Modern Romance - The Best of the Year

Tabby glanced at the younger woman, wondering why she found it such a challenge to like her and feeling rather guilty about the fact. After all, Melinda was great with Amber, a diligent worker and friendly. Perhaps it was the hungry little glances she often saw Melinda aiming at Acheron that had prevented Tabby from bonding more with the other young woman. It was not that she was jealous, Tabby reasoned uneasily, simply that she wasn’t comfortable with a woman prepared to show that much interest in the married man who employed her. In any case, and to be fair to all parties concerned, Acheron had shown not the smallest awareness of Melinda’s curvaceous blonde allure.

‘Any idea when we’ll be leaving here yet?’ Melinda asked as she gathered up Amber’s toys and stuffed them in a bag.

‘Not yet, sorry...my husband hasn’t decided how long we’ll be staying,’ Tabby replied, wryly impressed by the way that possessive label slid off her tongue. But that, she had learned, was the easiest way to refer to Acheron in front of the staff.

Yet he was as much a husband as a caged tiger in a zoo would be, she conceded unhappily, lifting her book and her sunglasses and heading for the cool courtyard in which the pool was situated. For the past week she had barely seen Acheron, who confined himself to his office most of the day and often half the night to work. Even when he was around his phone was always ringing and his single-minded focus on business was exactly what she should have expected from a goal-orientated alpha male.

Occasionally he would join her for a cup of coffee at breakfast time and he generally put in a rather silent appearance at the dinner table, eating quickly and then politely excusing himself. He was a cool and distant companion at those meals and there was never so much as a hint of sexual awareness in either his looks or his conversation. It was as though that wild bout of passion on their wedding night was the product of her imagination alone, but Tabby still found it a distinct challenge to revert to treating him like a stranger and that embarrassed her, denting her pride and her belief in her own strength and independence because no woman of character should continue to crave the attention of a man set on treating her like the wallpaper.

Yet amazingly, infuriatingly, Acheron was playing an entirely different ball game with Amber. Melinda swore that Acheron never passed the nursery door without coming in to talk to and play with her charge and Amber had already learned to make a beeline for Acheron whenever he was in her vicinity. In fact, when it came to Acheron, Amber took her welcome for granted. Maybe Acheron’s ego was flattered by the amount of attention Amber gave him. Maybe he was even belatedly discovering that he actually liked and enjoyed the company of children? How could she possibly know what motivated his interest? Tabby had not got through a week of virtually sleepless nights without acknowledging that she knew very little at all about Acheron Dimitrakos. Her husband was a mystery to her in almost every conceivable way.

* * *

Acheron stood at the window and groaned at the sight of Tabby arranging her slim pale body on a lounger like an exhibition banquet for the starving. A purple bikini cupped her rounded little breasts and slender hips and every shift of her slim thighs drew his considerable attention. He shifted uneasily, struggling to rein back the heavy pulse of arousal that was making his nights so long and frustrating.

Although he had kept watch, as he told himself a protective husband should do, he had yet to see Tabby go topless to eradicate the risk of tan marks. He frowned, not wanting her to show that amount of naked flesh when there were always staff roaming the grounds. It was very strange, he acknowledged in bewilderment, that in spite of the fact he thought it was a very old-fashioned attitude, which he would not have admitted even under torture, he didn’t like the idea of anyone but him seeing any part of Tabby bare. He thought that there was a very weird possessive streak in him somewhere and blamed it on the surprising fact that he had become his wife’s first lover.

His wife, a label he had never thought he would use, he conceded hard-mouthed, his dark eyes hooded and unusually reflective. Had Tabby genuinely been his wife, however, she would have been in his bed throughout the long hot hours of the afternoon abandoning herself to the demands of his passion and losing herself in the release he would have given her. As his body hardened afresh under the onslaught of that X-rated imagery he cursed bitterly under his breath.

Regretfully, Tabby had all the flexibility of a steel girder: he could do the rules or he could do cold showers. There would be no halfway measures, no get-out clause with her. It would be all or nothing and he knew he couldn’t do it, couldn’t walk that line and change himself to suit when he knew there was no future in it. It wouldn’t be fair to her. Yet right at that precise moment Tabby’s rules had more pulling power than a ten-ton truck.

* * *

That evening, Tabby selected a drop-dead gorgeous blue dress from the closet. Over the past week she had worn a different outfit every day, reasoning that the clothes were there and there was little point wasting them. In any case it would be downright silly to choose to overheat in the jeans and tops that were virtually all she had left of her own clothes since her life first began to unravel after she had lost her own home. Back then she had had to surrender an awful lot of her possessions, whittling her collection of clothing and objects down until she retained only what mattered most and what she could carry.

She tossed the dress on the bed, put on her make-up and brushed her hair, not that how she looked mattered when Acheron was treating her as though she were someone’s maiden aunt. But then Acheron wasn’t the reason why she took the trouble to dress up, she reminded herself staunchly. She did it for her own self-esteem and the knowledge that behaving, at least on the outside, like a rich honeymoon bride was part of her role. Clothed, she eased her feet into perilously high heels and surveyed herself critically in the mirror, mouth momentarily drooping while she wished she were taller, curvier and more striking in appearance...like Kasma? The Kasma whom Acheron never, ever mentioned? But then what business was Kasma of hers? The fiery fury, ignited only a week before by the discovery that Acheron would benefit as much as she did from their marriage, had drained away. After all, she had married Acheron for only one reason: to become Amber’s adoptive mother, and all she needed to focus on now was getting through their little charade of a marriage as smoothly and painlessly as possible. Worrying about anything else, wanting anything else was unnecessarily stressful and stupid.

Acheron was crossing the hall when Tabby reached the head of the marble staircase. Obeying instinct, she threw her head back and straightened her spine even as she felt perspiration break out across her skin. There he was, sleek, outrageously good-looking and sophisticated even when clad in jeans and an open-necked shirt. Her heart went bumpety-bumpety-bump like a clock wound up too tight, and she gripped the bannister with an agitated hand to start down the stairs. Unfortunately for her, her leading foot went down, however, not onto a step but disorientatingly into mid-air and she tipped forward with a shocked cry of fright, her hand slipping its light hold on the stair rail, her whole body twisting as she tried to halt her fall so that her hip struck the edge of a hard marble step and her ankle was turned beneath her.

‘I’ve got you!’ Acheron bit out as the world steadied again.

Mercifully Tabby registered that she was no longer falling but that pain was biting all the way from her hip down her leg...no, not her leg, her ankle. She adjusted as Acheron swept her up into his arms with too much enthusiasm and her leg swung none too gently and she couldn’t bite back the cry of pain that was wrenched from her throat. ‘My ankle...’

‘Thee mou...you could’ve been killed falling on these stairs!’ Acheron breathed with a rawness that took her aback, striding back down into the hall with his arms tautly linked round her slight body. He called out in Greek until one of his security staff came running and then he rapped out instructions.

Against her cheek she could feel the still-accelerated pounding of his heart and she wasn’t surprised that he was still high on adrenalin because he must have moved faster than the speed of light to intercept her fall. She felt quite queasy at the realisation that but for his timely intervention she might have fallen all the way down the marble staircase and broken her neck or at the very least a limb or two. Relief that she had only wrenched her ankle and bruised herself filtered slowly through her. ‘I’m OK... Lucky you caught me in time.’

Acheron laid her down with exaggerated care on a sofa and squatted athletically down to her level. ‘Did you feel anyone push you?’ he asked, brilliant dark heavily fringed eyes locked to her face.

She was astounded at the tenor of that question; her violet eyes rounded. ‘Why would anyone push me down the stairs?’ she asked weakly. ‘I lost my balance and tripped.’

Acheron frowned. ‘Are you certain? I thought I saw someone pass by you on the landing just before you fell.’

‘I didn’t see or hear anyone.’ Her brows pleated and her lashes screened her eyes, the heat of embarrassment washing away her pallor because she knew exactly why she had tripped but wild horses wouldn’t have dragged the confession from her. ‘Yes, of course I’m certain.’

If she hadn’t been so busy admiring Acheron and trying to pose like a silly teenager to look her very best for his benefit, she would never have missed her step, Tabby was reflecting in deep, squirming chagrin.

‘I’m afraid I have to move you again...I’ll try not to hurt you,’ Acheron told her, sliding his hands beneath her prone length. ‘But I have to get you into a car to get you to a doctor.’

‘For goodness’ sake, I don’t need a doctor!’ Tabby exclaimed in growing embarrassment.

But over the next couple of hours while she was subjected to every possible medical examination at the nearest hospital, she might as well have been talking to a wall because Acheron refused to listen to a word she said. Furthermore, far from behaving like the cool, reserved male she was accustomed to dealing with, Acheron was clearly all wound up although why he was, she had no idea. He paced the floor outside her examination cubicle, talked to her through the curtain to check she was all right and not in too much discomfort, insisted on an X-ray being done while virtually ignoring the doctor who assured him that she was suffering from nothing more serious than some nasty bruising and a sprained ankle. Even more embarrassing, his security team spread out round them on full systems alert as if awaiting an imminent rocket attack on the casualty department.

‘Ah...very much the adoring and anxious husband,’ the middle-aged doctor chuckled in his ignorance.

If only the man knew how wrong he was, Tabby thought unhappily, feeling like a wretched nuisance and a malingerer taking up valuable medical attention when really there was nothing very much amiss with her.

* * *

If Tabby had died, it would have been his fault. Acheron brooded on that thought darkly, rage and guilt slivering through him in sickening waves and like nothing he had ever felt before. But then he had never been responsible for another life before and, though he would have liked to have thought otherwise, he believed that his wife was very much his responsibility. Naturally he was appalled by the suspicion that someone who worked for him might have attempted to hurt his wife. Having seen the rude message left on her bedroom mirror, he was unimpressed by her conviction that she had simply had an accident. In the split second it had taken for Tabby to lose her balance and topple she might not even have noticed that someone had lightly pushed her or tripped her up.

He was even more frustrated that his security staff had failed to come up with anything suspicious on any member of the villa staff. Acheron’s mouth twisted. Unfortunately the Tuscan villa had rarely been used, hence the renovation the previous year and the hire of employees who were a new and unknown quantity and whose dependability would only be confirmed by the test of time. His lustrous eyes hardened and his stubborn mouth compressed into a tough line of determination. Tabby’s safety was paramount and as he was very reluctant to frighten her with his suspicions. The wisest strategy would be to immediately vacate the villa and seek a more secure setting. That decision reached, Acheron gave the order, refusing to back down even when the chief of his security pointed out that such a move would entail rousing the baby from her bed as well. Regardless of the drawbacks of his plan, Acheron could hardly wait to get Tabby and the baby away from the Tuscan villa, which now, to his way of thinking, seemed a tainted place. He watched the doctor bandaging her swollen ankle, annoyance still gripping him that he had failed to prevent her from getting hurt.

‘Sorry about all this.’ Tabby sighed in the limo as they left the hospital.

‘When you have an accident you don’t need to apologise for it. How are you?’ Acheron pressed.

‘A bit battered and sore—nothing I won’t quickly recover from,’ Tabby responded with a smile. ‘It’ll certainly teach me to be more careful on stairs from now on.’

Acheron was quietly stunned. No woman of his acquaintance would have neglected to make a huge fuss over such an incident by exaggerating their injuries and demanding his sympathy and attention. Tabby, however, characteristically downplayed the episode and asked nothing of him, an acknowledgement that only increased his brooding discomfiture with the situation.

‘Where on earth are we going?’ Tabby enquired as he lifted her out of the limo and stowed her in the wheelchair already waiting for her use. ‘Is this the airport?’

‘Yes, we’re flying to Sardinia,’ Acheron said casually.

‘Seriously? I mean, like right now?’ Tabby stressed in disbelief. ‘It’s ten o’clock at night.’

‘Amber and her nanny are already on board the helicopter, as is your luggage,’ Acheron admitted.

There were many things Tabby could have said but she was fighting a dropped jaw and had already learned to think twice before she spoke her mind around Acheron. She clamped her lips firmly together and assumed that he was bored at the villa and that the evident appeal of a change of surroundings had persuaded him to act on impulse. Not only was he dragging Amber out of bed, but he was also forcing Tabby to travel when she was exhausted and in pain. Her lush mouth down-curved: he was being selfishly inconsiderate but she supposed that was normal behaviour for a male accustomed to thinking only of his own needs.

The helicopter was very noisy and Tabby, who hadn’t eaten since lunchtime, was almost sick with hunger. She insisted on taking Amber from Melinda, though, and soothed the overtired baby herself. She was surprised when Acheron eased the drowsing child from her arms and settled her on his lap instead. Amber looked up at him, stuck her thumb back in her mouth and closed her eyes again, seemingly content with the exchange. Tabby must’ve dozed off at that point because she wakened confused by the bright light on her face and the jabs of pain from her ankle as Acheron carried her into a house.

‘How do you feel?’ he enquired again, stunning gaze sweeping her pale, taut face.

‘I’ll be fine—’

‘Don’t be a martyr—you look like death warmed over,’ he countered impatiently. ‘You’re going straight to bed, yineka mou. I’ve organised food as well.’

A bed and a meal sounded very appealing to Tabby at that moment. He mounted a staircase and a faint breeze cooled her cheekbone. Her lashes swept up on a tall open window framed by pale fluttering draperies just as Acheron laid her down on a ginormous bed and began to carefully ease the bedding from beneath her. It struck her that for once he was being very kind and that set her teeth on edge.

‘Why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden?’ Tabby demanded abruptly.

That single question said so much that Acheron didn’t want to hear just then that he almost groaned his frustration aloud. Leave it to Tabby, he thought ruefully. Leave it to Tabby to say what nobody else dared to say to Acheron Dimitrakos. He breathed in slowly. ‘You’re hurt.’

‘You don’t do rules and I don’t do pity,’ Tabby told him, tilting her chin in challenge.

‘You’re my wife.’

‘Not really.’

‘Enough my wife that I want to treat you like one,’ Acheron contradicted almost harshly.

Tabby screened eyes blank with incomprehension and she was horribly tempted by an urge to slap him. He should have come with a dictionary or some sort of instruction manual that explained how he worked because once again she was all at sea as to what went on his complex and infuriating head.

‘I want to make you feel better,’ Acheron announced.

‘No pity parties here, please.’

‘I haven’t behaved very well,’ Acheron muttered in a harsh driven undertone. ‘I am trying to make amends.’

‘Pity’s pity,’ Tabby told him, unmoved by that argument.

Acheron came down on the bed beside her. There was something wild about the glitter in his seething golden eyes as he gently knotted one hand in the fall of her golden hair and closed his mouth hungrily over hers. He sent a jolt of such savage hunger rocketing through her that she froze in sheer fright.

‘Does that feel like pity?’ he growled.

Tabby made no comment because she could barely breathe. She wanted him to do it again and for longer and was only just able to keep her hands off that lean, powerful body so very close to hers for the first time in a week. One little touch and he made her feel like a sex addict ready to run scarily out of control. In sudden retreat, she dropped her head and then mercifully they were interrupted by the entrance of a woman carrying a tray.

‘You need to eat,’ Acheron told her unnecessarily.

With his assistance, Tabby leant back against the pillows and lifted the knife and fork. She literally didn’t dare look at him again, couldn’t trust herself that far, knew that she couldn’t risk reliving that burning, driving sensation of sexual need in his presence. Hungry though she undoubtedly was, she had to force herself to eat because the sheer level of tension holding her taut was suppressing her appetite. She ate in silence while Acheron paced restively round the big room, constantly drawing her eyes until she remembered that she couldn’t afford to look, and in fact had to blank him out to stay in control. And what did that say about her? Was she really that weak that she couldn’t withstand him? This guy who had virtually ignored her for the past week? The same one who had slept with her and then backed off at supersonic speed? Shame engulfed her, increasing the exhaustion she had been fighting to contain.

The tray was removed from her lap. Her lashes drooped, eyes so heavy she literally couldn’t hold them open any longer.

‘Get some sleep,’ Acheron urged, and for once she was in the mood to obey.

* * *

Tabby awoke with a piercing need to go to the bathroom, eyes flickering open on darkness and a strong feeling of disorientation. She struggled to sit up and gasped in dismay at the pain that shot through her ankle while she stretched out a wildly flailing hand in search of a bedside light. Mercifully she found the switch attached to a hanging wire, and light illuminated the bedroom a scant second before the male lying on a sofa against the wall leapt upright.

‘Ash?’ she whispered in disbelief. ‘What are you doing in here?’

Acheron was bare-chested and barefoot, low-slung denim jeans clinging to his lean hips. Her startled gaze clung to the muscled expanse of his magnificent bronzed torso and then flicked guiltily higher to take in the dark stubble masking his lower jaw and the unnerving intensity of eyes that glittered like black diamonds in the low light. ‘I couldn’t leave you in here alone.’

‘Why not?’ Tabby queried, her face hotter than fire as she forced herself to swivel her hips and shift her good leg off the edge of the bed. ‘Why would you sleep on a sofa for my benefit?’

‘What on earth are you trying to do?’ Acheron demanded, striding across the room.

‘I need the bathroom,’ she breathed between gritted teeth, mortification rolling over her like a tidal wave.

‘You are so stubborn, koukla mou. Right now, you need help and I didn’t want to put a stranger in here with you,’ he admitted impatiently, pushing the walking stick resting against the bedside cabinet into her hand and then slowly pulling her upright to take advantage of its support. ‘Now go slow or you’ll hurt yourself.’

But Tabby had already worked out that there was no way of moving her leg without her ankle hurting her and she simply clenched her teeth and got on with it, tears stinging her eyes as she hobbled clumsily towards the connecting door he had already opened for her benefit.

Acheron groaned something in Greek and carefully scooped her up into his arms to carry her into the bathroom and gently settle her down on the stool by the vanity unit. ‘Pain’s always worse in the middle of the night. You’ll feel better tomorrow,’ he predicted. ‘Shout when you’re ready to go back to bed.’

Reckoning that there would be two blue moons in the sky before she willingly asked for his help, Tabby studied her tousled reflection in the mirror in cringing horror. She was still wearing the make-up she had put on for dinner the night before and she had panda eyes, sleep creases on her cheek and hideously messy hair. How come he looked gorgeous in the middle of the night but she looked like the Bride of Dracula?

She glanced down and fingered the skimpy nightdress she now wore and swallowed back a groan. Acheron must’ve undressed her. So what? He had already seen her naked, she reminded herself doggedly, so he had seen nothing new and it was very silly to be embarrassed about it. Levering herself upright, she took care of necessities and then made use of the facilities to clean herself up as best she could. Feeling considerably fresher but pale and stiff with the amount of pain her every movement had made her suffer, Tabby hobbled back out of the bathroom.

Acheron was waiting to scoop her up and deposit her back on the bed.

‘I still don’t understand what you’re doing here with me,’ she said weakly, perspiration breaking out on her brow.

‘There’re only three bedrooms in the main house. I knew you wouldn’t want Amber staying away from you in the staff quarters and Melinda needed the third room,’ Acheron explained drily.

‘There’s only three bedrooms?’ Tabby remarked in amazement. ‘You really didn’t plan this move very well, did you?’

Acheron dealt her a fulminating appraisal in seething silence. ‘It’s three in the morning...let’s talk about it tomorrow.’

Tabby watched him move back towards the sofa and released her breath on a reluctant sigh. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, share the bed... It’s as big as a football pitch. I’m sure we can manage to avoid each other.’

Acheron swung round, his surprise unfeigned, but he said nothing. He switched out the light, and she lay very still in the darkness, listening to the sound of his jeans coming off and trying very hard not to picture what he looked like without them. The sheet moved, the mattress depressed and she forced herself to relax. She was safe as houses with him, she told herself wryly. Acheron was powered by reason, not emotion, not passion. He knew they were a match made in hell.

It was dawn by the time Tabby woke again. Soreness and stiffness assailed her with her first involuntary movement, and she screwed up her face in silent complaint. She turned her head only for her breath to hitch at the sight of Acheron lying asleep only inches away from her. His hair, rumpled into ebony curls, stood out in stark contrast to the white pillow case, his black lashes luxuriant fans that rimmed his strong cheekbones, his wilful passionate mouth full and relaxed. She couldn’t stop staring at him. The sheet was wrapped round his hips, the corrugated musculature of his bronzed chest and abdomen exposed as well as a long, powerful, hair-roughened thigh. The pure haunting beauty of his perfectly sculpted body grabbed her by the throat and shook her inside out while heat pooled in her pelvis. She wanted to touch him; she wanted to touch him so badly it hurt to be denied.