by Various
‘Oscar wanted you to learn to—’
‘He wanted me to act like a Balfour or stay away,’ she wrenched out. ‘Well, I have no wish any longer to be a Balfour.’ And she meant it—she really meant it! ‘They are not my kind of people. You are not my kind of people.’ It was a life-changing moment to realise that and it grew like a balloon inside. ‘Oscar said he wanted me to learn integrity…’ And suddenly she understood what integrity meant to her. It meant being true to herself. To the person she wanted to be not the one everyone else wanted to mould her into! ‘Well, I don’t want his integrity if it means dressing up in fine clothes and wearing false smiles. I don’t want to be married to you because I have conceived your baby and you are worried about what Oscar might think. That is for your integrity to deal with, Nikos. Mine is telling me it is time to walk away and just be myself.’
‘I do not give a damn what Oscar thinks!’ Nikos protested.
‘Liar,’ she shook out. ‘You have already said it with your damage-control quip.’
It was like being hit from behind. Nikos had not expected it. He had no ready defence.
The car drew up outside his apartment, and Mia threw his sternly handsome face a single glance, then unlocked her seat belt and scrambled out of the car, leaving Nikos sitting there, knowing he was in danger of missing probably the only opportunity he was going to get to put right something he should never have said in the first place.
Throwing open his door he climbed out of the car and followed her into the building. If she wanted him to feel like the worst man alive, then she was succeeding, he accepted as he stood beside her trembling figure while they rode the lift to the top floor.
No oval lobby here, just direct access to his apartment proper.
‘Mia…’ he started to say huskily.
She strode off towards the bedrooms with her taut slender spine telling him she did not want to listen to anything else he had to say.
He watched her go, watched his chance to put this right walk away from him on those foolish high heels, winced when her bedroom door slammed shut in her wake.
‘Damn,’ he cursed, then added a few more rich words, and on a ferocious act of burning frustration aimed directly at himself and his own insecurities, he swung around and flung a clenched fist at the nearest wall.
Kicking off her shoes, Mia sent them skidding across the bedroom floor, then spun to glare at the bed for a tear-stinging second before she threw herself face down on it. She hated him—again, she told herself fiercely, pressing her face into the pillow and trembling with anger and a million different layers of hurt.
He was hard and cold and he did not deserve any of this aching love she was suffering on his behalf! He did not deserve her at all!
Damage control…What kind of man was he that he could describe a marriage proposal as—
Her door suddenly burst open. ‘All right, so the damage-control quip was a lousy, cruel, rotten cover-up!’ Nikos launched at her. ‘You are driving me crazy. You make me say things I don’t mean to say! I think I might be madly in love with you—does that make a difference?’
Mia froze, and then twisted over to look at him. He was standing just inside the door, looking like a man who’d been subjected to torture to make him say that. Every bone, every muscle, every beautifully toned golden skin cell, flexed to its limits, and his eyes were firing fury at her as if she had been the one to inflict the torture!
Had it been that painful for him to say it?
‘Explain this might be,’ she demanded. ‘You think it impresses me?’
‘No,’ he muttered, and did a strange thing then—he dropped the tension out of his shoulders and lifted a fist up to his mouth, wincing as if he was in pain. ‘Having never experienced any kind of love before, I can only offer a might be,’ he said.
Dropping the hand out of its fist he flexed the long fingers. ‘You like to believe you are the only one to get a lousy deal in the parental stakes, agape mou,’ he imparted heavily, ‘but you don’t have a clue how bad it can get. My mother was a prostitute and my father was her pimp. Try comparing that coupling with your own less-than-perfect parents.’
‘But I thought you were—’
‘Born with a silver spoon in my mouth?’ he offered, skimming her a skin-peeling cynical glance. ‘Living in a one-bedroom cockroach-infested apartment deep in the heart of an Athens slum is not silver-spoon stuff, I promise you. It’s the same as living in hell. I need a drink,’ he said suddenly and turned back to the door.
‘Don’t you dare walk out of here after saying all of that!’ Mia shrieked. ‘I want to know what it is you’re talking about!’
His wide shoulders clenched. Nikos bit out a curse, then spun to walk over to the window and stood there, glaring out at the view.
‘Down there,’ he husked, bringing Mia sliding off the bed to go and stand beside him, ‘beyond the bright lights where everything turns murky and dark.’
Mia looked without seeing because seeing was not as important to her as what he was saying to her. She moved closer to him and was surprised when he let her, even shifting a tense arm to draw her in.
‘For the first six years of my life I believed it was normal to sleep in a bedroom cupboard,’ he provided gruffly. ‘They, my so-called parents, locked me in there so I would not embarrass my mother’s—clients when she brought them back to—ply her services. If I made a sound I was beaten.’
‘Oh, Nikos, no,’ Mia whispered in dismay.
‘They were heroin addicts,’ he delivered flatly. ‘Sometimes they would be so out of their heads they would forget about me for days. I still have nightmares about that filthy cupboard,’ he breathed grittily, then vented a short hard laugh. ‘Try sleeping a whole night in the same bed with me, cara, and you will know what it is I’m talking about. I cannot stand to be in small enclosed places, and locks and bolts give me the creeps. And don’t weep,’ he rasped when a sob of understanding broke free from her. ‘I will not be responsible if you start weeping. I have told no one this. So just stand here and listen. When I was nine, a—client discovered me. He decided it would be good to have a bit of fun at my expense…’
He went so silent then that Mia worried what it was he was remembering that he could not bring himself to reveal. After a minute of it she could not stand still any longer and turned herself fully into his front, then hugged him tightly with her arms locked around his taut body.
He ripped out a sigh and wrapped his arms around her too.
‘I ran away,’ he went on. ‘The police found me and I was delivered into the hands of the social services. I was never so glad about anything,’ he admitted. ‘For the first time in my life I had a real bed to sleep in and three meals a day, and most importantly, I felt safe. I was a model inmate because I was so scared they would send me back to my parents. I excelled at school and was willing to take on any chore if it earned me a smile of approval. I would have begged and crawled to remain where I was.’
‘Nikos—’
‘No, don’t say anything,’ he cut across her. ‘When I was thirteen I was accused of stealing provisions from the kitchens. It wasn’t me, I was stitched up, but since I couldn’t prove that, I was—punished. I vowed it would be the last time that anyone would lay a strap to my back and I ran away again. I spent the next six months living on the streets, sleeping in alleyways and surviving on meagre handouts. But I missed school. I had a desperate need to learn so I gave myself up to the authorities. From then on I was labelled a problem child and was sent to a home full of problem children…’
He paused once again to take a minute to smooth out the roughened tone of his voice. And Mia took her chance, and brushed a soft trembling kiss to one of his taut cheeks.
‘I endured the life there,’ he continued, easing her closer to him. ‘I cannot be charitable and call it anything more than an endurance, but I had to stay if I wanted to attend school…The worst part was surrendering to my vow and allowing someone else to beat me,’
he roughed out. ‘On my sixteenth birthday I walked out of there and never went back.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.
‘I am not after your sympathy,’ he lanced out. ‘I am merely trying to explain to you why I cannot tell if I love you or not.’ Since Mia was sure that nothing less than the desperation of love would have dragged any of this out of him, she just lifted her face from his chest and smiled up at him. ‘Well, I know I love you. So we can work on that.’
Allowing himself to look down at her, Nikos quirked a flat black eyebrow. ‘Just like that?’
‘Sì.’ She nodded. ‘What happened to your parents?’ she then prompted softly.
He cleared his throat. ‘They died when I was fourteen, from a lethal batch of heroin.’
‘And—and Oscar, how did you come to meet him?’
This time he husked out a small laugh. ‘I was a real hustler by then. Good-looking, sharp-witted and too damn cocksure of myself for my own good. Waiting on tables of the rich was a good place to learn about business scams. I had become pretty successful at scamming others by the time Oscar wandered into my life. I tried a hustle on him,’ he admitted. ‘Oscar listened to my pitch, fed my ego with smooth questions I was able to answer without so much as a blink. He agreed to the deal, handed me a cheque for an astonishing amount of money, then he proceeded to hustle me with an offer of a stake in some irresistible venture of his own if I could come up with the required cash, which was, of course, double what he had given me. I handed him back his cheque plus every penny I had in the world and the scammer had been beautifully scammed by an expert at it.’
Mia laughed. ‘You mean there was no irresistible venture?’
‘No.’ Nikos smiled to himself, recalling what Oscar must have seen when he’d stared thoughtfully across the desk at the twenty-year-old hustler he had been back then. ‘Oscar fleeced me cold with a relaxed smoothness that can still make me squirm to recall it,’ he confessed.
Yet, for all of it, Oscar Balfour had seen something in him that he’d liked.
‘Instead of slinging me out, humiliated and penniless, he offered to show me how to play the hustle from the right side of the law,’ he went on softly. ‘He was my saviour from a life of crime and probably regular imprisonment. Everything I am today I owe to him. He’s—special. Never underestimate him, agape mou, for Oscar never puts any plan into action unless he has a very sure idea what the outcome will be.’
‘You’re talking about you and me now, aren’t you?’ Mia frowned up at him.
‘Right down to the Brunel incident,’ he drawled sardonically.
Mia widened her eyes. ‘No,’ she denied.
‘Brunel went overboard with his brief when he tipped you into that pool, and Oscar was angry. But it was Santino D’Lassio’s security people who tracked Brunel down and—urged the truth out of him. Oscar does not know that I know,’ he added. ‘I am keeping that piece of information to myself for a while longer.’
‘Don’t you dare hurt my father!’ Mia flared up instantly.
Looking down at her, Nikos prompted dryly, ‘Not hating him so much now?’
Mia shifted restlessly against him. ‘I don’t hate Oscar,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t even hate my mother…’ Her blue eyes shadowed over on the hollow ache she experienced. ‘I was hurting when I said all of those things in the car. Oscar has been good to me—kind, even when my arrival caused him so much trouble.’
‘Trouble you had a right to cause, Mia.’
‘That’s what he said to me,’ she whispered, feeling guilty now that she had maligned the man who’d tried his very best to make her feel welcome and wanted. ‘So,’ she said, ‘what was Oscar planning for you and me?’
‘Oh, the full works, I should imagine.’ Nikos smiled ruefully. ‘Throw you in my way every damn day. Wind me up with some macho protectiveness and jealousy to aim me in the direction he wanted me to go.’
‘Which was where?’
‘White lace and wedding bells,’ he enlightened. ‘But without the premature baby conception…I will have let him down there.’
‘You did not do so on your own,’ Mia pointed out. ‘I helped—a lot.’
At last she made his strained mouth stretch into a real proper grin. Reaching up she traced that wide warm mouth with a finger. ‘You know what you need,’ she ventured softly, long black eyelashes hiding away the sparkle in her blue eyes. ‘You need a trial run sleeping with me in a bed for a whole night or two. I can live with no locks on the doors but I refuse to marry a man who insists on separate bedrooms because he thinks I will scare him into nightmares…’
The way she put the last part froze Nikos for a second or two before he threw back his dark head and laughed. Then with a groan he crushed her up against him, and claimed the pouting invitation of her lush mouth.
‘Trial run coming up,’ he muttered a while later. ‘We will call Oscar tomorrow,’ he planned as he drew towards her bed. ‘If he doesn’t threaten to kill me for seducing his daughter, he can give you away at our wedding.’
‘And if he does threaten to kill you?’ Mia ran a possessive hand down the front of his body and watched him shudder.
‘I will warn him he will be making his daughter a widow because I’m still marrying you.’
It was gruff and strong and very possessive, and Mia curved her body in even closer. ‘I love you, Nikos Theakis,’ she told him.
‘Well, keep on loving me, agape mou,’ he responded unsteadily. ‘I am about to risk dropping every protective guard I have in favour of loving you back by return.’
He had said it—almost said it. Mia laughed in delight. Then, with more strength than she gave credence to, she twisted him around and tumbled them both down on the bed.
‘Show me, then,’ she invited.
Nikos did not need telling twice.
Two wonderful months later, Nikos strode into the bedroom he’d had refurbished to accommodate his wife’s hobby, as she liked to call it. Every one of their homes now had similar rooms, laid out like a fashion designer’s studio with all the time-saving gadgets known to the trade.
‘You’re supposed to be dressed by now—’ he frowned at Mia ‘—Santino and Nina D’Lassio will be here in half an hour and Tia Giulia is already downstairs with Oscar.’
‘Is it that late?’ Looking up from what she was doing, Mia felt the usual crash and burn take place inside her because he looked so deliciously gorgeous in a dinner suit—and, she tagged on possessively, every single bit of him belonged to her.
‘You are not wearing that,’ he said, his frown deepening as he spied the dress she had left hanging on an otherwise empty rail.
‘Oh, you don’t like it,’ Mia murmured in disappointment.
‘Are you joking?’ Striding over to the bright red slip of silk and plucking up the hanger so he could view it more thoroughly, he said, ‘It’s a Jessica Rabbit dress.’
‘Jessica who?’ Mia asked innocently.
‘Jessica Rabbit—the cartoon sex bomb and fantasy lover of every man with a healthy sex drive.’
Pleased by that remark, Mia stood to reveal the gold silk under the slip she was wearing. ‘That’s OK, then,’ she said with relief.
‘You’re still not wearing it, Mia,’ Nikos said firmly. ‘Not in front of anyone but me anyway…’
‘But you just said it was every man’s fantasy!’ Taking it from him she placed the hanger back on the rail again. Then, because she knew he was trying to work out how the heck he was going to stop her when she usually ended up doing as she pleased anyway, she turned to send him a grin.
‘It’s for Sophie,’ she confided.
‘Sophie—?’ Nikos almost choked on the shock.
‘She asked me to make her a really sexy dress,’ she explained. ‘And you have just made my day by telling me I have achieved the ultimate.’
‘But—agape mou, you can’t put Sophie in a dress like that! She’s—’
‘Don’t you dare finish what you were about
to say!’ Mia flared up in heated defence of her half-sister. ‘She is beautiful and nice!’
‘I was not about to—’
‘And she owns the most exquisite pocket Venus figure underneath those dreadful concealing garments she prefers to wear,’ Mia cut in furiously. ‘So she does not parade her figure as she should do, but that doesn’t mean she cannot be encouraged.’
Absolutely not believing her but willing to accept he had just deeply offended his new wife on Sophie Balfour’s behalf, Nikos went for the diversion. ‘You’re so sexy when you’re sparked up and angry,’ he murmured, reaching out to draw her into his embrace.
‘Mmm, and you are one amazing kisser, signor,’ she sighed out when he finally let her up for air.
‘You’ve got no one else to compare me with,’ Nikos pointed out.
‘And you like to feel smug about that?’
‘Sì, signora.’ He grinned. ‘I love it that you love me, and that I am the only man to kiss you, and that this hiding in here—’ he moulded his hand to her still-flat stomach ‘—bears the fruits of my kisses and—other things.’
‘That is just so—so old-fashioned and possessively Greek!’ Mia frowned at him.
‘But you love me to be old-fashioned and possessive.’
‘I also think you should know that over there—’ she pointed to another rail packed with clothes ‘—is another Jessica Rabbit dress, as you call it, just waiting for me to put on if you don’t watch your step!’
Caught like a rat in a trap, Mia watched his smile disappear and his eyes narrow to scan the indicated rail. ‘I will burn it.’
‘Before or after you see me wearing it?’
He took a minute to think about that, then he responded with a lusty growl, ‘Afterwards. Private viewing.’ He captured her already kiss-blushed lips.