The Good Greek Wife? (6 page)

‘Even Jason—and especially Hermione.' Zarek didn't give either of the names any particular emphasis but all the same it seemed to Penny that they had a dark underlining to his tone.

‘How did you persuade Hermione to leave?'

She hadn't been able to achieve that herself in almost two years, even when she had asked Zarek's stepmother point blank to go. Since then Hermione had been a constant, nagging presence, critical of everything she did.

‘If she wanted to keep the generous allowance she receives
from Odysseus Shipping then there was no argument.' The cynicism that twisted Zarek's mouth sounded darkly in his voice. ‘She was very easily persuaded.'

‘So there's no one here?'

Was that slight shake in her voice apprehension, relief, or even a strange sort of anticipation? Penny couldn't begin to decide for herself and, from the faint frown that she saw draw Zarek's dark brows together so briefly, neither could he.

‘No one but us—and Argus.'

Zarek moved at last, getting to his feet to open the big glass doors to the garden so that the dog could go outside. Once again Penny felt an affinity with the hound as he padded reluctantly forward, obviously needing to get outside, but wanting to be sure that Zarek would not disappear again if he turned his back. Did she look at him like that? she wondered. Could the sense of disbelief, the fear that it might all be an illusion after all, show in her eyes when she watched him?

‘But why?'

‘I thought we had a lot of catching up to do. We need to talk. And that we would do it better if we were on our own.'

‘Oh.'

It was all she could manage, and the gulp as she swallowed down the word gave away more than she was at all comfortable with.

Zarek turned from the door, leaning back against the wall and pushing his hands deep into the pockets of his trousers. Penny knew it wasn't possible but he really did seem to have grown bigger in the last few moments—taller and stronger and darker. And definitely more dangerous, with that ominous ‘we need to talk' sounding like a warning bell for what was coming next.

S
HE WOULD HAVE LIKED
to have got to her feet. At least then, standing up, she would have been more on a level with him. But she would also betray her discomfort, scrambling to her feet like a frightened child, and moving uncomfortably from one foot to another.

‘Don't you think you should eat first?'

That at least would give her an excuse to get up from her chair. And if she could spend some time on practicalities like preparing food in the big kitchen then it would be a distraction from his threatening presence, the discomfort of being here like this with a man she knew so well in some ways and yet who was a total stranger in others.

‘I'm not hungry.'

It was a dismissal of what he had recognised as her attempt at diversion, she knew. He had no intention of being dissuaded from the path he was determined to follow.

‘Though I wouldn't mind a drink,' Zarek conceded.

‘Of course…'

She was on her feet and turning towards the dresser where the wine was kept when the foolishness of her actions hit home. This was Zarek's home after all.

‘No, I haven't forgotten,' Zarek murmured dryly seeing her
hesitation, the embarrassed look she turned on him. ‘Two years is not so very long.'

‘It seemed long enough!' Her temper flared again, setting her off balance once more. ‘No sign of you, no word from you. I didn't know what had happened—'

‘I was hardly in a position to give you a phone call,' Zarek cut across her, breaking into the flow of reproach like the slash of a knife. ‘How did Hermione end up living here? Did you invite her to move in?'

‘No, I did not! She invited herself and wouldn't take no for an answer. Have you ever tried to get your stepmother to do something she didn't want to do?'

‘As a matter of fact I have.'

Zarek expertly removed the cork from a bottle of rich red wine and poured a generous amount into a couple of glasses.

‘Well, I don't happen to have the promise of a generous income—or the threat of withholding one—to dangle over her head like a carrot. Hermione arrived when the news of your disappearance had just broken—I didn't know what to do for the best. I thought it might after all be an idea if we were all in one place until we found out just what had happened.'

And she had been reeling in shock and distress. It didn't matter how she and her husband had parted, learning that his yacht had been hijacked by pirates and Zarek himself taken hostage had left her unable to think straight, so that she hadn't had the strength to fight Hermione over anything.

‘And Jason…'

Something in the way that Zarek reacted—or, rather, his complete lack of reaction—sent her a warning signal that she was entering dangerous territory. She knew what Zarek had seen and heard on the harbour front only the day before. Her husband might not love her but he was her husband and a tra
ditionally possessive, jealous Greek husband at that. He would not take at all kindly to seeing his wife in the arms of another man. Particularly if that man was his hated stepbrother.

‘And Jason…' Zarek prompted almost casually, holding out one of the glasses of wine towards her. Because of the darkness in the room, she couldn't read his face properly but the stiffness of his long spine, a clipped edge to his use of his stepbrother's name, made all the little hairs on the back of her neck lift in wary apprehension.

‘Jason dealt with all the practical things—liaising with the police, the press. He was very—helpful.'

Besides, Jason had been kind and considerate then and his support had been welcome at a time when she most needed it.

‘Good for Jason.'

It was impossible to interpret the strange note in Zarek's voice as he lifted his glass to his mouth and took a deliberate sip of the wine. But Penny didn't care what his mood was. If there was any doubt in his mind about what he had seen then it was time she made things perfectly clear. His opinion of her was low enough as it was. She didn't want to add any further complications to the already explosive mix.

‘We're not lovers,' she said starkly and saw his head come up very slightly, though he controlled the movement almost at once.

‘Did I say anything?'

‘No—but you're thinking it.'

‘Oh, is that what I'm thinking?'

Another slow deliberate sip of his wine, but, watching him, Penny saw how long it took him to swallow it. The burn of his eyes challenged her with the fact that he could have been thinking something else entirely but she wasn't yet ready to go there. Better to clear the air with the things she could deal
with here and now rather than rake up old problems and risk ripping open old wounds.

That would have to come, but it was early days yet—not even days! She was still feeling her way with this man who was her husband and yet, after the time he had been missing, now seemed like a stranger to her. She knew his face, his stunning features, his voice, his mannerisms. But was the Zarek she had married, the Zarek she had been intimate with, made love with—no, no—the man she had had sex with—still inside this façade that was so well known and yet somehow totally unfamiliar to her? For now she would do better to stay on safer ground. If Zarek's detested brother could ever be considered safer.

‘I know how it might have looked to you, but if you'd stayed around last night then you'd have seen how I pushed him away.'

‘Forgive me—' the twist to Zarek's mouth, the cynical emphasis to the words made them anything other than a genuine apology ‘—but I was still trying to absorb the fact that my wife wanted me declared dead.'

‘Not wanted. It was the only practical thing to do.'

‘And of course you have been carefully planning the most practical way of dealing with things. With Jason's help.'

‘I needed someone's help.'

Penny drank some of her own wine, feeling the rich red liquid burn its way down her throat. The kick of the alcohol entering her blood gave an added spark to the volatile cauldron of emotions bubbling inside her. Sick and tired of managing in the dark—in all ways—she ignored Zarek's previous command and moved to click on the nearest lamp, flooding the room with light before swinging round to face him with a challenge.

‘And as you said,
you
were hardly in a position to do anything.'

She was not sure if the light was now helping or actually making matters worse. Yes, she could see Zarek's expression, but did she really want to know just how intent his eyes were on her face? Did she want to look into their dark depths and see the burn of suspicion, the coldness of contempt? And in the light her eyes were once more drawn to the ugly scar that marked his temple, twisting and distorting the beautiful bronzed skin.

Impulsively her free hand lifted again, needing to touch it, to touch him. She wanted to reassure herself that he truly was real, and at the same time she had a crazy, irrational need to smooth her fingers over that scar as if by doing so she could ease the long-ago pain the wound must have caused him.

But something that flared deep in those stunning eyes had her wrenching her hand down again, clenching it into a fist at her side. She took another swift, snatching drink of wine to bolster her courage.

‘What did happen to you?' she asked brusquely, not having enough self-control to try and think of some more careful way of phrasing the question. ‘We were told you were—dead.'

‘You heard about the pirates?' Zarek asked, moving to the open patio doors where he leaned against the wall and looked out into the garden, watching Argus, who was happily investigating something that clearly smelled very appealing.

Penny nodded.

‘I found it hard to believe at first. It doesn't sound at all twenty-first century. But since you were taken, there have been several other ships that have been boarded by pirates. We saw the reports on the television—saw the pirates get into that small boat and leave the yacht. But at the time we didn't know that you were with them—that they'd taken you hostage.'

‘No one knew.'

Zarek sipped at his wine again, staring out into the moonlit garden, his attention, his focus, seeming to be totally elsewhere. In an absent-minded gesture he lifted his free hand and rubbed at the ugly scar on his temple, making her shiver in distress at the thought of how he had come by it. She hated to see the evidence of that hurt, was saddened by the way that it marred the male beauty of his face. But, at the same time, in some way it only added to rather than detracted from the powerful impact of his forceful features.

‘The small boat they tried to get away in was covered so the troops who were going to board the ship couldn't see inside. It was pitch black in there—foul.'

With another swallow of his wine, Zarek frowned at the gleaming path the moonlight made along the sea.

‘They were all nervous, panicking—possibly high on something…'

Penny found that the glass she held was shaking violently as her hand trembled in reaction to the stark, matter of fact way he was reporting the story. He might have been talking about someone else entirely—or recounting a story he had heard. She could only imagine with horror how it had felt to be in that situation. To be trapped in that small, dark boat, bobbing on the expanse of the ocean in the middle of the night, with a group of pirates who were all out of control and even more dangerous as a result.

And the last memory he would have had of her was of the angry, lying words, she had flung at him before he had left for the
Troy
.

‘They were arguing amongst themselves. Some of them wanted to use me as a hostage—to try and get a ransom out of the company at least.'

With an effort Penny tried to raise her glass to her lips.
Perhaps a taste of wine might calm her nerves, reduce the sense of revulsion she felt at the thought of Zarek being trapped in that situation. But her hand was shaking even more, so that she couldn't manage it.

‘And then when the shooting started all hell broke out.'

‘Oh, my—'

Zarek's head swung round as Penny finally lost her grip on her feelings and slammed down her drink on the nearest window sill, crashing it against the window.

‘Penny?'

‘They said…'

Her throat closed over the words, refusing to let them out, and her eyes were wild as she looked into his dark gaze. Swallowing hard, she tried again.

‘They said—he said—that he p-put—'

It was unbearable to think of the words, let alone say them. And even with Zarek standing there before her, whole and safe, making a lie of the pirate leader's claim, she still found the idea too horrific to contemplate.

‘He said that he put a bullet in you—your head.'

Burning tears were swirling in her eyes, blurring her vision, but she recognised rather than saw the now-familiar gesture as he rubbed at the scar once more. And the thought of how he had come by it made her dig her teeth in hard to her lower lip to hold back the moan of distress that almost escaped her.

‘Then he gave himself rather too much credit.' Zarek's voice seemed to come from a long way away. ‘And exaggerated his success. He might have planned to do that but the truth is that he missed. His aim was off. The bullet grazed my head and knocked me flying—out of the boat and into the sea. Penny?'

His question was sharp, urgent, his tone changing completely. And suddenly he was right beside her, having moved
up close, his powerful body almost touching hers as he stared down into her face. And when Penny ducked her head to dodge that searing, probing gaze, he dumped his wine glass down beside hers and put a strong warm hand under her chin, lifting her face towards his.

‘What's this?'

It was impossible to resist his control as he turned her face to the left, into the light, and she could sense the frown that drew his dark straight brows sharply together.

‘What's this?' he demanded again, his voice rougher now and his accent deepening on the hard-toned question. ‘Tears?'

Penny fought to twist her chin away from his forceful hold, to hide her betraying expression. But finding she wasn't strong enough, instead she lifted a shaking hand to dash roughly at her eyes, brushing the moisture from her lashes.

‘Yes, tears,' she flung at him furiously, determined to face it out now.

Of course he hadn't expected tears. They had never had that sort of a marriage—at least not in Zarek's mind. And the bitterness of that bit so deep that she was almost out of her head with the agony.

‘And what's so shocking about that, hmm? What did you expect? Laughter? Three cheers?'

‘You would have cared?' He actually sounded stunned.

‘Of course I would have cared! And not just “cared” in the past but still care now! I might not want to be married to you any more, but I sure as hell would never, ever have wished you
dead
!'

The last word came out on a choking gasp. One that was as much from the sensual shock of realising just how close he was now as from the anguish that came with the memory
of how it had been when she had really thought that he had died in the pirate attack.

‘So you thought of me once or twice in the time I was away?'

‘Yes, I thought of you! We might not have had a marriage worth saving but there were—things—about you that I—that I missed…'

Her throat dried in a sudden rush of heat as she foolishly looked up on those words and met the burning fire of his gaze. Her heart skipped a beat then lurched into a rapid, thudding rhythm that was almost painful as it slammed against the sides of her ribcage, sending the blood pounding through her veins, pulsing round her head.

How could something so dark blaze so fiercely? she wondered as she felt herself come close to melting in the intensity of his eyes. The effect was doubled, strengthened all the more because it met with exactly the same feeling inside her own body. The same hotly yearning hunger. The aching need that drove all rational thought from her mind and left just a burn of molten desire.