Sara Craven - Smokescreen Marriage

“That’s blackmail.” Kate’s voice shook.

“Is it?” he said. “But perhaps I do not agree that our marriage has ‘irretrievably broken down,’ as you allege.”

Kate drew a deep breath. “You’re bluffing. You don’t wish to stay married any more than I do.”

His mouth twisted. “You’re mistaken, agapi mou. I am in no particular hurry to be free.”

SARA CRAVEN was born in South Devon, England, and grew up surrounded by books, in a house by the sea. After leaving grammar school she worked as a local journalist, covering everything from flower shows to murders. She started writing for Harlequin Mills & Boon ®in 1975. Apart from writing, her passions include films, music, cooking and eating in good restaurants. She now lives in Somerset.

Sara Craven has recently become the latest (and last ever) winner of the British quiz show Mastermind.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Endpage

THE room was in deep shadow. Moonlight pouring through the slats of the tall shuttered windows lay in thin bands across the tiled floor.

The whirr of the ceiling fan gently moving the warm air above the wide bed was barely audible against the ceaseless rasp of the cicadas in the garden below the room.

Once, she’d found these sounds alien. Now, they were the natural accompaniment to her nights in this house.

As was the firm masculine tread approaching the bed. The warm, husky voice, touched with laughter, whispering ‘Katharina mou.’

And she, turning slowly, languidly, under the linen sheet that was her only covering, smiling her welcome, as she reached up to him with outstretched arms, her body alive with need—with longing…

With a gasp, Kate sat up in the darkness, throat tight, heart pounding violently.

She made herself draw deep calming breaths as she glanced round the room, seeking reassurance. Her bedroom, in her flat. Curtains masking the windows, not shutters. And, outside, the uneasy rumble of London traffic.

A dream, she thought. Only a bad dream. Just another nightmare.

At the beginning, they’d been almost nightly occurrences, as her stunned mind and bruised senses tried to rationalise what had happened to her.

She had never really succeeded, of course. The hurt, the betrayal had cut too deep. The events of the past year were always there, in the corner of her mind, eating corrosively into her consciousness.

But the bad dreams had been kept at bay for a while. It was now almost two weeks since the last one.

She had, she thought, begun to heal.

And now this…

Was it an omen? she wondered. Tomorrow—the next day—would there be some news at last? The letter—the phone call—that would bring her the promise of freedom.

God knows, she’d made it as easy as she could, going right against the advice of her lawyer.

‘But, Mrs Theodakis, you’re entitled…’

She’d stopped him there. ‘I want nothing,’ she said. ‘Nothing at all. Kindly make sure the other side is—aware of that. And please don’t use that name either,’ she added constrainedly. ‘I prefer Miss Dennison.’

He had assented politely, but his raised brows told her more loudly than words that no amount of preference could change a thing.

She had taken off her wedding ring, but she couldn’t as easily erase the events of the past year from her tired memory.

She was still legally the wife of Michael Theodakis, and would remain so until she received his consent to the swift, clean-break divorce she had requested.

Once she was free of him, then the nightmares would stop, she told herself. And she could begin to put her life back together again.

That was the inner promise that had kept her going through these dark days and endless nights since she’d fled from Mick, and their charade of a marriage. From the images that still haunted her, waking and sleeping.

She drew her knees up to her chin, shivering a little. Her cotton nightgown was damp, and clinging to her body. She was tired—her job as a tour guide escorting parties of foreign tourists round the British Isles was a demanding one—but her body was wide awake, restless with the needs and desires she’d struggled so hard to suppress.

How could the memory of him still be so potent? she wondered despairingly. Why couldn’t she forget him as easily as he seemed to have forgotten her? Why didn’t he answer her solicitor’s letters—or instruct one of the team of lawyers who served the mighty Theodakis clan to deal with them for him?

With all his money and power, it was the simplest thing in the world to rid himself of an unwanted wife. He was signing papers all day long. What would one more signature matter?

She lay down again, pulling the covers round her, in spite of the warmth of the August night. Cocooning herself so that the expanse of the bed beside her would not seem quite so empty—so desolate.

And knowing that nothing would ever make any difference to the loneliness and the hurt.

It was nearly eight when she reached home the following evening, and Kate felt bone-weary as she let herself into the narrow hall. She had spent the day showing a party of thirty Japanese tourists round Stratford-on-Avon. They had been unfailingly polite, and interested, absorbing information like sponges, but Kate was aware that she had not been on top form. She’d been restless, edgy all day, blaming her disturbed night for her difficulties in concentration.

Tonight, she thought grimly, she would take one of the pills the doctor had prescribed when she first returned from Greece.

She needed this job, and couldn’t afford to lose it, even if it was only temporary, filling in for someone on maternity leave.

All the winter jobs for reps with tour companies had already gone when she came back to Britain, although her old company Halcyon Club Travel were keen to hire her again next summer.

And that’s what she planned to do, although she’d stipulated that she would not return to any of the Greek islands.

On her way to the stairs, she paused to collect her mail from the row of rickety pigeon-holes on the wall.

Mostly circulars, she judged, and the gas bill—and then stopped, her attention totally arrested as she saw the Greek stamp.

She stared down at the large square envelope with its neatly typed direction, her eyes dilating, a small choked sound rising in her throat.

She thought, ‘He’s found me. He knows where I am. But how?’

And why was he making contact with her directly, when she’d made it clear that all correspondence was to be conducted through their lawyers?

But then, when had Mick Theodakis ever played by any rules except his own?