The Markonos Bride. Michelle Reid

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      It was like balancing on a knife-edge, she thought. Flashing glimpses of steely expressions kept lancing her way. Jamie was reluctant to move and leave her alone with Andreas. Andreas had swung round to look at the old family retainer, now he was looking back at her and his expression had turned cold. Tension zipped around all three of them and on a hot Greek summer evening she suddenly felt so chilled her flesh grew goose-pimples.

      Then her brother bent and with a jerk he picked the bags up. There was no missing his mood, no misunderstanding the look he flicked at Andreas before he strode away. She and Andreas both watched in thrumming silence until Jamie reached Kostas.

      Then, ‘Would you like to explain to me what is going on?’ Andreas drawled.

      ‘Not really.’ With a rueful honesty she knew didn’t help the situation one tiny bit, Louisa ended up adding another sigh then straightened her shoulders and made herself look up at him. ‘I’m here to visit Nikos.’

      Hearing their son’s name spoken between them for the first time in five years locked the muscles in his dark golden features so tightly a thick lump formed in her throat so she couldn’t breathe.

      They both broke eye contact at the same time.

      ‘I had already gathered that,’ he returned without any noticeable inflexion in his voice. ‘While I was supposed to be safely out of the way in—Thailand, I think your brother said?’

      ‘You know he did,’ she responded edgily.

      ‘Which, to hazard a rough guess, brings my parents into this.’

      Irritated now, ‘You don’t have to be sarcastic about it,’ she snapped back at him.

      ‘I have been set up. I will be as sarcastic as I want to be.’

      He’d been set up? ‘Why aren’t you in Thailand?’ Louisa demanded.

      ‘Because I was summoned here obviously,’ he replied. ‘How often have you come here without my knowledge?’

      There was just no way she was going to answer that one. ‘It’s getting late,’ she hedged instead, flicking a blind glance at her wrist-watch, only to frown when the time she saw did not make any sense. But then what did around here? she asked herself and dropped her wrist away. ‘We need to go if we don’t want to lose our rooms…’

      ‘What rooms?’ The frown came back.

      It was like jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire then back again, Louisa thought heavily. ‘We are staying at The Hotel.’

      The Hotel being the only hotel on the island.

      ‘Like hell you are,’ he rasped. ‘My wife does not reside in a third-class hotel when a ten-bedroom villa stands waiting to welcome her home!’

      ‘Estranged wife.’ It was out before she could stop it. So was, ‘And the Markonos villa is not home to me any more.’ Then before he could respond yet another sigh shot from her. ‘For goodness’ sake, Andreas, it should be obvious that I have no wish to stay at the villa. I am not here as a member of your fabulous family, I am here as myself for myself!’

      ‘You are a Markonos,’ he uttered stiffly.

      I’m just not going there, Louisa decided, eyes as restless as her frazzled nerves now. ‘We are staying at the hotel,’ she repeated stubbornly.

      ‘And my mother allows this?’

      He just was not going to let up until he knew it all, Louisa realised and, pinning her lips together, she gave a curt nod, knowing it was way too late to keep Isabella’s part in her visits here out of this.

      Another silence followed—a cold, stiff Markonos silence that could freeze the blood in your veins. Her arms came up to fold across the tension packed inside her ribcage. Kostas had helped Jamie stash the bags in the boot of the car and now both of them were standing watching them and she felt a sudden urge to scream and shout and stamp her feet.

      ‘Look,’ she tried a more diplomatic approach, ‘I don’t…’

      Andreas spun his back to her and walked away. Staring after him, Louisa wondered how she could have forgotten how overbearing he could be when the mood took him. Did he think she was finding this situation any less awful than he was? Did he think she wanted to be faced with her estranged husband, whose hot affairs with even hotter women had been splashed all over bright, glossy magazines for years?

      He’d gone to speak to Kostas. Tall, dark, animal-lean with the potent promise of—

      Oh, dear God, what was she doing? Don’t go there, she told herself. Just—don’t!

      Taking a deep breath, she made herself track after him, noticing the way Andreas was so deliberately ignoring Jamie it was putting an angry flush in her brother’s face. She arrived at the Mercedes as sets of car keys were exchanged. Kostas sent her a sheepish look then nodded politely before walking off towards the open-top sports car.

      Andreas pulled open the rear door of the Mercedes. ‘In,’ he commanded.

      Jamie immediately bristled at his tone. Needing to get this ordeal over with as quickly as she could, Louisa gave her brother a nudge and a glaring look that told him to get in the damn car.

      She climbed in after him. The door shut.

      ‘Who the hell does he think he is?’ Jamie muttered.

      A man who knows he’s been duped by his own mother into coming here to the island and who doesn’t like it. Louisa didn’t blame him; she didn’t like what was going on either. What was Isabella playing at?

      ‘Shh,’ she hissed at her brother.

      Andreas slid into the driver’s seat, the bright white of his shirt accentuating the muscular breadth of his shoulders and the rich, smooth warmth of his olive-toned skin. Louisa found herself staring at him—caught a pair of dark eyes looking right back at her through the rear-view mirror and felt pinned to the seat by an electric charge.

      CHAPTER THREE

      IT WAS hot, it went deep and it was bone-meltingly intimate, the dark depth of his eyes burning with a personal knowledge Louisa just hoped was not reflected in hers. She wanted to look away but found that she couldn’t. Her mouth had run paper-dry, lips trembling and parting on a soundless denial that died on the tingling tip of her tongue as the years fell away in the sultry shadows separating the two of them, until she felt like that young seventeen-year-old looking at the younger man who’d so captivated her shy and vulnerable heart.

      Yet he had altered more than she would have thought possible, grown so much leaner and harder as if that younger man had been carefully honed and toned during the years to present this fully matured and tougher version she was looking at now. His face had fined down, the bone structure gaining so many new angles—the high cheekbones, the ruthlessly carved shape to his jaw and his chin. His nose had never been fleshy but it had managed to slim out even more and his wide, sensual mouth that had used to flash out fabulous, sense-stealing smiles now had a grim cut to it that she didn’t like to see.

      Or was it finding himself faced with her again that was putting the grimness there? She didn’t СКАЧАТЬ