by Lynne Graham
They left the church by a rear entrance, their arrival and their departure having gone unremarked by anyone other than the official photographer, a film crew and the security team. A huge number of precautions had been taken to preserve the privacy of the day. The invitations had requested that the guests take no photographs. Every detail of the arrangements had been kept hush-hush, and the reception was being staged at Dove Hall, where security was very tight to keep all members of the press outside the boundaries of the park.
In the wedding car, Alexandros settled an elaborate box on her lap. ‘My wedding gift to you.’
Her green eyes sparked. ‘What is it? A set of platinum handcuffs?’
Impervious to the possible existence of a sting in that comment, Alexandros lifted her hand and planted a kiss on her palm. Brilliant dark golden eyes set beneath sleek ebony lashes flicked over her with a sexual heat that took her by surprise. ‘Would you like that, thespinis mou? But you’re very small, and your skin would bruise easily,’ he murmured huskily, lean brown fingers enclosing her slender wrist to emphasise the point. ‘Silk would be kinder to such fragile bones.’
She felt a beetroot blush wash over her fair complexion and snatched her hand free, her skin tingling from his caressing touch. ‘It was a joke…okay?’
‘We’ll see…Over the next eight weeks we will have time to explore a lot of uncharted territory.’
‘Eight weeks?’ Katie gasped, shock making her drop her cool, frosty front. ‘You’re planning to take two months away from the bank?’
‘It’s a special occasion.’ Alexandros tugged gently at a copper ringlet and let several more spill across his hand.
Suddenly she was feeling very much like an animated toy, being examined by a new owner, and her nervous tension raced up the scale at speed. When he found out that sex was not on the newly married menu, eight weeks would soon start feeling like seven weeks and six days too long. Now, however, was definitely not the time to make that announcement, for the very last thing she wanted to risk was the eruption of a row while they were surrounded by dozens of guests.
‘How much time did you take off when you married Ianthe?’ Katie heard herself ask with sudden curiosity.
A sharp silence fell and she held her breath.
‘A week. There was no element of choice. I was about to sit my final exams at university.’ His intonation was constrained, as if even talking about his first marriage was a painful challenge.
As well it might be to a male so reserved he hid all his emotions, Katie conceded unhappily. Wishing she hadn’t asked, she addressed her attention to the still unopened box on her lap and flipped up the lid with an unsteady hand. ‘Oh…my word…’ she whispered, blinded by the radiance of an emerald and diamond ring.
‘We didn’t have an engagement…I want to make up for the fact,’ Alexandros breathed gruffly.
Katie studied the ring, her hot gritty eyes glazing over with tears. Her heart felt as if it was cracking in two. In a sharp movement she closed the lid down again and stuffed the box back in his hand. ‘I don’t need a ring to remind me that you dumped me in Ireland!’
Alexandros almost groaned out loud. ‘Theos mou…that has nothing to do with this ring. Am I to live with these recriminations for ever?’
Katie stared woodenly out of the window.
‘I thought it was the wisest solution…I put what was best for you first.’
Katie slung him a withering glance. ‘Don’t kid yourself!’
‘After Ianthe…I wasn’t ready to make a commitment. I met you too soon. I felt guilty. You were very young and inexperienced—’
‘Since when did that influence you?’
‘You’re the one and only virgin I’ve ever slept with!’ Alexandros ground out furiously. ‘If I’d taken you out of Ireland with me, what would I have been supposed to do with you?’
Katie elevated a delicate coppery brow in unashamed challenge. ‘Oh, I’m sure you’d have thought of something.’
‘The only future I was likely to have offered you then was as my mistress…that’s why I ended it.’
‘It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done before?’ Katie misquoted with lofty sarcasm. ‘Why don’t you just admit the truth? I told you I loved you, and the truth was such a turn-off that you left the country!’
Alexandros found it disturbing that she should have that much insight into the way he operated—particularly when he had not understood his own reactions half so well at the time.
While he was making that acknowledgement, Katie was struck by the level of her own bitterness, and mortified by what she had just said. What on earth was she playing at? The past was dead and gone. Some things—and unwelcome declarations of devotion fell very much into the category—were more sensibly left buried and forgotten. Alexandros had had an affair with her while he had still been grieving for Ianthe and she ought to have come to terms with that by now.
Regret swept over her. In a movement that was as abrupt as her former rejection of the gift, Katie swiped back the ring box from him. Thirty seconds later, she slid the gorgeous jewel onto the appropriate finger. ‘Thank you…it’s gorgeous,’ she said, a tad flatly.
Alexandros was about to comment on that change of heart, and then decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. It was a very big day for her, and she had had virtually no time to prepare for it. Possibly she was just feeling emotional, he reasoned, resolving to be supportive and understanding. He offered her a drink, asked her if her mother and stepfather were enjoying their trip, and then stuck so rigorously to making polite conversation that they travelled all the way to Dove Hall without a single opportunity arising for her to voice one more controversial word.
The wedding party took up position in the hall and greeted the guests as they filed past into the ballroom. Katie finally espied Leanne, a highly visible figure in her rather brief cerise satin dress, and tensed, hoping that her friend would manage to avoid attracting the bridegroom’s notice. Sadly, it was not to be. Leanne, never one to hide her light or indeed anything else under a bushel, was determined to meet Alexandros. Stopping dead in front of him, she left Katie with no choice other than to make an introduction that she would have done just about anything to avoid.
‘Leanne Carson…’ Alexandros murmured, without any expression at all.
‘I played cupid for the two of you,’ the blue-eyed brunette proclaimed shamelessly. ‘I mean, if it hadn’t been for me, you and Katie might never have got together again! She was always very backward about coming forward.’
As Leanne passed on down the line, Katie could not bring herself to look at Alexandros. He inclined his proud dark head in a signal that brought Cyrus to his side, and a low-pitched exchange took place between the two men.
‘You can’t ask Leanne to leave when I invited her,’ Katie whispered fiercely under her breath, fearing that that was his intent. ‘I was going to tell you that she was here—’
‘No, you weren’t,’ Alexandros shot back, cool as ice water dropping on a sizzling hotplate. ‘You were hoping I wouldn’t notice her in the crowd, but vulgarity of that magnitude is hard to miss!’
‘What were you telling Cyrus?’
‘To watch her…and the silver.’
‘Thank you very much!’
Only when the last guests had arrived and they were about to enter the ballroom did Katie have the leisure to finally notice what she felt should have struck her the instant she entered the house. The huge portrait of Ianthe had been removed from above the main staircase and a pair of beautiful landscapes now hung in its place.
Thoroughly disconcerted by that development, she whispered, ‘What did you do with Ianthe’s portrait?’
The question made Alexandros glance at her in surprise. ‘I had it moved.’
Katie almost thanked him, but when it occurred to her that doing so would be tantamount to confessing how sensitive she had been to the presence of that portrait, she embraced an awkward sil
ence instead. Conscience told her that Ianthe had had every right to that place on the wall, and guilt writhed through her. How could she be so petty? Even so, she could not help but be impressed by her bridegroom’s forethought and consideration on her behalf.
Reunited with Toby and Connor, she played with her sons for a few minutes, until it was time for her to join the bridal party at the high table.
She enjoyed a couple of glasses of champagne before Alexandros took her on to the dance floor. When he drew her close to his lean, hard body, she shivered a little. Suddenly she was overwhelmingly aware of his potent masculinity and how long it had been since they had last been that close. The faint familiar aroma of his skin enveloped her, and she tensed in dismay at the flicker of sensual heat curling low in her pelvis.
‘Aren’t you going to say anything more about Leanne?’ she queried, happy to offer that potential bone of contention in an effort to distract herself from a response that she knew she had to suppress.
‘Why did you invite her?’
‘She’s very sorry, and she was a friend for a long time.’ Her words muffled against his shoulder, Katie linked her arms round his neck until she realised what she was doing.
‘I hope you don’t live to regret it. You’re very trusting. Some will take advantage of that trait and make it a weakness,’ Alexandros warned her wryly. ‘When someone lets me down, I don’t give them the chance to do it again.’
The movement of the dance brought him up against her, ensuring that she was fully acquainted with the lithe strength and power of his hard, muscular frame. Her mouth ran dry. Her body seemed to have a series of triggers, which responded without her mental output and made concentration an outrageous challenge.
As the music segued into another song, Alexandros tugged her head back and gazed down at her with slumberous golden eyes. ‘I can’t wait to be alone with you. My grandfather wouldn’t even let me come up and talk to you last night,’ he confided hoarsely. ‘Admittedly talking wasn’t much on my mind…’
Colour stung her cheekbones. She didn’t know what to say, and was entirely disconcerted when he lowered his proud dark head and tasted her generous pink lips with an intoxicating sensuality that left her head swimming and her knees weak.
Laughing appreciatively at the applause that had broken out from their audience, Alexandros brushed her flushed cheekbone with a long forefinger. ‘Later…a wedding night to remember for a lifetime, thespinis mou.’
Katie veiled her eyes, feathery lashes concealing her troubled expression. Why was she feeling guilty? For goodness’ sake, was loving Alexandros so deeply rooted in her psyche that she could deny him nothing? Even when he was very much in the wrong? She had been weak too often with Alexandros, and this was the reckoning time, she thought apprehensively. It was not a matter of trying to level the score. How could it be? Alexandros was her husband, and naturally she wanted a future with him. But it had to be a future in which she was more than the twins’ mother and the woman in his marital bed. He might never love her, but she was determined that he should learn to treat her as an equal, a wife worthy of his respect.
As the afternoon wore on, however, it started to dawn on her that, in public at least, Alexandros did treat her very much as an equal. He had never been so attentive. He never once left her side while they worked their way round their guests. On more than one occasion he reminded those who wanted to talk business with him that it was his wedding day.
When the bride and groom had satisfied the conventions, they sat down with Toby, Connor, Maura and Dermot for a while. That was the moment when their younger son, Connor, chose to haul himself up on the edge of a sofa and take his first wobbling steps towards his mother. His little face lit up with amazement at the achievement of walking upright for the very first time.
‘Aren’t you wonderful?’ Dropping down on her knees, Katie opened her arms wide and caught Connor to her in an exuberant hug. She saw the same glow of love and pride in Alexandros’s lean dark face. A lump formed in her throat when she watched him comfort Toby, who had tried and failed to emulate his brother’s feat and burst into floods of tears.
Pelias joined her later, when she was helping to put the children down for a much-needed nap. ‘Calliope is so excited about having Toby and Connor to stay with us this week. Of course we’ll have your nanny to help out, but we have so many treats planned. When they wake up, we’ll take them.’
‘I’m going to miss the little rascals,’ Katie confided ruefully. ‘But it is only for a week.’
The bridal couple were to spend their wedding night at Dove Hall and leave for their Greek honeymoon the following day.
‘A week for the grown-ups to enjoy being newly married and alone.’ Pelias Christakis studied her with warm approval. ‘I had almost given up hope of seeing it happen, but you have transformed my grandson’s life.’
‘I’ve turned it upside down,’ Katie slotted in ruefully.
‘Alexandros deserves a normal marriage and family life. We are sincerely happy for you both,’ Pelias told her gruffly.
As she went back downstairs, that phrase, a normal marriage, made her a frown. It seemed an odd thing for Pelias to have said. Had it been a veiled criticism of his grandson’s first marriage? Doubtless it had been a reference to Ianthe’s infertility. Children, after all, were highly prized in Greek culture. But she was still a little surprised, for all things considered it had been a rather unkind comment—and Pelias Christakis was one of the kindest, most tactful men she had ever met.
Cyrus approached her. ‘Leanne Carson is taking photos with her phone,’ he informed her.
Katie blinked, and the pink bled out of her cheeks. ‘Are you sure?’
The older man nodded confirmation.
‘Does…my husband know?’
‘Mr Christakis said that you would want to deal with it.’
Her tummy knotted at the prospect of that unpleasant challenge, but accompanied by Cyrus, she went downstairs to confront her friend. Leanne just laughed when reminded that there had been an embargo on photos printed on her invitation. The phone was a very expensive high-tech model. Katie suspected that the other woman had deliberately come armed with the means to invade their privacy and that of their guests. Was some newspaper already standing by, waiting to hear from her?
Leanne needed little encouragement to show off the pictures she had taken, and Katie was horrified to see that the twins featured—as well as certain celebrity guests caught unawares. Leanne only lost her temper when Katie passed the phone to Cyrus to delete the photos. A car was already waiting to take the furious brunette to the train station. Her vindictive final comments hurt Katie more than anything else that had taken place, and she was seriously worried that another newspaper article might appear. Had Leanne managed to send any of the photos before their deletion? And would a tell-all scoop of a story appear in print regardless? After all, Leanne would still be able to describe their entire wedding day.
Alexandros said nothing. Unaware of what had taken place, Pelias and Calliope took their leave with Toby, Connor and the nanny. Maura and Dermot left next, and Katie hugged her mother close. Her mother and stepfather were planning to spend a week visiting friends and relatives before flying back to New Zealand.
Soon the steady hum of cars and helicopters marked the departure of the guests, and the bride’s tension began to climb like a pressure gauge. As the moment of revelation with regard to their wedding night came closer, Katie could feel her store of courage shrinking.
‘Where are you going?’ Alexandros asked when he saw her near the top of the staircase.
‘Well…er…to get changed,’ she mumbled through stiff lips, all composure threatening to desert her.
‘But why?’ Alexandros mounted the stairs to join her on the landing. He closed light hands to her shoulders and turned her away from the direction in which she had been about to head. ‘Our bedroom is this way, agape mou.’
‘It’s been a really, really lovely
day…’
As Leanne’s shocking behaviour swam back into Katie’s memory like a giant man-eating shark, she was silenced. She waited for Alexandros to make a sardonic comment on that same score but he did not.
‘The very best…’ Alexandros agreed, with remarkable restraint.
With careful hands he turned her back to face him and then bent down and swept her up into his arms.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ Katie gasped.
‘I like the fact you’re mine, lock, stock and barrel now,’ Alexandros shared, striding down the corridor and shouldering his passage into a room bedecked with so many glorious flowers that her jaw dropped as he lowered her to the carpet. ‘Calliope flew in Greek florists. She really goes for all the traditional stuff. This is a mark of her affection for you. But I told her not to bother rolling a baby on the bed…’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Katie echoed weakly.
‘It’s another tradition. But fertility is not one of our problems.’ Laughing huskily, Alexandros drew her back into the shelter of his big, powerful body. ‘I love our sons, but I would like to wait a little while before we extend the family. I want my precious wife all to myself,’ he breathed thickly.
Within the strong circle of his arms, Katie felt as at risk as a bale of straw within reach of a match. She had still to drag her mesmerised attention from the bed, which had been transformed into a romantic floral bower. It was all so gorgeous—but now she had to say what she had to say, and he was going to hate her…
Easing free of his light hold, Katie spun round and backed off a couple of steps. ‘I have something I have to say to you…’