Playboys

‘In bed.’

‘No, not in bed!’ Ophelia contradicted between gritted teeth of restraint.

‘If I agree to sell you the house now, will you sign over the walled garden to me? And forget about us continuing the charade that we are a normal married couple?’

Suddenly serious again, Lysander slid off the bed in a fluid movement. ‘No. That’s not possible.’

‘You could at least consider the idea. It’s a fair offer. For goodness’ sake, why do we have to go on with this stupid pretence? It doesn’t make sense.’

His handsome bone structure was taut below his bronzed skin. ‘I have excellent reasons that I do not choose to share with you.’

‘So that’s put me in my place again, has it?’ Sizzling with temper and frustration at that snub, Ophelia folded her arms with a jerk.

‘Right now your place is by my side.’

‘I will not dignify that with an answer! You’re being horribly unreasonable.’

‘I have an important question,’ Lysander countered levelly. ‘Will you allow the restoration work here to continue?’

Ophelia almost uttered a furious negative. Then she thought of the roof leaking and the damage that would continue if she took a selfish short-term view of the situation. She couldn’t face doing that to the house she loved. ‘Yes!’ she ground out between clenched teeth.

Stalking over to the bed, she snatched up a pillow and the bedspread that had spilled onto the floor. She marched over to the luxuriously upholstered ottoman couch by the window.

‘Aren’t you hungry?’ Lysander indicated the selection of food on offer. ‘Neither of us had the chance to eat this afternoon.’

In spite of the fact that her tummy was growling with emptiness,Ophelia wrapped herself in the bedspread and lay down on the couch. ‘Goodnight.’

Lysander surveyed his defiant bride while he satisfied his appetite. A slight frown line now divided his ebony brows, for she was not behaving as he had expected. She was excessively obstinate. Why had she offered to sell the house without any effort to negotiate a stupendous price? Why the continued obsession with the walled garden? Did she genuinely like getting muddy? Why was she set on being a thorn in his flesh, rather than taking immediate advantage of his need for her continuing presence in his life? What had happened to her profiteering instincts? Cue for diamonds, he decided. It was time to show her the sparkling financial benefits of meeting his expectations. He swept up the phone to organise it.

Five minutes later he strode over to the ottoman, lifted Ophelia off it and strode back to the bed.

‘What the blazes do you think you’re doing?’ she yelled at him.

‘You sleep in the same bed,’ Lysander informed her, blue-shadowed jaw line set at an obdurate angle of challenge.

Ophelia was taken aback to feel tears threatening because she was genuinely exhausted and the prospect of another rousing battle of wits was too much for her just then. ‘Don’t you dare touch me,’ she warned him.

But it was soon obvious that Lysander had far more important matters in mind than sex. While she lay there with her back rigidly turned to him, he made five separate phone calls in a total of three different languages. His dark deep drawl was brisk and authoritative. But he paced round the room at length on another call, his voice softening in tone as he spoke in Greek. He even laughed a couple of times, although that humorous note struck her as a little forced. She was convincedhe was talking to another woman and she strained to catch every nuance even though she couldn’t understand a word. Was he explaining to a favoured mistress why he hadn’t mentioned the little fact that he was getting married? Why wasn’t he prepared to write off their marriage as a mistake? Why the need for an ongoing pretence?

And why had he slept with her? She couldn’t accept that the chemistry was as strong for him as it was for her, because he was a highly sophisticated man with an endless procession of gorgeous women to choose from. He was also extremely clever and a brilliant strategist. When she had tried to deny that they were truly married, he had simply turned the tables on her by sweeping her off to bed.

While Ophelia agonised over her failure to say no, Lysander had a television wheeled in and watched the business news, which provoked another round of phone calls. She was almost begging for mercy by midnight. He hadn’t even noticed she had a pillow over her head to blank out the light and noise level. An alpha-male workaholic, he had the most appalling level of energy. He also had a passion for controlling everybody and everything around him. His nature was neither tolerant nor patient. He was the last guy alive who would stand the hassle of coping with a demanding, difficult wife. In that knowledge, Ophelia savoured, lay her salvation and her escape route from the shackles of a marriage she didn’t want. What would Lysander most dislike?

Publicity would obviously come top of the list. He liked his privacy, so a wife who gave an interview to a downmarket tabloid would be an embarrassment. And she suspected that a clingy, possessive woman always demanding to know where he was and who he was with would revolt him even more. She would have to be careful not to overdo it, though. A sleepysmile melted the tension from Ophelia’s troubled mouth. Being a nightmare wife might well be fun and should ensure that she got back to her garden sooner rather than later.

For the third time the following day, Lysander checked that no phone call or message from Ophelia had been intercepted and withheld from him.

His sardonic mouth compressing into an even thinner line, he turned his attention back to the board meeting. The stock-market crisis had ensured that he had to fly back to London at seven that morning. Unsated desire had sentenced him to a restless night and plunged him into an icy shower at dawn. One tiny taste of Ophelia had unleashed a disturbingly powerful storm of sexual craving. What the hell was the matter with him? He couldn’t concentrate and he hated the unfamiliar edgy tension nagging at him.

In contrast, Ophelia, to whom histrionics came naturally, had happily slept in his arms half the night as well as through his departure. But then he was convinced that Ophelia would sleep through an earthquake, since he had contrived to clasp a superb pearl and diamond necklace round her neck without wakening her. Even though he had spoken to her she had only mumbled like a zombie and curled up in a ball again.

Any woman, however, would be overwhelmed by so magnificent a gift, he reasoned with conviction. He had also for the first time in his life left a note explaining his absence. And during the course of a phenomenally busy morning he had also arranged for the walled garden to be managed by an experienced horticulturist during their absence. In short, Lysander could not recall when he had ever made that much effort on a woman’s behalf and received less appreciation for it. Or, been treated to a total silence that was steadily beginning to grate on him.

Ophelia enjoyed an equally busy morning. She had opened her eyes to a terse five-word unsigned note on the pillow. ‘At office, flight Greece 20.00 hrs.’ She had almost leapt out of bed and saluted with a ‘Yes, sir!’ as though she were in the military. That amused response was doused by the staggering discovery that she was wearing an opulent pearl and diamond necklace, which put her worryingly in mind of a very elegant dog collar. Was it payment for her virginity? A reward for submission?

Filled with self-loathing at that awful suspicion, Ophelia was sufficiently preoccupied to find herself accepting the luxury of breakfast in bed without complaint. The same maid offered to run her a bath and lay out her clothes and a PA phoned to tell her that she would be leaving for Lysander’s house in London at eleven. Ophelia, who had relished her recent freedom to work all the hours of daylight in her garden, felt trapped by the schedule already mapped out for her.

Ophelia rang Pamela.

‘No, of course I didn’t tell my brother about your marriage,’ Pamela declared. ‘In fact Matt’s furious that I didn’t tip him off. I’m practically under siege by the paparazzi down here. Lysander’s security men have put up barriers at the foot of the lane and the police are patrolling. It’s hugely exciting.’

Ophelia was deep in thought. ‘Do you think anyone would be interested in interviewing me?’

‘Are you crazy? Any journalist would kill for the chance! You’re hot news now.’

Ophelia reckoned that she would never have a better opportunity to take the first step in her campaign to regain her freedom. Did she have the nerve to pull it off? She could not think of anything that Lysander would like less than a wife who could not wait to gush about him and his lifestyle in print.

‘I think it would be fun to do an interview, but it would have to be in London this afternoon. Do you think your brother would like to do it?’

Pamela was so thrilled by that offer that she offered to act as a go-between and handed out loads of tips on self-presentation. Ophelia inspected her new wardrobe with a purposeful glint in her gaze and combined several colourful items to achieve the tarty over-the-top effect she wanted. Lysander had to be made to appreciate that threat could only take him so far and no further, and that it would provide no defence whatsoever against the indignity of an unsuitable wife.

Lysander travelled back to his London town house around four that afternoon and found it in uproar. Stamitos greeted him tensely at the door and informed him that Ophelia was giving an interview to the press. Staff were grouped in doorways in strained silence. Nobody had the courage to meet Lysander’s utterly disbelieving gaze.

‘Which newspaper?’ Lysander demanded, thinking some sixth-sense prompting must have urged him home a good five hours in advance of his usual finishing time.

Stamitos’s big shoulders took on a visible slump. He named a very popular tabloid that had run several scurrilous stories about Lysander’s sex life in recent years. For a split second Lysander actually felt his skin turn clammy with shock, a sensation he had experienced on only one other occasion since reaching adulthood, which had been when his mother’s illness was first diagnosed.

‘Where are they?’

‘The library,’ Stamitos said heavily.

Lysander could barely credit what he was being told. His library, the most private place in his London home, into which he invited only a chosen few. He had failed to appreciate thatthe very fact that Ophelia was his wife had put her in a position of unfettered power. Who would dare to question anything she did unless he first told them to do so? But why the hell hadn’t someone had the courage to phone him and let him know what was happening?

The library door stood open on a room crowded with people and camera equipment. Lysander breathed in slow and deep. It was beneath his dignity to make a scene but the violation of his privacy felt like an act of treachery. Ophelia was curled up on an antique sofa, looking as tiny, exotic and colourful as a tropical bird. Her make-up was dramatic and she had teamed a very short cerise pink dress with over-the-knee sheer black lace stockings and silver high heels. It was a bizarre outfit. His attention travelled from her enormous lilac-shadowed eyes to her glistening cherry-red mouth and lingered with satisfaction on the pearl and diamond necklace before heading down over the pouting swell of her breasts and finishing at the slender expanse of white thigh visible above the lace stocking. His libido reacted with raunchy enthusiasm: bizarre could be surprisingly sexy.

‘Lysander came to see my home and it was love at first sight,’ Ophelia was gushing with a huge smile. ‘I am so lucky, Matt. Right now it feels like I’m living a fairy tale!’

Lysander stared at that wide natural smile, noting that he had never seen it before, while wondering if there just might be a seed of truth in that brash declaration. All too many women had gone overboard for Lysander, which was why he preferred casual relationships. Constantly arguing with him could be Ophelia’s way of hiding her feelings or even a perverse way of attempting to grab and hold his attention. Was that why she had invited the media into his home and was talking like an overexcited schoolgirl? Some people would dovirtually anything to get publicity. Was this simply the fifteen minutes of fame that she felt she had to have? And why did she sound so chummy with the interviewer?

Lysander watched the young male journalist ogle Ophelia’s legs as she shifted position and suddenly it annoyed the hell out of Lysander that his wife was wearing a short skirt.

‘I want that smile of hers for the front cover,’ the cameraman was telling his assistant.

‘How does it feel to be married to a billionaire?’

‘Blissful.’ Ophelia touched the magnificent jewels encircling her white throat with reverent fingertips. ‘Lysander gave me this necklace today.’

Lysander set his even white teeth together and ground them. Didn’t she realise what she sounded like? He wanted to gag her for her own protection.

‘I understand that even though you only got married yesterday your husband is already back at work. How do you feel about that?’

‘Like I’ve been abandoned,’ Ophelia declared earnestly. ‘Lysander will have to change his lifestyle. I believe married couples should spend a lot of time together. I plan on going everywhere with Lysander. His friends will be my friends and I will share all his interests—’

‘Is that because you doubt your husband’s ability to stay faithful if you’re not around?’

‘Oh, I don’t doubt that at all,’ Ophelia told him chirpily. ‘Lysander worships the ground I walk on. I know he’s missing me just as much as I’m missing him today.’

At that precise moment, Ophelia saw Lysander and a guilty blush of mortification enveloped her in a heat wave from head to toe. Yet, for a split second, she still stared for he lookedbreathtakingly handsome and the sexy epitome of sleek male sophistication. Unfortunately she had not expected him to show up during the actual interview when giant fibs and breezy inanities of the most embarrassing sort were tripping off her tongue. Heads began turning and silence fell as his presence registered on Pamela’s brother, Matt, and his companions.

‘Which is why I came home early,’ Lysander drawled with a glittering smile, crossing the room to close an arm round his blushing bride.

Ophelia was struck dumb, but it didn’t matter because Lysander took over with a witty male quip about some racing event that had taken place that day. And suddenly, all the men were talking cars and drivers and she was no longer the centre of attention. In the midst of it, Lysander gave her a gentle little push in the direction of the door. ‘Go upstairs,’ he breathed in a don’t-mess-with-me undertone before he concluded the interview session with the information that she had to get ready for their flight.

Ophelia had barely reached the bedroom when Lysander strode through the door in her wake. She spun round, nervous as a cat, convinced he would be furious and, even though that was the result she had sought, she wasn’t looking forward to the fallout.

‘There are three little things you need to learn to survive the next five minutes,’ Lysander imparted huskily.

‘And what are they?’ Taut with uncertainty, Ophelia connected with his scorching bronze gaze and felt dizzy. Indeed she felt the sexual power of that driving appraisal to the very core of her being. Her breasts stirred within the push-up bra she wore, the delicate peaks tingling into rigid points. A white-hot tension clenched between her thighs, making her embarrassingly aware of the melting warmth there.

‘One. You don’t talk to the press in any shape or form unless I authorise it—and I never will. As I didn’t tell you that, I will not hold it against you on this one occasion. Who was the journalist? He was too familiar with you.’

‘Pamela’s brother, Matt.’ Ophelia watched his lean, powerful face darken with disapproval. ‘You think he was to blame for leaking the news of our marriage to the media but he had nothing to do with it. Pamela didn’t tell him or anybody else. You condemned my best friend unfairly.’

Lysander made no response.

Deflated by that non-reaction, Ophelia tilted her chin. ‘So because of that, I decided that if I was going to give anyone an interview it should be Matt Arnold.’

Lysander jerked loose his tie and unbuttoned his collar. ‘Two,’ he continued, ignoring her protest in defence of her friend. ‘You do not appear in public in clothes that reveal that much of your body.’

Ophelia was bewildered by that charge, as she had not thought a glimpse of cleavage and a little leg would bother him in the slightest. Her outfit was tame in comparison with those worn by most female celebrities.

‘I’m wearing underwear,’ she told him with a sniff, well primed by Pamela’s addiction to magazines to know that some women chose not to do so.

In the act of removing his jacket, Lysander gave her a smouldering look of censure. ‘Don’t even think about going out without it. In fact everything between shoulder and knee should be out of sight.’

‘Is that a fact? So why is it that according to what I’ve been told you’re always being seen out with half-naked women?’

‘Don’t be foolish,’ Lysander drawled with hauteur. ‘You’remy wife and in a different league. I expect modest and circumspect behaviour from you.’

Ophelia was dumbfounded by that little speech, which fairly bulged with the hypocrisy of double standards, but which carried not a single note of apology or self-justification. But she was also amazed that he wasn’t shouting at her. ‘So what was the third thing I needed to learn to survive the next five minutes?’

‘How to appease an angry husband.’ Lysander strolled forward and scooped her up in his arms.

A startled gasp escaped her as he hoisted her up onto the bed. Stunning metallic eyes blazed over her and he ravished her mouth with a hard, hungry kiss that sent her blood racing through her veins. The stab of his tongue mimicked the carnal thrust of his lean body and left her shaking with excitement, a knot of heat and tension pulsing and tightening low in her pelvis.

A wolfish smile on his lean powerful features, he kneed apart her legs and skimmed exploring fingers up below her skirt. It was broad daylight. She was shocked, uncertain. She knew she should stop him. She knew that she had promised herself that she would not sleep with him again but he was touching her with an intimacy that left her boneless with desire. He pushed up her skirt.

‘No, we shouldn’t,’ she mumbled in desperation.

‘But you’re so ready for me.’ Knowing fingertips traced the damp, swollen heart of her beneath the satin panties she wore and when he found the most sensitive spot of all, she moaned in supplication. As she writhed he made a roughened sound of masculine appreciation. Shame that she couldn’t control or hide her eagerness slivered through her.

Lysander studied her with smouldering satisfaction. ‘When all those guys were looking at your dainty white thighs, thisis what I was thinking about, yineka mou.’ he confessed. ‘My right to lie between them.’

He tugged off her panties, positioned her to his liking and mounted her without ceremony. She trembled when she felt the hot probe of his rigid shaft against her yielding softness. He plunged into her honeyed passage hard and fast. It was primitive, raw and unbelievably exciting. Shock waves of erotic sensation racked her slender body. Raising her to him, he sank even deeper into her lush depths, withdrew and then slammed back into her. Delirious with need and on fire with sensation, she cried out. The pleasure was wildly intense. His rampant passion sent her soaring to a mindless peak of ecstasy where the world shattered around her. Nothing had ever felt so powerful and her slender body convulsed in wild contractions of delight. Drained in the aftermath and shaken by the sense of connection she now had with him, she wrapped her arms round him and struggled to breathe again.

Lysander was stunned to appreciate that he had lost control with her. Questioning eyes screened by his thick lashes, Lysander gazed down at her and marvelled at his appetite for her. ‘Did I hurt you?’

‘No,’ she framed gruffly, mortified by what had just happened between them and twisting her head away.

‘I was rough and you’re tiny, yineka mou.’ His dark drawl hoarse, he bent his handsome head and pressed his sensual mouth to the tender skin of her throat.

‘Hmm …’ Tiny little shivers rippled through Ophelia in response. She was sensitised to his every caress.

‘I’m a very sexual man. You excite me,’ he confided huskily, grazing her delicate skin with his teeth. ‘But I don’t think you could take me again right now.’

When she realized that she was being asked a question,Ophelia’s face flamed. Even lying there she was conscious of the ache of discomfort his passion had induced. ‘No, I couldn’t,’ she agreed in stifled embarrassment.

‘My little virgin wife—I should have been more considerate.’ His tone was teasing as he levered back from her, adjusted his clothing and smoothed back his black hair. He looked cool and in control. Yet after that wild conflagration, Ophelia honestly thought that she would never be the same again. With shaking hands she yanked down her skirt over her nakedness.

Without warning a frown line divided his well-shaped brows. ‘Are you using any contraception?’

In a daze at that query, Ophelia shook her head and sat up.

Lysander had fallen very still and there was an ashen quality to his skin, for he was shattered by his carelessness and unable to explain it even to his own satisfaction. The very last thing he wanted was a child. As he had no desire to be a father, he had always been very careful not to run any risks in that department. If his caution had occasionally restricted his enjoyment he had accepted that.

Theos … I’m afraid that I didn’t take any precautions either,’ Lysander imparted with a gravity that made his feelings on the subject very clear. ‘I won’t attempt to excuse my negligence. It’s not a mistake I’ve made before and I hope that there won’t be any repercussions.’

Ophelia dropped her head and very much hoped so too because his attitude chilled her. He was appalled by the very idea that she might fall pregnant. Negligence was a serious word to use. She was frantically counting dates inside her head and stiffened at the acknowledgement that she was dangerously within reach of the most fertile part of her cycle. ‘Let’s hope for the best,’ she muttered stiltedly.

‘I have some calls to make before we head for the airport.’

Ophelia let him get as far as the door before she spoke again. ‘Did you believe me about Matt Arnold? That his sister, Pamela, didn’t leak the fact that we were married to the newspapers?’

Sardonic eyes rested on her anxious face. ‘Of course I didn’t believe you. How could I? Perhaps you leaked that story yourself. Your conduct today underlined your guilt.’

‘And how on earth do you make that out?’ Ophelia snapped in disconcertion.

Lysander dealt her a derisive look of disbelief. ‘You married me yesterday. Today you invited a newspaper into my home. Your eagerness for media attention speaks for itself.’

Ophelia went for a shower in the state-of-the-art bathroom and while she washed she cried with anger, frustration and the most awful hollow sense of homesickness. It should have occurred to her that he would make that rather obvious deduction. An exercise intended merely to annoy him had rebounded on her, for she knew he would never accept now that she had not tipped off the press about their wedding. He saw her as a cheap publicity-hungry trollop, fine for sex but nothing else.

So why did that bother her so much when all she wanted from him was a divorce? Although how did she dare to ask herself such a question when he had put her on his bed and she had demonstrated as much self-command as a rag doll in the passionate encounter that had followed? When she looked at him, she burned for him and all her defences crumbled. It was that basic and it was the most tormenting truth she had ever had to deal with. She had believed that she was strong but now she was confronting her weakness and her pride was in the dust.