But his heart began to thud rhythmically in his chest.
Damn it, yes! He would fight her—as she deserved to be fought—for she had hurt and betrayed him. She had let him down, and that had been a hard lesson for a man like him to learn. He had held her in the kind of regard and esteem that he had felt for no other woman, and what had she done but hurl it all back in his face?
And in a way hadn’t he been expecting this for a long time? His estranged wife had surprised him by not demanding a slice of his fabulous wealth within months of the marriage ending. And then months had become years. It had become a stand-off, and he’d known that one of them would have to break it—but he had also known that it would never be him, for his fierce pride would not allow it. It had been a long, long wait, but it seemed that the time was here at last. And he meant to enjoy every second of it.
‘Even if you manage to serve me with papers,’ he said softly, ‘it doesn’t mean that I’ll co-operate with you.’
Victoria bit her lip. This was the worst-case scenario her lawyer had warned her about. He could play tricks with her and eke it out, and although she would win in the end it could take months, even years. In the meantime her debts would be mounting, with interest accruing—and with a business as small as Victoria’s just one large, unpaid bill could be enough to throw the whole thing out of kilter.
But it was more than the money she now owed as a consequence of that. Much worse was the knock-on effect on the woman who worked for her and relied on her. She knew Caroline’s circumstances and they weren’t easy. She had worked her socks off and shown Victoria nothing but loyalty—and Victoria was not prepared to jeopordise that dear woman’s livelihood on the say-so of her arrogant ex.
‘So you want a fight, Alexei, do you?’
‘Fighting is in my blood,’ he murmured. ‘You know that, Victoria.’
But he had never fought to keep her, had he? He had given up on her at the earliest opportunity—willing to believe the very worst of her. And a battle was the last thing she wanted or needed with a man who still had the ability to make her heart race—though today that was surely more through anger and frustration than instant turn-on?
Victoria looped a lock of hair behind her ear. Just take emotion out of the equation, she urged herself. Talk to him as if he’s a client just about to choose the menu for the tennis club’s annual dinner. Don’t let him realise he’s getting to you. ‘Is there nothing which will make you change your mind and reach a peaceful solution?’ she asked calmly.
Despite the suddenly reasonable tone she had adopted—Alexei recognised that this was the key question—and that with it she had just handed him the baton of power. A small smile curved his lips as he enjoyed the familiar feeling of being in control. And what better feeling could there be other than orgasm itself? But control lasted much longer …
Staring out at the azure sky, he anticipated the simple fish he would eat for lunch beneath a flower-decked canopy in a hidden green oasis of the city. Perhaps afterwards he would take one of his yachts out. Have a massuese on board, and maybe the brunette, too. He yawned. If he still had a hunger for her.
‘Perhaps there is,’ he said silkily, and he paused deliberately, because he knew that silence on the telephone could sound like an eternity to an adversary. ‘Why not come out here and we’ll discuss it?’
Victoria stilled, every instinct in her body shrieking its alarm as she listened to his suggestion in disbelief. ‘To … to Athens, you mean?’
‘Why not?’
‘Don’t be so ridiculous, Alexei!’
‘You think it such a bizarre suggestion?’ he mused. ‘Yet it is where I live and where you once lived—the place you once called your home, though we both know what a myth that was. For your life here was as much of a sham as your supposed desire to be a good wife. Is that why you cannot face Greece again, Victoria?’
She could think of plenty of reasons—but Alexei was the main one. The last time she had seen him he had told her that he would sooner go to hell than ever set eyes on her again. So what had changed? Instinctively Victoria licked at lips which had grown dry. Nothing had changed—for weren’t the insults still flowing thick and fast? He hated her—and he was making that very plain.
‘I can’t see the point,’ she whispered.
‘Can’t you? Maybe I might be a little more … considerate if you came and asked me to my face for a divorce.’
‘Ask you?’ she echoed, but her heart had now started thumping nervously in her chest. ‘You think I need to ask your permission? That I need your consent? We aren’t living in the Dark Ages!’
But in a way Alexei was—and he always had been—it was just that Victoria had been too young to see it at the time. For all his modern American education, beneath the exquisite Italian suits and handmade shoes there beat the heart of a primitive man.
‘This is all about the law, Alexei—and you don’t make it! Not in England, anyway!’
‘But I am a Greek,’ he reminded her proudly. ‘And you are married to a Greek.’
She opened her mouth to tell him that that didn’t matter. But she bit back her words. She had already said more than enough. He would know she had been doing her legal homework, and that would make him an even tougher adversary. But Alexei had spoken the truth—he was a natural fighter. Surely there was another way around this?
Surely they could draw a line under their mismatched marriage and wish each other well for the future? So that, even if the idea of being friends was an unrealistic one, at least they could have each other’s best interests at heart. And you would not wish harm to befall someone whom you had once loved to distraction, surely?
‘Come and see me,’ he said softly, his voice cutting into her thoughts. ‘Or maybe you don’t dare to, Victoria?’
Did she?
Once she had been like a piece of soft toffee in his experienced fingers. He had warmed her with his expert caress and the silken touch of his tongue. One sensual look from Alexei had been enough to reduce her to a melting state of desire.
But seven years was a long time, and she had grown from girl to woman. A woman who had more sense than to fall head-over-heels a second time for a black-eyed devil who knew how to send a woman to paradise and back with his body.
But not how to love her or trust her or properly share his life with her.
‘If I agreed to a meeting, then couldn’t it be here—in London?’ she added hopefully. That would be much better. They could meet in some anonymous hotel in the centre of the city and then afterwards she could hop on a bus and leave his life for ever.
Alexei smiled as he anticipated that he was about to get exactly what he wanted. Outside, the heat from the blistering sun frazzled off the buildings, though inside the air was as cool as spring water. He loved this capital city, despite its noise and its heat and its chaos, for it pulsated with life and colour and vibrancy. And it would amuse him to see his cool, English wife here once more—who in her way was the city’s very antithesis. Would he still desire her? he wondered idly.
‘I’m not planning to come to London,’ he said carelessly.
‘But it’s … easier for you to travel here.’
His sensual mouth curved into a predatory smile as he heard her diffident tone, and like a hungry vulture who had spotted a fragment of fresh flesh glistening on a dusty road he pounced on her sudden uncertainty.
‘And why is that, agape mou?’
The term of endearment made her face colour painfully, but the cynical way he said it allowed her to close her mind to the memories it provoked. ‘Because your