Читать книгу Modern Romance February Books 1-4 - Линн Грэхем, Maisey Yates - Страница 16

‘YOU LOOK AMAZING!’ Vivi sighed as Winnie performed a twirl in front of the built-in cheval mirror on the wall of the luxury cabin.

It was a beautiful dress, fashioned of Venice lace and organza, cut to fit Winnie’s shapely figure like a glove. An enticing row of pearl buttons ran down her spine to her hip. The sweetheart neckline emphasised her sister’s curves while the mermaid style flared out from her knees with very real elegance and not with the kind of fullness of fabric that would have accentuated Winnie’s diminutive height.

‘We all do but, like all brides, Winnie takes the crown,’ Zoe murmured fondly. ‘I feel like pinching myself to see if this is real. Here we are on a fabulous yacht, cruising to our sister’s wedding on a private island... It’s like a dream or like suddenly being plunged into a movie.’

‘I wonder if you’ll feel quite so chirpy when it’s your wedding day,’ Vivi remarked with an edge of warning.

‘But we don’t have to worry about that. Grandad is going to whisk us all away again before we need to worry about consequences.’ Zoe’s bright confidence in Stamboulas Fotakis’s ability to work miracles was unconcealed. ‘Eros wanted to transport all of us to the island because he made the island a no-fly zone to keep the paparazzi from buzzing the wedding from above,’ she reminded her siblings. ‘And Grandad got around that change of plan by borrowing a pal’s massive yacht for the occasion.’

‘Yes, Grandad’s pretty wily,’ Winnie agreed, still studying her reflection, her heart beating so fast with nerves it felt as though it were thumping through her entire body like a ticking time bomb on countdown.

‘Pittee,’ Teddy told her, yanking on her gown for attention.

‘Pretty? That’s a new word. Wonder where he picked up that one,’ Vivi commented, snatching her nephew up into a hug. ‘No, you’re not allowed to touch Mama’s dress with those little hands, but I’m wearing black, so you can do all the grabbing you want round Aunt Zoe and me!’

Teddy giggled with delight as Vivi turned him upside down, swung him round and dumped him on the massive bed for a spot of tickling and the sort of rough play he adored. Winnie paced anxiously. Eros had visited them in London twice to see Teddy but Winnie hadn’t seen him since that tense and disturbing evening meal they had shared. She had been at work, for, although her grandfather and Eros had both scoffed at the idea of such dutiful behaviour, Winnie had worked out her notice, giving the restaurant owner time to find and engage her replacement.

The yacht was slowing down radically to enter the harbour and dock. When they disembarked they were heading straight to the church before moving up to the Nevrakis house on the hill for the reception. When it came to making the return trip to Athens, both Winnie and her sisters already had their instructions. All they had to do was slip away and walk back down to the little harbour, where the yacht would await their arrival. Teddy would be brought there in a separate manoeuvre. ‘Why not leave straight after the church ceremony?’ she had asked her grandfather. ‘Surely that would be easier.’

His answer had disturbed her.

‘I want my guests and his to see Nevrakis dance to my tune and then become the abandoned bridegroom on his wedding day,’ Stamboulas Fotakis had assured her with satisfaction.

Winnie had paled and instantly felt queasy because, strange as it might seem, that aspect of her grandfather’s plans hadn’t occurred to her. Worrying about how she and her son might get away again had consumed her and she had never paused to stop and think about what her unexpected vanishing act would actually mean to Eros or how it would affect him, beyond angering him, of course. And somehow, she didn’t know why, the concept of humiliating Eros in front of a crowd made her feel quite sick and ashamed. That kind of revenge wasn’t her style even if it was her aggressive grandad’s. She didn’t want to hurt Eros because he was her son’s father and insulting and injuring him could only damage an already strained relationship. Why hadn’t she thought of that issue sooner? Now it was too late, she conceded unhappily, hurriedly reminding herself of how ruthless Eros had been when he’d threatened her vulnerable sisters. Eros could look after himself perfectly well, she reasoned feverishly.

He wouldn’t walk away from Teddy but he would realise he had lost any power over her and her siblings. That was how it had to be. She didn’t have a choice just as her sisters didn’t have a choice. This was the price of saving the roof over their foster parents’ heads. Goodness knew, after all the good John and Liz had done for Winnie, Vivi and Zoe and so many other troubled and unhappy teenagers, the older couple deserved the sisters’ protection and the security of no longer having to fear the loss of their home. Even so, she was sad that she was getting married without the older couple’s presence and knew they had been disappointed. Unfortunately, not only would it have been very hard for either John or Liz to leave their foster children for a couple of days with their busy schedule, but also she couldn’t possibly tell them the truth, that it wasn’t a real or normal wedding. Saving John and Liz had entailed a lot of fibs and half-truths that still sat on Winnie’s conscience like lead weights.

‘It’s time.’ Their grandfather lodged in the doorway, ultrasmart in his tailored morning suit and cravat. ‘You look delightful, Winnie. Nevrakis will be disappointed when he realises that he doesn’t get to keep you or my great-grandson.’

Oxygen rattled in Winnie’s tight throat. ‘Eros is tough. He’ll get over it,’ she said flatly, thinking of the man who had moved on untouched by their broken relationship and the hurt inflicted on her. ‘He’s one of life’s survivors.’

‘As are you,’ Vivi reminded her as they walked out onto the deck and began the delicate operation of getting the bride off the yacht without brushing her gown against anything that could mark its pristine ivory threaded with gold folds.

Two classic cars bedecked with flowers awaited them at the harbour and a sizeable crowd provided an audience. Winnie accompanied her grandfather into the first, her sisters and her son entered the second. Her chest tight as a drum with tension, she struggled to smile like a bride when her grandfather urged her. Every floral tribute she saw, every well-wisher reminded her that she was taking part in an unsavoury plan. The cars ferried them only a couple of hundred yards to a picturesque little stone church overlooking the sea with a little village full of white-painted houses climbing the hill behind it.

‘There won’t be many witnesses to the ceremony in a place this small,’ Stam Fotakis lamented at her side, but his granddaughter was relieved by the same fact.

John and Liz took their foster kids to church but pressured no one who preferred not to go. Winnie discovered a new fear bubbling up in her chest, the fear that she was enacting a heavenly punishable offence in undergoing a wedding ceremony without the intent of following through. A civil ceremony would have been preferable, she brooded uncomfortably. A squad of people waited outside the church to witness the bride’s arrival, calling out greetings and good wishes. With her sisters beside her, however, she felt stronger and less oversensitive.

Inside the dim old church with its candles, painted murals of the saints and beautiful white floral displays, her focus leapt straight to the man at the foot of the aisle. Eros turned round, his classic bronzed profile alert to her arrival. Beneath her gown, she could feel her entire body heat and flush with awareness. His brilliant green eyes were gilded in the candlelit interior and her mouth ran dry. Even the morning suit that made her grandad look a little rotund and small could only embellish Eros’s all-male beauty, showcasing every lithe athletic inch of his broad-shouldered, lean-hipped, long-legged length.

‘Gorgeous dress,’ he muttered half under his breath as they both turned to face the Greek Orthodox priest.

Finding her breath in the ritual that followed, bearing up to the crushing solemnity of the occasion in which she understood only sporadic words were a challenge for her. Eros slid the ring, an elaborate engraved platinum circle, onto her finger and she breathed again because it was done. She was the wife of the man she had once loved to the edge of insanity and her eyes stung with a sudden rush of moisture because the wounding memories seemed very close to the surface at that moment and she welcomed those thoughts, needing the armour of her hatred for him to defend her from other feelings and sensations.

‘Papa!’ Teddy shook free of Zoe’s hand and pounced on Eros as they moved down the aisle again.

That word, that very designation, being openly awarded to Eros shook Winnie up. When had that started? Why had nobody warned her? Of course, it was reality, she reminded herself soothingly, and not all the wishing in the world could change it. Even before the wedding she had been tied for life by her son to a man she despised. An unscrupulous guy without principles, who took what he wanted when he wanted without regard for the consequences to anyone else. For all she knew, she brooded, his wife had divorced him for his infidelity and if he hadn’t been faithful to Tasha, he wouldn’t be planning to be any more faithful to his second wife, for cheaters were known to repeat their habits.

Those grim ruminations rebuilt her defences and bolstered her strength to face the walkout she had to stage. Eros might be Teddy’s papa but he was not a nice guy, not a man in need of her sympathy or guilty conscience, she told herself urgently.

While unaware of his bride’s dark thoughts, Eros, nonetheless, read her tension and assumed it was caused by her shy dislike of being the centre of attention. That was so very different from his first wedding that there was no comparison to be made and he was relieved by that acknowledgement. He had never seen the point of bestowing blame on either himself or Tasha for a marriage breakdown that had seemed inevitable to him from the very first day of their convenient arrangement.

He had done his best to uphold their paper marriage. He had done his duty for years, struggling not to be selfish, struggling to be fair and honourable even when it had become an almighty challenge and their marriage had been in name only. That he had finally failed was something he no longer held against himself as he had once done. Nobody was perfect, neither him nor anyone else. All that troubled him in the present was that Winnie had somehow ended up paying the ultimate cost for his failure. For that same reason he could tolerate Stam Fotakis’s loathing with calm control because, in the old man’s shoes, he knew that he might well have felt the same.

Winnie settled back into the classic car while Teddy, who complained hugely, was strapped into a car seat. ‘You thought of everything,’ she remarked in surprise at the presence of the seat.

‘Obviously we would want Teddy with us,’ Eros parried.

As the car climbed the steep driveway that wound up past the little village, Winnie craned her neck, curious to see the Nevrakis home. ‘For how long have your family lived here?’

Eros saw no reason to tell Winnie that he had only reclaimed the island by marrying her. What would be the point? It would only make her more suspicious than ever about his motives, he reasoned impatiently. In time she would learn that fact and he would deal with it then.

‘The first house was a farmhouse owned by my great-grandfather, the olive farmer, who turned it into a small hotel. My grandfather razed that building to the ground and rebuilt and in due course, when he died, my father did the same even though he had no intention of ever making this his permanent home.’

Winnie’s brows lifted in bewilderment. ‘No intention? Then why on earth would he—’

‘I think a weird mixture of family pride and his innate streak of extravagance persuaded him into wasting his inheritance here even though he found island life boring. Although Trilis is quite a reasonable size, it couldn’t possibly offer him the social life he enjoyed in Athens.’

‘So, you didn’t grow up here on the island?’ Winnie asked, determined to satisfy her curiosity now that Eros was finally answering her questions.

‘No, I grew up in an Athens apartment, almost exclusively with my mother. She’s gone now too,’ Eros confided flatly. ‘So are my grandparents on both sides. There is only me and Teddy and now you in the Nevrakis family. There are a few distant cousins attending the reception but no close relations. I’m surprised you didn’t invite your foster parents.’

Winnie went pink and trotted out her excuses about how difficult it was for either John or Liz to leave home even for a short time. ‘As foster carers they have constant meetings with social workers, schools, birth parents.’

An ebony brow slanted up. ‘Still, you were very fond of them as I recall and I’m sure they would’ve made a special effort.’

‘I didn’t want to put them under that pressure,’ Winnie muttered in desperation. ‘John’s health can be dicey.’

It was a relief to step out into the sunlight again and see her sisters emerging from the car behind. They all stared at the house, which she thought was stupendously large for a property in which Eros’s father had apparently not planned to live. Extravagant, Eros had labelled his father, and Winnie was inclined to agree as they entered a grand marble-floored hall to be greeted by staff offering drinks on silver trays.

Her grandfather strolled to her side. ‘It is done,’ he pronounced with satisfaction. ‘The ring you deserve is on your finger now.’

Winnie looked down at her finger uncomfortably just as Eros stretched out a hand to her, obviously keen to introduce her to some of the guests arriving. The next hour and more passed in a whirl of introductions and harmless chatter, by which time Teddy was flagging, hungry and overtired.

‘I took the liberty of bringing in a nanny for the day,’ Eros murmured, disconcerting his bride. ‘Teddy can have an early lunch and a nap to recoup his energies while the adults celebrate.’

Winnie could not argue with such a sensible suggestion and the warm, friendly woman who approached with a ready smile was very different from the coldly efficient carer Eros had hired in London for the zoo trip. Agathe swiftly gained her son’s trust and, with his aunt Zoe’s comforting presence secured as well, Teddy had no objection to being carried off upstairs.

In the doorway of a vast pillared ballroom full of tables and chairs for the reception, Winnie paused and swallowed her surprise. ‘I expected a canvas marquee in the garden,’ she admitted.

‘No, my father covered even the most remote possibilities when he built this place,’ Eros confided with rueful amusement. ‘And perhaps you can also see why he eventually ended up bankrupt.’

As they were escorted to the top table, Winnie scanned the fabulous view of the sea and the island from the house’s splendid clifftop location. A wall of glass ran down one side of the ballroom, multiple doors opening out onto a furnished terrace. Her curious gaze lingered on the borrowed yacht dominating the little harbour and she paled, losing her focus again. Soon, soon, she reminded herself, she would be sailing away with Teddy and her sisters and this nightmare wedding would simply be like something from a bad dream that she would never have to think about again.

Long brown fingers feathered down her rigid spine and her entire body tingled, locked into sudden instinctive craving. She glanced up at Eros from beneath her feathery lashes and, with a husky growl deep in his throat, he reached for her, taking her so much by surprise that she simply froze, locked into place like a statue.

His firm, yet soft lips forced hers apart and his tongue delved and she shook and shivered as a gathering storm of sensation bombarded her. In all her life she had never wanted anything as much as she wanted Eros at that moment. A piercing dart of feverish longing shot from low in her body, rousing sweet tingling heat, clenching the muscles in her pelvis so tight she gasped, even more painfully aware of the response between her thighs.

‘Thee mou... I want you,’ Eros muttered roughly into her hair as he jerked his mouth off hers again as though he had been burned.

And in a way, they had both been burned, Winnie acknowledged feverishly, conscious of the tiny tremors racking the lean, powerful body melded to hers and the thrusting proof of his arousal. She still wanted him; it made her hate herself but Winnie had never been the sort to deny an obvious truth. The same passionate attraction that had blindsided them the first time around hadn’t died and hadn’t been conquered by common sense or pride or even guilt. She was ashamed of it, ashamed of the shake in her hand as she used the table to steady herself on locked knees that still trembled. It was a moment when she was almost grateful for the reminder of how much power Eros could still have over her and how very dangerous he could be to her peace of mind. Been there, done that, got Teddy... Never again, she told herself with finality.

* * *

‘Your nerves are showing,’ Vivi whispered under cover of releasing her sister’s gown from where it had caught on her high-heeled sandal.

Winnie compressed her lips. ‘I’m no good at faking it,’ she admitted.

‘Good news on my wedding night,’ Eros murmured sibilantly, lean hands splaying possessively across her hips from behind, the combination of both voice and touch very nearly inducing a panic attack in Winnie as her triangular face flared hotter than hellfire.

Winnie barely touched the meal set in front of her. She nudged stuff round the plate, trying to conceal her lack of appetite. She listened to the world-famous harpist playing atmospheric Greek folk songs, tapped her foot with determination when livelier music followed and only tensed when her grandfather caught her eye with a faint tilt of his chin. Almost as quickly her sisters were approaching her, talking about needing to straighten her hair and, without hesitation, she slid out of her seat and followed them out of the reception to the palatial cloakroom.

‘There’s a car waiting at the back entrance. All you have to do is walk out across the courtyard garden,’ Vivi began tautly.

‘I can’t leave without Teddy!’ Winnie gasped in consternation.

‘Grandad’s men are fetching Teddy,’ Zoe told her soothingly. ‘We only have to get down to the harbour.’

Winnie didn’t feel comfortable walking out of a house where her son slept upstairs, unaware of his family’s departure but her sisters were as nervous as she was, and nerves made the two younger women assertive, thrusting her through the French windows into the fresh air, both of them catching onto her wrists, urging her in the right direction, giving her no chance to change her mind.

‘This doesn’t feel right,’ she protested in the courtyard garden, a sunny tranquil space that mocked the drama being enacted.

‘We need to get out of here...fast!’ Vivi exclaimed impatiently, pushing her sister through the gate into the rear lane where an SUV idled its engine in readiness.

Having been alerted by the security team he had engaged, Eros observed their departure from the same rear hallway. A kind of white-hot rage unlike anything he had ever felt before surged through him when he saw Winnie pass through the last barrier in the direction of the waiting car.

His wife walking out on him.

Nothing could’ve prepared him for that view. Nothing until that instant could’ve persuaded him that Winnie would do anything so dishonest as to enter a church with him, speak marital vows and then take off like a bat out of hell afterwards. But there she was, the living proof of his delusional belief that she was different from the other women he had known. And the truth was that she wasn’t one bit different from her predecessors, who had convinced him that women were in no way the more delicate, honest and reliable sex, he derided grimly. In fact, she was one of the worst deceivers and the biggest fraud.

Winnie was shaking like a leaf by the time she finally boarded the yacht, perspiration marking her brow, eyes wide with apprehension, her heart pounding fit to burst. Her grandfather’s cheerful greeting made her turn angrily away. ‘Teddy?’ she began anxiously.

‘Teddy will be here in approximately thirty seconds,’ Stamboulas Fotakis assured her confidently.

But the car that drove down to the harbour was not the one the older man was apparently expecting. It was a sports car, with a child seat fitted, driven by Eros. He climbed out, whisked his sobbing son from the seat into his arms and lounged back against the bonnet of the sports car cradling the little boy with supreme cool.

‘Oh, dear heaven...’ Winnie whispered, dry-mouthed. ‘Eros knows.’

Her grandfather said something very rude in Greek about Eros’s ancestors.

‘I can’t leave,’ Winnie breathed shakily. ‘There’s no way I can leave Teddy here.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. We’ll come back for him. Nevrakis can’t guard him 24/7,’ Stam Fotakis growled. ‘Nor can he keep him from his mother.’

But Winnie was unconvinced. She studied Eros, the man she had married mere hours earlier. She didn’t need to speak to him to understand exactly what he was telling her. His message was etched in the slumberous relaxation of his lean, powerful physique as he leant back against the car and in the steady direction of his gaze. He had Teddy, and in their son he held all the cards that could possibly be played.

‘Winnie...’ Her grandfather rested a heavy hand on her rigid shoulder. ‘Listen to me.’

‘No,’ she said curtly. ‘Listening to you is where I went wrong. If I don’t go back, Eros will fight tooth and nail to keep Teddy and I will not risk losing my son.’

‘I won’t let him do that.’

‘He’s already outwitted you and you hate him. I can’t trust your promises when it comes to the well-being of the most important person in my life,’ Winnie muttered shakily, stepping back from her siblings’ attempts to offer her sympathy. ‘I’m going back.’

‘But you can’t!’ Vivi exclaimed. ‘You didn’t sign up for that!’

‘Winnie has to go back for Teddy. What else can she do now?’ Zoe groaned.

Winnie watched Eros straighten as she climbed back down into the tender that would whisk her back to shore. She watched him smile with satisfaction, the fierce gratified smile of a man who knew he had won the most important game he would ever play. It was a game very much centred on family.

She had played the same game and lost, alongside her grandfather, she acknowledged between gritted teeth, ready to spontaneously combust with anger, resentment and anxiety about the kind of welcome that awaited her on shore.