The Greek Millionaire's Marriage Read Free Page B

at night he imagined himself putting his hands around that slender neck and throttling her. Or flinging her to the ground and…
    He disgusted himself. She’d aroused terrible emotions that shamed him utterly. The raw animal natureof his fury appalled him. He’d believed himself to be a gentleman, but Olivia had reduced him to his basest instincts. Hatred, ungovernable desire and revenge.
    His fist descended on his desk with such force that everything on it bounced. He slammed the fist into his palm. His eyes glittered. He was ready.
    Taking the stairs three at a time in huge leaps, he emerged onto the deck to find Eleni, the daughter of his business partner. She was outstaying her welcome. He had relented—under persistent pressure from his mother—to take Eleni on a trip along the coast for a couple of days.
    With Olivia constantly filling his mind he’d been bad company and Eleni had irritated him beyond belief. Too girly. Too breathless, clingy and starry-eyed. And, at nineteen, too young to be a companion for him anyway. Poor kid.
    He took a deep breath to steady his nerves. This meeting with Olivia had to be short and sharp. It would be a merciful release from a marriage that had died with Olivia’s curt admission that she didn’t love him.
    â€˜Time to go,’ he announced in crisp tones of authority. ‘You’re due at your father’s for lunch.’
    Sulkily, Eleni rose, her bikini-clad silicon-enhanced body voluptuous and tanned, her blonde hair swishing around her shoulders and reminding him sharply of his final day with his wife.
    Hating to remember even one second of that deceitful day, he clenched his jaw in anger. It had figured in his dreams as their last perfect time together. Yet all the time they’d been making love she must have been planning her departure. He ground his teeth in impotent fury.
    Olivia had made a fool of him and that was unforgivable.
    Where she was concerned, their relationship had been nothing but lies, lust and credit cards. Lies he could brush away with contempt. His bank balance could cope with her spending sprees—which he’d encouraged, admittedly, delighting in lavishing gifts on her and watching her slither into fabulous creations by top designers. And out of them again. His hand shook.
    But the lust… That was an unbearable loss. Desperate to forget her, he’d made love to several willing women, but they were nothing compared with Olivia. Worse, it crucified him to know that she would be incapable of doing without sex. Through many sleepless nights he’d fumed over his highly coloured imaginings of Olivia writhing beneath some other man. Or men.
    Eleni reached up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. Her mouth seemed to press more firmly than usual and he realised that his fears were real. She was definitely being lined up as his next wife.
    Inwardly he cursed as he saw his car approaching the mooring. He’d miscalculated the journey time. Either baggage control had got its act together or the notorious Athens traffic must have been less dense than usual.
    â€˜My wife is here,’ he said curtly. ‘Get dressed and stay out of sight. Go!’
    He heard her irritating snigger as she scampered away. Getting rid of a wife was one matter. Acquiring a second bride barely out of her pram before the ink was dry on the divorce papers was another.
    As the car had driven into the marina Olivia had identified Dimitri’s luxurious yacht immediately—andhis tall, arrogant figure standing on the deck. Her heart somersaulted at the sight of him.
    But it steadied when she saw his companion. A pneumatic blonde, with hair just like hers and wearing the tiniest of bikinis, was strolling with a hip-swaying walk towards him. The woman was now kissing his cheek and murmuring something sultry in his ear. There was something vaguely familiar about her that she couldn’t quite place, as if she’d met her before.