Page 51 of The Greek Tycoon's Unwilling Wife

‘For as long as it lasts. As long as it works. If we’re both getting what we want out of this, then I don’t see why it can’t last…’

‘Until we get each other out of our systems?’

The problem was, he reflected as he slipped out of the door and headed downstairs, he doubted that he would ever get Becca out of his system, no matter how hard he tried.

And God knew he had tried!

It had been a week now since she had agreed to stay, and every day it had seemed that instead of his appetite for her being blunted, it had grown until there wasn’t a moment of his day, a single second in the night, even in his sleep, when his mind wasn’t full of thoughts of her. It was worse than when he had thrown her out on the day of their wedding. At least then he had had no sight of her to remind him of how beautiful she was, no touch to bring home to him how fabulous she felt, no kiss to fill his mouth with her own essential taste. Instead, now she was always there, setting his senses on red alert, making him hungry again even in the moment of his greatest satisfaction.

If he had known that it would be like this, then just as he had told her to stay he might have hesitated, knowing that he was being a fool to himself to even consider it. He should have realised then that this would never be over, not for him; that he was only risking his peace of mind, his sanity, to take her back into his life again, knowing that one day she would walk out of it again.

She had been so determined to leave just as soon as she had the money she needed. She’d been on her feet and almost heading out the door when he had known that he could not let her go. He had wanted to have her, to hold her—and so he had damn nearly ordered her to stay.

‘To have and to hold from this day forward until death us do part…’ The lines from the wedding service haunted him as he made his way into his office, but he pushed them away, refusing to let them settle in his thoughts.

There was no till death us do part with Becca—she’d made that only too plain a year ago, when she had married him simply for his money while all the time conducting a passionate affair with Roy Stanton.

But now that Stanton was out of the picture…

Stanton was out of the picture, wasn’t he? He had to be now that he had fathered Becca’s sister’s child.

Roy Stanton. The name tasted like acid in his mouth, making him want to spit as he unlocked the bottom drawer in his desk and yanked it open.

The file was still there. So often he had meant to take it out and shred it, burn the contents, but he had never quite managed to do it. Tonight he felt he could. He had to if he was to have a hope of moving forward.

Tossing it on the desk, he flung open the folder, flicked on a lamp and stared down at the photographs. It was a year since he had last seen them but they still had the effect of hitting him like a punch in his guts. The man he didn’t know, though the investigator he had hired had told him that that was indeed Roy Stanton. And the woman’s face was hidden so that she could be anyone. He had tried to convince himself that the investigator had been mistaken, that she was someone other than Becca. But the ring was the killer blow. There was no mistaking the ring on her hand.

It was the ring that had marked the betrothal of his great-grandmother to his great-grandfather, and had been passed down to him to give to his own future bride. He had put it on her finger himself when she had first agreed to marry him.

‘What are those?’

The question came from behind him, making him start, spin round in shock. Becca stood in the doorway, her face pale, her eyes wide and her white cotton nightdress still floating round her from the effects of her movement, making her look like some ethereal spirit that haunted his home.

‘Nothing important.’

His answer would be more convincing, Becca told herself, if it hadn’t been so swift, so uneven, so blatantly obviously defensive in every way. Just the way he spoke and the look in those dark, dark eyes gave away the fact that whatever was in the file he had been looking at was very far from ‘nothing important’.

‘Just something I planned on shredding.’

‘At three in the morning?’

‘I couldn’t sleep.’

‘Neither could I—not after you left the bed.’

Of course, that wasn’t the truth. She didn’t know how long she’d lain there, alternately listening to Andreas tossing and turning, and knowing that he was lying far too still, trying so hard not to wake her. She didn’t know what kept him from sleeping, and she’d been afraid to ask.

What if the week of total sensual indulgence had been enough for him? What if that was long enough to get her out of his system so that he was no longer getting what he had declared he wanted? Had his ardour cooled so fast that he was lying awake, wondering how to tell her?

When he’d crept from the room, she tried so hard to convince herself that wondering how to tell her wasn’t Andreas’ way. If he’d tired of her, he would tell her straight, no hesitation, no cushioning the blow. But even knowing that hadn’t provided any comfort. In fact, it had only made things so much worse. If he wasn’t trying to think of a way to tell her that, then what else was going through his mind to keep him on edge throughout the darkest hours?

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