Greek Bachelors: In Need Of A Wife

‘Ah, boys together too...’ Belle trilled teasingly, not one whit perturbed by the awkward meeting. ‘Isn’t this cosy?’

‘Betsy...’ Cristo gave Betsy an uneasy smile that warned her that Nik had confided in him. She wondered if Nik’s brother even appreciated how extreme an honour that was, because Nik was one of the most secretive men she had ever met. She finally dared to shift her attention to Nik. His sheer physical impact as he stood there poised with his arrogant black head held high and his broad shoulders thrown back hit her like a thunderclap. The amount of stress she had been fighting at his office had shielded her from the full effects of his compelling sexual magnetism. Now suddenly she was bare to the elements, reliving X-rated moments of their passionate encounter weeks earlier. She remembered the hard, jolting thrust of his demanding body into hers, the wild, screaming sensitivity of every nerve ending and the mad excitement that had engulfed her. A flush of heat travelled from her pelvis up through her already tender breasts and burned her face.

But behind that unwelcome response smouldered an anger and a resentment that Betsy had always repressed because as a child she had been taught to regard such emotions as destructive, rude and undesirable.

‘Betsy won’t need a lift from Morrison,’ Nik announced, tight-mouthed. ‘As I’m coming to the party as well, I’ll organise her transport.’

Betsy could not credit her hearing because Nik had spoken as though she were a crate requiring shipping. Or a personal possession that he still had the right to move about at will. This, from a male who had deceived her, deserted her and who was racing to divorce her! Without warning a volcanic fury beyond anything Betsy had ever felt before funnelled up through her diminutive figure like hot, scorching lava and she stalked forward, blue eyes ablaze.

‘Where do you get the nerve?’ Betsy spat out, her small face a mask of raging indignation as she confronted Nik and jabbed a small forefinger hard into his shirtfront. ‘Where the hell do you get the nerve to think you have the right to organise anything for me?’

As taken aback as if a chair had suddenly lifted up and attacked him, Nik gazed down in disbelief at Betsy, the most conciliatory person he had ever known and without an ounce of aggression, facing up to him like a miniature warrior on the battlefield.

‘I—’

‘Shut up...I don’t want to hear your voice!’ Betsy seethed up at him, head tipping back because she refused to focus on his chest, but it was a challenge to seek eye-to-eye contact when he was so much taller than she was. ‘You’ve got nothing to say that I could possibly want to hear! You don’t own me and you don’t have any say in what I do or where I go or who I do it with! Only last week you were wrapped round an Amazonian blonde at some New York party. I didn’t interfere. I didn’t offer you an opinion. Why not? Because it was none of my business! And my life now is none of your business either!’ she completed with a final stab of her forefinger on his broad chest. ‘Do you get that, Nik? Or do I need to write it down for you, put it in business language so that you might actually grasp it?’

‘That is enough,’ Nik warned her, hard cheekbones rigid beneath his flushed golden skin. ‘What has got into you?’ he demanded, incredulous at her daring in attacking him.

‘You’ve got into me, Nik...literally and figuratively. You were a rotten, selfish husband and you went out of my life on an even worse note—’

Cristo swung wide the door of his study in an almost comically inviting gesture. ‘You and Nik can talk in there—’

‘But I wouldn’t miss a minute of the mouse finally roaring,’ Belle confided without shame. ‘You go, girl!’

Even white teeth gritting together, Nik breathed curtly, ‘You’re pregnant—obviously you don’t want to be forced into the company of another man—’

‘Why should being pregnant stop me? And who said I was being forced?’ Betsy queried, still as furious as she had started out because Nik’s many, many sins and omissions were piled up like coffin dust in the back of her mind. She wrenched her arm free the instant he closed long brown fingers round it in an effort to hustle her into the study. ‘Lay one hand on me, Nik, and I’ll charge you with assault—’

‘You will not stage a public argument with me in my brother’s house!’ Nik thundered down at her, green eyes so startlingly light with rage they shimmered like polished gems in his lean dark features.

‘That’s fine. I wasn’t planning to stay and waste my breath on a lost cause.’ Azure eyes like jewels assailed his irate stare with a boldness that stunned him. ‘Just don’t you ever dare to tell me what to do again! Subject someone else to the control-freak stuff... You’re not my husband any more. I spent three years trying to be the very best wife I could be, submitting to your every demand and expectation and fitting myself into your world, and thank heaven I don’t have to do it any more!’ she slung at him with a sudden sense of freedom as she walked with determination towards the front door.

‘We’re still married,’ Nik reminded her stubbornly, his attention locked to her like a powerful force beam that could not be evaded.

And Betsy spun round, rigid with so much annoyance at that provocative claim that she was instantly ready to storm into round two of the battle. ‘Really? Where have you been for the past eight months? Oh, yes, divorcing me, repossessing the dog you always ignored, trying to take the roof from over my head while running round with other women. If I did choose to sleep around, consort with lots of men and generally act like a very embarrassing ex-wife, well, I might as well, because playing nice with you all those years certainly didn’t do me any favours! You lied to me—’

‘I didn’t... I have never ever lied to you,’ Nik breathed grittily, big, strong hands clenched into fists by his sides, pale as death below his year-round tan. A claustrophobic silence fell while she waited to see if he would say anything else but, predictably, Nik sealed his firm masculine lips together.

‘You lied by omission,’ Betsy conceded and a belated flush of mortification that they were fighting in Cristo and Belle’s home engulfed her and she cringed inwardly at the lengths her loss of temper had taken her to. ‘And trust you to make that distinction. You’re too clever for your own good, Nik, and I was never h-half clever enough... You broke my heart, Nik, and I’ll never forgive you for it.’ Something very like the start of a sob clogged in her throat and her eyes burned and in more haste than ever she wrenched the front door open, starting down the steps, only halting when a heavy hand settled on her shoulder.

‘Let me take you home—’

‘That would be ridiculous,’ she said tightly, staring fixedly out at the quiet residential street, refusing to turn her head. ‘In any case my car’s parked at the train station at home.’

Nik said something in Greek and a man sidestepped Betsy to yank open the passenger door of the limo parked by the kerb. One of Nik’s security team, Betsy registered, her head swimming a little with the mental and physical exhaustion threatening to overwhelm her. Yet even in that condition, she couldn’t help wondering and beating herself up about whether or not Nik’s security men had also been witnesses to her diatribe. She had harangued Nik like a shrew, had gone up like a firework, experiencing a rage entirely new to her, and it had totally overcome her every inhibition. Sadly, in the aftermath of it, she only felt drained, ashamed and achingly weary.

Nik watched her narrow shoulders droop, her head bow, concern clawing at him even while he remained astonished by her behaviour. She had given him a glimpse into her outlook and he was reeling from it.

You broke my heart, Nik, and I’ll never forgive you for it.

He turned her round, slowly, carefully. She looked up at him, eyes bright with unshed tears in the street light. His mouth came crashing down on hers without warning and suddenly he was lifting her up to him to part her soft lips and drink deep of the sweet, tender interior of her mouth. She felt as if her head were swimming as her body ran from cold to very hot and she wanted to climb him like a tree and cling. Molten desire laced with helpless self-betrayal powered her treacherous response, a wild but necessary release from the unbearable tension. He tasted so good. He tasted hotter than the flaming heart of a fire. Nothing had ever been as primitive as that devouring kiss and yet nothing could have drawn her down so efficiently from her distressed emotional high and grounded her again. He steadied her with both hands as he set her down on her own feet again because she was tottering, dizzy, in another place altogether from the mood she had been in before he reached for her.

‘My car will drop you at the station... I’ll stay on here,’ Nik murmured in a hoarse undertone, but it was the only outward sign he gave that what had just transpired had had any kind of effect on him.

It was a huge challenge but Betsy contrived to relocate her brain and, shaken though she was, she made it down the steps, across the pavement and into the upholstered comfort of the limousine, breathing again only when the car drew away from the kerb. That kiss... No, she wasn’t even going to think about that. It was just part of the craziness that happened when people lost their temper and fought and she wasn’t used to fighting with Nik. Even the day she had told him to get out of Lavender Hall there had been no real fight. While she had ranted about the vasectomy he had kept secret he had stood in brooding silence without explaining, excusing or even attempting to justify his behaviour.

As the limo departed, it finally occurred to Nik that he had set himself much more of a challenge than he could ever have imagined. Telling Betsy that he was coming home to look after her and their unborn child would go down like a brick thrown through a glass window because she didn’t want him back.

Returning indoors, Nik turned in a blind, uncoordinated half circle in the hall of his brother’s elegant town house and he wasn’t aware of anything, of where he was or even of who might be watching for such a moment of weakness. Why had he just assumed that she would want him back? Women had always wanted Nik and it was simply a reality he took for granted. But then he had made that mistake with Betsy before when she’d ditched him on their first date, he recalled abstractedly, an iron bar pounding painfully behind his temples. Of course, Betsy had never been like other women, which was why he had married her in the first place.

When he had brought her flowers she had admitted she would simply prefer an apology for his long absences and more frequent phone calls and texts while he was away.

When he had brought her gifts she had scolded him for wasting his money as if he were an extravagant child. ‘You can’t impress me with that stuff,’ she had once told him gently. ‘That’s not why I’m with you. I’m here because I love you and you can’t put a price on that.’

Perspiration dampening his brow, Nik asked himself for the first time why Betsy had tried to claim half his wealth, because that claim from her had never made sense with what he knew of her character. He wondered what love really felt like, never having experienced it except when it came to her loving him. That love had given him the strangest sense of security... Ridiculous! As if he were insecure. He almost laughed out loud at that idea but somehow couldn’t crank up even a shadowy atom of his sense of humour.

He wondered if it would be possible to kidnap Betsy and take her abroad where she would have to listen to him. Would she really call the police? Ultimately, she had to listen to him. Catching himself up on that peculiar kidnapping fantasy, he raised his brows and wondered if he had taken a sudden nosedive into insanity.

Like Betsy, acting so oddly, attacking him like that. What was the matter with her? Was it possible that it had only happened because she was pregnant? How had he forgotten that for even as long as five minutes? Pregnant ladies had to be very hormonal, he thought vaguely. Betsy had definitely not been herself; in fact she had behaved like someone possessed, displaying a change of character he was happy to lay at argumentative Belle’s door. After all, he knew that Belle didn’t like him and was likely to use his worst mistakes and flaws against him. Although, Nik reasoned with a frown, it was more probable that the only demon possessing Betsy was the result of unstable pregnancy hormones. He was more than a little relieved to have worked out that obvious explanation. That raving virago of a woman had borne no resemblance whatsoever to the soft and gentle Betsy he had once lived with. And would be living with again soon, Nik reminded himself with satisfaction.

Betsy would be surprised but pleased, ultimately very pleased, he told himself with charged conviction. Since the day Betsy had told him to get out of Lavender Hall, Nik had been pursued and propositioned by other women on a daily basis. He had met with seductive looks and bold advances everywhere he went and after three years of marriage such bold invites had proved disconcerting and a passion killer, but, even so, if other women who didn’t even know him could want him so much that they dropped all finesse and dignity, Betsy must want him back more, mustn’t she?

She had let him take her up against the wall that day. Just thinking about it, Nik got hard as steel. She couldn’t honestly hate him if she had had sex with him again, could she? Why the hell was he thinking about all this stupid relationship stuff? For a split second of seething frustration Nik wanted to bang his head on the wall to clear it of the chaotic madness of his thoughts and then he finally registered his brother’s presence several feet away.

‘Are you OK?’ Cristo was watching him worriedly.

Nik flexed his stiff shoulders and straightened to his full height. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

Cristo was not subtle but he knew that telling Nik he was acting weird would be more of a hindrance than a help. In any case Cristo was operating in full sympathy mode. Nik had married a mouse who had started roaring like a lion and naturally he couldn’t cope with that unnerving switch of personality on top of the prospect of a baby as well.

Nik was very much a man’s man, short on the imagination and empathy stakes, Cristo thought understandingly. Cristo had long since noticed that in complete contrast to his brother’s brilliant intellect and polished business negotiation skills, Nik was downright backward and all at sea when anything emotional got involved in a situation. But Nik was trying to understand; Cristo could see quite clearly that Nik was trying and struggling, and he just hoped that, sooner rather than later, Betsy would see it too.

CHAPTER SIX

IT WAS EARLY evening and Betsy was staring down the front steps at the huge removal van and the crew standing beside it and said for the second time, ‘Obviously you’ve got the address wrong. I’m not moving any place and nobody is moving in...’

Simultaneously with that statement came the loud thwack-thwack of rotor blades sounding overhead and drowning out her words. Everyone, including Betsy, looked up into the sky but only Betsy was in a position to identify the logo on the helicopter coming in to land on the helipad Nik had had built. Betsy blinked, blindsided by yet another baffling event. Was Nik flying in to visit her? To discuss the baby and future arrangements between them? But why wouldn’t he have done that through the medium of their respective legal advisors? Surely that would have been less challenging than yet another traumatic meeting?

Five days had passed since Betsy had confronted Nik in Cristo and Belle’s home and she was still cringing, inwardly raging and squirming at the memory of how she had finally given her almost ex-husband a few much-needed home truths. It was unfortunate that she had done that in front of an audience; indeed she felt she owed Nik an apology on that score for having lost control to that extent. On the other hand, Nik was not given to introspection and had probably shaken off her criticisms within minutes of her departure. He wasn’t a sensitive male and he didn’t love her, so why should he care about what she had said about the past when their marriage was over, barring the final legal ratification? And why the heck had he kissed her afterwards? What kind of sense had that move made?

Sky-blue eyes opening very wide, Betsy watched Nik striding through the shrubbery that concealed the helipad and her blood ran cold as she worried again about what might have prompted him to make yet another personal visit. He delegated responsibility whenever he could to free himself up for the much more stimulating arena of the business world.

She concentrated on guiltily trying not to notice how amazing Nik looked in his charcoal-grey designer suit, how exotically, wonderfully handsome with that luxuriant black hair and those stunning light eyes of his that were so striking against his bronzed skin. Her colour fluctuated, her chilled blood started heating up dangerously in her veins and she wanted to slap herself for reacting to his compelling sexual charisma even after all he had done to her. It was just stupid chemistry, she told herself in exasperation. That was why, in a nutshell, she had kissed him back that night; it was a sad fact of life but she found him utterly irresistible.

She was surprised when Nik paused at the rear of the removals van to address the hovering work crew and wondered what he was saying to them. At least as a male with very little patience for inefficiency and other people’s mistakes, he would soon send them about their business.

‘Betsy...’ Nik purred, mounting the steps in a couple of graceful strides of his long, powerful legs, his jewelled gaze locking to hers like a guided missile trained on a target, she thought dimly, little hot and cold tremors winging through her in an unnerving wave of response.

‘What are you doing here?’ Betsy asked, striving this time around to be cool and sensible in her reaction to his arrival. ‘Couldn’t you at least have called to say that you were coming?’

A hairy mop of dog provided an interruption by hurling himself cheerfully against Nik’s legs in welcome.

‘Gizmo...’ Betsy scolded.

‘He must like having us both in the same place again,’ Nik pronounced, actually laughing and reaching down to pet a flyaway doggy ear.

‘Well, he’ll be disappointed then when you leave again,’ Betsy remarked tightly. ‘Honestly, Nik, you should’ve phoned to at least mention that you would be visiting—’

Nik frowned. ‘Could we have a word in private?’ he was careful to enquire.

Glancing behind him, her brow furrowing in bemusement when she registered that the removal men were actually opening up the back of their lumbering behemoth of a truck, Betsy murmured, ‘Of course. Has something happened?’

‘Nothing you need to worry about,’ Nik asserted, a lean brown hand settling into the indent of her slender spine as he urged her in the direction of the drawing room and, having got her there, he prudently closed the door.

‘So, something has happened,’ Betsy assumed, searching his lean, darkly beautiful features, recognising his tension and constraint in growing dismay.

Nik breathed in slow and deep. Moving back in had seemed so simple a solution when he had thought of it but, faced with Betsy’s sheer bewilderment at his appearance, it suddenly seemed rather more complicated than that. Cristo had urged him to go and talk to her first but Nik had wanted to avoid drama and the unthinkable possibility of rejection. Presenting Betsy with a fait accompli and checking out his legal position in advance had impressed him as a more workable and efficient approach. After all, he didn’t warn a company that he was about to take over what he was planning to do in advance, did he?

‘Why aren’t you saying anything? You’re scaring me... What’s wrong?’ Betsy gasped, her nervous tension reaching an unbelievable high. ‘Are Cristo and Belle all right?’

‘Of course they are.’ Nik scanned his wife in a swift all-over appraisal that missed not a single detail of her jeans-clad, relaxed appearance. She still didn’t look pregnant and he wondered when her tiny, slender proportions would show change. He glanced away, colour lining his cheekbones, marvelling at the amount of instant hunger coursing through him. Evidently she owned the key to his libido, or perhaps it was just that he was an exceptionally faithful married man with some mental kink that had prevented him from seeking release with another woman even during a legal separation. With some relief he reached for that practical explanation.

‘Nik...what is it?’ Betsy pressed worriedly, stiff as a walking stick as she stood in front of him.

‘I’m moving back in.’ Nik let the announcement hang there and watched Betsy’s mouth fall open to display two rows of small pearly-white teeth. ‘I’ve decided to come home—’

Betsy almost fell over in shock. In fact her head swam and her ears buzzed as those words rhymed back and forth inside her head and she refused to credit them. ‘I beg your pardon?’ she said limply.

‘I want to come home,’ Nik spelt out in case she had yet to get the message. ‘Make a go of our marriage again...’

He’s certifiably insane, Betsy decided dizzily. The last time he had seen her she had been screaming at him and now, all of a sudden and without the smallest warning, he was telling her he wanted to come back and live with her again. And, worst of all, he spoke as if such a far-reaching decision were entirely one-sided and his alone to make.

‘You mean...that removal van out there—?’

‘Ne...yes. It’s mine,’ Nik admitted, relieved that she had finally understood without him having to spell anything out in greater or potentially embarrassing detail. ‘Don’t worry, you won’t be put out in any way. I called Edna and warned her—’

‘You phoned our housekeeper to tell her you were moving back in and you didn’t tell me?’ Betsy demanded in a charged voice, thinking that the arrival of his possessions was a great deal less perplexing than his own arrival, only he didn’t seem to grasp that obvious little fact.

‘Only an hour ago,’ Nik confided as though that might mitigate the offence.

Betsy breathed in so deep that her head swam again and she studied him in disbelief. ‘Nik...you can’t just decide you want to try again at our marriage without discussing it first with me,’ she pointed out a little shakily, hysteria gathering somewhere deep inside her chest because she just could not believe what she was hearing.

‘I’m discussing it with you now,’ Nik countered levelly, strolling over to the blazing fire. ‘I want you to be pleased.’

It wasn’t the first time in their relationship Nik had told her how she ought to feel before she could decide on her own account, so she wasn’t surprised by that seemingly careless aside. ‘Nik...you left eight months ago. This is my house and home now—’

Nik swung back round, lean, strong face taut. ‘No, it’s not. The settlement papers have yet to be signed. The hall still belongs to me—’

‘Oh, that’s all right, then,’ Betsy told him with spirited sarcasm. ‘I’ll just pack up me and Gizmo and sleep on Belle’s couch! I’m sure she’ll squeeze us in somewhere—’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’ Nik demanded darkly. ‘Why would you leave now that I’ve moved back in again?’

‘We are getting a divorce, Nik,’ Betsy reminded him doggedly, wondering on what planet his reasoning had been formed. ‘You can’t just move back in and spring a reconciliation on me without my agreement—’

‘I don’t want a divorce. We have a son or a daughter on the way and we should be together to raise him or her,’ Nik informed her without fanfare.

‘Ideally speaking...’ Betsy commented weakly. ‘I had no idea you felt that way about the baby when you never wanted one.’

‘But the baby’s now a fact of life,’ Nik replied. ‘We’re going to be parents and I won’t allow my child to grow up without me.’