by Jane Porter
He walked back toward her, closing the distance with quiet, measured strides. Kassiani tried not to shrink as he stood directly before her, so tall that she had to tip her head back to see his face.
“You do not think highly of me,” he said quietly.
Her heart did a painful double beat even as something like desire curled in her belly. The butterflies were back, but they weren’t from fear. “I think you have underestimated the Dukas family.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
She hesitated for a long moment before looking up into his eyes. “I wouldn’t marry a man I didn’t hold in high esteem.”
He stared down at her for even longer. “I’m not much for parties, either. We’ll skip the reception and leave now.”
CHAPTER TWO
DAMEN LED HER down stairs at the back of the villa, the hidden nature of the staircase indicating they were for the staff, before exiting the villa through a plain door, arriving into the villa’s kitchen garden. They passed through herbs and fruit trees, and then turned left at an impressive beehive where they headed away from the orchard to a narrow path leading toward the water.
The path led to steep narrow stairs, and once down the wooden staircase they reached a simple dock, where a speedboat waited.
The driver of the boat offered her a hand in order to assist her into the boat, but Damen swept her into his arms and lifted her over the side, placing her inside on her feet.
She swayed in her heels, and immediately found the nearest seat.
Damen sat down opposite her and they were off, slowly at first and then picking up speed as they put distance between them and land.
The wind grabbed at her veil and Kassiani gripped the edge of her seat with one hand and tried to control her heavy veil with the other. From the water she could see the estate and villa. The estate was large, and one of the oldest on this part of the Athenian coast. The villa had been built facing the water, ensuring every room a sweeping view of the turquoise sea and the Temple of Poseidon on the hill across the water.
From their vantage point in the water, the garden glowed with soft golden white light, with fairy lights strung in trees, and candelabras glimmering on the two dozen tables, while chandeliers inside the house emphasized the high ceilings and striking architecture. From here, the wedding reception looked downright magical, and Kassiani felt a pang of regret—this wasn’t the wedding the guests had come for.
She tried to imagine their reaction when they discovered that the bride and groom were gone. She wondered how the evening would even go. Would anyone stay for the dinner once they realized there was no bride and groom? Or would others linger and dine and drink and take advantage of the splendid setting? She couldn’t help thinking that there would be some who were grateful there would be no toasts, no speeches, no protracted dinner courses. And she was certain there were others, those who truly loved Damen, who would be confused, and worried.
The wedding really turned out to be a shambles.
What had Damen called it? A farce? A charade?
She felt a twinge of guilt followed by fresh anxiety. This was all so crazy, she hadn’t really wrapped her head around anything that had taken place today. And now they were jetting off, but she had no idea where they were going. But as the cape fell farther behind, the boat suddenly slowed, drawing close to an enormous yacht in the bay, and then the engine turned off as they reached the yacht ladder at the back. Crew stood on a small platform awaiting them.
“Let’s get your shoes off,” Damen said. “I’d rather you not try to climb the stairs in those ridiculous shoes. How high are those heels anyway?”
“Too high,” she admitted, grateful to remove the shoes that had pinched her feet all afternoon.
Once they were off, Damen swung Kassiani into his arms and lifted her out, placing her on the platform. “Can you manage the stairs in that dress?” he asked.
“What are my options? Removing the dress here?” she answered.
He growled. “No.”
She almost laughed. “Then yes, I can manage the stairs in this dress.”
* * *
Her father’s yacht had been built for her mother. And her father had never understood her mother’s taste, and so the yacht had been over-the-top feminine with cream walls and gilded surfaces, floral tapestries and upholstery with horrendous columns everywhere to make the interior look like a Greek temple. Kassiani had found the superyacht garish and unappealing and she’d hated the few times her parents—she never knew which—decided they must all do a Mediterranean cruise together, trapping them on the yacht. She’d hated yachts and boats ever since, and held her breath as she was led up and down staircases and then down a narrow paneled hall toward bedrooms.
She wasn’t sure if she was being taken to a master bedroom or just any bedroom, but when the uniformed staff opened a door and stepped back for her to enter, she was fairly certain it was the master bedroom by the fact that half the room was all floor-to-ceiling walls and glass doors with a private deck and a jaw-dropping view of the Temple of Poseidon, which had now been lit for the night and the dozens of majestic columns glowed yellow. The ancient ruins were beyond beautiful and she was drawn to the view, opening one set of the French doors to step out onto the deck.
And then on the opposite side of the bay, a villa and its grand gardens glimmered with light, competing for attention. Damen’s villa.
For the first time since arriving in Greece, she felt the pull of Greece. Or maybe it was the stirring of her own Greek blood, recognizing that she’d come home. Her chest suddenly ached and she put a hand to her breast, pressing against the pain, overwhelmed by emotion.
What had she done?
“Second thoughts?” Damen’s deep voice sounded behind her.
She turned suddenly, and struggled to smile but failed. “I don’t know that I’d call them second thoughts, but certainly, this view gives me pause.” Her head tipped as she studied him. “And you? Buyer’s remorse?”
“You’re a woman, not livestock. I haven’t bought you.”
“But I’m not the woman you wanted.”
He didn’t even hesitate. “No.”
“I don’t blame you for being disappointed. Elexis is stunning.”
“She looks like your mother.”
Kassiani stifled the pain. “And I take after Dad.” She was grateful her voice sounded light, and breezy. She’d never want him to know how much it hurt being the Dukas her father called “pitiful.”
“I didn’t choose Elexis for her beauty.”
Kassiani smiled politely. She didn’t believe him for a moment. “Either way, I suppose it’s a moot point now, isn’t it?”
He looked from her to the Cape of Sounio, glowing gold with its famous marble temple built in 440 BC. It was remarkable that so much of the ancient temple remained.
“Did she ever intend to marry me?” he asked quietly.
Yes. No. Kass drew a deep breath. “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “Elexis is a bit of an enigma.”
“So there is more than what the eye sees?”
“No. The enigma is that she is just what you see. Beautiful.”
His gaze narrowed and then he gave a half shrug. “It’s been hours since breakfast. You must be starving—”
“Do I look as if I’m starving?” she interrupted with a faint smile.
He gave her another assessing glance. “I’ll have a tray sent to you.”
“Are you not eating?”
“I have things to take care of.”
He didn’t want to dine with her. Even though it was their wedding night. It shouldn’t bother her. She shouldn’t be attached to the outcome. She was here, the substitute bride, out of obligation, not affection. He was the humiliated groom. She shouldn’t be surprised that he wanted to keep his distance. “A tray would be
lovely.” She nodded toward the glowing point. “Could I eat out here?”
“I’ll have my steward set up a table.”
She started to thank him but he was already walking out, and she watched him go, a lump filling her throat. This was not going to be easy.
* * *
Damen’s office on the second deck was similar to his bedroom—a wall of windows, another wall of bookshelves and then large art pieces here and there. His oversize desk faced out, because he always preferred working with a view of the water. His parents might have preferred the land, and the olive groves they considered home, but he needed the sea. He craved the sea. It was when he faced out, toward the horizon of blue sky and blue sea, he could relax and breathe.
He ate only a few bites of his dinner before pushing it aside to concentrate on the agreements he’d pulled up on his laptop.
Agreements and contracts dating back three years, even though the discussion regarding merging Dukas and Alexopoulos began five years ago when Elexis was just graduating from college. Kristopher had been the one to approach Damen, suggesting that while each family was successful, they’d be even more powerful together, marrying the two families, and merging the two shipping empires, creating a truly remarkable empire. They’d be a world power together, controlling shipping lanes across the globe.
Damen had been intrigued but not sufficiently tempted because he knew Dukas’s reputation. Dukas’s deals could be shady as he tended to play a little too fast and loose. Damen might be ruthless, but he also knew that one’s word mattered and he ran his business with integrity.
But two years later when Damen heard that Kristopher was dangling his daughter again, trying to find another Greek shipping company as a potential partner, he acted, flying out to San Francisco to discuss mutually beneficial scenarios. All of which included marriage to Dukas’s daughter Elexis.
Damen wasn’t emotionally attached to Elexis. She was simply a means to an end. And yet when he finally met Elexis, and saw how people responded to her, he was reassured, realizing she wouldn’t just be a wife and mother to his heirs, but a valuable asset. The fact that people were drawn to her would be useful when entertaining clients. She could concentrate on the social niceties, leaving him free to focus on business.
Love never entered the equation because Damen didn’t love people. He needed certain people in his life to get things done. He respected some of those he worked with, but tended to ignore most, having very little tolerance for people’s weaknesses and idiosyncrasies. The more someone could prove beneficial, the more value he placed on them. It was cold, and unfeeling, but that was who he was and he wouldn’t ever apologize for being pragmatic and strategic.
It was what had taken him from the olive groves on Chios, to the helm of Aegean Shipping, which he renamed Alexopoulos Shipping of the Aegean after the elder Mr. Koumantaras died. The Koumantaras family wasn’t happy that Mr. Koumantaras Sr. had left control of his business to the outsider, upstart Damen Alexopoulos, but Damen felt no remorse. Koumantaras’s children had no desire to work for the family business. All they wanted was to live off the profits. So why should they care if the company changed its name?
One day Dukas Shipping would go the way of Aegean Shipping—the name would drop and the company itself would fold into the more powerful Alexopoulos Shipping.
Damen closed his laptop to look out the window at the now dark sky. At midnight the lights on the Temple of Poseidon would go out, but as it was only ten, the temple still glowed from the spotlights.
Damen tapped a finger on the arm of his chair, trying to ease the tension bottled within him. He hated how Kristopher Dukas had played him. He hated the feelings flooding him. He didn’t like it when his temper flared. He had a hot temper. He used to have a horrendous temper. It had taken years to learn how to manage his anger, but today was testing him. Today made him want to let loose, and level something.
He thought of Kassiani in the master bedroom and closed his eyes and shook his head.
He didn’t know why he’d allowed the steward to take her there. Kassiani should have been taken to a guest room. Somewhere out of his way. Somewhere he could forget her.
Instead she was in his room, waiting for his return.
His gut cramped.
He didn’t want her. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but he didn’t want her. She wasn’t the bride he’d been promised. Kristopher had promised the best daughter, and Damen had believed him, investing heavily in Dukas Shipping’s West Coast ports, building them up, buying new ships, aware that the heavy cash investment now would stabilize both of their businesses in the future. But the deal was off.
The marriage would be annulled.
And the contracts would soon be voided.
He’d already emailed his attorney to start the process of dissolution. Now it was just a matter of returning the Dukas girl to her father and moving forward the necessary legal action.
* * *
Her meal finished, Kassiani left the table and retreated inside to study the luxurious master bedroom. At least, she assumed it was the master bedroom, which meant Damen would be returning at some point, and they would be alone. Here. In the bedroom.
She, who had only pecked Damen on the lips at the chapel, needed to find the confidence to sleep with him. Correction, not sleep, but have sex with him, because if the marriage wasn’t fully consummated, Damen could annul it and then the Dukases would lose everything.
Kassiani might not be the favored daughter, but she was loyal to her family and protective of the company. She’d agreed to marry Damen so that Dukas Shipping wouldn’t be destroyed by legal actions. Damen could destroy them. His demands for restitution would bankrupt the company.
As her father baldly put it this morning—he couldn’t afford to pay Damen back. The wedding had to happen, and the marriage consummated.
Which meant Kassiani had to seduce Damen tonight. It wouldn’t be easy. She wasn’t just a virgin, but a virgin with zero experience. Before the peck in the chapel, she’d only ever been kissed once before, a bumbling fumbling kiss that had been so wet and distasteful that she’d never wanted to kiss again.
Compared to that wet, violent assault on her mouth, today’s chapel kiss had been rather exhilarating. When he’d tilted her chin up to kiss her, she’d felt a little shiver of anticipation, and he’d smelled lovely as his head dropped, his mouth brushing hers. His lips had felt firm and cool, and yet they’d somehow made her feel warm, and tingly. Her lips continued to tingle even after he’d lifted his head. She’d found herself wishing the kiss had lasted longer. She was curious as to what more would feel like, and with a longer kiss, perhaps she could process her thoughts and all the different sensations. Kass liked data and analysis. Information was immensely helpful.
More information was needed now.
How was she to seduce Damen when she had no knowledge of such things? Of course she knew what men’s bodies looked like. She didn’t live in the Dark Ages. She had a brother. She had a father. The internet was full of photographs, and movies, and she’d just have to piece together from movies what men would like.
From what she recalled, men seemed to like stripteases. They liked lap dances. They liked titillation, including women on their knees, obedient and eager to please.
Kassiani tried to imagine kneeling before Damen, her hands on his thighs, fingers moving toward the zipper of his trousers.
The image made her feel peculiar. Heat washed through her, making her skin prickle, and her breasts peak. The hot ball of tension seemed to center low in her belly, pulsing a little between her thighs. She was nervous and excited at the same time. Her entire world had been turned upside down. She’d come to Athens five days ago expecting to attend her sister’s wedding. Instead she’d been woken by her father early this morning with the news that he expected her to marry Elexis’s groom. And Kassiani, so desperate to e
arn her father’s favor, had. Now instead of returning to San Francisco, she was to remain in Greece, and make a new life for herself as Damen’s wife.
Kassiani shot a glance into the wood-framed mirror on the wall. She was still wearing Elexis’s wedding dress, and the lace panels that had been added were pulling at the seams. Even in a corset, even with the additional panels added to the dress, the gown was too tight. The fabric pulled in all the wrong places.
Kass had never let herself dream about her wedding day, but if she was being honest, she’d say it certainly wasn’t the wedding that took place today, and she certainly wouldn’t have chosen this dress...a dress that made her look even curvier and stockier with all the lace panels.
No, she would have chosen something simple—an off-the-shoulder white satin gown that minimized her bust and skimmed her hips, before falling into a long graceful skirt in the same clean white satin. There would have been no plunging necklines and no bustle and no ornate beading adding thickness and weight to the lace panels worked into the bodice and skirt.
Kassiani placed a hand to the plunging neckline, running her fingertips lightly over her curves. Her breasts were beyond voluptuous. She’d always hated the thickness of her hips and thighs, as well as the shape of her belly, somewhat round as if she practiced belly dancing regularly, instead of the hours she spent on a treadmill walking, walking, walking, forever trying to reduce her form, wanting to be lean like her mother and sister. She would never be lean.
Her exterior was what it was—it couldn’t be changed—and she was certain her new husband was disappointed, which was why she had to prove herself. She had to prove to him tonight that she fully intended to be a good wife. She’d find a way to satisfy him.