by Tara Pammi
He threw his head back and laughed.
Like everything he did, even that was sexy. Crinkles spread out from his gray eyes, which danced with humor. “No, I don’t think so. But other parts, yes.”
Eleni blushed so profusely she felt like there should be flames coming out of her ears.
“Believe me, Princess. Not a single woman I’ve ever known could match that lovely blush of yours. This modern world of equality has made me unaware of how attractive a woman’s shy blushes and stammering denials are.”
“I don’t stammer,” she burst out, efficiently giving herself away.
Anything else she might have vehemently denied died on her lips when his outstretched hand held a small velvet box.
“Open it, Eleni,” he said with an edge of impatience after she’d stared it for several seconds.
Eleni slowly opened it and promptly lost her breath.
A sapphire sat in a princess setting surrounded by tiny diamonds that reflected the sun’s rays. It was the most exquisite ring she’d ever seen, and as a member of the House of Drakos, Eleni had seen her share.
It wasn’t ostentatious with the stone overpowering the setting. It wasn’t a status symbol. It wasn’t a ring she’d have expected a man like Gabriel Marquez, a man who proclaimed to the world what and who he was with every breath, to buy for his fiancée.
“You do not like the ring.”
Eleni closed her fingers over his wrist just as he was about to shut the box. Breath punched in and out of her throat at the graze of the hair on his wrists against her palm.
“It’s the most beautiful ring I’ve ever seen.” Breathless and vulnerable. Desperate and so painfully hopeful. Despite every warning that this was just an arrangement, her heart drummed against her rib cage. “I’m trying to rack my brain as to whether I’ve ever mentioned to any media outlet that sapphires are my favorite.”
“I asked your sister-in-law.”
She jerked her gaze to his. “You asked Mia?”
He shrugged. “It was actually Angelina’s idea. That I get you something you’d like and appreciate. That women want to be given beautiful things. Apparently, I need relationship advice from my twelve-year-old daughter if I want to keep you happy.”
Eleni tried to bat away the warmth that immediately flooded her. “It is good that you two have something to discuss. Finally.”
“Oh, believe me, my twelve-year-old daughter is not only chock-full of advice but questions too. Even your brothers, I’d say, are not quite the champions of you that Angelina is.”
“What do you mean?”
“She demanded to know why I was marrying you while declaring that you deserve someone far better than an unfeeling, workaholic like me.”
When he stared at her pointedly, Eleni shook her head. “As much as I hate your guts sometimes, I would never say such a thing about you in front of her. But...”
“Nikandros has no such reservations and Angelina has such a crush on him that everything he says is the truth to her.” Eleni nodded with a smile, and he sighed.
“If you start talking about how she’s growing up, I’ll... I think our conversation about you is the first real one we’ve ever had. The longest too.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Angelina’s too smart to be deceived. So I told her one version of truth.”
“Which is?”
“That I was thirty-six years old and settling down with a wife wasn’t a bad idea, especially if it made her feel secure and loved. That a marriage with shared goals is the only one I could tolerate. That your alleged saintly nature made you the best candidate for the position.”
“Saintly nature?”
“Apparently, you’re not only a wonderful friend, but also a model sister, daughter, a patroness of children’s charities and a superb equestrian.” His mouth snarled into a cynical curve that twisted the truth of his words. As if she was somehow cheating the world into believing an illusion. “I was hard-pressed to accept that I deserved to marry such a model of righteousness.”
“I’m neither dull nor a saint, Gabriel. The urges I feel when I’m with you will attest to that.”
“Like wanting to climb atop me right this minute and ravish me with that lush mouth of yours?”
She sputtered and stammered, not getting one lucid word out for a few seconds. The man was such an inveterate rogue. “Like wanting to thump you every time you use the attraction between us to gain the upper hand.”
His languid mouth twitching, he took her hand in his and slipped the ring onto her finger. Eleni’s throat felt like it was made of glass as the sapphire winked at her in the low lights of the limousine.
It was for show, she told herself, for the world, for the media, for outward appearances. Yet, it was the first time a man had made a commitment to her and the moment stole what breath was left in her lungs. She gathered her buffeted emotions together as he rubbed her knuckle with his finger, a thoughtful look on his face.
She left her hand in his through sheer effort, her heart racing in her chest. “Thank you, Gabriel. The ring...even if it was Angelina’s idea, it’s very thoughtful. I know that I’m dragging you to the altar.”
“In business, we adhere to the strictest standards because customer satisfaction is the primary goal. Not a profit margin, not whether the next contract lands in your pile. I will do everything in my power to give you everything you want and need, and that will ensure that you will do your best with Angelina. Simple common sense. So tell me, are you dragging me, Princesa, or am I dragging you to the altar in two weeks?”
“Two weeks? I’m not even sure whether Andreas got the message I sent. I can’t marry without him present.”
“I’m a businessman first and foremost. I can’t let deals wait for anyone. And you do not need Andreas’s blessing when you’re the one who’s saving Drakon from the big bad wolf. I’m aware how much work there is to be done with Angelina and me, and I will not give you a chance to back out. Andreas is busy chasing a ghost. And anyway, once we marry, Angelina will be your priority, not your brothers.”
The ring cold on her finger, Eleni stared at him. Why did she keep forgetting that this was a transaction for him, albeit an important one? He didn’t think of her as a woman to woo, only a mother for his daughter.
His cold analysis pinched like the tiniest shard of glass stuck in one’s hand. “Will I be asked to give you a review once you hold up your end of the deal too? Because I would like some kind of scale and advance notice if I’m to rate your...performance.”
This time, his laughter only made her feel cold and alone.
She needed to remember that, despite the soft edges she’d seen in him, Gabriel had as much heart as her cold and controlling father. He saw her only as the means to an end.
If she’d been a romantic, then her hopes and dreams would have turned to so much dust by now. Good thing that between her father’s cruelty and Spiros’s desertion, Eleni had long ago squashed any such hopes.
CHAPTER FIVE
THEIR WEDDING FEAST was held in the Rose room at the Drakon Palace, hosted by his now brother-in-law, Nikandros, and his wife, Mia.
Gabriel took a champagne flute and raised it in a gesture toward him. Nothing, however, could shake that creeping sense that his life was a little less in his control since he and the Princess had come to their neat little arrangement.
In two weeks, she’d made sure he and Angelina had had dinner every night, forced them to at least look at each other. The Princess herself had, of course, been the perfect buffer.
Angelina still had to be dragged to these dinners, he knew, but at least when she got there, she participated in the conversation, especially if Eleni asked her something.
He, who had never believed in anything that defied logic, had to admit that there was something of magic in his bride’s eyes when she joined hands with him and smiled up at him with those beautiful brown eyes.
Something beyond the mundane had touched the mountain air wh
en she’d walked toward him on the path carpeted with rose petals. When she had smiled at Angelina who’d been her flower girl with such love shining in her eyes.
He’d had an event management firm do all the preparations for the ceremony, had ordered them to give his fiancée everything she wanted for the wedding, no matter how expensive or outrageous. Only to be told that his fiancée had a very decided opinion of how she wanted her wedding.
Her love for detail shone through in the smallest of touches.
And still, his commitment to this felt like nothing in the face of hers. Like he was cheapening it with his constant reminders that it was only an arrangement between them, with his continued belief that he was only doing this for Angelina, whereas Eleni, once she had decided on the course, seemed to accept it for what it was.
It felt like a weight he hadn’t asked for around his chest, a transaction for which her rewards were vague.
A member of his staff joined Gabriel just as Eleni walked onto the dance floor with Nikandros. He barely heard what the man said. Couldn’t shake his gaze from the voluptuous beauty of his wife.
His wife—his to cherish and protect and love. He couldn’t do the last, but he could surely do the first two.
The ivory lace of her dress dipped in a graceful curve, only barely hinting at those full breasts that his hands tingled to cup and hold.
The delicate diamond tiara sat atop brown curls that fell around her face in teasing waves. It was a gift from her brother Nikandros, Gabriel knew, for she’d refused any jewelry from him. Had smilingly refused every trinket he’d had the jeweler bring up to her.
Only the rings he had put on her finger and the promise of a child.
Even the settlement that Nikandros had insisted she receive in case they separated, had been arranged in their children’s names, if they had any.
She didn’t want anything Gabriel could give, or wanted to give her, and it made disquiet bloom in his gut that maybe there wasn’t anything he could give this woman to balance what she was giving him.
For a man who had measured the world and the people in it in terms of their worth and the value he could provide them, Eleni left him feeling empty-handed.
So Gabriel had smiled and posed for pictures with her and Angelina, even as his skin prickled.
With repeated instructions—almost step-by-step advice on how to approach Angelina and how to overcome her resistance—he and Angelina had even muddled their way through a dance, something he would have called an impossibility even a month ago.
How the media would laugh if they knew how much his own wedding had moved a hardened cynic like him.
He was about to ask Eleni to dance with him again when he saw a tall, tuxedoed man make a bow in front of her. That wide smile slipped from her mouth. Color fled her cheeks, leaving her eyes glittering with tears in a pale mask.
Gabriel frowned, every muscle urging him into action.
She didn’t refuse when the man took her hand in his. In fact, a ghost of a smile dawned slowly, a bit hesitant, a bit nervous. Her gaze searched the man’s face furiously, as if she couldn’t drink him up fast enough. Her hands went to his shoulders, his face, as if she couldn’t believe he was there.
A burst of possessiveness filled Gabriel as the man pulled her onto the dance floor, his hands far too bold and familiar over Eleni’s figure. Her slender fingers locked against the man’s nape, she tilted her head down to his mouth, as if to hear every word.
That look of distress, of disbelief, never left her eyes, all the while she danced with him. Curiosity ate through him, like flames licking at oil. With a curse, Gabriel walked away.
He wasn’t going to hang on to his wife’s every movement like a jealous husband. Damn it, she wasn’t even going to be his wife in the true sense of the word.
CHAPTER SIX
HER NERVES STRETCHED so taut that she felt she might shatter like a piece of glass, Eleni walked the long corridor to her own apartments rather than return to the Rose room. More than two hours had passed since she had disappeared from her own wedding reception with Spiros.
Surely her absence must have been noted by now. She had spent the past half hour trying to make sense of it all, wandering the palace aimlessly, and she didn’t have any more clarity.
Spiros—her friend and confidant from her childhood, the only boy she had kissed until Gabriel, the man who had promised to love her for the rest of their lives—was back. After being gone for ten years with no word, message or a single phone call.
Back in her life, apparently, whatever the hell that meant. Finally free to be with her, he’d said. There was no rhyme or reason to the nonsense he had blurted out at her.
A sob fought through her chest and Eleni swallowed hard to lock it. She didn’t know what it was that sat like a lump in her throat.
Was it grief? Anger? Or anxiety at what she had left behind in the reception room?
The palace walls seemed to close in on her as she turned one corner after the other. She should have been furious with him. She had imagined for so many years how she would react if she saw him again.
How she would slap his beautiful face and tell him to go to hell. How she would tell him that he had forever crushed her trust in men, her trust in her own judgment and feelings.
She had done none of those things. Her heart seemed to have lodged in her throat, cutting off any chance of words.
It had been such a beautiful day. Almost as if the universe had conspired to make it grand for her. Perfect for her. She’d begun it with a purpose, with a sense of direction for the first time in so many years. And it had ended with a ghost from her past.
Standing in front of the tilted-edge mirror, clad in her ivory lace gown, every inch polished and poised, with a bouquet of rare orchids that Gabriel had sent over, she had felt like a woman reaching for what she wanted out of life.
With the backdrop of the mountain, the chapel had looked like a magical kingdom. Nikandros had told her she’d looked stunning, a reluctant grin on his lips. Had embraced her in a bear hug when she’d mentioned Andreas.
The air had been crisp and pure and the man waiting for her at the end of the aisle had been the highlight.
Clad in a black tuxedo, his blue-black hair slicked back, he had looked powerful and gorgeous, a most outrageous dream come true. His fingers had been firm on hers, his vows resonating against the very mountain itself.
To protect and honor and cherish he promised in his deep, gravelly voice. She’d wanted to believe every word.
When his lips had touched hers, Eleni had jerked, singed to her very core. Dark brows had drawn down with the same shock she was sure vibrated through her own body.
It was as if their bodies sang to each other, their lips felt that same connection blaze into life even with the barest of contacts.
Her fingers had lingered over his, her face upturned, his for the taking. His mouth had twitched in that satisfied, arrogant way of his and she had blushed to the roots of her hair. But he hadn’t deepened the kiss beyond the perfunctory cool slide of his lips over hers.
The ride back to the palace had been filled with chitchat by Angelina. She was a mother in their arrangement, Eleni had reminded herself when Angelina had asked if she could ride with them. Not a proper wife. But even that hadn’t dimmed her joy in the day.
Today had been a perfect day she wouldn’t soon forget.
Until a suave, smiling Spiros had stood in front of her at the reception, greeting her like a long-lost friend.
Her gut had folded to her feet. She had been so shocked to see him that she had thought him a specter first, a ghost from the past. To remind her of what and who she was, of how naive she could be, how powerful her self-induced delusions if she weren’t careful.
When he had taken her arm and pulled her out of the Rose room, she had gone willingly, still grappling with it. When he had held her tight against him, when he had whispered frantic endearments and kissed her hair, she’d frozen into sti
llness.
Memories she hadn’t allowed herself to think of came rushing back, drenching her in pain and sorrow. Spiros had shuddered around her, his greetings shifting to apologies.
And then he’d disappeared as quickly as he had appeared.
Wondering if she was hallucinating, she had roamed the old armory like a wraith, her dress snagging and tearing on a rusted suit.
Her feet hurt like the very devil in her five-inch stilettos.
Leaning against the wall in front of her apartments, she bent and pulled the offending sandals off her feet. All she wanted was to tear her dress off, sink into a bath, and then go to sleep. The sooner morning came, the sooner she could have a bit of her practicality back.
Feet bare, she was pulling at the complicated knot her hair had been twisted into when she saw the shadow of a broad figure saunter into the light of her sitting room.
With the skylights at his back drawing a line around his broad shoulders, Gabriel looked like a devilish creature of the night. A darkly commanding figure. His suit jacket was gone. His white dress shirt unbuttoned and pulled out of his trousers. The edges separated to display a rock-hard chest with olive skin stretched tight.
A glass of scotch, his preferred drink, shone amber in his hands as he filled the doorway, lazily leaning a hip against it. His gaze started at her bare feet that she scrunched against the cold marble, traveled up the tulle skirt, lingered far too long on her hips and breasts and then up her bare neck, toward the hair she had partially pulled free of the knot.
Every inch of her tingled at his lazily possessive perusal. At the banked fire gleaming to life in his gray gaze. Every muscle in her tightened consciously against the onslaught of heat he created with that one long look.
Her sandals fell from her fingers with a quiet thud that resonated with the fierce drumming of her heart. She’d been so consumed with shock over Spiros that she’d even forgotten what tonight meant.
Did he mean to consummate their wedding tonight?
Shock and something more sinuous slowly floated down into her consciousness, setting off tremors in her entire body.