Playboys: The Greek Tycoon's Disobedient Bride / The Ruthless Magnate's Virgin Mistress / The Spanish Billionaire's Pregnant Wife. LYNNE GRAHAM

at his appetite for her. ‘Did I hurt you?’

      ‘No,’ she framed gruffly, mortified by what had just happened between them and twisting her head away.

      ‘I was rough and you’re tiny, yineka mou.’ His dark drawl hoarse, he bent his handsome head and pressed his sensual mouth to the tender skin of her throat.

      ‘Hmm …’ Tiny little shivers rippled through Ophelia in response. She was sensitised to his every caress.

      ‘I’m a very sexual man. You excite me,’ he confided huskily, grazing her delicate skin with his teeth. ‘But I don’t think you could take me again right now.’

      When she realized that she was being asked a question,Ophelia’s face flamed. Even lying there she was conscious of the ache of discomfort his passion had induced. ‘No, I couldn’t,’ she agreed in stifled embarrassment.

      ‘My little virgin wife—I should have been more considerate.’ His tone was teasing as he levered back from her, adjusted his clothing and smoothed back his black hair. He looked cool and in control. Yet after that wild conflagration, Ophelia honestly thought that she would never be the same again. With shaking hands she yanked down her skirt over her nakedness.

      Without warning a frown line divided his well-shaped brows. ‘Are you using any contraception?’

      In a daze at that query, Ophelia shook her head and sat up.

      Lysander had fallen very still and there was an ashen quality to his skin, for he was shattered by his carelessness and unable to explain it even to his own satisfaction. The very last thing he wanted was a child. As he had no desire to be a father, he had always been very careful not to run any risks in that department. If his caution had occasionally restricted his enjoyment he had accepted that.

      Theos … I’m afraid that I didn’t take any precautions either,’ Lysander imparted with a gravity that made his feelings on the subject very clear. ‘I won’t attempt to excuse my negligence. It’s not a mistake I’ve made before and I hope that there won’t be any repercussions.’

      Ophelia dropped her head and very much hoped so too because his attitude chilled her. He was appalled by the very idea that she might fall pregnant. Negligence was a serious word to use. She was frantically counting dates inside her head and stiffened at the acknowledgement that she was dangerously within reach of the most fertile part of her cycle. ‘Let’s hope for the best,’ she muttered stiltedly.

      ‘I have some calls to make before we head for the airport.’

      Ophelia let him get as far as the door before she spoke again. ‘Did you believe me about Matt Arnold? That his sister, Pamela, didn’t leak the fact that we were married to the newspapers?’

      Sardonic eyes rested on her anxious face. ‘Of course I didn’t believe you. How could I? Perhaps you leaked that story yourself. Your conduct today underlined your guilt.’

      ‘And how on earth do you make that out?’ Ophelia snapped in disconcertion.

      Lysander dealt her a derisive look of disbelief. ‘You married me yesterday. Today you invited a newspaper into my home. Your eagerness for media attention speaks for itself.’

      Ophelia went for a shower in the state-of-the-art bathroom and while she washed she cried with anger, frustration and the most awful hollow sense of homesickness. It should have occurred to her that he would make that rather obvious deduction. An exercise intended merely to annoy him had rebounded on her, for she knew he would never accept now that she had not tipped off the press about their wedding. He saw her as a cheap publicity-hungry trollop, fine for sex but nothing else.

      So why did that bother her so much when all she wanted from him was a divorce? Although how did she dare to ask herself such a question when he had put her on his bed and she had demonstrated as much self-command as a rag doll in the passionate encounter that had followed? When she looked at him, she burned for him and all her defences crumbled. It was that basic and it was the most tormenting truth she had ever had to deal with. She had believed that she was strong but now she was confronting her weakness and her pride was in the dust.

      But why was she so hurt? That was what scared her the most. Why did she feel so rejected? Naturally he didn’t wanther to conceive, but had he had to turn pale as death at what was surely only a small risk? She didn’t want a baby either, of course she didn’t—well, at some time maybe in the future with the right person, and Lysander Metaxis was most decidedly not the right person. Her hunger for him had nothing to do with feelings, she reasoned fiercely. It was disgusting that it should be that way and she was ashamed of it, but she was not remotely like her mother. No, she wasn’t, she absolutely wasn’t. She was too intelligent to get fixated on a man who would never love her, who would never offer her exclusive affection or fidelity and who would never want to walk down the street with her and show her off. Much, much too intelligent …

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      IT was late afternoon the following day before Lysander and Ophelia finally landed in Greece.

      A late seasonal fall of snow the night before had led to a cessation of flights and long delays. Hiring accommodation at an airport hotel, Lysander used the extra time to work with his business team and ensured that Ophelia didn’t get the chance to talk to him in private again. Indeed, faced with his cool detachment, she felt like the invisible woman. Listening to dialogues that centred solely on the stock market, derivatives and interest rates did not improve her mood. Once or twice, when she looked at Lysander, she found herself helplessly reliving the raw heat of their lovemaking the previous afternoon; his aloofness since then could only make her feel furiously ashamed of that episode. In the early hours she took a nap in the bedroom of their suite while still fully clothed.

      Overlooked in the excitement of the stock market opening, she was the last person to be roused and she missed out on breakfast and the chance to change out of her creased clothing, so had to take care of that necessity when they finally boarded the jet. By then she was in a defiant mood and, disdaining the more dressy options in her suitcase, she pulled on casual combats and a T-shirt. Lysander had insisted thatthey pretend that their marriage was normal. He had threatened her with court action, then had wrenched her from her home, her garden and her parrot while persistently refusing to offer her the smallest explanation for his behaviour. But when was he planning to start acting like a newly married man? Or were his staff already aware that his marriage was an empty charade? Albeit a charade with a little sexual action thrown in for colour, Ophelia reflected, squirming with self-loathing.

      When she emerged from the luxurious cabin an odd little silence fell and absolutely nobody looked in her direction, while her husband’s attention seemed welded to his newspaper. It was a response that did nothing to relieve her suspicion that on board a Metaxis jet non-working personnel ranked as the lowest of the low in the pecking order.

      Lysander, however, was gripped by the article on his bride in the newspaper for which Matt, Pamela Arnold’s brother, was a writer. Unfortunately the old link between the Metaxis and Stewart families—the wedding that never took place between Aristide and Cathy—had been dug up and given a fresh melodramatic airing. Lysander hoped his mother didn’t come across the item, since she tended to be sensitive about that episode and he was determined to keep her spirits up during her medical treatment.

      Ophelia’s interview was only the jewel in the crown of a spread that contrived to flatter her from every possible angle. The dialogue had been polished clean of the smallest hint that Ophelia might regard gifts of very expensive jewellery as the best bit of having married a billionaire. Indeed in the published version Ophelia now waxed lyrical about how she hoped to use her privileged position to do some good in the world and came across as a thoroughly nice girl with traditional values.

      He was very surprised to learn that until the age of sixteen years she had lived in a tough housing estate with a mother who had problems with alcohol and unsuitable men. Social Services had been frequent callers. There was a photograph of Ophelia about the age of ten clutching a dark-haired toddler. They looked like half-starved waifs.

      ‘Ophelia