‘I’m too tired to feel hungry.’
As she tripped up clumsily over her own feet in the smart hallway of the town house Alexei bent down and scooped her up into his arms. ‘You’re shattered,’ he censured and paused only to speak to the housekeeper about dinner before carrying Billie upstairs.
It was quite a while since she had had cause to go upstairs in the town house. For the long months of his engagement she had regarded the upper floor as Calisto’s territory and she still felt that way now when Alexei took her into the magnificent master bedroom. When she gazed at the big bed, opulently draped in rich purple and olive shades chosen by the Greek woman, she could imagine all too well how good Calisto’s blonde mane of hair, sparkling white smile and long leggy limbs would have looked against such a backdrop.
‘I’ve ordered some food for you. After you’ve eaten get some sleep,’ Alexei urged, settling her down on the bed and flipping off her shoes for her.
He settled down on the edge of the bed. A meal arrived on a tray and she discovered that she was hungrier than she had realised. ‘You don’t need to stay with me,’ she told him.
Keen dark golden eyes rested on her. ‘You’re still upset…’
‘I’m dreading what Lauren might have told the newspaper,’ Billie parried with a rueful grimace.
‘Sticks and stones,’ Alexei quipped lazily. ‘Don’t read it. Nothing that’s printed should have the slightest impact on us.’
At that assurance, Billie shot him a wry glance. ‘That wasn’t your attitude when you saw that photo of Damon and me on the beach.’
Alexei’s big powerful frame tensed. His strong jaw line clenched, his brilliant gaze veiling. ‘That was different.’
‘How?’
‘Damon Marios has always had the hots for you.’
‘That’s nonsense. For goodness’ sake, he married Ilona.’
‘Only because he blew his chances with you as a teenager. You were his first love and he was yours. For a lot of people that creates a bond that’s hard to shake off.’
‘I could never see him the same way after that day he pretended not to be with me on the ferry,’ Billie confided. ‘I was always the outsider on the island, but he made me feel like dirt when he ignored me that day.’
Alexei curved an arm round her slight shoulders. ‘He was an idiot. I was pleasantly surprised when you didn’t forgive him for it.’
‘I didn’t like what you said about him that day but it was true and that’s why you should know that I would never get involved again with Damon.’
Alexei compressed his wide sensual mouth. ‘I just don’t like him around you. You’re my wife now. He should respect that. He shouldn’t be so familiar with you. An honourable man respects those boundaries. You’re a woman, you don’t understand.’
Setting aside the tray because she was full, Billie released a drowsy laugh of disagreement. ‘Oh, I understand you perfectly. You’d like a tag on my ankle engraved with your name.’
‘This is serious. It’s got nothing to do with possessiveness or jealousy,’ Alexei hastened to declare in a tone of authority. ‘It’s simply a question of what’s right.’
‘I know. I can be serious too. I don’t like this bed because Calisto picked the bedding and once slept here with you,’ Billie confided chattily. ‘But I’m not expecting you to drag the bed out and burn it for my benefit. It’s simply a question of what’s reasonable.’
Perplexed by that unexpected turning of the tables and that particular comparison, Alexei turned his stunning dark golden eyes on her. ‘I’ll have all the beds changed.’
‘But that would be unreasonable and extravagant,’ Billie pointed out gently to underline her point. ‘Some things we just have to live with.’
Alexei sprang off the bed and looked down at her with brooding dark-as-night eyes. ‘I’m not living with you holding hands with Damon Marios. The next time I find him with a hand anywhere near you I’ll kill him!’ he intoned in a raw undertone. ‘And I don’t care if that’s unreasonable.’
With a sleepy sigh as the door snapped shut on Alexei’s hot-headed exit, Billie rested her head back on the pillows and contemplated the reality that she was married to a guy who was infinitely more possessive of her and her affections than she had ever properly appreciated. Her friendship with Damon was perfectly innocent but, clearly, it really did get under Alexei’s skin. Lying there thinking about it, she realised that even when she had worked for him Alexei had always acted as though he had a prior claim to her and a right to interfere in her private life. She should never have allowed him to behave that way, but until that moment she had never quite seen the extent of his possessiveness.
Now it brought a pained smile to her lips to recall the number of women she had watched swan through his life to pass through his various beds round the world. She had writhed with jealousy and envy and had cried herself asleep more than once over Alexei’s volatile love life, but nobody had caused her to shed more tears than Calisto Bethune, who she had once believed had his heart as well as his body. But at that point Billie took a pause for more considered reflection. She was beginning to recognise that, now that she was Alexei’s wife, it was time for her to exercise more sense and control her jealousy and her suspicions.
To be fair, Alexei had followed her to London purely to be there for her when she emerged in distress from her meeting with her recalcitrant mother. She was astonished that he had made such an effort on her behalf, and that he had understood her strained relationship with Lauren well enough to grasp that she would be upset and in need of support. But there had been other occasions in her long acquaintance with Alexei when he had shown himself to be equally thoughtful, she reminded herself ruefully. When had she chosen to forget that? That Alexei, without any prompting from her, had shown up to offer her that support and sympathy meant a great deal to Billie, particularly when sixth sense warned her that he had no time for Lauren at all and even less patience with her shenanigans.
Billie dozed off for several hours and wakened after midnight to find that she was still wearing her clothes. Suppressing a sigh, she got up, stripped off and dragged a nightdress out of her case before taking a shower to freshen up. Through the communicating door with the adjoining bedroom, she could hear distant strains of the television news playing and realised that that must be where Alexei was sleeping. Of course, after she had refused him that night at Hazlehurst, she mused wryly, he was unlikely to share the same room with her. After drying off her damp hair, she got back into bed and doused the lights. For half an hour she tossed and turned, thinking about Alexei, wishing he were with her, missing him, feeling deprived. And then suddenly she sat up, asked herself if she was a woman or a mouse, and got out of bed again.
She didn’t knock on the communicating door and when she opened it the room was in darkness. ‘It’s only me,’ she announced, feeling horrendously self-conscious.
‘I didn’t think it was a burglar,’ Alexei murmured huskily.