Eva’s continued tension against his encircling arm left him in no doubt that this was the man who had somehow succeeded in convincing Eva that she was neither beautiful nor sexy. The very same man who had once been her husband.
Markos wondered under what circumstances Jack Cabot Grey could have made those hurtful and demeaning comments to Eva. Obviously they had not been happy ones, or the two would not now be divorced.
‘That’s what I meant, of course,’ Jack Cabot Grey agreed, with the same smooth charm as his father.
‘I’m afraid Jack and I are well past the stage of being insincerely polite to each other, Markos,’ Eva dismissed with noticeable brittleness. ‘Speaking of which—shouldn’t you be cosying up to your father’s other guests rather than wasting your practised charm on the uncharmable?’ She raised mocking brows and looked challengingly at her ex-husband.
The hardening of those deep blue eyes was Jack Cabot Grey’s only noticeable reaction to the taunt. ‘I believe Mr Lyonedes is one of my father’s guests…?’
But Markos was no more inclined to be charmed by this man than Eva was. Basically because he had never particularly liked men with the smooth and, as Eva had already stated, practised charm of a politician, but mainly because Markos resented the fact that this man had once been married to Eva. Lived with her. Known her longer and more intimately than any other man ever had.
Or possibly would again.
The tension between Eva and her ex-husband went a long way towards explaining her cynicism about men and relationships. Especially if their marriage had ended as badly as their attitude towards each other would seem to imply.
Markos straightened determinedly. ‘A politeness only,’ he clipped. ‘For obvious reasons Eva and I will not be staying long.’ He looked challengingly at the other man.
‘Jack, darling…’
Jonathan Cabot Grey Junior avoided meeting Markos’s challenge as he turned to smile warmly at the tiny blonde-haired woman who slipped her hand possessively into the crook of his arm as she moved to his side. ‘Come and say hello to Markos Lyonedes and Eva, Yvette. Markos, Eva—this is my wife, Yvette.’
Those blue eyes glittered with malice as he deliberately looked at Eva as he made the introduction.
If Markos had thought Eva pale before then she now turned an ashen grey, obviously shocked as she looked at the woman who was Jack Cabot Grey’s second wife. Yvette was a little over five feet tall, with glowingly lovely features and shoulder-length blonde hair. The rounded swell at her waistline showed that she was also very pregnant.
‘IF you will all excuse me…’ Eva turned and hurried blindly from the crowded drawing room as the felt the nausea rising at the back of her throat, only just managing to make it into the ladies’ powder room down the hallway and lock herself into one of the two marble-tiled cubicles before she was violently ill.
This couldn’t be happening!
On top of every other humiliation Eva had suffered at Jack’s hands, his second wife was obviously at least six months pregnant, with a baby that Eva, at least, knew couldn’t possibly be his!
Unless—
No, it simply wasn’t possible that it was Jack’s baby. Jack was totally incapable of fathering a child of his own. And yet Yvette Cabot Grey was undeniably pregnant…
How? By another man? Or by the IVF that Eva was contemplating for herself? If that were the case, the baby Yvette carried wouldn’t be Jack’s…
That was perhaps the thing that hurt Eva the most. After tests had shown that Jack could never have a child of his own Eva had begged and pleaded with him to adopt, or for him to allow Eva the possibility of becoming pregnant by an anonymous donor. Tearful pleas Jack had always denied, with the disclaimer that he could never love a child that wasn’t truly his.
‘Eva?
‘Markos…’ She straightened abruptly as she recognised his voice on the other side of the cubicle door… inside the ladies’ powder room!
‘Are you all right?’
Was she all right? Of course she wasn’t all right! Not only had her ex-husband remarried, but his second wife was pregnant with the baby Eva had so longed for herself!
No, she certainly couldn’t claim she was ‘all right’. But what seemed more pressing right now was that Markos shouldn’t be in the ladies’ powder room in Jonathan Cabot Grey Senior’s house…!
Markos looked at Eva searchingly when she unlocked and opened the door, her gaze quizzical as she stepped out into the carpeted area where ladies usually freshened up. It was now empty of all but the two of them. Deliberately so, Markos having turned several of those ladies away before he stepped into the room and locked the door behind him to prevent anyone else from entering.
‘You really shouldn’t be in here.’ Eva gave a derisive shake of her head as she moved past him to one of the porcelain sinks to wash her hands and face before filling and drinking a glass of water. Her face was still that sickly grey colour.
He raised dark brows. ‘You are obviously unwell.’
‘That’s still no reason—’
‘The door is locked, and I will go where I want whenever I deem it necessary,’ Markos declared harshly.
Eva gave a pained wince. He now appeared every inch the arrogantly forceful Markos Lyonedes, joint owner of Lyonedes Enterprises. ‘And you deemed it necessary tonight to lock the two of us in a ladies’ powder room in my ex-father-in-law’s home?’
His jaw tightened. ‘Yes.’
That was what Eva had thought he would say. And he was right, of course; she could imagine nothing worse than that anyone else should witness her humiliating reaction to being introduced to Jack’s very pregnant second wife. It was enough that Markos must now be wondering why she had reacted so strongly…
She took another sip of water and deliberately avoided meeting Markos’s gaze in the mirror above the sink. ‘I’m sorry about this. I suddenly felt ill—I must have eaten something earlier that disagreed with me.’
‘Or met someone…?’ he suggested dryly.
Eva gave a humourless smile. ‘Or met someone,’ she acknowledged self-derisively.
Even in her distress Eva couldn’t help noticing how out of place Markos looked in this ultra-feminine room, with its rose and green floral wallpaper. Even the soaps next to the sinks were the same deep rose colour, and several bottles of expensive perfume and pale pink towel ling squares were arranged neatly on the onyx marble top. There were also two comfortable chairs covered in rose-coloured velvet.
‘Could we possibly leave now, do you think?’
He nodded tersely. ‘I have already asked for the car to be brought round.’
Eva’s tensed shoulders slumped with relief. ‘Have I mentioned before how wonderful you are?’
‘I do not believe so,’ Markos answered dryly. ‘But I will be happy for you to tell me so once we are well away from here.’ His face darkened grimly.
Eva couldn’t even begin to imagine how awkward this situation was for Markos. How awful to have brought her here, expecting to spend a pleasant evening at the home of a business colleague, only to learn that business colleague was in fact Eva’s ex-father-in-law—and, even worse, that her ex-husband was also here with his second and very pregnant wife…
‘Markos, I really am sorry.’
‘As I said, we will talk