Greek Affairs: To Take a Bride: The Markonos Bride / The Greek Tycoon's Reluctant Bride / Greek Doctor, Cinderella Bride. Кейт Хьюит

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      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 know, couldn’t think beyond the agonising fact that he was still the most visually stunning man she had ever set eyes on, still so sensually armoured it was no wonder she was feeling as weak and susceptible as she’d always been around him.

      Then she suddenly remembered how he’d looked the last time she’d seen him in their apartment in Athens, and a flash of pain hardened to a lump that lodged itself behind her ribs.

      She dragged her eyes away.

      As she did so the open-top sports car gave a throaty roar. Jamie glanced out of the side window to watch as the low, sleek, shiny black car made a U-turn in the street with Kostas at the wheel, and it was a mark of how angry her brother was that he could resist making a comment. He was crazy about powerful super-cars.

      The Mercedes saloon came alive to a more sedate engine sound, its luxury interior almost masking the fact that the engine was running at all. It too made a neat U-turn then was gliding smoothly up the street.

      The mood inside the car was not so sedate. It spat and it crackled.

      This trip to Aristos was already turning into a disaster and they’d been here for less than half an hour. She dared another glance at Andreas’s stern profile. Five years was a long time not to lay eyes on the man she had once loved to the point of self-destruction. In the dimness of the car’s interior his lean cheek and jaw line looked even more severe than it had done a minute ago and his mouth was turned downwards slightly and tight.

      What was he thinking? What did he suspect was going on here?

      Well, she wasn’t going to ask him, she determined. But she couldn’t stop her eyes from drifting up to his dark hair, so fashionably cut to the shape of his head, then dropping to the span of his wide shoulders where fine shirting did very little to hide the muscular bulk beneath.

      The last five years had been good to him, she acknowledged as her gaze wandered down a white shirtsleeve to the point where it had been folded back from a muscular forearm. The gold strap to his wrist-watch glinted against a strong, hair-roughened wrist, the long-fingered hand attached to it lightly gripping the leather-bound steering wheel.

      Those fingers tightened suddenly, sending her eyes flickering upwards to clash with his eyes yet again. Her breathing stopped as time made that flip backwards once more and those glinting dark eyes held her totally transfixed. Thoughts started to flick between them, shared thoughts, intimate thoughts—a mutual knowledge of what made the other tick. Could he tell that she was sitting here battling to stifle a million different sensations she’d only ever felt with him?

      A mobile phone began to play some weird trendy tune and Jamie dived into his pocket then began hitting buttons so he could pick СКАЧАТЬ