A Passionate Marriage

Common knowledge, Leandros repeated silently. Common knowledge put about by whom? His hopeful mother? His matchmaking sister? Or Diantha herself?

Then, no, not Diantha, he told himself firmly. She is not the kind of woman to spread gossip about. ‘Gossip is just that—gossip,’ he muttered, more to himself than to Takis. ‘Isobel will not be here long enough to hear it.’

Did that matter to him? he then had to ask himself, and sighed when he realised that yes, it mattered to him. What was wrong with him? Another sigh hissed from him. Why was he feeling like this about a woman he hadn’t wanted in years?

He detected a pause, one of those telling ones that grabbed your attention. He glanced at Takis; saw his expression. ‘What?’ he prompted sharply.

‘She knows,’ he told him. ‘Her lawyer mentioned the Christophoros name before he went after Isobel.’

Leandros felt his mind go blank for a split-second. She cannot know, he tried to convince himself.

‘The guy knew quite a lot as a matter of fact,’ Takis went on and there was surprise and reluctant respect in the tough lawyer’s voice. ‘He knew that Diantha spent time alone with you on your yacht in Spain, for instance. He also mentioned conservative attitudes in Greece to extramarital affairs, then suggested we review the kind of scandal it would cause if two big names such as Petronades and Christophoros were linked in this way in a court battle. He’s a clever young man,’ Takis concluded. ‘He needs watching. I might even use him myself one day.’

Leandros was barely listening. His mind had gone off somewhere else. It was seeing Isobel’s face when she’d walked in here, seeing the anger, the hate, the desire to tear him to shreds where he stood.

‘Dear God,’ he breathed. Where had his head been? Why had he not read the signs? When she hurt she came out fighting. Make her feel vulnerable and expendable and she unsheathed her claws. Let her know she wasn’t good enough and she spat fire and brimstone over you then ran for cover as quickly as she could. Let her think she was being replaced with one of Athens’ noblest, and you could not hurt her more deeply if you tried.

‘The lack of a pre-nuptial is beginning to worry me.’ Takis was still talking to a lost audience. ‘She could take you to the cleaners if she decided she wanted to roll your name in the mud.’

Turning, Leandros looked at the table where the imprint of her body had dulled the polished wood surface. His stomach turned over—not with distaste for what he had done there but for other far more basic reasons. He could still feel the imprint of her down his front, could still taste her in his mouth.

Not far away, resting where it had landed when she tossed them at him, lay her wedding ring and the envelope containing access to the so-called family heirlooms.

What family heirlooms? he thought frowningly. It was not something his family possessed.