“You are not the only one who isn’t pleased with this arranged marriage, but this country has seen enough unrest with my father’s sudden death followed by Gregor’s illness and relinquishing of his title. All of Angyra needs to see us married and united. Is that clear?”
“Quite,” she said, her chin snapping up again. “Duty above all else. A public show of support when our marriage is based on the pretense that we are happy.”
He inclined his head in a sharp decisive nod. “Angyra needs you, Demetria. I need you as well.”
“Do you really?”
Dammit, he’d said too much. Let his emotions be bared for a heartbeat. “I need a Queen at my side. The people know you. Like you.” Whereas they barely tolerated him.
She was his buffer. The means by which he hoped to gain favor with the people. He hated her because she was favored and he was not. But he wouldn’t tell her that. He wouldn’t give her that much power over him.
“How good that someone finds favor with me,” she said, her tone peevish. “But I still insist on selecting the fabric for my gown, and I need it done as quickly as possible.”
“Tell me what you want and I’ll have it delivered to you.”
She rolled her eyes, as if she found his suggestion foolish. “I need to select the fabric myself. Even the most fabulous design is nothing if not paired with the right cloth.”
“I thought the gown was to be made of silk,” he said.
“There are thousands of bolts of various types of silk. I can’t tell which will be the perfect one until I touch it.”
She strode into her bedroom and returned a moment later, with two garments on hangers and a length of cloth draped over her arm. A black blouse held a rich sheen, and a coral dress looked warm and alluring against her skin.
“These are made from silks I bought in Istanbul,” she said, holding each up. “They are ideal for the selected garment, but would be all wrong for the other.”
“I will take your word for it,” he said.
She huffed out a frustrated breath. “Perhaps this will convince you. Look at this fabric I bought.” She held it up and gave the length a shake, causing a dark rainbow of colors to dance across the cloth. “Don’t you see? When it moves, it looks alive.”
What he saw was an independent woman who would delight in butting heads with him. A passionate woman who fired his blood. A woman who knew what she was talking about in regards to fabric and designs.
Kristo silently admired both traits, for he didn’t want a meek wife, nor one who lacked passion. He wanted Demetria.
He wanted to see the desire she felt for her designs directed at him. He longed to nip at the lush fullness of her lips, tease the corners of her mouth before he trailed kisses down the slender column of her neck. Wanted her to moan and writhe against him in a silent plea to do more. Until she begged him to take her now.
But beyond sex he wanted this strong woman to embark on this royal journey by his side. Dammit, he wanted to trust this strong, passionate woman to be his partner in all things.
Yet how could he think of such a thing when she’d been unfaithful to his brother? When she would likely betray him, given the chance? When she was still keeping a secret from him?
Their gazes collided, and he grimaced as her silent entreaty arrowed straight into him. She proved her point well.
It was her design. It was her wedding gown. She should choose the fabric, not someone else.
“Very well. I’ll have the plane made ready and inform Vasos we will be leaving the palace,” he said. “We’ll leave for Istanbul in the hour.”
Her face lit up. “Thank you. It will only take me a moment to change.”
She dropped the shimmering cloth on the sofa and hurried into the bedroom. In moments he heard the spray of water in the en suite bathroom.
It would be so easy to strip to his skin. To slip into the shower beside her. To take her.
He flexed his fingers. Drew in a deep breath, then another. Now wasn’t the time to go to her, no matter now much he wanted her.
His gaze fell on the shimmering fabric. He fingered it and felt something clutch low in his gut. She was right. When it moved it looked alive.
If she wore a gown made from it no man would be able to tear his gaze from her. They would do anything to please her, to earn a rare brilliant smile.
Wasn’t that what he’d just done?
With a muffled curse he swept from the room and stalked to his own. No woman had ever dared to stand up to him like that before. None had challenged him.
They fawned and demurred to his will—in bed and out of it. Their simpering disgusted him, for they were all shallow and selfish.
“Find a woman who is your equal, Kristo,” his mother had told him.
Perhaps he had.
She was strong. Beautiful. Desirable.
And not to be trusted.
Above all else he must bear that in mind.
The flight to Istanbul seemed far shorter than the one that had brought Demetria to Angyra. On that trip fear had ridden her shoulders and throbbed in her belly. This time she brimmed with an odd mix of excitement and confusion.
She’d been resigned to her arranged marriage to Gregor, but this upcoming wedding to Kristo was too new. Too emotionally charged with anger and lust and hurt.
You could get out of it.
And she could.
She could refuse him at the altar.
Or, better yet, she could escape him today and get lost in the crowds. She could return to Athens and the career she’d dreamed of having.
But to do so would alienate herself from her family. It would create a scandal that would be far worse than the one her mother had caused so long ago.
That was not the reputation she wanted.
“Why the long face, agapi mou?” he asked, startling her from her troubled thoughts.
She waved a hand, as if trying to grab an answer out of thin air. She certainly couldn’t divulge what had just gone through her mind!
Her gaze fixed on Vasos, who was busy speaking with one of the other guards, likely going over details once they landed.
“Do they always travel with you when you leave the palace?” she asked, her mind ticking off every moment she’d spent alone with Kristo. The times she’d thought they were alone. “Everywhere?”
He dipped his chin. “Vasos has been with me for years. Why do you ask?”
Heat rushed to her cheeks, for she knew now that even if the guard wasn’t seen he was still nearby. Watching.
Vasos had shadowed Kristo around the globe. From the crush of casinos to the most celebrated ski lodges to those moments he’d needed to get away from it all. Like the beach? “Why?” A near hysterical bark of laughter burst from her. “My God! That day on the beach. He was there, wasn’t he? He watched it all from some secluded vantage point and you—” she spat the word, sputtering with anger “—you let him!”
He was out of his chair and bending over her before she could blink. His dark eyes narrowed into dangerous slits, the irises flaring a warning glint that she’d gone too far.
“Get a grip on yourself,” he said.
“How can I when he…? When you…?” She shook her head, too humiliated and angry to finish the troubling thought.
“You must think very little of me if you believe for one moment that I would let any man see you naked,” he all but hissed. “I’d never make love with a woman in front of him. Never!”
“But you said he went everywhere with you.”
“Within reason.” He pushed away, looking down on her with open disgust. “Don’t believe everything you’ve read about me.”
Demi caught a note of hurt in his eyes before he slammed shut the door on his emotions. Just like that he shut her out, this time making her feel like a fool in the process.
And this time she deserved it!
She pressed her hot face in her hands, mortified that she’d overreacted so. It wasn’t like her to behav
e so irrationally.
How cruel of her to insult him so when he’d granted her this concession regarding the creation of her wedding gown. When he’d gone to the trouble to take her to Istanbul as she’d asked.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice as low as her spirits.
They’d done very little but argue and snip at one another. It was time to let the animosity go. Time to try and forge a new future together.
Unless she’d just ruined that one chance.
His heavy sigh echoed between them. “You are quite good at disparaging my name, even though you claim to know nothing about my tainted reputation.”
“Then enlighten me,” she said. “Talk to me about your wants. Your dreams. Your foibles and your triumphs. Let me get to know you.”
His gaze bored into hers, then sliced quickly away. The break as clean and cold as the slash of a blade.
She blinked, hurt that he now stared at the window.
That his silence told her he was ignoring her.
She hated him for his ability to shut her out. To block off all emotion.
And yet for a moment, when their gazes met, she’d glimpsed a keen longing in him. A need that reached out to her. That touched her as nothing else ever had. Almost like a little boy lost.
That was surely a trick of the eye.
Clearly there was nothing soft or needy about Kristo Stanrakis. She’d thought him reminiscent of a pagan god from the sea that day at the beach and that hadn’t changed. Nor had the urge to get close to him ebbed. But nothing hinted there was a caring man buried deep inside him.
Had the laughing, passionate man she’d frolicked with been nothing more than a chimera? Had she seen what she’d desperately wanted to see in him instead of the truth?
The answers eluded her, even after they’d landed and the two of them had embarked on this expedition to buy cloth for her wedding gown. Or rather the five of them, if she counted Vasos and the other two brawny guards.
“Do you know the address of this shop?” Kristo asked as he escorted her off the plane, his hand at her elbow firm and sending jolts of sensual awareness coursing through her. “Yes.”
She managed to give the address without stammering, though it was an effort. If he kissed her like he had that day, if he caressed her as she’d dreamed of him doing for a year, if he made love to her with the same intensity that blazed in his dark eyes then she’d be lost.
How could she be drawn to this man who clearly had no tender feelings for her? She didn’t know. But keeping her distance from him was her only defense. And even that was a weak one.
She chafed her arms against the sudden chill of loneliness. Would she ever understand Kristo?
It seemed doubtful right now. Instead of growing closer, as she’d hoped, they seemed to be drifting further apart.
Until they reached the car. Then she was all too aware of him as a potent male, as their driver negotiated the congested streets with Vasos up front and the other two guards following in a separate car.
Every curve tossed her against Kristo’s broad shoulder. Every breath she took pulled his essence deep into her soul.
Each brush of his thigh against hers served to remind her of them sprawled on a sun-warmed slab of stone with arms and legs tangled.
It seemed an eternity passed before they arrived at the draper’s shop. She breathed a relieved sigh and put distance between her and Kristo, but that was short-lived as he kept a hand at her back when they entered the shop.
The congested room seemed more cramped with Kristo towering beside her.
“Ah, you have returned,” the Turkish draper said. “What do you wish to have?”
“I’m looking for an ivory silk,” she said.
He bobbed his shaggy head. “For dresses? Blouses, perhaps?”
“A wedding gown.”
“Ah.” The little man flicked a glance at Kristo and smiled. “I have two bolts that you might like.”
He rushed into his back room, leaving her alone with Kristo. Of course he was still standing far too close.
She moved to the other side of the tiny shop on legs that trembled and examined the reels of lace on display. But it took several moments of steadying her breath before she could focus on the trims and nets instead of the man. Before she could even begin to imagine which ones she’d need for the gown.
“Do you come here often?” Kristo asked, coming no closer, and yet his rich voice wove around her just the same.
“I’ve been here a few times,” she admitted as she selected a bolt of cream tissue veiling that matched a reel of fine silk lace.
The draper returned with two bolts of silk and her thoughts immediately focused on the fabric. They were spectacular. But only one swirled from the bolt like thick cream. Only one had that rare tactile blend of ethereal and sensual to the touch, making it perfect for her wedding gown.
“You like this one?” Kristo said, reaching across her to feel the fabulous ivory silk.
She nodded, reveling in that special thrill that always rippled through her when she found the right cloth. “It is the perfect texture and color. And see?” she said, running a finger down the weave end. “Nothing has been taken off this bolt yet.”
“Then we will take all of it,” Kristo said. “You do not want someone to duplicate your gown with the same fabric.”
No, she didn’t, and she’d been prepared to explain that to him. But he knew. Somehow he’d realized the importance of this fabric being exclusive to her gown, though there would surely be duplications made.
And again she felt that odd bond between them. Here and gone, but he did understand what this meant to her. He was ensuring that this at least remained special to her.
“Thank you.” She turned to the draper and smiled. “This bolt and these trims, please.”
The little man bobbed his head. “I will send to Athens?”
“No. I’ll take this package with me today,” she said.
“Vasos will see it’s delivered to the plane.” Kristo faced the draper. “The price?”
The Turkish supplier rattled off a staggering sum that she was prepared to haggle over. But Kristo tossed euros on the counter and took her arm.
She caught a glimpse of Vasos stepping out of the shadows to see to the cloth before Kristo escorted her out into the street. The market teemed with locals and tourists, and the air was redolent with spicy odors from the vendors.
“There is a restaurant two blocks over that is superb,” Kristo said. “We can wait for Vasos and the car, which would be his preference, or walk the distance now.”
So he did chafe at the constraints he had to live with. “Let’s walk. It’s a beautiful day.” And on the street she would be spared being closeted with him a bit longer.
He bent to speak with their driver, then took her hand and started down the street. She wanted to resent his hold on her, to pull away from the long strong fingers entwining with hers.
She wanted to find revulsion in his touch instead of pleasure. Her insides quivered in anticipation of a closer intimacy even as her mind tried to rebel against such thoughts.
But the rightness that swept over her at just being with this man left her struggling to make sense of her own emotions. She didn’t want to hate him. She wanted to know him. Love him.
But that would be foolish. Dangerous.
He didn’t want her love. He wanted her body. She had to remember that. She had to look at this pragmatically.
Duty bound them together. The passion they shared made it bearable. No, more than that. Addictive.
It wasn’t love. It never would be. But she had to think it was better than what she would have had with Gregor, for he clearly didn’t even lust after her.
With Gregor, she’d forget what he looked like one year to the next. Not so with Kristo.
It had shamed her to admit she’d secretly desired him for a year. She’d grieved over how she could possibly marry one brother while she lusted for another.
> But that didn’t stop the wanting. She remembered every moment of them together on the beach.
His wind-tousled hair and the curl that stubbornly fell onto his strong brow. The feel of his muscles bunching beneath her hand. The heat of his body covering hers.
And his hands. God, how she would dream of those hands on her body, and some nights shamefully touch herself as he had and wish he was there.
“Be careful what you wish for,” her father had told her.
Now that wish was true.
Now she would have Kristo. Or at least the small part of himself that he was willing to give her.
It wasn’t enough, even though the sensations rocketing through her now were beyond anything she’d ever felt before. Stronger. More intense.
Surrendering to those feelings would only hurt her in the end. He’d take her. Make her his wife, his lover. But he’d never give her his heart. He’d never fully trust her.
She’d expected him to choose an elegant restaurant, but he led her to a small café with an excellent view of the sea and an old-world charm that embodied the glory of the Ottoman Empire. The owner greeted him as if he were a pasha, and quickly provided a secluded table for their dining pleasure apart from the crowd.
“The mezzes are delicious,” he said.
She hadn’t thought she was hungry, but the spicy smells wafting in the air awakened a hunger in her. She grasped it, for that was preferable to the hunger she felt for Kristo. This was one she could sate without feeling guilty.
“What would you like?” he asked.
“You decide,” she said, and was rewarded with one of his rare smiles. “Mezzes to start,” he told the waiter. “Then the aubergine stuffed with grilled quail, with a bottle of your best Yeni Raki.”
Her resolve began to melt. Was he trying to seduce her? Wine and dine her? Was that the reason for his sudden attention?
In moments the waiter returned with a bottle of wine. Before she could decline any, a glass was poured and set before her.
“A toast to finding the perfect fabric for your gown,” Kristo said, raising his glass, his mesmerizing gaze daring her to refuse.
“To the most perfect silk in all of Istanbul.” She clinked her glass against his and took a sip, just as a waitress bustled over with a tray laden with cheeses and stuffed vine leaves.
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