Bronze eyes slumberous, Lysander curved a confident arm round her to keep her where she was. ‘We’re dining at the taverna.’

‘The taverna?’ she gasped in sudden dismay at the prospect of descending the stairs so many hours after Lysander had come up them. ‘Can we just slip out the back way-?’

‘Our transport is waiting at the front of the building.’

Ophelia winced. ‘I know it’s silly but…everybody’ll know what we’ve been doing!’

‘We could just have been talking…’ Lysander turned to survey the well-used bed with its tossed and crumpled sheets and an unholy masculine grin slashed his handsome mouth. ‘Possibly not. But what else do newly married couples do? Why should that embarrass you?’

In fact, when they arrived at the taverna, they were ushered straight out to a private terrace overlooking the beach where they dined by candlelight in perfect privacy. The food was divine and cooked by Lysander’s chef, who also owned the taverna. Lysander, when he made the effort and switched off his phone, was incredibly good company. But, try as she might, a certain matter still nudged at Ophelia’s newfound contentment and made her uncomfortable.

‘I have just one more question about that perfume episode this morning,’ Ophelia informed him in a rush. ‘No, don’t look like that-I mean, I can’t help being curious. Does one of your employees wear that perfume?’

Lysander expelled his breath in a long-suffering hiss. ‘My mother wears it.’

Ophelia was very much taken aback by that reply for it was the very last answer she had expected. His mother? She felt that it should have occurred to her that he might have family he wanted to see in Athens before he flew out to Kastros.

‘Virginia likes to hug,’ Lysander added, as if such displays of affection could only be forced on him and tolerated in the name of politeness.

‘Didn’t your mother want to meet me?’ That brash question leapt straight off Ophelia’s tongue before she could think better of it. The slight tensing of his strong bone structure warned her that she had the light touch of an elephant in the field of tact.

‘She was reluctant to intrude on our honeymoon,’ he responded casually.

He was a terrifyingly good dissembler, Ophelia conceded with a sinking heart. He met her gaze levelly, employed just the right note of dispassion and betrayed not an ounce of unease. Yet she wasn’t fooled. Somehow-and she genuinely didn’t know how-she sensed that, clever as he was, he was telling her a whopping fib and most probably doing so out of pity. Evidently his mother-her own mother’s former best friend, Virginia-had no wish to meet her son’s bride.

Was it an aversion based on Ophelia’s parentage? If it was simply the secret wedding that had contrived to cause offence, a few weeks might make all the difference to the older woman’s outlook. On the other hand, the alternative-a mother-in-law who totally hated her sight unseen-struck Ophelia as too awful to contemplate. It also reminded her of another necessity she had yet to tackle.

‘I’ve just about wrecked your car,’ Ophelia admitted.

‘And to manage that within two hundred yards of the garage is pretty good going.’ Lysander lounged back in his chair like a sleek black panther ready to pounce. ‘You drive like you’re on a race track.’

Ophelia went from being anxious and apologetic to stiff and bristling with annoyance. ‘No, I do not!’

Lysander planted a strong hand over hers to prevent her from rising from her chair. His brilliant dark gaze was hard, his jaw line squared. ‘I watched you leave. You were going too fast for someone in an unfamiliar car. You also drove on after the collision, even though the car was damaged. That was a really dangerous decision.’

‘Are you quite finished?’ Ophelia prompted tartly.

‘Ne-yes. Next time you get into a driving seat, you’ll be much more careful,’ Lysander forecast, lifting her hand and pressing a kiss to her palm in a graceful movement that sharply disconcerted her. ‘Naturally I don’t want you to get hurt.’

Ophelia swallowed hard. ‘You didn’t even ask me how the accident happened.’

‘Enlighten me.’

Her blue eyes anything but submissive after his criticism, Ophelia lifted her chin. ‘I am proud to say that I single-handedly saved the lives of three goats.’

His elegant ebony brows pleated.

‘The goats were on the road and it was them or the car,’ Ophelia delivered the punchline.

Reluctant amusement lit his metallic eyes. ‘Very funny-but you could have been injured and that isn’t funny, hara mou.’

Lysander walked Ophelia out through the bar. Their departure was a slow process, for many of the taverna’s diners were eager to speak to him and offer both of them their good wishes. Lysander was held in considerable esteem. He introduced her as his wife as naturally as though he had been doing it for years. His usual formality and reserve were strikingly absent from his manner. It was yet another intriguing glimpse, she registered, of the deeply complex and private man who lay beneath the cold, tough façade that had made him a legend in the business world.

‘The worst thing that ever happened to me as a teenager?’ Lysander was proud of the reality that he didn’t grimace. He wanted his marriage to work and when he put his mind to any objective he was single-minded, thorough and very practical.

‘I just feel so close to you when you talk to me.’ Ophelia gave him a huge beaming smile that lit up her heart-shaped face like Christmas lights. She was discovering that it took endless digging and encouragement to get Lysander to tell her anything about his past. It was as if he had locked up his entire childhood and thrown away the key of memory.

‘The worst thing…’ Lysander could not think of one single thing that he wanted to share with her. ‘Why don’t you go first?’

Two weeks on Kastros with Ophelia had taught him that she liked to talk. She liked to talk…a lot, and sometimes she liked to talk about the sort of stuff that Lysander would have happily taken to the grave with him. He had treated other women’s conversation as background prattle to which he rarely, if ever, responded. No woman had complained until now, when Ophelia fixed wounded eyes on him and accused him of not being interested in her.

A fast learner, he now knew that if he didn’t respond or, even worse, didn’t listen, Ophelia would shut up, look unhappy and retreat into herself in a way that he had discovered he absolutely couldn’t stand. She wasn’t sulking when she did it and she certainly wasn’t having a tantrum, but whatever the label he found it intolerable. Disappointment stifled her natural exuberance and made him feel like the sort of guy who kicked puppies. If, however, he gave her the right sort of attention, she glowed and displayed promising signs of turning into the perfect wife. Attentive and sexy, cute and entertaining, very low maintenance, he acknowledged with rich masculine satisfaction. In his opinion, marriage was simply a matter of skilled relationship management.

Clad in a purple polka-dot bikini, Ophelia lay back in the shade, watching the sunlight dance across the glittering surface of the turquoise sea. It was a glorious day. The sundeck on Lysander’s magnificent yacht was wonderfully comfortable. She stifled a sigh as she registered that, once again, Lysander had deftly sidestepped her invitation to talk.

‘When I went to live with my grandmother, she sent me to a posh co-ed school,’ she said ruefully. ‘I didn’t fit in so I wasn’t very popular. I fell for a boy in upper sixth. I was ecstatic when he asked me out. But he dumped me after our first date because I wouldn’t have sex with him.’

Recalling his own less than presentable youthful track record in the sexual stakes, Lysander contrived not to wince. ‘Boys of that age are a raging bunch of hormones.’

‘Yes, well, unfortunately for me, Todd was a liar too,’ Ophelia confided heavily. ‘He told everyone I’d slept with him. All the girls started calling me a slag.’

‘You’re very beautiful, yineka mou.’ Lithe and bronzed and still damp from his swim, Lysander settled down beside her. ‘I imagine that you inspired a lot of jealousy.’

‘I was badly bullied. When I tried to fight back, the abuse only got worse. That’s why I didn’t stay on at school to do my A-level exams.’

‘I bet the experience made you even stronger.’

‘Yes,’ she admitted.

Lysander pulled her to him. Arms wrapped round her, he eased her down onto powerful thighs. She responded with an enthusiastic hug and kissed his smooth, muscular shoulder, his strong brown throat and a sculpted cheekbone in quick succession. His handsome mouth quirked in the sun-warmed tumble of her golden hair. She was very affectionate and it rarely ended in a platonic embrace. He curved appreciative hands to the firm, rounded swell of her bottom and lifted her, clamping her knees to his waist, to carry her indoors.

‘Talk first?’ Ophelia whispered.

Lysander groaned out loud and brought her into expressive connection with the heat and thrust of the erection moulded by his wet trunks.

Even as she trembled in helpless response, she tipped her head back. ‘Why won’t you tell me anything about yourself?’ she pressed. ‘Why is it such a sensitive subject?’

The suggestion that he might be sensitive affected Lysander much like a red rag waved in front of a bull. ‘Why would it be sensitive? Perhaps I was trying to protect you from embarrassment. The worst thing that happened to me when I was a teenager?’ he repeated in a raw undertone. ‘Seeing my father’s photo in the newspaper when he was knifed to death in prison! He was a drug dealer.’

Ophelia had frozen in shock in his arms. Aristide Metaxis? A drug dealer? What on earth was he talking about?