Virgin Princess's Marriage Debt

by Pippa Roscoe

  * * *

  Theo had never, ever introduced his mother to anyone he had been intimately involved with. He knew that she refused to read the articles written about him in the last two years, and only now did he realise how ashamed he felt of them. Ten years ago, he had intended to bring Sofia to his mother and...what? It was only now that he was beginning to realise that what Sofia had said on the boat was true. That what they had shared at school had been the stuff of fantasies and impossible dreams. Had she perhaps not been a princess it might have been different, but even then, Theo wasn’t quite sure.

  He almost laughed, bitterly, at the thinly fabricated future they had concocted in their minds. Even had she not been a princess, even with the scholarships, the reality was that he would have had to take one, maybe two jobs to pay for living expenses. He would have struggled just as much as he had in reality, but with her by his side. He would have spent hours, days away from her, and possibly in the end either resented that he wouldn’t have been able to provide the life he had wanted for her, or, worse, her. And she? Would have been ruined by the hard life he would have taken them to. And he couldn’t shake this feeling that perhaps what had happened was how it had been meant to be. That the very reason he’d been able to achieve such impossible success was the drive and determination that had fuelled him all these years. These thoughts struck a cruel blow as they reached the door to the small house on the border of his land.

  He’d tried so many times to entice his mother to a grander home, an easier home perhaps on one floor, with cleaners, and staff even, but she had refused, loving the little home that they had first shared when he’d initially bought this land.

  Before he could even raise his hand to the door, it swung open and he was instantly enveloped by his mother’s small frame and a stream of adoring, loving Greek spoken so quickly, even he only picked up on half the words. Within seconds both he and Sofia were being practically dragged over the threshold, straight into the small kitchen full of smells that instantly made his mouth water, and heart lurch with memories of the past.

  He looked at Sofia standing in his mother’s kitchen—a smile one of her biggest and brightest as she stood there in a pretty summer’s dress. She had told him, every inch the royal, that she refused to meet his mother in wet clothes, and they had returned to the rooms in the hotel to shower and change before coming here. But now—with no trace of any etiquette, no royal greeting on his mother’s behalf, simply welcomed through the door and into the kitchen, Sofia seemed happier than she had in all the days he’d spent with her.

  Aggeliki was tactile, even for a Greek mother, and he marvelled at how Sofia—usually protected by a dozen bodyguards from anything even close to physical contact—was taking all the touching and hugging. His mother was asking her about how she liked the vineyard, and he was about to translate, when Sofia, along with a surprising amount of gesturing, managed to explain that she liked it very much. In Greek. When had she learned Greek? he wondered. She was doing fairly well, but every now and then had to defer to him for the translation of a few words, and after he’d warned his mother to slow down they seemed to be able to understand much of what was said between them. Their evening became a strange mix of Greek, English and the occasional French, when even English wouldn’t do.

  They sat outside at a wooden table beneath a pergola almost buckling under the weight of the stunning bougainvillea they had planted when they had first bought the land. Aggeliki had lit citronella candles the moment she had seen Sofia’s pale skin, knowing that the mosquitos would love nothing more than to feast on the perfect blood in her veins, and the lemony scent hung in the warm night air as they feasted on the numerous dishes Theo’s mother had produced.

  He watched his mother and Sofia, heads bent together almost conspiratorially, and realised that he could not go through with his plan for revenge. He had told Aggeliki that he was to be married, but had refused to sink so low in his mother’s expectations as to admit the truth behind his actions. He couldn’t help but feel a sense of rightness as he watched the two women together, forging a relationship in the way he’d once imagined ten years ago.

  He hadn’t missed the way that Sofia had been nervous about meeting his mother, but hadn’t managed to reassure her that she didn’t have to worry, that he’d never revealed the source of his shame. Because he’d been so consumed by the way the blame he’d laid at her feet—which had once been on such on solid ground—was now shifting.

  Sofia sat back in her chair, more full of food than she could ever remember being in her entire life. She had tried to help Theo’s mother take the plates away, but she had shooed her with hand gestures, firmly keeping her in the seat, and Sofia had reluctantly stifled her manners.

  For just a moment it was her and Theo, his brooding gaze on her, glimmering in the darkness—the thin shadows cast by the little citronella candles enough to create warmth but not quite illumination. Not that she needed it. She knew every millimetre of his face, his features etched in her heart for ever ten years before—she’d only had to let herself remember them. For one moment, barely the space of a heartbeat, there was peace between them. Peace and something she’d dare not put a name to. Because if she lost it again, she didn’t think she’d survive.

  Aggeliki returned to the table with even more food, this time the scent of sweetness hitting Sofia hard and making her mouth water.

  She laughed, ‘What is all this?’

  ‘This is dessert!’ Theo’s mother proudly claimed as she put down the tray covered with enough sweet treats to feed an army. She also noticed on the tray a small plate with a number of pills and frowned as she watched Aggeliki take them with a mouthful of water in between each one. She raised a brow at Theo, who had yet to take his eyes from his mother, now swallowing down the last one, but Aggeliki must have caught the look.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she said, rubbing warmth into Sofia’s cold hand. ‘It’s nothing. I am fine,’ she said with smiling reassurance, but it did nothing to ease the concern building in Sofia’s chest.

  ‘My mother...she had a heart attack and was treated and is now—as she says—better than ever.’ Sofia didn’t call him on the brief pause that spoke of his own concern, instead focusing on what she needed to know.

  ‘When?’

  Theo shrugged and shook his head. But she wouldn’t let it go that easily.

  ‘When did it happen?’ she asked, purposefully gentling her tone.

  ‘Five years ago,’ he said, refusing to meet her gaze.

  Something cold and hard twisted in her chest and ached for him, for his mother, for her own selfish actions. From what he had told her earlier in the vineyard, he’d barely won his first vintner’s award. He may have had some success at that point, and she didn’t know much about the Greek healthcare system, but knew enough. Enough that meant it would have nearly crippled them financially, especially with a fledgling business underway, not to mention the hard work and struggle that it must have taken to be torn between a sick parent and full-time duty. Yes. She knew enough about that to know what it must have cost him.

  She searched her mind for the words that would explain how she felt, how truly sorry she was, but they wouldn’t come. They didn’t have to. Finally Theo met her gaze and she knew that what he saw in her eyes was enough. He nodded, as if he’d understood, all the while his mother explaining the different types of dessert she wanted Sofia to try. And, as full as she was, Sofia would take a bit of each and every one of them.

  This time, when it came to clearing the table, she ignored Aggeliki and helped the woman back into the small kitchen with the empty plates and coffee cups from the end of their meal. She liked this small room, how homely it felt, how easy it was just to prepare a meal and eat—rather than the impersonal feeling of a meal served to her each and every night, alone in a dining room big enough to seat twenty. Usually she brought her laptop, immersed herself in work to avoid t
he stark realisation that she was alone, that her mother and father had retreated to another estate far away from the palace. There was no laughter, as there had been this night, no gentle teasing or recounting of family stories, or praise of Theo’s successes...and it hurt in a way she had never allowed herself to feel before.

  As she glanced around the beautiful little kitchen, her eyes caught on an old black and white photo of Aggeliki and a man standing beside each other, with easy smiles and laughter in their eyes.

  ‘Oh,’ she gasped, moving towards it. ‘This is such a beautiful picture of you, Aggeliki. Is this Theo’s father?’

  It was as if the temperature in the room had dropped.

  ‘No. It is Nikos. We don’t speak of my father. Ever.’

  The words were in English, and even though she didn’t think Aggeliki had translated them in her mind, Theo’s reaction couldn’t have been more clear. Especially when he retrieved his phone and left the kitchen.

  She felt Aggeliki rub her arm softly and smile.

  ‘It wasn’t you,’ she said in Greek. ‘He doesn’t...’ She shook her head sadly, as if trying to find the words. ‘He never got over it. The way his father left. I tried...to give him everything, to be everything for him. But,’ she said with a shrug of her shoulder, ‘he is a man. A man needs a father. For a while in Switzerland...’ Sofia didn’t need Aggeliki to fill in the gap—clearly her boss, the man who had paid for Theo’s education, had been a father figure to him. ‘But look at him now,’ she said, calling Sofia back to the present, to look at him through the window. ‘And look at what you both have. It is a joy to me, Sofia. Efcharistó.’

  For the first time since they had arrived, Sofia began to wish that she hadn’t come. That she hadn’t seen the pain and the struggle that Theo had been through since he had been expelled from the boarding school. Because finally Theo had got his wish. She was learning about the consequences of her actions.

  CHAPTER TEN

  SOFIA LEANED BACK in the plush cream leather seats of Theo’s private jet, hating the way that her stomach dipped and swayed with the plane. The single air stewardess made her way down the short aisle on very long legs and retrieved the empty glasses and plates from the table between her and Theo.

  ‘Efcharistó,’ she said, forcing a smile she didn’t feel for the woman.

  ‘You didn’t tell me you could speak Greek,’ he said, the curve of his lips a rueful smile.

  ‘You didn’t tell me that your mother had had a heart attack,’ she replied, shocking them both. She hadn’t meant to say the words. Hadn’t meant to bring up the subject she had hardly forgotten for a moment from the night before. Hadn’t meant for the smile on his lips to die away.

  ‘No. I didn’t.’

  Several times, Sofia tried to let loose the words that clogged her throat and failed. But she couldn’t leave it at that. She had to know.

  ‘Is that...was that one of the consequences you felt I needed to learn?’

  He studied her, half-lidded eyes masking a whole host of emotions she desperately wanted to see the truth of.

  ‘It was not your fault.’

  ‘That is not what I asked.’

  ‘I don’t hold you responsible for what happened to my mother, Sofia.’

  ‘But did you?’

  The silence that fell between them was enough of an answer that she thought he would not speak of it again. Instead, she turned to look out of the small round window as the sprawling emerald-green stretches of Iondorran land came into view. Her country. Her home. The decisions she’d made to protect them now illuminated under the cost of her actions.

  ‘Neither of us has had it easy, Sofia. The decisions we felt forced to make, each for other people. But this?’ he said, the gesture between them drawing her gaze back to his. ‘You and me? Our marriage? This is a decision that we make now, for ourselves,’ he said. And she wondered at the vehemence in his tone, wondered who he might have been trying to convince...her or himself. ‘It is one that I want very much,’ he added, and his words soothed some of the ache that had taken up residence in her heart as he reached for her hand and drew the cool skin against the warmth of his palm.

  She felt the rough calluses on his skin, marvelled at the texture as they spoke more of the hard work Theo had done than he admitted to. She knew that the fact he no longer resented her for the past should be enough, but despite the admittance she could feel a hurt emanating from him. A deeper, harder one than before.

  ‘Do you remember my first prank? Do you remember what caused it?’

  ‘I didn’t think you needed a cause, Sofia, I thought you enjoyed playing Puck.’

  ‘You thought me “shrewd and knavish”?’

  ‘I thought you many things back then, Sofia. But yes, your first prank—on Benjamin Reneux, I remember. It was the first time that I saw you. Holding back tears of laughter as he howled in horror when he opened the door to his locker to find everything covered in honey—his blazer, his books, his homework. You looked at me, and all I could see was you. You shone, in the dim corridor beside the Great Hall.’

  Sofia nodded. ‘It was not the first time I had seen you though.’ She smiled, a sad smile. ‘I had seen how the others treated you. How Benjamin treated you. The names he called you, the way even the teachers expected you to cause trouble, to be the first to throw a punch—’

  ‘Well, I usually was the first to throw a punch...’

  ‘No. You always threw the second one. I watched. I saw.’

  Theo looked away as if no longer wanting to take this trip down memory lane. Unconsciously he rubbed his chest, seemingly trying to soothe an age-old ache.

  ‘I hated it. The way they behaved towards you.’

  ‘It was hardly less than what I had already experienced at the hands of my cousins, or...’

  ‘Or the people who should have cared for you most.’

  ‘Sofia, I don’t want—’

  ‘Did you ever look for your father?’

  This time her name was growled on his lips like a warning.

  ‘Do you know why he left?’

  ‘He left because he was weak, because he was a coward who ran away from his responsibilities.’

  ‘You were not just a responsibility.’

  ‘What do you want me to say? That it hurt to know that my father never wanted me? That he ruined my mother and her happiness? That I swore never to be like him, only to grow into a young man who caused her more pain?’

  ‘Is that what you think? That you caused your mother pain? That is not—’

  ‘You know nothing of this. And I will not speak of it again.’

  * * *

  The gala was being held at La Sereine, a Michelin-starred hotel sitting on the edge of Lac du Peridot. As Theo leaned against the balcony looking out at the stunning sight, he tried with all his might to focus on the two large mountains in the distance meeting just at the horizon of the stunning lake, a vista of every shade of green stretching out before it. Further upstream, he’d been told, was a small town nestled around the top of a giant waterfall, feeding the river that wound its way through Iondorra to Callier.

  But despite all this glory, all he could see, all he could hear were the faces and taunts of his past. He’d been shocked by Sofia’s revelation—that the pranks he had so loved about her once, and then vehemently hated, had been started in retaliation against the behaviour he had received. That, all the while he’d thought to be the one who’d noticed her first, she had been there, watching him without his knowledge, and had seen him without being seen.

  Somehow he felt both stunned and cheated. Cheated as if suddenly Sofia was reframing everything he thought he knew.

  ‘Did you ever look for your father? Do you know why he left?’

  He hadn’t been able to answer her. Because yes, he did know why his father had left. His cousins had enj
oyed taunting him with it. Older by several years, they had relished and recounted with venomous glee the story of the words he had hurled at his mother.

  The story that his father had run from his mother, from the village, the same night he had been born. That he had refused to be weighed down by a child. His cousins had called him bástardos—bastard—for almost his entire childhood. And every time his mother had been shunned, every time his mother had been tutted at, or stared at, in the village, he knew he was the cause of it. And then later, when he had been expelled, Theo had felt as if it was happening all over again. That he had thrust shame upon his loving mother who had tried so desperately to compensate for the absence of his father, for the lack of security in their lives. So he had done everything he could, since then, to make sure that she would never feel shame or want again.

  A knock sounded against the door to the suites he’d been given within the hotel, pulling him from his thoughts. A knock that sounded more like the nail on a lid that he was banging down against the memories of his father, of his childhood.

  He had just walked back inside from the balcony, when he let out a bark of surprised laughter, put down the glass of whisky and greeted his friend in a warm hug.

  ‘Sebastian! What are you doing here, my friend?’ he asked.

  Sebastian’s grin matched his own as he explained that Sofia had arranged for him and his sister, Maria, to be in attendance for this evening’s gala and for them to stay in Iondorra with Theo until the wedding. Theo poured them both drinks and, before settling down into the luxurious sofa, Theo couldn’t resist one more hug. He had needed this. Had Sofia known he would? Was that why she had gathered up his closest friend and brought Seb to him?

  ‘What is this? You getting soft on me? All this talk of romance—’

  Theo laughed again, shoving at Seb before sitting down.