by Julia James
She was rambling, she knew, but she was driven to talk. Driven to do anything other than face the fact that Nikos was here, in front of her, a hand’s breadth away from her. All she’d have to do was just reach out to touch him, kiss him, go into his arms…
But she mustn’t! She mustn’t! He would be gone at any moment, all over again. Walking out of the door, away from her. Because what difference did it make, him knowing about her work. What she’d done with his precious money? Even if her pride and her anger at him had kept her silent, deliberately, knowingly, refusing to justify her acceptance of his money—because why should she care tuppence about being in Nikos Theakis’ good graces after all the venom he’d spouted about her, about Carla? She’d let him call her names all the while knowing she could make him eat every one of them—and anyway having him look at her with such contempt had kept her safe from him, safe from doing what she had so, so wanted to do. What she had, in the end done despite all her best intentions and warnings.
She’d gone and done it anyway—fallen into his bed, and fallen in love with him…And it didn’t matter, that her heart felt as if it were being sheared into pieces, torn up and minced and mangled and shredded, because nothing was going to change that—even if he did know now that she hadn’t spent every last penny of his on herself, from luxury holidays to designer clothes, instead wearing Carla’s—even if they were four years out of date, as Elena Constantis had spotted instantly, and even if they had only made Nikos think she’d spent his money on them.
Thoughts, emotions, words—all ran raggedly, crazily through her mind. And she let them run on because anything was a distraction from what was going to happen any moment now. Any moment now, Nikos was going to walk out of the door, and walk away…
Taking her heart with him…
And she couldn’t bear it—she couldn’t bear it. Not all over again. Seeing him again so briefly, so excruciatingly, and now he was going to go again. She would not see him for months and months, and when she did…when she did she would just be history—ancient history. An old flame, an ex—nothing more, nothing ever again…
She heard his voice, penetrating her numb anguish.
‘Ann—’
She forced herself to herd her wild, desperate thoughts, forced herself to be what she must be now—calm, composed. Glad that he knew finally where his money had gone, that she wasn’t the avaricious gold-digger he’d thought her after all. Glad that they could part without anger and contempt.
‘Ann—’ There seemed to be something strange about his face, his voice. Something almost…hesitant. But hesitation and Nikos Theakis were not words that went together.
But hesitant was, indeed, what his manner seemed to be. His eyes were still veiled, shuttered. Wary. There seemed to be tension visible in every line of his body.
‘Ann,’ he said again, ‘once before I paid you for your time—insulting you grievously as I did so. But…but now that I know why you took my money, what your life actually is instead of my ugly assumptions, I…I wonder whether… whether you would consider…reconsider…your decision?’ He took a deep breath. ‘In Paris you said you had a life of your own to lead, and I respect that now entirely—indeed shamingly, for it shames me to think how you have dedicated your life to children who have so little. But if…if what you just said is true…that what is most valuable to those children is money, not western aid workers…then supposing I…I…gave enough money to…to make it unnecessary for you to go back, to hire someone in your place—?’
He stopped. Said something briefly, pungently in Greek, then reverted to English. ‘I am saying this all wrong!’ Frustration was in his voice. ‘I am making it sound like I am trying to buy you out! But I don’t mean it like that, Ann—I am simply trying to say that if my wealth would make it easier for you not to feel you had to go back to Africa yourself—if you could instead stay—come to Sospiris. To Ari.’ He took another breath. ‘To me.’
Suddenly out of nowhere his eyes were unveiled, unshuttered, a new expression blazing from them. She felt emotion leap in her—impossible to crush, impossible to deny. She couldn’t move. She was rooted to the spot. Rooted as he stepped forward, took her face in his hands. And the touch of his fingers cradling her skull made her weak, and faint, and the closeness of his face, the heat of his gaze, the overpowering thereness of his body towering over her, so strong, so powerful, so Nikos…
‘These days without you have been agony, Ann! I’ve been impossible—impossible to live with! Angry and ill-tempered and short-fused and hurting, Ann—just hurting without you. Because I want you so much! I just want you back—back with me again. Because of what we had—what we’ve always had—even when I hated myself for wanting you, when I thought you were little better than your own sister, whom I thought then the lowest of the low. Even that could not stop me wanting you day and night. I was driven insane with not having you—until, thank God, my mother came up with her scheme for Ari’s holiday in Paris. And then—even more thanks to God—I came to my senses over you and realised that you could not, could not be the person I had despised for four years. Having you respond to me was everything I’d been aching for, and I don’t want to lose it. I want so much for you to come back to Sospiris with me now, and not go to Africa. Ari’s missing you so much, and I…I am desperate for you, Ann!’
Her heart was cracking open. She could hear it. Feel, too, the agony in her muscles as she drew away from him.
‘I can’t, Nikos,’ she whispered. ‘I just can’t.’
His hands dropped to his sides. ‘Does your work mean so much to you?’ There was emptiness in his voice.
She shut her eyes, her throat almost closing. Then she forced her eyes to open, to look at him.
‘No,’ she said. Then she said it. ‘But you do.’ She swallowed, never taking her eyes from his. ‘You do, Nikos. And I know you didn’t mean it—didn’t even think about it. Because why should you? What we had in Paris was an affair—I knew that, knew that’s all it could be. And that if I came back to Sospiris that was all it would be still. An affair. And one fine morning you’d decide you’d had enough of me, and the affair would be over. For you. But not—’ her breath caught like a scalpel ‘—not for me. And I couldn’t bear it, Nikos—living on Sospiris, helping to bring up Ari, and having to see you arrive with other women, see you choose, one day, one of them to be your wife, and knowing I was nothing more than yesterday’s affair…’
He was looking at her. Looking at her with the strangest expression on his face. Words sounded in his head. His mother’s voice. But perhaps, my darling, I am not the only one making such assumptions.
He’d thought she’d meant him. But she hadn’t. Not in the least.
‘Theos mou,’ he breathed. ‘You thought that? That I wanted you to come back to Sospiris because I wanted to continue an affair with you?’
Two flags of colour stained her cheeks. ‘It’s what you wanted before. When you offered me that diamond necklace. A clandestine affair in your mother’s villa.’
A hand slashed violently, making her jump.
‘God Almighty, Ann, that was then! When I still thought you as bad as I’d been painting you for four years! When my entire scheme was to slake my desire for you and remove you from my mother’s house by seducing you! I was going to take you away from Sospiris—keep you as my mistress for as long as it took to make it impossible for my mother to invite you to Sospiris again! But how, how, after what we had in Paris, could you possibly think I only wanted an affair with you? I wanted—want still, desperately, with all my being—you to come back to me, to make a home for Ari, and for us to be together. You and me—a family for Ari and for us!’ He took a hectic breath. ‘It was hearing Ari’s artless remark the morning he found us in bed together, saying that mummies and daddies slept together, that made it dawn on me that that was exactly what I wanted! For you and me to stay together.’ He looked at her. ‘To marry,’ he said.
Shock was hollowing through her. Shock
and other emotions even more powerful.
‘To marry?’ she echoed, as if she were uttering an alien language. ‘Because then we could bring up Ari together?’
‘Yes.’
‘Because—’ she swallowed ‘—we’re good in bed together.’
‘More than good, Ann,’ he said dryly.
She dropped her eyes. She couldn’t meet his, suddenly. Not without colour flaming in her cheeks at the way he was looking at her. And that wasn’t what was needed—not now. Not now when she had to say the worst thing of all.
The hardest, cruellest thing.
‘So a marriage for Ari, and for good sex?’
‘Great sex,’ he corrected her. ‘And, of course, for one other reason.’
Slowly, as if they were weighted with lead, she made herself lift her eyes to him.
‘What…what other reason?’ Her voice was faint—as faint as she felt.
‘Love, Ann,’ he said.
She swayed. He caught her. Drew her to him. Not to kiss, but to hold, as lightly as swansdown. He smoothed her hair.
‘Love, Ann,’ he said again. ‘I didn’t know it until you left me. And now—now it’s etched in stone upon my heart. Your name. For ever. And you love me, don’t you, Ann? You said as much just now. So why not tell me, as I have told you?’
She shut her eyes and said it. ‘I love you.’ It was a breath of air, no more than that.
And then he folded her to him properly, wrapping his arms around her and she laid her head against his chest. At home. At rest.
‘Nikos.’ She breathed his name, resting against him. For a long, long while he simply held her. Then, easing back her head, he gazed down at her. Everything she could ever dream of was in his eyes.
And then in his lips.
EPILOGUE
IT WAS THE second wedding on Sospiris in as many months, and even more lavish than Tina’s had been. She and Sam were both there, and this time it was Tina’s turn to cry buckets—but she had come well prepared, as well prepared as Nikos’s mother and Cousin Eupheme, with handkerchiefs to spare. Ari gazed bemused at them, and tugged his grandmother’s sleeve.
‘But it’s a happy day, Ya-ya,’ he explained to her. ‘Auntie Annie’s going to live here for ever and ever now. And sleep in Uncle Nikki’s bed, just like in Paris. And I can wake them up—but not too early, Uncle Nikki says.’
Sophia Theakis laughed and stroked his head. Her cousin turned to her. ‘It took them such a time, Sophia,’ she sighed.
Nikos’ mother nodded. ‘The young are so blind, Eupheme. But it was obvious right from the first moment I saw them together that dear Ann, with not a mercenary bone in her body, would be ideal for Nikos. Spoilt by female adoration, he needed a good dose of animosity to challenge him. And, of course,’ she added dryly, ‘to be made to win her.’
‘Oh, the sparks flew between the pair of them—they certainly flew.’ Her cousin nodded.
‘So much that they were blinding themselves to what was happening! When I saw them waltzing at Tina’s wedding I thought they were seeing sense at last. But even that wasn’t quite enough. I had to pack them off to Paris together.’
‘Ah, Paris…’ Eupheme sighed romantically.
‘Indeed—and then the idiotic boy came back here alone. Goodness knows what he said or did to drive her away. But he obviously mismanaged the whole thing! So—’ she sighed heavily ‘—I had to think of something else. It was as plain as day that Ann hadn’t told him about the orphanage to commemorate my adored Andreas and Ari’s poor dead mother, and I thought perhaps it was that that had come between them. It dawned on me that Nikki was bound to notice if I made a large donation myself, and it would send him back to her to find out why. Thank heavens it finally worked!’
‘Yes,’ said her cousin dryly, ‘or you’d have had to develop a sudden urge to visit South Africa, Sophia…’
‘I’m sure they have some very good cardiologists there,’ replied Nikos’s mother, even more dryly. ‘And the climate would be excellent for my health too…’
They laughed together, and then the music was swelling, and Nikos and Ann were walking down between the congregation. Her hand was being held so tightly she doubted there could be any blood left in her fingers—but what did she care for that when her whole heart was singing, her eyes shining like stars? She turned her head to look at Nikos, and he gazed down at her, love in his eyes.
‘My most beautiful bride,’ he said.
‘My irresistible husband,’ she answered.
He dropped a swift kiss upon her mouth. ‘That’s the right answer,’ he told her. ‘Never leave me, Ann, and I will love you for ever!’
She laughed up at him. ‘Oh, well, then you’ve got me for life, Nikos Theakis!’
Long dark lashes swept over glinting eyes. ‘That’s the right answer too,’ he said. ‘And you have me, my own love, for all our lives together—and beyond—into eternity itself.’
Her breath caught, she was breathless with happiness, and then they were stepping out into the sunshine, man and wife, and Ari was running up to them.
Nikos scooped him up with a hug.
‘Uncle Nikki.’ Ari beamed, then turned to hold out his arms to his uncle’s bride. ‘Auntie Annie,’ he said. She bent to kiss him heartily. ‘And me,’ he said. Satisfaction was in his voice.
‘Family,’ said Nikos.
And they were.
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
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First published in Great Britain 2009
Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited,
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
© Julia James 2009
ISBN: 978-1-408-90948-5