Smiling broadly and clutching a folded newspaper, her secretary handed over a pile of messages. ‘You certainly know how to keep a secret, Alix! None of us even guessed from the way you’ve been acting. Congratulations, I hope you’ll both be very happy.’
Rifling through the pile in astonishment, Alix glanced at her secretary in confusion. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘The wedding. The announcement is in all the papers,’ Ruth explained, handing over her own copy. ‘Didn’t you know about it? Perhaps Mr Martineau wanted it to be a surprise.’
Seeing the light at last, Alix managed a smile, returning the newspaper. ‘I expect so,’ she declared drily, and he had certainly succeeded. In her office she glanced through the messages again, and tightened her lips. With few exceptions, they were all from people who had refused to help her only days ago. Now, with Pierce’s arrival, they couldn’t get in contact quickly enough. It was hard not to feel bitter, and it didn’t make it any easier to enter her father’s office and face Pierce.
He glanced up from a document he was studying, slowly lowering it to the desk as she came across to him. He didn’t smile, but then she had hardly expected him to. ‘What can I do for you, Alix?’ he asked, with barely concealed impatience.
It was an attitude calculated to put her back up straight away, but she mastered her impulse to let off a vitriolic salvo. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about the announcement?’
Pierce sighed, sending her a quizzical look. ‘Perhaps because I didn’t want an argument from you. But it looks as though I’m going to get one anyway, doesn’t it?’
Crossing her arms, Alix took a deep breath. First things first. ‘I didn’t come here to fight, Pierce, I came to apologise.’ At least she had got the words out without choking.
‘Now there’s a novelty!’ he jeered softly, and instantly her temperature rose.
‘Do you want this apology or not?’ she charged tartly.
One finger smoothed over his lips thoughtfully. ‘Curious how it sounds more like a declaration of war.’
She flung her hands up in exasperation. ‘That’s because you always say something to make me mad! If you’d just be quiet for five minutes, I can have my say and go!’
Much to her surprise, he laughed. ‘You’d be wasted in the diplomatic corps. OK, you have the floor, Miss Petrakos.’
Damn him! Alix thought wildly. Battling to keep her voice level, her chin rose fractionally in unconscious defiance. ‘I realise the stunt I pulled last night was in bad taste. I’m sorry.’
There was a silence for several seconds before he answered. ‘Is that it? Very well, apology accepted,’ he acknowledged, and reached for the document again.
Alix’s lips parted on a tiny gasp. ‘Is that all you’re going to say?’ she demanded in disbelief.
Pierce looked coolly amused. ‘You were maybe expecting something else?’
Her teeth came together in an audible snap. ‘I thought,’ she began scornfully, ‘that you might want to apologise yourself.’
All amusement left him. ‘For what? Beating you at your own game? Perhaps I might if I thought you wouldn’t be trying something else the minute my back was turned,’ he told her bluntly. ‘But while you’re here there are a few things you need to know. You’d better sit down.’
He was amazing! He seemed to think he could say what he liked, and then expect her to sit down for a cosy chat! ‘Thanks, but I prefer to stand.’
Pierce didn’t raise his voice. ‘Sit down, Alix, or I’ll come round there and make you.’
After last night, she decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and quickly took the seat opposite him.
He sent her a grim smile, sitting back and crossing his legs. ‘Comfy? I’ll try not to keep you too long. I know your time is precious. You’ll be delighted to hear that after the wedding we’ll be taking a short honeymoon, so you’d better arrange for leave. Also, you can get Personnel to put in an advertisement for your job. That way we’ll be ready to interview as soon as we get back.’
Alix was too stunned to utter a word for a moment or two, then they spluttered out. ‘What do you mean, advertise my job? I worked damn hard to get here, and I’ll be damned if I give it up for you or anybody!’
‘Nevertheless, the position will be vacant,’ he informed her with a steely glint in his eye. ‘You’ll be my wife, Alix. You didn’t seriously imagine you could stay here when I go home? Although I have houses in most European capitals, my home is in the States. As my wife, you’ll be living there with me.’
She cursed herself for a fool then, because she hadn’t actually thought of what would happen after they were married. She really should have known. ‘And what about my career?’ she challenged, choking on a fresh wave of bitterness.
‘I’m afraid that will have to take a back seat,’ Pierce replied dismissively. ‘Will it really matter? I remember you telling me once that you had no intention of being a working wife.’
It was an unnecessary reminder, recalling to her her own naïveté. ‘That was in another life. My career is important to me now, Pierce.’
‘It won’t be when you have a family of your own. Or had you forgotten that ours is to be a real marriage, darling?’
Grey eyes flashed her dislike. ‘A real marriage is supposed to be a partnership! There’s supposed to be mutual respect. We have neither. My only choice is to do exactly what you say, isn’t it?’
‘You’ve heard of the phrase, He who pays the piper calls the tune? So far, all the giving has been on my side,’ Pierce shot back coldly, and she flinched.
‘I see. You really know how to make a person hate you, don’t you, Pierce? I suppose this honeymoon is where I pay back the first instalment?’ she charged in a choked voice.
‘Neither of us can escape our destiny, Alix,’ he said evenly, and she shook her head.
‘You talk as if we have no control over our lives. As if it’s all been preordained by some higher being. I don’t believe that, and I won’t give in to your belief,’ she countered fiercely. How could she believe it? For it would mean there was no escape.
‘Perhaps you already are,’ Pierce observed wryly. ‘Much as I’d like to, I really don’t have time to discuss the finer philosophical points with you. My team are arriving today, and we’ve a hell of a lot of work to get through before the wedding. You should look to clearing your desk too.’
Dismissed, Alix said nothing, because there was absolutely nothing to say. Argument was useless. Anything she said he would ignore anyway. She merely rose and went back into her own office. An office which would not be hers for very much longer. Crossing to the window, she stared stormily out at the London landscape. She felt as if she was being taken over. As if, before very long, there would be nothing left of the Alix Petrakos she knew. All she could do was vow not to give in without a fight, to make sure any victory Pierce achieved would be a hollow one.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE wedding took place two days later. It was, by circumstance, a quiet affair, with only her mother and a friend of Pierce’s in attendance. Alix wouldn’t have had it any other way, because to her mind the fact that they were getting married at all made a mockery of what she had always believed to be a sacred institution. The only way she knew she would get through it at all was to think of her father.
The civil ceremony was short. Alix had chosen to wear an ivory silk suit and matching pillbox hat, complete with a pearl-dotted veil, on her head. She also, very reluctantly, carried a small posy of flowers which her mother had pressed on her when she arrived. Her main memory of the service was the surprising strength of Pierce’s responses. He managed to make it sound as if the vows they exchanged meant something to him, which she knew couldn’t possibly be true. Superstitiously, it sent a chill down her spine.
The photographer came as a surprise when, as husband and wife, they once more walked into the sunshine. She should have known Pierce wouldn’t let the event go by unrecorded, but a cold lump
lodged under her heart as it only seemed to add to the sham. Fortunately, there was to be no reception. It was an ideal arrangement as far as Alix was concerned, for she doubted if she could hide for very much longer that the bride and groom were barely on speaking terms. Since their last confrontation, the atmosphere between them had been chilly almost to the point of frostbite.
‘I’ll just have one of you kissing the bride,’ the photographer directed, either not catching the atmosphere or choosing to ignore it.
Alix would have liked to refuse, but with her mother watching, and the small crowd of onlookers—which a wedding always seemed to draw—looking on, didn’t dare. Obediently she turned her face up to her husband’s.
‘I feel like a performing seal!’ she muttered tersely, as Pierce’s hand steadied her chin.
‘Maybe, but a very beautiful one,’ he returned huskily.
Her breath caught at something that flickered momentarily in his eyes, but before she could analyse it his mouth was on hers and her lashes fluttered down helplessly. It was the strangest kiss she had ever received from him, and all the more staggering for that. No passion, or possession, but rather an amalgam of elation and relief, so that when he raised his head again she could only stare up at him in confusion. That clearly satisfied him, because Pierce merely smiled and released her.
‘That’s enough,’ he declared, cutting off the photographer in mid-flow, and turned to his new mother-in-law. ‘If we don’t get going, we’ll miss our flight. Take care of yourself, Emily, and tell Stephen not to worry while we’re away. There’s a good team in charge, so all he has to do is concentrate on getting well.’
Emily Petrakos made some sort of watery response as she kissed his cheek, then turned to her daughter and hugged her. ‘You looked beautiful. Be happy, darling. Pierce is a good man. He’ll take care of you all right.’
Such confidence, which once she had shared, brought a lump to her throat. However, it wasn’t in Alix to disillusion her parent, so she quickly returned the hug to hide the despair that she feared must show in her eyes. ‘I know he is, and I’ll do my best.’
All that was left for them to do was climb into the waiting car and wave farewell as they began the journey to the airport. Biting her lip against a foolish wave of emotional tears, Alix sat back with a sigh, already feeling drained by the effort to act normally. Things weren’t normal, and never could be. At least she didn’t have to pretend with Pierce. He knew exactly what her feelings were. Her lips curved wryly as she surveyed the posy still clasped in her hand, then she tossed it aside into the gap she had been careful to leave between them.
To her surprise, she heard Pierce move, and when she glanced round she discovered that he had picked it up.
‘The flowers aren’t your enemy, Alix,’ he reproved softly, smoothing back bruised petals. ‘Although I imagine it’s me you’d like to leave crushed.’
She would, but the truth was the reverse, for she was the one usually left wilted and defeated. ‘You’re unbreakable. A solid block of stone,’ she responded tightly, watching in perplexity as he leaned over to place the posy on the front passenger seat, all the while speaking rapidly in Greek to the driver, who, she had discovered, travelled the world with him.
When he sat back, he eased sideways so that he could watch her more easily. ‘Stone is breakable if you hit it in the right place.’
‘You mean, if I keep looking, I’ll find your weak spot?’ she asked in mocking disbelief.
A smile tugged at the corner of his lips. ‘It’s patently obvious to those with eyes to see. Who knows? If you saw it, you might not want to break it at all.’
She frowned at that, somehow feeling that he was telling her something in a code she didn’t know how to unscramble. Irritated that he could unsettle her so easily, she sat more upright. ‘I guess I’m not that forgiving.’ Her eyes fell on the back of the chauffeur’s head. ‘Why did you give him my flowers? What did you say?’
‘I told him to take them and have them preserved. You might like to keep them in the bedroom as a reminder of today.’
Her eyes dropped to the chased gold band which now graced her marriage finger. It had been the source of another fruitless battle. She had wanted something simple, but Pierce had insisted, and, as usual, got his way. She had been surprised when the best man had produced two rings, a matching one for her to place on Pierce’s finger too. She hadn’t imagined he would want a permanent reminder of his wedded state.
‘Are either of us likely to forget it? I know I won’t need reminding,’ she advised coolly.
‘Nevertheless, it shall be done. Who knows? You may change your mind,’ Pierce argued reasonably, picking up her left hand and studying the effect of the gold on her slim hand. ‘My ring suits you. What did you do with the others?’
Her nerves jolted for two reasons: at that reminder of the other time, and the tingle of awareness his light touch sent shooting up her arm. She gasped, attempting to pull her hand free, but he denied her.
‘Does my touch revolt you, Alix?’ he taunted, the tone and curve of his lips telling her he knew otherwise.
Forced to sit still, she went on the defensive. ‘Everything about you revolts me!’ she lied desperately. ‘As for your rings, I was tempted to throw them into the Hudson River, but it seemed a waste of good money. So I gave them to the first charity I came across.’
‘I’m glad to know they went to a worthy cause,’ he responded, ironically.
Alix seethed impotently. ‘Money is all you’re good for!’
He laughed. ‘Really? I’ll remind you of that when you’re writhing in my arms tonight.’
Colour stung her cheeks as she realised she had walked right into that. It was a subject she had been religiously avoiding thinking about, viewing the prospect with alarm. An alarm caused by the knowledge that, whatever her brain decreed, her body wanted him quite desperately. Each hour that passed made the fight harder to keep up. But he had just given her some much needed ammunition. ‘You conceited... Will you please let me go?’
Pierce sent her a quizzical look. ‘What’s so wrong about a husband wanting to hold his wife’s hand? Especially when they’ve just been married.’
Alix breathed in deeply, determined to remain cool. ‘Don’t be a hypocrite. There’s no need for us to play games now, Pierce. There’s nobody watching us who needs to be impressed,’ she retorted scornfully.
Another small smile twitched the corners of his mouth. ‘And what if I tell you I’m not playing games?’
Grey eyes flashed him an old-fashioned look. ‘I wouldn’t believe you.’
Sighing elaborately, Pierce crossed his legs but still kept a firm hold on her hand. ‘However our marriage may have come about, I intend to do my best to make it work, Alix. You could do the same,’ he suggested softly, and her heart kicked in her chest.
Lord, he sounded so plausible, but she knew from past experience just what an actor he was. ‘There’s no need to go to so much trouble on my account!’ she shot back, and this time found her hand released when she tugged.
‘Oh, it’s no trouble, darling. It’s what I always intended.’
His answer came as a complete surprise, and she stared at him in astonishment. ‘You make it sound as if you wanted this marriage,’ she said slowly, and received only a raised brow for her pains.
Unable to sustain that look, she turned away, staring out of the window, frowning heavily. Surely Pierce couldn’t have wanted to marry her? That made no sense. She was an unwanted ex-wife. Except, of course, that he did want her. But you didn’t have to marry someone to satisfy a sexual urge. He could have blackmailed her into an affair, but he hadn’t. Had it had to be marriage or nothing? And just what did that mean?
Rather late in the day, it occurred to her to ask, and she turned to him once more. ‘Just why did you marry me, Pierce? You could have helped my father without that. If you wanted the Petrakos empire, you could have bought your way in. Why on earth did you want to tie yours
elf to me again?’ She was trying to put together the mental pieces of a puzzle which was getting harder instead of easier.
For a moment Pierce returned her look, then turned to gaze out of the window. ‘I had my reasons, but you aren’t ready to hear them yet,’ he told her evenly, and that struck an all too familiar chord, rousing her sleeping temper.
‘Oh, yes, I forgot, you like to pick your moment, don’t you? You have a penchant for early morning, I recall. Should I get my armour ready for tomorrow?’ she taunted, voice unconsciously registering a mixture of anger and pain.
He turned at that, eyes revealing a deep regret that he didn’t even attempt to hide. ‘Relax, Alix, this time there will be no surprises. You’ll know the right time as well as I,’ he declared softly.
Alix found her heart was beating faster. He was confusing her, just when she knew she needed to be thinking clearly. ‘Why should I trust you?’
His smile was lopsided. ‘That’s something I can’t make you do. You either will or you won’t.’
She bit her lip, for some unaccountable reason feeling anxious. ‘I don’t understand you.’
Pierce’s smile became self-mocking. ‘You never did,’ he answered enigmatically, and she raised her chin.
‘Well, if there had ever been a time I might have wanted to, I certainly don’t now.’ There were too many scars, too much pain, she thought, feeling choked by too much remembered emotion. Turning away, she fixed her attention on the outside world, distancing herself as best she could from the man beside her.
Yet her thoughts couldn’t be so easily turned off. Pierce had to be playing a game. He was trying to undermine her; of that she was becoming increasingly certain. The first subtle signs had caught her attention only days ago, during one of the meetings he had had with various influential businessmen, many of whom she had seen recently herself. Recalling the chilly nature of their latest confrontation, she had assumed Pierce’s insistence that she be present was to put her nose out of joint, but the first few minutes showed her the error in her thinking. It wasn’t her nose he intended to disjoint, but those of the men who had come to see him to curry favour. They hadn’t quite liked having to talk to Pierce in her presence, but she had been honest enough to admit that she enjoyed their discomfiture. And then she had met Pierce’s amused conspiratorial look, experiencing a surge of warmth inside her, because, incredible as it might seem, that look had suggested that he had engineered the whole confrontation for her.
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