gave a disparaging laugh. So in many ways she was the same old Liberty Ashworth. Still intent on denying that money mattered to her. That explained her nomadic-looking clothes, at least. They were obviously just part of her plan to convince him she didn’t care about material things any more.
‘So, if not because of my change of circumstances, why have you returned?’ he drawled, deciding to humour her.
Libby took a deep breath, aware that the moment had come. ‘I’m here because it’s been five years, and we should have sorted this out a long time ago,’ she said softly, opening her bag and sliding a sheaf of papers across the table.
Rion didn’t register what she was saying at first. He was too busy watching her face, the flush of colour that had risen in her cheeks at the sight of him, guessing how long she was going to keep up the act. But when he realised she was waiting for him to respond he dropped his eyes to the table—and that was when he saw it.
Libby felt a plunging sense of guilt as she watched his eyes widen in horror, guilt, and disbelief in equal measure. Surely he couldn’t really be that surprised?
Petition for Divorce.
Rion stared down at the words, reeling inwardly in both shock and fury. But the shock was only momentary. It was obvious, really. Despite all he’d achieved, the millions he’d earned, he still lacked the right pedigree for the daughter of Lord and Lady Ashworth, didn’t he?
‘Of course,’ he said bitterly.
Libby swallowed down the lump in her throat. ‘Then you agree that getting this paperwork sorted is long overdue?’
He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, anger and agony warring in his chest. When he’d imagined the moment of her return it had never been like this.
But the second he realised that anger was starting to win out he forced his eyes open. He would not allow himself to feel that pain—not a second time. So she wanted a divorce? So what? He wanted one too. The only reason he hadn’t had it finalised already was because he’d been waiting for the chance to savour his revenge. And who was to say this wasn’t that chance anyway? Fate, he’d come to understand, worked in mysterious ways.
He looked up at her face. The flush of colour in her cheeks was bordering on crimson. She might not want to return as his wife, but it was obvious she did want his body as much as she always had, as much as he still wanted hers—whether he liked it or not. Maybe reminding her that she would never stop desiring him, however low her opinion of him remained, would be even more satisfying. Not to mention useful.
A slow smile spread across his lips. He didn’t need her good opinion. He needed his wife by his side for the duration of his campaign, and he wanted her back in his bed one final time. Then he could discard her, exactly as she had discarded him—with a bit of luck at the exact moment he’d proved to her that her physical desire for him went deeper than any class divide.
‘No, gineka mou,’ he said deliberately, curling his tongue deliberately around the Greek for my wife. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t agree.’
The hint of menace in his voice started a pulse of trepidation behind her ribcage, but she refused to accept that its presence was justified. He was just worried about getting stung financially. ‘Please, have it checked out by your lawyers, if you wish. They’ll confirm I’m not asking you for anything.’
‘Nor would you get anything if you were,’ he replied, his tone so cold that it felt as if someone had dropped an ice cube down her back, demolishing every last hope of being able to discuss this amicably as it fell.
‘So enlighten me,’ he continued, wondering if she actually possessed the gall to come out and say it. ‘If not for money, why do you want to get divorced from me so badly?’
‘Because it’s ridiculous not to,’ she justified. ‘Legally we’re each other’s next of kin, but we don’t even know each other’s phone numbers any more. When I fill in a form I still have to tick the “married” box, even though I haven’t seen you for half a decade. It’s a lie.’
Rion looked at her intensely. ‘It wasn’t once.’
No, Libby thought bleakly, shocked that he’d brought emotions into it, and had managed to do so with just three small words. It wasn’t once. A montage of images flashed through her mind: Athens under an unexpected foot of February snow, falling like nature’s cold confetti. Tucking her hired wedding dress into her Wellington boots. Coercing two frozen passers-by to witness their simple ceremony in the town hall in exchange for the promise of hot chocolate. Their wedding day had been the first day in her life which hadn’t felt like a lie.
‘No,’ she admitted, trying to keep her voice level, ‘it wasn’t once. But it is now. It’s been five years.’
‘Indeed it has. Five years in which you could have come asking for this, but didn’t. So why now?’
She shrugged self-consciously, his words forcing her to ask herself the same question. Why had she waited so long? Because all this time she’d been hoping…? No, she’d always known they could never go back.
‘I always supposed you’d get in touch about it. Then I was too busy abroad to worry, but when my job required me to come to Athens it seemed crazy not to take the opportunity to sort things out amicably, in person.’
‘You think that there is an amicable way of divorcing your Greek husband?’ He shook his head. ‘Then you do not know very much about Greek men, gineka mou.’
‘I presumed that as a Greek you were a man of logic—able to see that there is no sense in remaining married when what was once between us has been over for half a decade.’
‘If that was the case, then I would,’ he breathed, and to Libby it felt as though the temperature in the room had dropped to sub-zero. ‘But it’s not. You still want me. I can see it. You always have, from the moment you laid eyes on me.’ He took a step towards her. ‘And even though you ran thousands of miles away from me, you still want me—don’t you?’
Libby felt her face flush instantly crimson. ‘Even if that were true, sexual attraction is no reason to stay married.’ Especially sexual attraction which had been one-sided from the moment they’d said their vows, she thought wretchedly, knowing he was just trying to find ways to talk her out of it because he thought he needed to protect his bank balance.
‘It’s a reason that’s a hell of a lot more substantial than the ones you’ve given me for getting divorced.’
Libby frantically searched her mind. ‘That’s not true. There are plenty of other reasons why getting a divorce is the most logical thing to do. I mean…maybe…maybe you’ll want to marry someone else in the future.’ The thought made her feel physically sick, but she ploughed on. ‘Maybe I’ll want to marry someone else too.’ She couldn’t imagine it ever being true right now, but at least it might convince him it was time they both moved on, that she had no financial motive.
‘So finally we get to why you are really here,’ he breathed. ‘Who is it? Let me guess. An earl perhaps? A duke?’
Libby took a sharp breath, not anticipating that he’d jump to the conclusion that she meant she was with someone now, but at the same time noticing the way his hand had moved back towards the divorce papers, as if he was finally starting to see sense.
‘Does it matter?’ she goaded.
Rion gritted his teeth in frustration, imagining some effeminate member of the English aristocracy with his hands all over her perfect body. He’d always forbidden himself to think about it in the intervening years, but he’d known her sexual betrayal was likely, for she’d been the most responsive lover he’d ever had. So responsive that at times he’d found it near impossible to show her the kind of restraint he’d thought she’d deserved. Which she never had, he thought grimly, his desire doubling at the thought of taking her with the full force of his need, proving that, even though he’d never be good enough in her eyes, no one else would ever turn her on the way he did.
‘Since I’m your husband, I don’t suppose it does matter who he is,’ he said, moving his hand away from the table again.
Libby shook her head despairingly. When had he got so cold?
‘But what possible advantage is there to remaining married? For the last five years I’ve been on the other side of the world.’
‘You’re not on the other side of the world any more.’
She shook her head exasperatedly, deciding to call his bluff. ‘So what are you saying, that instead of signing this divorce paper you want me to back as your wife for real?’
‘Yes, gineka mou. That’s precisely what I’m saying.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘YOU can’t be serious,’ she stammered.
‘I’m perfectly serious.’
Libby stared at him in disbelief. How many times had she dreamed of hearing him say that? Dreamed that all this time he’d never forgotten her the way she’d never forgotten him, that now that they were both older, had had the time to find themselves, they could find one another again? More times than she wanted to admit.
It was the deeply buried part of her heart responsible for those dreams which wanted to believe they were coming true now, but her head knew that was not what was happening. Because she didn’t see before her a man who wanted to get to know her again, who was looking at her with hope. She saw a man who was afraid that she was after his fortune, who was prepared to do anything to protect it.
She took a shaky step in the direction of the door. ‘I shouldn’t have come here. I’ll instruct my solicitor to be in touch. Perhaps when he tells you that I want nothing from you, you’ll believe it.’
He took a step towards her. ‘You aren’t curious to find out whether the sex between us is as good now as it was then?’
Libby’s breath caught in her throat. She could smell the distinctive scent of him, which she’d always thought would sell by the ton if it could be bottled. But there was no way it could be, because it didn’t contain any tangible ingredients. It was the smell of pure male heat, energy, virility, as potent as the first taste of mint on the tongue. It was overlaid with some expensive aftershave now, but she felt in danger of bursting into flames before she even got a whiff of that. And maybe she would have, if not for the cold douse of remembrance that she had never made him feel anything other than lukewarm in return.
‘Come on, Rion, don’t pretend I satisfied you in the bedroom any more than I satisfied you in any other area once we were married.’
He stared at her, almost unsure that he’d heard her correctly. Didn’t she know that even now he was fighting to stop himself from lying her back against the desk and making her his in the most basic way there was? That, despite how far he’d come, she alone seemed to possess the unwelcome ability to remind him how un-refined he truly was?
‘You think I’m pretending? Then stay. I can assure you I will take great pleasure in convincing you that I’m not.’
Libby shook her head. He was just trying to use her weakness for him against her. ‘You can drop the act, Rion. I know you’re only afraid that I’m after your money.’
‘Oh, I am, am I?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Or do I just want to give our marriage a second chance?’
Libby swallowed hard, felt her heart begin to pound, felt it echo at her temples, ‘No…I know you don’t.’
‘Well, if you’re so sure then I guess this is it,’ he said, his eyes never leaving hers as he swiftly slid the divorce papers back across the table towards her. ‘But I don’t doubt we’ll be seeing plenty of each other in court. If you still intend to proceed, that is?’
‘I—’
‘You really ought to think very carefully about exactly what you want,’ he cautioned, as he reached for a slip of paper from the inside drawer of his desk and scribbled down an address. ‘I’m travelling to Metameikos on business tomorrow afternoon. Should you wish to join me, we leave from this airstrip at four.’
She did a double-take. ‘Sorry?’
‘I’m travelling to Metameikos tomorrow,’ he repeated, handing her the slip of paper. ‘Come with me and let me spend the next two weeks showing you why getting divorced isn’t in the least bit logical. If I fail, then at the end I will sign.’
Libby’s mouth dropped open in shock.
She’d been sure he’d only suggested trying again to protect his bank balance. But now…
‘Even if…I can’t—I’m supposed to be working out some potential new tours for next season before my first group arrives,’ she stuttered.
Rion frowned. ‘Tours?’
‘It’s my job,’ she said, realising she’d never explained what had brought her to Athens in the first place. ‘I work for a company called Kate’s Escapes.’
So she was working, he thought in surprise. In the tourist industry. That explained the tan, but not why. Surely Ashworth Motors had to have fallen on hard times. ‘So come to Metameikos.’ He shrugged. ‘Work out a potential tour there. The scenery is the most beautiful in all of Greece.’
Libby’s eyes widened even further.
‘I…I—’
‘Shouldn’t make an impetuous decision, gineka mou,’ he finished for her, striding forward and pinning back the door. ‘Think about it. You have until tomorrow to decide.’
And with that he ushered her out of the door and closed it behind her.
Outside his office, Libby stood rooted to the spot, not sure she was capable of the neurological function required to make it down the stairs.
He’d said he wanted to see whether they could make their marriage work. Even more astounding than that, he’d asked her to go away with him, to work alongside him, in Metameikos.
They weren’t the kind of statements that sounded particularly momentous. They didn’t offer an answer to world peace or hint at a cure for some deadly disease. But to Libby they stopped her world on its axis and started it rotating in the opposite direction from the one in which it had been spinning for the last five years.
Because it showed her that he might be ready for marriage now, in a way that neither of them had been before.
For never, in the three months they had spent together as husband and wife, had he seemed to want to spend time with her or share his work with her, and he’d only ever discouraged her from working. Nor had he ever really spoken of Metameikos, never mind suggested he had attachment enough to return to the place where he’d grown up.
Libby leaned back against the door, her memories surfacing like lava in a volcano disturbed.
No, from the day they’d arrived in Athens, his focus had always been on leaving the past behind him and making it on his own. And whilst she’d been delighted to escape her tyrannical father and leave her past behind too, she’d arrived with a head full of dreams. Dreams about living a life which didn’t revolve around money and status, but love and freedom. But they’d barely finished saying their vows when he’d thrown himself into working eighteen-hour days. She’d virtually never seen him, and on the rare occasions when she had, all he’d done was talk about moving to a bigger apartment, putting money down on a house, finding an investor in his business idea.
At first Libby had admired his diligence. She knew very little about his childhood, but what she did know was that, unlike her, he’d grown up with nothing, on the poor side of Metameikos. It was understandable that getting another decent job was important to him—especially after the way her father had treated him—and she knew they couldn’t survive on their wits alone. But as he’d come home later and later every day, she’d found his obsession harder and harder and harder to cope with. Because she had known that simply working eight-hour days earned him enough to cover the rent and the bills, so why did he feel the need to work any more? If he loved her, wasn’t spending his evenings and his weekends with her worth more than overtime pay?
It hadn’t seemed to be. And as the weeks had passed she’d begun to wonder if he had ever really loved her at all. Because not only had it appeared to fail to cross his mind that a life spent isolated and alone, wondering if and when he was going to come home from work, was nothing like the life she’d imagined when she’d married him, but he hadn’t even really talked to her about his job either—hadn’t involved her in the very thing that had determined the course of her days. The same way it had been with her father and Ashworth Motors. Perhaps she could have dealt with that if they’d shared other things, but he’d never seemed to have time for anything else—save for lovemaking, late at night, when he came home. But he’d only ever seemed disappointed in that.
And eventually she’d had to admit to herself that she was disappointed with their marriage too. Yes, in marrying him she’d escaped the physical restrictions her father had placed on her, avoided marrying a suitor of his choosing, but being Mrs Delikaris hadn’t really felt much different from being Miss Ashworth. She’d felt no more in control of her own life than she had before. What had happened to her chance to just be Libby?
It had disappeared, she had finally admitted to herself one day, three months after their wedding. And unless she did something about it, their marriage was going to destroy her.
He had been tying his tie in the bedroom the following morning, when she’d finally plucked up the courage. ‘Rion, before you leave for work again there’s something I want to talk to you about.’
‘Oh?’
She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve decided to apply for a job at the language school down the road.’
It wasn’t going to solve all her problems, but it might be a start. She’d wanted to get a job ever since they’d arrived, for herself as well as to help out with paying the bills, but he’d told her it wasn’t necessary. She realised now she should have fought harder.
‘They’re looking for native English-speakers to help with classes,’ she continued, ‘and I thought an extra bit of cash coming in might mean you needn’t spend so much time working.’
He shook his head. ‘I told you before, it’s not necessary for you to get a job.’
She sucked in a frustrated breath. Couldn’t he see that she needed a life of her own? ‘But I want to. I’ll be able to learn Greek whilst I’m there and—’
‘I promised you a private tutor.’ He looked pained. ‘And you will have one—just as soon as I secure an investment.’
‘But I don’t want to wait that long. I can’t even greet the neighbours!’
Rion’s face contorted. ‘I can assure you it won’t be that long.’
She shook her head. ‘Even so, it isn’t just that. I want to go to a class, to meet other people.’ Her shoulders dropped. ‘When you’re at work I just feel so…lonely.’
Rion blinked up at her. ‘I am more than willing to have a child, if that is what you mean.’
Libby’s eyes widened in disbelief. She’d always dreamed of having a family of her own one day, but not before she’d had the chance to really live herself, and certainly not now, when he was only suggesting having a baby as a solution to a problem.
A problem he didn’t even understand. And was it really any wonder? No, she realised, feeling her heart rupture, he couldn’t, because the truth was he didn’t even know her. They’d married so hastily that she’d hadn’t even had the time and space to get to know herself.
And in that instant Libby suddenly saw, as if a bolt of lightning had forked down from the sky and illuminated everything, that as long as she remained here she never would. That even if she stayed and fought and fought she would never really gain control of her own life. No, there was only one way to do that.
She shook her head. ‘No, Rion, a child isn’t what I want. I want—’ She dropped her eyelids and took a deep breath. ‘I don’t know exactly what I want, but I know it isn’t this. I…I don’t want to stay here.’
And that was the moment she discovered for sure that she was just as big a disappointment to him as he had been to her.
Rion grimaced. ‘Then go. I think we both know it’s been on the cards from the start.’
Libby drew in a ragged breath, forcing her eyes open and blinking under the bright artificial lights of the corridor outside his office, remembering the twin feelings of both heartbreak and release as she’d walked away. She couldn’t have gone on living that way. She had needed time to find herself, to take control of her life.
But now she had. And he was implying that he had too.
What was more, though it seemed so much had changed, her physical reaction to him most definitely hadn’t. She breathed out deeply, listening to the sound of her heart, still racing. In a way that shocked her most of all, and to her shame it was undoubtedly the hardest thing to fight. Because she’d been convinced she’d never felt anything like it in the intervening years for the simple reason that she was no longer a young girl in the throes of her first love affair. The reality, it seemed, was that there was just no other man on earth who could make her whole body go into meltdown quite the same way that he did. Just by looking at her.
And, whilst she knew that instructing a solicitor to proceed with the divorce the hard way was the logical thing to do, she couldn’t help it—her body longed for her to say yes. And so did her heart, because, no, they didn’t know each other now, but what if they got to know one another and rediscovered what they’d once had before all that? Then divorcing him would be a huge mistake. So shouldn’t she seize the chance to find out whether they could recapture it, even if the odds were minuscule and—?
Suddenly the ground gave way from under her, and she felt herself stumble backwards into hard, compacted muscle. As her mind played catch-up amongst the shock of lost footing and the treacherous thrill of arousal, she realised that to her enormous embarrassment Rion had just opened his office door. The one she’d been leaning against, with all of her weight. She leapt out of his arms, cheeks burning.
‘I was just…’ Libby exhaled, her mind completely blank. But then what excuse was there for being so utterly stupid as to remain leaning up against his door?
‘Oh, no need to explain,’ he said, his mouth quirking into a smile as he walked past her, his hands briefly brushing her sides as if to steady her. ‘Happens all the time.’
He hit the button for the lift and the doors opened immediately. He gestured for her to join him, but she shook her head frantically.
‘Until tomorrow, then,’ he said with a grin.
And before Libby had time to protest that she still had twenty-four hours in which to decide, and that taking a breather before going downstairs didn’t mean anything, the doors of the lift had already closed.
Which wouldn’t have been half so frustrating if they hadn’t both known he was right.
CHAPTER THREE
SHE’D had a whole sleepless night and the clarity of a morning in which to talk herself out if of it, but at three-thirty the following afternoon Libby found herself and her well-worn suitcase in a taxi on her way to the airstrip.
And she even seemed to be managing to sit still. For, although there was a part of her that was tempted to tell the driver to turn around and go as fast as he could in the opposite direction—the part which believed Rion had been far too cold in his office for this to end in anything other than heartache—over the course of the last twenty-four hours the rest of her had decided that going with Rion wasn’t just following her heart and her hormones, it was logical.
Because unless she went with him she’d never fully be able to move on, and that had been half the point of her seeking to finalise their separation in the first place. The logic was the same as if she’d been handed a lottery ticket. She’d know the chances of it containing the winning numbers were tiny, but until she checked she’d never know, and every day she’d wake up with a voice whispering what if? in her ear.
Not that if they had an actual lottery ticket it would matter to Rion whether it bore the lucky numbers or not, Libby thought ruefully as they drove alongside a hangar and a sparkling white plane bearing the striking Delikaris Experiences logo taxied round in a semi-circle and stopped in front of them. Because she was fast coming to realise that in their years apart his obsession with personal success had taken on gargantuan proportions.
Which suggested that the more she got to know him, the more she’d discover that they were incompatible. It was obvious that he cared about nothing other than money if he had earned so much in five years, and, what was more, he’d clearly chosen to spend it on flashy possessions like his own private jet. If she had that volume of cash she’d head straight back out to Africa and do some good with it. She shook her head as she stepped out onto the tarmac. She’d once thought Rion was the antithesis of her father, but now she had to wonder if they’d been two sides of the same coin all along.
But it seemed owning a plane was not enough for Rion, Libby acknowledged ruefully as she looked up and saw that he was also piloting it. She watched with a dry mouth as he disappeared from the cockpit and reappeared at the top of the steps, looking devastatingly sexy in a pair of dark aviator glasses and a casual white shirt with the cuffs rolled back, revealing his tanned forearms. Instinctively she reached up to undo the top button of her cotton blouse, feeling constricted.
‘The thought of being back in my company making you hot under the collar already, gineka mou?’ he asked dryly as he descended the steps to the satisfying sight of her waiting for him.
For a second inside his office—when she’d implied she had a titled lover waiting in the wings to marry her—there had been a small part of him which had wondered whether the combination of her desire for him, the promise of a private jet and the threat of lengthy court proceedings was enough to persuade her. But then he’d found her lingering outside, had felt her whole body ignite when she’d fallen against him, and he’d known for sure.
‘I’m glad,’ he added, ‘but I’m afraid you will have to hold that thought. Although my autopilot mode is exceptionally sophisticated, I’m not sure it would be wise to join you in the cabin for the length of time I intend to spend making love to you.’
A shiver of pleasure rippled through her, but as soon as Libby clocked her automatic response she stopped it in its tracks, suddenly afraid. Daring to hope that he was serious about giving their marriage a second chance was one thing, but starting to believe he felt anything other than lukewarm in her presence was a different delusion altogether—a dangerous one. And suddenly she foresaw how easily he could trample all over her heart if she went into this with rose-tinted glasses on.
No, she was safest going into this from the standpoint that remaining married was irrational and that he was no more excited by her now than he had been during the months of their marriage. If he presented her with actual evidence to the contrary—well, that would be the time to re-evaluate her views.
‘What’s wrong with the cockpit?’ she challenged audaciously.
Rion’s eyes flared in shock. So, the innocent young girl he’d married was long gone, and in her place was an experienced adulteress, who only yesterday had been claiming she needed the divorce to move on with another man, and was now suggesting they make love at the earliest opportunity. To his infinite frustration his disgust was accompanied by the overwhelming urge to take her right here on the tarmac, and an erection so hard it was painful.
And it made him furious—because it seemed that no matter how she behaved, she still reminded him of his lack of refinement. She always had. He drew in a ragged breath. But at least he’d feel no shame taking her back to his house in Metameikos, no shame in flying her there on his plane. Unlike five years ago, after their pitiful wedding, when he’d been forced to take her on the bus back to that shabby rented apartment. He smarted in distaste. From the second he’d opened the front door of that place—the only one in Athens he’d been able to afford—all the self-belief that maybe he could be good enough for her had evaporated. He’d never felt more ashamed of who he was in his life.
And he knew she’d never felt more ashamed of him—she’d been so desperate to escape it, her lack of faith in him so unequivocal, that she’d even volunteered to work. But even though he’d done everything he could so that she didn’t have to, even though he’d avoided involving her in the sordid details of his pathetic day job, worked every hour there was to try and save for their own place—a place she could be proud of—it had never been enough.
And it never will be, a voice inside him taunted, even though you fought so hard for all this because you believed if you succeeded she’d come crawling back.
No—that was a lie. That hadn’t been the reason. His determination might have doubled the day she left, but he’d succeeded for himself, and for Jason, his brother.
He turned away from her, his voice terse. ‘You will be travelling in the cabin.’
There wasn’t any evidence to the contrary then, Libby acknowledged with ridiculous disappointment. She really didn’t excite him. And the sooner he admitted it, the sooner she could silence the what ifs? She ducked down, pretending to look for another pair of legs on the opposite side of the plane. ‘Because you have a co-pilot joining you up front?’
‘No. I fly alone.’
She walked towards the steps defiantly. ‘Then there is no reason why I shouldn’t join you, is there?’
It was only when he’d followed her in and sat down beside her that she realised in fighting so hard to prove that he didn’t really want her she’d just inadvertently guaranteed their close proximity for the duration of the flight.
‘How long will it take us to get to Metameikos?’ she asked hesitantly.
‘Just under an hour.’
No time at all, she thought, trying to feel relieved as he hit the starter switch and took the controls. But they hadn’t even taken off yet, and she was already transfixed by the sight of his long-fingered hands manoeuvring the complex equipment, unable to prevent herself remembering how they had once felt against her bare skin.
God, why did looking at him keep making her think about sex?
She moved awkwardly in her seat and tried to think of a logical answer. Maybe it was because he’d been the object of her first teenage crush, and somehow that made him the blueprint for the kind of man she found attractive. But, whilst his dark Mediterranean looks had been a novelty to her at fifteen, she’d met plenty of men since who fitted that description. The language teacher at the night classes she’d enrolled in as her first act of freedom once she’d arrived back in England; one or two of the other tour guides that Kate—whom she’d met at those language classes—had introduced her to when she’d expressed her enthusiasm for travel; the multitude of men she’d inevitably met the world over once she’d started filling in. But none of them had made her feel this irrepressible physical hunger.
Or maybe it was just that he was the only man she’d ever made love with, and like Pavlov’s dogs, who had salivated when they heard bells ringing because they had come to associate that sound with food, her body had connected the sight of him and the smell of him with sex. Yes, that was probably it. She just needed to uncondition her response, to associate him with something negative instead—the way he’d become so obsessed with money, perhaps. She took a deep breath, relieved to have alighted on a course of action that would bring about an end to it.
‘So, when did you learn to fly?’ she asked, deciding to lead the conversation down the ‘needless luxury’ route.
‘Years ago, for research. Flying lessons were one of the first gift experiences I decided to market, along with luxury driving days,’ he answered, handing her some headphones as they approached the runway.
It was genius, Libby realised, for the first time contemplating how he’d made his money. He’d recognised other people’s dreams and found a way of offering them neatly packaged in a box. But then that had always been what he did best—it was what had once persuaded her father to promote him from valet to salesman to showroom manager. He’d always known exactly which element of an Ashworth motor to push, depending on the customer and their body language. Speed and performance for men on the brink of a mid-life crisis; style and sex-appeal for the computer geek who’d just earned his first million; an investment opportunity for the retired banker and safety features for his anxious wife.
But did his customers ever really get everything they’d dreamed of? Or was the reality quite different? Libby thought bleakly, unable to help making a comparison with their marriage as they took off.
Marrying Rion had been her dream from the very first day she’d seen him—when she’d taken her father some papers he’d forgotten and caught Rion looking up at her from the 1964 Ashworth Elite he’d been polishing with those devastating liquid brown eyes. She’d been so infatuated that it hadn’t occurred to her that neither of them were ready for marriage, full-stop.
And it was no wonder she had felt that way really, she thought as they soared above Athens, the Parthenon shrinking to the size of a hotel on a Monopoly board below them. Because not only had he looked so different from the suitors her father had kept forcing her to meet, but when the furtive looks between them had eventually turned to snatched conversation on the days when her father was off-site, she’d discovered he was different. So unpretentious, and so exciting. He hadn’t spent their conversations praising her father or calculating the acreage of the Ashworth estate; he’d talked to her about the travel books she liked to read, about the customs in Greece—which had seemed the most exotic place in the world to Libby, who’d never left Surrey, and whose long, monotonous days had been spent walled up inside Ashworth Manor and its grounds.
Libby felt a tightness around her wrists and her ankles at the memory of how her father had deemed even a walk to the village shops too much autonomy, even in her late teens. How her mother, plagued by the guilt her husband had made her feel for never producing a son, had enforced every rule he created.
And so her conversations with Rion had become a ritual, however infrequent, which she’d survived on for the duration of her teenage years. And though the details they’d actually shared with one another during those conversations had been sparse—he’d rarely spoken about his childhood, and never mentioned any family other than his mother, who’d brought him to England when he was in his early teens—at the time she’d only seen that lack of information as a positive. He’d obviously had no wish to discuss what must have been a difficult period in his life, and she had understood that, because she’d had no wish to talk about her childhood either.
The whole appeal of their conversations had been that they’d offered an escape from that—a freshly created world where nothing that had gone before mattered. And, although she’d never really been able to see a way in which marriage to him might be possible, nor imagine exactly how it might be if it was, she hadn’t stopped dreaming about living in that world all the time.
Until one January day, not long after her nineteenth birthday, when she’d passed the showroom accidentally-on-purpose and found him actually waiting for her. He’d had a smile on his face so uncontainable that remembering it made her heart flip over even now.
‘Rion, what is it?’
‘Your father—he’s promoted me. I’m going to be the showroom manager.’
‘That’s fantastic!’ She beamed and threw her arms out, but just stopped short of embracing him, suddenly afraid that she might have imagined the significance of their conversations. Until he reached out and took her hands in his for the first time, and looked her straight in the eye.
‘It means that I’m going to be on a really decent salary.’
She nodded enthusiastically, her hands shaking.
He took a deep breath. ‘There’s something I want to ask you. That I’ve wanted to ask you for a long time. Before I didn’t think…but now…’
Libby’s heart rose ten inches in her chest.
She heard his breath come thick and fast, his voice shaky. ‘Would you consider marrying me, Liberty Ashworth?’
Her arms didn’t hesitate this time. She threw them round him, and then he kissed her. The first and most magical kiss of her entire life.
‘I know that technically I’m supposed to ask your father first, but—’
‘No…this is perfect,’ she breathed—because it was. The choice of who she married was hers, not anybody else’s, and it meant the world to her that he understood that.
But her father didn’t agree. When they went to ask for his blessing Thomas Ashworth fired Rion on the spot for his impudence.
‘I have promoted you from valet to showroom manager in four short years and that is still not enough for you? How dare you consider yourself worthy enough to even look at my daughter? I try to nurture your talent for selling and this is how you repay me?’ he spat. And then he made it clear to Libby that if she even tried to contact Orion again, he would banish her from the Ashworth family completely.
Her father had meant is as a threat, of course, but to Libby it had simply acted as an incentive. To swap her life of oppression for one of freedom. But it hadn’t been until she and Rion had eloped to Athens that she’d realised she’d been utterly naïve to suppose they could go on living in that imaginary world, that marriage to anyone could have given her the autonomy she’d so desperately needed.
Libby drew in a ragged breath as the view from the aircraft window became more rural, and ran her hand through the short length of her hair, frustrated that she’d recalled the past in such damned fine detail again. But then she’d always had remarkable powers of recollection. It was a blessing in her job—that she remembered every travel guide she’d ever read was what had convinced Kate to take her on in the first place, when her practical experience had been non-existent—but it felt like a curse now.
‘So, what business do you have in Metameikos?’ she said loudly above the noise of the plane, determined to distract herself from remembering any more.
She saw the edge of his lip curl in amusement. ‘For a minute there I thought the cat had got your tongue.’ He paused over the English phrase, as if it amused him to remember one so fitting. ‘What were you thinking about?’
‘Nothing in particular.’
‘No? I could have sworn you were looking at my hands, remembering how it felt to have them touch you.’
Colour flooded her cheeks. ‘So you’re a mind-reader and a pilot? Is there no end to the talents you’ve acquired in the last five years?’
‘I wasn’t reading your mind, gineka mou, I was reading your body.’
All too aware that he was an expert at that, Libby reverted to her original choice of subject. ‘So, what business do you have in Metameikos?’
‘I have some meetings to attend, some functions at which I need to make an appearance. Plus there are some things I need to sort out at my property before I settle there permanently.’
Libby was so surprised by this information that she let the frankly detailless description of his business go unchallenged. He’d barely mentioned Metameikos in the past, let alone expressed any desire to return there permanently.
‘You are making Metameikos your home? I always presumed it didn’t mean that much to you.’
Rion’s lips barely moved. ‘It’s a business decision.’
‘But your main offices are in Athens, aren’t they?’
‘Indeed.’
Libby frowned. That he’d as good as stated he had no emotional attachment to the place came as no surprise to her—especially now that it appeared he had no emotional attachment to anything other than money—but then why move there? She didn’t know a great deal about Metameikos, compared with her detailed knowledge of many other parts of the world, but she did know that it was no Athens when it came to its business credentials. What she could recall was that it was Greece’s only independent province and that it was pretty much divided in two—one half being one of the poorest areas of the whole country, where she knew Rion had grown up, whilst the other was full of luxury holiday homes belonging to the very wealthy. If she remembered correctly, it was best known for a well-preserved ancient amphitheatre somewhere in the middle. There were no prizes for guessing which side they were heading to now, but why he planned on staying there permanently was a mystery.
‘I hope to have an office in Metameikos too, soon.’
Libby nodded, but remained unconvinced. She supposed if he was branching out into all aspects of the leisure industry then the location was a desirable one for watersports and the like, but it still puzzled her. Maybe it was some kind of tax haven. ‘Your meetings these next couple of weeks are related to that, then?’
‘Indirectly,’ he replied vaguely. ‘This evening we will attend a play at the amphitheatre there.’
‘A play?’ she repeated back at him in astonishment, surprised not only that his time would be spent on something other than crunching numbers, but also that he wanted her to join him.
Rion gritted his teeth. So, she thought a man like him wasn’t capable of enjoying a little culture. ‘How is it that you are so adamant we lay the past to rest, when it is perfectly obvious you will never forget mine?’
She frowned. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I mean that much has changed.’
‘Has it?’ she asked, a flicker of hope igniting in her heart as the plane touched down, his landing utterly flawless.
‘Why don’t you see for yourself?’ he asked, inclining his head towards the extensive property spanning the horizon. ‘We’re here.’
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Sabrina Philips
The two-week marriage bargain Trembling with trepidation, Libby Delikaris braves the lion’s den to ask her Greek husband for a divorce. But he’s more merciless than Libby remembers, and she suddenly finds her plan has crumbled.The infamous Rion Delikaris knew Libby would return before long. He’s been patiently waiting. No longer the boy from the slums, he’s ready to show his wife what she’s been missing!Rion’s offer: a two-week reconciliation…and he’ll make sure she honours all her wedding vows!
‘I—’
‘Really ought to think very carefully about exactly what you want,’ he finished for her.
He reached for a slip of paper from the inside drawer of his desk and scribbled down an address. ‘I’m travelling to Metameikos on business tomorrow afternoon. Should you wish to join me, we leave from this airstrip at four.’
She did a double-take. ‘Sorry?’
‘I’m travelling to Metameikos tomorrow,’ he repeated, handing her the slip of paper. ‘Come with me and let me spend the next two weeks showing you why our getting divorced isn’t in the least bit logical. If I fail, then at the end I will sign.’
Libby’s mouth dropped open in shock.
Sabrina Philips first discovered Mills & Boon® one Saturday afternoon in her early teens at her first job in a charity shop. Sorting through a stack of preloved books, she came across a cover which featured a glamorous heroine and a tall, dark, handsome hero. She started reading under the counter that instant—and has never looked back!
A lover of both reading and writing since childhood, Sabrina went on to study English with Classics at Reading University. She adores all literature, but finds there’s nothing else quite like the indulgent thrill of a Modern™ Romance—preferably whilst lying in a hot bath with no distractions!
She grew up in Guildford, Surrey, where she now lives with her husband—who swept her off her feet when they were both just sixteen. When Sabrina isn’t spending time with her family or writing, she works as a co-ordinator of civil marriages, which she describes as a fantastic source of romantic inspiration and a great deal of fun.
A decade after reading her very first Mills & Boon, Sabrina is delighted to join as an author herself, and have the opportunity to create infuriatingly sexy heroes of her own, which she defies both her heroines—and her readers—to resist! Visit Sabrina’s website: www.sabrinaphilips.com
Recent titles by the same author:
VALENTI’S ONE-MONTH MISTRESS
THE SHEIKH’S BEJEWELLED BRIDE
PRINCE OF MONTEZ, PREGNANT MISTRESS
Greek Tycoon, Wayward Wife
By
Sabrina Philips
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Phil For planting the seed of an idea in my mind And for keeping me sane whilst it grew
CHAPTER ONE
‘I’M AFRAID, Mr Delikaris, that you are still behind Spyros in the opinion polls.’
Orion glared at the bar chart projected on the wall, and then at the pessimistic expression of his campaign manager, who sat beside him at the long, highly polished table. A nerve spasmed at his jaw in disapproval. Orion never allowed himself to contemplate failure. He expected the members of his team to think the same way. That was what he paid them for.
‘We have made progress,’ the man continued anxiously, sensing Orion’s displeasure, ‘Especially since the campaign has focussed on how much you are willing to invest in both affordable housing and the new hospital. It’s just not quite as much progress as we had estimated.’
He clicked the button in his hand and the image on the wall changed to a far more positively weighted graph, which only served to irritate Orion further, since it proved that his team’s predictions had been wholly inaccurate.
Orion pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘So, despite the fact that our policies are exactly what Metameikos needs, a man who is as corrupt as his father was before him is still the most popular candidate?’ He looked down the table at the rest of his team. ‘Would anyone care to volunteer a reason why?’
A long, uneasy silence followed.
Finally a voice came from the opposite end of the table. ‘Perhaps people are wary about voting for you.’
There was a collective intake of breath. Rion slowly raised his head to see who had spoken. It was Stephanos, an assistant press officer and the newest member of his team. He was also the youngest. ‘Go on.’
‘People see you as a billionaire bachelor who has decided overnight, or so it seems to them, that you want to be their leader.’ Stephanos paused, awaiting Rion’s condemnation, but it didn’t come. It gave him the courage to elaborate. ‘Your promises may be what people want to hear, but these results show they clearly don’t trust you’ll deliver them. Perhaps they think you’re simply running on a whim—to try and prove that you can succeed at anything you choose—or perhaps they think that if you do get elected you’ll be too tied up with your business in Athens to devote the necessary time to the role. It’s not true, of course, but they don’t know that. People would rather vote for the devil they know.’
Orion studied Stephanos thoughtfully. The boy had guts. He liked that. It reminded him of himself. He also understood that politics was different from business, that people voted with their hearts, not necessarily in conjunction with their heads. Orion had always understood that too, but it hadn’t occurred to him that people would instinctively stick with what they had rather than take an outside chance. He would always have taken the chance.
‘So, what would you have me do?’
The rest of the men around the table exchanged astonished looks. His campaign manager looked affronted.
Stephanos took a deep breath and continued. ‘For people to trust you they need to be able to relate to you, to see that your concerns, your values, are the same as theirs—good old-fashioned Greek values.’
Orion grimaced. His values were good old-fashioned Greek values—always had been. ‘I grew up in Metameikos,’ he said gravely. What had happened there had made him who he was.
‘Then convince them you still think of it as home,’ Stephanos replied animatedly. ‘That the house you’ve bought there isn’t just another property, but that you plan to settle down there.’
‘And how do you suggest I do that?’
‘Honestly?’ Stephanos paused, a note of hesitancy entering his voice for the first time, ‘In my opinion, the best solution would be to return to Metameikos with a wife.’
The receptive look on Rion’s face immediately vanished and his expression grew dark, ‘Then I hope you have an alternative solution,’ he ground out, ‘because that is not an option.’
Libby stared at the huge three-dimensional Delikaris logo rotating hubristically in its own fountain, at the enormous revolving glass doors which formed the entrance of his state-of-the-art office, and told herself again that this was the right thing to do. It was the same thing she’d been telling herself ever since she’d discovered that she’d be required to cover the Greek tours for the duration of Zoe’s maternity leave.
But she’d been finding excuses not to ever since arriving in Athens a week ago, and even now she still had the urge to run in the opposite direction. Which was completely and utterly ridiculous, because of course it was the right thing to do. It was time they both moved on for good. How could it be anything else when she and Rion hadn’t spoken in five years?
It was just that being back in Athens, having to pass the city hall, the old apartment block, had brought her memories to the surface—that was all. But that was all they were: memories. She just felt this way because they hadn’t seen each other since back then, and she was remembering the man she’d once been in love with, when the reality was she’d probably barely recognise him now.
If the exterior of his office was anything to go by, he’d be much changed. And so was she. Whilst she’d been off leading low-cost tours around the globe, with only a guidebook and a battered rucksack on her back, he mustn’t have spent a single day out of his suit, must have worked every hour since to achieve all this.
Was that why he’d never got his lawyers onto it, then? Libby wondered for the umpteenth time. Had he been so focussed on his work that the legalities had simply slipped his mind? As she finally forced herself to take on the revolving doors, and found herself deposited in a vast, gleaming reception area, she could well believe he had.
‘Can I help you?’ the glossy-haired receptionist ventured, shooting a condescending glance over her tiedyed dress and comfy leather sandals. Libby grew suddenly conscious that she was the only woman in the busy entrance hall who wasn’t wearing a pair of impossibly high, pointy stilettos and a designer business suit, but she didn’t let it faze her.
‘I was hoping to see Orion Delikaris—’
‘Have you an appointment?’
Libby knew that trying to speak to him at his office was hardly ideal, but without his address, or any means of obtaining it, she had no other alternative. ‘No, but as it’s lunchtime I thought—’
The receptionist tossed her head and gave a snort of laughter. ‘Then you thought wrong. Mr Delikaris does not have time for a lunch break. He is an exceptionally busy man.’
Libby didn’t need to be reminded. Didn’t doubt that he’d only got busier. But surely after five years he could spare her ten minutes?
‘Maybe you will be so kind as to call Mr Delikaris and let him decide whether he wishes to see me,’ she said, with emphatic sweetness. She’d once negotiated borrowing twenty-two camels to take an entire tour group across the desert at night, when a coach hadn’t turned up, so she’d be dammed if she was going to be frightened off by a woman whose deadliest weapon was immaculate grooming and an over-inflated sense of self-importance.
The woman exhaled through her teeth, wearily lifted the receiver of her phone and tapped a button with one perfectly manicured talon. ‘Electra, darling, so sorry to disturb you. I have a woman here who insists that we notify Mr Delikaris that she is in Reception. Mmm. Yes, another one. She seems to think if he knows she’s here he’ll agree to see her.’
She turned back to Libby. ‘Your name, please?’
Libby took a deep breath. ‘My name is Libby Delikaris,’ she replied. ‘I’m his wife.’
The office was silent.
‘I’m afraid there’s no alternative solution as far as I can see,’ Stephanos answered. ‘You can continue to spend as much time in Metameikos as possible; support local businesses, attend local events and keep trying to get the Mayor on side, but I don’t think anything but getting married is going to truly convince people you plan to settle down there.’
Rion grimaced. ‘I repeat. Marriage is out of the question.’
Stephanos was surprised that the man who’d sworn he would stop at nothing to win this election wouldn’t even consider his suggestion, but decided it would be wise to drop it. ‘Oh, well, even that would have been no guarantee. Without a long-term girlfriend it might have looked a little too much like a publicity stunt—especially so close to the election.’
The intercom on the desk behind Rion suddenly burst into life.
He swooped across to it, his voice curt. ‘Yes?’
‘I’m very sorry to interrupt you, Mr Delikaris, but there’s a woman in Reception who is demanding we inform you that she’s here.’
‘Who is it?’
There was a loaded pause. ‘She says her name is Libby Delikaris and that…she’s your wife.’
Rion didn’t move—couldn’t. The instantaneous flood of pleasure that ran over him was so profound it rendered him motionless.
At last she had returned. At last she deemed him worthy enough.
It was the moment he’d been waiting for—far, far too long. Not because he gave a damn about her opinion any longer, he qualified quickly. But because now, finally, he could take his revenge.
He straightened victoriously. As he did, he caught sight of his team out of the corner of his eye, and suddenly the fortuity of her timing struck him. She had chosen to come crawling back now, just when he needed to convince the world he was all about good old-fashioned Greek values. His eyes glittered, and his mouth curved into a sardonic smile. How convenient.
He pressed the button on the intercom and replied with perfect composure, ‘Thank you. Send her up.’
Rion sensed every eye in the room widen. It was understandable; he’d never mentioned her. But then he never spoke about failed ventures or the past. Since she fell into both categories, he did his best not to even think about her. Sometimes he even succeeded.
‘Apologies, gentlemen. I’m afraid we will need to continue this meeting at another time.’
The men cleared the room without another word. Only Stephanos lingered.
‘You know, an alternative way of convincing people you are the settling kind has just this minute occurred to me,’ he said wryly, looking Rion straight in the eye and walking backwards towards the door. ‘Nothing melts hearts like a reunion story.’
Libby hadn’t used his surname for five years; hadn’t called herself his wife for just as long. If the look of shock on the receptionist’s face was anything to go by, Rion hadn’t mentioned her existence either. Yet it seemed his instruction to send her up immediately was proof enough that she was telling the truth, for within seconds the receptionist had become politeness personified—even explaining in detail how Libby could get to his office on the top floor via the stairs when she mentioned she’d rather not use the lift.
As she ascended the stairs, Libby ignored the doubts churning in her stomach and told herself to get a grip. What they’d had once was already lost, the emotional side of it dealt with long ago. This was just a formality, bound to be nothing more than a slightly awkward but amicable exchange between two people who were virtual strangers to one another now, she tried to convince herself. Maybe when it was over she’d even feel the complete sense of freedom she’d always been searching for but had never quite found. She clung to that thought as she arrived on the top floor, passed through a landing area, and then proceeded along a corridor to knock on a large mahogany door emblazoned with his name.
‘Come in.’
Yes, in theory the emotional side should have been dealt with long ago, but the instant she saw him Libby knew that she had been seriously mistaken.
Of course she was well aware that Orion Delikaris was the most desirable man on the planet. She hadn’t expected that to have changed. But she had expected that age and wealth would have altered him at least fractionally. Instead, to her horror, save for the fact that his suit now looked ludicrously expensive, everything was exactly as she remembered. His strong, proud jaw, his resplendent dark hair, those liquid brown eyes that had fuelled her teenage fantasies and shaped her adult ones. Which had gazed right back at her on their wedding day, their wedding night.
She blinked, blocking out the memories, blocking out the urge to run again—away from feelings she shouldn’t be feeling any more. ‘Hello, Rion,’ she managed, somehow.
Rion ran his eyes over her, frustrated to find that the action induced the most powerful kick of arousal he’d felt in years. But he knew it was only because his body still saw her as the woman who’d rejected him, was just responding the way it did to any challenge. The second she started begging him to take her back his desire would evaporate. And yet it annoyed him that she should still get to him that way—especially when she looked so…different. The thick blond hair which had once hung in a silken curtain down her back was gone, now cut short in the kind of style he usually considered unfeminine, but which somehow made her features look even more delicate. Her petite, pale figure, which had once driven him to distraction, had also disappeared, but in its place was an even more enticing mass of toned, sensual curves tanned to a beguiling shade of golden-brown.
He gritted his teeth. Which suggested she spent her life on holiday. That would be about right: Caribbean beaches and designer shops, no doubt funded by her parents. Though somehow that image didn’t seem to fit with the clothes she was dressed in. Perhaps Ashworth Motors had fallen on hard times. A perverse part of him hoped that it had. It would make telling her no—after she’d been of use to him, of course—all the sweeter.
‘So tell me,’ he said, unable to fathom her delay if that was the case, ‘what took you so long?’
Libby was taken aback by his question, by his implacable expression that bordered on hostile, but she told herself it was understandable. She, for all the good it had done her, had at least been able to prepare herself mentally for seeing him again. He’d had no such luxury.
‘I took the stairs,’ she answered, looking up at the clock on the wall and noting that she’d only been five minutes. She was about to shoot out You know I don’t do lifts, but then she remembered that he didn’t know, that he’d really known so little about her, and she about him.
And they knew even less about each other now, which was why not doing this was ludicrous. ‘I apologise if this isn’t a good time.’
He gave a wry smile. ‘On the contrary, now is the perfect time—but that wasn’t what I meant. I’ve been expecting you for years, Liberty.’
Libby wanted to correct him, to tell him she never let anyone call her that any more, but the revelation that he’d been expecting her, that he obviously agreed this was the right thing to be doing, was so welcome that she let it pass.
‘You mean you have been trying to contact me? I’m sorry. I did wonder if you had, but I’ve been overseas almost permanently. Bank statements from three years ago are only just starting to catch up with me.’
‘If I had wanted to find you I would not have failed.’
But he hadn’t wanted to find her. What would have been the sense, when he’d always known she would come crawling back once he’d made it, that he would have his chance to turn the tables—make the humiliation hers instead of his? Yes, it had been far too long coming, but he wouldn’t have denied himself this moment for anything—would have waited fifty years if that was what it had taken.
Libby frowned.
‘I rather expected you to come back the first time my name appeared on the International Rich List. Or have you been waiting for me to reach the top ten?’
Her relief evaporated. He thought her coming here had to do with money? She stared back at him in disbelief, and in that instant she realised her initial appraisal had been wrong. He had changed. Grown harder, more cynical. Perhaps she ought to be relieved that he was the stranger to her she’d imagined after all. Instead she just felt sad. ‘I don’t read things like that. I never did.’
He gestured around his enormous office, to the rooftop garden adjacent and the incredible view of the Acropolis, and raised his eyebrow cynically. ‘You mean you weren’t aware that my circumstances have changed?’
‘Of course. But that has nothing to do with why I’m here.’
Rion gave a disparaging laugh. So in many ways she was the same old Liberty Ashworth. Still intent on denying that money mattered to her. That explained her nomadic-looking clothes, at least. They were obviously just part of her plan to convince him she didn’t care about material things any more.
‘So, if not because of my change of circumstances, why have you returned?’ he drawled, deciding to humour her.
Libby took a deep breath, aware that the moment had come. ‘I’m here because it’s been five years, and we should have sorted this out a long time ago,’ she said softly, opening her bag and sliding a sheaf of papers across the table.
Rion didn’t register what she was saying at first. He was too busy watching her face, the flush of colour that had risen in her cheeks at the sight of him, guessing how long she was going to keep up the act. But when he realised she was waiting for him to respond he dropped his eyes to the table—and that was when he saw it.
Libby felt a plunging sense of guilt as she watched his eyes widen in horror, guilt, and disbelief in equal measure. Surely he couldn’t really be that surprised?
Petition for Divorce.
Rion stared down at the words, reeling inwardly in both shock and fury. But the shock was only momentary. It was obvious, really. Despite all he’d achieved, the millions he’d earned, he still lacked the right pedigree for the daughter of Lord and Lady Ashworth, didn’t he?
‘Of course,’ he said bitterly.
Libby swallowed down the lump in her throat. ‘Then you agree that getting this paperwork sorted is long overdue?’
He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, anger and agony warring in his chest. When he’d imagined the moment of her return it had never been like this.
But the second he realised that anger was starting to win out he forced his eyes open. He would not allow himself to feel that pain—not a second time. So she wanted a divorce? So what? He wanted one too. The only reason he hadn’t had it finalised already was because he’d been waiting for the chance to savour his revenge. And who was to say this wasn’t that chance anyway? Fate, he’d come to understand, worked in mysterious ways.
He looked up at her face. The flush of colour in her cheeks was bordering on crimson. She might not want to return as his wife, but it was obvious she did want his body as much as she always had, as much as he still wanted hers—whether he liked it or not. Maybe reminding her that she would never stop desiring him, however low her opinion of him remained, would be even more satisfying. Not to mention useful.
A slow smile spread across his lips. He didn’t need her good opinion. He needed his wife by his side for the duration of his campaign, and he wanted her back in his bed one final time. Then he could discard her, exactly as she had discarded him—with a bit of luck at the exact moment he’d proved to her that her physical desire for him went deeper than any class divide.
‘No, gineka mou,’ he said deliberately, curling his tongue deliberately around the Greek for my wife. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t agree.’
The hint of menace in his voice started a pulse of trepidation behind her ribcage, but she refused to accept that its presence was justified. He was just worried about getting stung financially. ‘Please, have it checked out by your lawyers, if you wish. They’ll confirm I’m not asking you for anything.’
‘Nor would you get anything if you were,’ he replied, his tone so cold that it felt as if someone had dropped an ice cube down her back, demolishing every last hope of being able to discuss this amicably as it fell.
‘So enlighten me,’ he continued, wondering if she actually possessed the gall to come out and say it. ‘If not for money, why do you want to get divorced from me so badly?’
‘Because it’s ridiculous not to,’ she justified. ‘Legally we’re each other’s next of kin, but we don’t even know each other’s phone numbers any more. When I fill in a form I still have to tick the “married” box, even though I haven’t seen you for half a decade. It’s a lie.’
Rion looked at her intensely. ‘It wasn’t once.’
No, Libby thought bleakly, shocked that he’d brought emotions into it, and had managed to do so with just three small words. It wasn’t once. A montage of images flashed through her mind: Athens under an unexpected foot of February snow, falling like nature’s cold confetti. Tucking her hired wedding dress into her Wellington boots. Coercing two frozen passers-by to witness their simple ceremony in the town hall in exchange for the promise of hot chocolate. Their wedding day had been the first day in her life which hadn’t felt like a lie.
‘No,’ she admitted, trying to keep her voice level, ‘it wasn’t once. But it is now. It’s been five years.’
‘Indeed it has. Five years in which you could have come asking for this, but didn’t. So why now?’
She shrugged self-consciously, his words forcing her to ask herself the same question. Why had she waited so long? Because all this time she’d been hoping…? No, she’d always known they could never go back.
‘I always supposed you’d get in touch about it. Then I was too busy abroad to worry, but when my job required me to come to Athens it seemed crazy not to take the opportunity to sort things out amicably, in person.’
‘You think that there is an amicable way of divorcing your Greek husband?’ He shook his head. ‘Then you do not know very much about Greek men, gineka mou.’
‘I presumed that as a Greek you were a man of logic—able to see that there is no sense in remaining married when what was once between us has been over for half a decade.’
‘If that was the case, then I would,’ he breathed, and to Libby it felt as though the temperature in the room had dropped to sub-zero. ‘But it’s not. You still want me. I can see it. You always have, from the moment you laid eyes on me.’ He took a step towards her. ‘And even though you ran thousands of miles away from me, you still want me—don’t you?’
Libby felt her face flush instantly crimson. ‘Even if that were true, sexual attraction is no reason to stay married.’ Especially sexual attraction which had been one-sided from the moment they’d said their vows, she thought wretchedly, knowing he was just trying to find ways to talk her out of it because he thought he needed to protect his bank balance.
‘It’s a reason that’s a hell of a lot more substantial than the ones you’ve given me for getting divorced.’
Libby frantically searched her mind. ‘That’s not true. There are plenty of other reasons why getting a divorce is the most logical thing to do. I mean…maybe…maybe you’ll want to marry someone else in the future.’ The thought made her feel physically sick, but she ploughed on. ‘Maybe I’ll want to marry someone else too.’ She couldn’t imagine it ever being true right now, but at least it might convince him it was time they both moved on, that she had no financial motive.
‘So finally we get to why you are really here,’ he breathed. ‘Who is it? Let me guess. An earl perhaps? A duke?’
Libby took a sharp breath, not anticipating that he’d jump to the conclusion that she meant she was with someone now, but at the same time noticing the way his hand had moved back towards the divorce papers, as if he was finally starting to see sense.
‘Does it matter?’ she goaded.
Rion gritted his teeth in frustration, imagining some effeminate member of the English aristocracy with his hands all over her perfect body. He’d always forbidden himself to think about it in the intervening years, but he’d known her sexual betrayal was likely, for she’d been the most responsive lover he’d ever had. So responsive that at times he’d found it near impossible to show her the kind of restraint he’d thought she’d deserved. Which she never had, he thought grimly, his desire doubling at the thought of taking her with the full force of his need, proving that, even though he’d never be good enough in her eyes, no one else would ever turn her on the way he did.
‘Since I’m your husband, I don’t suppose it does matter who he is,’ he said, moving his hand away from the table again.
Libby shook her head despairingly. When had he got so cold?
‘But what possible advantage is there to remaining married? For the last five years I’ve been on the other side of the world.’
‘You’re not on the other side of the world any more.’
She shook her head exasperatedly, deciding to call his bluff. ‘So what are you saying, that instead of signing this divorce paper you want me to back as your wife for real?’
‘Yes, gineka mou. That’s precisely what I’m saying.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘YOU can’t be serious,’ she stammered.
‘I’m perfectly serious.’
Libby stared at him in disbelief. How many times had she dreamed of hearing him say that? Dreamed that all this time he’d never forgotten her the way she’d never forgotten him, that now that they were both older, had had the time to find themselves, they could find one another again? More times than she wanted to admit.
It was the deeply buried part of her heart responsible for those dreams which wanted to believe they were coming true now, but her head knew that was not what was happening. Because she didn’t see before her a man who wanted to get to know her again, who was looking at her with hope. She saw a man who was afraid that she was after his fortune, who was prepared to do anything to protect it.
She took a shaky step in the direction of the door. ‘I shouldn’t have come here. I’ll instruct my solicitor to be in touch. Perhaps when he tells you that I want nothing from you, you’ll believe it.’
He took a step towards her. ‘You aren’t curious to find out whether the sex between us is as good now as it was then?’
Libby’s breath caught in her throat. She could smell the distinctive scent of him, which she’d always thought would sell by the ton if it could be bottled. But there was no way it could be, because it didn’t contain any tangible ingredients. It was the smell of pure male heat, energy, virility, as potent as the first taste of mint on the tongue. It was overlaid with some expensive aftershave now, but she felt in danger of bursting into flames before she even got a whiff of that. And maybe she would have, if not for the cold douse of remembrance that she had never made him feel anything other than lukewarm in return.
‘Come on, Rion, don’t pretend I satisfied you in the bedroom any more than I satisfied you in any other area once we were married.’
He stared at her, almost unsure that he’d heard her correctly. Didn’t she know that even now he was fighting to stop himself from lying her back against the desk and making her his in the most basic way there was? That, despite how far he’d come, she alone seemed to possess the unwelcome ability to remind him how un-refined he truly was?
‘You think I’m pretending? Then stay. I can assure you I will take great pleasure in convincing you that I’m not.’
Libby shook her head. He was just trying to use her weakness for him against her. ‘You can drop the act, Rion. I know you’re only afraid that I’m after your money.’
‘Oh, I am, am I?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Or do I just want to give our marriage a second chance?’
Libby swallowed hard, felt her heart begin to pound, felt it echo at her temples, ‘No…I know you don’t.’
‘Well, if you’re so sure then I guess this is it,’ he said, his eyes never leaving hers as he swiftly slid the divorce papers back across the table towards her. ‘But I don’t doubt we’ll be seeing plenty of each other in court. If you still intend to proceed, that is?’
‘I—’
‘You really ought to think very carefully about exactly what you want,’ he cautioned, as he reached for a slip of paper from the inside drawer of his desk and scribbled down an address. ‘I’m travelling to Metameikos on business tomorrow afternoon. Should you wish to join me, we leave from this airstrip at four.’
She did a double-take. ‘Sorry?’
‘I’m travelling to Metameikos tomorrow,’ he repeated, handing her the slip of paper. ‘Come with me and let me spend the next two weeks showing you why getting divorced isn’t in the least bit logical. If I fail, then at the end I will sign.’
Libby’s mouth dropped open in shock.
She’d been sure he’d only suggested trying again to protect his bank balance. But now…
‘Even if…I can’t—I’m supposed to be working out some potential new tours for next season before my first group arrives,’ she stuttered.
Rion frowned. ‘Tours?’
‘It’s my job,’ she said, realising she’d never explained what had brought her to Athens in the first place. ‘I work for a company called Kate’s Escapes.’
So she was working, he thought in surprise. In the tourist industry. That explained the tan, but not why. Surely Ashworth Motors had to have fallen on hard times. ‘So come to Metameikos.’ He shrugged. ‘Work out a potential tour there. The scenery is the most beautiful in all of Greece.’
Libby’s eyes widened even further.
‘I…I—’
‘Shouldn’t make an impetuous decision, gineka mou,’ he finished for her, striding forward and pinning back the door. ‘Think about it. You have until tomorrow to decide.’
And with that he ushered her out of the door and closed it behind her.
Outside his office, Libby stood rooted to the spot, not sure she was capable of the neurological function required to make it down the stairs.
He’d said he wanted to see whether they could make their marriage work. Even more astounding than that, he’d asked her to go away with him, to work alongside him, in Metameikos.
They weren’t the kind of statements that sounded particularly momentous. They didn’t offer an answer to world peace or hint at a cure for some deadly disease. But to Libby they stopped her world on its axis and started it rotating in the opposite direction from the one in which it had been spinning for the last five years.
Because it showed her that he might be ready for marriage now, in a way that neither of them had been before.
For never, in the three months they had spent together as husband and wife, had he seemed to want to spend time with her or share his work with her, and he’d only ever discouraged her from working. Nor had he ever really spoken of Metameikos, never mind suggested he had attachment enough to return to the place where he’d grown up.
Libby leaned back against the door, her memories surfacing like lava in a volcano disturbed.
No, from the day they’d arrived in Athens, his focus had always been on leaving the past behind him and making it on his own. And whilst she’d been delighted to escape her tyrannical father and leave her past behind too, she’d arrived with a head full of dreams. Dreams about living a life which didn’t revolve around money and status, but love and freedom. But they’d barely finished saying their vows when he’d thrown himself into working eighteen-hour days. She’d virtually never seen him, and on the rare occasions when she had, all he’d done was talk about moving to a bigger apartment, putting money down on a house, finding an investor in his business idea.
At first Libby had admired his diligence. She knew very little about his childhood, but what she did know was that, unlike her, he’d grown up with nothing, on the poor side of Metameikos. It was understandable that getting another decent job was important to him—especially after the way her father had treated him—and she knew they couldn’t survive on their wits alone. But as he’d come home later and later every day, she’d found his obsession harder and harder and harder to cope with. Because she had known that simply working eight-hour days earned him enough to cover the rent and the bills, so why did he feel the need to work any more? If he loved her, wasn’t spending his evenings and his weekends with her worth more than overtime pay?
It hadn’t seemed to be. And as the weeks had passed she’d begun to wonder if he had ever really loved her at all. Because not only had it appeared to fail to cross his mind that a life spent isolated and alone, wondering if and when he was going to come home from work, was nothing like the life she’d imagined when she’d married him, but he hadn’t even really talked to her about his job either—hadn’t involved her in the very thing that had determined the course of her days. The same way it had been with her father and Ashworth Motors. Perhaps she could have dealt with that if they’d shared other things, but he’d never seemed to have time for anything else—save for lovemaking, late at night, when he came home. But he’d only ever seemed disappointed in that.
And eventually she’d had to admit to herself that she was disappointed with their marriage too. Yes, in marrying him she’d escaped the physical restrictions her father had placed on her, avoided marrying a suitor of his choosing, but being Mrs Delikaris hadn’t really felt much different from being Miss Ashworth. She’d felt no more in control of her own life than she had before. What had happened to her chance to just be Libby?
It had disappeared, she had finally admitted to herself one day, three months after their wedding. And unless she did something about it, their marriage was going to destroy her.
He had been tying his tie in the bedroom the following morning, when she’d finally plucked up the courage. ‘Rion, before you leave for work again there’s something I want to talk to you about.’
‘Oh?’
She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve decided to apply for a job at the language school down the road.’
It wasn’t going to solve all her problems, but it might be a start. She’d wanted to get a job ever since they’d arrived, for herself as well as to help out with paying the bills, but he’d told her it wasn’t necessary. She realised now she should have fought harder.
‘They’re looking for native English-speakers to help with classes,’ she continued, ‘and I thought an extra bit of cash coming in might mean you needn’t spend so much time working.’
He shook his head. ‘I told you before, it’s not necessary for you to get a job.’
She sucked in a frustrated breath. Couldn’t he see that she needed a life of her own? ‘But I want to. I’ll be able to learn Greek whilst I’m there and—’
‘I promised you a private tutor.’ He looked pained. ‘And you will have one—just as soon as I secure an investment.’
‘But I don’t want to wait that long. I can’t even greet the neighbours!’
Rion’s face contorted. ‘I can assure you it won’t be that long.’
She shook her head. ‘Even so, it isn’t just that. I want to go to a class, to meet other people.’ Her shoulders dropped. ‘When you’re at work I just feel so…lonely.’
Rion blinked up at her. ‘I am more than willing to have a child, if that is what you mean.’
Libby’s eyes widened in disbelief. She’d always dreamed of having a family of her own one day, but not before she’d had the chance to really live herself, and certainly not now, when he was only suggesting having a baby as a solution to a problem.
A problem he didn’t even understand. And was it really any wonder? No, she realised, feeling her heart rupture, he couldn’t, because the truth was he didn’t even know her. They’d married so hastily that she’d hadn’t even had the time and space to get to know herself.
And in that instant Libby suddenly saw, as if a bolt of lightning had forked down from the sky and illuminated everything, that as long as she remained here she never would. That even if she stayed and fought and fought she would never really gain control of her own life. No, there was only one way to do that.
She shook her head. ‘No, Rion, a child isn’t what I want. I want—’ She dropped her eyelids and took a deep breath. ‘I don’t know exactly what I want, but I know it isn’t this. I…I don’t want to stay here.’
And that was the moment she discovered for sure that she was just as big a disappointment to him as he had been to her.
Rion grimaced. ‘Then go. I think we both know it’s been on the cards from the start.’
Libby drew in a ragged breath, forcing her eyes open and blinking under the bright artificial lights of the corridor outside his office, remembering the twin feelings of both heartbreak and release as she’d walked away. She couldn’t have gone on living that way. She had needed time to find herself, to take control of her life.
But now she had. And he was implying that he had too.
What was more, though it seemed so much had changed, her physical reaction to him most definitely hadn’t. She breathed out deeply, listening to the sound of her heart, still racing. In a way that shocked her most of all, and to her shame it was undoubtedly the hardest thing to fight. Because she’d been convinced she’d never felt anything like it in the intervening years for the simple reason that she was no longer a young girl in the throes of her first love affair. The reality, it seemed, was that there was just no other man on earth who could make her whole body go into meltdown quite the same way that he did. Just by looking at her.
And, whilst she knew that instructing a solicitor to proceed with the divorce the hard way was the logical thing to do, she couldn’t help it—her body longed for her to say yes. And so did her heart, because, no, they didn’t know each other now, but what if they got to know one another and rediscovered what they’d once had before all that? Then divorcing him would be a huge mistake. So shouldn’t she seize the chance to find out whether they could recapture it, even if the odds were minuscule and—?
Suddenly the ground gave way from under her, and she felt herself stumble backwards into hard, compacted muscle. As her mind played catch-up amongst the shock of lost footing and the treacherous thrill of arousal, she realised that to her enormous embarrassment Rion had just opened his office door. The one she’d been leaning against, with all of her weight. She leapt out of his arms, cheeks burning.
‘I was just…’ Libby exhaled, her mind completely blank. But then what excuse was there for being so utterly stupid as to remain leaning up against his door?
‘Oh, no need to explain,’ he said, his mouth quirking into a smile as he walked past her, his hands briefly brushing her sides as if to steady her. ‘Happens all the time.’
He hit the button for the lift and the doors opened immediately. He gestured for her to join him, but she shook her head frantically.
‘Until tomorrow, then,’ he said with a grin.
And before Libby had time to protest that she still had twenty-four hours in which to decide, and that taking a breather before going downstairs didn’t mean anything, the doors of the lift had already closed.
Which wouldn’t have been half so frustrating if they hadn’t both known he was right.
CHAPTER THREE
SHE’D had a whole sleepless night and the clarity of a morning in which to talk herself out if of it, but at three-thirty the following afternoon Libby found herself and her well-worn suitcase in a taxi on her way to the airstrip.
And she even seemed to be managing to sit still. For, although there was a part of her that was tempted to tell the driver to turn around and go as fast as he could in the opposite direction—the part which believed Rion had been far too cold in his office for this to end in anything other than heartache—over the course of the last twenty-four hours the rest of her had decided that going with Rion wasn’t just following her heart and her hormones, it was logical.
Because unless she went with him she’d never fully be able to move on, and that had been half the point of her seeking to finalise their separation in the first place. The logic was the same as if she’d been handed a lottery ticket. She’d know the chances of it containing the winning numbers were tiny, but until she checked she’d never know, and every day she’d wake up with a voice whispering what if? in her ear.
Not that if they had an actual lottery ticket it would matter to Rion whether it bore the lucky numbers or not, Libby thought ruefully as they drove alongside a hangar and a sparkling white plane bearing the striking Delikaris Experiences logo taxied round in a semi-circle and stopped in front of them. Because she was fast coming to realise that in their years apart his obsession with personal success had taken on gargantuan proportions.
Which suggested that the more she got to know him, the more she’d discover that they were incompatible. It was obvious that he cared about nothing other than money if he had earned so much in five years, and, what was more, he’d clearly chosen to spend it on flashy possessions like his own private jet. If she had that volume of cash she’d head straight back out to Africa and do some good with it. She shook her head as she stepped out onto the tarmac. She’d once thought Rion was the antithesis of her father, but now she had to wonder if they’d been two sides of the same coin all along.
But it seemed owning a plane was not enough for Rion, Libby acknowledged ruefully as she looked up and saw that he was also piloting it. She watched with a dry mouth as he disappeared from the cockpit and reappeared at the top of the steps, looking devastatingly sexy in a pair of dark aviator glasses and a casual white shirt with the cuffs rolled back, revealing his tanned forearms. Instinctively she reached up to undo the top button of her cotton blouse, feeling constricted.
‘The thought of being back in my company making you hot under the collar already, gineka mou?’ he asked dryly as he descended the steps to the satisfying sight of her waiting for him.
For a second inside his office—when she’d implied she had a titled lover waiting in the wings to marry her—there had been a small part of him which had wondered whether the combination of her desire for him, the promise of a private jet and the threat of lengthy court proceedings was enough to persuade her. But then he’d found her lingering outside, had felt her whole body ignite when she’d fallen against him, and he’d known for sure.
‘I’m glad,’ he added, ‘but I’m afraid you will have to hold that thought. Although my autopilot mode is exceptionally sophisticated, I’m not sure it would be wise to join you in the cabin for the length of time I intend to spend making love to you.’
A shiver of pleasure rippled through her, but as soon as Libby clocked her automatic response she stopped it in its tracks, suddenly afraid. Daring to hope that he was serious about giving their marriage a second chance was one thing, but starting to believe he felt anything other than lukewarm in her presence was a different delusion altogether—a dangerous one. And suddenly she foresaw how easily he could trample all over her heart if she went into this with rose-tinted glasses on.
No, she was safest going into this from the standpoint that remaining married was irrational and that he was no more excited by her now than he had been during the months of their marriage. If he presented her with actual evidence to the contrary—well, that would be the time to re-evaluate her views.
‘What’s wrong with the cockpit?’ she challenged audaciously.
Rion’s eyes flared in shock. So, the innocent young girl he’d married was long gone, and in her place was an experienced adulteress, who only yesterday had been claiming she needed the divorce to move on with another man, and was now suggesting they make love at the earliest opportunity. To his infinite frustration his disgust was accompanied by the overwhelming urge to take her right here on the tarmac, and an erection so hard it was painful.
And it made him furious—because it seemed that no matter how she behaved, she still reminded him of his lack of refinement. She always had. He drew in a ragged breath. But at least he’d feel no shame taking her back to his house in Metameikos, no shame in flying her there on his plane. Unlike five years ago, after their pitiful wedding, when he’d been forced to take her on the bus back to that shabby rented apartment. He smarted in distaste. From the second he’d opened the front door of that place—the only one in Athens he’d been able to afford—all the self-belief that maybe he could be good enough for her had evaporated. He’d never felt more ashamed of who he was in his life.
And he knew she’d never felt more ashamed of him—she’d been so desperate to escape it, her lack of faith in him so unequivocal, that she’d even volunteered to work. But even though he’d done everything he could so that she didn’t have to, even though he’d avoided involving her in the sordid details of his pathetic day job, worked every hour there was to try and save for their own place—a place she could be proud of—it had never been enough.
And it never will be, a voice inside him taunted, even though you fought so hard for all this because you believed if you succeeded she’d come crawling back.
No—that was a lie. That hadn’t been the reason. His determination might have doubled the day she left, but he’d succeeded for himself, and for Jason, his brother.
He turned away from her, his voice terse. ‘You will be travelling in the cabin.’
There wasn’t any evidence to the contrary then, Libby acknowledged with ridiculous disappointment. She really didn’t excite him. And the sooner he admitted it, the sooner she could silence the what ifs? She ducked down, pretending to look for another pair of legs on the opposite side of the plane. ‘Because you have a co-pilot joining you up front?’
‘No. I fly alone.’
She walked towards the steps defiantly. ‘Then there is no reason why I shouldn’t join you, is there?’
It was only when he’d followed her in and sat down beside her that she realised in fighting so hard to prove that he didn’t really want her she’d just inadvertently guaranteed their close proximity for the duration of the flight.
‘How long will it take us to get to Metameikos?’ she asked hesitantly.
‘Just under an hour.’
No time at all, she thought, trying to feel relieved as he hit the starter switch and took the controls. But they hadn’t even taken off yet, and she was already transfixed by the sight of his long-fingered hands manoeuvring the complex equipment, unable to prevent herself remembering how they had once felt against her bare skin.
God, why did looking at him keep making her think about sex?
She moved awkwardly in her seat and tried to think of a logical answer. Maybe it was because he’d been the object of her first teenage crush, and somehow that made him the blueprint for the kind of man she found attractive. But, whilst his dark Mediterranean looks had been a novelty to her at fifteen, she’d met plenty of men since who fitted that description. The language teacher at the night classes she’d enrolled in as her first act of freedom once she’d arrived back in England; one or two of the other tour guides that Kate—whom she’d met at those language classes—had introduced her to when she’d expressed her enthusiasm for travel; the multitude of men she’d inevitably met the world over once she’d started filling in. But none of them had made her feel this irrepressible physical hunger.
Or maybe it was just that he was the only man she’d ever made love with, and like Pavlov’s dogs, who had salivated when they heard bells ringing because they had come to associate that sound with food, her body had connected the sight of him and the smell of him with sex. Yes, that was probably it. She just needed to uncondition her response, to associate him with something negative instead—the way he’d become so obsessed with money, perhaps. She took a deep breath, relieved to have alighted on a course of action that would bring about an end to it.
‘So, when did you learn to fly?’ she asked, deciding to lead the conversation down the ‘needless luxury’ route.
‘Years ago, for research. Flying lessons were one of the first gift experiences I decided to market, along with luxury driving days,’ he answered, handing her some headphones as they approached the runway.
It was genius, Libby realised, for the first time contemplating how he’d made his money. He’d recognised other people’s dreams and found a way of offering them neatly packaged in a box. But then that had always been what he did best—it was what had once persuaded her father to promote him from valet to salesman to showroom manager. He’d always known exactly which element of an Ashworth motor to push, depending on the customer and their body language. Speed and performance for men on the brink of a mid-life crisis; style and sex-appeal for the computer geek who’d just earned his first million; an investment opportunity for the retired banker and safety features for his anxious wife.
But did his customers ever really get everything they’d dreamed of? Or was the reality quite different? Libby thought bleakly, unable to help making a comparison with their marriage as they took off.
Marrying Rion had been her dream from the very first day she’d seen him—when she’d taken her father some papers he’d forgotten and caught Rion looking up at her from the 1964 Ashworth Elite he’d been polishing with those devastating liquid brown eyes. She’d been so infatuated that it hadn’t occurred to her that neither of them were ready for marriage, full-stop.
And it was no wonder she had felt that way really, she thought as they soared above Athens, the Parthenon shrinking to the size of a hotel on a Monopoly board below them. Because not only had he looked so different from the suitors her father had kept forcing her to meet, but when the furtive looks between them had eventually turned to snatched conversation on the days when her father was off-site, she’d discovered he was different. So unpretentious, and so exciting. He hadn’t spent their conversations praising her father or calculating the acreage of the Ashworth estate; he’d talked to her about the travel books she liked to read, about the customs in Greece—which had seemed the most exotic place in the world to Libby, who’d never left Surrey, and whose long, monotonous days had been spent walled up inside Ashworth Manor and its grounds.
Libby felt a tightness around her wrists and her ankles at the memory of how her father had deemed even a walk to the village shops too much autonomy, even in her late teens. How her mother, plagued by the guilt her husband had made her feel for never producing a son, had enforced every rule he created.
And so her conversations with Rion had become a ritual, however infrequent, which she’d survived on for the duration of her teenage years. And though the details they’d actually shared with one another during those conversations had been sparse—he’d rarely spoken about his childhood, and never mentioned any family other than his mother, who’d brought him to England when he was in his early teens—at the time she’d only seen that lack of information as a positive. He’d obviously had no wish to discuss what must have been a difficult period in his life, and she had understood that, because she’d had no wish to talk about her childhood either.
The whole appeal of their conversations had been that they’d offered an escape from that—a freshly created world where nothing that had gone before mattered. And, although she’d never really been able to see a way in which marriage to him might be possible, nor imagine exactly how it might be if it was, she hadn’t stopped dreaming about living in that world all the time.
Until one January day, not long after her nineteenth birthday, when she’d passed the showroom accidentally-on-purpose and found him actually waiting for her. He’d had a smile on his face so uncontainable that remembering it made her heart flip over even now.
‘Rion, what is it?’
‘Your father—he’s promoted me. I’m going to be the showroom manager.’
‘That’s fantastic!’ She beamed and threw her arms out, but just stopped short of embracing him, suddenly afraid that she might have imagined the significance of their conversations. Until he reached out and took her hands in his for the first time, and looked her straight in the eye.
‘It means that I’m going to be on a really decent salary.’
She nodded enthusiastically, her hands shaking.
He took a deep breath. ‘There’s something I want to ask you. That I’ve wanted to ask you for a long time. Before I didn’t think…but now…’
Libby’s heart rose ten inches in her chest.
She heard his breath come thick and fast, his voice shaky. ‘Would you consider marrying me, Liberty Ashworth?’
Her arms didn’t hesitate this time. She threw them round him, and then he kissed her. The first and most magical kiss of her entire life.
‘I know that technically I’m supposed to ask your father first, but—’
‘No…this is perfect,’ she breathed—because it was. The choice of who she married was hers, not anybody else’s, and it meant the world to her that he understood that.
But her father didn’t agree. When they went to ask for his blessing Thomas Ashworth fired Rion on the spot for his impudence.
‘I have promoted you from valet to showroom manager in four short years and that is still not enough for you? How dare you consider yourself worthy enough to even look at my daughter? I try to nurture your talent for selling and this is how you repay me?’ he spat. And then he made it clear to Libby that if she even tried to contact Orion again, he would banish her from the Ashworth family completely.
Her father had meant is as a threat, of course, but to Libby it had simply acted as an incentive. To swap her life of oppression for one of freedom. But it hadn’t been until she and Rion had eloped to Athens that she’d realised she’d been utterly naïve to suppose they could go on living in that imaginary world, that marriage to anyone could have given her the autonomy she’d so desperately needed.
Libby drew in a ragged breath as the view from the aircraft window became more rural, and ran her hand through the short length of her hair, frustrated that she’d recalled the past in such damned fine detail again. But then she’d always had remarkable powers of recollection. It was a blessing in her job—that she remembered every travel guide she’d ever read was what had convinced Kate to take her on in the first place, when her practical experience had been non-existent—but it felt like a curse now.
‘So, what business do you have in Metameikos?’ she said loudly above the noise of the plane, determined to distract herself from remembering any more.
She saw the edge of his lip curl in amusement. ‘For a minute there I thought the cat had got your tongue.’ He paused over the English phrase, as if it amused him to remember one so fitting. ‘What were you thinking about?’
‘Nothing in particular.’
‘No? I could have sworn you were looking at my hands, remembering how it felt to have them touch you.’
Colour flooded her cheeks. ‘So you’re a mind-reader and a pilot? Is there no end to the talents you’ve acquired in the last five years?’
‘I wasn’t reading your mind, gineka mou, I was reading your body.’
All too aware that he was an expert at that, Libby reverted to her original choice of subject. ‘So, what business do you have in Metameikos?’
‘I have some meetings to attend, some functions at which I need to make an appearance. Plus there are some things I need to sort out at my property before I settle there permanently.’
Libby was so surprised by this information that she let the frankly detailless description of his business go unchallenged. He’d barely mentioned Metameikos in the past, let alone expressed any desire to return there permanently.
‘You are making Metameikos your home? I always presumed it didn’t mean that much to you.’
Rion’s lips barely moved. ‘It’s a business decision.’
‘But your main offices are in Athens, aren’t they?’
‘Indeed.’
Libby frowned. That he’d as good as stated he had no emotional attachment to the place came as no surprise to her—especially now that it appeared he had no emotional attachment to anything other than money—but then why move there? She didn’t know a great deal about Metameikos, compared with her detailed knowledge of many other parts of the world, but she did know that it was no Athens when it came to its business credentials. What she could recall was that it was Greece’s only independent province and that it was pretty much divided in two—one half being one of the poorest areas of the whole country, where she knew Rion had grown up, whilst the other was full of luxury holiday homes belonging to the very wealthy. If she remembered correctly, it was best known for a well-preserved ancient amphitheatre somewhere in the middle. There were no prizes for guessing which side they were heading to now, but why he planned on staying there permanently was a mystery.
‘I hope to have an office in Metameikos too, soon.’
Libby nodded, but remained unconvinced. She supposed if he was branching out into all aspects of the leisure industry then the location was a desirable one for watersports and the like, but it still puzzled her. Maybe it was some kind of tax haven. ‘Your meetings these next couple of weeks are related to that, then?’
‘Indirectly,’ he replied vaguely. ‘This evening we will attend a play at the amphitheatre there.’
‘A play?’ she repeated back at him in astonishment, surprised not only that his time would be spent on something other than crunching numbers, but also that he wanted her to join him.
Rion gritted his teeth. So, she thought a man like him wasn’t capable of enjoying a little culture. ‘How is it that you are so adamant we lay the past to rest, when it is perfectly obvious you will never forget mine?’
She frowned. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I mean that much has changed.’
‘Has it?’ she asked, a flicker of hope igniting in her heart as the plane touched down, his landing utterly flawless.
‘Why don’t you see for yourself?’ he asked, inclining his head towards the extensive property spanning the horizon. ‘We’re here.’
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