‘So there is no problem,’ he returned pleasantly. ‘Because sleep does not feature on my list of priorities either.’
There was another terrible silence as she watched him shrug off his shirt, and toss it after his jacket. As she saw his hands move to the buckle of his belt …
She drew a deep, unsteady breath. ‘That’s quite enough. You—you can stop right there.’
Roan paused. ‘Was there some clause in the agreement dictating what I wear in bed?’ he wondered aloud, then shook his head. ‘I don’t remember it.’
‘No clause,’ she said hoarsely. ‘Just—common decency, which you seem to lack. And if this is a ploy to get more money out of me, it won’t work, even if you strip a dozen times. It was obviously stupid of me to imagine I could trust you,’ she added bitingly. ‘But I’m wiser now, and the marriage ends here and now.’
‘Not yet, my unwilling wife,’ he said softly. ‘It is about to begin. I thought I had made that clear.’
Her stomach was churning wildly. ‘Then let me also make something clear,’ she rasped. ‘I’ll see you in court, Mr Zandros, before I give in to this kind of blackmail.’
‘It should make a fascinating case.’ He stood watching her, hands on hips. ‘I can see the tabloid headlines now.’ He paused. ‘And imagine your grandfather’s reaction to them, and the way you have tried to deceive him. I think you could say goodbye to your hopes of Gracemead, don’t you?’
With every moment, her wonderful spacious room—her sanctuary—seemed to be shrinking, while increasing her acute awareness of him at the same time.
Somehow she had to redress the balance, she told herself desperately. Stop this whole impossible situation right now before it went too far—if it hadn’t done so already.
It wasn’t easy to keep him at a safe distance without making it too obvious that she was skirting round him, because the last thing she wanted was to seem nervous, but she managed it somehow. Difficult, as well, to try to appear dignified in spite of her flimsy pyjamas and bare feet as she crossed the living room, although she was heart-thuddingly conscious that she was still marginally more covered than he was.
She reached the door and stood beside it, her head held high, grasping the handle tightly in an attempt to disguise that her fingers were shaking.
‘If you leave now,’ she said, lifting her chin, ‘and don’t come back, then we—we’ll forget this ever happened. If you don’t, I shall call the police.’
‘And say what?’ he enquired mockingly. ‘That you are a bride reluctant to lose your virginity to the husband you married this morning?’
She gasped. ‘That is—a disgustingly arrogant assumption.’
‘I assume nothing,’ he said softly. ‘I know I shall be the first. And I think the police would be fascinated by your complaint,’ he went on. ‘They might also charge you with wasting their valuable time. And don’t attempt to buy them too, because that might prove truly misguided.’
He paused, allowing her to assimilate that. ‘Also that door is locked, so stop making empty gestures, matia mou, and come here to me.’
‘No.’ Her fingers tightened convulsively on the door handle—the only solid object in a reeling world. ‘I—I take back what I said just now. Everything I’ve said. Because I will pay you—I’ll pay anything—if you’ll just—go away. And leave me in peace.’
‘Harriet,’ he said gently. ‘Today I took you as my wife. Tonight I take you as my woman, as I intended from the first. And, whatever you may think, it was never a question of money.’
‘Then what?’ Her voice was hoarse. ‘Is this your idea of revenge, for my having—insulted your manhood in some way? Because you don’t really want me, and you know it.’
He sighed. ‘If I did not want you, pedhi mou, then, believe me, I would not be here. And maybe I was angry at first,’ he went on grimly. ‘Angry over your assumption that I must be for sale and would meekly accept this sterile bargain of yours at its face value.
‘But I was not angry for long.’ He smiled at her. ‘Because the first time I touched you, I knew there was a body to be desired under those shapeless garments you favour, in public at least.’ His dark gaze lingered on the swell of her breasts, then travelled slowly down to the indentation of her waist and the supple outline of her hips and thighs.
‘And my instinct was correct,’ he added softly. ‘You look enchanting. That is a good colour for you, my sweet one. It adds warmth to your skin, even when you are not blushing.’
‘Kindly keep your dubious compliments to yourself,’ Harriet said raggedly. ‘And, as I’ve already told you, I’m neither sweet nor yours.’
‘Not yet, perhaps,’ Roan agreed. ‘But I am hoping your attitude may soften once we become more intimately acquainted.’
‘Then go on hoping,’ she said fiercely. ‘Because in reality you’re trying to force yourself on someone who doesn’t want you.’
‘Are you so sure that is how you feel?’ Roan questioned softly. ‘I would say the jury is still out.’
‘Then you’d be totally wrong.’ She conjured up the image of the blonde she’d encountered at his studio. ‘For God’s sake, how many women do you need to have?’
He tutted reprovingly, his eyes dancing. ‘What a question for a bride to put to her husband. But, since you ask, I find one at a time suits me perfectly.’ He grinned at her. ‘My tastes are not yet so jaded that they require—additional stimulation.’
He walked to her without hurry, detaching her clutching fingers from the door handle quietly and without force.
She stared up at him, her eyes dilating. ‘Roan.’ She was hardly aware she’d used his name. ‘Roan—please. Don’t do this—I—I beg you.’ Her voice was a whisper.
‘And what is—”this” that scares you so, Harriet mou?’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t think you even know.’
But you’re wrong, she thought. So very wrong. Because I know from my childhood—from my mother going from man to man, hoping, seeking the impossible. I remember all the soft words in each beginning—the promises ‘Trust me …’ ‘I’ll never leave you …’
The sounds in the night from the other side of the wall that I was too young to understand.
And then the other sounds—the shouting, the crashing, the slamming of doors. The silences that were somehow the loudest of all. And then the weeping, the quiet, terrible sobbing of failure and desolation. Before someone else came along with more sweet talk, more promises, and the whole cycle began again.
And I swore I would never let that happen to me. That I would not be like her—dependent on the sexual whim of some man.
That, instead, I would be my own woman, answering only to myself.
And my body would always be my own.
Thought it, but did not say it as Roan’s hands came down on her at last.
She was trembling openly now, her anger commingled with fear, as he drew her towards him, and she braced her hands against his chest, twisting wildly, striving to break free.
‘Let me go,’ she gasped. ‘Let me go, damn you. Oh, God, I’ll never forgive you for this. Never!’
‘Never is a very long time, agapi mou,’ he told her softly. ‘When all you have to endure is one night. Now, be still.’
Just as she’d feared, he controlled her frantic struggles with effortless ease, pinioning her slender wrists behind her with one hand, while with the other he cupped her chin,