‘You’re creasing my jacket,’ Lysander told her gently.

CHAPTER SIX

WRAPPED in Lysander’s discarded shirt, Ophelia discovered her new wardrobe stored in the room next door, which was furnished as a dressing room.

Lysander had switched from passion and seeming tenderness to threat at a speed that had shaken Ophelia to her conservative core. She hated him, she truly hated him. She didn’t know what had made her behave so stupidly with him when all her life to date she had been strong and sensible. So why had she slept with a guy who cared nothing for her? Didn’t she know any better than that? What had happened to her self-respect? Hadn’t she known all along what a rotten reputation he had?

Angry tears stung her shamed eyes while she freshened up in a freezing cold shallow bath in a bathroom along the corridor. How dared he threaten her with the full weight of the law? How dared he use his wealth and power as a weapon against her? As she slid into faded cotton pyjamas she pondered her predicament and struggled to ignore the dulled ache of discomfort that reminded her of the intimacy she was determined to forget.

The idea that she could turn Madrigal Court into a paying proposition on her current income was a total fantasy, she admitted with pained honesty. The house was in need of extensive restoration work, which she could not afford. Besides, she was already in debt to the tune of many thousands of pounds to Lysander, who had paid all her outstanding bills, not to mention the current emergency repairs being done. Unhappily, selling up was her only option. If she conceded that point surely he would drop the demand that she continue acting as his wife? Was he using that to put pressure on her into agreeing to sell?

Lysander was on the phone when Ophelia reappeared. Clad in a pair of boxers and a T-shirt, he was reclining on the bed while one manservant built up the fire and another hovered with a trolley of food. Self-conscious in the face of that invasion, Ophelia fled back into the dressing room to find a wrap. When she emerged again, he was alone.

Tossing aside the phone, Lysander extended a lean brown hand to her. ‘Join me,’ he urged.

Ophelia froze like a dieter offered a pile of chocolate bars. ‘No, I’m not getting into that bed again.’

Stunning heavily lashed metallic eyes rested on her. ‘It’s your bed. A wedding present from me to you, yineka mou.’

‘Are you trying to say that you always planned to sleep with me?’ That idea filled Ophelia with so much rage that she could barely voice the question.

‘I wanted you…I still want you,’ Lysander stated without a shred of discomfiture. ‘That is a separate issue.’

Ophelia shuddered. A separate issue? Who did he think he was kidding? He had set her up for seduction and she had been too stupid to recognise his intentions. It took massive will-power but she managed to ignore his provocative admission. ‘Right now we have to concentrate our energy on our differences.’

‘In bed.’

‘No, not in bed!’ Ophelia contradicted between gritted teeth of restraint.

‘If I agree to sell you the house now, will you sign over the walled garden to me? And forget about us continuing the charade that we are a normal married couple?’

Suddenly serious again, Lysander slid off the bed in a fluid movement. ‘No. That’s not possible.’

‘You could at least consider the idea. It’s a fair offer. For goodness’ sake, why do we have to go on with this stupid pretence? It doesn’t make sense.’

His handsome bone structure was taut below his bronzed skin. ‘I have excellent reasons that I do not choose to share with you.’

‘So that’s put me in my place again, has it?’ Sizzling with temper and frustration at that snub, Ophelia folded her arms with a jerk.

‘Right now your place is by my side.’

‘I will not dignify that with an answer! You’re being horribly unreasonable.’

‘I have an important question,’ Lysander countered levelly. ‘Will you allow the restoration work here to continue?’

Ophelia almost uttered a furious negative. Then she thought of the roof leaking and the damage that would continue if she took a selfish short-term view of the situation. She couldn’t face doing that to the house she loved. ‘Yes!’ she ground out between clenched teeth.

Stalking over to the bed, she snatched up a pillow and the bedspread that had spilled onto the floor. She marched over to the luxuriously upholstered ottoman couch by the window.

‘Aren’t you hungry?’ Lysander indicated the selection of food on offer. ‘Neither of us had the chance to eat this afternoon.’

In spite of the fact that her tummy was growling with emptiness, Ophelia wrapped herself in the bedspread and lay down on the couch. ‘Goodnight.’

Lysander surveyed his defiant bride while he satisfied his appetite. A slight frown line now divided his ebony brows, for she was not behaving as he had expected. She was excessively obstinate. Why had she offered to sell the house without any effort to negotiate a stupendous price? Why the continued obsession with the walled garden? Did she genuinely like getting muddy? Why was she set on being a thorn in his flesh, rather than taking immediate advantage of his need for her continuing presence in his life? What had happened to her profiteering instincts? Cue for diamonds, he decided. It was time to show her the sparkling financial benefits of meeting his expectations. He swept up the phone to organise it.

Five minutes later he strode over to the ottoman, lifted Ophelia off it and strode back to the bed.

‘What the blazes do you think you’re doing?’ she yelled at him.

‘You sleep in the same bed,’ Lysander informed her, blue-shadowed jaw line set at an obdurate angle of challenge.

Ophelia was taken aback to feel tears threatening because she was genuinely exhausted and the prospect of another rousing battle of wits was too much for her just then. ‘Don’t you dare touch me,’ she warned him.

But it was soon obvious that Lysander had far more important matters in mind than sex. While she lay there with her back rigidly turned to him, he made five separate phone calls in a total of three different languages. His dark deep drawl was brisk and authoritative. But he paced round the room at length on another call, his voice softening in tone as he spoke in Greek. He even laughed a couple of times, although that humorous note struck her as a little forced. She was convinced he was talking to another woman and she strained to catch every nuance even though she couldn’t understand a word. Was he explaining to a favoured mistress why he hadn’t mentioned the little fact that he was getting married? Why wasn’t he prepared to write off their marriage as a mistake? Why the need for an ongoing pretence?

And why had he slept with her? She couldn’t accept that the chemistry was as strong for him as it was for her, because he was a highly sophisticated man with an endless procession of gorgeous women to choose from. He was also extremely clever and a brilliant strategist. When she had tried to deny that they were truly married, he had simply turned the tables on her by sweeping her off to bed.

While Ophelia agonised over her failure to say no, Lysander had a television wheeled in and watched the business news, which provoked another round of phone calls. She was almost begging for mercy by midnight. He hadn’t even noticed she had a pillow over her head to blank out the light and noise level. An alpha-male workaholic, he had the most appalling level of energy. He also had a passion for controlling everybody and everything around him. His nature was neither tolerant nor patient. He was the last guy alive who would stand the hassle of coping with a demanding, difficult wife. In that knowledge, Ophelia savoured, lay her salvation and her escape route from the shackles of a marriage she didn’t want. What would Lysander most dislike?

Publicity would obviously come top of the list. He liked his privacy, so a wife who gave an interview to a downmarket tabloid would be an embarrassment. And she suspected that a clingy, possessive woman always demanding to know where he was and who he was with would revolt him even more. She would have to be careful not to overdo it, though. A sleepy smile melted the tension from Ophelia’s troubled mouth. Being a nightmare wife might well be fun and should ensure that she got back to her garden sooner rather than later.

For the third time the following day, Lysander checked that no phone call or message from Ophelia had been intercepted and withheld from him.

His sardonic mouth compressing into an even thinner line, he turned his attention back to the board meeting. The stock-market crisis had ensured that he had to fly back to London at seven that morning. Unsated desire had sentenced him to a restless night and plunged him into an icy shower at dawn. One tiny taste of Ophelia had unleashed a disturbingly powerful storm of sexual craving. What the hell was the matter with him? He couldn’t concentrate and he hated the unfamiliar edgy tension nagging at him.

In contrast, Ophelia, to whom histrionics came naturally, had happily slept in his arms half the night as well as through his departure. But then he was convinced that Ophelia would sleep through an earthquake, since he had contrived to clasp a superb pearl and diamond necklace round her neck without wakening her. Even though he had spoken to her she had only mumbled like a zombie and curled up in a ball again.

Any woman, however, would be overwhelmed by so magnificent a gift, he reasoned with conviction. He had also for the first time in his life left a note explaining his absence. And during the course of a phenomenally busy morning he had also arranged for the walled garden to be managed by an experienced horticulturist during their absence. In short, Lysander could not recall when he had ever made that much effort on a woman’s behalf and received less appreciation for it. Or, been treated to a total silence that was steadily beginning to grate on him.