At that moment her own heart had bloomed enough to burst.
* * *
Tabitha did not think she had ever been so happy in her entire life. Possibly when she’d been a small child before her mother had died, but as she could hardly remember that far back she couldn’t really count it.
Certainly not since, though.
That morning they flew from Athens to Milan but, instead of touring the city, they spent the day in bed in Giannis’s magnificent Milanese apartment, only surfacing when it was time to get ready for the Palvetti party.
The envelope he’d given her sat in her oversized handbag. She had yet to open it but every time she caught a glimpse or brushed it with her fingers her heart filled with such love for him it choked her.
Because, of course, Mrs Coulter was right. Tabitha loved her husband. She’d loved him from the moment he’d taken her into his arms and waltzed her around that wonderful dance floor and she wasn’t going to deny it to herself a moment longer.
Lying in the foamy water of his huge roll-topped bath, her back pressed against his sopping chest, his fingers making lazy circles around her nipples, the need to declare her feelings was strong.
She’d never told anyone who wasn’t her parent that she loved them.
How would he react when she did declare herself? Surely, surely, Mrs Coulter was right and he had strong feelings for her too? All the effort he’d gone to for her birthday, his anger at Emmaline’s treatment of her, the fact he’d hired an investigator to prove her stepmother’s fraud, his inability to keep his hands off her...surely that all meant something?
His hand moved lower to stroke her softly swelling belly. She turned her head to place a kiss on his biceps.
And then she twisted round to kiss his mouth.
Tonight, she thought as she sank onto his length and gasped at the incredible feelings flooding through her, feelings she just could not get enough of.
She would tell him her feelings tonight.
* * *
Giannis sucked in a breath when Tabitha finally emerged from their bedroom. After their steamy bath, he’d shaved and donned his suit, then worked his way through his email inbox while she’d got herself ready.
Tonight, wearing a sparkly deep blue dress that accentuated her growing curves in all the right places, the choker he’d had custom-made for her birthday snug around her neck, that glow that must be innate in her shone brighter than ever.
She never failed to take his breath away.
‘You look beautiful, glikia mou.’
Colour stained her rounded cheeks and she bestowed him with a smile of such brilliance it dazzled him.
Something sharp pierced through his chest and then, without any warning, his heart began to thud. But these erratic beats were different, heavier than the thundering beats he’d become accustomed to with Tabitha.
These beats vibrated to the tips of his toes and filled him with such an ache that alarm bells clanged loudly in his head and he stopped mid-step towards her.
After an age passed he loosened his shoulders and pulled out his phone to instruct his driver to collect them.
* * *
Despite the motion sickness Tabitha’s first helicopter ride induced, she found herself enchanted by her first glimpse of the Palvetti production facility. Nestled between two mountains in Lake Como, it appeared through the darkness of the night sky in shimmering white lights looking more like a castle than anything else, including the monastery it had started its life as.
The moment they touched down, a limousine appeared.
They were driven past masses of security to a huge courtyard and then they passed through scanners and she found herself in the midst of a select number of people whose faces she recognised as some of the wealthiest in the world. They were all clearly buzzing to be there: the first ever visitors at the facility behind one of the world’s most iconic brands.
A touch intimidated, she reached for the security of Giannis’s hand. He gave it a quick squeeze then dropped it to stride forward and embrace his old friend Alessio Palvetti. Disappointment lashed her when he introduced them and made not so much as a passing reference to her being his wife.
She told herself it was because there was no time, and that he would introduce her properly later, for Alessio called for everyone’s attention and announced the start of the tour.
Moments later, she found herself dumbstruck. It felt as though she’d stepped into a futuristic sci-fi film. She had never seen so much white: floors, ceilings, walls, not a mark to be seen. Contained within the whiteness were laboratories, indoor greenhouses, testing rooms...
As they toured the vast, deliciously scented rooms, their guide, a Palvetti whose name she’d already forgotten, touched on the history of the company in almost mythical terms. Tabitha’s only disappointment was that they weren’t invited into the workshop part of the facility where their wonderful jewellery was created. She lightly fingered the beautiful choker that Giannis had bought her for her birthday, which glittered with diamonds, emeralds and rubies, awed that it was the incredibly talented brains within this compound who’d made it for her.
When the tour was over, they were led into a vast yet surprisingly intimate room so different from the corridors and laboratories they had just walked that for a moment it felt as if she’d stepped back in time to Italy’s mediaeval past.
Thick velvet gold drapes hung on the exposed ancient stone walls, crystal chandeliers hung on the frescoed ceiling and gold life-sized statues stood in each corner while a string quartet played jaunty yet sophisticated background music. Stunning models dressed in silver and adorned with Palvetti jewellery carried trays of canapés, champagne and, mercifully, alcohol-free drinks.
Ravenous though she was, Tabitha found herself feeling too tight inside to eat.
Giannis had kept by her side throughout the tour but the easy affection he displayed when alone with her was nowhere to be found. She had the distinct impression he was avoiding her touch. He was certainly avoiding touching her.
There were only twenty guests and a handful of Palvettis yet somehow he managed not to mention their marital state to any of them. She caught a few curious eyes clock her left hand but these people were the cream of high society and it would have been the height of poor manners to ask a stranger, which she was to them, if the gold band she wore on her wedding finger was a wedding ring.
Her mood lowered further when Giannis discussed business with an Agon prince in his native language. She could hardly use her phone app to translate for her benefit in this situation, so she was forced to stand decoratively beside them pretending that she didn’t feel like a wallflower.
Mercifully, Alessio’s new wife Beth, a fellow English girl, took pity on her. Though her eyes were alight with curiosity, they had a lovely long chat about Tabitha’s new necklace, which Beth recognised as a Palvetti, and about Beth’s new role within the company. Discovering that Beth was the brains behind this event, Tabitha found herself envious that her fellow countryman had settled into this world so well and so quickly. Or had she? She noticed that Beth’s eyes kept flickering to her husband, the tiniest crease on her face, as if she were concerned about something.
By the time the evening came to a close, Tabitha’s mood was as low as it had been the morning of their wedding. Not even the goody bag she’d been handed—which contained a beautiful gold and emerald bracelet and a perfume set with her name on the packaging, with a note in beautiful calligraphy stating all the contents had been made especially for her—could lift it.
They’d spent their first evening together in the company of Giannis’s peers, some of whom he considered good friends, and he had not made a single allusion to their marriage.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘WHAT’S THE MATTER?’ Giannis asked when they were back inside his Milanese apartment. Tabitha had hardly said two wo
rds to him since they’d left Lake Como. When he’d asked if she’d enjoyed herself, she’d raised one slim shoulder in a half-hearted shrug.
Troubled cornflower eyes connected with his before she turned her back to him, kicked her shoes off and headed to the kitchen.
‘Tabitha?’
She opened a cupboard and removed a cup. ‘What?’
‘Something is bothering you. Talk to me.’
Instead of answering, she filled the cup with water, drank it, refilled it and drank again. Only when she’d put the empty cup on the draining board did she face him.
Folding her arms across her waist, she stared at him silently.
Now he was the one to ask, ‘What?’
Her eyes narrowed before she bluntly asked, ‘Are you ashamed of me?’
Taken aback at the ludicrous question, he laughed and pulled her into his arms. ‘Of course not.’
She made no attempt to return his embrace, her frame as stiff as a mannequin’s.
‘You didn’t touch me all night,’ she said, her voice as stiff as her frame.
Tabitha was pregnant, he reminded himself. When his sister Helena had been pregnant, her hormones had made her irrational enough times that Giannis had felt sorry for her husband. He’d been lucky that, up to this point, Tabitha had been nothing but rational and considered. Outside of the bedroom, that was. In the bedroom, she was a vixen, as much a slave to their desire as he was.
‘It was business,’ he explained with a murmur, nuzzling into her delectable neck, fingers sliding up her back to find the zip. He was already rock-hard for her.
Theos, when wasn’t he hard for her? Sharing the same air as her but not being able to touch her had been a masochistic form of torture but a necessary one after the violent emotions that had pulsed through him before they’d left the apartment. To master his control he needed space from her. Being surrounded by company that evening had given him the distance he’d needed to regain control of himself and, now they were alone again, he could hardly wait to...
She put a hand to his shoulder and pushed him back an inch. ‘No it wasn’t.’
‘Most of the guests there were business associates of mine. It was not the place for displays of affection.’ This wasn’t a lie, he assured himself. Not the whole truth but certainly not a lie.
‘So you feel affection for me, do you?’
Groping her bottom, he pressed her to him so she could feel his excitement. ‘There, matia mou,’ he whispered into her ear, her scent dancing straight into his bloodstream. ‘Solid evidence of my affection for you.’
‘Sex, you mean. You can have that with anyone.’ Then she ducked out from his hold and walked out of the kitchen.
Perplexed, loins throbbing, he followed her into the living room. ‘Do you want me to order food?’ he asked carefully. ‘You didn’t eat much this evening. You must be hungry.’ Which was probably what was making her irritable.
She sat on the sill of the bay window and crossed her legs. ‘You noticed?’
Propping himself against the wall, he flashed the smile that normally made her grin. ‘You must know by now that I notice everything.’
Her stony expression didn’t alter. ‘I notice things too. Like that you didn’t once refer to me as your wife tonight.’
‘Tonight wasn’t about us.’
‘That shouldn’t stop you telling people—your friends—that you’ve married and that you’re going to be a father.’
‘I didn’t think you would want people outside of the family to know about the baby until the first trimester was clear.’
‘You could have discussed that with me first but, regardless, it shouldn’t stop you telling people that you’ve married again. We’ve been married for three weeks. Tonight is the first time I’ve met any of your friends. Alessio is your best friend and you seemed pretty pally with that prince you were talking to too. Did you tell either of them we’re married?’
‘As I just said, tonight wasn’t about us.’ He found himself speaking through gritted teeth. ‘Tonight was a big deal for Alessio and it wouldn’t have been right to take the attention away from him.’
Again, this might not be the whole truth but it certainly wasn’t a lie. Announcing that he and Tabitha had married would have caused a stir amongst his peers but he’d planned to mention it casually. Before the words could form, however, he’d remembered the fanfare of his marriage to Anastasia which they had all been privy to and a cold chill had run down his spine at how it had all ended.
‘So when are you planning to tell people?’
‘People know. I’ve not hidden that we’re married to anyone—all anyone has to do is look at my wedding ring to see that I’m married.’
‘Your family know but if you weren’t so close I doubt you’d even have invited them to our wedding. You didn’t want to include anyone else.’
‘You didn’t want to invite anyone apart from Mrs Coulter,’ he reminded her.
His visions of returning to the apartment and ripping Tabitha’s clothes off, fantasies that had burned through him the entire night, had been doused in ice. Tabitha had ambushed him with a conversation he’d been completely unprepared for and it was clear it was heading in a direction in which he did not want to go.
‘That’s because I have no one left who really matters to me. You do. You have a whole network of friends and far more family than even those you invited. How many of them know about my existence?’
‘The ones who matter—my immediate family—but I have no objection to people knowing we’re married.’ He strode to the bar in the corner of the room. ‘Eventually anyone who needs to know will know because we took our vows for life.’
He grabbed a bottle of Scotch. The first drops of liquid hit the glass when Tabitha, quietly but with a large dose of steel in her husky voice, said, ‘What do you feel for me?’
Perspiration broke out on his back. ‘You know what I feel for you. Don’t I show it in every possible way?’
‘You’re talking about sex again.’
‘Sex is important.’
‘Only if it comes with emotions. When we’re not together, when you’re alone in your Athens apartment...do you even think about me?’
He tipped the Scotch down his throat and fought to hear his own voice above the suddenly ferocious beats of his heart. ‘Of course I do.’
‘Then why do you never call?’
The echoes from his heart now drummed in his head. ‘I didn’t know you wanted me to.’
‘I want you to want to call me.’ Tabitha’s exasperation was fleeting, her stomach too knotted for anything to hold inside her. This was a conversation she wished desperately that she hadn’t started but one she knew it was essential to have. ‘How can we sustain a life together if all there is between us is good sex?’
‘It’s a damn sight more than a lot of other couples have, but that’s not all we have. We’ll have a child too.’
‘What about love?’ she challenged, an icy chill creeping down her spine. ‘Where does that come into it?’
He froze right before her eyes but not before a look of abject horror flashed across his face, freezing his features with the rest of him.
It was a look that spoke a thousand words.
Then the horror vanished as quickly as it had appeared and he nonchalantly poured himself another drink. ‘I told you from the start that I don’t want love. I’ve been there...’
‘I know. It tastes bitter,’ she finished for him. The room began to spin and she had to grind her toes into the carpet to keep herself upright. Hoarsely, she added, ‘Yes, I remember you saying that, but so much has happened between us since you said it that I foolishly hoped your feelings towards me had changed.’
‘Of course they’ve changed. Things have been great between us but I’ve never made false promises to you. I’ve never li
ed to you. We married for our child.’
Her entire body now cold but her brain burning, she stared at him for the longest time as everything became clear to her.
She’d fallen in love with this man the night they’d conceived their child. Her feelings for him since had been like a runaway train on an incline and she found herself hurtling towards a sheer drop at the end of the track. If she didn’t pull the brake now she would plunge over the edge head-first onto the jagged rocks below.
He gazed back at her, gripping his glass, knuckles white.
She swallowed the sharp lump lodged in her throat. ‘My feelings for you are simple,’ she said slowly. ‘I want your heart and I want you to be as proud and happy to call me your wife as I am to call you my husband. I want everything, Giannis, but I can see that it’s not possible for me to have it. I think for both our sakes, and our child’s sake, we should call it quits.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ He was staring at her as if she’d suddenly sprouted a second head.
‘That I think we should cut our losses and end things now while we can keep things amicable.’
Anger darkened his features and he slammed his glass on the bar. ‘No! You do not get to call it quits because I don’t call you. If you’re not happy with something, you talk about it and we deal with it.’
‘I am talking to you but your answers are only confirming my worst fears. We are never going to have the marriage I want.’
Like a panther stalking its prey, he prowled towards her. ‘I’ve given you everything you’ve asked of me. I’ve arranged for our child to have everything on my death, I only have eyes for you and intend to remain faithful for the rest of our lives—what more can you possibly want?’
Somehow she managed to get her watery legs to stand and face him. ‘I want to feel that, even if there was no baby in my belly, you and I would still be here.’
‘We’re only here because of the baby. That is a fact, matia mou.’ Before she knew what was happening, he had her pressed against the wall. His breath was hot against her ear, hot enough to seep through her skin and melt her love-sick bones. ‘The night we created our child was the best of my life, surpassed only by the other nights we’ve shared since we married. I want you more than I have ever wanted anyone. The nights I’m apart from you I fantasise about making love to you. My blood burns for you...and I know your blood burns for me.’ And then, as if proving his point, he crushed her mouth and kissed her, filling her senses with his dark taste.
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