Her face was burning, and it wasn't from the effects of the sun. It was a shame. Shame and humiliation both. He, no doubt bored by this empty charade of marriage but bound by his agreement to her condition. And he had done so, and to add the final telling insult had walked away, showing her how completely unmoved he was by her obvious arousal. He could take her or leave her—that was the message his actions had transmitted, loud and clear.
She didn't think she would ever forgive him for that. Ever. And the ease with which he had physically dominated her would make her shy away from him in the future more than ever before!
Back at the white one-story villa, Freya helped herself to a tall glass of fresh lemon juice, gulping it down thirstily, her stormy eyes darting around the cool gleaming kitchen as if she expected someone to leap out of the shadows and attack her.
Someone? Theo, of course! His hands-on her body had been a form of attack—insidious, almost unbearably erotic, but an attack all the same!
But gradually she relaxed, her eyes calmer, her hands almost steady as she rinsed her glass. Theo would be back on the beach, or still swimming. Either way, she had again put distance between them. However, a nasty little voice
Intoned maliciously, deep in her brain, she wouldn't always be able to keep her distance. And he wouldn't always drawback at the moment of capitulation, not if he wanted children, he wouldn't.
And beginning a family had been the reason he had decided to marry, and the Dexter Securities shares had meant that she had been the woman he had chosen to bear his children. Suddenly, the idea was mortifying. She had thought she was doing the right and sensible thing when she'd suggested they marry, but now she wasn't so sure. She seemed to be pulling herself out of one mess, only to find herself entangled in one which was worse!
She had always admired Theo for his ability to remain aloof, cool, and for the way he was always in total control. But as she flounced from the kitchen and down a cool corridor to her room she could see the other side of that ability of his—the darker, cruel side.
The way he had shown her how he could bring her to the point of begging for his lovemaking—despite the absence of the love she had always believed to be essential—had left her shaking with unfulfilled need and self-disgust. A potent mixture, poisonous. And that very ability of his, which she had once so admired, now sickened and frightened her.
Stripping off her bikini and stand under the shower, sluicing away every last trace of the sun- cream, as if his fingerprints still lingered in the oily substance. She hoped that their children when they arrived, would look like her—grey-eyed blondes—with not one trace of their father's dark, cruel beauty. They would be her children, not his! Hers! She would make them so, and that would be the final irony. She hated him at this moment, she really did, and she didn't want to give him one damned thing — not even children that resembled him in the slightest!
Freya heard the maid arrive in time to prepare the evening meal, bringing the fresh fish, fruit, and vegetables she bought from the village each day.
she put aside the book she'd been trying to read and walked from the terrace through the arched doorway that led to her room, pushing the silvery tumble of silky hair back from her face.
Theo was late. It only ever took the middle-aged Greek woman an hour to make their meal, sometimes less. So where was Theo?
Catching sight of the frown-line between her huge grey-eyes, she turned away from the revealing mirror reflection. She couldn't actually be worried about him, could she? A few hours earlier she hadn't cared if she never saw him again!
But she was calmer now and knew she had overreacted. He had made her want him. So? He was her husband, wasn't he? That she was fastidious and had always believed she would have to love a man before she could be sexually aroused was something she had taken for granted. But he had aroused her, revealing a depth of sexuality she hadn't known she possessed. She was learning things about her character that alarmed her, but that didn't mean she had to go over the top.
And she was learning things about Theo, too. That he was male enough, arrogant enough, to need to lay claim to his ownership, to let her know that he could make her want him whenever he felt like doing so.
Restless now—where was the man?
Since they had been here they had always met on the terrace at this time in the evening. Usually, they had spent the daytime hours at separate ends of the island, because he seemed no more anxious for her company than she was for his. But they always began their evenings here, having a drink or two before dinner, making light, impersonal conversation. And now his absence was making her nervous.
But that in itself was nothing new. He had been making her nervous ever since he had agreed to marry her! And it had grown progressively worse,
And then he was there, in the archway leading from her room, his body relaxed, like the mean and magnificent cat she had always thought he resembled. He was already dressed for dinner, his narrow black trousers and formal white lightweight jacket fitting him to perfection, making him look suave yet deadly.
'Good book?' His eyes drifted to her discarded novel as he walked, soft-footed, to where she had been sitting earlier, placing the two dry martinis he had brought with him on the low marble-topped table, and Freya shook with anger, shrugging aside his question with a tight shrug of her shoulders.
It was no use his asking her if the book was a good one; she couldn't remember a word of the few she had read. Mostly she hadn't been reading at all, just sitting here, wondering why he was late, when he would come home. And all the time he had been here, showering, changing, fixing drinks, not bothering to let her know he was in the house. Dammit, the man was intolerable!
She took the drink he had fixed for her, carrying it and staring blindly out to sea.
If she joined him at the table she would have to look at him. She didn't want to meet those clever eyes because she knew she would be able to see in them the mind pictures of the way she must have looked this afternoon when she'd abandoned her practically naked body to the exploration of his hands.
'Freya—' Her name on his lips sounded, suddenly, quite unbearably intimate, and she reluctantly made a half-turn towards him, hoping he wouldn't notice the way the hand that held her drink was shaking. 'Come and sit down, I want to talk to you.'
'What about?' A rapid but ostentatious glance at her wristwatch. 'It's time I went to change.' So cool her voice, the small half-smile she angled at nothing in particular. She should be winning Oscars! The last thing she needed right now was to have to sit with him and listen to whatever it was he had to say.
'You look fantastic as you are.'
'You've got over half an hour before we need to go in to eat.' His mouth tilted with heavy irony. 'Do I have to beg for five minutes of my wife's time?'
'I'm sorry.' Freya sat. Put that way, she could hardly refuse, and she sipped her drink, waiting, and he said,
'I think we should consider buying a house in the country. Somewhere close enough to use at weekends. It would be particularly useful after the children arrive.'
His eyes slid over her, making her skin burn. 'What do you think?'
There's time for that,' she answered stiffly, 'After all--' she made a concession to his mention of all those children she would be expected to bear '—I expect to continue with my job for some time to come. I enjoy it.'
She couldn't imagine him as a family man, making swings in apple trees, playing football or snakes and ladders in front of a log fire while she busied herself darning endless tiny socks in between baking and preserving in some farmhouse-type kitchen. And how many children did he expect her to have, for goodness' sake? And would she be expected to start producing them right away? One litter after another, like a rabbit? Her throat tightened with what she recognized as incipient hysteria, and if she hadn't been so busy trying to control that disgraceful and, up until becoming entangled with him, alien state, she might have taken his ambiguous reply as fair warning.
'The expected sometimes doesn't happen, Freya--'
She got to her feet, 'I really must go and change,' she tossed over her shoulder, her smile brittle. 'By all means, we can cast our eyes over a few properties, get to know the market for when we seriously want to buy—sometime in the future.'
If he had decided to charm her he was certainly succeeding, Freya thought, rising from the table where they had sat in lamplight intimacy over the delicious meal the Greek maid had prepared?
She didn't want her emotions involved, it would only lead to pain, because he would never become emotionally involved with her, with anyone, as far as she could tell.
As she went to look out over the silvery night, he followed her, placing a hand on her shoulder where the halter neckline of her dress left it bare. And this time she didn't shy away from his touch, even though that touch felt like needles of excitement pricking her skin.
'Cold?' he said. 'Shall I fetch you a wrap?'
She turned, simply to deny any feeling of coldness because for some reason she had never felt warmer in her life. He was close, so close, and even in the shadowy light of the moon, she could see he was not quite as implacably cool as he pretended to be.
'No—I'm fine, thanks.'
Something was coming to life between them, a vital new growth, but not something known. Not really known, although she could make a fairly accurate guess. But she had to remember, always remember, that this was a marriage of convenience. And then a thought passed through her mind, leaving an annoying foot-print, that maybe her motives had been suspect all along the line.
Solving her problem had depended on finding a husband her uncle and aunt, as her guardians, could approve of. But would she have asked Theo to marry her if he'd been fat and bald with a mind like a geriatric slug? It was a question she wouldn't like to be forced to answer.
She hadn't been able to sleep; the night was too hot, her thoughts jumping this way and that, making her mind ache.
That tension between them, that awareness, had been growing throughout the long evening, muddling her. And her 'goodnight' to him had been abrupt, far more terse than usual as she'd left the terrace, making for the solitude of her room.
But if she'd been looking for safe haven she hadn't found it there, and at last she'd slipped down to the beach, noticing the light coming from his room and wondering if he, too, found it impossible to sleep, if he found this marriage, entered into so coolly and objectively, had strange and rather terrifying facets that were only now beginning to reveal themselves.
She had never been drawn to the idea of marriage, the total commitment of love. Love was something she'd learned to do without since she'd lost her parents. Her mind, she supposed, was closed to the concept of it. She had imagined, for a brief that she was in love with Leo Issac— and that had turned out to be an all-time disaster.
But if she had been looking for love, for a man she could respect, share the rest of her life with, then Theo could have been everything she could want in a man. He had a brilliant mind, was even-tempered—well, mostly—and he was strong, yet capable of tenderness, of deep humanity. He also respected her as an equal, and that counted for much—for more than the sum of his undoubted sex appeal, his wealth and position.
Yes, had she been looking for such a man, for love... A small wave, but higher than the rest, took her unawares, wetting her to her knees, and she stumbled, almost fell, then righted herself and turned and saw him a mere two meters away. Everything inside her seemed to stop, just for a moment, before racing on, the blood thudding through her veins, her heart pattering a demented tattoo.
'Theo--' Her voice was thick, his name dragged from her on a sighing breath that faltered hopelessly, because she had known in that instant when time had stood still for her, when her breath, her very heartbeat, had hung suspended, that she loved this man, had probably been falling in love with him since she'd first set eyes on him. It was almost laughably simple! It had certainly been inevitable.
Moonlight, slow and silver, touched his face, stroked his magnificent body, stopping the breath in her throat.
'I couldn't sleep.' He moved closer, close enough to touch, and her skin turned to flame with the nearness of his almost naked body as he cupped her face in his hands, his eyes searching hers, revealing the depth of his own wanting.
'I'll walk you back.' His voice was kind, but there was a roughness in it, just below the surface, that told her he wanted her, as she wanted him. 'Perhaps a hot drink might help? Me, too—probably more than the swim I'd decided to take before I saw you along the shore.'
'Theo--' He was waiting for her, just a step or so ahead now, but he pivoted around as her voice touched him, tense, his skin glistening in the silver light as though drenched with sweat, although the breath from the sea was cooling.
'Make love to me.' The husky ease with which she spoke the words didn't surprise her. They were right, so right, and should have been said so very much sooner.
'Are you sure?' His voice was throaty, urgency contained. 'Quite sure?'
And she nodded, too full of love for him to speak, too near to tears, or laughter, because she'd been such a blind fool these last months. She lifted her face to him, and he caught his breath, drawing her closer so that their bodies touched, just; magic was born as after one long and incredibly tense moment their bodies joined, and the softness of her melted into the demanding hardness of him, hands and lips seeking, finding, consuming.
And there on the shore, with the pulse of the sea melding into the rhythm of the blood in their veins, he made love to her with a tender passion that made her want to cry.
She loved him so.
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