The Markonos Bride. Michelle Reid

focus again on his tall, dark, very still stance.

      He was standing less than six feet away, leaning against an open-top sports car. Bright white shirt, black trousers, lustrous dark skin. Her heart gave a wild leap against her ribs then just rolled over and over. For the next few dizzy seconds she tried hard to convince herself it was not really him. It was impossible, she told herself. He was in Thailand. She was dreaming him up because her row with Jamie had planted his image in her head!

      Then he moved, flexing those wide shoulders inside the white shirt as he straightened away from the car’s shiny black bodywork with the old well-remembered smooth animal grace. Heat poured a burning hot trail down her front. It was physical, it was sexual, it was breathtakingly familiar.

      ‘Andreas,’ she breathed on the thick shaken whisper.

      ‘Louisa,’ he returned huskily.

      CHAPTER TWO

      THE rough silk texture of his voice played across her flesh in a complicated mix of pain versus pleasure. Shocked, she felt tears suddenly sting at her throat. Her mouth even wobbled. She had to push a hand up to cover it.

      Something blazed in his eyes and he took a step forward only to pull to a stop again, tension singing from every taut sinew as he sent his gaze swinging across the street to the bars.

      When he looked back at her the blaze had cooled to black ice. ‘What the hell is going on?’ he raked at her.

      Louisa blinked, unable to make sense of the angry question. Did it mean that he was as shocked to see her standing here as she was to see him?

      Dragging the hand from her mouth, ‘W-we’ve just arrived on—on the ferry—’

      ‘I saw,’ he bit out. ‘So who is the good-looking toy boy you brought with you?’

      Toy boy? Did he mean Jamie? She let out a thick laugh. ‘But surely you—’

      A loud noise coming from directly behind her suddenly grabbed her attention. Twisting her head, she didn’t get a chance to finish what she was saying before a group of people were almost on top of her and she was being jostled in their eagerness to head across the street to the bars. One of them gave her a hard nudge in the back, pushing her forwards. With the bags still sitting heavily at her feet she found she had nowhere to go. A startled cry left her lips as she began to topple forwards, her hands shooting out with an instinctive need to break her fall.

      The next thing she knew a pair of hands had clamped around her waist and she was being lifted right off the ground and over the top of the bags. Her fingers closed around taut male biceps. Her cheek brushed against a tense parted mouth. She looked up—he looked down. How Andreas had managed to move so fast she would never know but as fresh shock merged with the tight sizzle of awareness that spun up through her body a soft gasp left her strangled throat.

      Mou theos! Andreas cursed inwardly as her warm breath brushed across his mouth. Her familiar scent raked over his senses, the feel of her slender shape in his hands made the beat of his heart accelerate. She fitted against him as if she belonged there and for a few twisting, taut seconds all he wanted to do was to wrap her even closer and kiss—kiss—kiss the hell out of her.

      Or strangle her.

      His mood was that hairline it could take him either way! He was angry. What the hell did she think she was doing bringing another man here to this island?

      ‘OK?’ he rasped once he’d let her feet touch sure ground again.

      Her quivering mouth parted on a breathless little, ‘Yes—th-thank you,’ said so very politely it snapped his lips into a biting, tight line.

      She tried to take a step back from him but the bags were now firmly planted against the backs of her heels, forcing him to re-establish his grip on her when she almost toppled backwards, his long fingers splaying out around her narrow ribcage, his thumbs daring to move in a sweeping arc that settled them just beneath the warm thrust of her breasts.

      She was wearing no bra. The knowledge stung him. She was still so slender his hands could almost span her. Still so physically fragile he could snap her in two. And the latter prospect was definitely winning at this precise moment because she had come here to his island with another man and she was wearing no bra beneath the skimpy vest-top!

      Louisa needed to breathe but found that she couldn’t. She needed to put some space between them—in fact it was critical that she did so because her senses were confused enough by this meeting without having to endure his intimate touch as well!

      And she did not want her senses confused. It was over between them. The link, the union had been broken a long time ago.

      ‘Please take a step back,’ she instructed unsteadily.

      To her relief he did as she bade, removing his hands from her body and taking that vital step backwards. The reprieve from his closeness sent a violent quiver shooting through her as she unclipped her fingers from his arms and slid them away too.

      Then the tension came back, an ear-screeching silence. Louisa stared at the jostling crowd talking loudly in a foreign language she did not recognise as they swarmed across the street, eager to eat and drink before they had to return to the ferry before it sailed away to its next destination. For a wild moment she wanted to flee herself.

      She did not want to be standing here with Andreas. She did not want to look at him at all! She had been so very careful over the years to make sure that it didn’t happen, now she felt awkward and vulnerable and…

      Oh, where was Jamie? Where was Kostas? Tugging in a tense breath, she took a quick look around.

      ‘Your lover is having to queue,’ Andreas said harshly.

      Swinging her gaze back to him, she caught the full icy blast of his anger. Her own anger snapped to the fore. ‘He’s not my lover,’ she denied, ‘and if you just let me—’

      ‘Whoever he is, you had no right to bring him here.’

      So loftily stated—a Markonos declaration in every which way she wanted to take it because they always did believe they were the ruling gods here.

      ‘Your family does not own this island, Andreas,’ Louisa hit back furiously. ‘I can visit here with whomsoever I please! And if you just let me finish what I keep trying to tell you then you would know by now how stupid you are going to feel when I—’

      ‘Your navel is showing.’

      As a brain-stopper it worked like a dream. Beginning to feel very confused and a little disoriented, much as though she’d stepped off the ferry straight into a nightmare, Louisa glanced down.

      The sizzling spit of his anger held Andreas imprisoned as he followed her gaze to the narrow band of creamy, smooth flesh left bare by the low-cut style of her trousers. When his mouth began to moisten he tightened his lips back against his teeth, further infuriated that his memory bank seemed perfectly happy to feed him the sensation of tasting the perfect oval laid bare for anyone to see!

      She hitched up the low-cut trousers.

      He could not stop himself from making a taut, restless shift of his stance. Mad feelings were running riot inside him—the residue of shock from seeing her walk off the ferry, a gut-stirring awareness of how breathtakingly beautiful she still was. How had he managed to let himself forget that? How the hell had he gone five long years without his head reminding him of what it was about her that had driven him crazy over her in the first place?

      He did not have the answer but for those first few shock-rolling seconds as he’d followed her progress off the ferry he’d sat behind the wheel of his car and been tossed right back into an eight-year-old pot of hot, bubbling lust! Until he’d noticed the man walking behind her, seen the ease with which she’d disappeared into his arms before the guy had shot off across the street.

      His wife—his wife, cavorting in public with another man right here on his island, where everyone knew who she was and what had happened between