Bought By Her Husband
Staring out at the azure sky, he anticipated the simple fish he would eat for lunch beneath a flower-decked canopy in a hidden green oasis of the city. Perhaps afterwards he would take one of his yachts out. Have a massuese on board, and maybe the brunette, too. He yawned. If he still had a hunger for her.
‘Perhaps there is,’ he said silkily, and he paused deliberately, because he knew that silence on the telephone could sound like an eternity to an adversary. ‘Why not come out here and we’ll discuss it?’
Victoria stilled, every instinct in her body shrieking its alarm as she listened to his suggestion in disbelief. ‘To … to Athens, you mean?’
‘Why not?’
‘Don’t be so ridiculous, Alexei!’
‘You think it such a bizarre suggestion?’ he mused. ‘Yet it is where I live and where you once lived—the place you once called your home, though we both know what a myth that was. For your life here was as much of a sham as your supposed desire to be a good wife. Is that why you cannot face Greece again, Victoria?’
She could think of plenty of reasons—but Alexei was the main one. The last time she had seen him he had told her that he would sooner go to hell than ever set eyes on her again. So what had changed? Instinctively Victoria licked at lips which had grown dry. Nothing had changed—for weren’t the insults still flowing thick and fast? He hated her—and he was making that very plain.
‘I can’t see the point,’ she whispered.
‘Can’t you? Maybe I might be a little more … considerate if you came and asked me to my face for a divorce.’
‘Ask you?’ she echoed, but her heart had now started thumping nervously in her chest. ‘You think I need to ask your permission? That I need your consent? We aren’t living in the Dark Ages!’
But in a way Alexei was—and he always had been—it was just that Victoria had been too young to see it at the time. For all his modern American education, beneath the exquisite Italian suits and handmade shoes there beat the heart of a primitive man.
‘This is all about the law, Alexei—and you don’t make it! Not in England, anyway!’
‘But I am a Greek,’ he reminded her proudly. ‘And you are married to a Greek.’
She opened her mouth to tell him that that didn’t matter. But she bit back her words. She had already said more than enough. He would know she had been doing her legal homework, and that would make him an even tougher adversary. But Alexei had spoken the truth—he was a natural fighter. Surely there was another way around this?
Surely they could draw a line under their mismatched marriage and wish each other well for the future? So that, even if the idea of being friends was an unrealistic one, at least they could have each other’s best interests at heart. And you would not wish harm to befall someone whom you had once loved to distraction, surely?
‘Come and see me,’ he said softly, his voice cutting into her thoughts. ‘Or maybe you don’t dare to, Victoria?’
Did she?
Once she had been like a piece of soft toffee in his experienced fingers. He had warmed her with his expert caress and the silken touch of his tongue. One sensual look from Alexei had been enough to reduce her to a melting state of desire.
But seven years was a long time, and she had grown from girl to woman. A woman who had more sense than to fall head-over-heels a second time for a black-eyed devil who knew how to send a woman to paradise and back with his body.
But not how to love her or trust her or properly share his life with her.
‘If I agreed to a meeting, then couldn’t it be here—in London?’ she added hopefully. That would be much better. They could meet in some anonymous hotel in the centre of the city and then afterwards she could hop on a bus and leave his life for ever.
Alexei smiled as he anticipated that he was about to get exactly what he wanted. Outside, the heat from the blistering sun frazzled off the buildings, though inside the air was as cool as spring water. He loved this capital city, despite its noise and its heat and its chaos, for it pulsated with life and colour and vibrancy. And it would amuse him to see his cool, English wife here once more—who in her way was the city’s very antithesis. Would he still desire her? he wondered idly.
‘I’m not planning to come to London,’ he said carelessly.
‘But it’s … easier for you to travel here.’
His sensual mouth curved into a predatory smile as he heard her diffident tone, and like a hungry vulture who had spotted a fragment of fresh flesh glistening on a dusty road he pounced on her sudden uncertainty.
‘And why is that, agape mou?’
The term of endearment made her face colour painfully, but the cynical way he said it allowed her to close her mind to the memories it provoked. ‘Because your job is … flexible,’ she said, hating herself for faltering—but how could she just come right out and say, Because you’re filthy rich and can do as you please, and I have to work for a living. Because I have a pile of ceiling-high debts and I’m not even sure I can afford the airfare out to Greece?
He smiled with heartless delight. ‘That, of course, is the beauty of being your own boss,’ he observed.
‘Well, I’m my own boss, too!’ she retorted, stung. ‘And—unlike you—I didn’t have it handed to me on a plate.’
His eyes narrowed, for he was never criticised. ‘Just what type of work are you doing these days, Victoria?’
She stared at the sugar fondant roses which were lying on the work surface, ready to garnish a birthday cake she’d just made. Although they were dusted white with sugar, beneath that they were still pink—like the bouquet she had carried on her own wedding day. It didn’t matter that the marriage hadn’t lasted, or that she had schooled herself into pushing it into the recesses of her mind—because deep down it still existed. She couldn’t completely wipe it away. And sometimes the memory could twang away mercilessly at her heartstrings and make her want to yelp aloud with self-pity.
But self-pity was a most unattractive emotion, and it never got you anywhere.
‘I’m still in catering, Alexei,’ she said crisply. ‘Nothing’s changed.’
‘Then I suggest you take a break from your catering.’
‘I’m not with you.’
‘Come to Athens and we will thrash out a settlement between us,’ he continued remorselessly. ‘Because if you want a divorce that’s the only way you’re going to get one.’
He put the phone down and issued a short, terse command into the intercom. The door opened and the brunette returned, unbuttoning her dress as she walked slowly across the office towards him.
CHAPTER TWO
‘VICTORIA—do you really think this is wise? You don’t have to go crawling to your ex-husband, you know! And certainly not for my sake!’
Caroline’s voice was vehement, and Victoria paused in her packing to look at her oldest friend. They’d met years ago at college, but Caroline had been forced to drop out early when she became pregnant.
Victoria had provided a shoulder to cry on when the baby’s father had done a runner, and had sat with her friend during a long labour as her birthing buddy.
And Caroline had been there to return the favour when Victoria’s marriage broke down and she’d barely been able to bring herself to get out of bed in the mornings. On good days they’d used to joke that they had both packed in some pretty heavy life experiences very early on. On bad days they hadn’t joked at all.
When Victoria’s catering company had begun to do well, she’d realised that she was going to need help—and her old friend had been the perfect answer. As a single mum, Caroline was glad of the work and of a flexible boss—and she was a talented cook. Thus a temporary arrangement had become a very happy permanent one.
Victoria folded a T-shirt and put it in the bag. ‘Point one—I’m not crawling to anyone. I’m entitled to some kind of settlement, and I owe it to myself to get it,’ she said slowly. ‘And point two—I’m not doing it for your sake. That sounds like I’m doing you a favour, and I’m not. My company owes you the money and I’m damned well going to make sure you get it. And let’s face it,’ she added gently, ‘you’ve got rent to pay and a child to look after.’
Caroline looked anxious. ‘I can’t bear to see you looking as worried as you’ve been this past week. Honestly—I can manage somehow.’
‘You shouldn’t have to.’ Victoria closed the small bag. ‘Anyway, this goes much deeper than a debt. This is something which is long overdue. I can’t carry on pretending the marriage never happened—that it will go away by itself. I need some sense of closure.’ She sighed. ‘I’ve been a coward where confronting Alexei is concerned.’
‘I’m not surprised. He was a pig to you—I can’t understand why you married him in the first place.’ Caroline pulled a face. ‘Well, maybe I can!’
Their eyes met in an unspoken moment of acknowledgement of why she had married him.
What woman in the world wouldn’t have been bowled over by Alexei Christou if he’d made up his mind that he wanted you?
Now it was easy for Victoria to step back and see that she’d been completely out of her depth—but no one could stop themselves from falling in love. She hadn’t been the first naïve young girl to do it, and she wouldn’t be the last—only in most cases it would have just been a short, passionate affair instead of a foolhardy marriage.
‘He’s just—’
‘Spoiled!’
‘Well, maybe—if spoiled means having been given everything you wanted all your life, which of course he has.’ But spoiled made him sound like a little boy—and if there was one thing that Alexei was, it was all man. Very definitely. She shuddered. ‘He’s just operates in a different league, that’s all. His life is nothing like mine—and it’s about time I was free of him.’
‘But you are!’
Victoria shook her head so that her silky mane of blonde hair caught the light and shimmered. ‘That’s just it—I’m not—not really. As long as I remain married—even if it’s only in name—then I remain tied to him. And that’s hopeless. I have to move on,’ she said, but she was aware that just speaking to him again had stirred up all kinds of troubled emotions.
Caroline handed her a tube of suncream. ‘How do you feel about seeing him again?’ she asked suddenly.
‘I’m dreading it,’ said Victoria truthfully.
She felt churned-up as she boarded a Greece-bound flight on a budget airline and settled herself back into her cramped seat—thinking how differently she had travelled to Greece in the past.
This time around she was surrounded by young backpackers who were happy to purchase their own sandwiches and drinks from the aircrew who wheeled trolleys up the narrow aisle. Yet when she’d been married to Alexei they had flown in style. And what style! The first time he’d taken her to his homeland Victoria hadn’t quite believed what was happening to her. It had been like stepping onto the set of a film—the kind of Hollywood blockbuster where the director had said there was no limit on the budget.
One of the Christou family jets had been made available to them, along with its own fleet of glossy crew. But even in the midst of her personal happiness at having married the man she had fallen in love with Victoria had begun to feel the first goose-bumps of foreboding. An outsider. An English girl. And poor, to boot. The gorgeous stewardesses had given her barely-concealed looks of amazement. As if to say—Why the hell has he married her?
She remembered thinking the same thing herself.
Self-consciously she had smoothed down the skirt of the brand-new dress Alexei had bought for her, remembering what her mother had said—Fine feathers make a fine bird. Did they? Did she look good enough for her Greek billionaire?
Perceptively, he had tilted her chin to look at him, the black eyes narrowing and bathing her in their ebony light. ‘My wealth—it intimidates you a little, agape mou?’ he had asked softly.
Some of his vigour had flowed to her through his fingertips, and Victoria had suddenly felt as strong as he was. ‘I don’t give a stuff about your wealth!’ she’d declared passionately. ‘I would love you if you didn’t have a drachma to your name!’
He had looked at her with purring approval, but maybe Victoria would have done herself a favour if she’d confided to him that the people who surrounded him did intimidate her. That it wasn’t easy when everyone was wondering what your new husband saw in you and how long it would last. And if he had known—might it have changed things?
Victoria viciously snapped off the ringpull from a can of cola and drank from it thirstily. Stop it, she told herself. Don’t remember times like those. Remember the reality. Which was hell. You’re going to Athens with one objective in mind. To see Alexei and to draw a line underneath the marriage. And he has forced this situation on you. He’s as controlling as he ever was—so remember that, too.
She stared out of the window as the plane flew over the impossibly blue Aegean sea and then began to descend on the high looming clutter of buildings which was Athens itself. As the ground rose up to greet them she could see the crazy architecture and the congested traffic on the streets below. Everyone had a view of Athens as noisy and hot and dusty. But Victoria knew of another city—a secret Athens—one which had been shown to her by Alexei and one tourists were seldom privvy to.
He had opened her wondering eyes to the small green parks hidden away from the busy life of the main drag. She had eaten in lively little family-run tavernas which were lit at night by strings of coloured lights looped through the trees, while people danced as if they had fire in their veins and beckoned for you to join them. And there had been Alexei—barefoot and dancing, too—his black head thrown back in laughter.
Despite her determination not to indulge in sentimentality or nostalgia, she felt a pang of regret as the plane touched down in his homeland. In England it had been simpler to try and put him into the darkest recesses of her mind and to think of the whole experience of her marriage as another faraway life she had once lived. But she was going to have to accept that this trip was bound to throw up painful reminders of all that he had meant to her.
She had just better be prepared for it—forewarned meant forearmed—and instinct told her that she was going to need all her wits about her. If she weakened—allowed misplaced emotion to make her vulnerable—then she would be easy prey for her clever, calculating husband.
Picking up her overnight bag, Victoria went outside to where the heat was bouncing off the tarmac and beating down on her pale skin—even though it was only June. Her skin was sheened with sweat as she climbed into the back of a yellow cab, and her cotton dress just beginning to stick to her body, but thankfully the taxi was air-conditioned, and she leant back on the seat with a sigh of relief.
The radio was blaring, the driver was singing, and worry-beads were swinging from the mirror with a little clatter. Outside, the traffic was bumper-to-bumper, but the sky was blue, and unwillingly Victoria remembered that this was the home of the Parthenon and the Acropolis, that this was where legend said the goddess Athena had invented the olive tree.
And she found herself wishing she were just an ordinary tourist—geared up to having a fabulous holiday in the sun—instead of going cap in hand to her wealthy ex.
It was stop-start most of the way, until the taxi stopped outside the impressive steel and glass tower of the Christou headquarters. Nervously, she over-tipped the driver, and could feel the palms of her hands growing clammy as she stepped inside the revolving doors which delivered her into a space-age foyer.
The air-conditioning hit her like an ice-cube. Tiny goosebumps began to appear on Victoria’s arms as the sleek brunette at Reception stared at her as if she had just landed from Mars.
The woman rattled off a question in Greek and then, as Victoria frowningly attempted to translate, she spoke again—this time in perfect fluent English.
‘Can I help you?’ she questioned, in a tone of voice which suggested that Victoria might be in the wrong building.
‘I’m here to see Kyrios Christou,’ said Victoria.
‘Kyrios Christou?’
‘Ne,’ agreed Victoria, dredging up a word in Greek from its dusty memory bank.
‘What is your name, please?’
‘It’s Victoria.’ She forced herself to smile at the unfriendly face. ‘Victoria Christou.’
Was it only her well-travelled appearance which made the brunette’s mouth fall open into a disbelieving ‘O’? Victoria wondered.
‘Christou?’ the woman repeated blankly.
‘Yes.’ Victoria nodded enthusiastically, seizing on the unexpectedly enjoyable moment—because she certainly wasn’t anticipating a lot of those during her visit. ‘I’m his wife. I believe he’s expecting me—though I didn’t give a precise time. You know what scheduled flights are like!’
‘He is expecting you?’ said the brunette again.
And suddenly Victoria’s social attennae were alerted to the fact that this response would hardly win prizes for professionalism. So was the woman just having an off-day, or did Alexei discourage callers by employing this rather attractive dragon to ward them off?
Unlike the brunette, she wasn’t wearing a designer linen dress—though how she could afford it on her salary, Victoria didn’t know—but surely she didn’t look that bad?
‘Perhaps you could just let him know I’m here?’ asked Victoria coolly.
The brunette laughed briefly, as if someone had just given her a piece of exceptionally good news. ‘It will be my pleasure,’ she said, as she picked up the phone and spoke rapidly into it, but the smile disappeared from her face when she was obviously given instructions to send Victoria straight up.
It was during the elevator ride that Victoria’s nerves came back to assail her—not helped by a peek at what she actually looked like. Unfortunately—or maybe that should have been fortunately—the lift was mirror-lined, which allowed her to see just how the journey had taken its toll. Perhaps the brunette’s incredulous reaction was understandable, after all. She tried telling herself that she wasn’t trying to wow Alexei, but even so there was a proud side to every woman who wanted her ex to still think she was drop-dead gorgeous.
Pulling a plastic pack of wipes from her handbag, she removed some of the grime from her face. Her hair was tied back, but she brushed out her fringe just as the lift pinged to a halt. No time for lipstick.
Oh, well.
A male assistant was waiting to greet her, and she followed him through a series of increasingly grand offices until finally he opened the door to one where a still, dark figure was standing with his back to her. Was that deliberate? she wondered. Of course it was!
He was looking out over the backdrop of Athens, and Victoria’s heart lurched as she saw the man she had once adored as much as life itself. The man who had taken her virginity. Who had told her he loved her and then shown her that love could break your heart. The man she’d married.
Alexei Christou.
Though the huge plate-glass windows were faintly tinted, the light still gleamed on his ebony-dark hair—worn just a fraction too long—so that instead of an heir to a billionaire shipping fortune he looked more like a sexy bandit. Or a very fit pool man … A rich woman’s fantasy lover.
And a poor one’s, too.
Victoria froze as he slowly turned his head, praying that her face and body were registering nothing other than …
What?
That was the trouble—what were the rules in a situation like this? How did you behave and react towards a man you hadn’t seen for seven years to whom you’d once been married? This was the man who had symbolised all her romantic hopes and dreams—and then had come to symbolise her own sense of failure and regret.
For Alexei had left his own dark legacy in her life—creating an impossible act for another man to follow. It didn’t seem to matter if a man had stepped out of the ‘suitable partner’ section at Central Casting—when compared to Alexei Christou they all seemed as two-dimensional as a cardboard cutout.
Even now he had the power to throw her into a state of confusion. If only she could be sure of her true feelings towards him—because surely it would be easier if she hated him. But as she stared at him across the expanse of the room it wasn’t hate she was feeling. Far from it. She was smacked sideways by a sensation she most definitely did not want to experience.
Was it desire which made the blood begin to roar in her ears and her heart begin to leap and race beneath her breast? She felt dizzy. As if her body didn’t belong to her any more. It was like looking down the wrong end of a telescope—her world had reduced down to just the space of one face. His face.
And, oh, it was impossible not to drink in all its hard and arrogant beauty. The luminous olive skin and the lush mouth, with its curved and slightly full lower lip. Lips which had kissed every single bit of her body and taken her to paradise over and over again.
But it was the eyes that drew her in, more than the memory of those sensual pleasures. Black and glittering, they had once stared at her with love—but now they studied her with nothing more than contempt, their cold ebony light raking over her.
Her heart-rate only increased. How could it not? She could feel it crashing loudly against her ribs and was surprised he couldn’t hear it.
Alexei, she mouthed, though no sound came from her lips, and suddenly she was having difficulty focussing.
Her vision blurred and then became clear again—and her head spun as her mind wickedly played tricks on her, dragging her back into that painful place she had vowed never to visit again.
But sometimes you had no choice, because the past had a pulling power all of its own.
CHAPTER THREE
WHEN Alexei had first blazed into Victoria’s life she’d been just nineteen—an ordinary catering student living on a stingy grant, taking extra jobs whenever she could. When many girls her age had been out partying, she’d found herself putting prawns into hundreds of little pastry cases. Or sprinkling glistening little black caviar eggs onto smoked salmon—if it was a particularly upmarket party.
Very occasionally she’d be required as ‘front of house’, as a waitress—expected to tie her hair back and don a smart uniform, and waft around glorious rooms offering trays of canapeés to the great and the good and the extremely rich.
The night she’d met Alexei she’d had no idea what the party was for or who the guests were. It had been just another function in a golden ballroom in a glorious house overlooking St James’s Park. The central London location had been as fancy as you could find—and the guests had more than done it justice. There’d been lots of thin women wearing some serious jewellery, and very loud men who’d given a whole new meaning to the word ‘lecherous’.
Victoria had been so busy handing out champagne and blocking murmured innuendoes that she hadn’t even noticed the exotic-looking man with the exceptionally dark hair on the other side of the room.
Alexei had been bored. He’d been at the tail-end of a globe-trotting trip which was a reward from his father for his first-class degree from Harvard. He had recently travelled to Paris, Milan and Madrid—as well as Prague and Berlin. The achingly familiar taste of Europe had reminded him just how much he had missed it, but he couldn’t wait to get home. To Greece.
He hadn’t been sure at just what point the waitress had imprinted herself on his consciousness and set in motion all the complex factors which determined desire and sexual chemistry. She wasn’t particularly to his taste—she was fair, when he liked his women dark—but she’d moved with exquisite grace, despite the faintly old-fashioned silhouette of her hour-glass figure.