Page 13 of The Greek Tycoon's Unwilling Wife

That smile caught on Andreas’ nerves. Caught and held and twisted. He found himself torn between two totally contrasting sensations. In one moment he experienced a real delight in seeing that smile, seeing the way it lit up her face, the way it curved the fullness of her lips, softening the kissable mouth and making it infinitely more tempting than before, and at the same time endured something else. That ‘something else’ was a feeling that was the total opposite of delight, totally at war with pleasure. Without knowing where it had come from, Andreas suddenly found that he was filled with a black fury, racked with a terrible sense of hatred that had him clenching his hands into hard fists at his sides, biting down fiercely on his bottom lip to stop himself from speaking and letting the savage anger that crouched inside him out into the open.

‘I never thought of it that way,’ Becca said and even her voice was very different from the way it had sounded before. It was light and easy, relaxed and touched with a hint of flirtatious teasing. ‘But now that you’ve explained it—it makes total sense.’

‘Of course it does,’ a second voice put in. A deeper, thickly accented voice. A male voice and one that Andreas recognised at once.

It was Leander’s voice. Leander his PA. Leander, his young, tall, dark and handsome PA.

A terrible sense of jealousy ripped through him, driving away all sense of rationality, all hope of calm. His jaw tightened, clamped into a thin, hard line until it ached and he could feel the rage rising in him like lava in a volcano, boiling up to the surface and threatening to spill out over the top, engulfing everything in a blazing, burning flood of fire.

Another slow, silent step downwards moved him to a position where he could see fully into the room. He could see where Leander lounged against the wall, long legs crossed at the ankles, dark face smiling, a glass in his own hand.

‘Never argue Greek legends with a Greek,’ the younger man said now, waving his drink in the air to emphasise his point, his smile seeming to Andreas’ watchful gaze to be intimate, almost conspiratorial.

‘I won’t,’ Becca said and the gleam of amusement in her face, the smile she directed at Leander twisted a knife deep inside Andreas.

He could feel his head start to pound, his breath becoming raw and uneven. He didn’t ask himself where the rage was coming from, just accepted it as right, as the way he should feel. Wasn’t this why he had told himself she had to go? That she was trouble if she stayed around?

He’d had enough.

Taking the last two steps down in a single jump, he marched into the room, his black mood showing in every stride, every movement. His attention totally focused on Becca, he saw the way that her head swung round, eyes widening in sudden confusion.

And guilt? Perhaps there was a touch of it. Certainly her face went white enough to make it seem that way.

‘OK, that’s it,’ he snapped, watching her eyelids flutter, her long dark lashes dipping to conceal her gaze just for a moment in a reaction to his appearance that she couldn’t disguise.

‘It’s time you left. Time you were out of here—now,’ he added more forcefully when she simply sat back in her chair and stared at him, her mouth very slightly open, those beautiful eyes now blinking hard in shock as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

‘But…’

‘Andreas…’ Leander put in but Andreas ignored him and addressed his words straight into Becca’s stunned face.

‘Did you hear what I said?’

‘Oh, I heard all right…’

Becca was having to struggle to keep control of her voice enough to answer him. Her heart had lurched so hard, so violently when Andreas had come into the room that just for a moment she had thought she might actually faint from the shock of it. But even as she recovered a whole new tide of emotions had swept over her, a sense of apprehension so fierce as to be almost total panic being uppermost amongst them.

What was happening? Why was Andreas behaving like this? Earlier that afternoon, upstairs in his room, he had been distant it was true, but polite enough. Now he was in a dark, icy rage, his handsome features set into a mask of total hostility and rejection that made the panic come worryingly closer, her heart fluttering disturbingly and her thoughts whirling out of control.

Had he remembered what had happened? Had something she’d done betrayed her so that Andreas had realised the true situation between them and had now come downstairs in savage rage to turn on the wife he had rejected so brutally twelve months ago and force her out of his home once again?

‘But I’ve only just unpacked.’

‘Then pack again,’ he commanded, eyes like cruel lasers fixed on her confused and worried face.

She knew this mood of old and it frightened her. When he was like this, then Andreas had no intention of yielding anything—he would not be swayed in any way. Harsh memories of the way that he had flung almost exactly those words at her a year before now resurfaced and threatened to take all her emotional strength away at a blow.

At last the haze in her mind was easing enough for her to be able to see him clearly but just the sight of him was enough to rock her composure once again.

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