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Victoria bit back her outrage, knowing that Alexei’s appalling attitude towards women had nothing to do with her—but her future was.
It was time to stop tiptoeing around his feelings. She had rights—and all she wanted was her freedom.
‘Well, I do want a divorce,’ she said coolly.
‘Do you now?’ He gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘Then we seemed to have reached a sort of impasse.’
She heard the silken taunt in his voice and—despite all her vows not to let it—her temper flared.
‘You can’t stop me from getting one!’
‘Can’t I?’
There was a pause, and when Victoria spoke her voice was breathless. ‘Are you … th-threatening me?’
‘Threatening you?’ He gave a low laugh. ‘What a vivid imagination you have, Victoria.’
‘Don’t you dare patronise me!’
‘Now, now.’ His smile widened as he realised that he had very successfully hit his target. ‘There is no need for hysteria.’
Which, of course, made her want to give in to exactly that. She could have screamed. Or told him that he was the most egotistical and controlling man she had ever met. But she forced herself to take a deep, steadying breath instead—because she needed all her wits about her if she wanted to challenge him on an equal footing. And why tell him something he already knew but didn’t particularly care about?
‘Do you want me to have the papers served on you, Alexei? Because you’re going the right way about it!’
He gave another low laugh of pleasure as he heard the fury in her voice. How could he have forgotten how stimulating resistance could be? He might have a whole list of complaints about the woman he had been misguided enough to marry—but boredom had never featured on it. ‘You’d have to find me first,’ he challenged.
‘Oh, that’s possible—believe me. My lawyer can engage someone in Athens to track you down and serve you with divorce papers. This kind of thing happens all the time, you know—errant husbands refusing to face up to their responsibilities!’ And suddenly she stopped, aware that she had said too much.
Alexei drew in a silent and thoughtful breath. It sounded as if she had done her research. And it sounded as if she wanted money. His eyes narrowed. How much of a claim on his fortune was she intending to make? he wondered. He ran a speculative finger over the shadowed rasp of his jaw, which had sprung up despite an early-morning shave grabbed on the run from the brunette, who seemed to have discovered the principle of non-stop pleasure and was eager to put it to the test.
He stared out to sea, where he could see a ship moving slowly along the blue horizon—a Christou ship. It was just one of a mighty fleet of vessels which were renowned the world over and owned exclusively by the Christou family—with Alexei as its figurehead. Shipping brought untold wealth, and Christou dominated the market.
Could he be bothered even to fight this divorce? Alexei stretched his arms above his head and yawned. Even a weighty claim by most people’s standards wouldn’t even make a dent in the Christou billions. Shouldn’t he just sign Victoria her cheque and wave goodbye?
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 job is … flexible,’ she said, hating herself for faltering—but how could she just come right out and say, Because you’re filthy rich and can do as you please, and I have to work for a living. Because I have a pile of ceiling-high debts and I’m not even sure I can afford the airfare out to Greece?
He smiled with heartless delight. ‘That, of course, is the beauty of being your own boss,’ he observed.
‘Well, I’m my own boss, too!’ she retorted, stung. ‘And—unlike you—I didn’t have it handed to me on a plate.’
His eyes narrowed, for he was never criticised. ‘Just what type of work are you doing these days, Victoria?’
She stared at the sugar fondant roses which were lying on the work surface, ready to garnish a birthday cake she’d just made. Although they were dusted white with sugar, beneath that they were still pink—like the bouquet she had carried on her own wedding day. It didn’t matter that the marriage hadn’t lasted, or that she had schooled herself into pushing it into the recesses of her mind—because deep down it still existed. She couldn’t completely wipe it away. And sometimes the memory could twang away mercilessly at her heartstrings and make her want to yelp aloud with self-pity.
But self-pity was a most unattractive emotion, and it never got you anywhere.
‘I’m still in catering, Alexei,’ she said crisply. ‘Nothing’s changed.’
‘Then I suggest you take a break from your catering.’
‘I’m not with you.’
‘Come to Athens and we will thrash out a settlement between us,’ he continued remorselessly. ‘Because if you want a divorce that’s the only way you’re going to get one.’
He put the phone down and issued a short, terse command into the intercom. The door opened and the brunette returned, unbuttoning her dress as she walked slowly across the office towards him.
CHAPTER TWO (#u3b915d1b-3046-5481-b902-0a5261725689)
‘VICTORIA—do you really think this is wise? You don’t have to go crawling to your ex-husband, you know! And certainly not for my sake!’
Caroline’s voice was vehement, and Victoria paused in her packing to look at her oldest friend. They’d met years ago at college, but Caroline had been forced to drop out early when she became pregnant.
Victoria had provided a shoulder to cry on when the baby’s father had done a runner, and had sat with her friend during a long labour as her birthing buddy.
And Caroline had been there to return the favour when Victoria’s marriage broke down and she’d barely been able to bring herself to get out of bed in the mornings. On good days they’d used to joke that they had both packed in some pretty heavy life experiences very early on. On bad days they hadn’t joked at all.
When Victoria’s catering company had begun to do well, she’d realised that she was going to need help—and her old friend had been the perfect answer. As a single mum, Caroline was glad of the work and of a flexible boss—and she was a talented cook. Thus a temporary arrangement had become a very happy permanent one.
Victoria folded a T-shirt and put it in the bag. ‘Point one—I’m not crawling to anyone. I’m entitled to some kind of settlement, and I owe it to myself to get it,’ she said slowly. ‘And point two—I’m not doing it for your sake. That sounds like I’m doing you a favour, and I’m not. My company owes you the money and I’m damned well going to make sure you get it. And let’s face it,’ she added gently, ‘you’ve got rent to pay and a child to look after.’
Caroline looked anxious. ‘I can’t bear to see you looking as worried as you’ve been this past week. Honestly—I can manage somehow.’
‘You shouldn’t have to.’ Victoria closed the small bag. ‘Anyway, this goes much deeper than a debt. This is something which is long overdue. I can’t carry on pretending the marriage never happened—that it will go away by itself. I need some sense of closure.’ She sighed. ‘I’ve been a coward where confronting Alexei is concerned.’
‘I’m not surprised. He was a pig to you—I can’t understand why you married him in the first place.’ Caroline pulled a face. ‘Well, maybe I can!’
Their eyes met in an unspoken moment of acknowledgement of why she had married him.
What woman in the world wouldn’t have been bowled over by Alexei Christou if he’d made up his mind that he wanted you?
Now it was easy for Victoria to step back and see that she’d been completely out of her depth—but no one could stop themselves from falling in love. She hadn’t been the first naïve young girl to do it, and she wouldn’t be the last—only in most cases it would have just been a short, passionate affair instead of a foolhardy marriage.
‘He’s just—’
‘Spoiled!’
‘Well, maybe—if spoiled means having been given everything you wanted all your life, which of course he has.’ But spoiled made him sound like a little boy—and if there was one thing that Alexei was, it was all man. Very definitely. She shuddered. ‘He’s just operates in a different league, that’s all. His life is nothing like mine—and it’s about time I was free of him.’
‘But you are!’
Victoria shook her head so that her silky mane of blonde hair caught the light and shimmered. ‘That’s just it—I’m not—not really. As long as I remain married—even if it’s only in name—then I remain tied to him. And that’s hopeless. I have to move on,’ she said, but she was aware that just speaking to him again had stirred up all kinds of troubled emotions.
Caroline handed her a tube of suncream. ‘How do you feel about seeing him again?’ she asked suddenly.
‘I’m dreading it,’ said Victoria truthfully.
She felt churned-up as she boarded a Greece-bound flight on a budget airline and settled herself back into her cramped seat—thinking how differently she had travelled to Greece in the past.
This time around she was surrounded by young backpackers who were happy to purchase their own sandwiches and drinks from the aircrew who wheeled trolleys up the narrow aisle. Yet when she’d been married to Alexei they had flown in style. And what style! The first time he’d taken her to his homeland Victoria hadn’t quite believed what was happening to her. It had been like stepping onto the set of a film—the kind of Hollywood blockbuster where the director had said there was no limit on the budget.
One of the Christou family jets had been made available to them, along with its own fleet of glossy crew. But even in the midst of her personal happiness at having married the man she had fallen in love with Victoria had begun to feel the first goose-bumps of foreboding. An outsider. An English girl. And poor, to boot. The gorgeous stewardesses had given her barely-concealed looks of amazement. As if to say—Why the hell has he married her?
She remembered thinking the same thing herself.
Self-consciously she had smoothed down the skirt of the brand-new dress Alexei had bought for her, remembering what her mother had said—Fine feathers make a fine bird. Did they? Did she look good enough for her Greek billionaire?
Perceptively, he had tilted her chin to look at him, the black eyes narrowing and bathing her in their ebony light. ‘My wealth—it intimidates you a little, agape mou?’ he had asked softly.
Some of his vigour had flowed to her through his fingertips, and Victoria had suddenly felt as strong as he was. ‘I don’t give a stuff about your wealth!’ she’d declared passionately. ‘I would love you if you didn’t have a drachma to your name!’
He had looked at her with purring approval, but maybe Victoria would have done herself a favour if she’d confided to him that the people who surrounded him did intimidate her. That it wasn’t easy when everyone was wondering what your new husband saw in you and how long it would last. And if he had known—might it have changed things?
Victoria viciously snapped off the ringpull from a can of cola and drank from it thirstily. Stop it, she told herself. Don’t remember times like those. Remember the reality. Which was hell. You’re going to Athens with one objective in mind. To see Alexei and to draw a line underneath the marriage. And he has forced this situation on you. He’s as controlling as he ever was—so remember that, too.
She stared out of the window as the plane flew over the impossibly blue Aegean sea and then began to descend on the high looming clutter of buildings which was Athens itself. As the ground rose up to greet them she could see the crazy architecture and the congested traffic on the streets below. Everyone had a view of Athens as noisy and hot and dusty. But Victoria knew of another city—a secret Athens—one which had been shown to her by Alexei and one tourists were seldom privvy to.
He had opened her wondering eyes to the small green parks hidden away from the busy life of the main drag. She had eaten in lively little family-run tavernas which were lit at night by strings of coloured lights looped through the trees, while people danced as if they had fire in their veins and beckoned for you to join them. And there had been Alexei—barefoot and dancing, too—his black head thrown back in laughter.
Despite her determination not to indulge in sentimentality or nostalgia, she felt a pang of regret as the plane touched down in his homeland. In England it had been simpler to try and put him into the darkest recesses of her mind and to think of the whole experience of her marriage as another faraway life she had once lived. But she was going to have to accept that this trip was bound to throw up painful reminders of all that he had meant to her.
She had just better be prepared for it—forewarned meant forearmed—and instinct told her that she was going to need all her wits about her. If she weakened—allowed misplaced emotion to make her vulnerable—then she would be easy prey for her clever, calculating husband.
Picking up her overnight bag, Victoria went outside to where the heat was bouncing off the tarmac and beating down on her pale skin—even though it was only June. Her skin was sheened with sweat as she climbed into the back of a yellow cab, and her cotton dress just beginning to stick to her body, but thankfully the taxi was air-conditioned, and she leant back on the seat with a sigh of relief.
