stops to make it happen, then manufactured evidence to prove she was an unfit mother, a feckless wife, she would lose her child, her sense of self-worth, and in all probability her parents and two of her brothers would lose their home and their livelihood. Because if he were as unprincipled and callous as to hoodwink her into a short-term, no pain no gain marriage he wouldn’t think twice about pulling the rug from under her family’s feet once the need for blackmail was over.
Her feeling of sympathy for his loveless upbringing, his lack of close family, vanished like a snowflake falling on hot coals. He had strolled over to open the louvres on one of the tall windows that marched down the length of the room. As insouciant as all-get-out, he turned to face her, his hands in the pockets of his chinos, pulling the fabric tight against his hips.
Giving her a glinting look she couldn’t read, he drawled, ‘Tell me, why do you want a divorce?’
Her face crawling with colour, because that stance shouted animal magnetism and she wanted to be immune but wasn’t, she shot back, ‘Because I don’t want to be married to you! Haven’t I made that plain?’
‘I think not. I think you don’t entirely know what you do want.’
He had moved closer now. Golden eyes smouldered, transfixing her like a rabbit in the headlights of an oncoming car.
‘I think—’ And the thought had only just occurred to him, making him feel as if he’d received a hefty thump in the gut. Had she been in two minds when she’d left him? Half wanting to get her greedy hands on a handsome slice of alimony, the other half regretting the unlimited sex she’d so obviously enjoyed as his wife?
Even now she was giving off provocative vibes. Those emminently kissable lips were parted, her eyes a sultry gleam of sapphire beneath dense dark lashes, the dampened fabric of her T-shirt was clinging to her spectacular breasts—
Theos!
His hard, lean features rigid, Dimitri blanked off that train of thought. The little witch could turn him on without even trying! Pushing his thoughts into less troubled waters, he let his eyes meet hers with controlled intensity. ‘You were a virgin when we married. Having sex with me opened up a whole new unguessed-at world of sensation. Sensation you were always eager to indulge in.’
Maddie clasped her hands behind her back to stop herself from hitting him. ‘Are you trying to make some sort of point?’ she flung at him, loathing him for making her sound like a budding nymphomaniac, and caught her breath in outrage as he gave her another slice of his twisted mind.
‘In the process of trying to see inside your pretty head, I am merely stating facts and my suppositions arising from them, since you refuse to tell me why you ran out on our marriage, leaving me trying to make sense of it. You married me. Why? For the life of luxury you knew I could give you? And then, after you experienced it, for the sex?’
Mortified beyond belief, Maddie couldn’t speak—couldn’t say a word in her own defence. Not only a gold-digger but a nymphomaniac, too!
And there was more. A grim cast to his mouth, he queried flatly, ‘Did you make your wedding vows already scheming to sue for divorce after a few months? To secure yourself a slice of alimony that would enable you to lead a life of luxury? And when the time came to carry it out did you realise that you would miss the only other thing you valued in our marriage? The sex.’
‘You are so sick!’ Maddie spat out in immediate and instinctive repudiation, struggling to understand why he was doing this. Shouldn’t he be doing what she had most feared? Sweet-talking her, coaxing her back into the marital bed and trying to convince her that their marriage was viable, instead of accusing her of the most horrible things?
Her throat convulsed, and to her shame she felt hot tears sting the back of her eyes. Was she so inexcusably weak where he was concerned that she actually—in the secret centre of her heart—wanted him to try to coax her, convince her?
Her mind in turmoil, Maddie simply stared at him as she grappled with a thought that was far too uncomfortable to be lived with. Of course it wasn’t true. Why on earth would she want him to—to coax her?
‘And you still want me,’ Dimitri countered. His brilliant golden gaze rested explicitly on her mouth, making her bones turn to water and her breasts stir in instinctive response so that she just knew the engorged peaks would be plainly visible beneath the thin, sweat-dampened fabric of her top—a sensation so well remembered and now so unwanted that she scrambled for what was left of her wits and threw back at him, ‘If I still wanted to share your bed, as well as enjoy a life of spoiled-rotten luxury, I wouldn’t have left you, would I? You’re talking rubbish!’
‘Am I?’ He moved closer, so close that to her extreme distress Maddie felt her own vastly annoying body strain against her will—strain to close that small distance and melt into the hard, dominating maleness of him. ‘Correct me if for once in my life I’m wrong,’ he asserted, with an arrogance she could have killed him for, ‘but I believe that if you weren’t in two minds, had truly wanted to end our marriage, you would have made sure you weren’t so easy to find. Headed for some place other than the glaringly obvious.’ A sardonic fly-away black brow rose. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’
Floored by his truly incorrect deduction, Maddie quivered helplessly. She hadn’t looked on her flight from their marriage in that light; she simply hadn’t taken his Greek pride into account—the pride that would force him to track her down, demand answers.
All she’d wanted was the comfort of the familiar, the people who really loved her, somewhere sympathetic to lick her raw wounds. She’d been ridiculously easy to track down. He’d even arrived at her destination before her! Made sure she returned with him!
‘That being so,’ he continued, as if she’d humbly agreed with his assessment of the situation, ‘I believe that the larger part of you, deep down, prefers your assured lifestyle as my wife because it has the added bonus of great sex on tap, rather than the insecurity of not knowing how great or small a settlement your lawyer could squeeze out of mine, and the bother of finding some other stud to satisfy your sexual needs.’
‘No!’ Maddie had difficulty finding her voice. She hadn’t a clue which accusation she was denying, and wondered what further character assassination he could come up with next to cover his own vile misdemeanours.
‘Yes,’ he overrode her smoothly. ‘You do still want the pleasure I can give you.’ An assured smile tugged unforgivably at the corners of his wide sensual mouth.
‘Shall I prove it?’
CHAPTER SIX
SHE stared up at him, wide-eyed, dry-mouthed, heart jumping, and pushed out a chokily ambivalent, ‘No—’ But she shuddered helplessly as he closed the gap between them and enfolded her in his arms.
Blood racing in her veins, Maddie raised her hands to push him away, make him keep his distance. Because distance between them meant she was safe from her own deplorable weakness where this one man was concerned. But without conscious effort she found her small fists unfurling, her palms flat against his broad chest, and the heady warmth of him sent rivers of sensation skittering through her body, paralysing her.
‘I think, yes,’ he corrected her, his eyes a golden shaft of confident male mastery in his leanly handsome features, his clean breath feathering her skin as he lowered his dark head and claimed her mouth with breathtaking expertise, teasing her lips apart with no effort at all, meeting no resistance, until she was kissing him back with an aching hunger she was completely unable to disguise or pretend didn’t exist.
Defences shattered out of existence, she gasped raggedly at the wildly erotic sensation that engulfed her as his strong hands lowered to pull her hips in contact with his hard, demanding arousal, the memories of what had happened since he’d dropped everything to fly to the side of the woman he loved expunged in the wild fever of blind, unthinking sexual excitement.
This was how it had always been. His passionate lovemaking allaying the doubts