ex, I take it?’ she couldn’t resist murmuring to Ilios once they had escaped.
‘Of a sort,’ he agreed, a little to her surprise. ‘Although the prey she was hunting was my cousin, not me. When she discovered that he wasn’t going to inherit Villa Manos she dropped him.’
‘And turned her attentions to you?’
‘She tried,’ Ilios agreed. ‘But without success. You handled Eleni extremely well,’ he said, then paused. Unable to stop himself, he told her brusquely, ‘You play your part well. I suspect that every man here is envying me.’
What on earth had made him say that, even if it was true? Why should he care if other men wanted her? The admiration he could see in their eyes was a benefit to him, because it meant that she was being accepted and acceptable as his wife-to-be.
Lizzie couldn’t help smiling at him. There was a soft, warm feeling inside her body—a sweet, tender unfolding of something, happiness, that lifted her. Just because Ilios had—what?—complimented her? She must not feel like that. She must not.
What he had said to her was the truth, Ilios knew. But more than that she had a warmth that drew people to her. He had seen it in the eyes of his friends and in their manner towards her. Could he have been unfair to her, wrong about her and the way he had initially judged her? What if he had? He didn’t owe her anything, after all. She was the one who was indebted to him, not the other way around.
Lizzie wasn’t sorry when it was time to leave the restaurant where they had had dinner with Ilios’s friends, next door to the gallery. Whilst the other people she had met had more than made up for Eleni’s bitchiness with their warmth and readiness to befriend her, and the food at the smart restaurant had been delicious, she had felt on edge—knowing that she was only playing a part, afraid of making a slip that would reveal the truth, and at the same time uncomfortable with the deceit she was having to practise.
A valet brought the car round, and within minutes of leaving, or so it seemed, they were back in the apartment.
‘I’ve set everything in motion for our wedding,’ Ilios told her. ‘It will be a civil ceremony, conducted at the town hall. Normally couples having civil ceremonies go on to celebrate more traditionally with a family party, but in our case that won’t be necessary. I have let it be known that it is because I am so impatient to make you my wife that we are dispensing with a more lavish affair.’
Lizzie nodded her head, relieved that she had her back to him and he wouldn’t see the effect his words were having on her. Tonight, posing as his wife, sometimes almost forgetting that she was simply playing a part, she had felt filled with happiness and …
And what?
And nothing, Lizzie assured herself hastily as she removed the watch and then took out the diamond earrings. Her hands were trembling slightly as she remembered how she had felt tonight, standing at Ilios’s side, wanting him, wishing that he would turn to her and look at her with that same longing and need she felt for him.
What she felt for him was quite simply lust. Very shocking, of course, but even so far safer than becoming emotionally drawn to a man who didn’t want her.
One of the diamond earrings slipped from her fingers. Just in time Ilios put his palm beneath her own and caught it. Caught it, as somehow he had caught her in the net. If he knew he would throw her to one side, like a fisherman throwing back an unwanted catch. Lizzie looked up at him—and then wished she had not.
Not trusting herself to take the earring from him—because that meant touching him—Lizzie held out the jewellery box to him instead.
Exactly what point was she trying to make by refusing to take the earring from him? Ilios questioned as he dropped it into the box. That she was sexually indifferent to him? If so, why should it make him want to take hold of her and kiss her until her mouth softened beneath his and she was pleading with him for more than mere kisses?
Silently Lizzie collected the scattered jewellery boxes and offered them to Ilios.
‘Keep them yourself. You will need to wear them again,’ he told her curtly.
Lizzie shook her head. ‘I’d rather not. As I said before, they are far too valuable, and they should be in a safe.’
It was gone midnight. There was no reason for her to remain here in the living room with him—not when being with him was so very dangerous for her, she reminded herself sternly, just in case she was tempted to linger. Her will-power seemed to have become far too fragile. She had spent the evening pretending that they were intimately close, as lovers, aided in doing so by the two and a half glasses of champagne she had drunk at the gallery. All those bubbles were bound to have an effect on anyone’s system, never mind someone who was quickly discovering how vulnerable she was to the man in front of her.
Her brief, ‘I’ll say goodnight’, merely elicited a brief nod of his head from Ilios. His back was already turned towards her as she opened the door into the corridor.
Maria had obviously been in, Lizzie noted, because the bed was made up immaculately, as though for a new guest.
She went into the dressing room and opened one of the wardrobe doors, intending to undress and hang up her clothes, only the wardrobe was empty. Quickly Lizzie checked the others, and then the drawers. They were empty too. And her case had gone. Along with her toiletries and her toothbrush.
She began to panic. What was going on? She’d have to tell Ilios.
She found him in the living room, standing in front of the glass wall in his suit trousers and his shirt, a glass of wine in his hand. When he turned round as she approached him the shirt pulled across the muscles in his back, causing an aching sensation to slide through her lower body.
‘I can’t find any of my things,’ she told him helplessly. ‘They’ve all disappeared—everything, including my case and even my toothbrush. The maid’s been in, because the bed is made up.’
‘I know.’
‘You know?’ Lizzie looked at him uncertainly. What was going on? Had he decided he didn’t like her new clothes after all and sent them back?
‘They’re in my room.’
‘What?’
Ilios shrugged irritably. It had been as much of an unwanted discovery for him to find Lizzie’s things in the master bedroom as it had obviously been for her to discover that they were missing from the guest room. The main source of Ilios’s irritation, though, was his own slipup in not realising that this might happen.
‘Maria obviously took it upon herself to move them. She’ll have heard that we are to marry, and it seems she has decided that since we are probably already sharing a bed, she might as well make life easier for herself by moving our things into my room.’
‘But we aren’t. I mean we can’t.’ Lizzie was aghast. ‘Everything will have to be moved back. I’ll do it myself—tomorrow—when you aren’t here—but you’ll have to tell her.’
‘I don’t think that would be a good idea.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because the last thing we want is for her to start gossiping that we’re sleeping in separate beds.’
‘But you said our marriage would be … that it wouldn’t be … that we wouldn’t be sharing a bed.’
‘I hadn’t thought things through properly then,’ Ilios was forced to admit.
He was actually admitting that he had got something wrong? Lizzie could scarcely believe it.
‘If you’re concerned about what Maria might say, then why don’t you tell her not to come? I can do her work whilst I’m here,’ she suggested helpfully.
Ilios was already shaking his head.
‘And deprive Maria of her the money she earns? No. Maria’s