by Lynne Graham
‘It’s not a short skirt,’ Lucy remarked, knowing his flaws.
‘No, it’s not,’ Jax agreed, wishing she hadn’t directed his attention to her pale slender thighs and knees because it only made him think about the sheer glory of parting them. Furiously conscious of his growing desire, Jax rocked forward, his lean, strong face taut, green eyes semi screened by his lashes.
‘You said you wanted to talk.’ Lucy widened her eyes suspiciously. ‘Was that a joke?’
‘No…’ Silence fell while Lucy munched through her third sandwich. ‘We have a dilemma and I have come up with a solution,’ he spelled out in a roughened undertone as the tip of her tongue chased a crumb from the corner of her mouth.
‘Bella isn’t a dilemma. She isn’t and never will be a problem,’ Lucy assured him quietly. ‘I’m not going to be difficult about you seeing her or anything like that.’
Jax breathed in deep, striving to make himself get to the point and bite the bullet. ‘If we married, we would be in a position to give Bella far more.’
Lucy put down her sandwich unfinished. ‘Married?’ she repeated in consternation. ‘But you don’t ever want to get married.’
‘I didn’t plan to have a child either,’ Jax reminded her. ‘But Bella is here now and that changes the whole picture. I want to give her what I didn’t have. A mother, a father and a settled home, all the security that only a traditional family structure can give her.’
Lucy was stunned because she had never dreamt that she would live to hear Jax admit a desire to embrace such conventional ideas. ‘Neither of us had that,’ she conceded unevenly. ‘But life isn’t perfect and that’s the way it is—’
‘But we can change that,’ Jax sliced in forcefully. ‘We don’t have to live apart when we could raise Bella together, as a married couple.’
Lucy blinked rapidly, her heart in her mouth, her feet flexing because nervous tension made her want to get up and walk round the room. ‘Together?’ she repeated in bewilderment.
‘We can get married and make a home for our daughter, the kind of home neither of us had the advantage of growing up in,’ Jax extended with unearthly calm.
‘I don’t know much about your background. Well, I know your parents divorced when you were young but—’
Jax stiffened. ‘You already know that my mother was unstable and not a reliable parent. Men came and went in her life. None of them ever stayed. She was too high maintenance. I don’t want our daughter to have to adapt to that kind of lifestyle.’
‘With respect,’ Lucy said uncomfortably, ‘I’m not a world-famous, gorgeous actress and I don’t think my lifestyle and your mother’s would have anything in common.’
Jax released his breath in a small hiss of frustration. ‘Do you really believe that your life is going to stay the same now that I know you are raising my daughter?’ he pressed in disbelief. ‘Do you honestly believe that you can go on working as a waitress and living with your father? Obviously I will take care of all your expenses now—’
‘No,’ Lucy broke in with a frown. ‘I don’t want that.’
‘But that’s what will happen whether you like it or not. Naturally I want my daughter to enjoy the same lifestyle that I enjoy myself and I can’t believe that you would deny her what she is entitled to receive. Bella is an Antonakos,’ Jax reminded her with pride.
‘Yes but…’ Lucy’s voice ran out of steam as she began to think about everything he had said.
He was asking her to marry him. Jax Antonakos was asking her to marry him, offering her the dream conclusion she had once secretly cherished and then buried deep two years earlier. For the space of several frantic minutes Lucy could only stare down into her tea and struggle to come to terms with a proposal she had never expected to receive. A home, two parents and a real family for Bella. That truly was the ultimate ideal for Lucy when it came to her daughter. Her mother had ended up alone raising Lucy and Lucy had ended up alone in the care system because the authorities had failed to trace Kreon. Sometimes she hated herself for making the same mistake with Bella and having to bring her up without a father.
‘Are you serious about this?’ Lucy asked breathlessly.
‘Of course,’ Jax asserted levelly.
‘But you never wanted to get married,’ Lucy reminded him helplessly.
‘And then Bella came along and turned everything upside down,’ Jax confessed with complete honesty. ‘This is no longer only about you and me. We have to think about our daughter and about what would make her happy.’
‘Unhappily married parents wouldn’t help,’ Lucy pointed out apologetically.
‘I see no reason why we shouldn’t make a go of it. Even sitting here having a serious conversation I can barely keep my hands off you,’ Jax admitted bluntly, his stunning green gaze glittering across her heart-shaped face and watching the flush of awareness slowly build there. ‘And if you’re honest, it’s the same for you.’
Lucy dragged her attention from his sleek, darkly beautiful features with the greatest difficulty. But trying to blank her mind, trying not to look at him was no use when the hunger inside her felt like an insidious virus that refused to die. And she knew what the cure was and that unnerved her. The only cure she knew was the wild, pounding plunge of his body into hers and the explosive release he would give her. And even that wasn’t a permanent fix, she thought shamefacedly. She had once craved him as she craved air to breathe. She set her tea down with a jarring crack on the coffee table, her hand trembling.
‘Look at me,’ Jax urged, breaking the smouldering silence.
And Lucy looked even though she knew she shouldn’t, desire clawing at her insides, awakening the yearning buried deep within her body. A ragged breath escaped her, her pulses racing. Her breasts ached but the biggest ache of all was between her legs, at the very heart of her where she was burning with need. That voracious need that hungered for his touch terrified her because it was so ready to rage out of control and sweep all restraint and all common sense before it.
‘We’re getting married as soon as it can be arranged,’ Jax decreed.
Her head flew up. ‘You can’t just—’
‘One of us needs to be decisive. You want to bury your head in the sand and run away from the responsibility.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘We do it for Bella. Together we make a family,’ Jax intoned.
‘It’s not that simple.’
‘Nothing worth having is ever easily acquired,’ Jax said drily. ‘Everything worthwhile I have ever achieved has come at a cost and there have always been sacrifices involved. Are you willing to make sacrifices for Bella’s benefit?’
Lucy leapt upright in frustration. ‘Jax! Stop trying to railroad me!’
‘In a couple of days the paparazzi will be on to us. I want to pre-empt them with a wedding, a big splashy wedding, which they won’t be expecting,’ he told her grimly. ‘They’ll be happy enough to settle for wedding photos.’
‘Do you really want to do this?’ Lucy whispered shakily.
‘I want you. I want my daughter. To give her what we both want, to give her what she deserves, we have to get married,’ Jax countered with measured cool. ‘I can handle that. Can you?’
And Lucy thought about that, really seriously thought about that even though her brain did not feel up to that challenge. Even when she had dreamt about marrying Jax two years earlier she had known it was only a dream because Jax had seen too many relationships break down to have any faith in the marriage bond. He had admitted that to her in Spain and afterwards he had seemed unnerved by what he had told her and he had cut their evening short.
‘We will fight,’ Jax forecast. ‘But we’re good at making up again.’
Lucy flushed and nodded jerkily and he laughed huskily for they had always ended up in bed after arguments, taking refuge in the sexual unity that bridged their differences.
‘And if you don’t want to give up work after we’re married I’ll make a specia
l arrangement for you,’ Jax murmured lazily. ‘I’ll buy a bar and I will be the only customer and you can serve me to your heart’s content.’
‘You say the craziest things,’ Lucy muttered, shaking her head while locked to the stunning green eyes gleaming below his black lashes.
‘I will say whatever I have to say to get that ring on your finger,’ Jax admitted truthfully. ‘The world’s your oyster tonight, koukla mou.’
But Jax was no perfect pearl for her to acquire, she thought helplessly. Jax was complicated and reserved and unpredictable. Living with Jax would not be easy; it would be a roller coaster of highs and lows. Yet didn’t she want to take the chance? It was a chance she had never thought she would have. Yes, Jax had treated her badly in the past but marriage was an equal partnership and this time around she wouldn’t have to surrender her independence or her self-respect because money wouldn’t be an issue. Giving her daughter the secure and loving childhood she had not had herself would mean so much to her. How could she refuse that offer?
‘I’ll marry you,’ Lucy breathed tautly. ‘But you’d better not make me regret it.’
Thinking of the secrets he had withheld and the complete honesty that he would eventually have to practise, Jax breathed in deep. He had given way to blackmail to protect his family but in marrying, he acknowledged grimly, he would be protecting his new family from potential harm as well.
‘I should be honest,’ Lucy murmured, her blue eyes awash with regret and apology. ‘I don’t trust you.’
Jax, who had learned never to trust anyone, particularly one’s nearest and dearest, almost laughed out loud. Lucy would flourish like a tropical flower in the Antonakos family.
CHAPTER SIX
EVEN A FEW days before the wedding Lucy still couldn’t quite accept that she was getting married. She was very tense and stressed. Jax had insisted on picking up the bill for the hundreds of guests invited and her father had been dismayed to discover that he was only allowed to cover his daughter’s more personal expenses. In the same way Jax had organised the church and the venue for the reception.
And he had done all of that from a safe distance, leaving Lucy to handle her father’s hurt pride and angry complaints. Jax, after all, was the man who had never planned to marry and since the moment Lucy had agreed to marry him Jax had come no closer to the centre of bridal activity than a phone call because he had hired a wedding planner to take care of everything. Lucy had had the freedom to make her own choices but had relied heavily on the planner’s advice because she knew nothing about high-society weddings. Her brain was still stuffed, however, with the turmoil of selecting flowers, colour schemes and table arrangements from frighteningly long lists of options and having to discuss every possibility.
Iola had gone shopping with Lucy for a dress and Jax had been allowed no input there. Lucy had gone for lace and a fancy pleated train that would be removable if she was dancing and she had picked the sweetest little outfit for Bella.
It was ironic that Jax had pretty much vanished as soon as she’d accepted his proposal and that had really annoyed Lucy. He had said that he had too much work to get through and he had only visited the house once when she had insisted he come and meet her father and her stepmother. That had been a very awkward hour of stilted conversation, she recalled ruefully. Jax had been very cool and polite and her father had been stiff and formal. Iola and Lucy’s efforts to lighten the atmosphere had made little difference. It had been painfully obvious to Lucy that her father and her bridegroom didn’t much like the look of each other.
And then there was the troubling question of her future fatherin-law, Heracles Antonakos.
Lucy had assumed that Jax’s father would want to meet her in advance but apparently not, and Jax did not seem to know whether or not his father would attend their wedding, an admission that had made her wince. Obviously, Heracles Antonakos was not impressed by his son’s decision to marry a waitress and he wanted nothing to do with the event. But Jax refused to be drawn on the sensitive subject and had urged her to be patient.
‘It’s a delivery…for you,’ Iola called up the stairs to Lucy.
Lucy clattered downstairs and signed for the package she was given, turning it over and back before walking into the kitchen to open it. She extracted a letter and a small jewellery box and frowned.
‘Is it a wedding present?’ Iola asked.
‘No…it’s from some woman called Polly, who says she’s one of my sisters,’ Lucy whispered in deep shock, reading the closely typed lines to learn that her mother had only passed away a few years before at a hospice and commenting on the fact to Iola.
‘I always assumed that Mum had died when I was a child…possibly during the three years I was adopted because of course I wouldn’t have been told about it then,’ Lucy confided. ‘But according to my sisters they too only found out about her death afterwards because she didn’t want to see any of us while she was so ill. But she left us all rings given to her by our fathers…and it was only then that my sisters found out that I existed.’
‘Strange,’ Iola commented. ‘But if she was very ill, possibly she wasn’t thinking very clearly. Is there a ring in that box?’
Lucy opened the box and extracted a small ruby ring with a smile. ‘It’s very pretty. I’ll wear it when I get married. It’s wonderful to have something that my mother actually wore,’ she murmured with a sad look in her eyes.
‘Read the rest of the letter,’ her stepmother urged. ‘Tell me about your sisters.’
Unfortunately Polly didn’t offer much information beyond the fact that she was married and had children just like Lucy’s other sister, Ellie, who was a doctor. What she did say was that she and Ellie very much wanted to meet Lucy and get to know her.
‘She couldn’t have chosen a worse time to contact me,’ Lucy mumbled, settling down to read the letter again. ‘She hasn’t given me an address or anything but she has given me a phone number, which I could use to talk to her.’
‘You could invite your sisters to your wedding,’ Iola suggested.
Lucy grimaced. ‘No. I don’t know them and I don’t think Polly knows I’m a mother as well either. It would all be too awkward for a first meeting and in any case they would need more warning than a few days to attend. I’ll call her as soon as we get back from our honeymoon. But my goodness, this is exciting,’ she muttered abstractedly. ‘I wonder what Polly and Ellie are like. Do I look like them? Do you think they have the same father?’
Kreon walked in and Lucy handed him the letter straight away to read. He stared down at the ring on the table and then he lifted it. ‘I gave this to Annabel as an engagement ring. It’s not a real ruby, you know, but it looks well. It was all I could afford at the time—’
Lucy laughed and removed it from his hand. ‘I will still wear it with pride, Dad.’
‘You have your mother’s bright and beautiful smile,’ Kreon told her fondly. ‘But you have a kindness as well, which she never had.’
‘Maybe I inherited that from you,’ Lucy replied, watching her daughter hug her grandfather’s knees and raise her arms to be lifted with all the confidence of a child who knew she could always expect a welcome.
Lucy couldn’t sleep that night. Jax phoned and she told him about Polly’s letter. It shook her that her most driving instinct was to share that very private news with Jax even when he wasn’t around. But then Jax knew better than most about complex family divisions, she reasoned, shying away from the inner awareness that she trusted Jax more and wanted to share everything with him more than she was willing to admit.
Jax urged her to do nothing until he had checked out her sisters and she got cross with him then and told him to mind his own business. Not that he could do anything else, she conceded, when there wasn’t enough personal information in that letter to allow Lucy or indeed Jax to identify either of her sisters or even work out where they lived. Polly had kept the letter short and sweet as a first approach and Lucy’s mind buzzed with
conjecture about the siblings she had never met.
Some of her excitement gradually subsided, however, when she thought about Ellie being an actual doctor. Ellie was obviously very well-educated and clever and possibly Polly was as well. Lucy could well be the odd one out, the lesser sister, the oddball who didn’t fit in. That idea troubled Lucy because it seemed to her that that was the story of her entire life: never quite fitting in anywhere. Not with her mother, not in the foster homes, not even in the short-lived adoption she had enjoyed until her adoptive parents died in a car crash and she was sent back into care. And she hadn’t fitted in with Jax either, had she? He had dumped her and walked away without a backward glance. Yet now, he was marrying her. How did that make sense?
He was only marrying her for Bella’s benefit, she reminded herself, feeling her pride sting and her heart sink at that awareness. Could their desire to do well by their daughter be enough to sustain a marriage? Lucy didn’t want make-believe and she didn’t believe in perfect. She believed that she had realistic expectations. But she did desperately want to have a real marriage and be part of a proper family. It was what she had dreamt of all her life and never managed to achieve. Now that Jax was offering her that opportunity she planned to make the most of it.
The morning of the wedding dawned bright and sunny and, having done her hair and her make-up for herself, Lucy donned her gown. It was a perfect fit, swirling round her in delicate shimmering white lace. As a mother she had felt self-conscious about wearing white but she hadn’t felt the need to make a statement either by choosing another colour. In any case she was marrying the man who had become her first lover and the father of her daughter and she wasn’t ashamed of either fact.
A heaving bunch of paparazzi waited behind crash barriers outside the vast Metropolitan Cathedral in the city where the Greek Orthodox ceremony was being held. Lucy was unnerved by the questions shouted and the flash of cameras and she gripped her father’s arm tightly as they negotiated the shallow steps and moved below the arches into the church.