Shimmering green eyes met savage gold ones and the shock to her system was electrifying. An utterly merciless amusement had slashed his hard mouth into a vibrant smile. Her mouth ran dry. Beneath her now frantically spread hands she could feel the heat of his powerful body and the steady thump of his heartbeat. Her own heartbeat was racing like an express train, something akin to panic threatening to rip asunder her once icy composure. And more intimately still the scent of him was in her nostrils, all male laced with some faintly spicy cologne that was disturbingly erotic. Erotic? Dear lord, where had that thought come from?
Disorientatingly, he vented another soft laugh and slid gracefully back from her, his every movement fluid and smooth and confident. He was a male very much at home with his own physical presence. Hooded dark eyes surveyed her with unreadable cool and something else—something else she could not quite put a name to but which might have been satisfaction.
‘Thank you,’ she said in an arctic tone, skimming not quite steady hands down over her jacket as though he might have crumpled it by daring to come that close.
‘That ring on your finger is a wedding-ring,’ Alex intoned softly.
Sarah’s classically perfect nose wrinkled as she cast a throwaway glance at the item. ‘So?’ she said drily.
‘You are now my wife.’
Her emerald eyes glinted. His wife. Was she expected to cower in terror or preen herself with pride? The wedding had meant nothing to her. It had been an empty ceremony, as meaningless now that it was over as the platinum band on her finger. Their marriage had satisfied two needs: Sarah’s desire to have the right to oversee Nicky’s future and Sarah’s desire for revenge. She had made Alex Terzakis pay for destroying her sister’s happiness. She had forced him to marry her. But, now that that was achieved, the furious fire of her fevered bitterness had begun to ebb. He had paid the price that she’d demanded and she really had nothing more to say to Alex Terzakis. Ahead of her stretched a new life with the baby she loved. Alex Terzakis would merely stand on the sidelines of that life, his sole role being that of playing occasional father to the best of his ability. They had nothing to talk about, nothing in common, nothing to share beyond Nicky. So why the macho stress on the concept that she was his wife? The term was irrelevant.
‘You are so punch-drunk on your triumph that you have developed tunnel vision,’ Alex asserted smoothly.
In exasperation, Sarah tossed her hair back. The shining mass flowed down her back in a tumbling river of silver. Big hair, she thought, like someone out of a glitzy novel. She wished she had had it cut short. She didn’t like the way Alex’s eyes lingered on it. It seemed to attract his attention and she didn’t feel comfortable with that.
‘I do not like being ignored.’
‘Perhaps you should try making normal conversation if you have to speak,’ Sarah returned, fed up with his mysterious remarks that seemed calculated to try and stir up her misgivings.
‘About the weather? That would be just about your level.’
‘The rain in Spain fell mainly on the plain,’ she enunciated sweetly.
‘What age are you?’
‘Why don’t you look at your marriage licence?’
‘Don’t be childish.’
‘In a month’s time, I will be twenty-five...I still have a year or two left before I hit thirty,’ Sarah could not resist stressing.
‘That hurt, did it?’
‘Nothing you could say or do could hurt me. Where you are concerned, I am inviolable,’ Sarah stated with conviction.
‘You are very confident.’
‘I have reason to be.’ Sarah had thought it all out.
What could he do to her? He could keep her short of money. It wouldn’t bother her. He could ignore her. It would please her. He could be rude. She would answer him back. He could disport himself in a different woman’s bed every night, flaunt his promiscuity to society at large...it wouldn’t disturb her, except in so far as he would not be setting much of an example for Nicky to follow in later years. And if he was violent she would divorce him...or she would divorce what was left of him by the time she had finished with him. One hint of physical abuse, she reflected fierily, and he was a male with a severely limited lifespan!
They boarded the jet which was to take them to Alex’s home in France. Sarah hovered, ignoring the proffered seat. As Nanny Brown climbed the steps, Sarah heard Nicky’s screams and raced forward, pale and stricken.
‘It’s quite all right, madam,’ the older woman forestalled her with a determined little smile. ‘Nikos and I do require some time to become acquainted. I’ve been looking after children for thirty years and he’ll soon get used to me.’
‘Perhaps in small doses. He’s scared of strangers.’ Sarah held out her arms.
‘Maybe he’s not well.’ Alex had moved forward. His dark, powerful face was troubled as he gazed down at his screeching nephew.
‘There’s nothing the matter with him but bad temper,’ Nanny asserted. ‘Babies have to accustom themselves to a routine.’
Tears smarting behind her worried eyes, Sarah couldn’t stand it any longer. She reached out and simply took Nicky, cuddling him close, muttering baby talk as she hurriedly moved back down the aisle. Nicky unglued swollen dark eyes and looked up at her, his mouth alarmingly enlarged on the brink of another howl. He thought better of it and nestled his damp head into her cradling hand.
Sarah took her seat with contentment. Alex studied them both with narrowed eyes. ‘He knows you...’
‘Of course he does...don’t you, my darling?’ Her small hand stroked the baby’s head in just the way he liked to be soothed and quieted. Glancing up, she found herself in receipt of an intense and frowning appraisal and she wondered why Alex should look at her like that, as if she were behaving strangely. Whether he liked it or not, she was fulfilling the role she was here for and unless the nanny he had arrogantly engaged without consultation betrayed a softer, more flexible attitude Sarah had no intention of leaving Nicky in her care.