Читать книгу Greek Affairs - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 32

THE phone call had been to invite them over to a party at Alexi’s parents’ house.

It was to be a large family celebration in honour of their wedding, and Katie was feeling more than a little apprehensive as they set off the next afternoon.

‘Relax,’ Alexi told her as they drove along the spectacular scenery of the winding coast road. ‘There’s nothing to worry about.’

He seemed to be finding the fact that she was edgy about this meeting rather amusing, she realised with annoyance.

‘I thought you said they weren’t happy about our marriage!’ she retorted. ‘Surely that is some cause for concern?’

‘They are not unhappy because I got married, they are unhappy because I did it secretively—they would have liked to be there—they would have liked an almighty, great big, all-singing, all-dancing, Greek wedding, to be blunt.’ Alexi changed down gears to take a very steep bend. ‘But I did that first time around, and that kind of ceremony wasn’t the right thing for us. They will accept that when I explain.’

‘And how are you planning to explain?’ Katie asked.

‘Are you going to tell them that we’re not really in love so there was no point having the big family wedding?’

‘Of course not!’ Alexi frowned and glanced over at her again. ‘I’m going to tell them it was a whirlwind decision.’

‘And are you going to tell them about the baby?’ Her voice was husky.

‘I was going to—yes.’

‘Well, I’d rather you didn’t. It’s early days, Alexi, anything could happen. I mean really—sensibly speaking—we shouldn’t have rushed into marriage at all, we should have waited until I was at least three months pregnant to be on the safe side. Or even waited until after the baby was born.’

He frowned. ‘Katie, nothing is going to go wrong!’

‘You don’t know that!’

‘I know that we’ve done the right thing. So chill out, OK? Getting so worked up isn’t going to help Junior!’

She nodded and tried to relax back into the seat.

‘And if it worries you I won’t tell them about the baby,’ he added softly. ‘We’ll wait until you feel the time is right.’

‘Thanks.’ She nodded. ‘I think that would be for the best.’

Silence fell between them.

Alexi flicked a look over at her. She’d caught a little sun as they’d sat beside the pool this morning. She looked healthy and glowing in the white sundress, her lips moist with peach satin-gloss. Her dark hair glowed with chestnut lights, and lay silky-straight around her shoulders. Yet there was a look in her eyes that concerned him—a vulnerable look that he knew she tried quickly to hide as soon as he glanced in her direction.

She hadn’t slept very well last night, either. She’d got up as dawn was breaking and had got herself a glass of water from downstairs. Then she hadn’t returned to the bedroom until he’d got up and was in the shower.

She’d said that she was suffering from jet lag—which was entirely feasible. Yet Alexi had a feeling that whatever was bothering her ran deeper than that.

Even when they had made love again last night he’d felt that she was holding herself back from him, somehow. Although her kisses had been passionate and needy, there had still been that underlying vulnerability about her.

Was she regretting their marriage? he wondered suddenly. Had he rushed her into something that was ultimately making her deeply unhappy?

He frowned. They had a child to consider, he reminded himself. She would come round. She would have to!

They arrived at Alexi’s parents’ house just as the sun was starting to go down and Katie would never forget her first glimpse of the place. The mansion was set in its own grounds with spectacular views across the sea. Behind the house the forests melted into the dusky pink of the twilight sky.

There were already a lot of cars lined up on the driveway, and light and music spilled out from the open front door.

‘The party sounds like it’s in full swing. Are we late?’ Katie asked as they parked and stepped out into the warmth of the evening.

‘No, we’re on time. They probably wanted everyone here before us, so they could welcome you properly. I’ll warn you now—I have enough aunts, uncles and cousins to repopulate the lost city of Atlantis,’ he told her calmly. ‘So don’t worry if you can’t remember names—or work out who everyone is—even I struggle sometimes,’ he added with a smile.

Katie knew what he meant as they stepped inside. There were crowds of people milling about in the vast marble entrance-hall, and by the time they had reached the doors to the reception areas Alexi had introduced her to so many relatives, and she had been warmly hugged by so many strangers, that she had completely lost track of who was who.

Alexi’s parents were out on the patio, organising a barbeque.

Alexi’s father was still a handsome man for sixty-five. He had the same tall, powerful physique as his son, same thick, dark hair, only Philip’s was sprinkled with grey. Helen, Alexi’s mother, was probably ten years younger than her husband. She looked stylish and sophisticated in a black-and-white dress, and yet approachable, as if she was the sort of person you could talk to if you had a problem. Katie liked them both immediately.

She liked the fact that when they saw their son there were tears and effusive welcomes in Greek. Katie stood slightly back, but found herself immediately included and greeted like a long-lost daughter.

‘We are just so pleased,’ Alexi’s mother kept saying to Katie. ‘So happy for you both. Welcome to the family, Katie.’

The words touched Katie. She had never been a part of a family like this before; they were so demonstrative and warm-hearted. And they spoke to her with such genuine affection that it blew her away.

A chair was found for her at a table that was filled with food. It looked like a feast had been laid out for over two-hundred people. A glass of champagne was pressed into her hands, and everyone was speaking to her at once.

She was introduced to Alexi’s two sisters. They were very attractive brunettes, both younger than him. Alesha was fifteen, Julia was twenty-six and married with a two-month-old little girl called Georgia. Obviously both girls adored their big brother; Katie watched as they flung their arms around him and he hugged them tight before being handed his niece.

It gave Katie the strangest feeling, seeing Alexi holding that baby. He looked so at home—so gentle and tender—as he rocked the child in his arms and talked to her with warmth and love in his voice. The ruthless, powerful tycoon was gone and in his place was someone Katie had never seen before. It made her heart fill with even more love for him … more love than she knew how to handle.

He would be a good dad, she thought with certainty as she tried to blink away sudden tears—a wonderful dad.

He glanced over at her, and for a moment their eyes connected through the crowds. He smiled at her.

‘So, tell me all about your wedding,’ his mother was demanding. ‘Where exactly did you get married? When did Alexi propose?’ The questions raced on.

‘It’s just been a complete whirlwind,’ Katie answered honestly. ‘I still can’t believe it myself, to be honest!’

‘That sounds like Alexi!’ His mother laughed. ‘When my son decides that he wants something, he doesn’t usually like to wait.’

‘So what about your family, Katie? Will they be waiting for you in England to celebrate when you get back?’ Philip asked.

‘Unfortunately I only have my sister, and she is in France. My mother died when I was sixteen, and I never knew my dad.’

‘Well, you have us now, Katie,’ Alexi’s mother said, and patted her hand.

‘Yes, heaven help you,’ Alexi said teasingly. ‘The entire family’s mad.’

‘Pay no attention to him,’ Helen said with a smile. ‘If he doesn’t behave himself I shall tell some stories about the scrapes he got into when he was a little boy—things you need to know,’ she laughed, and winked at Katie.

As the sun disappeared the garden was lit with twinkling lanterns, and people started to dance by the side of the swimming pool. More and more people arrived. Katie was separated from Alexi for a while as people flocked to meet her.

Alexi’s father tried to pile her plate with more food. ‘Really, I couldn’t eat another mouthful,’ she laughed. ‘I’ll be the size of a house.’

‘Nonsense,’ he’d said gruffly. ‘We need to feed you up.’

Katie had to smile at that; it was such a fatherly thing to say. It was strange how at home she felt here—how accepted. She’d never felt like this before. She liked it. She liked the way Alexi’s father put his arm around his wife and gave her a kiss as he walked past.

They looked happy together—as if they were still in love even after all the years of marriage.

Would Alexi ever look at her like that? she wondered suddenly. The thought made her feel quite emotional again. Must be her hormones, she thought angrily. She was never usually so weepy one moment and so happy the next … it was strange.

‘Ah, so you must be the radiant bride.’ A woman came to stand beside her. She was about the same age as Katie with long blonde hair and a stunning figure that she seemed proud to flaunt in a low-cut black strapless dress. ‘I’m a distant cousin of Alexi’s, Natasha Scollini.’

‘Pleased to meet you.’ Katie smiled politely.

‘I have to say, I was surprised when I saw you. You’re not what I was expecting.’

The comment surprised Katie. And she didn’t like the woman’s tone. ‘So what were you expecting?’ she asked curtly.

‘Forgive me, Katie. I shouldn’t really say it, but I was expecting you to look like Andrea. It’s just Alexi was so … absolutely head over heels in love with her. Dying about her, in fact, that, well, I expected him to have fallen for someone similar.’

‘I think if he had been going to do that he would have done it eight years ago, don’t you?’ Katie replied archly.

‘Yes, you’re quite right.’ Natasha smiled. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything; I hope you’ll forgive me.’

‘There’s nothing to forgive.’ Katie shrugged.

‘I saw Andrea in Athens quite recently, actually, she was between assignments, on her way to Paris,’ Natasha continued. ‘She looked stunning. She must be about twenty-nine now—which I suppose is old for a model—but, whatever beauty regime she is using, it certainly is working. Of course, confidence is a great beauty boost, isn’t it? And being on the cover of this month’s Vogue must be a hell of a thrill.’

Alexi’s sister Julia walked over towards them and Natasha started to talk to someone else next to her before moving away.

‘What was she saying?’ Julia asked with barely concealed dislike.

‘She was just telling me how successful and beautiful Andrea is,’ Katie said wryly.

‘Oh, was she indeed?’ Julia shook her head. ‘She’s probably as jealous as hell about you marrying Alexi. She thought when he and Andrea divorced that she stood a chance with him, but he was never interested in her!’

‘Oh, I see.’ Katie smiled, and then couldn’t help asking, ‘So is it true that Andrea is a top model?’

‘Yes. She was just starting to make a name for herself as a model when Alexi met her, and she’s working for some top fashion-houses now.’

‘Alexi never talks about her,’ Katie murmured.

‘Well, he was pretty cut up after the divorce. But it’s all in the past. It’s good to see him so happy again.’ She glanced over at Katie. ‘I really am so pleased for you both. And don’t give anything Natasha says a second thought.’

‘Give what a second thought?’ Alexi asked as he joined them.

‘Natasha,’ Julia informed him bluntly. ‘She really is painful!’

‘Why? What has she been saying?’ Alexi looked at Katie and smiled a warm, teasing kind of smile that made her heart dip in a very peculiar way.

‘Nothing important.’ Katie didn’t want to start repeating that conversation to him. ‘This is a lovely party; it’s so kind of your parents to go to so much trouble for us.’ She changed the subject abruptly.

‘Do you want to dance?’ Alexi asked her suddenly.

She followed his gaze to where couples were wrapped in each other’s arms. The music was slow, the mood very sentimental.

The thought of being held that close to him made her ache inside.

Firmly she shook her head. ‘No thank you.’

But Alexi was already reaching for her hand and leading her away. ‘Excuse us, Julia,’ he said over his shoulder.

As soon as they made their way onto the floor everyone gathered around them to applaud. And suddenly Katie felt like the biggest hypocrite in the world. All these people thought Alexi was in love with her—and he wasn’t. He probably never would be.

The night air was warm, yet she shivered as he pulled her into his arms.

She tried to hold herself slightly apart from him.

‘Relax, Katie.’ He murmured the words against her ear and kissed the side of her face. Then he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close in against him.

The gesture was probably for the audience’s sake, but it felt so good that it made little pangs of desire dart deep inside her. For a moment she allowed herself to lean in against him dreamily. Allowed herself to imagine that they were an ordinary couple who had just got married because they were very much in love. Allowed herself to dream that Alexi was crazy about her.

Alexi stroked a hand down over her back. ‘The evening has been a great success,’ he murmured against her ear. ‘Everyone loves you.’

Except the one person whose love really mattered to her.

The painful reality swirled in like the tide.

Desperately she tried to ignore it. But being in his arms like this was too pleasurable, and the bittersweet feelings wouldn’t go away.

She couldn’t deal with this situation, she thought suddenly, and as the music changed to another romantic ballad she pulled away from him abruptly.

‘Alexi, do you think we could go now?’

He looked down into the bright blue of her eyes, and was shocked when he saw the haunted shadows of unhappiness there.

‘Are you OK?’ The gentleness of his voice made her feel even more wretched, but she forced herself to smile.

‘Yes, just a bit tired. I think my body clock is all over the place.’

Alexi nodded and let her go. ‘It’s getting late anyway.’ He smiled. ‘And we are on our honeymoon; people can’t expect us to socialise too much …’

She tried to smile back. But she just couldn’t now.

It took longer than Katie had hoped to get away. They got entangled up with goodbyes. And Alexi’s mother insisted that they should take food home with them.

‘I have the impression she thought you were in need of a good square meal,’ Alexi said with a laugh when they finally got into the car. ‘The fact that I’ve not only got a fully stocked kitchen back at the house, but also a chef willing to cook anything we’d like, seems to be lost on her.’

‘It’s because she’s your mother and she wants to take care of you—and you should never take that for granted,’ Katie told him softly. ‘Because not everyone has a relationship like that with their parents.’

Silence fell between them as the warmth and light of the house was left behind. The road was pitch-black ahead except for the silvery gleam of the powerful headlights as they cut through the countryside.

‘I heard you saying tonight that you never knew your father,’ Alexi said suddenly. ‘That must have been tough.’

‘Yes, it was.’ For a moment Katie thought about the past, about how very different their upbringings were.

‘What happened to him?’ Alexi asked.

‘Precisely nothing happened to him,’ Katie informed him flatly. ‘I was born, but he wasn’t remotely interested. Not everyone has your sense of duty, Alexi.’

‘I don’t want my child out of a sense of duty, Katie,’ he told her in a low tone. ‘My feelings for our baby go much deeper than that.’

‘Yes, of course.’ She bit down on her lip.

‘So did your dad walk out when you were born? Or were your parents never together?’

‘They were never together.’ Katie looked up at the sky. It was so bright—she had never seen the stars so clear. Something about the darkness made her relax a little. ‘Lucy is really my half-sister. My mother was divorced when Lucy was three, and I don’t think she ever really recovered from that divorce. Lucy’s father was the real love of my mother’s life, as she’d tell us on regular occasions.’

‘And your father?’ Alexi asked gently.

‘Just an affair she had to try and make herself feel better after the divorce. And when she told him she was pregnant he didn’t want to know.’

Silence stretched between them, filled with the steady thud of her heartbeats.

‘The irony is that my mother always thought that Lucy’s father might have come back to her, except apparently he didn’t want me. I wasn’t part of the equation.’

‘He mustn’t have really loved her, because if he had the fact that she had a child to someone else wouldn’t have mattered to him,’ Alexi told her gently. ‘He’d have loved you, too, because you were a part of her.’

She shrugged. ‘Unfortunately my mother wasn’t that rational when it came to matters of the heart. She just never got over Brian. And she kept on choosing the wrong men.

They would move in and they would move out. After a few years Lucy used to get away from it occasionally by going to stay with her dad and his new wife. They were the worst times of all. Life without Lucy was … unbearable. We used to share a room, and somehow it seemed safer when she was there.’

Alexi felt his stomach churn. God alone knew what she had been through!

‘Anyway, I don’t know why I am telling you this.’ She suddenly felt embarrassed that she had opened up to him like that. ‘And my mother was a good woman; she tried very hard to do her best for me and for Lucy. It’s certainly not easy being a single parent.’

Suddenly Alexi understood her fierce need for independence—she must never really have felt loved as a child. Her mother trying to apportion blame on her for her ex-husband’s unwillingness to try and resolve their differences was almost barbarically cruel, to his mind. How could you blame an innocent child for being born?

He understood now how vulnerable she must have felt when she had discovered she was pregnant. He understood why she had agreed to this marriage—she would want her child to have all the love and security that she’d never had. It would be desperately important to her—more important even than her own happiness.

For a moment he remembered the way she had looked up at him when he had placed the wedding band on her finger. The shimmering vulnerability cut through him like a knife.

Obviously this marriage was the last thing she wanted, but she was desperately trying to do the right thing. She probably felt trapped and desperately unhappy, and he had compounded those feelings by demanding her hand in marriage and rushing her into it.

Alexi pulled the car into the gateway to his house, and a few moments later drew to a halt outside the front door.

He strove for something to say, something that would reassure her.

‘Katie, I realise this wedding is hardly the fairy-tale romance that you probably would have wanted,’ he said quietly. ‘But I promise I will look after you—I will always be there for you.’

‘I’ve told you, Alexi. I don’t need looking after.’ She swallowed hard and tried to make her voice sound light. ‘But our baby will. And I want him or her to have everything that I didn’t—and I’m not talking financially, now.’

‘I realise that.’

For a second they sat in silence. Katie ached for him to reach out to her, to just take her hand even—but he didn’t. And she told herself that it was for the best. Her emotions were too raw right now, and she might have said something really stupid—might have poured out her feelings for him and ruined everything!

She had to keep strong. As Alexi had said, this wasn’t a fairy-tale romance, it was a business arrangement.

Nothing more.