Chapter Eight
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was not in Odysseus’s nature to accept the unacceptable, but he resisted demanding that Grace terminate the call to his grandfather, because this was really none of his business.
She could, of course, talk to exactly whom she pleased—because she was a free agent, as was he.
But despite all his best intentions, his indignation that she was being bothered on a well-earned break was dispelled by a growing fury as he listened to one half of the conversation.
It began with her apologising and some bone-deep instinct made him flinch as he observed the craven attitude which seemed to have diminished her.
‘I know. I know,’ she was saying. ‘I’m really sorry. I should have told you I was leaving the country. Still, I’m glad that nothing’s wrong and that Maria is looking after you okay.’
As she listened to the response she glanced up at him and her face flushed a deep red. ‘No, I do realise that. But does it honestly matter who I’m with, Signor Contarini?’
A long tirade followed though Odysseus couldn’t make any sense of it out, other than the rising volume of ire coming down the phone.
‘But I’m not supposed to be back until tomorrow evening,’ Grace croaked, and then listened. ‘Well, yes, I suppose so. Of course I can come back earlier if—’
Unable to tolerate any more, Odysseus took the phone from her, shaking his head and holding his finger against his lips as he listened.
‘Let me stop you right there,’ he interrupted at last, when he could stand no more of the old man’s tirade. ‘You’re talking to Odysseus now, do you understand? And I’m not having Grace upset or, indeed, my weekend ruined by your unreasonable demands.’
The old man’s voice changed. He tried bullying, then bluster and Odysseus felt the bile rise up from his stomach as he heard the old man’s increasingly desperate inducements. Suddenly, he cut the call, seeing Grace’s amber eyes widen in horror.
‘What have you done?’ she breathed, trying to grab the phone back. ‘What have you done ? You can’t just hang up on him like that! I’ll have to leave. I’ll have to go back! Give me the phone. Let me ring him.’
‘No,’ he negated, and then softened his voice because her genuine distress was making a slow rage begin to build inside him.
‘You can ring him in a minute if that’s what you still want, but first you must hear me out.
’ He walked over to the window, trying to compose himself, trying to gather his racing thoughts—rejecting the impossible and then embracing it, before turning round to stare at all her flushed and natural beauty.
‘You can’t work for him any more, Grace,’ he stated flatly.
‘Oh, can’t I? Can’t I?’ Anger rose up inside her and for the first time in as long as she could remember, Grace started to lose her temper.
‘You can’t just barge into my life and ruin it like this!
’ she raged. ‘This is nothing but posturing on your part, with a whacking great dollop of male ego thrown in! You’re just making a stand against someone you don’t like, but this is my livelihood.
Vincenzo isn’t going to win employer of the year any time soon, but that’s just the way it is.
Don’t you understand? I’ve told you that I need the money for my nana and yet you… you…’
She began to blink back the helpless tears which had gathered at the backs of her eyes, furious with him, but furious with herself, too—for putting herself in this vulnerable situation.
What had she been thinking? ‘You’ve managed to single-handedly ensure that I probably won’t have a job when I go back to Venice unless I do something about it pronto.
So I’d better start packing and leave right now—or at least first thing in the morning.
I need to try and repair the damage before it’s too late. ’
‘Please don’t.’ The words were soft and so was the hand which he placed on her shoulder and Grace’s attempt to shake it off was half-hearted because it felt so good there.
As if she had been born to have him touch her like that.
He had shrugged off his dark dinner suit and undone a couple of buttons of his snowy shirt—and he looked as hot as hell.
‘Listen to me, Grace.’
‘I don’t want to listen.’
But he paid no attention to her stubborn response.
‘Do you want to know what he said to me?’ he demanded.
‘He offered me money, and when I didn’t bite he then offered me shares in the family business if I promised to leave you alone.
Do you realise what that means? He was bartering you, Grace, and that is outrageous. ’
‘Yes, it’s outrageous—but so what? Like I told you, I’m not in a position to object to his morals.’
‘I know you’re financially dependent on him because you have responsibilities,’ he ground out impatiently. ‘But there are alternatives.’
‘Oh, really? Like what ?’ she demanded spikily. ‘I don’t actually do the lottery.’
There was a pause. ‘There is a solution of breathtaking simplicity,’ he said at last.
The amber gaze she fixed on him was filled with suspicion. ‘I’m dying to hear what that could be.’
‘Marry me.’
At first Grace thought she must have misheard him.
And when she realised she hadn’t, wasn’t there a part of her which allowed herself to buy into the idea with an eagerness which should have acted as a warning?
She stared at him—waiting for the unique behaviour which traditionally accompanied a proposal of marriage.
Some previously unseen smile to transform his features perhaps, before murmured words of love, which he would sheepishly admit he’d never said to anyone else.
But naturally, none of that happened. She must have been temporarily deluded to even imagine they might.
His face was as impassive as she’d ever seen it and his eyes were a cold and steely blue.
‘Well, well, well,’ she said, with soft sarcasm, because that seemed the only way of subduing the stupid hope which had briefly flared as she’d contemplated escaping the gilded prison of the Contarini house into this man’s arms. ‘This is all very unexpected. I must say, I had no idea of your true feelings for me, Odysseus.’
‘I don’t have any feelings for you, other than desire,’ he responded softly, before quickly tempering his words—presumably when he saw the look of dismay she must have failed to hide. ‘Well, I do. I like you—’
‘You hardly know me,’ she objected, wondering why his brutal words had hurt so much.
‘I have good instincts around people.’
‘That’s hardly the basis for everlasting bliss, is it?’
‘But I don’t believe in everlasting bliss, Grace. And that isn’t the type of marriage I’m talking about.’ He paused, as if painstakingly selecting which words would cause the least offence. ‘I’m proposing an expedient arrangement which could benefit both of us.’
In spite of everything, her interest was spiked and, even though she told herself she was simply gearing herself up to get knocked back again, Grace stared at him from between hooded eyes. ‘Go on.’
‘You know that job I was telling you about? The royal trip I have coming up?’
‘I’m very pleased your career seems to be doing so well, Odysseus, but I don’t see what that has to do with me.’
He gave a lazy smile, as if her feistiness was turning him on.
‘I don’t know how up to speed you are with Tuloranka, but the regime only changed a couple of years ago.
King Kaliman is dragging the country into the twenty-first century, but much of its ethos remains entrenched in the past, and it’s a struggle. ’
‘Thanks for the lesson in world affairs,’ she offered drily. ‘But what does this have to do with your bizarre proposal?’
There was a pause. ‘Because while I am there, I must observe the country’s draconian laws.
As a guest of the King and a single man, I will be unable to have sex outside marriage.
’ There was a pause and now his eyes glittered, like sunlight on a blue glacier.
‘You are obviously inexperienced, Grace, but you must have noticed by now that I find you utterly irresistible. You are fire to my blood,’ he concluded huskily.
As his words sank in, she stiffened. ‘You mean it isn’t like that for you with everyone?’ she asked, genuinely taken aback.
‘No. It isn’t.’ He nodded his dark head reflectively. ‘Perhaps it the knowledge that I am the only man to have ever physically possessed you which is so endlessly provocative.’
‘Odysseus!’ she said, but the darkening of her eyes belied her shocked response.
He shrugged. ‘I know it is an unfashionable and anachronistic point of view, but it’s the way I feel.’ There was a pause. ‘Or perhaps my year-long celibacy is the real reason why I can’t seem to keep my hands off you.’
Grace tried to remain calm, although her head was buzzing like a jarful of wasps. Why on earth had someone as sexy and as gorgeous as Odysseus Diamides been celibate for a whole year? ‘But… I mean…why?’ she questioned. ‘What made you swear off women like that?’
‘It wasn’t a big deal,’ he growled. ‘And as a lesson in self-control it was exemplary.’
‘But that wasn’t the only reason?’ she fished.
‘Well, no,’ he conceded. ‘I happen to have a very low boredom threshold and the predictability of women had begun to irritate me. Particularly, their incessant demands for things I wasn’t prepared to give.’
‘Such as?’
‘Well, love , mostly.’
‘Because you don’t believe in love?’
He shook his head. ‘No. Most emphatically, I don’t.’
She sucked in a deep breath, trying not to act as if she was hurt by that sardonic statement, because she had no right to be. ‘So…you want to marry me because you’re obsessed by my body and this way you can have sex in a strict country without offending anyone, have I got that right?’