The Secret Wife

“All women find Constantine irresistible,” Anton had told her ruefully. “I don’t think he’s ever met with a refusal. Unfortunately that has made him rather cynical about your sex.”

Rosie surfaced abruptly from that irrelevant memory to find herself being regarded much as she herself might have regarded a cockroach. She flushed, suddenly embarrassingly aware of the soiled sweatshirt and worn jeans she wore and then as quickly infuriated that she should even consider his opinion as being of any importance!

‘We’ll talk inside,’ Constantine informed her grimly.

‘How the heck did you find me?’

He elevated a sardonic winged ebony brow. ‘It wasn’t difficult. Anton’s desk diary contained this address.’

‘Well, I don’t want you here,’ Rosie retorted with angry heat. ‘So you can just take yourself off again!’

‘I’m not leaving until we have reached an agreement.’ Constantine stared down at her, his arrogant jawline hardening, his nostrils flaring as a black frown built between his brows. ‘What age are you?’ he demanded abruptly.

‘Twenty... not that that’s any of your—’

‘Twenty?’ Constantine shot her an appalled look, his sensual mouth twisting with flagrant distaste. ‘Christos ...what was Anton thinking of?’

‘Not what you’re thinking of, anyway!’ Rosie scorned.

‘But then it takes a male of my experience to understand how the mind of a rapacious little tramp works,’ Constantine returned without skipping a beat. ‘And you must have put Anton through hell the last weeks of his life!’

Rosie went white with shock. ‘What are you talking about?’

Constantine strode past her into the cottage. ‘We’ll discuss it indoors.’

‘I asked you what you were talking about,’ Rosie reminded him shakily.

Constantine stood poised on the threshold of the messy, cluttered lounge, his hard-cut profile set in lines of derision. ‘You live like a pig!’ he breathed in disgust as he swung round again. ‘Unwashed...your home filthy. My skin would crawl if I entered that room. You need pest control.’

Stunned into rare silence, Rosie gasped at him as he sidestepped her and swiftly strode back outside again.

‘We will stay out here in the fresh air.’

Her cheeks burning with outrage and mortification, Rosie charged out after him again. ‘How dare you?’

‘Keep quiet.’ Constantine treated her to a chilling look of cold menace. ‘Keep quiet and listen well. Anton was one of nature’s gentlemen but I’m not and I’ve already worked out what your game was. I now understand why Anton wrote that new will. He drew it up without legal advice, had it witnessed by the servants and then he placed it in his desk the day he returned to London. He was afraid that he would have another heart attack and was seriously worried about your future... and why was that?’

Her breath tripped in her throat. ‘I—I—’

Icily judgmental dark eyes raked her flustered face. ‘Before Anton went on his convalescent cruise, you told him that you were carrying his child... didn’t you?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Rosie gasped.

‘Your object was to try and force him into divorcing Thespina. You put him under intolerable pressure but you were lying. You weren’t pregnant. If you had been, you’d have thrown the news in my face with pleasure yesterday!’

Rosie blinked up at him, her lashes fluttering in bemusement. Even though his suspicions were wildly off beam, she was shattered by the depth of calculation he laid at her door.

Constantine studied her with seething contempt. ‘And I’m afraid that Anton chose to deal with a problem that he could not cope with by tipping the whole bloody mess into my lap!’

‘I don’t understand—’

‘Of course you don’t,’ Constantine asserted, his hard mouth curling. ‘No doubt you think that he left you a fortune and that all you have to do is sit back and wait for the money to come pouring in. But, sadly for you, your sordid little game-plan backfired... Anton did not leave you anything in his will!’

Rosie’s brow furrowed as she struggled to comprehend what he was telling her. ‘But you said—’

‘Anton left his estate to me just as he had done in his original will. But in the new version he added a condition to that inheritance. I still inherit... but only if I marry you!’

‘M-marry me?’ Her tongue felt too big for her dry mouth and her green eyes were huge with disbelief. ‘You... marry... me?’

‘Clearly Anton believed that you were pregnant!’ Constantine loosed a harsh, embittered laugh as he swung away from her, broad shoulders fiercely taut beneath the fine fabric of his jacket. ‘Anton panicked and scribbled out that new will without any reasoned forethought whatsoever. Why did he do that? Because if anything happened to him he wanted his fictional child to be protected and legitimised and he could not face the idea of Thespina finding out the truth.’

‘You’ve got it all wrong,’ Rosie protested in a shaken rush. ‘My relationship with Anton was strictly platonic. I didn’t tell him any lies. I—’

‘What sort of a fool do you take me for?’ Constantine interrupted with raw contempt. ‘You were having an affair. He was living with you in that house and he was besotted with you!’

Her knees giving way, Rosie sank slowly down on the weathered bench at the edge of the overgrown lawn. Even presented with Constantine’s twisted interpretation of the facts, she now saw the complete picture and she finally understood. Anton, how could you do this to me? she almost screamed, and inside herself she cringed. Unable to freely and publicly acknowledge her as his daughter, her father had nonetheless been determined that her future security should be safeguarded.

And in a moment of madness, in a moment of desperate anxiety about his health, Anton had come up with what only a madman could have seen as a solution! No, not a madman, she immediately adjusted with a suppressed groan, merely an old-fashioned man who honestly believed that all young women were pitifully vulnerable little creatures, helpless without the support and guidance of some big, strong, domineering man.

‘It can’t be legal...’ she whispered tautly.

‘It is perfectly legal but it would have been better had that will never seen the light of day,’ Constantine acknowledged harshly. ‘It could be challenged and it might well be overturned in court, because Anton made no provision for what was to happen to his estate in the event of no marriage taking place. As a result his business holdings and accounts are now frozen. But it is impossible to take legal action without exposing Thespina to considerable distress.’

Rosie was finding it very hard to think with clarity. ‘Surely she must already know about all this?’

‘She does not. Acquainted as she was with the terms of the original will, she has no suspicion of the existence of a later one. It was only discovered when Anton’s secretary cleared out his desk two days ago—’

‘But what about her? I mean, for heaven’s sake, Anton must have made some provision for his widow.’

‘Thespina is a very wealthy woman in her own right. Anton had no other living relatives. She shared his wish that I should be his heir.’ Constantine’s shrewd dark gaze skimmed her strained white face and a grim smile clenched his lips. ‘And it is not in your own best interests to invite publicity. Open that trashy little mouth and I won’t give you a penny!’

Rosie’s legs suddenly regained the power of movement. She surged upright, her eyes alight with raw antagonism. ‘I don’t want anything!’

Constantine Voulos studied her with cold, reflective eyes. ‘If you think you can drive the price up, you’re making a major error of judgement. You will go through a ceremony of marriage... and in return you will receive a big, fat cheque and a divorce as soon as I can arrange it.’

‘Are you out of your mind?’ Rosie demanded incredulously. ‘You really think I would go through with a marriage just so that you can get your greedy hands on Anton’s estate?’

A sash window above them was noisily opened. ‘Rosie? What did you do with all the towels?’ Maurice shouted down.

Constantine stiffened and took a step back, the better to get a view of the half-naked young man leaning out of the window. Rosie looked up too, absently conceding that from that angle Maurice looked rather like a blond version of King Kong.

‘Sorry..’ Maurice muttered, belatedly taking in the male with her and withdrawing his tattooed biceps and extremely hairy chest from view. ‘I didn’t know you had company—’

‘Who the hell is he?’ Constantine Voulos raked at Rosie, a rise of dark blood emphasising the savage line of his cheekbones.

‘Do you want me to come down and handle this, Rosie?’ Maurice enquired.

‘When I need you to fight my battles for me, I’ll be six feet under!’ Rosie bawled back, mortally offended by the offer.