Читать книгу Irresistible Greeks Collection - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 18

‘APPOLLONIA learned that you and I had been together for at least a year from one of my friends. She was always ridiculously eager for me to settle down and have a family and she became convinced that you were holding me back from that development. She was obsessed with the idea of me marrying another Greek and spending more time here in Greece,’ Cristo explained with a heavy sigh as he sat opposite Erin, who was studying him fixedly. ‘She paid a private detective to investigate you and eventually told him that she would pay him a bonus if he would use whatever means were within his power to break us up.’

‘But that’s crazy,’ Erin whispered, reeling from the unexpected tale he was telling her. ‘You’re an adult. How could your mother interfere in your life like that?’

‘Appollonia seems honestly to have believed that she was doing it for the sake of my future happiness, koukla mou. How I might feel about it or how much damage she might do in the process to me or you never seems to have entered her head until it was too late.’

‘How on earth did you realise that it was your foster mother who had hired the detective?’

‘I was telling her about you and the twins and she suddenly made a rather scornful reference to the thefts from the spa. That immediately made me suspicious because she did not get that information from me. It could only have come from the detective she hired. Once she grasped that you were the mother of my children she was very shocked and guilty and in that state she blurted out the whole story. My father, Vasos, was appalled and he asked her what she had been thinking of …’

‘Did you tell her that I wasn’t the thief?’ Erin asked ruefully.

‘Of course. She didn’t ask the detective what weapons he used to bring about our split, in fact she didn’t want to know the dirty details, and once it was achieved she invited Lisandra to dinner and dangled her under my nose. I told her about the doctored photos and Sally being rewarded for identifying you as the thief. I also told her that it was her fault that Lorcan and Nuala were strangers until I met them two weeks ago. She remembered your phone call. She did honestly believe that you had been stealing from me and that was how she justified her interference—you were a wicked woman and I needed help to break free of your malign influence. That had become her excuse and when that excuse was taken from her she became extremely distressed. Vasos was shouting at her and it all got very hysterical and overheated.’ Cristo groaned, luxuriant black lashes almost hitting his exotic cheekbones as he briefly closed his eyes in frustration. ‘In the end we called the local doctor to administer a sedative to calm her down …’

‘Oh, my goodness, is this the reason she had a nervous breakdown when your marriage went wrong?’

‘Yes, although none of us appreciated that at the time. But she felt hugely guilty at having encouraged me to marry Lisandra.’

‘No offence intended, Cristo, but right now Appollonia sounds like the mother-in-law from hell,’ Erin remarked with an apologetic grimace.

‘I think it is good that the truth has come out at last.’ Cristo was seemingly determined to find a positive angle. ‘Possibly Appollonia’s secret arrangement with the detective has been the burden on her conscience which damaged her recovery from the breakdown she suffered. She is still a fragile personality but she wasn’t always like that.’

‘Was your PA got to by the detective as well? Was that why my calls were never put through and my letters were returned unread?’

Cristo sighed, ‘My foster mother told her you were stalking me and that she’d be grateful if Amelia shielded me from nuisance calls and letters. Amelia probably believed she was doing me a favour.’

‘Bloody hell!’ Erin erupted furiously, standing up and walking away, only to spin back. ‘No wonder I couldn’t get hold of you!’

Cristo appraised with appreciation her slim, pale, delicately curved body in the brief red bikini she wore. ‘If it’s any consolation, Appollonia is the party most punished by the fallout from all this.’

Turning pink at the intensity of the gaze resting on her heaving breasts, Erin crossed her arms to interrupt his view. She hated the way he could just look at her and her body would have an involuntary reaction while her brain fogged over. ‘And how do you make that out?’

‘You’re the one in possession of grandchildren she has never seen. Had she known you were carrying my child she would never have targeted you and she would have supported you in every way possible. I told her how alone you had been and she felt guiltier than ever,’ he completed wryly.

‘So, what happens now?’

‘We go down to the village and see the priest and fill out the forms for our wedding.’

‘You want to get married here on the island?’ Erin was taken aback by the idea.

‘I’ll fly out your mother along with any friends you want to attend.’ Seeing that that assurance had no visible effect, Cristo unfolded to his full impressive height, adding, ‘We’ve been apart a long time—I don’t want to wait long for the wedding.’

‘I didn’t realise it would be happening so soon,’ Erin responded tentatively. ‘When I agreed to come here it was only for a week to escape the press because you got so hot and bothered about them.’

A faint smile softened the harsh curve of his shapely mouth. ‘Everything has changed between us since then, koukla mou.’

It had changed in the bedroom, Erin reflected guiltily, recalling how easily she had succumbed to his hot-blooded hunger for her. She had said yes where she should have said no and that was the only green light that a male with Cristo’s high voltage libido required.

‘I barely remember my birth parents. They’re just a stylish photo on the wall,’ Cristo remarked tautly. ‘The first five years of my life I was raised by nannies. I was always being told not to bother my parents because they were such busy people. They had no time for me and little interest.’

Erin was frowning. ‘Go on …’

‘I didn’t know what a normal home and parents were like until Vasos and Appollonia took charge of me. They spent time with me, talked to me, took an interest in my small achievements and gave me love. I owe everything I am today to them. I want to do the same thing for Lorcan and Nuala.’

She had not realised that his early years had been so bleak and she understood his attitude, for her own childhood had been almost as troubled and insecure. Marrying Cristo made sense, she reasoned ruefully. She wanted her children to have a full-time father and the chance of a happy family life. Cristo was offering her that option and she put as high a value on that lifestyle as he apparently did. But he would not have wanted to marry her had she not had the twins and that hurt. It hurt that he didn’t love and want her with the same intensity that he wanted their children.

That evening Sam Morton phoned her. ‘Your mother told me you were in Greece. I was shocked.’

‘We’re getting married, Sam.’

‘Yes, she told me that as well. Of course that’s the safest choice for Donakis if he wants access to his children. I understand that he consulted an expert in family law in London to find out exactly where he stood. Watch your step, Erin. In a Greek court, he could gain custody of the kids.’

Erin’s blood ran cold at that forecast. ‘Are you trying to scare me? We’re getting married, not divorced.’

‘I think it’s very convenient for Donakis to marry you now but he wasn’t interested in marrying you three years ago. Don’t forget that.’

Sadly that was a fact that Erin never forgot and she could have done without the second opinion. Had Cristo consulted a legal expert? How had Sam found that out? No doubt someone knew someone in the legal field who also knew Sam and word had got back to him in that way. Ought she to be worried? She supposed it was understandable that Cristo should have sought advice when he first found out that he was a father. That was not in itself wrong. Even so, the knowledge sent a little buzz of insecurity through her that she could not shake.

‘Cristo,’ she said towards the end of the evening while she worried about whether it was foolish of her to trust Cristo to such an extent. ‘Would you mind very much if I slept on my own until the wedding?’

Cristo frowned. ‘Not if it’s important to you.’

‘With Mum arriving a few days before the wedding, it would really be more comfortable for me,’ she told him stiffly.

One week later, Cristo and Erin were married in the little church overlooking the town harbour. She wore a white lace dress, tight on the arms and fitted to make the most of her slender figure, obtained from a designer in Athens. Her mother had thought her daughter was being controversial buying into the whole white wedding fantasy when she already had two young children but Erin had seen no reason why her special day should not live up to her girlhood dreams. After all, she loved Cristo Donakis and preferred to be optimistic about their future.

The Greek Orthodox service presided over by the bearded priest in his long dark robe was traditional and meaningful. The church was crammed with well-wishers and filled with flowers. The scent of incense and the fresh-orange-blossom circlet placed on her head mingled headily and, strange as it all was to her, she loved it, loved Cristo’s hand in hers, the steadiness of his lion-gold gaze and utter lack of nerves. For the first time she felt that they were meant to be together and she fought off downbeat thoughts about what his wedding to Lisandra might have been like as it was clearly not on his mind.

The days running up to their wedding had been exceptionally busy. She had had to take Nuala to an Athens hospital to have her cast checked. Mercifully everything had been in order and the little girl had not required a replacement. That appointment had been followed by a shopping trip to buy Erin’s wedding gown. The next day she had first made the acquaintance of Cristo’s father, Vasos Denes, when he came over to meet the twins. Initially appearing stern and quiet, Vasos had slowly shaken off his discomfiture over his wife’s interference in Cristo’s private life and its disastrous side effects to relax in his son’s home and Erin had decided that he was a lovely man. She had been surprised when Cristo explained that his father’s company was on the edge of bankruptcy but that the older man refused to accept his financial help. She had soon grasped from whom Cristo had learned his principles and even if his volatile nature warred against them and occasionally won—as in when he had blackmailed her into going to Italy with him—she knew Cristo did try to respect scruples and operate accordingly.

In a gesture made purely for Cristo and his foster father’s sake, Erin had volunteered to take the children to visit Appollonia Denes at their villa on the outskirts of the town. Even on the medication her doctor had advised to help her with her low mood, the older woman had been stunned to see the twins and tears had trailed slowly down her cheeks while she attempted awkwardly to express her regret for the actions she had taken almost three years earlier. That she absolutely adored Cristo had shone out of her and her wondering delight in Lorcan and Nuala had inspired pity in Erin. She knew it would take time before she could forgive Appollonia for what she had done but she was willing to make the effort.

Cristo had thrown himself into spending every afternoon with the twins. Watching her children respond to his interest, noting the shocking similarity in their lively demanding personalities, Erin had known that marrying Cristo was the right step to take. Lorcan was already learning that when his father said no he meant it and Nuala’s tantrums had become less frequent. The first time she condescended to call Cristo, ‘Daddy’, he admitted to Erin that he felt as if he had won the lottery.

Her mother had travelled to Thesos in the company of Tom and Melissa. Sam had turned down his invitation but had sent a lavish present. The day before the wedding, Cristo had taken them all out sailing. He was a wonderful host and had been in the very best of moods. Erin had taken that as a compliment: Cristo was happy that they were getting married. And she had during the week that had passed learned to regret her request that they sleep apart until the ceremony. Intimacy brought a special closeness to their relationship and she missed it, disliking the new distance that her demand had wrought in Cristo. He was too careful to give her space. A couple of times she had lain awake into the early hours, her body taut with frustration and longing, trying to summon up the courage to go and join Cristo in the opulent master suite at the top of the stairs. Why was she still punishing herself for wanting him? Why had she let Sam’s sour suspicious comments make her doubt Cristo’s sincerity?

Cristo lifted her hand in the car on the way back to the house from the church and touched the shiny new platinum ring on her finger with approval. ‘Now you’re mine.’

‘That sounds exceedingly caveman-type basic,’ Erin remarked.

‘I suppose carrying you upstairs before we entertain our guests would be even more basic?’ Cristo rested scorching golden eyes on her face as she turned fire-engine red with sexual awareness and embarrassment.

‘You’re scaring me because I know you’re capable of behaving like that,’ she admitted ruefully.

‘I was pure caveman when I blackmailed you into meeting me in Italy,’ Cristo conceded with a sardonic laugh. ‘I do crazy things with you that I’ve never done with any other woman. Italy was supposed to be an exorcism—’

Erin gave him a blank look while trying not to picture how wickedly exciting it would be if Cristo was were to trail her straight off to his bedroom. That was the real problem. He might be pure caveman but on some level she liked that side of him and responded to it. There was something uniquely satisfying about knowing she was such an object of desire to him.

‘An exorcism?’ she repeated.

‘I couldn’t stop thinking about you and how incredible we were in bed. It infuriated me. I thought that if I saw you again, slept with you again I’d be disappointed and I could get you out of my system. My, didn’t that work well?’ he said with rich self-mockery. ‘Here we are just three weeks later and we’re married!’

‘Did you and Lisandra get married in the same church?’ Erin asked, no longer able to stifle her curiosity.

‘Of course not. We had a massive society wedding staged in Athens. Lisandra likes to make a big splash in public.’

‘But the church here and the simple service were lovely,’ Erin commented softly.

His handsome mouth twisted. ‘You and Lisandra are very different.’

Did he have regrets? A little ache set in somewhere in the region of Erin’s heart. Erin had seen photos of his ex-wife in glossy magazines and Lisandra was much more sophisticated than she was. Most people would reckon that Cristo had married ‘down’ in choosing Erin and when they realised that the twins were his they would put another construction altogether on their marriage. Did that matter to her? Was she too sensitive? Expediency, rather than love, made the world go round. She didn’t need him to love her. Evidently she didn’t have that essential spark that would inspire such feelings in him or he would have fallen in love with her when they were first together and everything was all shiny and new.

‘Visiting my mother in spite of what she did, allowing her to be present today and treating her like one of the family,’ Cristo specified wryly. ‘Lisandra would never have forgiven her.’

‘I haven’t forgiven Appollonia either.’

‘But you’re willing to try. I’m very grateful for that,’ Cristo told her quietly. ‘You had the opportunity to get your own back by excluding her from our lives but you didn’t take it. That was generous of you.’

‘She truly regrets what she did. We all make mistakes.’

Cristo grasped her hand, curved lean fingers to the side of her face and brought his mouth down on hers with a hungry urgency that sent pure energy winging through her trembling body. ‘I’m wrecking your make-up,’ he groaned against her sultry mouth.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Erin proclaimed breathlessly, looking up at him with starry eyes and a thundering heartbeat.

Cristo handed her a tissue for the lipstick he had smeared. ‘Our guests await us but first … I have a gift for you.’

He handed her a tiny jewellery box, which she flipped open. It contained a band of diamonds, an eternity ring. ‘Cristo, it’s beautiful but I haven’t got you anything.’

‘My gift is having you back in my bed again,’ he murmured lazily.

The burning intensity of the look that accompanied that statement was like a blowtorch. She tottered out of the car on wobbling knees, struggling to pin a social smile to her lips. He really really wanted her and that was good, a healthy sign for a very practical marriage, she told herself earnestly, striving hard to be sensible while she admired the new rings sparkling on her finger. Cristo for eternity would be paradise, she thought dizzily, barely able to credit that he was finally hers. She watched as the twins ran to him and he scooped them up in both arms in a movement that made Lorcan and Nuala break into fits of laughter.

‘He’s so good with them,’ her mother remarked approvingly from the front door that stood open. ‘I expect you’re planning on more children.’

‘Not at the minute,’ Erin told her mother frankly. ‘I think we’ll be getting used to being married for quite a while.’

‘Cristo looks happier and more relaxed than I’ve seen him in years,’ Vasos commented approvingly at her elbow. ‘You’re good for each other. I only wish that my wife’s interference hadn’t parted you when you should have stayed together.’

‘It’s water under the bridge now,’ Erin said lightly as she looked up at the older man.

‘I had an argument with my son when he said he couldn’t possibly take a honeymoon while my company was failing. Don’t worry,’ Vasos urged comfortably. ‘I soon talked sense into him. Of course you’re having a honeymoon.’

Erin swallowed uncomfortably. She knew how hard Cristo had worked in his efforts to support his father’s business, which had suffered badly in the difficult economic climate in Greece, but she also knew that Vasos’ stubborn independent streak had made it an almost impossible challenge. ‘He worries a lot about you.’

‘He’ll get over it,’ Vasos replied staunchly.

‘No, he won’t actually,’ she told him in a low voice. ‘He’ll feel like the worst failure if your business goes down. Why won’t you let Cristo help you?’

‘I could never accept money from Cristo.’

‘But you’re his family.’

‘When he came to us as a child he was a fantastically rich little boy and I swore never to take advantage of that.’

‘Times change. For a start, he’s an adult, not a child any more. He loves you very much. Isn’t it selfish to force him to stand by and do nothing while you go bankrupt? He’ll be devastated.’

Vasos frowned.

‘Please don’t be offended with me,’ Erin begged. ‘I just wanted you to know what it’s like for him not to be allowed to help when you’re in trouble. In the same situation wouldn’t you want to help him no matter what?’

‘I will consider that angle,’ Vasos replied after a long minute of silence, his stern face troubled. ‘You can be very blunt, Erin … but you do understand Cristo.’

‘Hopefully.’ With a warm smile, Erin moved away to greet other guests, praying she hadn’t said too much to Cristo’s foster father. Cristo would probably be furious if he knew she had said anything, but negotiations between him and the older man were currently at a standstill and she had decided that she might as well speak up on Cristo’s behalf.

Late afternoon, Cristo informed her that they were leaving. ‘To go where?’ she pressed.

‘It’s a surprise.’

‘I haven’t even packed—’

‘There’s no need. A new wardrobe awaits you at our destination. You don’t need to worry about the twins either because your mother has agreed to stay on here until we return. Let’s go—’

‘Like … right now?’ Erin exclaimed. ‘I need to get changed—’

‘No. I want to be the one to take off that dress,’ Cristo confessed, gazing down into her eyes with a sensual look of anticipation that sparked fire in her bloodstream.

They flew to the airport in the helicopter and, having presented their passports, boarded the jet straight away. By then, having been up at the crack of dawn, Erin was smothering yawns and the drone of the engines sent her into a sound sleep. When she wakened, she was embarrassed by the poor showing she was making as a bride and barely had time to tidy her mussed hair and repair her make-up before they landed.

‘You’ve brought me back to Italy,’ she registered in surprise, recognising the airport. ‘Why Italy?’

‘It’s where we began again even if we didn’t appreciate it that weekend.’

And alighting from the limo that brought them to the villa and struggling to walk in the high-heeled sandals that were now pinching horribly, she decided that he had made a good point. Her emotions had rekindled along with her desire for him. It had been time out of time and wonderful in the strangest way of happiness coming when you least expected it to do so.

‘I gave the housekeeper the weekend off.’

Cristo swept her up in his arms to carry her through the door he had unlocked.

It was a romantic gesture she hadn’t expected from him and, eyes widening, she smiled up at him, colliding with dark golden eyes that made her heart race. They walked up the stairs, though, hand in hand and she almost giggled, unfamiliar as she was with such signs from Cristo, who was usually cooler than cool in that department. In the bedroom doorway she stilled, scanning the room, which had been transformed with lush arrangements of white flowers and dozens of candles with little flames that leapt and glowed in the darkness: she was transfixed.

‘Good heavens,’ she murmured, totally stunned by the display. ‘You organised this?’

‘I wanted it to be perfect for you.’

Hugely impressed, Erin smiled again and walked on in, kicking off her tight shoes with a sigh of relief.

‘Now you’ve shrunk,’ Cristo teased, uncorking the bottle of champagne awaiting them and handing her an elegant flute bubbling with the pale golden liquid.

Erin sipped. ‘Did you do something like this for Lisandra?’

He frowned. ‘Why do you keep on asking about her?’

‘Well, did you?’ Erin persisted.

‘No, I didn’t. It wasn’t that kind of marriage. I thought you would have worked out by now that I married Lisandra on the rebound,’ Cristo imparted with a rueful twist of his mouth. ‘I reeled away from the wreckage of our relationship and made the biggest mistake of all.’

On the rebound? She liked that news. She liked it even better that he was willing to admit that his first marriage had been a mistake. It soothed the hurt place inside her that had formed when she had realised he had taken a wife within months of their split. An extraordinary urge to move closer and hug him also assailed Erin. She might want to wrap that confession in fairy lights and laugh and smile over it but an aching sadness afflicted her at the same time. Three years back, he must have cared about her more than she had realised but she had still lost him through no fault of her own.

‘You weren’t in love with your wife?’ she prompted stiffly.

‘I thought I’d made that clear.’

‘Why did you marry her, then?’

‘After losing faith in you I had no heart for dating. My marriage pleased my family, gave me something to focus on other than you, but it was a catastrophe.’ Cristo shifted a broad shoulder in a fatalistic shrug and gave her a wry look. ‘This is our wedding night. I don’t want to talk about this now.’

Something to focus on other than you. And suddenly Erin understood something that she had never quite believed in before. When they broke up, he had been badly hurt too, he had suffered as well. He had rushed into a marriage that he had hoped would cure him of his unhappiness. But now she was suddenly reflecting on the eternity ring and the beautiful bower of flowers and candles he had had prepared for their arrival and her heart swelled with warmth and forgiveness. He was doing things he had never done before. He was trying to show her that he had feelings for her and naturally he didn’t want her rabbiting on about Lisandra in the middle of it.

‘I love you,’ he told her in a roughened undertone, detaching the champagne glass from her nerveless fingers and setting it aside so that he could pull her close. His eyes were bright with emotion in the flickering candlelight. ‘I was in love with you when we broke up but I didn’t know it. You’ve haunted me ever since. When I saw you in that photo with Sam and his staff, all I could think about was seeing you again. I lied to myself. I told myself that it was only sex and that I wanted to get over the memory of you, but I was still in love with you when I brought you here that weekend. When I woke up beside you the next morning I knew I didn’t ever want to let you go again.’

Tears welled up in Erin’s amethyst eyes and any strand of lingering resentment over that weekend vanished, for they had found each other again in this peaceful house, re-establishing the connection they had forged years earlier. That he loved her meant so much that she could barely contain the huge surge of happiness spreading inside her. ‘We’ve lost so much time when we could have been together,’ she sighed.

‘But we’re still young enough to make up for that and maybe while we were apart we both learned stuff we needed to know,’ Cristo countered more thoughtfully. ‘But if we had stayed together I would have eventually married you. I just wasn’t in a hurry.’

‘And this time around you probably felt like you didn’t have a choice,’ Erin completed.

Cristo spun her round to run down the zip on her gown. ‘No, I thought very carefully about that decision. I didn’t have to live with you to play a part in the twins’ lives and my financial support would have taken care of any problems you had. No, I asked you to marry me because I wanted you in my life every day.’

Smiling widely at that assurance, a glow of pleasure lighting up her eyes, Erin turned back to help him out of his jacket. ‘And there I was thinking that you had only married me because you thought it was the practical thing to do!’

Cristo curved long fingers to her cheekbones and groaned. ‘I know it was a useless proposal. I should never have asked you when we were in bed but I couldn’t hold back any longer. Wives are a lot harder to lose than girlfriends and I needed to know that you were mine again for ever, pethi mou.’

‘I like the sound of for ever,’ Erin savoured, shimmying out of her lace gown and standing in her frivolous silk and lace bra and panties, a blue garter adorning one slim stocking-clad thigh.

‘I like the underpinnings,’ Cristo teased, fiery dark eyes welded to her scantily clad figure as he appraised her with lingering intensity. ‘But I’ll like you out of them even better and after a week of celibacy it’s overkill.’

‘Is it?’ Her brows lifted, her uncertainty visible.

Laughing, Cristo picked her up and dropped her down on the gloriously comfortable bed. ‘You look gorgeous but I did notice that the separate bedrooms made your mother more comfortable in our home, latria mou.’

‘I wanted tonight to be special,’ Erin whispered, running a possessive hand up a shirt-clad arm.

He sat up and discarded his shirt with alacrity, revealing a hard brown torso taut and roped with muscle. She spread her fingers there instead, revelling in the solid reassuring beat of his heart. ‘I forgot to tell you that I loved you.’

‘And as punishment you have to tell me at least ten times every day,’ Cristo delivered, lowering his head to claim a long passionate kiss that sent her hands up to clasp his head. ‘You know, I thought it might take you much longer to forgive me for not being there when you needed me … and even worse marrying another woman.’

Erin smiled. ‘No, I know you’ve been through tough times too. What I didn’t understand is why you were suddenly doing all the romantic stuff you never did before. Do you remember what our first ever row was about?’

‘I forgot Valentine’s Day once we were dating. Well, actually I didn’t. I’d always avoided the mushy stuff as it raises unfair expectations and I was embarrassed about the one I sent you before you agreed to go out with me.’

‘A card?’ Erin scorned. ‘A card would rouse expectations?’

Cristo winced. ‘I thought that sort of thing, like meeting each other’s families, should be kept for someone you’re serious about. We had only been together eleven months and twenty three days …’

Her eyes widened. ‘You counted how long we were together?’

‘I was always a maths whizz,’ Cristo fielded deadpan.

Erin was impressed. She glanced around her candlelit flower-bedecked bower and smiled happily at what that display said: she had finally made the grade for the mushy stuff! He would never ignore Valentine’s Day again. She gazed up at him, enthralled by his lean, darkly handsome features and the tender look in his beautiful dark eyes.

‘I missed you so much!’ he breathed suddenly. ‘Something would remind me and then, boom, all these images would flood my head. And then I would remember what I thought you had done and get really angry that I was thinking about you again.’

Erin reached up and kissed him. ‘That time is gone. Now we’ve got something better and stronger, something that will last—’

‘For ever,’ he slotted in with determination.

Her eyes slid shut as he claimed her parted lips in another hungry, demanding kiss. Heat spread inside her with tingling, burning energy and she gave herself up to desire and happiness without any sense of fear at all.

Two years later, Erin hosted the grand opening of Cristo’s first spa hotel on Thesos. Built beside a secluded beach and surrounded by lush pine forest, it provided a back-to-nature retreat with luxury on tap for the discerning traveller, and as the latest must-have place to go it was already fully booked six months in advance. As Cristo had been held up, Vasos and Appollonia Denes were by her side.

A sea change had taken place in her relationship with the older couple. The passage of time had soothed the bad memories of the past and Erin’s natural resentment. Appollonia had grown stronger and calmer and as she recovered from her excessive nervousness and fatal tendency to apologise for everything had confided that her greatest fear had always been that Cristo would discover what she had done and refuse to forgive her. Once the secret was out, Appollonia had had to deal with her guilt, and forging a healthy, normal relationship with Erin and the twins had gone a long way to achieving that.

Vasos had ultimately accepted a loan from Cristo to save his business but had insisted that Cristo accept a partnership in the firm, an arrangement that had left both men with their pride and principles intact. Cristo had been overjoyed that Erin’s intervention had wrought a change in his foster father’s stubborn outlook.

For the first year of her marriage Erin had spent a great deal of time checking out the spa facilities in her husband’s hotel empire and travelling a great deal. Jenny and the twins had often accompanied her while her mother was a frequent visitor to Thesos. During the second year Erin had begun supervising the final touches to the new island spa, which was providing much needed work for the locals and had already prompted the opening of several tourist-type businesses in the village.

Sheathed in a shimmering silver evening gown, she posed for photographers and waved back as Sam and his former secretary, Janice, raised their glasses to salute her from across the room. Sam Morton was about to embark on a worldwide cruise with his recently acquired bride. Erin smiled warmly at the other couple, currently engaged in chatting to her mother, Deidre, thinking that she had been blind not to appreciate that Janice cared about Sam and that her removal from the scene would make it easier for Sam to see Janice in a different light. Sam had had to retire before he could appreciate how much he missed Janice’s company and a friendly dinner date to catch up on news had eventually resulted in his second marriage.

‘You look amazing, Mrs Donakis,’ a rich dark drawl purred above her head as a possessive hand curved to her hip.

Erin whirled round. ‘Cristo, when did you get back?’

‘Half an hour ago. I had the quickest shower and change on record,’ he confided. ‘That’s it, though. I won’t be off on another trip for at least six weeks.’

Erin feasted her eyes on her handsome husband. He looked spectacular in his dark designer suit. The female photographer was watching him as though dinner had just walked through the door, but Erin was accustomed to the buzz that Cristo brought to the women in a room and it didn’t bother her. Jenny came through the door with Lorcan and Nuala. Nuala, adorable in a fancy party dress, skipped over to show it off to her father, little hands holding out the skirt as if she were about to perform a curtsy.

Lorcan took his hands out of his pockets at his father’s request and then ran off to try and climb the huge palm tree in the centre of the foyer.

‘Lorcan!’ Cristo yelled, and he strode over to lift his squirming son off the trunk and imprisoned him under one arm, talking to the little boy before setting him down again.

‘Lorcan’s such a boy,’ Nuala pronounced, rolling her eyes with pained superiority.

Erin’s mother held out her hands to the children and they latched onto her immediately, begging her to take them down to the beach.

‘I wonder what the third one will be like,’ Cristo commented, his dark golden gaze dipping briefly to the barely perceptible bump visible below Erin’s dress.

‘A mix of our genes, some good, some bad.’

‘I can’t wait to see our baby,’ Cristo confessed.

A warm sense of tenderness filled Erin, and only their public location stopped her leaning in to hug him. She hadn’t initially been sure about how another child would fit into their busy lives, but one of the main reasons she’d come round to the idea had been the awareness that Cristo had missed out on the experience of the twins as babies. While she had conceived faster than she had expected, she had thoroughly enjoyed having a supportive, interested male by her side to share every development in her pregnancy and the sight of Cristo with tears in his eyes when he saw the first scan of their child was one she would never forget.

The evening wore on in chats with influential people and business associates. The twins were whisked home to bed and Cristo, his attention consistently returning to his wife’s lovely face and smile, was unashamedly relieved when they could finally take their leave of their guests.

‘I hate being away from you now,’ he confided, lifting her out of the four-wheel drive he had taken her home in.

‘You’re not away half as much as you used to be.’

‘I can do a lot of my work at home.’ At the foot of the stairs he swung her up in his arms and insisted on carrying her the rest of the way in spite of her protests. ‘I know your feet are killing you, latria mou.’

She kicked her shoes off when he put her down, holding up the skirt of her gown so that she didn’t trip on the trailing hem. ‘But the shoes did look gorgeous,’ she pointed out.

Cristo framed her laughing face with tender hands. ‘You don’t need to suffer to look beautiful.’

‘Only a man could say that. I still can’t believe that you were born with eyebrows that stay in shape,’ Erin lamented. ‘It’s so unfair.’

‘I would love you even without all the waxing,’ Cristo intoned huskily.

Erin tried to imagine getting into bed with a pair of hairy legs and barely repressed a shudder. ‘The things you say.’

‘I’m trying to impress you with how crazy I am about you.’ Cristo sighed with a long-suffering look belied by the amusement dancing in his dark golden eyes. ‘It’s an uphill challenge.’

‘No, it’s not. I love you too, naturally perfect brows included,’ his wife informed him, gazing up at him with an appreciation she couldn’t hide. Mine, every natural instinct said and she adored the fact.

He bent his handsome dark head and kissed her softly with all the skill at his disposal, and her head swam and her knees wobbled and the glory of loving Cristo swept over her like a consuming tide, filled with happiness and acceptance and pure joy.