The Secret Wife

A cold half-smile briefly slanted his hard mouth. ‘If I was free to follow my natural inclinations, you’d be begging on the street for your next meal. I’ll call again tomorrow morning.’

‘How did you know we rented this place?’ Rosie prompted helplessly as he walked away from her.

Constantine spun gracefully back. ‘And may I put in a special request?’ he murmured silkily, ignoring the question. ‘You strike me as a woman who knows how to please a man. So have a bath before I show up again.’

Rosie’s breasts swelled as she sucked in a heady gush of air. ‘Why, you—!’

The door of the limousine shut with a soft, expensive clunk. Her head whirling, Rosie stalked into the cottage and threw herself down at the kitchen table. Frustrated fury was hurtling about inside her. For an instant she genuinely thought she might explode. He had actually dared to try and threaten her! But then the stakes he was playing for sounded very high ... What had Anton been worth in terms of cold, hard cash? She shuddered with revulsion. Anton had owned a boatyard, a hotel and a chain of shops in Greece. His business dealings within the UK had been tied up in various speculative property ventures. That nonsensical will! But how very like her father... impulsive and overprotective as he had been.

Her eyes smarted with stinging tears and she gulped. Anton had talked so much about Constantine and always with pride, affection and more than a hint of awe. Wealthy Greek parents expected to have a healthy say in their children’s choice of a life partner... he had told her that too.

“Just as well you’re Spanish!” she had teased.

“Mallorquin,” her father had reproved, still proud as punch of his birth in Majorca even after forty years of living in Greece.

Dear heaven, but she despised Constantine Voulos! Her small hands curled into fists on the table-top. Tramp, whore, trash, tart. And, most unforgivably of all, he had accused her of subjecting Anton to such anxiety that she had shortened his life. Her stomach heaved. Well, he could sling his very worst threats and he would find her immovable. Rosie smiled a little to herself then, her smile slowly growing into a decided smirk. Their landlord was, after all, Maurice’s uncle. No way was she going through some disgusting charade of marriage just to help Constantine Voulos circumvent her father’s will and profit from it!

‘That was the brother from hell...am I right?’ Maurice dropped down opposite her and ruefully appraised her hotly flushed face and over-bright eyes. ‘Who else do we know rich enough to travel around in a stretch limousine? Not only your dad’s substitute son but also large enough and verbal enough to make you so mad you are spitting tacks—’

‘Yes, he was Anton’s favourite, wasn’t he? But then I only had four months, not twenty years to make an impression!’ Rosie condemned painfully, and then she crammed an unsteady hand against her wobbling mouth, ashamed of the bitter envy she could hear splintering from her words.

‘Did you tell him who you were this time?’ Maurice enquired gently.

‘Why should I? Why should I tell that hateful creep anything? If Anton couldn’t trust him with the news, I certainly couldn’t!’

Maurice sighed. ‘Presumably Voulos came up here to sort out this inheritance of yours.’

A choked laugh was dredged from Rosie. ‘I haven’t inherited anything! Anton left me to Constantine instead!’

Maurice frowned. ‘Excuse me?’

‘In fact my father tried to force me on him ... as if I were some brainless little wimp in need of care and protection!’ Registering Maurice’s still blank scrutiny, Rosie thrust up her chin and the words of explanation came spilling out of her.

‘Holy Moses...’ Maurice breathed at one stage, but it was his sole interruption. From that point, he listened intently.

‘Can you imagine that ignorant, arrogant louse even thinking that I might agree?’ Rosie pressed, in a furious appeal for sympathetic accord.

Maurice leant back in his chair, looking very thoughtful. ‘Your father has left him in one hell of a fix.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

Maurice slowly shook his head. ‘Have you any idea how fast a business can go down with its cash flow cut off? No money going in, no money going out—’

‘I know next to nothing about Anton’s business ventures and I don’t much care either,’ Rosie said huffily.

‘Get your brain into gear, Rosie. Voulos is in a very tight corner. No wonder the guy’s furious—’

‘Exactly whose side are you on?’

‘As always, on the side of common sense and profit,’ Maurice told her without apology. ‘Do you like the idea of your father’s business concerns going bust on a legal technicality? And naturally Voulos doesn’t want to drag this whole sorry affair into an open court.’

Rosie reddened uncomfortably, not having considered the situation from either of those angles.

‘Voulos came here to bargain with the enemy because he had no other choice. The fastest, easiest solution is to meet the terms of your father’s will.’

‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this—’

‘And Voulos is offering to compensate you for your time and trouble. I wonder how much he’s prepared to put down on the table?’ Maurice mused with a slow grin, unaffected by Rosie’s look of appalled reproach. ‘The trouble with you, Rosie, is that you’re an idealist. Voulos isn’t and neither am I. You’d cut off your nose to spite your face.’

“Then why don’t you deal with him when he comes back tomorrow?’ Rosie snapped, rising angrily to her feet.

‘Do you want me to? I’ll willingly stay around and keep an eye on the negotiations. If his temper is anything like yours...well, we don’t want bloodshed, do we? What would we do with his body?’ Maurice asked cheerfully. ‘And dead men can’t write big, fat cheques.’

‘I won’t be here tomorrow,’ Rosie informed him thinly.

‘Look, it’s a business proposition, nothing more. You won’t have to live with the guy or like him. And if you won’t do it for yourself,’ Maurice murmured with a shrewd eye on her frozen face, ‘think about your father’s employees and what’s likely to happen to them if his businesses go down. You can’t hit back at Voulos without bringing grief to other people.’

‘I don’t want to hit back at him, I just want him to leave me alone!’ Rosie slung in frustrated rage, and stalked out of the room.

Hunched within the capacious depths of an old waxed jacket, Rosie stamped her feet to keep warm and watched her breath steam in the icy air. On a cold, frosty morning the market was always quiet. Maurice strolled up and slotted a plastic cup of coffee into her hand. Rosie surveyed him in surprise. ‘What are you doing here?’

Maurice shrugged, carefully avoiding her eyes. ‘How’s trade going?’

Rosie grimaced. ‘It’s slow.’

Maurice picked up a large green ceramic rabbit and frowned. ‘Isn’t this part of your own collection?’

It was Rosie’s turn to shrug, faint pink spreading over her cheekbones. ‘I’ll pick up another one.’

‘Nobody’s ever going to pay that for it,’ Maurice told her, studying the price tag and wincing.

‘It’s already attracted interest—’

‘But not a buyer. You’re overpricing it because you can’t bear to part with it.’

Frowning at that uncomfortably accurate assistance, Rosie sipped at her coffee. ‘Did he show up?’

‘Yeah...’ Maurice rearranged the stock on her stall without raising his head. ‘I told him where to find you.’

‘You did what?’ Beneath the brim of her black trilby, Rosie’s startled brows shot heavenward.

‘I’ll watch your stall. Here he comes now...’

As Rosie’s horrified eyes fell on Constantine Voulos, her heart turned a somersault and lodged somewhere in the region of her working throat. Her nerveless fingers shook and coffee slopped everywhere without her noticing.

The tall Greek stationed himself on the other side of the stall, his vibrantly handsome features taut with sardonic impatience as he spread a derisive glance around the shabby covered market. ‘You do like to play childish games, don’t you, Miss Waring?’

Maurice uttered an audible groan. Striding forward, he planted the green rabbit into Constantine Voulos’s startled hands. ‘Can I interest you in an increasingly rare example of Sylvac pottery?’

‘It’s a piece of junk,’ Constantine gritted, and dumped the item back down at speed.

‘You wouldn’t know any different, would you?’ Rosie snapped as she swept round the stall to check that his rough handling hadn’t chipped the rabbit.

Constantine Voulos ignored her to study Maurice with icy contempt. ‘I get the picture. You want me to pay for the lady’s time?’

. Maurice folded his arms, his pugnacious aspect belied by the ever-ready sense of humour dancing in his bright blue eyes. ‘Suit yourself, mate.’

‘What the heck is going on here?’ In utter disbelief, Rosie gaped as Constantine flipped out a wallet, withdrew a handful of notes and stuffed them into her pocket. ‘I don’t want his money!’ ‘When a guy expects to pay for every little thing in life, you ought to satisfy him,’ Maurice contended cheerfully. ‘Take him across to the pub, Rosie.’ ‘I’m not going anywhere with him... in fact the two of you can go take a running jump together!’ Rosie attempted to move past Constantine but a lean, hard hand snaked out and closed round her forearm. ‘Let go of me!’ ‘You harm a hair of her head and I’ll swing for you,’ Maurice warned with gentle emphasis as he extended a laden carrier bag. ‘Don’t forget your purchase, Mr Voulos, and treat it with respect. Rosie’s very fond of rabbits—’

In a gesture of supreme contempt, Constantine grasped the bag and dropped it from a height into the metal litter bin opposite. The sound of shattering pottery provoked a stricken gasp from Rosie.

Maurice groaned again. ‘There is just no telling some people.’

Wrenching herself violently free of Constantine’s hold, Rosie darted over to the bin and looked inside the bag. She paled as she viewed the extent of the damage. It was irreparable. Momentarily her fingertips brushed the broken pieces and then she rounded on Constantine like a spitting tigress, green eyes ablaze. ‘How could you do that? How could you do that?’

‘Why are you shouting?’ Incredulous black eyes clashed with hers.

‘You selfish, insensitive, snobbish pig ...’ Rosie condemned wrathfully. ‘I was prepared to sell that rabbit, but only if it was going to a good home!’

‘Are you unhinged or merely determined to cause a public scene?’ Constantine snarled down at her.

‘At least I’m not wantonly destructive and spiteful!’

‘Spiteful? I wouldn’t be caught dead walking around with that ugly piece of tasteless junk!’

With the greatest of difficulty, Rosie haltered her temper. Well, he needn’t think he was getting his money back now. She swallowed hard, dug her hands into her pockets and walked off. Crossing the pavement, she stepped into the road—or at least she’d started stepping, when a powerful hand closed over her shoulder and yanked her back bodily as a car sped past.

‘Do you have a death-wish?’ Constantine Voulos grated.

‘I’m surprised you didn’t push me,’ Rosie snapped, shaken by the experience but determined not to betray the fact. ‘Oh, I forgot, didn’t I? I’m only worth something to you as long as I’m alive and kicking!’

Across the road, she headed in the direction of the small bar used by the market traders, but her companion strode towards the luxury hotel twenty yards further on. Rosie’s chin came up. She squared her shoulders and then hesitated. The sooner she dealt with the situation, the sooner he would be gone. A wave of exhaustion swept over her then. She had had little sleep the night before and now she found herself thinking guiltily about her father again.

Anton would have been appalled by the animosity between his daughter and his ward. In drawing up that wretched will, her father had clearly expected her to tell Constantine who she was. Left in ignorance of their true relationship, Constantine had assumed that she was Anton’s mistress. What other role could he possibly have assigned to her?

So why hadn’t she told him the truth? Rosie’s strained mouth compressed. In her mind, Constantine Voulos had been the enemy long before she’d even met him and Anton’s death had simply increased her bitterness. She resented the fact that Constantine had grown up secure in her father’s love and affection. Why not admit it? At the same age she had lost her mother and had been put into the care of the local authorities...

Dear heaven, could she really have been that unreasonable? The creeping awareness that she had been unjust and immature filled Rosie with discomfiture.

CHAPTER THREE

Two men in dark suits were waiting in the hotel lobby. They looked tense and sprang forward with a strong suggestion of relief when Constantine appeared. A spate of low-pitched Greek was exchanged. Striding ahead of them into the quiet, almost empty lounge bar, the younger man rushed to pull out a pair of comfortable armchairs beside the log fire.

Fluidly discarding his black cashmere overcoat, Constantine sank indolently down and snapped imperious fingers. While Rosie looked on in fascination, the second man stationed behind him inclined his head to receive instructions. The waitress was summoned and drinks were served at spectacular speed.

‘What’s with Laurel and Hardy?’ Rosie nodded in the direction of the two men.

‘Dmitri and Taki are my security men.’

‘I won’t ask why you need them. Your personality kind of speaks for itself.’ Bodyguards, for goodness’ sake? To conceal her embarrassment, Rosie whipped off her hat and a mass of wildly colourful spiralling curls cascaded round her shoulders. In a gesture of impatience, she finger-combed her hair back off her face. As she removed her jacket to reveal the ancient guernsey sweater she wore beneath, she intercepted a disturbingly intent stare from her companion.

‘What are you looking at?’ she demanded aggressively.

An aristocratic ebony brow climbed but rich dark eyes gleamed with grudging amusement and without warning a devastating smile slashed his hard features. That smile blinded Rosie like a floodlight turned on in the dark. Taken by surprise, she squirmed like a truculent puppy unsure of its ground. Her eyes colliding with that night-dark gaze, she experienced the most terrifying lurch of excitement. Her stomach muscles clenched as if she had gone down in a lift too fast.

‘Your hair is a very eye-catching colour,’ he murmured wryly.

‘And usually only rag-dolls have corkscrew curls,’ Rosie completed in driven discomfiture, carefully studying the soft drink she had snatched up, her palms damply clutching the glass and her hands far from steady.

In the church she had assumed that it was the shock of meeting him which had shaken her up. But yesterday she had experienced a magnetic and undeniably sexual response that had briefly, mortifyingly reduced her to a positive jelly of juvenile confusion. But it wasn’t her fault—no, it definitely wasn’t—and there wasn’t anything personal about it either, she told herself bracingly. So there was no need for her to be sitting here with her knees locked guiltily together and her cheeks as hot as a furnace.

It was his fault that she was uncomfortable. He was staggeringly beautiful to look at, but then that wasn’t the true source of the problem. Constantine Voulos had something a whole lot more dangerous. A potent, sexually devastating allure that burned with electrifying heat. Out of the corner of her eye, Rosie watched an older woman across the lounge feasting her attention on Constantine’s hard-cut, hawk-like profile and felt thoroughly vindicated in her self-examination.

‘Let us concede that we met for the first time in inauspicious circumstances,’ Constantine murmured. ‘But the time for argument is now past. There is no reason why this unfortunate affair should not be settled quietly and discreetly.’

Rosie sat forward, tense as a drawn bowstring. ‘I haven’t been honest with you,’ she began stiffly. ‘I made things worse than they needed to be but then you didn’t make things easy either...leaping off on a tangent, making wild assumptions and insulting me—’

‘I don’t follow.’ Impatience edged the interruption.

Pale and tense, Rosie snatched in a ragged breath. ‘I’m not who you think I am. I wasn’t Anton’s mistress...’ She coloured as she said that out loud. ‘I’m his daughter, born on the wrong side of the blanket... or whatever you want to call it...’

Constantine Voulos dealt her an arrested look and then his gaze flared with raw incredulity. ‘What the hell do you hope to achieve by making so grotesque a claim?’

Rosie’s brows drew together. ‘But it’s true... I mean, I suppose you have every reason not to want to believe me, but Anton was my father.’

His mouth curled with distaste and impatience. ‘You really are a terrible liar. Had Anton been related to you in any way, his lawyers would have been well aware of the fact.’

Rosie stared blankly back at him. It had never occurred to her that the truth might be greeted with outright contempt and instant dismissal. ‘But he didn’t tell anyone—’

‘And the proof of this fantastic allegation?’

‘Look, it was Anton who traced me—’

‘Let me relieve your fertile imagination of the belief that the nature of your relationship with Anton has any bearing on the size of the cheque I will write,’ Constantine broke in with withering bite. ‘And now please stop wasting my time with ridiculous fairy stories!’

Rosie dropped her head, a surge of distress making her stomach churn. Proof? She had never had any proof! Anton’s name was not on her birth certificate and Constantine was so full of himself, so convinced that she was an inveterate liar, that he wouldn’t even listen to her. For the first time she realised that with Anton’s death she had been dispossessed of any means of proving that he had been her father. And even though she had never planned to do anything with that knowledge that reality had a terrible, painful finality for her.

‘Let’s get down to business,’ Constantine suggested drily.

Utterly humiliated by his disbelief, Rosie wanted very badly to simply get up and walk out. Only the grim awareness that he would follow her and fierce pride kept her seated.

‘With your agreement, arrangements will be made for the marriage ceremony to take place as soon as possible. The legal firm I use in London will liaise with you. When this matter has been dealt with, you will be most generously compensated,’ Constantine assured her smoothly before going on to mention a sum which contained a breathtaking string of noughts. ‘All I ask from you is discretion and also the return of the Estrada betrothal ring’

Rosie looked up, her face drawn and empty of animation. ‘No.’

‘It is a family heirloom. It must be returned.’

‘No,’ Rosie said again.

‘In spite of its age, the ring has no great financial worth. The stone is flawed.’

Rosie flinched, nausea lying like a leaden weight in her over-sensitive stomach. ‘There must be some other way that the will could be sorted out.’

‘If there was, do you seriously think that I would be here demanding that you secretly go through such a ceremony with me?’

The harsh, derisive edge to the question made Rosie flush. No, Constantine Voulos had no other choice. His very presence here told her that. Nor could she fail to see how deeply and bitterly he resented the necessity of being forced to ask for her co-operation.

‘But Thespina seemed to like me,’ she began awkwardly. ‘And she already thinks we’re engaged. Is there any need for all this secrecy?’

‘If she knew who you really were, do you think she would like you?’ Constantine breathed scathingly. ‘She’d be furious. As for the engagement...I’ll tell her it was a soon regretted impulse on my part. There is no need for her to know about the marriage. I don’t want you meeting her again.’

Rosie’s eyes fell uneasily from his. She might not have been Anton’s mistress but even as his daughter she would be no more welcome an advent in Thespina’s life. And if she agreed to a secret marriage of convenience Constantine would inherit and Anton’s business interests and presumably his employees would continue to prosper. Thespina would have no reason to become suspicious again... indeed, everything would go back to normal, just as if Rosie herself had never existed.

Rosie lifted her head, green eyes veiled. ‘You keep your money, I keep the ring.’ Pulling on her jacket, she stood up. ‘Now if you don’t mind I’d like to leave.’

‘I prefer to pay for favours. Have I your agreement?’

‘I’m agreeing only out of respect for Anton’s memory... just you understand that. But how could you understand it? You only think in terms of financial gain,’ she completed in disgust, and spun on her heel.

‘I think only in terms of the well-being of Anton’s wife,’ Constantine countered with icy emphasis.

Contempt froze her fragile features as she turned back to him. ‘That sounds so impressive coming from a male who sleeps with another man’s wife whenever the fancy takes him!’

Taken by surprise, Constantine Voulos sprang upright. ‘Christos...’

Rosie widened her huge green eyes, revitalised by the shock stiffening his darkly handsome features. ‘Your long-running secret affair with the actress, Cinzia Borzone. So don’t go all pious on me!’

As Rosie walked away, head held high, she heard the ground-out surge of explosive Greek that followed that revelation. The depth of her knowledge about his private life had come as a most unwelcome surprise to Constantine Voulos.

Certainly Anton had lamented long and hard on the topic of that unsuitable relationship. In his opinion, Constantine had, at the tender age of twenty-five, fallen live into the paws of a designing married woman with a husband who was perfectly content to turn a blind eye to his wife’s infidelity if the financial rewards were great enough.

And although several times over the past four years Anton and Thespina had been encouraged to hope that the affair had run its course Cinzia had ultimately appeared to triumph over every other woman who entered Constantine’s life. Maybe that situation had even been on Anton’s mind when he’d changed his will, Rosie reflected ruefully.

Anton had had the optimistic hope that marriage would cure Constantine’s desire for another man’s wife. And long before his death Rosie had known that her father cherished a happy daydream in which she and Constantine met, fell madly in love and married, thereby bringing his daughter into the family by the only possible route that would not hurt his wife.

Maurice frowned in surprise when she rejoined him. ‘Don’t tell me you walked out on Voulos again.’

‘No. I agreed... OK? I even told him who I was this time.’ Rosie gave her friend a grim little smile. ‘Only he didn’t believe me.’

Taken aback, Maurice stared at her. ‘Why not?’

‘Why should he have? I don’t even look like Anton. I don’t have any evidence of who I am either. In fact, sitting there with Constantine Voulos, those four months started feeling like a rather embarrassing juvenile fantasy,’ Rosie confided thinly, tucking herself back behind her stall. ‘So, if you don’t mind, I’d rather not discuss it any more—’

‘But Anton had all those photos your mother sent him and he must have had other things.’

‘If he did he never mentioned them and heaven knows what he did with those photos.’ Tired and drained of emotion, Rosie shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter much now, does it?’

Late that night, the front door slammed noisily. Half-asleep on the sofa after an evening of exhaustive cleaning, Rosie sat up with a start. Maurice burst into the lounge looking excited and tossed a glossy but somewhat dog-eared magazine down on her lap. ‘Lorna had this. She was able to tell me all about Constantine Voulos.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Rosie mumbled drowsily.

‘My sister has a stack of magazines about the rich and famous. The minute I mentioned his name it rang a bell with her and she looked that out for me. Voulos is a genuine Greek tycoon,’ Maurice informed her impressively. ‘He’s loaded! The guy was born into a fortune. Your father was only a small-time businessman in comparison.’