‘Chauffeur-driven, I presume,’ she jeered.
‘Jemma!’ He sighed. ‘What is the matter with you?’ He glanced at his watch, solid gold and glinting against his dark brown wrist. ‘You have done nothing but mock me since we arrived here this afternoon! What have I done to deserve it?’
‘Nothing,’ she mumbled, and he hadn’t—not really. If anything, Leon had been as pleasant and attentive as a man could be since he’d told her about tonight. Soothing her into a false sense of security, that bitchy voice in her head taunted. She let out a short sigh of defeat, and looked uncertainly back at the dresses. ‘You choose,’ she told him. ‘I’m just too nervous to make up my mind.’
He looked about to argue, his good mood ruined by her peevish manner. Then he saw the honest anxiety in her deep blue eyes and sighed heavily. ‘Jemma, you have to trust me. I won’t let them lay a single finger on you.’
‘Maybe not,’ she agreed. ‘But you can’t stop them looking at me as though I were a rogue cow who’s just run off with their prize bull!’
‘Prize bull, am I?’ He grinned, sharp even teeth gleaming white between his attractive lips. ‘Then you had better wear the red,’ he decided ruefully.
Jemma looked at the red, then shook her head. ‘It’s long and it must be thirty degrees out there. I’ll be too hot in it.’
‘Which therefore cuts out the blue, also,’ he said, ‘which leaves only the black or the white.’
‘I don’t want to wear black.’ She would really feel as if she was going to a wake in black. ‘And the white one is too—clingy-looking. They’ll know at a glance why you married me if I wore that!’
Silence. Jemma wasn’t sure what she had just said to make him react like that, but Leon was suddenly very still and very grim-faced. She soon found out. ‘Are you ashamed, by any chance, of the fact that you carry our child?’ he questioned silkily.
‘No!’ she denied. ‘Of course I’m not!’
‘Ashamed of me, then?’ he suggested.
‘Don’t be stupid, Leon!’ she scoffed. ‘Why should I be ashamed of you?’
‘Then it has to be yourself you are ashamed of,’ he decided, walking towards her with a mood about him that had her jumping warily to her feet.
‘I’m not ashamed of anything!’ she snapped as he reached out and took hold of her upper arms.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Because no wife of mine has anything to be ashamed of, do you hear?’ He gave her a small shake. ‘And neither does she have to hide the evidence of our lovemaking as if it were some dirty secret!’
She winced visibly at his cutting words, but found she could not deny there was a hint of truth in them.
Letting go of her, he moved away, his back stiff with anger. ‘Be ready to leave in ten minutes or be sure, Jemma,’ he threatened, ‘I shall come and dress you myself!’
She wore the white, and was surprised to discover that, far from clinging to every generous curve of her, it had a clever cut to it that made it skim rather flatteringly. She left her hair down, mainly because it gave her greater confidence to feel the long, twisting waves brushing against the sun-kissed skin of her shoulders. And, on impulse, she added a second protection, with a large white silk-fringed shawl which she draped around her shoulders.
Leon was standing by the salon window frowning out at the pitch-black night, but he turned when he heard her come in, then went still, his eyes dark and appraising as they ran slowly over her from her white strappy mules to the free-flowing richness of her sun-streaked hair.
‘Beautiful,’ he said simply, and held out his hands in a ‘what else can I say?’ kind of compliment that warmed her all the way through. Then he was coming towards her, a sudden sober expression on his face.
‘I have something I want you to wear for me,’ he murmured, producing a flat velvet box from his pocket. ‘They will expect to see it,’ he explained, and flicked open the lid.
Jemma stared down at it, and felt an odd chill clutch at her heart. It was a necklace. Big and conspicuous, almost gaudy with its huge sparkling diamonds surrounded by rich dark rubies. Priceless it had to be; she did not even think of questioning its authenticity. But it was ugly to the point that she actually shuddered, and was relieved when Leon said drily, ‘I know, it’s awful. But it was my mother’s and they will expect to see it on you—even though it was a well known fact that she hated it too.’
His mother’s. Somehow hearing that changed her whole impression of the necklace. ‘Did your father give it to her?’ she asked with sudden insight.
‘Yes.’ Leon’s smile was wry. ‘Says a lot for his taste, doesn’t it? It was his first big social mistake and he’s going to hate being reminded of it when he sees it on you—if you’ll wear it for me, that is.’
‘You like riling him, don’t you?’ Jemma noted drily.
‘Love it,’ he admitted. ‘You see, he married my mother simply to get his hands on the Leonadis fortune, then proceeded to make her life hell until the day she died.’
Oh, my, Jemma thought as suddenly lots of missing pieces from the puzzle began to slot neatly into place. So, the Leonadis Corporation had belonged to his mother’s family and not his father. It had never occurred to her to question the reason for the two different names.
‘And your brother?’ she asked. ‘Where does he fit into all of this?’
‘Half-brother,’ he corrected. ‘Nico was born just eight months after my father remarried, which was six months after my mother died.’
‘How old were you?’ she questioned gently.
‘Eight.’ He paused, a sudden flash of pain hitting his features. ‘Anthia was my father’s mistress before and during his marriage to my mother,’ he said, then added flatly, ‘She wanted everything my mother had—even this necklace.’
‘I’ll wear it,’ Jemma said, and accepted the kiss he pressed to her forehead for what it was—a thank-you for her understanding.
‘Turn around and hold up your hair.’
She did so reluctantly, shivering as the cold, heavy necklace came to rest against her warm skin. She looked down at it, seeing the way the jewels flashed in the overhead light. ‘I feel as gaudy as a Christmas tree,’ she complained.
Leon kissed her exposed nape. ‘I promise to replace it with something more tasteful at the first opportunity I get,’ he vowed, settling her hair back about her sun-kissed shoulders. ‘In fact,’ he added as he turned her to face him again, ‘I never did get you that special gift in return for the one you gave to me.’ His mouth went ruefully awry, as though he did not like himself much for the omission. ‘I owe you, agape mou. I—’
‘But you did give me my gift, Leon,’ she inserted softly. ‘A beautiful gift. One I wouldn’t change for the world.’ Taking hold of his hand, she laid it tenderly on their child.
His eyes went black, emotion burning up from somewhere deep inside him, then he was pulling her into his arms. He didn’t kiss her, but just held her very close for a moment, and Jemma felt tears sting at the back of her eyes because she knew she had just unwittingly reached in and touched a very vulnerable part of him.
‘I do not deserve you,’ he murmured as he drew away.
‘Mmm,’ she agreed, teasing him with the gentle humour in her eyes.
Yet, rather than making him smile with her, if anything he looked suddenly angry. His hands tightened on her shoulders. ‘Jemma,’ he said impulsively. ‘I—’ Then he stopped himself, impatience straightening the softer line of his mouth. ‘Let’s go,’ he muttered instead, his mood dark with purpose as he led the way off the yacht to where a dark limousine was waiting at the bottom of the companionway.
A white-uniformed chauffeur jumped to open the rear door for them. Leon saw Jemma inside then joined her, the mask of cool sophistication she only ever saw him wear when they were in others’ company slipping smoothly into place now.
They didn’t speak, and Jemma fixed her attention on what was going on beyond the car window as they flashed smoothly by invitingly
lit tavernas and bars with their tables packed with scantily dressed holidaymakers who looked tanned and happy and relaxed.
As they must have looked last night, she thought wistfully, wishing they were back in Fiskárdho wearing the casual clothes of the tourist and enjoying a simple meal in congenial company.
Last night had been one of the sweetest she’d ever spent—mainly because Leon had made it that way. Tonight promised to be the opposite in every way.
Leaving the main part of the town behind them, they began to climb through residential suburbs then out into a starlit countryside. To their right, the sea shone like billowing black silk with the silvered light of the moon on it. And she could just make out the dark bulk of land on the other side of the water curving like an elephant’s trunk around the Gulf of Argostólion.
‘Lassi,’ Leon murmured when her face lit with interest as they dropped into sudden bright, busy life again. ‘It is the main holiday resort on the island, because of the good sandy beaches here.’
‘It looks very lively,’ she remarked, her voice unknowingly wistful.
‘Hmm,’ was all he said to that. ‘My father’s villa is not far from here,’ he told her instead.
That brought back her tension, and she sat quietly beside him as they turned off the main road, taking a narrow lane that went beneath a canopy of trees which made it difficult to see much after that, with no street-lights to ease the darkness, until they slowed suddenly and turned in through a stone-arched gateway. And she felt her tension increase when she saw the rows of expensive cars lining the wide driveway where the two-storey building at the end of it looked more like a medium-sized hotel than a private home.
The car came to a stop at the bottom of a set of shallow steps which led up to the wide arched doorway where two white-shirted servants stood waiting to receive the guests.
The chauffeur jumped out of the car to open the rear door for them. But when Jemma went to alight, Leon laid a hand on her arm and shook his head. ‘Wait,’ he said, and climbed out on the other side, coming around to help her alight himself.
It was an oddly courteous gesture and one which warmed her even if it did nothing to ease the nervous tension from her stiffened limbs as she walked beside him.
The two doormen jerked to attention as they walked in, by the respectful looks on their faces, recognising Leon instantly. He ignored them with that arrogance which used to annoy her, but she was beginning to read it better now, and see it for the defence mechanism it was to him.
Leon was not at all comfortable being here in his father’s house. Not that it would show to anyone else, she noted as she kept pace with his smooth, easy stride with his arm comfortingly warm around her waist.
The entrance hall was big and luxurious, with a pure white marble floor and modern black furniture set against white walls. It led right through from the front to the back of the house, and by the emptiness of the rooms either side of them Jemma had to assume that the party was taking place elsewhere, which proved to be outside, as she realised when Leon led her down the marble hallway towards the growing hum of chatter coming from the garden beyond the open rear doors.
They were late. It took Jemma just ten seconds to realise it as they paused on the threshold to look out on the subtly lit garden where—at a quick and frightening guess—about one hundred people sat around the tables set upon a large paved area in front of a circular swimming-pool.
Not just late, but rudely late, she realised, when she noticed the coffee-cups and liqueur glasses on the table. And deliberately so if she was reading Leon accurately.
As if picking up on her thoughts, he murmured softly, ‘It looks as though we have timed it just right.’
But before she had time to ponder on this last cryptic remark someone noticed them, and the woman’s surprised gasp brought all heads turning in their direction.
It was amazing how total silence could deafen, Jemma thought as she felt her body go heavy with dread. She slipped her hand beneath Leon’s jacket and clutched at a fistful of his soft linen shirt.
‘Easy,’ he soothed her quietly. But Jemma could feel the tension in him. He was as uptight as she was.
‘So, you deign to arrive at last.’
Two things hit her at that moment: one, that the voice which spoke was harsh and angry, and the other that it spoke in English, which surprised her. The anger did not.
Leon’s father, it had to be, she assumed, because the man just rising to his feet was simply an older version of the man standing beside her. On his right sat the most exquisitely beautiful woman with the coldest pair of black eyes Jemma had ever seen, and on her right reclined a young man who could only be Leon’s half-brother because, again, he looked so incredibly like him—except for the thinness of his mouth. That had a slightly peevish look about it, and cold, like the woman he sat beside.
It was then she saw the two empty places on the other side of Leon’s father, and felt a wave of embarrassment wash over her. Those had to have been their places for dinner.
‘Father.’ Beside her, Leon acknowledged the other man with a smooth nod. ‘Many happy returns for your birthday.’
His father’s mouth tightened angrily. ‘Is that all you are going to say?’ he demanded.
‘No.’ Leon nudged Jemma into movement. She didn’t want to go, so he had to exert pressure to her shoulders to make her, and she found herself walking on shaking legs towards the clutch of tables. ‘I wish you many more of them,’ he added politely.
There was one small comfort, she noted tensely as she felt the prickling sting of one hundred pairs of eyes pierce her. No one had noticed her condition yet, simply because their eyes were locked on the awful necklace gleaming between the fringed folds of her otherwise concealing shawl.
A great diversion, she acknowledged half hysterically, her fingers taking an even tighter grip on that precious piece of shirt she was clinging to as a whisper of gasps and murmurs skittered around the garden. The woman seated beside Leon’s father was staring at Jemma’s throat in something close to horror, his half-brother stiffening in his seat. Yet no one spoke—no one seemed daring enough—as Leon guided them between their tables and chairs until he came to a stop beside his father, his arm resting across her trembling shoulders.
The older man had been staring at the necklace too, but now his glance flicked up to clash with his son’s. There was a question in his eyes—and a strange touch of excitement that Jemma did not understand. He seemed to swallow rather thickly. ‘Is this—?’
He was interrupted, not by Leon, but by the woman sitting to his father’s right. ‘We expected you at seven, Leon,’ she censured, coming stiffly to her feet. She was tall and incredibly slender—and with an aristocratic manner about her that put Jemma in awe. She flashed the necklace a hard look, but other than that honed her cold eyes exclusively on Leon. ‘It is now gone nine o’clock!’
There was another moment’s short, sharp silence while Leon continued to hold his father’s gaze, strange messages, Jemma sensed, flashing from one man to the other, then he flicked his eyes to the other woman. ‘Anthia,’ he acknowledged. ‘As beautiful as ever, I see.’
She did not take the remark as a compliment, her cold face stiffening. And it was only then, and at such close quarters to her, that Jemma realised that she had to be in her late fifties. It was just that she had cared for her body and face through the years, and it had paid off, because there was hardly an age-line on her.
‘Were you deliberately trying to ruin your father’s birthday?’ she demanded. ‘Does he not even get an apology from you for your rudeness?’
Leon leaned forward a little, the eye-to-eye contact between the two of them a formidable force in itself. ‘Does my companion get an apology for the way you are deliberately ignoring her?’ he threw back softly.
Jemma stiffened up like a board, even her chin going rigid on a complete overload of stress.
Again, the woman’s eyes flicked to the necklace, and something clo
se to panic spoiled their soulless expression before she was coolly back in control again. ‘Since it is you who are so rudely late,’ she drawled, ‘I therefore think your...companion will understand why your introductions will have to wait until after we have finished here.’ She made a gesture towards their listening audience with a long, languidly graceful white hand. ‘As you very well know,’ she went on tightly, ‘your father is about to make an important announcement, and we would appreciate it if you would at least show some manners, and let him get on with it.’
Another moment’s taut silence while Leon held the other woman’s angry gaze. Then, ‘But of course, Anthia, you are quite right,’ he conceded with a sudden back-down from the confrontation that everyone, even Jemma, had felt brewing. ‘Father must be allowed to continue—no matter what,’ he agreed. ‘But first I am afraid I really must show my poor manners yet again, and insist on making my own small announcement. Agape mou,’ he murmured, drawing Jemma closer to his side, ‘I would like you to meet my father, Dimitri Stephanades. Father,’ he continued softly, ‘my beautiful wife, Jemma.’
Stunned silence. It drummed in her ears. Dry-mouthed—terrified how she would be received—Jemma lifted her eyes to Dimitri Stephanades’s, the tension so fraught inside her that she could feel her blood-pressure rising perilously. Leon’s hand tightened on her shoulder as if to give her courage, and she swallowed nervously, her dry tongue sweeping around her parched lips as she forced a trembling hand upwards to offer it tentatively to the older version of Leon.
How it happened she was never sure, whether by accident or design. But as she lifted her arm, Leon shifted his resting arm, catching her shawl so that the fine silk slithered from her shoulders and fell in a whisper to the floor.
An audible gasp shot around the garden, the necklace losing its impact as all eyes honed in on her obvious state of pregnancy. Someone knocked over a drink, the glass splintering noisily as it smashed against a wine bottle. Someone else giggled, a nervous sound that was cut off as acutely as it had begun. And Jemma stood, paralysed and feeling utterly exposed, as Leon’s father went perfectly white, his eyes fixed unblinkingly on her body.
Passion Becomes You Page 14