Aristide's Convenient Wife

by Jaqeuline Baird

  Helen listened to the bearded little man reel off the service in Greek with a little English thrown in for her benefit and responded appropriately, not looking at Leon unless she had to. When he had taken her hand at the foot of the stairs she had felt a sudden quickening in her pulse and almost panicked. But one glance at his set face, his broad shoulders and solid, muscled body immaculately clad in a sombre dark suit had been enough to calm her nerves.

  Leon Aristides looked about as happy as the condemned man heading for the electric chair, his attempt at a smile a mockery. However, this was a marriage of convenience, they had both agreed, so she had nothing to worry about.

  Finally when the gold band was firmly on her finger, and surprisingly a gold band on Leon’s as well she heaved an inward sigh of relief. Then the little man instructed Leon to kiss his bride.

  Leon took her chin in his hand and tilted her face up to his. Their eyes met and for an instant she saw a flare in the ebony depths of his that made the hairs on the nape of her neck stand on end. It took all her self-control not to flinch when his dark head lowered and he brushed her lips briefly with his own.

  ‘Now that wasn’t as bad as you expected,’ he said softly, his eyes gleaming with sardonic amusement as he curved an arm around her waist and turned her to face the guests, well aware of her initial reluctance.

  And it wasn’t so bad, Helen conceded a few hours later. She had managed to control her urge to flinch every time Leon looped an arm around her waist, reminding herself it was necessary for Nicholas’ sake. If she had to grit her teeth occasionally to subdue the little nervous tremors that afflicted her when he laid his hand on hers at the table or touched her cheek in an apparently affectionate gesture for the benefit of the guests, nobody seemed to notice. And after a long, leisurely meal and two glasses of champagne Helen was convinced she was over the worst and her self-confidence was restored.

  Alex Stakis had made a speech, and Leon had said a few words, and then the party had moved from the dining room into a huge drawing room and become more informal.

  She had met Leon’s friend and lawyer, Chris Stefano, and his wife Mary who was English and also a lawyer before her marriage. Helen liked her and quickly discovered Mary was the proud mother of an eight-year-old boy, Mark, and twins, a boy and a girl who were the same age as Nicholas, and, as they were all bilingual, the children quickly made friends.

  Alone for a moment, Helen allowed herself a sigh of relief. Thankfully Leon had finally left her side and was deep in discussion with Chris Stefano and another man. She glanced around the room. Sophisticated, elegant people stood around in groups chatting and drinking. Not really her scene at all, and thanks to Nicholas she was hopelessly overdressed.

  ‘You look a little lost.’ Mary Stefano approached her. ‘Don’t worry, you will get used to it,’ she said with a glance across to the group of men. ‘I have been married to Chris for nine years and in all that time I have never been to a party, wedding or baptism where the men haven’t ended up discussing business, especially Leon and Chris.’ She grinned.

  ‘I can see that.’ Helen smiled back.

  ‘Well, look on the bright side—at least you will have Leon to yourself on the honeymoon.’

  ‘We’re not having a honeymoon,’ Helen declared quickly, the very thought made her inwardly shudder. ‘Leon is far too busy, and I have to take care of Nicholas.’

  ‘Not much of a wedding night with your son around to wake you at the crack of dawn.’

  ‘Oh, Nicholas is not my son,’ Helen declared swiftly. ‘He is Delia’s child, but I have always helped to look after him while she studied.’ A sad smile curved her lips. ‘Now with Delia gone—’

  ‘Delia’s, you say?’ Mary cut in and gave her an odd look. ‘I see, well, I’d better go and find my brood. It is almost seven, time we left.’

  Puzzled by Mary’s comment, Helen paused for a moment. Surely Leon must have told his friends Nicholas was Delia’s child. She was about to follow Mary and ask her, but before she could move the celebrant appeared at her side and began a long conversation in a mixture of English and Greek. Good manners dictated she stay and listen. Her own command of Greek was slight, only what she had picked up from her grandfather and Delia when she had been teaching Nicholas. He, on the other hand, being so young, had grasped the language remarkably well, and Helen had no doubt after a few weeks living in Greece he would be speaking it like a native.

  Finally the celebrant left to refill his glass and Helen turned towards the door, intending to look for Nicholas.

  ‘Helen.’ A long arm snaked around her waist. ‘Going somewhere?’

  She stiffened automatically and tilted back her head to glance up into the hard face of Leon. ‘I’m going to find Nicholas, it is past time he was in bed.’

  ‘There is no need. Mary and Chris are taking him to stay at their house for the night.’

  ‘Whatever for?’ And not giving him time to respond, she said swiftly, ‘Nicholas has never been away from me for a whole night before.’ She felt his hand tighten on her waist and saw the mockery in his dark eyes and suddenly the old tension Helen felt around him returned.

  ‘Then it is about time he was. I know you love him, but you are in danger of smothering him,’ he told her bluntly. She opened her mouth to object but he cut in dryly, ‘Before you say anything else, Mary offered to take him afteryou told her we had no honeymoon planned. Nicholas is delighted at the idea, and here they come.’

  Helen walked into her bedroom and closed the door behind her. It was over. She pressed a light switch and the room was dimly illuminated by a couple of bedside lamps. For the first time in over three and half years there was no Nicholas to check on, and the knowledge was saddening. From being virtually the centre of his universe she had to accept he was growing up; his life, his horizons, were expanding, which was as it should be.

  Leon had been right about Nicholas; with a kiss and a hug for Helen, he had left happily with Mary and her family. It had taken another few hours and another buffet-style meal before the final guest had departed, and she had been left alone with Leon. She had refused his offer of a nightcap pleading exhaustion, which wasn’t far from the truth.

  Sighing, she pulled the garland from her head, a brief smile curving her lips. Well, at least Nicholas had got his wish. She walked into the hugeen suite bathroom that was bigger than her bedroom at home. Along with the usual luxurious fixtures there was a huge circular spa bath almost big enough for her to swim in.

  Helen slipped out of the dress and her briefs, dropping them on the floor. She piled her hair into a shower cap, and took a quick shower, before wrapping a huge bath sheet sarong-style around her naked body. She crossed to the double vanity basin where she had left her toiletries and picking up a brush, swiftly brushed the carefully contrived ringlets out of her hair until it fell in its usual soft waves around her shoulders. No sign of a bride remained, she thought, tucking her hair behind her ears, and picking up her discarded briefs, she dropped them in the laundry bin before gathering up her dress and entering the adjoining dressing room.

  They were the only rooms, plus the nursery suite across the hall that was Nicholas’ that she could safely say she knew how to find. Tomorrow morning she really must get Anna to give her a guided tour of the house. There had not been time yesterday and today she had merely gone where she was told.

  Helen opened the closet where her clothes had been stowed with Anna’s help the night before and hung the dress up. Opening a drawer, she ignored the flimsy negligee and withdrew a knee-length cotton nightshirt she usually wore around Nicholas. A tender smile curved her lips as she glanced at the print of the two teddy bears on the front. Nicholas had told her the first time he had seen her wearing it that the shirt made her look doubly cuddly.

  She was smiling as she wandered back into the bedroom, and tripped over the bottom of the bath sheet.

  ‘Careful.’ Two strong hands grasped her shoulders and steadied her. ‘There is no need
to kneel at my feet just yet,’ a deep voice drawled mockingly.

  ‘You!’ she exclaimed, looking up into the amused dark eyes of Leon. ‘And I wasn’t,’ she snapped, shrugging his hands off her shoulders and stepping back. ‘This sheet is too big.’ And so was he.

  Helen’s heart skipped a beat as her startled gaze swept over him. His tall, lithe body was clad in only a black towelling robe that exposed a large area of hair darkened chest and ended mid-thigh, revealing his long legs. For a banker, a man who did no physical work, he had a magnificent physique, the thought came unbidden to her mind.

  Then suddenly she realised the only thing protecting her own naked body was a towel—a towel that, following her tripping over it, had slid perilously south. She dropped her nightshirt and hastily hauled the bath sheet as far up as it would go.

  ‘This is my room and I would like you to leave,’ she declared a little shakily.

  ‘It is also mine, the master suite,’ Leon said with a soft, husky laugh and she was struck dumb by his outrageous declaration. Before she could even get her head around the fact, never mind object, his strong hands spanned her waist and he swung her off the floor.

  With her feet dangling in the air, she instinctively reached out and grasped his broad shoulder to steady herself. With her free hand she hung onto the knot in the towel as if her life depended on it. She had never been on eye level with him before, his face suddenly only inches from her own. Her shocked gaze met the glittering intensity of his night-black eyes and her heart lurched in panic. Her position had just become a heck of a lot more perilous, she realized, swallowing hard. His hands were burning into her waist, and her breathing was suddenly erratic.

  ‘What on earth do you think you are doing?’ Red-faced with embarrassment and something more she refused to recognize, Helen tried to wriggle free. ‘Put me down.’

  ‘Certainly.’ He moved and somehow instead of his hands on her waist one long arm held her clasped firmly against his big body. His other hand twisted in the waving mass of her hair, tipping her head back.

  She stared at him like a mesmerised mouse. She saw his dark head lower. He wouldn’t…he couldn’t be going to kiss her…

  ‘But first…’ Even as her own lips trembled in expectation of his kiss his firm lips brushed the tender skin of her throat.

  The warm moist flick of his tongue seared her skin, sending a starburst of tiny tremors racing along every nerve in her body. His sensuous mouth closed over the suddenly racing pulse in her neck and paused to suck lightly before trailing a string of kisses up her throat in a slow, seductive path to her lips.

  ‘No.’ Helen choked and tried to resist but a strange warmth began to unfurl in the centre of her being, her body betraying her as a rising tide of totally new emotions flowed through her.

  ‘No,’ she murmured again, but it was more of a moan, her lips helplessly parting beneath the heady pressure of his mouth to accept the subtle penetration of his tongue. His hand tightened on her nape and he kissed her with a slow, seductive passion that stoked the unfamiliar warmth into a flame that seemed to melt her bones. She had never known a kiss could be so exquisite she thought dreamily, never known anything so pleasurable existed.

  She sighed when he broke the kiss, and groaned as he bit the soft lobe of her ear, his warm breath curling around the inner whorls.

  ‘Do you still want me to put you down?’ His deep, husky voice resonated through every cell in her body.

  Helen stared dazedly into the smouldering blackness of his deep set eyes, and the temptation of total capitulation to the unknown pleasure he was offering urged her to say no. His hand at her nape stroked down to splay over her bare shoulder blades holding her close to the muscular wall of his chest, her breasts inexplicably tightening at the contact. His mouth covered hers again and he was kissing her as she had never been kissed before, deeply, erotically. She shuddered and clung to him, the flames of desire burning ever higher, and when he finally lifted his head she was helpless against the storm of heated sensations roaring like wildfire through her.

  He lifted his head and drawled thickly, ‘Well, Helen, must I put you down?’

  The ‘no’ of surrender hovered on the tip of her tongue. His hand slipped down and drew her into the hard heat of his lower body. Crushed against him, she felt the rigid length of his masculine arousal against her churning stomach, and in a moment of clarity she realised what she was inviting.

  ‘Yes. You—you…’ She panicked, and, lost for adequate words, she shoved her hands against his chest and began to struggle like a deranged idiot. ‘You animal.’

  Something deadly flickered in the depths of his eyes, then it was successfully masked. ‘All right, I heard you,’ he drawled mockingly and lowered her to the floor.

  CHAPTER SIX

  HOT AND FLUSTERED, Helen staggered back a few steps and frantically tried to assimilate what Leon had just said and done and why. He had told her she was hopeless at kissing, she wanted to yell at him, her body strumming with the opposing emotions of fury and a frustration she had never experienced before.

  He had said their marriage was one of convenience…but whose? She asked the question she should have asked herself the minute he’d suggested marriage. Certainly not hers. She had left her home and come to live in a foreign country to accommodate him and his lifestyle, and if he thought for one second she was going to accommodate him in bed as well he was in for a rude awakening.

  She grasped the bath sheet tightly around her. ‘What do you think you are playing at?’ Her eyes blazed a brilliant violet up to his. ‘Ours is a marriage of convenience and don’t you forget it.’

  ‘A convenient marriage, yes, but also a legal marriage, and as such you must know it is usual to consummate the union.’ His dark cynical gaze held hers and she stared back in appalled amazement. ‘If anyone is playing around here it is you.’

  ‘Me?’ she screeched. She could not believe the turn of events. ‘Are you out of your mind?’

  He shook his dark head dismissively. ‘Oh, come on, Helen,’ he drawled as he lessened the space between them. ‘Who do you think you are kidding? I am no fool. Your earthy little moans, the soft flush of arousal colouring your skin are a complete give-away,’ he declared throatily, and reached out to brush a strand of hair over her shoulder, not the least fazed by her angry outburst. ‘You want this just as much as me. In some cases I believe a bit of game-playing can spice up a jaded sex life, but in our case it is not necessary, I can assure you.’

  Helen stilled, her eyes widening in confusion on his ruggedly attractive face. She could not believe what she was hearing. His strong hands curved over her shoulders and he stared down at her, his firm lips curling in a knowing, sensual smile, all confident, virile male.

  ‘I will make it great for you, believe me.’

  It was his colossal conceit that finally got through to her and from being confused she was instantaneously contemptuous. ‘No, you arrogant jerk.’ She hissed like a spitting cat and shoved him hard in the chest, catching him unawares and ducking free from his hands.

  His face darkened, all traces of humour vanishing from his granite-like features. ‘It is a bit late for outraged virtue,’ he drawled derisively, his dark eyes narrowing on her flushed furious face. ‘You can’t pretend you are an innocent, Helen. You are an adult woman, with a woman’s needs. True, Nicholas might have curtailed your love life a little, but I saw the very convenient arrangement you had with Mick the security guard. And as for the outfit you wore today, it simply screamed sex. So no more games.’

  He thought Mick was her sexual partner, and her fairy styled dress was sexy. She almost laughed out loud. The man must live on another planet. She shook her head in amazement at his misconceptions. ‘I am not—’ was as far as she got.

  ‘Oh, yes, you are.’ He looped an arm around her waist and deftly swept the towel from her body.

  For the first time in her adult life she was totally naked in front of a man, and the shock held
her rigid. Protectively she closed her eyes against the flush of embarrassment colouring her skin and instinctively she leant away from him. But that was a mistake.

  ‘Exquisite. Helen of Troy could not have been more beautiful.’ She heard his deep-throated murmur and her eyes slowly opened.

  ‘All my fantasies in one perfect little package,’ he husked, his incredibly dark eyes lifting briefly to hers and she was paralysed by the intensity of his gaze as he subjected her to a slow, raking appraisal.

  For what seemed an age he just looked at her. Then his hand lifted and the pad of one finger traced the upper curves of her breasts and the valley between with a tactile sensuality that stopped her heart. She drew in a much-needed ragged breath. How could such a slight touch be so seductive? she wondered desperately. But in a second her desperation turned into helpless capitulation as he urged her closer. Her body leapt in response at the brush of his naked thighs against her own, her legs suddenly losing the power or will to support her as she swayed against him.