“Ah, but what galls him is that if my tastes also ran to gaudy, ostentatious jewelry, I could afford a bigger, better, flashier diamond than his.”
Again she shook her head. “I’m not following you, Dimitrios. This isn’t about jewelry, so why don’t you start at the beginning and tell me what’s really going on?”
“All right. My father made his first million when he was twenty-one. By the time I was born, eight years later, he’d increased that amount ten times over, and I grew up watching him wield his assets like a weapon to control everyone around him. I saw my mother change from a vivacious, beautiful woman to a passive, listless creature unable to decide what color shoes to wear, without consulting him first. I grew to despise him and pity her, and I’m not sure which I found more distasteful.”
“Your mother struck me as a very gentle soul, Dimitrios,” Brianna said softly, “and from the little I saw, I think it breaks her heart that she’s alienated from you.”
“That’s her choice.”
“Perhaps, but it’s a choice no woman should have to make. Is there no possibility of a reconciliation between you?”
“Not as long as my father’s alive. He’d never permit it.”
“Why not? Surely he must be proud of you? You’re smart, successful, respected.”
“Despite him, not because of him, and that’s the real problem in a nutshell, Brianna. I learned at a very early age that there are no free lunches with my father. Sooner or later, for every so-called ‘favor’ he conferred, he’d present me with a bill which was more than I was prepared to pay. So I severed the family ties and struck out on my own.”
“I’d have thought that would make him proud of you.”
“Wrong, wrong, wrong, karthula mou! Certain I couldn’t possibly succeed without the almighty Mihalis Poulos to back me, he waited for me to fail and come crawling back to him.”
“Poulos? Where did Giannakis come from?”
“My maternal grandmother. I changed my name when I turned eighteen. Anyhow, when I proved him wrong and succeeded past anything he ever envisioned, he punished me by becoming my biggest, most ferocious business competitor who’d strip me of every euro I own if he could.”
“Obviously, he hasn’t succeeded.”
“Fortunately not. My brain is even more agile than his and I remain one step ahead of him at all times.”
“Then you can afford to be generous and drop a vendetta which serves no purpose except to hurt your mother.”
“I could.” He swirled the brandy in its glass and took another mouthful. “But I won’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m a proud man, Brianna,” he said flatly. “I don’t beg, I don’t forgive easily, and I never forget.”
She regarded him pensively a moment. “What about Poppy? Doesn’t she deserve to know her grandparents?”
The old, familiar rage rose up, turning the brandy sour in his stomach. “You just saw the kind of man my father is. Do you really think he gives a rat’s ass about my child?”
“He never goes to see her? Never asks about her?”
“Never.”
“Your mother, either?”
He let out a bark of laughter as bitter as bile. “Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said, Brianna? My mother daren’t even sneeze without his say-so.”
“I don’t understand any of this.” She slumped in her seat, the picture of dejection. “Families are supposed to unite in times of trouble. Look how it brought us together again.”
“You have a heart, Brianna. Underneath my reputedly hard-bitten, ruthless tycoon exterior, so do I. I can’t say the same for my father.”
“Even hard-bitten, ruthless tycoons are supposed to be putty in the hands of their grandchildren.”
“In an ideal world, maybe. Not in mine.”
She bit her lip. “No wonder you hate him.”
“I don’t hate him,” he was quick to reply. “I refuse to expend the energy it would take. I simply ignore him.”
As though to put the lie to his claim, a burst of laughter at his parents’ table rolled through the room, and glancing over, he found his father’s malevolent gaze fixed on him and Brianna. She noticed it, too, and flinched.
Once upon a time, in his reckless youth, he’d have reacted by hurling himself across the room and smashing his fist into that sneering face. Now he contented himself by trading stare for stare and said evenly, “Don’t let him upset you, my darling. He’s not worth it. Would you like more coffee, or something a bit stronger to get rid of the bad taste he’s left in your mouth?”
She shook her head miserably. “If you don’t mind, Dimitrios, I’d really like to get out of here.”
“Of course.” Reaching for her hand, he brought it to his lips. Across the room, his father watched, his lip curled in amused disdain.
While Dimitrios signed for the meal, Brianna escaped to the ladies’ room and sank down on the bench before the mirrored vanity. Her face stared back at her, pale and shocked.
She’d come across her fair share of jealousy and dislike over the years. Professional sabotage, even. In the competitive, unforgiving world of high fashion, success inevitably bred some resentment among those less fortunate. But never had she been the target of the kind of vitriolic loathing Mihalis Poulos had leveled at his only son.
Dimitrios was right, she decided, taking a tube of lip gloss from her purse. The man was toxic and the less they had to do with him, the better.
Just then the door opened and Hermione Poulos slipped into the room. Since they were the only two women present, there was no possible way Brianna could pretend she hadn’t seen her. But nor was there any point in lingering and making a tense situation worse, so capping her lip gloss, she dropped it back in her purse and stood up to leave.
Hermione, though, prevented her with an urgent hand on her arm. “Parakalo, Despinis Connelly,” she practically whimpered, her big brown eyes filled with pleading, “may I have a word?”
Loyalty to Dimitrios told Brianna she should refuse and keep going, but short of pushing the poor woman aside, she had little choice but to stop. “I don’t see that we have anything to say to one another, Mrs. Poulos. We certainly have nothing in common.”
“We both care deeply about my son, you as the woman who is to become his wife, and I as his mother.”
“I’m not sure he believes the latter.”
Hermione blinked back the tears welling in her eyes. “He has told you that we are estranged?”
“I more or less figured that out for myself, but yes, he elaborated on the story. We have no secrets from each other.”
“Then let me share another one with you that he might not be aware of. A father might qualify his love for his child, but a mother’s love is unconditional and eternal. She might not always approve of the things he does or the choices he makes, but she will always hold her child close in her heart.”
Not in my experience, Brianna thought.
“Perhaps,” Hermione concluded, “one day, my dear, you will discover that for yourself.”
Sympathy warring with impatience, Brianna said, “Why are you telling me this? Dimitrios is the one you should be talking to.”
“I would, if he would listen, but that’s not why I asked to speak with you.” Her thin, desperate fingers tightened around Brianna’s arm. “Tell me, please, how is Poppy? Will she ever be well again?”
“We’re hopeful that she will, yes.”
“She remains at the Rosegarth?”
“Yes.”
“I wish that I could see her.”
Impatience winning out over sympathy, Brianna said, “You could, if you chose, Mrs. Poulos. All you have to do is show up. There are no bars on her room. She’s in hospital, not prison.”
“Mihalis will not permit it.”
“Your husband can’t stop you, not if you really want to see her, so what you’re really saying is that pandering to him matters more to you than giving your sick little grand
daughter an hour of your time.”
Hermione’s mouth trembled and her hand fell away from Brianna’s arm. “You make me ashamed,” she quavered. “I wish I had your fortitude. But my husband—”
“Is a bully, Mrs. Poulos, and he gets away with it because you let him,” Brianna replied bluntly. “Why don’t you try standing up to him, for a change? You’d be surprised how much it would boost your confidence, not to mention your self-esteem. Who knows, it might even earn the respect of the son you claim to love so devotedly.”
“It isn’t easy.”
“Not many things worth having ever are. It all boils down to how hard you’re willing to fight for them. And now, if you’ll excuse me, Dimitrios is waiting to take me home.”
“You were in the ladies’ room a long time,” he remarked, as they headed back along the road to the villa. “I was beginning to think you were being held hostage.”
“In a way I was. Your mother cornered me.”
He stiffened, his hands suddenly gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. “I’m surprised my father risked letting her off her leash and out of his sight. What did she want?”
“To know how Poppy is.”
“I hope you told her to mind her own business.”
“I couldn’t do that, Dimitrios. She was so upset and seemed genuinely worried. But I did suggest she could always visit Poppy and see for herself how she’s doing.”
At that, he hit the brakes with such force that the car nearly skidded off the road. “You did what?”
“I told her, if she was all that interested, she should go to the clinic and find out for herself.”
“You had no right, Brianna!” he said, his words a whiplash of contained fury. “No right at all to interfere in something that’s none of your concern.”
“I thought Poppy was my concern,” she shot back. “That by volunteering to donate bone marrow, I’d earned the right to make her my concern.”
“One thing’s got nothing to do with the other. I decide who gets to spend time with my daughter, not you.”
“I see.” She swallowed painfully, her throat so thick suddenly, it almost choked her.
“No, you don’t,” he snapped, stepping on the accelerator again and racing the last few hundred yards to the gates of his estate. “You don’t have the first idea what’s really going on here.”
“Why don’t you enlighten me, then, Dimitrios? Or does my being a model make me such an airhead that I couldn’t possibly understand the intricate workings of your superior mind?”
He slammed on the brakes a second time and killed the engine. In the beat of silence that followed, she heard a gust of frustration escape his lips as he wrestled with his inner demons. Then, his anger at last subsiding, he turned to her in the moonlight and stroked a conciliatory hand down her cheek. “It’s complicated, Brianna, okay? Let’s just leave it at that. Look, we’re home and it’s a beautiful night. Don’t let what happened at the club spoil things. Let’s forget about my parents and take a walk on the beach, and talk about our wedding and the future.”
All around them, huge urns of fresh flowers glowed like stars in the moonlight, ready for tomorrow’s garden party. A striped tent stood on the far lawn. Chairs swagged in white linen clustered around small tables with floral centerpieces. Stephanotis and gardenias scented the air.
No question but that the setting was perfect. The Garden of Eden recreated to Dimitrios Giannakis’s exacting standards, with not a petal out of place, and him its benevolent god, willing to dispense forgiveness for her sins with a touch of his almighty hand!
Bleak with misery and disappointment, she flinched away from him. Did he really believe a walk on the beach would erase what had just taken place between them?
“What future?” she asked bitterly. “The one in which you issue the orders and I meekly obey them? No thanks, Dimitrios, I’m not that desperate for a husband! You can sneer at your father all you like, but the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and underneath the charmingly civilized veneer you present to the rest of the world, you’re exactly as manipulative and domineering as he is.”
He started to reply, but she’d heard enough. Flinging open the door, she climbed out of the car and left him without a backward glance.
Erika met her at the front door. “You’re crying, Brianna!” she exclaimed, a rare note of solicitude coloring her words. “Why? What’s happened?”
“Ask your boss,” she wailed, furious at her own weakness. “He’s the one with all the answers.”
“Is it Poppy?”
She shook her head and swiped at the accursed tears streaming from her eyes. “No, it’s not Poppy.”
“A lover’s quarrel, then. I could see the pair of you were falling in love.” Almost fondly, Erika cradled Brianna’s chin in her work-worn hand. “They happen, but the making up is all the sweeter for it. The two of you will work it out, you’ll see.”
Overwrought, Brianna sobbed, “When did you suddenly decide you were on my side, Erika? I’m trouble, just like my sister, remember?”
“I have second sight,” the old woman replied sagely. “I see more than appears on the surface. Dimitrios is right. You look like her, but there the resemblance ends. Dry your tears, pethi mou, and I’ll make you some tsai apo votana—some herbal tea to soothe your nerves. You’re exhausted. Anyone would be in such trying times. You should get some rest. Everything will look quite different after a good night’s sleep. Off you go now, before Dimitrios comes in and sees your pretty eyes all red and swollen.”
But it would take more than well-meant home remedies to bridge the differences between her and Dimitrios, Brianna knew. Too pent-up to sit passively in her room, she paced the floor like a caged animal and finally, in desperation, flung off her clothes and climbed into her bathing suit.
Except for the distant murmur of voices in the kitchen wing, the house was quiet. Making her way downstairs, she slipped through the French doors leading to the rear terrace, and ran silent as a shadow along the path to the pool deck.
The moon had slipped behind the trees, but underwater lights turned the water into a swath of turquoise satin. Dropping her towel on a chaise, she plunged cleanly into the limpid depths and began a punishing crawl up and down the twenty-meter length.
Her thoughts kept pace with every stroke.
She’d have to move out of his house. First thing tomorrow, she’d pack up her stuff. Find a hotel close to the clinic. Visit Poppy when she knew he wouldn’t be there, because she couldn’t stand seeing him every day.
What a good thing he’d shown his true colors before it was too late. That he could invite her into his life one minute, then slam the door in her face the next, defied rational explanation.
But that he could speak to her so brutally…be so unfeeling toward the woman who’d given birth to him…!
Oh, he was horrible! She was so well rid of him!
In all fairness, though, she had to shoulder some of the blame. She’d broken every promise she’d made to herself not to get involved with him again. Not to rush blindly into any arrangement that might compromise her hard-won peace of mind and heart.
Yet within a week, she’d agreed to marry him, a man with whom she’d spent little more than thirty days total, and most of those occurring years ago. He was a stranger, someone given to half truths and secrets. What else hadn’t he told her? He could be a wife beater, for all she really knew. Be hiding a criminal past behind his exquisitely tailored suits and handmade leather shoes.
She was too willing to be dazzled by illusions of romance. Too easily taken in by appearances. Show her a pair of dark, Mediterranean eyes, a smile that could, when it chose, reduce tempered steel to a molten mass, and the body of a Greek god, and she was lost. A helpless heap of female hormone-driven need.
She shouldn’t be allowed to roam free without a keeper.
She was a fool.
He was a liar. He’d deliberately misled her.
&n
bsp; And she had finally run out of energy. Her body ached, her lungs were bursting, her pulse racing, and her arms leaden weights she could barely lift. Depleted, she rolled over on her back, closed her eyes, and floated to the ladder hanging over the side of the deep end of the pool. Wearily, she grasped a rung, hauled herself onto the deck and made her way to the chaise where she’d left her towel.
As she bent to pick it up, a tall figure strolled out from the black shadow cast by a nearby palm tree. “Feel better?” Dimitrios inquired coolly.
Not about to admit he’d scared her so badly she almost fell back in the pool, she clutched the towel to her heaving breasts. “As a matter of fact, I do. Not,” she couldn’t help adding with unvarnished sarcasm, “that it’s any of your business.”
“When my fiancée disappears from my house without a word to anyone, I make it my business.”
“Really?” she drawled with feigned insouciance, and tried to slide past him. “You must have mistaken me for someone who cares.”
But he was faster, stronger and more merciless. He lunged forward, lethal as a tiger on its prey, and grabbed her squarely by the shoulders. He was, she realized belatedly, very angry.
“This is not how we settle our differences, Brianna,” he informed her. “If I say or do something you don’t like, you set me straight. You do not cut and run, ever again. Do you understand?”
Incensed, she spat, “Get your hands off me!”
“Make me,” he said, his voice deadly, and plastering her wet, scantily-clad body against him, he snagged her dripping hair in one hand, yanked her head back and kissed her, his mouth open, searching. Demanding and taking.
He tasted of rich, mellow Metaxa and frustration. Unbearably erotic and dangerously intoxicating.
Hopelessly enmeshed in craving, she drank him in.
Some distant part of her brain that was still functioning told her she was flirting with disaster, and urged her to extricate herself from a situation fast spiraling out of control. Attempting to heed it, she went to shove him away. But her knees were buckling, a tightness was building between her thighs, and her hands had a mind of their own. They blundered inside his open shirt to rediscover the lovely, sculpted planes of his chest, the lean symmetry of his ribs. His skin was hot and smooth and irresistible.
The Giannakis Bride Page 10