by Lynne Graham
‘My father doesn’t love me,’ Tally muttered with an unemotional acceptance of that truth that came from years of disappointed hopes. ‘He did what the family court told him he had to do: he paid my living and educational expenses. But he very rarely wants to see me. I irritate him by reminding him of my mother and, as you saw, he didn’t care enough to step out in public as my father and attend my wedding, although again he paid for it. So, bearing in mind that he doesn’t really care about me at all, why would he force you to marry me?’
‘In Anatole’s eyes it was a matter of principle and honour. You being pregnant and unmarried was an affront to his dignity,’ Sander explained grimly. ‘Anatole Karydas is very conscious of his image.’
‘He was saving face,’ Tally traded flatly, recognising that her father’s overweening sense of importance was the most likely explanation for his behaviour. ‘Did he really have enough power to damage Volakis Shipping? I didn’t realise he was that important.’
‘A whisper in the wrong place would have killed that contract. Unfortunately my late brother left the company in a much more vulnerable state than I had appreciated. I only learned how bad things were after our wedding. My father was in over his head; he’s out of touch with the way business is done these days,’ Sander admitted heavily. ‘If I wasn’t such a stubborn bastard, I would have offered my help long ago and we might have avoided the current crisis. Sadly, it took your father’s threat to make me accept that blood is thicker than water.’
But Tally wasn’t listening to that little speech or the ramifications of Sander’s belated appreciation of the strength and importance of family ties. Shock had produced a spreading puddle of ice in the pit of her stomach and her skin felt cool and clammy. Glancing up, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in a mirror across the room and thought how horribly humiliating it was to be caught swanning round in sexy lingerie in an effort to attract a man who had clearly never really wanted her for more than the light entertainment factor of a few weeks. Add in a pregnancy that had proved equally undesirable and it was little wonder that he was avoiding intimacy. In haste, she walked into the dressing room to remove the wrap and shoes she was wearing. She took out trousers and a top and put them on, pushing her feet into flat comfortable shoes and burying the memory of the fancy underpinnings she still wore and why she had bought them.
It struck her as deeply ironic that she should ultimately have her uninterested parents to thank for her humiliation and heartbreak. Now, because her mind simply could not cope with the truth about her marriage, she looked back in time instead and recalled her mother’s complacent rather than surprised response to the news that Sander had asked her daughter to marry him. Crystal had been triumphant and had undoubtedly told Anatole that Tally was pregnant. Her mother had probably enjoyed delivering that provocative news, possibly guessing how much it would annoy the older man that history was in danger of repeating itself in the next generation. Perhaps Anatole had feared that Tally’s relationship to him would once again be publicly exposed to embarrass him, along with the news that Tally was also pregnant by a Greek tycoon. For whatever reasons, he had chosen to force Sander Volakis into marrying her by threatening the future of Volakis Shipping.
There was no bouncing back from such a devastating blow, Tally acknowledged bleakly. Sander had surrendered to blackmail to protect his family’s business interests. But what else could he have done? She could only begin to imagine how tough Sander must’ve found it to allow anyone to force him into doing anything he didn’t want to do. That must truly have been a case of mind over matter, for Sander was bone-deep proud, independent and stubborn.
Why on earth hadn’t she suspected that something was badly wrong? When she contrasted Sander’s reaction when she first told him she was pregnant to his behaviour a week later, when he had asked her to marry him, she marvelled that she had happily accepted his sudden change of heart. The sad truth was that he had told her what she most wanted to hear and she had trusted and believed in him on that basis. People rarely wanted to kill the messenger who brought what appeared to be good news.
‘Tally …’ The dressing-room door was slowly pushed back and Sander looked in at her, a frown line etched between his winged ebony brows, his lean, darkly handsome features taut as he towered over her smaller figure. ‘Are you all right?’
Disturbingly aware that he had caught her in a moment of weakness, Tally straightened her slim shoulders and lifted her chin as she returned to the bedroom. ‘Of course I am.’
But regardless of what she said, Sander could see that she was very far from being all right: her face was white and strained, her eyes were blank and evasive and she was trembling as if she was cold. Guilt assailed Sander in a rolling tide of discomfiture. He cursed his bluntness and regretted the sense of rancour that had pushed him into spilling the beans. Of course she was upset; what else had he expected?
Sander closed a hand over hers and used his strength to gently push her down on the side of the bed. ‘You look as exhausted as I feel. It’s too late to talk about this now. We’ll sort everything out tomorrow,’ he told her levelly. ‘I’m going to have a shower and then I’m coming to bed.’
Tally nodded like a marionette but the instant the bathroom door closed she was on her feet again, hurrying into the dressing room to pull down a bag from an upper shelf. Tugging open drawers and racing around, she threw in clothing and keepsakes that she didn’t want to leave behind. No doubt Sander could ensure that the remainder of her belongings were transported back to London for her. Her face was wet with tears and her heart was thumping far too fast with nerves by the time she had finished packing. She relaxed a little once she recognised that the shower was still running in the bathroom. Donning a jacket, she left the apartment and travelled down in the lift.
Their marriage, which had barely got off the ground, had crashed and burned and there was nothing left worth fighting for or talking about, Tally reflected wretchedly. He didn’t love her; in the circumstances he couldn’t even particularly like her! Evidently he had strongly suspected that she might have used her father to put pressure on him to offer her a wedding ring. If ever there was a last straw in a scenario, the sheer level of Sander’s distrust in her had to be the final killing blow. He hadn’t wanted to marry her. She could not trust one word that he had said the day he proposed, because self-evidently he had only said what he had to say to get her to the altar and protect Volakis Shipping from her father’s threats.
The security man in the foyer got her a taxi that would take her to the airport. She sat in the back seat as the car travelled through dark lamplit streets and wondered how she was going to continue living in a world that no longer contained Sander. She wasn’t supposed to love him like that when he didn’t love her, but she had given up trying to explain the fiercely strong emotion she had felt for Sander from the moment she had met him. She might not have been happy living with him, but she knew she was going to be a great deal unhappier without him. At least while they’d still been together there had been hope that things might improve. Now? Now she was looking down a long, dark, empty tunnel and there was no light at all visible at the end of it.
She had forgotten that there was an airline strike. People were lying down and sitting everywhere and the queues were endless. After a long wait she learned that it would be eight hours before she could board a flight back to London. For the sake of a few hours she did not see the point of heading to a hotel. She was browsing through the shops to pass the time when she glanced up and saw Sander staring at her from across the concourse.
Aware that having told Tally the truth about their marriage had made him feel a lot less aggrieved, distrustful and tense, Sander had strolled back into their bedroom, weary but comparatively happy for a man at serious odds with his wife. And the first thing he had noticed was that the bed was empty and the lights were out in the hall. He had checked the lounge and then the second thing he’d noticed was the absence of the tiny jade frog T
ally had placed on the dressing table. Her ‘lucky’ frog, which she took to exams and all important occasions—it was gone. He had looked into the dressing room and breathed in deep when he’d seen clear evidence of hasty packing.
Shock had roared through Sander then in a blinding wave. Tally had walked out on him; he couldn’t believe it, didn’t want to believe it! Tally had one priceless trait he had always taken very much for granted, but which he greatly admired. He saw her as unique amongst the women of his experience—she was a really good sport, who could usually be depended on to do the sensible thing. She was not impulsive or foolish, nor was she given to going off on emotional tangents.
Until you told her that her father had made you marry her.
That was the instant when it dawned on Sander that he had expected a little too much. Simultaneously, he was also remembering his life in London with Tally. A life laced with the warmth, fun, enthusiasm and spirit that were so much a part of her vitality and her genuine interest in what he did every day. His thoughts cut back across the absence of newer memories created since their wedding and went straight to an image of life without Tally. For the very first time since he had met her, Sander realised that he had moved on from the constant late nights, the wild parties and the procession of ever-changing women he had once bedded. He had moved on without ever realising the fact. He had even begun to occasionally think about the baby …
It was the work of a moment for Sander to plunge back to his feet and take action, shedding the towel and dragging out clothes with more haste than cool. Before he left the apartment he went into the depths of a drawer to remove an item he had bought earlier that week. It was small, insignificant and cheap, an impulse buy that had embarrassed him in retrospect but it was also, he hoped, a symbol for a more committed future. The security guard on the ground floor gave Sander’s unshaven, dishevelled appearance a knowing masculine appraisal that set Sander’s even white teeth on edge and while hailing another taxi for his employer confirmed—without being asked—Tally’s destination. Sander briefly toyed with the idea of saying he wasn’t heading to the airport as well and then thought about his empty apartment again and all false pride somehow fell away.
It wasn’t that he minded living alone; he was used to living alone. Furthermore he liked his freedom, his own space. It was just that he had become accustomed to Tally being there in his space, he reasoned feverishly, conscious of a looming edge of panic foreign to his experience. The candles round the bath, the cushions on his sleek leather sofas, the endearing, perfectly spelled and long-winded texts that made him smile no matter how busy he was.
Tally was his wife. Strange how he had never allowed himself to think about her in that guise until now when it might well be too late, he conceded heavily. Had he treated her like the invisible woman? That was a fair point, he had to admit. Without warning though he was plunged into a welter of surprisingly familiar recollections. He had noticed her presence in his life much more than he had been prepared to admit. The scent of her perfume and the orange soap she loved, her passion for peanuts and her music playing in the bedroom while he watched the business news and withstood the temptation to join her. It crossed his mind that had he fought the temptation a little less hard his wife might not have run away.
Women never ran out on Sander and he had long since worked out why Oleia had let him down so badly when he was a teenager. He had adored Oleia Telis but falling in love with her had made him boring, soppy and needy. There again, love had never done Sander any favours, which was why he had always fought hard to stay untouched and detached from an emotion likely to drag him down and sap his strength and peace of mind. His earliest memories of childhood were rooted in disturbing images of his mother pushing him away irritably and calling him ‘clingy’ and ‘babyish’. The rejections had been continual, yet somehow his brother had never come in for the same treatment. Sander had soon learned independence, while also learning to equate love with pain and weakness and the risk of exploitation.
‘Tally …’
Paralysed to the spot beside a magazine stand, Tally stared at Sander’s tall powerful figure as he strode towards her. She was shocked by the sight of him because it had not occurred to her that he might follow her. And, for once, his reputation for sartorial elegance was under threat. He was wearing well-worn jeans teamed with an open shirt and a black designer suit jacket. His strong jaw line was dark with stubble, highlighting the wilful beauty of his wide sensual mouth, and his black hair had dried all spiky and tousled. ‘What are you doing here?’
Sander pushed impatient fingers through his untidy black hair and breathed almost argumentatively, ‘You’re here!’ as if that answered everything.
‘That doesn’t explain why you followed me,’ Tally persisted, colliding with stunning golden-brown eyes and hurriedly looking away, even while her breath hitched in her throat and her heart began to race.
‘Look, we can’t talk here,’ Sander intoned, closing an arm round her taut spine to ease her out of the path of a man pushing past. ‘We’ll get coffee—’
‘Haven’t you noticed that this place is in turmoil with the strike? Everywhere is packed. There are no seats,’ Tally protested, sliding away from physical contact with him like an electrified eel. ‘I don’t think we have anything to talk about, Sander. After what you told me, our marriage is null and void.’
‘How can it be null and void? You’re carrying my child!’ Sander shot back at her quick as a flash.
Tally was so disconcerted by that response from a male who never ever mentioned her condition if he could help it that she stared at him. A dark rise of blood accentuated his superb cheekbones as he recognised her incredulity. He veiled his stunning dark eyes and closed a hand that brooked no argument over one of hers to draw her over to the edge of a crowded café. There he set her free and she looked on in amazement as he approached a couple of young men at a table and, withdrawing his wallet, made it worth their while to give up the table. He then retrieved her and sat her down with great determination. ‘Give me five minutes.’
You’re carrying my child!
Had that only finally sunk in? Tally was very much shaken by his appearance at the airport. It had taken all her courage and the conviction that she was doing the right thing to walk out on Sander and their marriage. She had assumed he would be relieved that she had chosen to leave without any histrionics. That he might choose instead to look that gift horse in the mouth and chase after her was a complete surprise.
Sander reappeared and set a cup of tea in front of her, a beaker of strong black coffee gripped in his other hand. The strain in his gorgeous dark golden eyes was palpable, the line of his eloquent mouth compressed with the level of his fierce tension.
‘I just don’t understand what you’re doing here,’ Tally whispered truthfully. ‘It would be easier for you just to let me go.’
‘I can’t let you go,’ Sander ground out abruptly.
‘Sander! For the past month you have behaved as if I didn’t exist while I was living below the same roof,’ Tally reminded him bluntly.
‘It wasn’t deliberate. I’m not like you in relationships … I don’t think things through. I didn’t have a plan as I do in business,’ Sander advanced in a sudden flood of driven words, his beautiful eyes full of an appeal for her to listen. ‘I was just so angry—’
‘I know. I understand that,’ Tally broke in, because she did.
‘I was just living with the rage and Volakis Shipping was failing,’ he told her in a raw undertone, black lashes screening his gaze as he gulped down black coffee.
‘Even though I assume that that contract which my father originally threatened went through?’
‘The TKR contract did, but I’m afraid that that was just the tip of the iceberg. I was scared I had left it too late. I wasn’t sure I could save the company,’ Sander admitted doggedly, behaving as though every word of that confession were being dragged from him under torture, for owning up to doubts a
nd insecurities was something he never did. ‘So, I wasn’t really thinking about our marriage the last few weeks.’
And Tally got the point, she really did. Business had come first when it forced him to marry her, and business had come first when in spite of that huge sacrifice of his freedom he had discovered that the family company might still go down. That unhappy truth must only have added to his outrage at the position he was in. She understood that perfectly.
On the other side of the table, Sander was talking into his mobile phone at a fast rate of knots. Without warning, he leapt up. ‘Come on,’ he urged, reaching down and taking charge of her cabin case.
‘Come on … where?’ she exclaimed.
‘I’ve found us a hotel. This …’ Sander sent speaking dark impatient eyes over their crowded surroundings and barely repressed a shudder. ‘This is impossible!’
Tally was willing to admit that an airport café was not the best place to stage so private a dialogue, but she was reluctant to go to a hotel with him. ‘I just don’t think we have anything left to talk about,’ she protested, almost running to keep up with his long stride.
Already fed up with talking, Sander stopped dead and reached for her instead. He hauled her up against him and bent his handsome dark head to crush her soft full lips beneath his. She tasted like strawberries and wine, hot and heady and sweeter than sweet, and his senses reeled in a seething surge of excitement. An agony and an ecstasy of feeling and sensation roared through Tally’s slim body with such intensity that she trembled. It had been so long since he touched her that she could not restrain a gasp when his tongue pierced the tender sensitivity of her mouth and the thought of a much more intimate possession turned her secret places to melted honey and left her knees shaking.
His hand curved to her hip and rocked her up against him so that she could feel the hard thrust of his erection. Golden eyes ablaze with sexual heat gazed down into her hectically flushed face expectantly.