Husband By Request

by Rebecca Winters

  She sat forward. “They never passed judgment on you. Not once. You were so marvelous to me after my accident, they’ve never forgotten and refuse to believe anything bad about you.”

  After a silence, “I’ve always admired them too. Very much, in fact.”

  “Unfortunately your parents’ first introduction to me came as a shock. I was a young American girl, the antithesis of the Greek woman they had in mind for their only son. I couldn’t say more than a few phrases in your language. I certainly didn’t look as if I could produce a grandchild for them.”

  His features darkened. “Who told you those things?” he demanded harshly.

  “No one. Come on, darling. Admit that’s exactly how they felt about me.”

  “You’re lying.” The words came out more like a breath. “Someone had to put those thoughts in your mind.”

  Even if someone had, she had no desire to tell him. “I don’t need to lie. After looking at the picture of Maris you keep on your desk, I realized it was the truth. If I’d been your mom I would have been disappointed to meet a foreigner like me. Especially one who could have passed for a boy if you didn’t look too hard.”

  The waiter couldn’t have chosen a better time to give them the dessert menus. “I don’t care for any. What about you, Dominique?” Andreas handed his back without looking at it.

  She followed suit. “The moussaka was so delicious, I couldn’t eat another thing right now.”

  “Very good.”

  As soon as the waiter went away Andreas shot her an angry glance. “We’re not through with this discussion.”

  “Andreas—let it go,” she urged calmly. “What we’ve been talking about is long since in the past. All I care about is spending an enjoyable evening with your family. You said you had a lot of old home movies on video packed away somewhere. What would you think if we got them out and showed them? I’ve always wanted to see them, and I bet your parents would love it too. It might open them up, get them to talk and share some of their feelings. I’d like to think it could bring us all closer together.”

  “It’s a brilliant idea.”

  He meant it or he wouldn’t have said it. She was overjoyed, but she wasn’t fooled. Andreas would probe until he got that name from her. He’d guessed that someone had influenced her thoughts about his parents. Dominique’s only fear was that it would upset him. She’d gotten past her pain ages ago.

  After paying the bill, he pushed himself away from the table and came around her side to help her. “Let’s go home and we’ll look for them. I think I put some boxes of them on one of the shelves in the guest bedroom.”

  They returned to the penthouse in a taxi.

  When they entered the foyer, she turned to Andreas. “While you find the boxes, I’ll phone my folks. Dad needs to know I’m not coming back to work. We already talked about that eventuality, but I need to make it official.”

  “That’s something else we need to talk about.”

  “What?” she cried, half afraid he was going to tell her their experiment wasn’t working after all.

  He traced the mold of her facial features with a finger. His touch turned her blood molten.

  “I’m not unaware you’ve held a job during our time apart. Tomorrow I’ll get up and go to work, but you’ll be here with time on your hands. Much as I wanted a stay-at-home wife, in retrospect I can see that wasn’t fair to you.”

  Elated by the admission, she said, “You’ll always be my first priority, but I do have some plans that won’t require punching a time clock. That is if they meet with your approval. After I get off the phone, I’d like to run them past you and get your opinion. I’m expecting you to be totally honest with me.”

  “That works both ways,” he murmured, before heading for the guest bedroom.

  Deciding there weren’t going to be any more secrets in this house, she followed him. When Andreas discovered she was right behind him, he flashed her a surprised glance. She pressed a kiss to his lips, then sat down on the bed to make her call.

  It looked like the closet was a treasure trove of memorabilia he’d collected. She couldn’t wait to examine everything, but right now she had a more pressing issue.

  “Domani!” Her father always called her that.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  “Your mom’s going to have a fit she missed this call. She’s over at the Ladislavs’ consoling them. Their cat died today.”

  “Blaz?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh…I’ll send them a sympathy card.”

  Her father chuckled. “Sounds just like the sort of thing my darling daughter would do. How are you?”

  “I’m sitting on a bed at our penthouse, watching my husband clean out a closet I don’t think he’s touched in years.”

  Andreas flashed a smile at her over his broad shoulder. She loved his big, gorgeous build. She loved everything about him.

  “I take it you won’t be coming back to work?”

  “No.”

  “You sound as happy as Blaz looked the other day when I came home from work and saw him with feathers stuck to his whiskers.”

  “Dad—cats are supposed to eat mice!”

  “Evidently he did plenty of that too. It makes you wonder what he’s going to chase now that he’s gone to heaven.”

  No one could make her laugh like her father. “I love you.”

  “We love you too, sweetie. Keep up whatever you’re doing, because it sounds like it’s working. Don’t forget we’re rooting for you.”

  “I know that,” she said in a husky tone.

  “Give my regards to our favorite son-in-law. Whenever you say the word, we’re up for a trip to Athens.”

  “I’ll tell him. Give Mom a kiss for me.”

  “That won’t be a problem.”

  Her parents were one of the happiest couples she knew. “Goodnight, Dad.”

  “Stay well, sweetie.”

  “You too.”

  She hung up.

  By now Andreas had retrieved three boxes which he’d stacked by the door.

  “Dad said you were his favorite son-in-law. He asked me to give you his best regards.”

  Andreas turned to her and pushed her back before following her down onto the bed. “He would have to say that, wouldn’t he?” he whispered against her lips.

  “No,” she answered solemnly. “When I returned to Sarajevo and told them I was divorcing you, they felt like they’d lost a child. Your parents aren’t the only people who’ve been in mourning.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE purity of his wife’s violet eyes slipped past his defenses to pierce his soul. He twined her silky blond hair in his fingers, loving the texture.

  “I want to know the name of the person who put those thoughts about my parents in your head. Views about you they never thought or spoke.”

  Immediately her expression grew troubled. “It doesn’t matter, darling.”

  “It does to me. Anything that hurts you, hurts me.”

  “I feel the same way, so let’s not crucify ourselves anymore by dredging up the past.”

  He looked down at her. “If you’re covering for Paul, I have to know.”

  “Andreas—” she cried in genuine alarm. “Of course it’s not Paul. He loves you. There isn’t anything he wouldn’t do for you.”

  Incredibly relieved, his mind jumped to the only other person he knew who might have taken pleasure in creating trouble in their marriage.

  “What kind of power does Theo have over you that you would try to protect him?”

  “It wasn’t Theo. If I tell you, you might take it the wrong way, so I’d rather not have this discussion.”

  “Try me.”

  He felt her shiver. It traveled the length of his body.

  “Olympia didn’t mean any harm.”

  Olympia?

  “Apparently she and your sister had someone picked out for you long before I came on the scene. A dark-haired beauty from a good Greek family. We laughed ab
out the shock it must have given your parents when you told them you were going to marry me. I agreed with her, and that’s all there was to it. Promise me you won’t say anything to her. I would be devastated if you did.”

  He buried his face in her neck, where her scent was the sweetest. “I give you my word.”

  “Thank you. I’m sure that if your sister were alive she would have said the same thing to me and we would’ve had a good laugh too. You know that old adage about life happening to you when you have other plans? That premise certainly was true of you and me. If I hadn’t discovered the cancer, I would have finished college at NYU. No doubt I would have ended up marrying a New Yorker. And you, my love, would have married someone your family had envisioned for you.”

  “No one decides my life for me.”

  “I didn’t mean that literally. If I had a brother I’m sure I would see someone and say, ‘That’s the woman he should marry.’ It’s human nature. Haven’t you ever met a woman you thought might be right for Paul?”

  Andreas chuckled. “Touché. You’ve made your point.”

  “Good.”

  Irresistibly drawn to her mouth, he shoved certain disturbing thoughts to the back of his mind and began kissing her. She gave him an electrifying response, unleashing his passion with such overwhelming force he lost all sense of time and place.

  Hours later, when they were temporarily sated, she lay wrapped in his arms with her back against his chest. “Darling? Do you realize we’ve never made love on this bed before?”

  There had been so many firsts since she’d come back into his life, he was dizzy from the excitement.

  “I know another place we need to christen,” he teased, biting her ear.

  “So do I, but taking a shower together means getting out of bed. Right now I’m much too content to budge.”

  His breath caught. “In the morning, then.”

  “It’s a date.”

  Andreas crushed her against him, so happy he was terrified. “Tell me about these plans that don’t require going into an office every day.”

  She turned so she was facing him. “I’m really excited about it, but you might not feel the same way. So if you have reservations, then I’ll propose plan B.”

  Everything she said and did charmed him to his very core. “Forget B. I want to hear A.”

  “Spoken like a true Stamatakis.” Her eyes shone like purple stars.

  “Go on,” he urged, kissing the tip of her well-shaped nose.

  “It’s a given I want to become fluent in Greek, so I’m planning to hire a tutor. Besides that, here’s my idea. Prior to my mastectomy, a woman my age, who was a volunteer from the local cancer institute, came to see me—before the operation.”

  At the mention of her cancer he had to steel himself not to cringe.

  “She’d had the same procedure done and explained her experience. I had so many questions only she could answer. It was more helpful than you will ever know. What I’d like to do is gather some other cancer survivors together under the umbrella of a Stamatakis Cancer Foundation. It would be a volunteer group that would eventually visit hospitals and clinics all over Greece, doing the same job that woman did for me. Educating me took away a lot of my fear. I’d like to do that for other women facing the same challenge.”

  Andreas lay back against the pillow, fighting the urge to tell her he didn’t want to think about her cancer. He wanted it all to go away. But his beautiful, earnest wife felt so passionately about it he had no choice but to listen until she was through.

  “One of the projects we could do to raise cancer awareness and save lives is to sponsor a fun run. You know—the kind of marathon I ran on Zakynthos. But only cancer survivors would be the ones running. We could hold them all over Greece. Maybe once every two or three months. I don’t know yet. It would take a lot of planning, and the cooperation of local government officials, but I think it would be exciting—and most of all beneficial.”

  She leaned on his chest and cupped his temples with her hands. “I know you hate the mere mention of the word. All loved ones do. But if we face up to it and fight it together our marriage will be stronger for it. Naturally this isn’t all going to happen overnight. I’ll work on it slowly, around your schedule. But if you’d rather I didn’t do that, then I’ve been thinking of finishing college here. I don’t know how many of my classes at NYU will transfer, but I do know I want to get my degree.”

  A tight band had constricted his breathing. He reached for her hands and kissed the tips of her fingers. “Let me sleep on it.”

  Her hair brushed against his eyelids. She tucked it around her shell-like ear. “Of course, darling. There’s no rush on anything. We have our whole lives ahead of us.”

  Our whole lives.

  She was so brave. He couldn’t find the words to tell her.

  “Don’t put me on some kind of angelic pedestal,” she said, reading his mind. “Hundreds of thousands of women around the world are in my exact shoes.” She smiled. “There’s a whole whacked army of us.”

  “A formidable army,” he admitted in a haunted whisper. “My father once told me women are the strong ones. I believe it.”

  His wife leaned down to kiss his mouth. “My mother once told me the greatest power in the world was a kind man. Among your many masculine qualities, it’s your hallmark trait. I adore you, Andreas.” Her eyes unexpectedly clouded. “I only wish some kindness would spill over on Theo, before it’s too late.”

  How had Theo slipped into this conversation? He couldn’t keep up with his wife’s thoughts. “Olympia should never have married him.”

  When Dominique’s dark-fringed eyes filled with tears, they darkened to purple, enslaving him. “But then little Ari wouldn’t have been born. He’s so precious.”

  “I agree.”

  Dominique clutched his shoulders. “Theo told me he gave up his parental rights.”

  Andreas hadn’t realized the depth of their conversation.

  “Theo’s had nothing to do with the baby since he was born. When I went to the hospital to see Olympia, she told me he’d never come near. I’d hoped he would change his mind when he found out the baby was his, but it made no difference.”

  She choked on a sob. “I was horrified when he told me. I simply can’t comprehend anyone abandoning their child. Ari needs his own father. But Theo told me Olympia only married him on the rebound. She’d hurt him terribly.”

  “What rebound?” Andreas challenged. “Olympia’s had a lot of boyfriends, but she hadn’t been seriously involved with another man when she met Theo.”

  “He meant you.” Her voice trembled.

  “I realize that, but the charge is absurd.”

  “You mean you never had a relationship with her?”

  “A relationship, yes. Through the years she’s been like a sister to me—especially with Maris gone. If Theo saw something else, that’s his problem.”

  She bit her lip so enticingly he had to kiss her again.

  “It’s a tragic problem, Andreas. He’s taken his anger and jealousy out on an innocent baby.”

  “He’s not a normal man. Olympia found that out soon after they married.”

  After a pause, “Did he abuse her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Physically?”

  “That, and emotionally. He forbade her to associate with our family. It was his way of keeping her away from me.”

  She sat up against the headboard. “How did she meet him?”

  “Through me. Soon after Maris died I took the family out on the yacht. I invited Olympia and her aunt, who raised her, to join us. We spent a couple of weeks together. During that time I still had business to attend to, and would fly back and forth. Theo and I had some commercial interests in common, so I brought him back to the Cygnus. He met Olympia. They fell in love and married quickly. You could say it was a whirlwind affair. It turned out to be a mistake I could have prevented.”

  “How?”

  He shook
his head. “I don’t know. I should have seen the signs.”

  She rubbed his chest. “Obviously no one did. That’s usually the way. When we married, you didn’t know what a challenge I was going to be.”

  “Dominique—” He covered her hand and squeezed it. “Stop taking on the whole blame. It requires two people to make a marriage. I was so besotted with you. I wanted things perfect and willed them to be that way. In the process I tried to remove every stumbling block before you came to it. But there was one I couldn’t avoid, because Olympia swore me to secrecy.”

  She rested her head on the pillow next to him. “When you’re ready to talk about it, let me know. Right now I want to love the daylights out of you.” So saying, she hungrily covered his mouth with her own.

  Once again this new wife who gave and gave drove every thought from his head. What remained was their mutual sensual need, which seemed to grow stronger even as it was being appeased.

  “I’m coming,” Dominique muttered as she entered the penthouse with her arms full of groceries. She rushed to answer the kitchen phone, causing a box of strawberries to fall from the bag. Several of them rolled across the tile floor.

  “Hello?” She stooped to pick them up.

  “Dominique?”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Olympia.”

  “How nice to hear from you.”

  Dominique couldn’t say she was surprised. It was Friday—the start of the weekend. The other woman had said she’d be coming back to Athens and would call. But this soon?

  “You sound out of breath. Aren’t you well?”

  “I’m fine.” She brushed off the comment like she would any small irritation, recognizing Olympia said things like that to undermine her confidence. “I just walked in from the market and had a little accident. Are you still in Zakynthos?”

  “No. I flew in on the helicopter with Paul this morning, and am back at my aunt’s house.”

  “I bet she missed Ari.”

  “They were both glad to see each other. That’s why I’m phoning. If you don’t have any special plans this afternoon, would you like to go shopping with me?”