by -Julia James
She shook her head. It felt heavy, muzzy.
'If you love your father as I love my sister then we must do what they so desperately need us to do. Only marriage will recover the situation.' His face tensed even more, and then in a heavy, hard voice he said, 'They feel you have been dishonoured.'
'Dishonoured?' Her voice was incredulous.
That emotion flashed in his eyes again.
'This is Greece, Janine. In Greece a father protects his child. In Greece a family holds together, is the most sacred part of society. Stephanos feels that he has failed to protect you. That his failure has resulted in...what has happened. And Demetria:—Demetria is punishing herself for having sent me to...deal with you. For her, for Stephanos, the only way that this...dishonour...can be undone is by our marriage. Then and only then will our families be united once more.'
She looked at him. Looked at him long, and hard. Then, in a brittle, taut voice, she said, I have never heard anything so sick in all my life.'
She reached for the door, pulled it open, and walked out.
She crossed the marble hallway. Her footsteps were jerky, her body stiff as a board. She headed for the staircase.
She had not gained the lowest step before the double doors to the drawing room were flung open.
Demetria hurried out.
'So! Is it done?' Her face was alight with hope. It shone like a beacon from her eyes. But behind the hope Janine could see another emotion.
Guilt. Haunting her eyes, bringing tension to her thin body.
Her father came up behind his wife, his hand at her back. Expectancy was in his face. Guilt shadowing his eyes.
Janine looked from one to the other. A cold, horrible numbness started to creep over her. They meant it. They really meant it. They wanted her and Nikos to marry.
Were desperate for it.
'Janine. Pethi mou—'
The anxiety in her father's voice was audible.
'My dear...' Demetria's voice was faltering.
She looked at Demetria, tormented by guilt and by her infertility. Haunted by the damage her unfounded suspicions of her husband had done to his daughter. Looked at her father, who had taken her into his arms, his life, without question, without doubt, with only joy and gratitude. Now tormented by what had happened to her. What his silence had caused.
Footsteps sounded behind her, heavy on the marble floor, issuing from the room she had just bolted from. They approached steadily.
Nikos came to stand at her side.
She stood, frozen, beside him.
She wanted to move, step away from him. But the numbness was spreading all through her. Like heavy, dulling anaesthetic.
Stephanos said something in Greek. Sharp. Enquiring.
Nikos answered. His voice level.
She heard her name—that was all she could make out. Two pairs of eyes flew to her. Her father's and his wife's. Tension radiated from them like cold waves. Numbing her even more.
'Janine?'
It was Nikos. Nikos saying her name. Asking her a question she did not need spelt out.
The numbness reached her brain. She could feel nothing—nothing at all.
Nothing.
Nothing except an inescapable inevitability.
She yielded to what she knew, in her bleak heart of hearts, she had to do.
She bowed her head.
'Yes.'
It was all she said. All she had to say.
Before her eyes, her father's face broke into a smile. Relief shone from him. Demetria's eyes took on the shining look that they had held just before Janine had left the drawing room, so short a while ago. Her father's wife's strange words then made sense now. Horrible, hideous sense.
But it was too late. All too, too late.
Demetria surged forward. She caught Janine's hands, bestowing a kiss on either cheek. Her father came behind her, hugging her. Then Demetria was kissing her brother. Her father's hand was stretching out to Nikos. Slowly, through the numbness that was complete now, Janine saw Nikos hesitate. Then he took Stephanos's hand, clasping it. He said something. Her father nodded. Something was exchanged between them. Between the man whose daughter had been dishonoured, however unintentionally, and the man who was now making due reparation for that dishonouring.
It was like something out of the Middle Ages. Not something that had anything to do with her. It could not be. It could not.
Then Demetria was clapping her hands.
'Champagne! We must have some champagne!' She hurried off eagerly to summon one of her staff.
Stephanos was ushering the happy couple back into the drawing room. His face was wreathed in smiles.
It was a nightmare. As Demetria returned, and a bottle of chilled vintage champagne arrived, Janine could only stand there. The numbness kept her going, kept her upright. Nikos stood beside her.
Stephanos gave her a glass of champagne. She took it in nerveless fingers. Her father gave a toast. She could understand not a word, but it was clearly a toast.
Their glasses were raised.
She drank.
The liquid, chill and effervescent, slipped down her throat.
Just as the champagne had slipped down her throat when Nikos had borne her away on his cruiser to the fate he'd intended for her...
But in her worst nightmares she had never expected this.
Someone else was living in her body. She could tell. It seemed to be moving, walking and talking, and she was smiling. Smiling when her father kissed her, smiling when Demetria chattered away. Smiling when visitors came to call and she was introduced.
'Stephanos's English daughter,' Demetria called her, and whatever people thought they kept it to themselves. 'And my sister-in-law to be!'
There was more astonishment over that announcement than over the unexpected production of Demetria's twenty -five-year-old stepdaughter.
'My dear, you will be envied to death! What is your secret? How on earth did you manage to catch our handsome Nikos?'
The enquiry was friendly, but Janine could hear the barb in the voice of this designer-clad matron who was clearly one of Demetria's good friends.
Well, she felt like answering, it was like this...
But even as the vicious thought formed in her mind she knew that Demetria was rewriting history for public consumption.
'It was a coup de foudre! she exclaimed, clapping her hands as if it really were thundering. 'Janine came out to visit us, and as soon as Nikos set eyes on her he was lost!'
'Wonderful!' cooed her friend. 'But then she is a beauty, and only the most beautiful will do for our handsome, handsome Nikos!'
There was definitely a barb in her voice now.
When she had gone-—surely, Demetria said with a gleam in her eyes, to spread the word as fast as possible—her sister-in-law-to-be whispered conspiratorially, 'She wanted an affair with Nikos herself! He turned her down! Mind you...' Her voice became even more conspiratorial '...she was one of the few he did. My darling brother has a reputation that—'
She stopped dead.
'It's all right,' said Janine.
The haunted look was back in Demetria's face. 'It's why I sent him,' she said in a low voice. I knew if anyone could entice a woman away from another man it would be Nikos.' Guilt resonated in her voice.
'It's all right,' said Janine again. What else could she say?
She was moving in a daze, a haze of numbness. She had no will left of her own.
Apart from in troducing her as her sister-in-law-to-be to all her extensive social acquaintance, Demetria was whisking her around the most expensive shops in Kolonaki, the chic shopping district of Athens. Money burned through her fingers in amounts that Janine could not bear to watch. At first she tried to stop her, but Demetria didn't listen. And she didn't listen when Janine said she did not want a religious wedding.
I know it will seem strange to you, but you are Greek— you are Stephanos's daughter—and to be Greek is to be Orthodox—' Demetria began.
But Janine held fast. She might let Demetria go crazy in clothes shops, but she would not make a mockery of religion—any religion—with this travesty she was engaged upon.
But she must not think about that. Must not think about what she was doing. She must not. Or she might break down and shatter.
And she must not do that. Stephanos and Demetria needed to see her married. She had to go through with it. She had to.
Her feelings didn't matter.
Besides, she had none. She was quite, quite numb.
As for Nikos, she never set eyes on him.
It was her only mercy.
'My wretched brother!' Demetria lamented. 'What a time to go haring off to Australia! Business—always business. But—' she sighed '—at least he is getting it all out of the way. He has promised me that you will honeymoon for a month!'
Her eyes gleamed, though there was a brightness in them that was almost desperate, Janine thought. 'And you will have a trousseau to die for!' She glanced at the diamond-studded watch on her wrist, and tut-tutted. 'Oh, we have scarcely time for lunch before your next fitting.' She gave a laugh. There was a feverish note in it. 'How can we possibly get everything done in time?'
The days slipped by, one by one. August slipped into September. The heat hardly slackened. Janine stayed in the air-conditioned interiors, still feeling numb.
Two days before the wedding Nikos returned to Athens.
'He is coming to dinner tonight,' announced Stephanos at breakfast.
Janine's fingers clenched on her cutlery.
Demetria exclaimed volubly at the short notice, but rallied immediately. She spent all day preparing the house. Bouquets arrived, heavy and scented, lavished all over the house. Demetria spent time closeted with her chef. Servants polished the house till it shone. Stephanos, Janine noted, kept to his office in the city.
In mid-afternoon Demetria banished her upstairs. 'Rest, then bathe. I will send Maria to dress you at eight, and the hairdresser and stylist come at half-past seven.'
Numbly, Janine did what she was told.
'Oh, my dear, you look wonderful!'
Demetria clapped her hands together, clasping them to her bosom. She herself looked incredibly slim and elegant in dark blue. Janine was in emerald-green.
The dress was a masterpiece—a couturier number-wrapped around her in tiny overlapping plisse tissue from breasts to ankles. Her shoulders and arms were bare, her hair swept up into a complicated pleat that had taken nearly an hour to dry and style and pin. Her make-up was immaculate—the professional stylist had applied it.
She wore no jewellery. Not a scrap.
'No—nothing,' Demetria had insisted when her maid remonstrated, and had said something in a whisper to Maria that had brought a conspiratorial smile to the older woman's face.
Demetria held up a hand. From downstairs, quite audible, came the sound of the front door admitting someone. Voices murmured.
'I will check on Stephanos,' Demetria said to Janine. 'Five minutes,' she instructed Maria.
The maid nodded, and set about fussing one last time over Janine.
Janine stood staring at her reflection in the long glass.
She did indeed look spectacular. The dress moulded her figure revealingly, but without the slightest trace of vulgarity. She looked what she was supposed to look—the rich daughter of a rich man.
About to marry another rich man.
A man who was marrying her because he had dishonoured her and who had, quite accidentally, taken her for the mistress of a married man...
/ can't do this. I can't. I can't go through with it. I can't endure it. I can't face it.
Her breath froze in her throat.
I can't face him.
She felt the numbness start to crack—tiny, filigree cracks that began to radiate out across her consciousness. They spread rapidly, terrifyingly, and underneath was seeping something so painful she could not deny its existence. It forced itself upon her, welling up through every crack...
There was the lightest touch on her hand. Maria was looking at her questioningly.
'Kyria, I think it is time to go down now.'
Janine nodded. Walking carefully in her high heels and long dress, she crossed the room and headed down the wide staircase. There was no one in the hall, but she could hear voices in the drawing room.
She swept across the hall and one of the staff opened the double doors for her. She nodded her thanks and walked in.
Stephanos and Demetria were there, already seated. Nikos was standing. He was dressed like Stephanos, in a tuxedo. Janine felt her insides hollow.
As she came in, he turned.
His eyes focused on her with an expression of absolute arrest. He didn't move, not a muscle, just looked at her.
For a moment, a long, terrifying moment, she felt as if she were standing on the very edge of a cliff. As if one single movement of her body would send her hurtling over the precipice to be destroyed on the rocks below.
Then, like a saviour, her father walked up to her and took her hands.
'My beautiful daughter.'
There was such pride in his voice, such love. Such gratitude.
She felt her heart squeeze.
Then Nikos was speaking. His voice was deep. Oppressively formal.
'Janine.'
That was all. Then he was slipping a hand inside the jacket of his tuxedo. He drew out a slim, oblong box.
'Demetria told me you would be wearing green tonight.' He flicked open the box, his voice quite impersonal.
The lamplight made the emeralds within gleam with green fire. Nikos took out the necklace, discarding the case. Taking an end in each hand, he approached Janine.
'Turn around.'
Wordlessly, she turned.
She felt his fingers at her nape. Faintness drummed through her and she fought it off. This was part of the charade. This hollow, meaningless, bitter charade that she had to endure for the sake of her father, who loved her, for Demetria, who loved Stephanos...
His fingertips touched the delicate hairs at the back of her head as he fastened the necklace around her. The stones felt cold to her skin. Then he stepped away, returning to his original position in the room.
His sister gave a little gasp.
'Nik, they are exquisite!' She said something else in Greek. He nodded, glancing at Stephanos. Then he slipped his hand inside his breast pocket again and drew out a smaller jewel case. A ring case, square and bulbous. As before, he flicked it open.
The ring—diamonds set with emeralds—drew another gasp from Demetria. Janine watched in silence, as if she were far outside her body, and waited while he removed the ring, came forward, lifted her nerveless hand and slid the engagement ring on her finger. Then he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.
He might have been a stranger.
He is a stranger—a man you do not know. You thought you did, but you didn 't.
But you've got to marry him all the same...
'Thank you,' she murmured, as a fiancee should thank the man who had offered to marry her, to restore the honour lost so accidentally, so unintentionally. Her eyes slid away.
Then one of the staff entered, bearing a tray of champagne.
All through dinner, through each of the long and complicated courses with which Demetria's chef had excelled himself, Janine saw the ring winking on her finger. It seemed to drag her hand down, making it feel heavy, clumsy.
She sat opposite Nikos, letting her eyes constantly slip past him to focus on a painting on the wall of the dining room. It looked like a Dutch landscape. Seventeenth-century. By the end of dinner she was acquainted with the position of every lowering cloud, every sail of the passing barge, every feature of every distant peasant.
What was talked about she had no idea. The evening was a blur. She seemed to pass the time answering questions put to her and sipping from her wine glass. There was a lot of wine. The champagne, then white, then red, and sweet. As she sippe
d her dessert wine she remembered the bouquet of the Sauternes she had drunk that first lunchtime on the terrace of the villa, hot in the summer sun, with the scent of the dry earth, the heat of the air.
The languor of desire.
Of their own volition her eyes slid to Nikos. She could not help it. She had to look at him. Had to.
She let herself go back. Let time wash her away. Sweep her back to where she once had been, gazing at the man she had so desired. Possessing him.
Weakness hollowed through her, and an ache so great she felt it fill her every atom. She sat across the table from him and poured out her desire.
He was talking to Stephanos. It was something to do with property and prices, location. She was not paying attention—hadn't been at all. They'd slipped back into Greek, and she welcomed it. Now all she had to do was sit here and give herself to the wonder, the breathtaking wonder, of gazing at him, feeling her heart fill and fill and fill...
Suddenly, without warning, without any pause in what he was saying to her father, Nikos's eyes flicked to hers.
They caught her gaze as a hunter snared game, seizing and holding her so fast she could not even breathe. For the long, timeless moment he held her she could not not move, transfixed by his regard.
The world disappeared. Simply disappeared. Stephanos's voice faded, the softly playing baroque background music faded, Demetria faded, the room faded, blurred. There was nothing left, and no one. No one except Nikos, holding her with his eyes, those dark and gold eyes. Holding her...
Just holding her...
Nikos, holding her...
Then his head turned back to Stephanos and he let her go The room surged back around her. There was her father, talking, music playing from the recessed speakers, the wine winking in her glass, the scent of Demetria's perfume, the flowers on the table.
Her heart was beating. Beating so rapidly she felt it racing inside her, pulsing with a strength that made her feel weak.
She reached for her wine again.
Demetria said something and she turned to her, fixing a
. polite smile on her face, trying to make her brain work again, function.
She started to talk about something quite innocuous. It might have been flowers. Or food. Janine couldn't really tell. She murmured, and nodded, and smiled politely.