Her Greek Groom: The Tycoon's Mistress / Smokescreen Marriage / His Forbidden Bride. Sara Craven

slipped it over her head, but didn’t fasten it. She didn’t trust her shaking hands to deal with the zip.

      He was fully dressed when he spoke again, his tone clipped, remote. ‘You will find food in the kitchen. I brought a hamper from London. There is chicken, and champagne and peaches.’

      She ran her tongue across her dry lips. ‘Aren’t you hungry?’

      ‘I find I do not wish to eat with you,’ he returned curtly. ‘Besides, I think it best if I go before I do something I shall regret.’

      He walked to the door and she followed him, barefoot, holding the slipping dress against her.

      She said, her voice faltering a little, ‘Did you drive yourself here? I didn’t see another car.’

      ‘I parked at the back of the house. The housekeeper directed me.’

      ‘In my father’s place?’ Her voice rose. ‘Oh, God, how could she do such a thing?’

      ‘Because, unlike you, Cressida mou, she seems able to accept that I am the master here now.’

      Hurt exploded inside her, and an odd sense of desolation.

      She said thickly, ‘Damn you,’ and swung back her hand. She wanted to hit him—to drive the expression of cold mockery from his face.

      But he was too quick for her, grabbing her wrist with hard fingers, shaking her slightly, so that the damned dress slid off her shoulders again, baring her to the waist.

      She saw his face change, become starkly intent. He said softly, ‘There is only one way to deal with a woman like you.’

      He swung her round so that her back, suddenly, was against the closed door. She tried to cover her breasts with her hands, but his fingers closed round her wrists, lifting them above her head and holding them there.

      He said, ‘It is a little late for such modesty. Rage suits you better.’

      She said breathlessly, ‘Let me go—you bastard…’

      ‘When I choose,’ he said. ‘Not you.’

      She heard her dress tear as it fell to the floor. He took her quickly, his anger meeting hers in an explosive fusion that stunned the senses.

      She thought, This is an outrage… And then she stopped thinking altogether.

      Because his hands were under her thighs, lifting her so that she had to clamp her legs round his waist, join the driving rhythm of his possession.

      His mouth was crushing hers passionately, drinking the salty, angry tears from her lips. She was moaning in her throat, gasping for breath, dizzy and drowning in the merciless forces he had released in her.

      She tried to push him away, but it was already too late. Deep within her she could feel the first harsh tremors of her approaching climax. As the pulsations overwhelmed her, tore through her, she sobbed her release against his lips, then hung in his arms, limp as a rag doll, incapable of speech, hardly able to think.

      Draco stepped back from the door and carried her across the room, dropping her almost negligently on to the sofa.

      Cressy lay, staring up at him, her face hectically flushed, her hair wildly dishevelled and her eyes wide and enormous.

      His smile was mocking as he casually fastened his clothing. He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket for his wallet.

      A shower of fifty-pound notes fluttered down on her.

      He said softly, ‘I think I have ruined your dress, agapi mou, so buy yourself a new one. Something that does not make you look as if you are in mourning for your virginity, hmm?’

      He paused. ‘And do not ever try to reject me again.’

      She wanted to reach out to him, to say his name, to ask him to stay with her, but she was too shattered by the impact of the last few minutes to be able to move or formulate coherent words.

      She could only watch helplessly as he turned and walked to the door, where he paused.

      ‘And do not wait for me to apologise,’ he flung back at her. ‘Because I find, after all, I do not regret a thing.’ And he went out, slamming the door behind him.

       CHAPTER NINE

      ‘I’M GOING to hire a detective,’ said James Fielding. ‘Someone who knows what he’s doing. He’ll find her—persuade her to come home. Of course it will cost a great deal of money, but that’s not a problem. It’s time I was back in the workplace, anyway. I was a damned fool to be talked into early retirement.’

      There was an awkward silence. Cressy saw the swift, worried glance exchanged by her aunt and uncle, and looked down at her hands gripped together in her lap.

      Every day it was the same, she thought wearily. Schemes to make new fortunes. Plans to win Eloise back. Her father could talk of nothing else. He seemed to have lost all touch with reality.

      His financial difficulties—the fact that the house no longer belonged to him—were simply brushed aside as temporary difficulties.

      But then who am I to criticise? she wondered. With the nightmare I’ve created for myself?

      It had been a week since Draco had slammed out, and since then she hadn’t heard a word from him.

      And she was scared.

      After he’d gone, she’d lain on the sofa for a long time, limbless, weightless in the aftermath of that raw, savage ecstasy. She’d never dreamed she was capable of such a primitive intensity of feeling. Was stunned by her capacity for passion.

      It was as if she’d lived her life only knowing half of herself.

      When she’d been able to move again, and think, she had gone up to her room, showered, and changed into jeans and a thin sweater. She had burned the torn dress, along with the money, in the kitchen range, and had thrown away the food and wine. She’d felt too numb to eat. Besides, it had all been too reminiscent of the picnics they’d shared on Myros, and she hadn’t been able to bear to remember the uncomplicated happiness of those days.

      Days, she’d thought, when I was falling in love…

      And could have wept for the innocence and tenderness of that lost time.

      She had recalled the way his arm had held her, fitting her to the curve of his body. The beat of his heart under her cheek. How he’d smiled at her. The reined-back hunger in his eyes. The huskiness in his voice when he’d asked her to marry him.

      Everything, she’d thought bleakly, that she’d thrown away with both hands.

      And no amount of sex, however mind-blowing, would ever make up for that.

      By the time Berry had returned she’d managed to regain some kind of composure. She’d spent the evening in the study, working on her computer, tying up some loose ends from work and listening to music.

      ‘Has your visitor gone, Miss Cressy?’ Berry looked around her as if she might find him hiding in a corner. ‘You could have knocked me down with a feather when he told me he was the new owner and showed me the papers.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I didn’t really want to leave him here, but he was so persuasive.’ She shook her head. ‘Not an easy gentleman to say no to. But did I do the right thing?’

      ‘Yes, of course.’ Cressy smiled at her with a tranquillity she was far from feeling. ‘I suppose he thought it was time he saw what he was getting for his money.’

      ‘And he told me Mr Fielding will be renting the house from him and we won’t have to move out. Oh, that’s such a relief, Miss Cressy. I’ve been so worried.’

      So have I, Cressy thought bleakly. And my worries aren’t over yet.