Modern Romance November 2019 Books 5-8. Dani Collins

much gruffer than I’d intended. And deep inside me something like sorrow turned over.

      Her lashes swept down, but not before I spotted the sea of turmoil swelling in the blue depths. My nape tightened and my instincts blared with the notion that she was hiding something.

      ‘What if I told you that I didn’t know what I wanted?’ she asked.

      A white-hot knife sliced through me at the thought that it would have decimated me had she taken a different route than bearing my son.

      ‘Calypso…’

      Her name sounded thick on my tongue. I waited until she raised her gaze to mine.

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘Regardless of this…disagreement between us, you will have my gratitude for choosing to carry our son for ever.’

      Her eyes widened in stunned surprise. ‘Um…you’re welcome,’ she murmured.

      Once again her gaze swept away from mine—a small gesture that disturbed and confounded me. And then that defiant bolt of blue clashed with mine and absurd anticipation simmered in my gut.

      ‘He’s here now. Can we not put what has gone on in the past behind us and move on?’

      ‘Certainly we can. As soon as you tell me what I want to know I’ll take great strides to put it all behind me.’

      Again that mutinous look took her over, sparking my own need to tangle with it. To stoke her fire until we both burned.

      ‘Are you prepared to do that, Calypso?’

      For several moments she held my gaze. Breath stalled, I awaited an answer…one answer…to quell the questions teeming inside me. But then that unnerving serenity settled on her face again.

      ‘It’s not important—’

      ‘Not important? You leave my home under cover of a blatant falsehood, then you disappear for a year, during which time you bear my son, and you think your absence isn’t important?’

      ‘Careful, Axios, or I’ll be inclined to wonder whether you actually missed the wife you bothered with for less than a day before walking away.’

      I sucked in a stunned breath. A year ago she’d warned me that she wouldn’t be biddable. Discovering she was innocent had clouded that warning. But this kitten had well and truly developed claws. Sharp ones. I was tempted to test them. Intellectually and…yes…physically.

      Unbidden, heat throbbed deep in my groin, stirring desires I’d believed were long dead until one glimpse of my wayward wife from a jetty in Bora Bora had fiercely reawakened them.

      That unholy union of sexual tension and unanswered questions propelled me to where she sat, cloaked in secrets that mocked me.

      Her slight tensing when I crouched in front of her unsettled me further, despite the fact that I should’ve been satisfied to see that she wasn’t wholly indifferent to me.

      ‘You want to know about the inconvenience your absence caused, Calypso?’

      She remained silent.

      ‘Some newspaper hack got wind that my wife wasn’t in Agistros, enjoying her first weeks of marital bliss. Nor was she with friends, as she’d led everyone to believe. To all intents and purposes she seemed to have fallen off the face of the earth.’

      A delicate frown creased her brows. ‘Why would that be of interest to anyone? Especially when you intended to banish me to Agistros for the duration of our arrangement anyway?’

      ‘You’re my wife. Everything you do is news. And appearing to have deserted your marriage was definitely newsworthy.’

      She blinked. ‘Appearing to have?’

      ‘I have an outstanding PR team who’ve had to work tirelessly to put a lid on this.’

      There was no hint of remorse on her sun-kissed face. Instead she looked irritated. ‘If you’ve managed to somehow spin my absence to suit our narrative then there’s no problem, is there?’

      I allowed myself a small smile, one her gaze clung to with wary eyes. ‘You would like that, wouldn’t you? To escape every unpleasant fall-out from your actions?’

      ‘You don’t have the first idea of what I want, Axios.’

      My name on her lips sent a punch of heat through me. Thinking back, I couldn’t recollect her ever saying it before Bora Bora. Not when she’d spat fire at me, not when she’d confessed her untouched state, and not when she’d been in the complete grip of passion. Certainly not when she’d asked me to take her with me to Athens.

      There had been far too many times over the last year when I’d regretted not doing so—not because of that infernal hunger that had long outstayed its welcome, but simply because it would have curtailed her actions.

      But the past was the past. There was still the future to deal with. And my new reality.

      My son.

      ‘For the sake of probability, and if I were in the mood to grant wishes, what exactly would you want, matia mou?’

      Wariness made her hesitate, but slowly defiance laced with something else pushed through. ‘I’d want a divorce. As soon as possible.’

      Stunned disbelief rose in me like a monumental wave I’d once ridden on the North Shore, and then just as swiftly crashed on the beach of her sheer audacity and shock. It was all so very dramatic.

      I couldn’t help it. I laughed.

      Her pert little nose quivered as she inhaled sharply. ‘What’s so funny?’

      Affront and defiance flushed her skin a sweet pink, drawing my attention to her alluring features. My wife was now all woman. An arrestingly feminine woman who’d just demanded…a divorce.

      ‘Why you, my dear, and your continued ability to surprise me.’

      ‘I’m glad you’re amused. But I’m deadly serious. I want a divorce.’

      Humour evaporated as abruptly as it had arrived. Leaning forward, I grasped her upper arms and fought not to be distracted by her smooth supple skin or the need to caress her and reacquaint myself with her.

      My once sound argument about staying away from her had backfired spectacularly. I’d left her on Agistros thinking that she’d be safe and I’d be saved from temptation. Look how that had turned out.

      Even with sex off the table I should have kept her close. I could have prevented her fleeing. Instead I’d borne the subtle snipes of those who had been quick to point out my failure. Quick to compare me to my grandfather and test me to see whether I’d crack under the same pressure.

      With Calypso gone I’d experienced a taste of what he’d gone through—sometimes even with members of my own family.

      Now she was back…and asking for a divorce.

      ‘We seem to have veered a little off-track to be indulging in hypotheticals. You’ll recall that, according to the agreement, this marriage needs to last at least twelve months.’

      ‘Yes, I remember.’

      ‘Twelve ongoing months. Not twelve absentee months.’

      She swallowed and my fingers moved, some compulsion driving me to glide my fingers up her neck, trace the colour flowing back into her cheeks. She made a sound under her breath, bearing a hint of those she’d made on our wedding night.

      Before I could revel in it she pulled back abruptly. My hands dropped back to her arms.

      ‘My father hasn’t contested the agreement,’ she said.

      ‘So you took the time to check on his activities?’ Disgruntlement rumbled through me at the thought.

      Her flush gave