by Jennie Lucas
She looked up with a bright, fake smile. “It’s fine. Of course it couldn’t last. Good things never do.”
“Neither do bad things,” he said quietly. “Nothing lasts, good or bad.”
“I guess you’re right.” She wrapped her arms around her pregnant belly. “But I don’t want a big society wedding, Darius. I think I’d just like you and me, and our closest family and friends. I don’t need ten bridesmaids. I just want one.”
“An old friend?”
She smiled. “A new one. Belle Langtry. A waitress at the diner. How about you? Who would you choose as your best man?”
“Ángel Velazquez.”
“Ángel?”
“It’s a nickname. His real first name is Santiago, but he hates it, because he was named after a man who refused to recognize him as his son.”
“How awful!”
Darius shrugged. “I call him by his last name. Velazquez hates weddings. He recently had to be the best man for a friend of ours, Kassius Black. He complained for months. All that tender love gave him a headache, he said.”
Letty was looking at him in dismay. “And you want him at our wedding?”
“He needs a little torture. When you meet him you’ll see what I mean. Completely arrogant, always sure he’s right.”
“Hard to imagine,” she said drily.
“So Velazquez. And my extended family.”
Her eyes brightened. “Your family?”
“My great-aunt, Theia Ioanna, who lives in Athens. Assorted uncles, aunts and cousins, and the rest of my village on Heraklios, the island I’m from.”
“Could we bring them all over from Greece? And of course we’ll have my father...”
Darius stiffened. “No.”
“No?” She frowned. “We could get married on Heraklios, if they can’t travel. I’ve always wanted to visit the Greek islands...”
“I mean your father. He’s not invited.”
“Of course he’s invited. He’s my father. He’ll walk me down the aisle. I know you don’t like him, but he’s my only family.”
“Letty, I thought you understood.” His jaw was taut, his voice low and cold. “I don’t want you, or our baby, within ten feet of that man ever again.”
“What?”
“It’s not negotiable.” Swiveling to face her at the counter, Darius gripped her shoulder. “I will pay back everything he stole. But this is the price.” His dark eyes narrowed. “You will cut your father completely and permanently out of our lives.”
She drew back. “But he’s my father. I love him—”
“He lost the right to your loyalty long ago. Do you think I want a con artist, a thief, around my wife...my child...my home?” He looked at her in tightly controlled fury. “No.”
“He never meant to hurt anyone,” she tried. “He always hoped the stock market would turn and he’d be able to pay everyone back. He just lost his way after my mom died. And he hasn’t been well since he got out of prison. If you just knew what he’s been through...”
“Excuses on top of excuses! You expect me to feel sympathy?” he said incredulously. “Because he was sick? Because he lost his wife? Because of him, you and I were separated. Because of him, my own father never had the chance to grow old! After he’d worked for him with utter devotion for almost twenty-five years. And that’s how your father repaid him!”
“Darius, please.”
“You expect me to allow that man to walk you down the aisle? To hold my firstborn child in his arms? No.” He set his jaw. “He’s a monster. He has no conscience, no soul.”
“You don’t know him like I do...”
Remembering her weakness where her father was concerned, her senseless loyalty at any cost, Darius abruptly changed tack. “If you truly love him, you will do as I ask. It will benefit him, as well.”
“How can you say that?”
“Once I’ve paid all his debts, he’ll never need to be afraid of someone breaking his arm again. He’ll be treated better by his probation officers. By potential employers.”
“He can’t work. No one would hire him. He would starve in the street.”
Revulsion churned in Darius’s belly, but he forced himself to say, “I will make sure that does not happen. He can remain in your Brooklyn apartment and his rent will be paid. He will always have food and any other necessities he might require. But he must face the consequences of what he’s done. He’s taken enough from you, Letty. Your future is with me.”
Pushing away the breakfast plates, he stood up from the kitchen counter and went to her handbag on the entryway table. Pulling out her phone, he held it out to her.
“Call him,” he said quietly. “See what he tells you to do.”
Sitting at the counter in her white robe, Letty stared at the phone with big, stricken eyes, as if it were poison. She snatched it up, and with an intake of breath, dialed and held it up to her ear.
“Hi, Dad.” She paused, then said unhappily, “Yes. I’m sorry. I don’t blame you for worrying. I should have... Ooh? You saw that?” She looked up and said to Darius, “Your announcement about repaying the five billion is already all over the news. Our engagement, too. Dad is thrilled.”
“Of course,” he said acidly.
“What?” She turned her focus back to her father. “Oh, yes,” she whispered, looking up at Darius with troubled eyes. “We’re very happy.” She bit her lip. “But, Dad, there’s this one thing. It’s a big thing. A big horrible thing—” her voice broke a little “—and I hardly know how to say it...” She took a deep breath. “I won’t be able to see you anymore. Or let you see the baby.”
Darius watched her face as she listened to her father’s response. Her expression was miserable.
He blocked all mercy from his soul. He was being cruel to be kind. Saving her from her own weak, loving heart.
“No,” she whispered into the phone. “I won’t abandon you. It’s not...”
She paused again, and her expression changed, became numb with grief. Finally, she choked out in a voice almost too soft to hear, “Okay, Dad. All right. I love you, too. So much. Goodbye.”
Tears were streaming down her face. Wiping them away, she handed Darius the phone. “He wants to talk to you.”
He stared down at the phone in dismay. He hadn’t expected that. He picked it up and put it to his ear.
“What do you want?” he said coldly.
“Darius Kyrillos.” He recognized Howard Spencer’s voice. Though the voice had aged and grown shaky, he could almost hear the older man’s smile. “I remember when you were a little boy, just come to Fairholme. You barely spoke English but even then, you were a great kid.”
Unwanted memories went through him of when he’d first come to Fairholme with a father who was a stranger to him, a lonely eleven-year-old boy, bereaved by his grandmother’s death. He’d felt bewildered by America and homesick for Greece. Back then Howard Spencer had seemed grand and as foreign as a king.
But he’d welcomed the bereft boy warmly. He’d even asked his five-year-old daughter to look after him. In spite of their six-year age difference, Letty, with her caring and friendly heart, had swiftly become his friend, sharing her toys and showing him the fields and beach. While her father had given Darius Christmas presents and told him firmly he could do anything he wanted in life.
In an indirect way, Howard Spencer had even helped start his software company. As a teenager, Darius had been fascinated by computers. He’d taught himself to tinker and code, and soon found himself responsible for every tech device, security feature and bit of wireless connectivity at Fairholme. It was Howard Spencer who’d hired him as the estate’s first technical specialist and allowed him to continue to live there. He’d even paid for Darius to study computer science at the local community college...
Darius felt a twist in his gut. Like...guilt? No. He rushed to justify his actions. All right, so Spencer had encouraged him and paid for his schooling. Using stolen money from his Ponzi sc
heme!
“Yes, a good kid,” Howard continued gruffly. “But stubborn, with all that stiff-necked Greek pride. Always had to do everything yourself. Letty was the only one you really let help you with anything. And even then, you always thought you had to be in charge. You never recognized her strength.”
“Your point?” Darius said coldly.
He heard the other man take a deep breath.
“Take good care of my daughter,” he said quietly. “Both Letty and my grandchild. I know you will. That’s the only reason I’m letting them go.”
The line abruptly cut off.
“What did he say?” Letty’s miserable face came into view.
“He said...” Darius stared down in amazement at the phone in his hand.
He ground his teeth. Damn the old man. Taking the high road. He must be playing the long game. Trusting that Letty would wear him down after their wedding and make him relent. Make him forgive.
But Darius would never forgive. He’d die before he let that man worm his way back into their lives.
“Tell me what he said,” Letty pleaded.
He turned to her with an ironic smile. “He gave our marriage his blessing.”
Her shoulders slumped.
“That’s what he said to me, too,” she whispered.
So his theory was correct. Clever bastard, he thought grudgingly. He really knew how to pull his daughter’s heartstrings.
But Howard Spencer had finally met someone he couldn’t manipulate. The old man would end his days alone, in that tiny run-down apartment, with no one to love him. Just as he deserved.
While they—they would live happily ever after.
Darius looked at Letty tenderly.
After their marriage, after she was legally his forever, she would come to despise her father as Darius did. At the very least, she would forget and let him go.
She would love only Darius, be loyal only to him.
He wouldn’t love her back, of course. The childish illusion that love could be anything but pain had been burned out of him permanently. But love was still magic to Letty, and he realized now it was the only way to bind her and make her happy in their marriage. For the sake of their children, he had to make her love him.
This was just the beginning.
“You did the right thing,” Darius murmured. Pulling her into his arms, he kissed the top of her head, relishing the feel of her body against his, the crush of her full breasts and her belly rounded with his child. “You’ll never regret it.”
“I regret it already.”
Leaning forward, he kissed the tears off her cheeks. He kissed her forehead, then her eyelids. He felt her shudder and pulled her fully into his arms. He whispered, “Let me comfort you.”
He lowered his mouth to hers, gripping her smaller body to his own, and kissed her passionately. A sigh came from her throat as she wrapped her arms around him. He opened the belt of her robe and ran his hands down her naked body. Then with a large sweep of his arm, he knocked all the dishes to the floor with a noisy clatter.
Lifting his future bride up onto the countertop, Darius did what he’d wanted to do for the last hour. He made love to her until she wept. Tears of joy, he told himself. Just tears of joy.
* * *
Letty had never been the sort of girl to dream about weddings. At least not since she was eighteen, when her one attempt at elopement had ended so badly.
But she’d vaguely thought, if she ever did get married, she’d have a simple wedding dress, a cake, a bouquet. And her father would give her away.
This wedding had none of that.
Two days after Darius’s proposal, they got married in what felt like the worst wedding ever.
Her own fault, Letty thought numbly, as she stood in front of a judge, mumbling vows to honor and cherish. She had no one to blame but herself.
Well, and Darius.
After her phone call with her father, Letty had been too heartsick to care about planning a wedding ceremony. Even Darius ruthlessly taking possession of her body on the kitchen counter hadn’t cheered her up. Her heart felt empty and sad.
Darius had tried to tempt her with outrageous ideas for a destination wedding. “If you don’t want a big society wedding, there’s no reason to wait. The sky’s the limit! Do you want a beach wedding in Hawaii? A winter wedding in South America? If you want, I’ll rent out the Sydney Opera House. Just say the word!”
She’d looked at him miserably. “What I want is for my father to be there. Without love, what difference does the wedding make?”
The temperature in the room had dropped thirty degrees. “Fine,” he said coldly. “If that’s how you feel, we might as well just get married at City Hall.”
“Fine,” she’d said in the same tone.
So they’d gone to the Office of the City Clerk near Chinatown this afternoon, where they’d now been killing time for three hours, surrounded by happy couples all waiting for their turn.
Letty felt exhausted to the bone. She hadn’t slept at all the night before. Neither she nor Darius had even bothered to dress up for the ceremony. She wore a simple blouse and maternity pants. Darius wore a dark shirt, dark jeans and a dark glower.
Nor had it helped that the two friends they’d brought to be their witnesses had hated each other on sight. The constant childish bickering between Belle Langtry and Santiago Velazquez, who’d introduced himself as Ángel, had been the final nail in the coffin of Worst Wedding Ever.
It could have been so different, Letty thought sadly. If her father had been there, if she and Darius had been in love, nothing else would have mattered.
But there was no love anywhere on this wedding day.
As she and Darius had sat waiting, listening to their best man and maid of honor squabble, she couldn’t stop tears from falling. Darius’s glower only made them fall faster.
Their number was the very last to be called in the late afternoon. The four of them had gone up to the desk. As the officiant swiftly and matter-of-factly spoke the words that would bind her to Darius forever, Letty couldn’t stop thinking about how she was betraying her father. The man who’d taught her to roller-skate down Fairholme’s long marble hallways, who’d taught her chess on rainy days. The man who’d told her again and again how much he loved her.
“I screwed everything up,” Howard had told her sadly when he got out of prison. “But I swear I’ll make it up to you, Letty. I’ll get you back the life you lost...”
He’d never once criticized her for getting pregnant out of wedlock. He’d just been delighted about a future grandchild. Even when she’d phoned him before the wedding, and told him she was marrying Darius, she’d felt his joy. Though it had been abruptly cut off when she’d tearfully told him the rest of the deal.
Then he’d said quietly, “Do it, sweetheart. Marry him. It’s what you’ve always wanted. Knowing you’re happy, I’ll be at peace.”
Now, as she watched Darius speak his marriage vows, Letty’s heart twisted. She blinked as she heard the officiant solemnly finish, “...I now pronounce you man and wife.”
The whole ceremony had taken three minutes.
She dimly heard Belle clapping and hooting wildly as Darius leaned forward to kiss her. Some instinct made her turn away and offer him only her cheek.
His glower turned radioactive.
After signing the marriage certificate, their small party of four trundled out of the City Clerk’s Office to discover the cold gray September skies pouring rain.
“Such a beautiful ceremony. I’m so happy for you,” Belle sighed, obviously caught up in some romantic image that had nothing to do with reality. “You make a perfect couple.”
“You’re living in a fairy tale,” Santiago Velazquez muttered. “They can obviously barely stand each other.”
Belle whirled on him irritably. “Just once, could you keep your bad attitude to yourself?” Her voice was shrill. “I’m sick of hearing it!”
He shrugged, glancing a
t Darius. “You got married because she’s pregnant, right?”
“Velazquez, don’t make me punch you on my wedding day.”
“See?” Belle crowed. “Even Darius can’t stand you.”
The Spaniard looked superior. “Just because I’m the only one who is willing to speak the truth...”
“The truth is that marriage is about love and commitment and a whole bunch of sophisticated emotions you obviously can’t handle. So keep your opinions to yourself. You might think you’re being all deep, but talking like that at a wedding is just plain tacky!”
The Spaniard’s eyes narrowed and for a moment Letty was afraid that the constant bickering between them was about to boil over into something truly unpleasant. But to her relief, the man abruptly gave a stiff nod.
“You are right.”
Belle stared at him wide-eyed, then tossed her hair, huffing with a flare of her nostrils. “Course I’m right. I’m always right.”
Letty exhaled as they seemed to drop the matter.
“Except for when you’re wrong,” came his sardonic response, “which is every other time but now, since you’re obviously living in some ridiculous romantic dream world.”
Belle glared at him, then whirled on Letty with a beaming smile. “Are you having a good wedding day, sweetie? Because that’s what I care about. Because I’m not rude like some people. We learn manners in Texas.”
“I have a ranch in Texas,” the Spaniard rejoined. “And I learned an expression that I believe applies to you, Miss Langtry.”
“The meek shall inherit the earth?”
He gave her a sensual half smile. “All hat, no cattle.”
Belle gave an outraged intake of breath. Then she said sweetly, “That’s a lot of big talk for a man with a girl’s name.”
He looked irritated. “You’re saying it wrong. An-hel. And it is a man’s name. In every Spanish-speaking country...”
“Aaain-jel, Aaain-jel!” she taunted, using the pronunciation that involved harps and wings. She blinked. “Oh, look, the limo’s here.”
Letty almost cried in relief.
“Finally,” Darius muttered. The limo had barely slowed down at the curb before he opened the back door for his bride. Letty jumped in, eager to escape.