by Jennie Lucas
Eve blinked at her, then frowned, turning away with a sigh. “I don’t know what to think. Talos described me differently. And now according to you, I’m hardworking and driven? It’s like I’m two different people!”
Lia looked at her thoughtfully. “Sometimes we show different sides of ourselves to people for a reason.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, I don’t know. From a desire to please. From something to hide or something to gain. Oh, this one is lovely.” Zipping up Eve’s dress, Lia stepped back with a critical eye, then nodded with satisfaction. “Perfect.” She looked down at her three-year-old daughter. “Do you like it, Ruby?”
The little girl nodded, her eyes big.
“What do you think?” Lia asked Eve.
Eve looked into the large gilded mirror across the room. The dress was in simple cream-colored silk, cut to accentuate the swell of her breasts and her lush body, falling softly over her belly. Her hair looked glossy and dark, brushing the edges of her pale, bare shoulders. Her blue eyes shone back at her.
Her throat suddenly hurt too much to speak, so she just nodded.
“This is the one,” Lia told the designer, who happily started pinning the hem.
“I’m the flower girl,” Ruby intoned solemnly to Eve.
“Thank you so much,” Eve told her with a big smile. But as Lia positioned a veil over her chignon, Eve saw herself in the mirror and her heart pounded in her chest.
In one hour, she would be married to a man she still barely knew. A man she’d only really known for the last few days.
But I’m carrying his child, she argued with herself. And when he kissed her, he’d managed to brush aside all her nervousness, all her fears. Something about his kiss was magic. And tonight, he would be kissing her again.
More than just kissing her.
Tonight, their wedding night, he would take her to bed and make love to her.
A hot shiver went over her body, and suddenly, she could think of nothing else. All her questions went out the window. All she could think about was the bed that waited for them at the end of the aisle.
What would it feel like when Talos made love to her?
If it was half as wonderful as the kiss had been, she feared she might die of ecstatic joy.
“I hope you’ll be very happy, Eve,” Lia said to her softly, and there were suddenly tears in her eyes. “Marriage turns romance into love that lasts forever. It creates a family.”
A family. Just what Eve wanted more than anything in the world. She nodded, her heart in her throat.
It seemed scant minutes later when, holding freshly cut orange-red roses that matched the blush on her cheeks, she stepped out of the Italian castle into a Tuscan fairyland.
Sunset was falling over the vineyard and green rolling hills. Outside on the covered terrace a million lights drifted from the ceiling, tangled in wisteria. Next to the terrace she saw an old medieval stone wall, overgrown with roses.
The fairy lights sparkled over her head as she stepped onto the stone floor in her simple white sandals. A musician sitting in the back played the first notes on a guitar, accompanied by a flute. All so simple and so magical.
Then she saw Talos.
He was waiting for her at the other end of the terrace. On one side of him stood a friend of Lia’s, the mayor of a nearby town who’d agreed to conduct the hastily arranged civil ceremony. On his other side stood his friend Roark. Eve saw the man’s face light up at the sight of Lia and their little girl walking ahead in a sweet, frothy cotton dress. At her mother’s urging, little Ruby tossed rose petals haphazardly in Eve’s path.
Roark picked up his daughter with delighted praise when she reached the end of the aisle. His smile widened as he met his wife’s eyes. Seeing their love for each other, as Lia held their plump baby son who looked so dapper in his little suit, Eve’s heart stopped in her chest. This was just what she wanted.
A life like this.
A love like this.
But when she looked back at her bridegroom with a joyful smile, his expression stopped her cold.
His gaze was dark. Full of heat and fire. But there was something else. Something she didn’t understand that frightened her.
The guitar music suddenly trailed off, and she realized that she’d stopped walking halfway down the aisle. With a deep breath, telling herself she was being silly, she started walking again.
Stop acting like a scared virgin! she chided herself.
When she reached the waiting men, Talos pulled her veil up over her head. She looked up at him with a shy smile.
He didn’t return it. Instead, his gaze burned through her, incinerating every drop of blood and bone inside her body. As if they were already in bed.
The mayor began to speak, but his accented words faded into the background. The Navarres disappeared. So did Tuscany, along with the fairy lights and poetry of the mists.
There was only Talos.
His heat.
His fire.
She was dimly aware of repeating the mayor’s words, of hearing Talos’s deep voice beside her. He slipped a big diamond ring over her finger, then kissed her softly, brushing his mouth against hers.
And just like that—they were man and wife.
CHAPTER SEVEN
FROM the moment Talos saw her in the wedding dress, so lovely and sweet with her shy, happy smile, an earthquake went through his soul.
Eve wore a simple, modest cream-colored wedding dress, with her dark hair beneath a light veil, and she held flame-colored roses in her unmanicured hands. There was no artifice about her. Just beauty. And innocence.
In the brief kiss he gave her after they were wed, his soul trembled within his body. He knew he was on a razor’s edge of seducing this beautiful woman, whose fire had once burned him so badly, but who now seemed to shine like the first spring sun after a long, gray winter.
His throat choked as he pulled away from the brief kiss.
Eve, his lying ex-mistress, his hated enemy, was now his wife.
Her big blue eyes shone up at him with such hope and joy, the color of bluebells and violets. He could almost feel the sunlight when he touched her. His longing for her was no longer just about lust, but something more. He longed for her warmth. He could almost hear the laughter of children—his children—bounding through a brightly lit meadow amid cascading sunlight in her innocent promise of happiness.
Lies, he told himself harshly. The woman in front of him, the woman he’d just married, did not really exist.
His hands clenched into fists. She made him want something more. She made him want things he’d never had.
A family.
A home.
This was even more insidious than her earlier betrayal. This kind, loving version of Eve was just an illusion. If he ever allowed himself to care for her, if he ever allowed himself to trust, he would be the biggest fool to walk the earth.
Because as soon as she regained her memory, this woman would disappear. And any day now, she would become the treacherous, selfish woman he remembered.
During the wedding dinner after the ceremony, he watched Eve as she held the baby and entertained three-year-old Ruby. Talos couldn’t take his eyes off his bride’s radiant beauty—or stop wondering at her generous spirit. The dinner was deliberately simple, homemade pasta and wine from the Navarres’ own vintage.
Toward the end of the dinner, Roark and Lia toasted their anniversary with champagne in a private moment, while Eve, still dressed in her simple wedding gown, cuddled their sleeping baby and kept the little girl entertained with charming fairy tales made up out of the air.
What a mother she would make, Talos found himself thinking as he watched her. What a wife she would make.
Against his will, his gaze fell upon the neckline and bodice of her gown. His eyes traced her creamy skin, the lush breasts plumped forward as she leaned over to pick a toy from the stone floor.
He wanted Eve so much it hurt. He ached to caress h
er. His body tightened painfully, his hand gripping the crystal goblet of red wine.
“Talos?” With a questioning look, Eve placed her small, slender hand over his. Her caress and the tender expression of her impossibly beautiful shining face caused a shock wave to go through him.
And he suddenly realized that this sweetly loving woman was more dangerous than the seductive, sexy mistress had ever been.
He wanted her. All of her.
In his bed.
In his life.
He hungered for the dream she offered him. Hungered for her illusion to be true. Most of all, he hungered for the bedroom he knew awaited them in the guest wing of the castle, festooned with rose petals, candles and soft sheets.
No, he told himself furiously. He couldn’t give in!
Ripping his hand away from Eve’s, he crashed the crystal goblet down so hard on the table that it cracked, exploding red wine all over the wood like blood.
Three-year-old Ruby cried out in shock.
Roark and Lia, who’d been cuddled at the other end of the table with intimate, private laughter, looked up with a gasp.
“Sorry,” Talos muttered. He rose to his feet. “Sorry.”
Staring at their faces, he backed away.
“What is it?” Eve whispered. “What’s wrong?”
He had the sudden image of her pale, frightened face.
“We have to go,” he ground out. He focused on his friends behind her. Roark and Lia had gone far beyond the call of duty to create a fairytale wedding for them with only a few hours’ notice, though they had their own responsibilities with their young children; though they had their own anniversary to celebrate. “Thanks for arranging our wedding.”
“Surely you’re not leaving?” Lia demanded. “I prepared a guest room for you…”
Yes, he’d seen the honeymoon suite, and he wanted no part of it.
“Sorry,” he bit out. “We can’t stay.”
Lia’s eyes widened. Talos knew he was being incredibly callous but he would explain to Roark later. His old friend would understand, and he’d make his amends to his wife. All Talos knew was that he couldn’t stay for another hour in this romantic place so filled with happy dreams that for him would always be lies.
Talos broke out in a cold sweat.
He had to get out of here.
He had to end this.
He’d won his objective. Eve was his wife. His war was half won. Now all he had to do was make her regain her memory. Now. Before the temptation was too much.
Before Eve finished what she’d started three months ago, and finally crushed him into ashes and dust.
He abruptly turned on his heel, whirling away from the terrace with its overhanging wisteria and fairy lights gleaming in the night.
“Talos? Talos!” he heard his wife cry after him as he strode into the villa, but he didn’t look back. Instead, he opened his cell phone and started to bark out orders.
Eve had started this war three months ago.
Now he would finish it.
“Mrs. Xenakis, the plane will be landing shortly.”
Eve woke up blearily to discover a pretty brunette flight attendant standing over her, holding a tray. Sitting up straight in the white leather chair, she rubbed her eyes, feeling sweaty and disoriented. She smoothed her wedding dress with her hands, but it didn’t help. The cream-colored silk was wrinkled and wilted.
Just like her wedding day.
Eve’s head was still spinning. One moment, she’d been a happy bride, pledging her fealty and her faith to the father of her unborn child.
The next, Talos had been dragging her from the castle, pushing her into a car that took them back to the private airport. They’d left without even properly thanking Lia and Roark for the lovely wedding they’d created. Talos had forced her to leave the cheerfully decorated table with its flowers and lights, the homemade pasta and bread. They’d fled the celebration as if they were thieves in the night, rudely abandoning their kind hosts without explanation as Talos herded her onto his private plane.
There, he’d utterly ignored her and refused to answer any of her questions. He’d gone to the other side of the large cabin to a desk that was as far away from Eve as possible. He’d barked an order to a flight attendant for a shot of Scotch whisky—then hadn’t even drunk it. He’d just taken a deep sniff of the amber-colored Scotch before handing it back, telling the flight attendant to pour it out.
Had he gone mad?
Or had she?
He’d spent the rest of the short flight working on his computer. Bewildered and hurt, Eve had fallen asleep staring out the small window of the plane, watching the lights of the Italian coastline disappear over the black emptiness of the Adriatic.
Now, as she looked out the small round window, she saw small clusters of lights amid the darkness, like scattered stars in the night. “Where are we?”
“Beginning our descent into Athens, madam.”
“Athens!” Eve cried. “How long was I sleeping?”
The brunette gave a sympathetic smile. “Almost two hours.”
Two hours. She glanced over at her new husband, who was still sitting at his desk, staring at his laptop screen with hard eyes.
Maybe he has work to do, she tried to tell herself. Urgent, unavoidable work that he was desperate to finish so they could properly enjoy our honeymoon.
But she wasn’t completely comforted by her explanation. Not when he’d turned so cold and unresponsive from the moment he’d become her husband.
It was almost as if he were angry at her. But that didn’t make sense. Hadn’t he come to London, desperate to find her? Hadn’t he proposed marriage when he found out she was pregnant with his child? Hadn’t he spent days passionately, tenderly convincing her to marry him?
She’d finally agreed to be his wife. They’d had a romantic, perfect wedding. So why was he suddenly acting like a man who despised the thought of her existence?
She rubbed her head wearily, causing more tendrils to tumble from her chignon. It didn’t make sense. Was her confusion caused by her amnesia? Why couldn’t she understand him?
The flight attendant carefully set down her tray on a nearby table. “Mr. Xenakis thought you might wish to have a snack before we land.”
Eve saw a nice selection of cut fruits and bread and cheeses, as well as sparkling water and juices. She glanced at her husband across the cabin. “He didn’t want to join me?” she said, trying—and failing—to keep the hurt from her voice.
The flight attendant gave her a sympathetic look. “Sorry, madam.”
As the flight attendant departed, Eve tried furiously to think, to understand. Talos couldn’t have married her for her money, since her fortune, nice as it was, was just a fraction of his. Then why?
Because she was pregnant with his baby? He’d said he wanted to give their baby a name. Was that the only reason?
No, she told herself desperately. He’d married her because he loved her.
Although he’d never said the words, had he?
She drank the water and ate the fruit, though she had no appetite as the plane landed. Talos, in spite of her hurt glances, continued to ignore her long after the plane had landed on the tarmac. After the plane door opened and they came down the stairs, she took a deep breath.
Athens at midnight.
His assistants and various bodyguards were waiting for him on the tarmac, along with two cars to whisk their entourage into the city. They were swiftly and seamlessly escorted through customs. Within minutes, she was seated next to her husband in the back of a black Bentley as the chauffeur drove them on the six-lane highway into the city.
She stared at him until he finally looked at her.
“Talos, why are you acting like this?” she asked quietly.
“Like what?” he demanded.
“Like a jerk.”
Clenching his jaw, he looked out at the darkness of the passing city. “I’m sorry if you are so needy and insecure that you fe
el you must be the center of my attention at every moment,” he said in a low voice. “But unlike you, I am not content just to sponge off an income earned by someone else. Unlike you, I own a business and must run it. The fact that we’re married does not mean I intend to spend my every hour worshipping you.”
She gaped at him, openmouthed.
He’d ignored her for the hours since their wedding, he’d rudely insulted their friends, he’d dragged her from Italy to Greece without explanation…and now he was trying to make her think she was the one with the problem?
Biting back an angry retort, she took a deep breath and tried to see things from his position, tried to see if there was a possibility she was being unreasonable.
Nope.
Clasping her hands together, she took another deep, calming breath. She was his wife now. She wanted to be loving and understanding. They were on their honeymoon. She didn’t want to start a fight over something so small as his strangely irritated mood.
On the other hand, she wasn’t a doormat, and he’d best learn that right now.
“Of course I understand you must work,” she tried in her kindest, most understanding voice. “But that doesn’t explain why you’ve been so cold to me all night. Or why you dragged us away from Tuscany.” She swallowed. “After your friends went to such trouble, we could have at least spent the night there…”
His dark eyes stabbed daggers at her. “It didn’t interest me.”
She flushed, feeling humiliated as she sat unwanted in her wrinkled, sad little wedding dress. All night long she’d felt a thrilling ache, a twitter in her belly as she’d imagined their wedding night, thinking of him kissing her, yearning to experience what it felt like when he made love to her.
Apparently the same thought interested him not at all.
“Why are you pushing me away like this?” she whispered. “You’ve done it since the moment I became your wife. Do you—do you regret marrying me?”
He stared at her for a moment, then turned away, pulling his laptop from his leather briefcase. “We’ll be home soon.”