GREEK HUSBAND

Chapter 44

He sprang upright. 'Marina did good,' he quipped, brilliant dark golden eyes sliding over her slim figure in a look as physical as a touch. 'In fact, she did brilliantly.'

'She was a tremendous help.' Bella's color was heightened by his scrutiny and the disturbing reaction of her body to that unashamedly sexual appraisal. Her tits had prickled into taut sensitivity while a drenching pool of heat settled between her thighs. She was shaken by the intensity of her desire for him to reach out and touch her.

'My staff...' Edward introduced the three men before swiftly dismissing them. The trio swiftly gathered up laptops, briefcases, and jackets and filed out. 'I need to have a word with you about the guest list for the wedding,' he told her levelly.

When asked earlier, Bella had put down Matt and her uncle's family but could think of no one else to include and she studied him enquiringly.

'I take it, then...that you've decided not to invite your father?' Edward pressed, sharply disconcerting her.

'How could I? I've never met him, n-never had any contact with him.' In confusion and shock at the unexpected question, Bella stumbled over her words, wondering how he even knew that she had a father alive.

'Never?'

'Not since I was a baby anyway,' she completed tersely. 'Why are you asking? And how do you even know that I have a father living?'

'I had your background investigated while I was waiting for you to get in touch with me,' Edward confessed with a nonchalance that astounded her.

An angry flush illuminated her cheeks. 'You did...what? You had me investigated? What gave you the right to go snooping into my background?' Bella launched at him in a sudden fury.

'I needed to know who you were and where you were from...in case you were pregnant,' Edward responded levelly. 'It's a standard business practice to check out people before you deal with them.'

'But I wasn't business and my life is private!' Bella snapped back at him, outraged by his invasion of her privacy. 'You had no right to pry!'

'I may not have had an official right but I did have good reason to want to know exactly who Bella Donovan and her family were,' Edward retorted unapologetically. 'But to return to my original question—when I found out about your father, it wasn't clear whether or not you had had any recent contact with him.'

Still furious with him, Bella clamped her lips into a tight line of control. 'No, none and I don't want any either!'

His stunning dark golden eyes narrowed in apparent surprise. 'That seems a bit harsh in the circumstances.'

'He let my mother down badly and I'm quite sure he could have traced me years ago if he'd had any real interest in finding me,' Bella declared thinly.

'Only that would have been a considerable challenge for him when your mother had already taken him to court for harassment, had threatened to accuse him of assault, and then changed her name to shake him off.'

Sheer rage roared up through Bella's rigid body like a forest fire running out of control. It convulsed her throat muscles, clenched her hands into fists, and burned in her like the worst ever heartburn. She didn't know what Edward was talking about; she truly didn't have a clue! Wasn't that the ultimate humiliation? How could it ever be right that Edward should know more about her past than she did? Harassment? Assault? Court cases?

Reading her shuttered and mutinous face and the pale sea-green eyes blazing at him, Edward returned to the desk and extracted a slim file from the drawer, which he settled on the desktop. 'The investigation. Take it if you want it.'

Trembling with reaction, Bella studiously averted her eyes from the file, too proud to reach for it.

'I didn't intend to upset you, Bella. But naturally, I assumed that nothing in that file would come as a surprise to you...you were eleven years old when you lost your mother.'

Having Edward study her in that cool, even-tempered manner when she herself was so shaken up simply made Bella want to thump him hard. 'You really do have no finer feelings, do you? You suddenly drag up my father and reveal that you know more about him than I do? Didn't it occur to you that that was inexcusably thoughtless and cruel?' she condemned with an angry spirit.