“I don’t think I heard you properly. I do that sometimes. I vague out and fantasize.” She shook her head in a gesture that he found frustratingly adorable. “What did you say?”
Relief was spreading through him. “You heard perfectly, agape mou. Marry me.”
“I thought that’s what you said.” Her tongue darted out and licked her lower lip. “It’s so sudden.”
He laughed softly and linked his arms behind her back, pulling her against his broad frame. “Marry me.”
“But
you live in Greece.”
His nod was droll. “And you’re from Australia. These are details, not significant factors.”
She made a chortling sound. “Easy for you to say.”
“Marry me.”
She stared at him with a strange, drowning sensation. “But why?”
“Because every fibre of my being tells me it is right for us to marry. And I believe you feel the same way.”
Their eyes clashed, and understanding throbbed between them.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” He laughed into her cheek and then kissed her.
“Yes! Of course, yes!”
* * *
The packet was waiting for him when he got home. It must have arrived with the day’s post, and he’d shuffled it all onto his desk for later attention.
Proposing to Sophie Henderson had taken the focus out of his mind for a moment. After all, it had surprised him as much as it had her.
But it had been the right call.
He would never know for sure if she and Eric were carrying on an affair, and how serious it was, but there was enough proof to have him seriously concerned. As his wife, she would be out of the picture.
She would be his. And only his.
A tight smile of anticipation spread across his features as he thought of long, Greek nights at his home on Corfu. How he would enjoy teasing her delectable body when she was fully his. No imperative to return her to the house on Herringbone Lane; he would take all night to pleasure her and take his pleasure from her.
His body tightened at the very idea.
He slipped his finger beneath the flap of the envelope carelessly, and dropped the papers onto his desk.
The report was about twenty pages long.
And it contained the information he had dreaded.
Sophie Henderson, formerly employed by a Sir Edwin Thomas of Sydney, Australia, had been, according to various sources, involved in an affair with her married employer. The wife had fired her as soon as she found out. The words in front of his eyes were black and white.
His fingers were unsteady as he siphoned through the papers until he found a photograph of the man in question. Balding, overweight, with a personal fortune in the tens of millions, it was not difficult to see what the appeal had been.
So, Sophie had form for hitting on her wealthy employers, did she?
Was it money she sought? Or was she one of those women who simply liked to torment other women? To snag other women’s husbands for personal satisfaction?