The Cozakis Bride

by Lynne Graham

  'And don't come back!' Olympia shouted after him, her voice breaking.

  She sat there hunched on the bed, listening to the silence. Her eyes shimmered with tears and the blankness of shock, her emotional turmoil getting worse rather than abating. Just suppose he was telling the truth about Gisele? She crushed out that traitorous voice and hugged herself. If Nik wouldn't trust her, how could she trust him? Why, though, had he no longer been content to hear their marriage termed a 'deal'?

  He had had four weeks to tell her that he wanted some­thing more. He hadn't. Not a single word in that line had escaped him. She had her pride to think about. Her nose tickled, her throat closing over with tears. Pride was all she had left now that she was carrying Nik's baby. He had hurt her very badly ten years ago. She wasn't going to be hurt like that again. So she was hurting now, but by breakfast time tomorrow, after she had had a good long sleep, she would be feeling much better.

  Nik's kid brother, Peri, flew in five days later.

  'Hi, Peri...' Olympia said with a wobbly smile as she showed him into the impressive lounge with its spectacular vaulted ceiling.

  Peri studied her shadowed, swollen eyes and her red-tipped nose. His level brown gaze was rueful. 'You're not looking good, Oily. You'd know I was lying if I said otherwise.'

  To her horror, the tickly sensation of threatening tears made itself felt. She swallowed and gulped.

  'Nik's not crying...but his temper's on a hair trigger and everybody with freedom of choice is staying well out of his way.'

  ‘Where is he?'

  'Athens—working, using his own apartment. My mother implied that your marriage had been a mistake,' Peri volunteered wryly. 'Nik shouted at her for the first time in his life. Then my father tried to defend my mother and I swear that Nik came within inches of hitting him. So if you're not happy, Oily...do try to remember that you're not the only member of this family suffering. We don't usually have punch-ups at the dinner table!'

  'It's not my fault that it didn't work out,' Olympia muttered, very much on the defensive.

  'May I sit down, or do I belong to the enemy camp now?'

  Olympia flushed and remembered her manners. 'Of course you can sit down. Would you like something to drink?'

  'No, thanks. Just give me five minutes of your time,' Peri urged. 'Nik doesn't know I'm here, and if he did know, he'd rip my head off!'

  'I can't discuss Nik with you. It wouldn't feel right.'

  'But you can listen, can't you? Did that filthy blurb in the papers the week after your wedding cause all this trouble between you and my brother? You nod or you shake your head, Oily,' Peri told her. 'That is not discussing Nik.'

  Olympia stiffened, and then both nodded and shook her head.

  'How am I supposed to read that?' Peri groaned.

  Olympia shrugged, determined not to be drawn. She was desperate to confide in somebody, but it wouldn't be fair to use Peri. Her sense of fairness prevented her from telling tales of Nik to his kid brother.

  'OK... Nik spent the first five days he was away from you getting drunk as a skunk in a rented chalet in Switzerland.' As Olympia's sea-jade eyes opened very wide, Peri added, 'I discovered he'd taken time out from your honeymoon quite accidentally. The minute that tabloid story broke I tried to contact Nik to warn him, and then found out that I couldn't get hold of him. Being the really nosy guy I am, I didn't let up until I tracked him down. He wasn't very happy to be found.'

  'I expect not drunk...alone?'

  'Oh, no, Nik never gets to be alone, not with Damianos around. And Damianos very much disapproves of alcohol, so as you can imagine the atmosphere in Switzerland was not one of companionable insobriety. Nik was getting drunk and Damianos was pouring black coffee down him with punitive regularity.'

  'Why was he getting drunk?' Olympia prompted shakily.

  'He had some ‘stuff to work out’...that's a direct quote from Nik.'

  'I got the same.' Her shoulders slumped. 'Why Switzerland?'

  'Not many places you can hole up when you're supposed to be on your honeymoon and are very newsworthy. I don't think Nik saw the alpine pastures except through an alcoholic haze.'

  Silence stretched. Peri looked at Olympia. Olympia looked hopefully at Peri.

  'He sobered up into a rage when I told him about that gutter press article. He spent the last day sorting that out with his lawyers. At no stage was he in a position to enjoy a lusty poolside clinch with Gisele...' Peri's mouth quirked. 'In fact I doubt he'll enjoy a lusty clinch outdoors ever again now that that photo's come back to haunt him. It would make me think twice, I can tell you!'

  Olympia reddened. 'You'd lie for Nik—'

  'If he had been with Gisele, I'd take the view that it was none of my business and you were better off out of it.'

  Olympia chewed at her lower lip. 'Nik's a womaniser.'

  'Well, before you came along ten years ago, yes...after you broke up, yes...but never when you were around. Not at present either!' Peri hastened to assure her.

  The tears welled up and rolled down her cheeks. 'It's not that I don't appreciate what you're trying to do, Peri,' Olympia admitted chokily. 'I do, but it's too late for Nik and me. Something rotten happened a long time ago and it's always going to be there between us and it can't be fixed. I made Nik go...I practically threw him out and I deliberately said what I knew would drive him away.'

  Emanating intense curiosity, Peri studied her with anticipation.

  'I'm not saying any more. I've said too much already. Will you stay for dinner?' she asked hopefully, because she was so lonely.

  'Sorry. If I don't want Nik to ask where I've been, I need to get back.’ Peri rose upright

  Olympia stretched up and kissed his cheek, loving him for trying to help. 'You're so different from Nik.'

  'I was the unexpected baby when my parents had given up all hope of the patter of tiny feet sounding again. I was ruined.’ Peri emphasised.

  ‘Wasn't Nik?'

  'No. Nik was told to act like a man when he was scared of the dark as a kid. I got an open door, a night light, and my father held my hand and told me an extra story,' Peri reeled off with a comical grimace. 'Nik got sent to a military academy where a rigorous macho regime of cold showers and assault courses was aimed at honing his competitive in­stincts to a killing edge! I doubt if he got much encourage­ment to share his deepest feelings there.'

  'Where did you go to school?' Olympia was fascinated.

  'A mile from home and I never boarded. I burst into tears when they mentioned the academy and it was never men­tioned again '

  Peri left Olympia with a lot to consider. Even the most suspicious wife would have been challenged to continue be­lieving that Nik had been unfaithful. Olympia had been chal­lenged to believe that even before Peri arrived.

  Nik had not shown a hint of guilt or discomfiture when she'd accused him of being with Gisele. Nik had just been furious. All he had cared about was finding out how she had got hold of those wretched photos and ensuring that the cul­prit who had aided his former mistress in her campaign was identified. And the oddest thing was that Olympia was no longer even sure that she had ever really believed at heart that Nik had been unfaithful.

  It was as though her mounting resentment at Nik's refusal to listen to her explanation about Katerina and Lukas had destroyed her usual common sense. She had also been feeling increasingly insecure. Yes, she had been very, very happy with Nik during their weeks on Aurora, but underneath there had always been the sinking awareness that Nik had not ac­tually said anything to reassure her that he had overcome his medieval desire to avenge his honour.

  And somehow...in retrospect, she didn't really know how...her emotions had just taken over and everything had mushroomed out of all proportion. So she had got rid of him. And the minute Nik had gone out of the door, loweringly, she had wanted him back, but had been too stubborn and proud to admit it. She had spent the night telling herself that she had done the right thing and the early hou
rs worrying that she had been too hasty in throwing him out. She had spent breakfast weeping like a wimp over the acknowledge­ment that Nik had positively glowed like a proud father-to-be once he had realised that she was pregnant.

  But, ironically, Olympia was most upset by something which Peri had dropped quite casually: if Alexandra Cozakis had commented that their marriage had been a mistake, Nik had evidently informed his parents that their marriage was in trouble. Announcing that to the wider family circle seemed so final, so horribly, immovably final. Was Nik thinking about a divorce now?

  Olympia was still keeping in touch with her own mother on an almost daily basis, and going to enormous lengths not to lie but not to tell the whole truth either! Irini Manoulis was currently living outside Athens with Olympia's grand­father, and naturally awaiting some kind of invitation from her newly married daughter. Olympia had been reduced to saying that Nik was away on business and that she was in­credibly busy...

  The phone was brought to her at two that afternoon. Ex­pecting the caller to be her mother, Olympia answered in a bright upbeat tone. 'Mum?'

  'It's Nik.'

  He didn't sound like himself. He sounded flat, taut, ex­pressionless.

  'Are you all right?' she pressed instantly. Silence sizzled on the line.

  Olympia was holding the phone so tight she was hurting her fingers. She had just heard his voice and all pride and self-discipline had vanished. She was thinking of crawling, and hating herself for it. 'Maybe you think that in the light of what I said and did that is a funny thing for me to ask,' she began, hoping to draw out the dialogue as long as pos­sible—which meant she had to do all the talking because it didn't sound as if he was going to be much help in that field, 'I'm not all right,' Nik informed her. 'Look, the helicopter will bring you to Athens for eight. I'll see you then.' 'Nik?' 'What?'

  She breathed in jaggedly, eyes ready to overflow again. 'I'm just so miserable!'

  'You got what you wanted. You got my favourite house. You got my baby. You haven't got me,' Nik enumerated curtly.

  'But I want you!' Olympia sobbed, before she could swal­low that despairing cry back again.

  The silence stretched and stretched like a giant elastic band attached to her sensitive nerve-endings. At any moment she expected it to snap and rip her down the middle. She heard Nik clear his throat, but he still said nothing. 'I just don't know what to say,' he finally advanced gruffly when she had practically given up all hope of a response.

  'Fine...don't worry about it___________ I know I shan't!' In a flood

  of tears, she stuffed the phone under two cushions, listening to it ring and ring and ignoring it. The roof had fallen in on her just as Nik had always forecast. Reckless to the point of self-destruction. He'd been right. She had trashed the rela­tionship they had built up. If there had ever been any hope of them staying together she had destroyed that hope all on her own. And it was going to be precious little comfort to her in the future that she had held on to her principles. Already loving Nik, needing Nik, was starting to feel like a life sentence of craving what she couldn't have.

  The housekeeper entered the lounge with a gentle knock on the door and another phone. Olympia accepted it with writhing reluctance.

  'Olympia?' Nik grated rawly.

  'I'll see you at eight. I only said I wanted you because of the baby!' Olympia lied, and after a couple of seconds the phone went dead.

  So they would discuss their divorce, or their separation. No, the lawyers would see to the technicalities. Why had she lied like that about the baby? Nik hadn't deserved to be in­sulted again just so that she could save face.

  Olympia dressed in unrelieved black to fly to Athens. A stretch limo ferried her through the busy streets at a snail's pace. There was plenty of time for her to ponder her mistakes and her misery and she didn't bother looking out of the win­dow. So when the limo finally drew to a halt, and she climbed out to gaze up at the huge stone mansion in front of her, it was a horrible shock to realise that she had been brought to the Cozakis family home, rather than Nik's apartment or even his office.

  A very correct manservant ushered her into the classical hall with its chilly but impressive decor and sculptured heads set on plinths. Olympia could feel herself dwindling in stature right back down into the nervous and intimidated teenager whom Nik had brought home to meet his parents. She had tried to edge back out through the door again, muttering that maybe it was a bit too soon for such a meeting, and Nik had yanked her back.

  Momentarily, her eyes shimmered with tears over the memory. For a crazy instant she wanted to be transported back into her seventeen-year-old self, strengthened with all the knowledge she had acquired since their marriage. Most of all, she wanted to experience just once what she had been far too insecure to recognise then...that Nik had truly loved her.

  'Olympia...'

  She jerked round. Nik was in a doorway staring at her. She stopped breathing. Her heart just jumped and raced. She connected with his spectacular gaze, those jaguar-gold eyes surrounded by inky black lashes. She went weak at the knees. Her attention expanded to rove all over him. The bold, dark features, the intrinsic aura of intense maleness which made breathing such a challenge, the palest grey suit exquisitely tailored to his magnificent athletic physique.

  'All four limbs still present and correct, head better screwed on...' Nik muttered tautly.

  She didn't know what he was talking about. She didn't care. She just walked across the hall as if he had yanked on a string.

  'There's only a few things I need to say to you...'

  She froze, stricken eyes veiling. 'Better keep the limo wait­ing, then.'

  How had she missed out on noticing straight off how much strain Nik was betraying? It was etched in the clean, tight lines of his bone structure and the set of his mouth. He had lost weight since she had last seen him and he was pale.

  He showed her into a book-lined room. 'Firstly, I've torn up all the copies of that offensive pre-marital contract I made you sign.'

  Olympia was not noticeably cheered by that announce­ment. He was feeling guilty, she thought. He was now willing to offer generous financial compensation in place of himself. She was obviously going to be a rich ex-wife.

  Nik reached for her hand. 'You accused me of marrying you for what I would gain. I asked for that by not telling you the truth about the deal I made with Spyros. I may control your grandfather's business empire but he still owns it and can still dispose of it as he wishes.'

  Olympia was astonished by that admission. 'But—'

  'Spyros didn't want it that way but I insisted. At the time, I assumed that our marriage would end in divorce,' Nik completed heavily.

  That made a great deal of sense to Olympia. Nik had wanted revenge more than he'd wanted profit. It had also suited him to let her believe that she was wholly dependent on him for security. Furthermore, when their marriage broke up, her grandfather could not feel cheated for he would have lost nothing by such an agreement.

  Olympia was now paper-pale. Nik was dealing with all the remaining sources of resentment and misunderstanding that still lay between them.

  'One last point...without doubt the most important point...' Nik hesitated.

  The baby. Access arrangements? The necessity of main­taining a civil relationship in spite of their no longer living together? Her throat convulsed.

  'It took me a long time to learn what should have been a very simple lesson,' Nik confided with driven urgency. 'Lukas? That was nothing—indeed, when set against more im­portant matters, a complete triviality.'

  'A c-complete triviality?' Olympia stammered with sheer incredulity.

  'You saw me in the arms of an ex-girlfriend...you hit back. At least that's how I saw it then, and it made complete sense at the time to me,' Nik spelt out in a charged, almost bitter undertone. 'I had you on this pure, perfect pedestal, and when you seemed to jump off it I was gutted. I carried that feeling for ten years, nourished it, hated you beyond all
reason—'

  'I understand,' she broke in, lowering her head wearily even as something in his wording nagged at the back of her mind. 'I felt the same way about you.'

  'And when it came to Lukas and you,' Nik continued tautly. 'When it came to trying to deal with that here, in the present, I was still frozen in time at the age of nineteen. So I reacted like a boy, not like a man. I need you to understand that.'

  Olympia's head was spinning. Nik was being so open, so honest. He seemed to be trying to prove that he had finally forgiven her for what she hadn't actually done. He was even attempting to foist some of the blame for the episode on himself. He was offering an unconditional acceptance of both her and the past which she had never expected to receive. And then what had nagged at her in Nik's wording a minute earlier was clarified. 'You seemed to jump off... it made com­plete sense at the time...' Nik was talking as though he now doubted her guilt.

  'You said you wanted me...' Nik breathed roughly, throw­ing her thoughts into confusion again. 'Back?'

  Olympia's sea-jade eyes connected with dark golden eyes. His tension was strong as her own. 'Back,' she confirmed instantaneously.

  Nik released his breath audibly and closed both arms tightly round her. She could feel his heart going thump-thump-thump against her as if he had just run a marathon. Slowly he lifted his proud dark head. The look of intense strain was back in his taut gaze. He lifted his hands to her face, curving his fingers round her cheekbones.

  'Katerina is here,' he told her then, startling her.

  'Katerina?'

  'Spyros is here as well.'

  'My grandfather?' Olympia was in shock at those twin announcements.

  'With the obvious exception of Lukas, I have assembled everybody who was originally involved in our broken engagement ten years ago,' Nik advanced as he walked her back into the hall and towards the drawing room. 'They have all simply had dinner together and your arrival will be unexpected. That is how I planned it.'