The Kyriakos Virgin Bride / The Billionaire's Bidding: The Kyriakos Virgin Bride

“You should tell her she needs to be more polite to me.” Pandora cringed when she heard the self-righteous words and added lamely, “After all, I am your wife.”

Zac stared at her as if he’d never seen her before. “Why do you deserve Maria’s respect when you gave her none? She says that you opened the door, made her unwelcome in your room and slammed the door on her. That woman has been there all my life. She raised me when I lived with my grandfather at the house in Athens. She looked after me while my father went through dozens of floozies and my mother drank herself to death.” Zac’s eyes were flashing now. “One thing I never had you pegged for was a spoiled little rich girl.”

“I’m not a spoiled little rich girl. She was damn rude to me. She ignored me, she turned her back on me.” It sounded so petty. It was obvious Zac cared about Maria. A lot. “Look, maybe she’s worried now that you’re married,” Pandora conceded. “Maybe any woman you married would never be good enough in her eyes. But she didn’t have to—”

“She’s deaf.”

“Deaf?” Pandora gaped at Zac. The scene in the bedroom ran through her head. “Oh, no! Now I feel terrible.”

“It’s my fault,” Zac sighed. “I usually sign to her, although she can lip-read Greek fluently. I should have warned you to speak English very slowly and keep to a basic vocabulary. But I never even thought about it. I never think of her…disability.”

“I’ll tell her I’m sorry.” Pandora lifted her chin. “But you’re right—you should’ve told me. In fact, you should never have brought me here. What do you think Maria would think of the boy she raised abducting a woman?”

“You’re not telling her that.”

“I can’t, can I? Not if she’s deaf and can’t lip-read English properly.” She gave a mirthless laugh, furious with him, with her helplessness. “You’ve got it all sussed, right down to the deaf jailer.”

“Kiranos is not a jail.”

“It sure feels like one. Unless you’re planning to take me to the airport?” Pandora sneaked him a look from under her bangs. But for the first time she wasn’t so sure she wanted to go. Once she left, their marriage would be over. And Zac would never look at her with that glow in his eyes, never again touch her with fingers that reduced her to shivers—

God, she had to stop thinking about…about the sex side of their marriage.

Zac avoided her gaze. “I’ll let you go when I’m good and ready.”

His high-handedness caused another flare of annoyance. “And then you wonder why I say I hate you.”

The eyes that met hers were a flat, expressionless green. “You don’t hate me.”

Before he could expose the ignominious desire she was trying to hide, Pandora retorted, “What’s to like about you? You’re arrogant, deceitful and sly. You talk about your noble ancestors and their chivalrous love for their brides, yet you abduct me and stop me from going home to my family. You are a man totally without honour.”

Zac stared at her, his face ashen. Without a word, he swung on his heel and left her room, the door closing silently behind him.

Feeling no relief at her victory, only emptiness, Pandora slunk to the armchair and listened as his footsteps retreated. The tearing sense of loss splintered her soul, hurting deep within her psyche and leaving a void where her love for Zac had flourished. All that was left was the humiliating knowledge that she still wanted him. But after her last crack, he’d have to be made of steel to even think of touching her.

Dropping her head into her hands, she remembered Maria’s sullen face when she’d left earlier…and just now Zac’s face had been grey as a result of the words she’d hurled at him. Words that left the nasty, bitter taste of shame on her tongue. She’d always been kind and upbeat to everyone she’d met. At school, some of the girls had sniggered that she was a regular little Pollyanna. What the hell was happening to her? What was she becoming?

Yes, Zac’s behaviour to her had been unacceptable. His actions had instilled a sense of confusion and powerlessness. And, yes, she’d been wallowed in her own misery. But there was no need to take it out on Maria.

Or even Zac. His shattered expression flashed through her mind. She’d known that her words would hurt like poisoned arrows. Zac’s sense of honour lay at the heart of the man he was—the man he believed himself to be. Her venomous attack had been small-minded, not like her at all. She’d behaved like a petulant child.

Remorse stabbed at her. And while a niggling voice said that he deserved it because he’d taken away her right of choice, her freedom, she suppressed it. She was not going to allow Zac’s actions to destroy the person she’d always prided herself on being.

So when Maria arrived with her lunch tray, Pandora gave her a tentative smile and mouthed, “I’m sorry.”

The Greek woman’s face broke into a smile and she started to speak in very broken, very hesitant English. “Zac tell me you not know.”

The knowledge that Zac had taken the blame for what had happened completely flummoxed her, and she stared after Maria openmouthed as she set the tray on the chest of drawers.

After Maria had gone, Pandora picked at the Greek salad with its red tomato quarters and fat olives before pushing the tray aside. Not hungry but not yet ready to venture out and face Zac, Pandora picked up a book. It was a mystery featuring a kick-ass heroine by a favourite author who usually held her entranced. But today the words on the pages aroused no interest.

The afternoon was hot. Even inside the thick whitewashed stone walls, Pandora could feel the temperature rising. The fine cotton dress clung to her body, so she turned up the air-conditioning. Thoroughly restless now, Pandora crossed to the window and pushed it open.

The villa—if one could call a structure with towers and parapets that—perched like an eyrie high above a sweeping cobbled terrace, and far below lay the stony beach. And beyond, the sea glittered in the sunlight. On the terrace, a thickset man with a head of unruly black hair—Georgios, Maria’s husband, she supposed—was watering terra-cotta pots full of bright magenta geraniums.

The startling glare of the heat shimmered off the white walls of the villa. The sea looked blissfully tranquil. Incredibly tempting. Pandora stood there, her arms folded on the wide sill, for what seemed forever.

At last she acknowledged to herself that she was waiting for Zac to appear.

Turning away in disgust, she threw herself down on the bed and stared at the wooden door.

This time she hadn’t locked it.

Because after her cruel words she knew Zac would not return.

Pandora spent the next three days closeted in her bedroom, avoiding Zac, full of remorse at the way she’d spoken to him the last time she’d seen him. But she couldn’t help being a little irked that Zac hadn’t bothered to check on her.

Yet beneath the conflicting emotions lay something more, an unsettling desire that was still very much alive. Despite everything he had done—and her own vehement demand for a divorce—what she really wanted was for Zac to apologise, preferably on his knees, for keeping her here against her will. It infuriated her to be so confused, at the mercy of a man and her own turbulent emotions.

The only respite from the quagmire of emotions, ironically enough, was Maria. Three times each day Maria brought her a tray heaped with delicious food. Swiss muesli and fruit and rich, creamy yogurt with honey for breakfast. Greek salads topped with chunks of crumbled feta cheese and glossy black kalamata olives, pita bread with taramasalata and hummus and slices of warm lamb seasoned with rosemary. Maria clucked like a concerned mother hen if she failed to finish meals and smiled her approval when the plate and bowl were clean of food. Any thought Pandora might’ve had to undertake a hunger strike to make Zac realise how seriously angry she was about what he had done was undermined even as it took root.

Maria brought Pandora a pile of outdated magazines. Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar and Town & Country, as well as an assortment of Greek magazines, giving Pandora something to do. So one evening, when Maria arrived with a dinner tray, Pandora gave her the silk scarf she’d touched with such reverence that first morning.

Maria’s eyes lit up. “Mine?”

Pandora nodded.

Maria took the scarf, holding it like some fragile piece of glass. Then she stood in front of the mirror and tied it around her neck.

“Here, like this.” Pandora moved to Maria’s side and fiddled with the ends until they were arranged to her satisfaction.

The smile of joy on Maria’s face brought a lump to her throat. The old woman’s wrinkled fingers kept going up to stroke the lustrous silk with reverent touches.

“Beau…beautiful.” Maria struggled with the word.

Pandora dipped her head in acknowledgment. “It was my mother’s. She was an artist—she hand dyed the colours herself.” She’d said too much—Maria’s frown indicated she did not follow.

“Your mother…dead?” Maria asked finally.

“Ne.” Yes. It was one of the Greek words she’d learned over the last few weeks.

Maria shook her head from side to side, muttering something in Greek, her hand going to where the knot sat at her shoulder.

“No.” Stilling the older woman’s hands, Pandora said, “It gives me pleasure to give it to you.”

Maria seemed to get her meaning. “Efgaristo.” And danced out the room on light feet.

Over the last three days Pandora had reread the meagre selection of books in her baggage, scanned the year-old magazines Maria had brought her until they were dog- eared, her heart stopping each time Zac stared unsmiling out of a photograph at her.