Bride for Real

by Lynne Graham

  ‘That solicitor phoned: Roger is planning to call in the police on Monday. That’s my deadline,’ Crystal advanced in tremulous explanation, fastening frightened eyes to her daughter’s frowning face. ‘Oh, Tally, what am I going to do? Your father will never help me. He probably just invited you to lunch so that he can hear the dirty details and gloat.’

  ‘Let’s hope for the best,’ Tally responded, grimacing at the reality that her parents so thoroughly disliked each other. Though she’d had an affair while she was engaged to and pregnant by Anatole, Crystal had pursued Anatole through the courts to receive maintenance for their daughter. In any case, Tally had never known her father to act out of compassion. Anatole Karydas was first and foremost a businessman and he hadn’t made money out of being a soft touch. On the other hand, he was the only hope Crystal had, Tally reflected unhappily: she could scarcely approach Sander for financial help while she was pursuing a divorce he had said he didn’t want.

  ‘I’ve got a proposition to put to you,’ Anatole, a small portly man with iron-grey hair and shrewd dark eyes, informed his daughter within minutes of her joining him at his table at his favourite Italian restaurant. ‘I’ll give you the money for Crystal, no questions asked, but only if you agree to go back and live with your husband.’

  Completely taken aback by that offer, which had come out of nowhere, Tally froze, her eyes very wide. ‘You’ve got to be joking!’

  ‘I don’t joke about serious matters. I valued having a connection to the Volakis tribe—they’re very important well-connected people in Athens—’

  ‘How can that influence you? Nobody there even knows that I’m your daughter.’

  Anatole compressed his lips in disagreement. ‘A lot of my friends and business colleagues know about you now. Sander’s parents let the cat out of the bag, so you’re not a secret any more. And why should you be?’ he remarked in a sudden burst of irritation that took her aback. ‘I would be very happy to see you go back to live with your husband.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous—’

  ‘No, it’s not, it’s sensible and still the best option you have,’ he contradicted with conviction. ‘I don’t want you ending up like your mother, living off one man and then another, until you end up in the gutter and start stealing to get by. I want my daughter to enjoy a normal decent life, and Sander Volakis can give you that.’

  Tally was shattered by that little speech because it had never once in all the years she had known her father occurred to her that he might cherish a genuine concern for her well-being. Certainly he had never revealed such an interest in her welfare before. Green eyes reflecting her surprise, she stared at the older man with a frown building between her brows.

  ‘I know I’ve not been a proper father to you, that I’ve made mistakes and let my dislike of your mother and my respect for my wife’s wishes come between us,’ Anatole admitted grittily, evading her startled scrutiny. ‘But I won’t stand by and watch you burn your boats with Sander Volakis if I can help it. So, if you want that money to save Crystal’s worthless skin, you can have it, but you have to give your marriage another chance for at least a year.’ He hesitated. ‘What happened with your child was tragic but, given time, you’ll get over it and start again.’

  Shaken, Tally felt her eyes sting with hot tears at that blunt reference. ‘Sander’s parents didn’t seem to care …’

  Her father touched her hand in a brief awkward gesture and then looked away, his discomfiture obvious in the humming silence. But it was clear to her that even though he did not have the words he had felt a good deal more than Sander’s parents when he’d learned of her stillborn son, who would have been his first grandchild. ‘Well, will you accept my offer?’

  Wildly disconcerted by a choice she had never envisaged, Tally said thinly that she couldn’t make up her mind there and then. Ironically, although she was furious that Anatole was trying to manipulate her now as he had once manipulated Sander, she could not help feeling touched that her father was concerned in his own way about her future. And how could she stand back and allow her mother to be charged and possibly even imprisoned for fraud? The law came down hard on women who were dishonest with money, she acknowledged worriedly, particularly a spoiled woman like Crystal who had not held down a paying job in more years than her daughter cared to count. Tally also knew that her mother could not be allowed to go on running up debts that she couldn’t afford while struggling to maintain a lifestyle that she should have abandoned years earlier. She was painfully aware at that moment that she would have to instigate changes in Crystal’s life in return for advancing Anatole’s money. To ignore the roots of Crystal’s problem would be to invite the same situation to happen again.

  ‘Yes … I’ll accept,’ Tally finally conceded in a tense undertone. She refused to think in any depth about the marriage that she was agreeing to return to and simply accepted that she was putting her pride and independence on a funeral pyre.

  She couldn’t face phoning Sander and hearing the triumph edge his slow dark drawl, so she texted him like a teenager determined to avoid confrontation.

  Have changed my mind. Willing to try being married again.

  Sander phoned her while she was waiting for her mother to return from a shopping trip. ‘I’ll pick you up for dinner—’

  ‘No … er … I’m busy tonight. Mum’s staying with me at present,’ she explained hurriedly. ‘I’ll pack and see you tomorrow at the apartment—’

  ‘I sold the apartment last year and bought a house.’ Sander reeled off the address, his Greek accent roughening every vowel sound. ‘Tally … you won’t regret this.’

  Momentarily, Tally was discomfited. Sander had assumed that she was returning to him of her own free will. That was far from being the case but she saw no good reason to admit the ugly truth. What would it achieve? She was methodically packing her things when Crystal came home. Joining the older woman in the lounge, she was quick to share the news that her father was willing to settle Crystal’s debt to Roger.

  Crystal was stunned. ‘I never thought Anatole would play the good Samaritan.’

  ‘There’s a price—for both of us. I had to agree to give my marriage another go,’ Tally volunteered. ‘And, before we go any further, you have to agree to get a job.’

  ‘A job?’ Crystal gasped in ringing disbelief. ‘What on earth would I do?’

  ‘You won’t find out until you try. Maybe you could work in the beauty or cosmetics fields … I don’t know exactly what you’d do but, whatever, you need to get a job and earn enough money to keep yourself.’

  ‘I couldn’t!’

  ‘Of course you can. You don’t need another man to keep you. You’ll have no credit card bills to worry about this time around. We’ll cut the cards up and you’ll do what other people do: live on a budget, not beyond your means.’

  Crystal blinked. ‘You’re out of your mind.’

  ‘No, I’m telling you the only way that this will work for you. This—Anatole coming to the rescue—is a once-in-a-lifetime deal,’ Tally was careful to stress. ‘It’s going to be tough for you to make a fresh start and leave old habits behind, but you’re stronger than you think. Things have to change. You can’t go on spending money you don’t have.’

  ‘Well, I could, if my wealthy daughter chose to help me out,’ Crystal dared with more than a hint of her usual calculation.

  ‘No, I’m not going to ask Sander to foot all your bills. That wouldn’t be fair,’ Tally fielded unhappily. ‘Isn’t it enough that I’m being forced to return to a marriage I had already turned my back on?’

  ‘You can’t fool me,’ Crystal breathed witheringly. ‘I don’t believe you’ll ever turn your back willingly on Sander Volakis. He’s the love of your life!’

  Crystal remained in an edgy, sharp-tongued mood as she fought the prospect of being self-supporting; but, by the end of the evening, Tally had secured her agreement to seek employment and felt satisfied with that climb-down as a first step in a
new lifestyle.

  The next day, Robert was astonished when Tally brought him up to speed on events. ‘You’re going back to live with Sander Volakis? Since when?’

  ‘When we met at the house in France he asked me to give our marriage another chance,’ Tally admitted tautly. ‘I’ve thought about it and I’ve decided he’s right—’

  ‘But he’s wrong!’ Robert Miller protested in sudden anger. ‘You were unhappy with him.’

  ‘Things only went wrong between us after we lost our child.’

  ‘But what about us? What about me?’ Robert demanded feelingly.

  ‘We haven’t moved beyond friendship,’ Tally reasoned uncomfortably.

  ‘And whose fault is that? You were determined to wait for your divorce to come through!’ Robert’s blue eyes shone bright with resentment.

  Tally’s posture became taut because her tender conscience was twanging. ‘We still have to work together. Let’s not have bad feeling between us.’

  ‘We’re business partners and that won’t be changing.’ Robert swore with unnecessary vehemence. ‘You can tell Volakis from me that there’s no way I’ll ever allow him to buy me out of Tallulah Design!’

  After that emotional confrontation, which left Tally wondering unhappily if she was guilty of having misled Robert, she felt utterly wrung out …

  CHAPTER FOUR

  AT SEVEN that evening, Tally arrived with her luggage at Sander’s town house.

  It was a very large and imposing property, traditionally furnished, not at all like his previous slick, contemporary apartment, she recalled. It also struck her as very much a family home rather than the archetypal single man’s pad. Sander was still at work, which set her teeth on edge, resurrecting as it did unfortunate memories of the past when he had rarely been available when she wanted him to be. Avoiding the bedroom that he clearly occupied, Tally chose another. They might be getting back together but that didn’t mean they had to live in each other’s pockets straight away, she reasoned. In fact the prospect of a little distance while she got used to the idea of behaving like a wife again was very appealing to Tally.

  After a more than usually demanding day at the London headquarters of Volakis Shipping, Sander was unusually keen to get home.

  Tally dressed with care for her first meal in Sander’s company, choosing a colourful floral dress that skimmed her slim thighs and lovingly moulded her breasts. When she heard the slam of the front door she stood up, her heart fluttering like a wild thing in her chest, and waited on the threshold of the elegant drawing room into which the housekeeper had shown her.

  Sheathed in a dark business suit, black hair tousled by the breeze, his strong jaw line roughened by a day’s stubble, Sander gazed steadily back at her. In her opinion the only word that matched him at that moment was beautiful. He had the sleek dark beauty of a glossy predator, she recognised, every sense sent spinning by his charismatic punch. He studied her from black fringed deep-set dark eyes, as usual defying her expectations with his low-key response to her presence in his home.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked her eventually and her tummy flipped, sexual awareness snaking through her in a twisting, fast-flowing river. That quickly she found out how switched on she still was to Sander’s every look and word. Warm colour rose to her cheeks, her nipples tingling into tautness as she pressed her slender thighs together in a pointless effort to contain the ache he had stirred up.

  ‘No, for once you mistake me,’ Sander purred, the dark intonation of his deep drawl recognising the sensual nature of her tension, his instant awareness warning her how easily he could read her. ‘I’m not that much of a philistine. We’ll eat, talk…’

  ‘I picked a guest room,’ Tally told him, keen to get that fact out there before there was a misunderstanding.

  ‘Not a problem, assuming you are not planning to stay there for ever,’ Sander fielded equably. ‘I’m a patient man.’

  ‘You didn’t used to be.’

  His golden gaze locked to hers and smouldered hot before the thick screen of his lashes shut her out again. ‘I want us to stay married. I’ll do what I have to do to achieve that, yineka mou,’ he traded levelly.

  His directness impressed her, reminding her that she was hiding behind the myth that she was giving their marriage another go of her own free will. Her cheeks flushed, green eyes strained with discomfiture. ‘It won’t be easy.’

  ‘Some masochist once said that nothing worth having was easily acquired,’ Sander quipped huskily, keen to ease her tension. The fancy dress was overkill for a young woman who thought a dash of perfume equalled formality, so he knew she had made a major effort on his behalf. As he could see how nervous she was he would make no sudden moves. It still hadn’t sunk in with Tally, he reflected with pained tenderness, that the only kind of dress he admired was the sort that had no hidden fastenings and came off quickly. He was wholly the philistine he had said he was not, but he would make a major effort to hide the fact.

  Tally got into bed that night and slept the instant her head hit the pillow, stress draining away to be replaced by exhaustion. She was back with Sander although they were sleeping apart, but the very fact that he had accepted that without protest let her know how keen he was for their reconciliation to work. Maybe they would eventually have another child, she found herself thinking, but the instant she surrendered to that controversial idea she was gripped by fierce guilt and decided that it was way too soon to be thinking that way. The guilt such an idea evoked still bit deep into her soul. There was no way she would ever seek to replace the little boy she had lost, but even acknowledging that some day they might consider having a family again was a big step for her to make.

  A hand shook her shoulder gently and the fringe of her soft lashes lifted on her drowsy eyes. She focused on Sander and the light piercing the curtains behind him. ‘Did I sleep in? Am I late for something?’

  ‘No. This is day one of our reconciliation,’ Sander reminded her, brilliant dark eyes resting on her flushed face with an intensity he couldn’t hide. ‘And we’re going on holiday.’

  ‘On holiday?’ Tally exclaimed in astonishment. ‘What on earth …?’

  ‘Sometimes I have good ideas,’ Sander intoned lazily. ‘We need time to get used to each other again and I don’t think we need an audience of friends or family while we do it. I’ve made arrangements. We fly out at noon.’

  ‘Fly where?’ Tally demanded, sitting up and pushing her tousled hair out of her eyes. ‘Where are we going?’

  A charismatic smile curved Sander’s wide sensual mouth. ‘It’s a surprise. Everything’s organised. You don’t even need to pack.’

  ‘How can I not need to pack?’ Tally queried in exasperation, regretting the reality that most of the clothes she owned for a warmer climate were still stored in France.

  ‘Because I’ve asked a friend to send a selection of beach wear in your size to the villa we’ll be using. I don’t want you having to fuss about what to take—it puts you in such a bad mood,’ Sander murmured teasingly.

  ‘How long will we be away?’ Tally demanded. ‘Sander, I have a business to run, and appointments, clients …’

  Sander rested a fingertip gently against her parted lips to silence her, his dark eyes gleaming gold as he surveyed her expectantly. ‘Just this once put us first. This time around I intend to. Clients come and go just like business deals. Marriages are a little more fragile. We have a window of opportunity here, so let’s make the most of it while we can, moli mou.’

  And as Sander took his leave Tally was amazed that he was willing to make so much of an effort to give their marriage the time and space to find a firm footing again. He was an out and out workaholic and if he was prepared to put her ahead of business she could do no less for him. Galvanised into action, she scrambled out of bed and called Belle, her assistant, to inform her that she was going away. Together the two women ran through her appointments, deciding which could be rescheduled for her return or selected for
a videoconferencing consultation instead.

  Clad in a simple green linen shift dress and having packed only an overnight bag, Tally headed for the airport with a surprisingly light heart and a sense of suppressed excitement that made her blush like a teenager when she boarded the Volakis jet and met her husband’s steady dark gaze. He did have the most beautiful dark eyes, she conceded, and the reflection exasperated her, tightening her facial muscles as she exerted steely control over her wandering thoughts. Ever since the end of her marriage Tally had tried to keep strict control of her emotions, for heartbreak had taught her that protecting herself was only common sense. Unfortunately the responses that Sander inspired had always fallen outside the boundaries of what she considered acceptable and run dangerously deep in intensity. Crystal had called Sander the love of Tally’s life, a description that she rejected with a strong mental sniff of disagreement.

  She no longer loved Sander, she reminded herself with pride. She had got over her broken heart in the aftermath of their marriage. Reality had smashed her illusions when Sander appeared not to share her grief and got on with his life, seemingly untouched by the depression, guilt and vulnerability that had plagued her after the loss of their child. Even though she suspected now that that interpretation was not a fair judgement of how he had felt at the time, she had, nonetheless, learned to live without him and the sensual buzz he carried with him.

  Although her father had bribed and bullied her into giving her marriage another chance, she had no intention of allowing herself to forget that she was taking part in what was nothing more than a trial reconciliation. For a year, a little voice yelped in disbelief. Could she live with Sander for an entire year and remain untouched by her emotions? Coolly she reminded herself that Sander had lived with her throughout their marriage without giving way to any of the more tender emotions. He had never once chosen to view good sex and companionship in the high-watt light of love. He had kept his feet on the ground then and this time around so would she, Tally assured herself protectively.