A Passionate Marriage

The mocking movement of a slender eyebrow said—Maybe I am, but at least I won’t be your bitch for much longer.

The air began to crackle. ‘As I was about to say…’ clearing his throat, Takis tried again ‘…with due regard to the sensitivities of both parties, at my client’s instruction I have drawn up a draft copy of proposals to help ease us through this awkward part.’ Taking out a sheet of paper, he slid it across the table towards Isobel. She didn’t even glance at it, but left Lester Miles to pick it up and begin to read. ‘As I think you will agree, we have tried to be more than fair in our proposals. The financial settlement is most generous in the circumstances.’

‘What circumstances?’ her lawyer questioned.

Takis looked up. ‘Our clients have not lived together for three years,’ he explained.

Three years, one month and twenty-four days, Isobel amended silently, and wished Leandros would stop tapping that pen. He was looking at her as if she was his worst enemy. The tight mouth, the glinting teeth, the ice picks flicking out from stone-cold black eyes, all told her he could not get rid of her quick enough.

It hurt, though she knew it shouldn’t. It hurt to see the way he had been running those eyes over her as if he could not believe he’d ever desired someone like her. So much for dressing for the occasion, she mused bleakly. So much for wanting to blow him out of his handmade shoes.

Lester Miles nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he said and returned his attention to the list in front of him, and Takis returned to reading out loud the list of so-called provisions. Isobel wanted to be sick. Did they think that material goods were all she was here for? Did Leandros truly believe she was so mercenary?

‘When,’ she tossed at him, ‘did I ever give you the impression that I was a greedy little gold-digger?’

Black lashes that were just too long for a man lifted away from his eyes. ‘You are here, are you not?’ he countered smoothly. ‘What other purpose could you have in mind?’

Isobel stiffened as if he’d shot her. He was implying that she was either here for the money or to try to win him back.

‘Both parties have stated that the breakdown in their marriage was due to—irreconcilable differences,’ Takis put in swiftly. ‘I see nothing to be gained from attempting to apportion blame now. Agreed?’

‘Agreed,’ Lester Miles said.

But Isobel didn’t agree. She stared at the man she had married and thought about the twenty-three hours in any given day when he’d preferred to forget he had a wife. Then, during the twenty-fourth, he’d found it infuriating when she’d chosen to refuse to let him use it to assuage his flesh!

He’d met her, lusted after her, then married her in haste to keep her in his bed. The sex had been amazing, passionate and hot, but when he had discovered there was more to marriage than just sex, he had repented at his leisure during the year it had taken her to commit the ultimate sin in the eyes of everyone—by getting pregnant.

Leandros must be the only Greek man who could be horrified at this evidence of his prowess. How the hell did it happen? he’d raged. Don’t you think we have enough problems without adding a baby to them? Two and a half months later she’d miscarried and he could not have been more relieved. She was too young. He wasn’t ready. It was for the best.

She hated him. It was all coming back to her how much she did. She even felt tears threatening. Leandros saw them and the pen suddenly stopped its irritating tap.

‘Your client left my client of her own volition,’ Takis was continuing to explain to Lester Miles while the two of them became locked in an old agony. ‘And there has been no attempt at contact since.’

Yes, you bastard, Isobel silently told Leandros. You couldn’t even bother to come and find out if I was miserable. Not so much as a letter or a brief phone call to check that I was alive!

‘By either party?’ Lester Miles questioned.

The pen began to tap again, Leandros’s lips pressing together in a hardening line. He didn’t care, Isobel realised painfully. He did not want to remember those dark hours and days and weeks when she’d been inconsolable and he had been too busy with other things to deal with an overemotional wife.

‘Mr Petronades pays a respectable allowance into Mrs Petronades’ account each month but I do not recall Mrs Petronades acknowledging it,’ Takis said.

‘I don’t want your money,’ Isobel sliced across the table at Leandros. ‘I haven’t touched a single penny of it.’

‘Not my problem,’ he returned with an indifferent shrug.

‘Now we come to the house in Hampshire, England,’ Takis determinedly pushed on. ‘In the interests of goodwill this will be signed over to Mrs Petronades as part of the—’

‘I don’t want your house, either,’ she told Leandros.

‘But—Mrs Petronades. I don’t—’

‘You will take the house,’ Leandros stated without a single inflexion.

‘As a conscience soother for yourself?’

His eyes narrowed. ‘My conscience is clear,’ he stated.

She sat back in her chair with a deriding scoff. He dropped the pen then snaked forward in his chair, his black eyes still fixed on her face. ‘But why don’t you tell me about your conscience?’ he invited.

‘Leandros, I don’t think this is getting us—’

‘Keep your house,’ Isobel repeated. ‘And keep whatever else you’ve put on that list.’

‘You want nothing from me?’

‘Nothing—’ Isobel took the greatest pleasure in confirming.

‘Nothing that is on this list!’ Lester Miles quickly jumped in as a fresh load of tension erupted around them. Leandros was looking dangerous, and Isobel was urging him on. Takis was running a fingertip around the edge of his shirt collar because he knew what could happen when these two people began taking bites out of each other.

‘Mrs Petronades did not sign a pre-nuptial agreement,’ Lester Miles continued hurriedly. ‘Which means that she is entitled to half of everything her husband owns. I see nothing like that amount listed here. I think we should…’

Leandros flashed Lester Miles a killing glance. If the young fool did not keep his mouth shut he would help him. ‘I was not speaking to you,’ he said and returned his gaze to Isobel. ‘What is it is that you do want?’ he prompted.

Like antagonists in a new cold war they faced each other across the boardroom table. Anger fizzed in Isobel’s brain, and bitterness—a blinding, stinging, biting hostility—had her trembling inside. He had taken her youth and optimism and crushed them. He had taken her love and shredded it before her eyes. He had taken her right to feel worthy as the mother of his child and laughed at it. Finally, he had taken what was left of her pride and been glad to see the back of her.

She’d believed there was nothing else he could do to hurt her. She’d actually come here to Athens ready to let go of the past and leave again hopefully feeling whole. But no. If just one name had the ability to crush her that bit more, then it would be that of Diantha Christophoros.

For that name alone, if she only could reach him she would scratch his eyes out; if she could wrestle him to the ground she would trample all over him in her spike heels.

But she had to make do with lancing him with words. ‘I don’t want your houses, and I don’t want your money,’ she informed him. ‘I don’t want your name or you, come to that. I don’t even want your wedding ring…’ Wrenching it off her finger, she slid it across the table towards him, then bent and with a snatch caught up her bag. ‘And I certainly don’t want your precious family heirlooms,’ she added, holding her three witnesses silent as she took a sealed envelope out of the bag and launched it to land beside the ring. ‘In there you will find the key to my safety deposit box, plus a letter authorising you to empty it for yourself,’ she informed Leandros. ‘Give them to your next wife,’ she suggested. ‘They might not be wasted on her.’

Leandros did not look anywhere but at her face while she spat her replies at him. ‘So I repeat,’ he persisted, ‘what is it that you do want?’

‘A divorce!’ she lanced back through tear-burned eyes. ‘See how much you are worth to me, Leandros? All I want is a nice quick divorce from you so that I can put you right out of my life!’

‘Insult me one more time, and you might not like the consequences,’ he warned very thinly.

‘What could you do to me that you haven’t already done?’ she laughed.

Black eyes turned into twin lasers. ‘Show you up for the tramp you are by bringing your muscle-building lover into this?’

For a moment Isobel did not know what he was talking about. Then she issued a stifled gasp. ‘You’ve been having me watched!’ she accused.

‘Guilty as charged,’ he admitted and sat back indolently, picked up the pen again and began weaving it between long brown fingers. ‘Adultery is an ugly word,’ he drawled icily. ‘I could drag you, your pride and your lover through the courts if you wish to turn this into something nasty.’

Nasty. It had always been nasty since the day she’d married him. ‘Do it, then,’ she invited. ‘I still won’t accept a single Euro from you.’

With that she stood up and, to both lawyers’ deepening bewilderment, snatched up her bag and turned to leave.