The Good Greek Wife? (17 page)

Penny's breath caught in her throat like a small, uncontrolled sob that she couldn't hold back. She didn't know if Zarek heard it but his hands closed over hers, holding tightly but without that constraining quality they had had before. This time his touch was so much more gentle—she might almost say a lover's touch.

‘It felt like I'd been given my life back only to have it—or the most important part of it—snatched away again just when I'd begun to realise how much it meant to me. I didn't know whether I'd been right all along and you were something so special I could never let you go. Or whether you had in fact been only concerned about Odysseus Shipping and all that it brought.'

His laugh was sharp, harshly ironic.

‘Just when I'd realised how little the company mattered, I feared it was all that you wanted.'

‘What I want…what I want is just you and me. Together. A man and a woman. Just as it was last night—'

She couldn't finish the sentence because Zarek suddenly leaned forward and stopped the words with his mouth, kissing them back down her throat. Penny stilled in shock, but not the fearful sense of being bewildered of just moments before. This was different. And it was close to something wonderful.

‘I think now perhaps is the time,' he whispered against her mouth, his forehead resting against hers, dark eyes looking down into her blue ones. ‘Perhaps now you could look at the carving. And before you say any more about the fact that I chose a mouse to represent you.'

Gently, with both hands on either side of her face, he turned her towards the bed head. The first thing that she noticed was that his hold on her wasn't quite steady. Something was making him shake, sending a fine tremor running down his arms, into his fingers in a way that told her just how important this was to him.

And this time her eyes were clear and focused. This time she could see what he wanted her to see.

A mouse, yes. But a mouse that was sitting upright, hanging onto something in its paw. And it was nibbling hard…

‘What is that?'

‘Rope.' His answer was soft but sure.

‘Rope? Why rope?'

Zarek came closer, laid his head against hers, his cheek resting on her hair.

‘Remember the story—a fable by Aesop where the lion let the mouse go and didn't eat her. Then one day the lion was trapped by hunters, caught in a net and the mouse came and gnawed through the ropes that held him, setting him free.'

‘I remember.'

It was all that Penny could manage. Her mind was whirling with thoughts—wonderful, amazing thoughts.

‘I was the lion and you were the mouse. You set me free.'

You set me free.
Penny's heart jolted just once, hard and sharp against her ribs.

‘But you weren't trapped.'

She spoke still with her eyes on that carving, not daring to
turn, to look into his face for fear that this might all be a dream. That she might have it all wrong and he was not telling her what she thought he was saying.

‘Oh, yes, I was. I was locked into a world I didn't want to live in. A world where only work and Odysseus Shipping mattered. Where I was prepared to marry solely to have an heir. A world where there was no love…'

Slowly, carefully, he turned her head until she was looking into his face. He kissed her once, softly, gently, heartbreakingly briefly.

‘Not until you. After I met you. I couldn't get you out of my mind. I knew that I wanted no one else.'

‘But you were so cool—so—'

‘And you were so young,' Zarek told her, pressing a finger against her lips to cut off her anxious words. ‘I was afraid that if I showed you the full force of my hunger for you—the way I really felt—I would frighten you too much, scare you off. But I wasn't prepared to wait. I wanted you as soon as I could have you. I had no suspicion then that fate had other plans. Plans that meant we would lose two years just when we needed them most.'

The way his eyes burned into hers told her of his answer even before he spoke.

‘I should have told you before I sailed on the
Troy
, but we had rowed so badly. I was afraid. Things had been so difficult between us and I felt that if I told you, you would never believe me.'

‘You might have been right.'

It was just a whisper of admission, her face sobering as she remembered how she had felt back then.

‘I was feeling lost and unloved, totally unsure of my place in your life.'

‘You didn't just hold the central place in my life—you
were
my life—my love—my heart. I thought that I would be back so soon that you would barely miss me. That then I could start again and show you just what you meant to me. I thought that we would have time to grow into our marriage. Instead of which—'

‘No!'

Reaching up, Penny laid her fingers across his mouth to silence him.

‘No more. It's time to put that all behind us. That was the past. We have the whole future to look forward to.'

‘A future in which I can love you as you deserve to be loved.'

‘And I can love you as a woman—a woman who loves her man. I'm not afraid or unsure any more. I've grown up. I thought I loved you when I married but it was as nothing compared to what I feel for you now. I want to be your wife and go into this wonderful future we can have together.'

She barely got the words out before Zarek had captured her mouth in a long, deeply passionate kiss. But it was also a kiss of love, of caring. A kiss that came from his heart, from the depths of his soul. And as he kissed her his hands stroked over her body, caressing, tantalising, arousing until she moaned for sheer joy of the feeling.

‘And to prove that,' he whispered thickly against her mouth, holding her so close that she could not be unaware of the force of his need, his hunger for her. But this time it was a hunger that she knew was created by the passion of true love. ‘Will you let me make love to you as the woman I love? The love of my heart, my life. My wife.'

‘Willingly,
glike mou
,' Penny said happily, gathering him close in her arms and falling back against the pillows as she felt his warm, welcome, beloved weight come over her, his
kisses on her cheek. ‘I can think of nothing I'd want more—because I really believe that it's more than time I welcomed my husband home properly at last.'