Because you are, a voice in his head told him. Because there was not a word she’d said that did not ring true.
Ah. He spun around to stare blankly at his native city spread out beneath him and shimmering in a late-morning haze, and instead saw a jigsaw of words come to dance in front of his eyes. Words like, insulted, stalked, seduced—trophy. He uttered the same tense, half-amused laugh then wasn’t laughing at all because she believed it to be the truth.
Just as she believed that he suspected their baby could have belonged to another man. His heart came to a stop, thudding as it landed at the base of his stomach as he joined that new belief with her old belief that he was glad when she miscarried. And what had he done? He’d sat beside her in his car and voiced concerns about his behaviour towards Diantha.
Was he mad? He turned around. Did she accuse him of possessing the sensitivity of a flea? Because if she did not then she should have done. Where the hell had his head been? he asked himself furiously.
What was he doing standing here when there was every chance she was packing to leave him right now?
Damn, he cursed, and climbed into his car. The engine fired; he pushed it in gear. If her suitcase was out then he was in deep trouble, he accepted as he covered the fifty yards to his driveway at breakneck speed.
Theron’s car was already parked outside the front door and empty of its passengers. Striding into the house, he didn’t think twice about where to look for her and took the stairs three at a time, arriving outside their bedroom before he paused then diverted to the room next door.
Thrusting the door open, he stepped inside. His instincts had not let him down. She was standing by the window, facing into the room with her arms folded.
Waiting for him, he noted with grim satisfaction, and closed the door. ‘I did not believe you had been unfaithful to me,’ he stated as he strode forward. ‘The only marriage contract that you and I will ever have will have to be written in my blood on my deathbed since I have no intention of letting you go before I die. I do not think of you as a trophy, a puppet or a thing of mockery. And I don’t stalk you, I follow you like some bloody faithful pet dog who does not want to be anywhere else but where you are.’
He came to a stop in front of her. Her eyes were dark, her mouth small and her hair was stuck in a pony-tail. She was wearing combat trousers and a tough-lady vest top but there were tears sliding down both smooth cheeks.
‘If I loved you any more than I do already they would have to put me away because I would be dangerous,’ he continued huskily. ‘And if I sounded bloody insensitive back there then that is because I was hurt by those photographs too.’
She stifled a small sob. He refused to reach for her. He would answer all charges and then he would touch.
‘Diantha has been a part of my family since she and Chloe were giggling schoolgirls. I believed Nikos had hurt her four years ago, I thought he had deliberately set out to turn her head and when she became serious left her flat. I even felt sorry for her so I visited whenever I was in Washington. But Nikos now tells me that he recognised her need to manipulate even then. I was wrong about her and now I am sorry—and don’t think those tears are going to save you,’ he added, ‘because they are not.’
‘Save me from what?’
‘Retribution,’ he answered. ‘For daring to believe I could question the parentage of our child.’
‘Your face—’
‘My face was pained, I know,’ he admitted. ‘There is only one person who could have put such a filthy idea in her head and that is Takis. And how do I know that? Because he once dared to suggest such a thing to me.’
‘Takis…?’ Her eyelashes fluttered, tear-tipped and sparkling.
He rasped out a sigh that fell between anger and hurt. ‘I was miserable, you were miserable,’ he reminded her. ‘We were living within a vacuum where we did not communicate. Takis was the closest thing I had to a father back then. He asked about our marriage, and when I stupidly said in a weak moment that I was worried about you because you were forever going missing he suggested that maybe I should find out where you go.’
He clamped his mouth shut over the rest of that conversation. What it contained did not matter here. What did was that his most trusted friend and employer had been passing on confidential information. ‘Now I find he has been disclosing confidential information about pre-nuptial contracts and the lack of.’
‘Did he set up the photographer too?’
He sighed and shook his head. ‘I am hoping he did not. I am hoping that the photographs were all Diantha’s idea. Has it occurred to you that she had taken those things before she knew that you and I would get back together? Which means she always planned to use them whether or not you were still on the scene. A safeguard,’ he called it. ‘In case I did not come through with the marriage proposal. How do you think it makes me feel to know I was open to such manipulation?’
‘An idiot, I guess.’ She offered him a shrug that said she believed he deserved it. Insolence did not begin to cover the expression on her beautiful face.
His eyes narrowed. Challenge was suddenly back in the air. Then without warning she issued a thick sob then fell into his arms—because she belonged there.
‘I’ve had a h-horrible day,’ she sobbed against him.
‘I can change that,’ he promised, picked her up and took her to the bed. They could make love—why not? It was the most effective cleanser of poison that he knew of.
Afterwards they went downstairs to find their home overrun by people who wanted to make amends for all the ugliness. His mother was there, his sister, Chloe, even Nikos had come with Carlotta pinned possessively to his side. Silvia and Theron were looking shell-shocked because someone had run the whole sequence of events by them.
No Takis Konstantindou though, he noticed, and felt a short wave of anger-cum-regret flood his mind. Takis was out, and he probably knew it by now. Diantha’s father would have seen to it. He was a man of honour despite what his daughter was.
Eve arrived with Ethan Hayes, carrying a crate of champagne. ‘To welcome Isobel back into the fold,’ Eve announced, but they all knew that she’d heard about today’s events too.
‘You don’t need jungle drums up here,’ Isobel whispered to Leandros. ‘The rumours get round on a current of air!’