by Lynne Graham
‘You didn’t,’ she agreed ruefully.
‘I couldn’t admit to myself that I’d fallen for you, I couldn’t let myself chase after you when you left either because that would have been admitting that the divorce was all about you. And I couldn’t admit that to myself back then,’ Eros confided starkly. ‘Because that’s what my father did to my mother—fell for another woman and went for a divorce. And even though my marriage to Tasha was never a proper marriage, I still couldn’t accept that I could have anything in common with a man who was that weak and cruel.’
Winnie was bemused. ‘Fallen for me?’ she repeated shakily.
‘I think I fell for you the first time I met you. You were shy and you smiled at me and my heart felt full and I couldn’t take my eyes off you,’ Eros confessed gruffly. ‘And it was always like that. I couldn’t wait to see you when I got home. I couldn’t wait to be with you.’
Winnie was listening to that avalanche of words tumbling from him with wide, confused eyes. ‘You’re trying to say you fell in love with me two years ago?’ she prompted with a frown.
‘Winnie...’ Eros gripped both her hands fiercely in his. ‘A man who is only interested in clandestine sex doesn’t spend hours simply talking to a woman or hanging about the kitchen while she cooks, and he doesn’t have to phone her every day so that he knows every little thing she does in her life.’
‘Maybe it was a sort of love,’ she reasoned reluctantly. ‘But it still wasn’t enough to overcome your guilt and persuade you to come after me once you were free.’
‘I’d have come after you if I’d known you were pregnant. Nothing would have kept me from you!’ he swore with fierce intensity. ‘But you didn’t tell me and I didn’t know if you loved me either.’
‘Were you blind?’ Winnie asked helplessly.
‘Winnie, you don’t cling or flatter or act like I’m the most important person in your world. You never did. If I’d known you loved me, it would’ve made a difference because then I would’ve known that staying away from you was hurting you. But not knowing that, I believed I’d made a big enough mess of your life and that I should leave you in peace.’
‘You are so stupid,’ Winnie whispered in wonderment. ‘And that possibility never crossed my mind...that you could be so stupid and blind about emotional connections. I never wanted perfect. I never expected a perfect man.’
‘Just as well. I’m not perfect, never will be,’ Eros muttered gruffly. ‘But I do love you more than anything else in the world. I was too bitter to recognise that when I married you and then you got to me again.’
‘I got to you?’ Winnie queried.
‘Yes, you have a way of doing that. I’m not a naturally cheerful or optimistic person,’ Eros volunteered ruefully. ‘But being with you makes me happy and of course I appreciated that. The thought of losing you again terrifies me, so now you tell me what I have to do to put this right. I can give the island back to your grandfather.’
‘You’d do that?’ She gasped.
‘Sooner than lose you? Of course I would,’ he admitted bluntly. ‘It’s a geographical location, it’s not my heart, it’s not the centre of my life. But you are.’
Winnie was beginning to rather enjoy the conversation. She stared up into those troubled emerald eyes of his, reading his sincerity, and slowly she smiled, the tension round her mouth falling away. ‘You love me, not just Teddy.’
‘Of course, I don’t only love Teddy. Thee mou... You gave me Teddy!’ Eros reminded her in reproach. ‘Is that what you’ve been thinking?’
‘Yes, I did think that when I married you,’ she confessed unevenly. ‘I thought you were only marrying me to gain access to our son. I assumed that’s why you were willing to blackmail me into agreeing to marry you.’
‘Once I got over that initial anger at having been kept from Teddy, I wanted both of you and I didn’t care how I went about achieving that. That’s not forgivable, I know,’ he conceded tautly. ‘But I had a voracious need to get back what we’d had together two years ago and lost...and I was determined to let nothing stop me reaching for that.’
Her lashes lifted on reflective eyes. ‘What we had then was special...wasn’t it?’ she almost whispered, scared to hope, scared to believe. ‘That wasn’t just my imagination.’
‘Something I never saw or felt with any other woman,’ Eros admitted starkly. ‘And I wanted it back...you and Teddy both. I’ve been trying to show you that since our wedding day...that we can be together and happy and building a wonderful future. But not one sign would you give me that you saw our marriage as anything other than a patched-up job likely to fall apart.’
Winnie went pink. ‘Another baby was a fairly big ask,’ she began.
‘And I dropped that,’ he reminded her wryly. ‘So, what do you want to do about the island now? Shall I give it back?’
‘Keep it. It’s your family place and we like it here,’ Winnie reasoned with immense practicality. ‘It’s not as though Grandad wants it back. In fact, he would probably be offended if you tried to return it. I think all we need to do is learn to trust each other again. And we mustn’t allow Grandad to influence us.’
‘He tried to threaten me into agreeing to marry you. Did he admit that?’ Eros demanded in a rueful undertone.
‘Threaten you? In what way?’ she pressed in consternation.
‘He threatened to destroy me in the business world. He could certainly have made doing business more of a challenge by interfering with my suppliers and competing on contracts, but he has enough enemies of his own that I would always have found allies,’ Eros declared with assurance. ‘His threats were not a serious concern.’
Winnie was shaken at that confession. Stam had been far more ruthless in his methods of achieving his goal than she could ever have guessed. Wanting her to marry Eros, he had attempted to force both of them into doing his bidding and at that moment she recognised that it was time she too disclosed the pressure her grandfather had put on her and her siblings to marry the men of his choice.
‘I have something to tell you,’ she said awkwardly.
‘You can tell me anything,’ Eros said encouragingly, settling her down on a comfortable sofa while still gripping her hand, almost as though he was afraid to let go of her even temporarily.
Winnie told him about her foster parents’ predicament with their mortgage, which her grandfather now owned. Eros dropped her hand and shot upright, incredulous green eyes glittering. ‘He’s blackmailing you and your sisters? That’s why you married me?’ he demanded. ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me this sooner? I could’ve stopped him in his tracks and protected all of you by buying John and Liz another house!’
Winnie dealt him a shaken appraisal. ‘Well, that wouldn’t have worked, not without us coming clean with John and Liz about what we were trying to do on their behalf. And they wouldn’t have accepted your generosity or ours! John and Liz are much too proud and independent to allow anyone else to settle their financial problems. That’s why what we were trying to do to help them had to be behind the scenes and kept secret,’ she told him ruefully. ‘And that property has been in Liz’s family for generations, so moving them to another house wouldn’t be the same either.’
‘You married me to save the roof over their heads. You married me for a stay of execution on a mortgage that cost your wily old grandfather a ridiculously small amount of money!’ Eros objected in raw wonderment. ‘I don’t know whether to compliment you for a selfless act of sacrifice or shout at you for being so naive.’
‘No shouting, please,’ Winnie muttered heavily. ‘My sisters and I had to do something. We couldn’t just stand by and watch John and Liz lose everything they valued.’
‘And it didn’t once occur to you that you were marrying a very wealthy man who could have stepped in to offer other options to protect all of you from Stam’s blackmail?’ Eros derided in
disbelief.
‘No... I would never have been willing to ask you for money,’ Winnie asserted ruefully.
‘You can ask me for anything,’ Eros murmured thickly, settling down beside her again and reaching for her hand. ‘No restrictions either. Anything you want is yours.’
Winnie tilted her head back, lustrous mahogany hair tumbling back from her heart-shaped face and her caramel gaze locked to him with all-encompassing warmth. ‘All I want out of all this is you.’
‘I’m already yours, heart and soul,’ Eros asserted hoarsely. ‘I have been for a very long time. I’m crazy in love with you. Even the news that you married me to save your foster parents’ home doesn’t put a dent in my enthusiasm,’ he confessed, his mouth quirking at that rueful acknowledgement. ‘But then if the sight of you walking out on me on our wedding day didn’t cure me of loving you, it looks as though nothing ever will...’
‘Amen to that,’ Winnie muttered, leaning closer, her heartbeat quickening as the achingly familiar scent of him drenched her.
‘I have just two small requests,’ Eros breathed thickly, leaning down to brush his sensual lips softly across hers, awareness surging through her body like a rocket to awaken every nerve ending into a sweet ache of anticipation.
‘And what are they?’ she mumbled in a dizzy haze.
‘We admit we love each other every day.’
‘Easy... I can do that,’ she sighed dreamily. ‘And?’
‘We go through another wedding ceremony, one in which you mean every word you say,’ Eros instructed, toying with her bottom lip in the most erotic way.
Winnie trembled. ‘We can do that too. In fact, it would mean a lot to me,’ she confided. ‘But if you don’t kiss me soon, I might change my mind.’
Eros flicked his tongue between her parted lips. ‘I want much more than a kiss, kardoula mou,’ he husked.
Winnie’s slender fingers sank into his black curls to tip him closer. ‘And you think I don’t?’ she teased, buoyant with happiness, every fear laid to rest.
‘I don’t want to be surprised half-naked by our nanny,’ Eros confided, pulling back from her with a groan at the necessity to bend down and scoop her up into his arms. ‘We’re going to bed.’
They didn’t make it up the stairs all in one go. Eros paused to kiss her and things got a little hot and heavy on the first landing and then they heard their nanny Agathe’s measured voice outside and they fled to their bedroom. Later they would get up and be good parents and bathe Teddy and play with him awhile before putting him to bed, but just at that moment, they were both punch-drunk on a wave of love and lust, made all the keener by the knowledge that they could so easily have held on to their pride and lost each other. And in renewing their love, they found fresh confidence and exulted in that intimacy.
* * *
Six months later, Winnie smoothed her maternity frock down over the slight bump of her pregnancy. Yes, ultimately Eros had got his way. At least, she had agreed to try for another child but she certainly hadn’t expected to conceive the very first month and indeed had assumed that it might take the better part of a year. Eros had confessed, however, that he was very motivated to delivering the required result and she had to admit that from the moment she had conceived, no newly expectant mother could possibly have been more spoiled and supported than she had been.
It had been a very busy few months. Eros had bought a house more suited to a toddler’s needs in London and they were spending more time there so that Winnie could see her sisters on a regular basis. As they were slowly transforming the house on Trilis into a comfortable and less imposing family home and their main base, it also made sense to have somewhere else to go when the building work on the home front reached crucial stages. Winnie found the island more relaxing and she was forging friendships there. She loved the fact that her son could run wild in their extensive grounds and that the property was large enough for her sisters to join her there whenever they had time off. Eros was travelling less and he had set up a working office in the house.
Two months after they had admitted their love for each other, they had had a wedding blessing ceremony in the little church by the harbour and that had strengthened them as a couple. Saying those vows and meaning them, not to mention her steadily improving grasp of the Greek language, had been a crucial acceptance of their new future together. Eros had insisted that he had only suggested it to benefit from a second wedding night and the apparently unbeatable lure of all those buttons, which were actually hooks. But Winnie, who had been disconcerted by the many little romantic touches her husband had thought up to embellish the occasion—not least the surprise presence of her foster parents, John and Liz—wasn’t fooled. He had made that day as special as he made her feel and she could not have been happier.
That very evening they were holding a party in honour of her grandfather’s seventy-fifth birthday and he was bringing her sisters with him. Winnie smiled cheerfully. It had taken months for Stam Fotakis to recognise the wisdom of putting away the big guns and making the best of his eldest granddaughter’s marriage and family. Eros had had to visit the older man to personally invite him to visit them on the island while Winnie had done her bit in insisting on throwing the birthday party for him. Offered a virtual red carpet, Stam had grasped the opportunity with alacrity and any loss of face involved by that climbdown had been wonderfully soothed by his great-grandson, Teddy, running across the lawn to greet with him with a delighted shout of excitement.
‘Your sisters are looking very well,’ her grandfather remarked, scanning Vivi in her fuchsia-pink dress, a daring colour for a redhead, but frowning at Zoe, who was practically welded to a seat with its back to the wall. ‘Zoe’s going to have to get over that shyness.’
‘It’s not shyness. She just doesn’t like crowds,’ Winnie said defensively.
‘I offered that husband of yours a business deal and he turned me down,’ Stam informed her grimly. ‘He doesn’t trust me. Said it would put me in the driver’s seat if he lost his shirt. He’s shrewd. I’m beginning to like that about him. I wouldn’t like to see you married to a fool.’
Winnie grinned at that grudging admission but tactfully made no comment. Across the room, Vivi was rifling frantically through a magazine and then passing it to Zoe to read. Curious, Winnie walked over just as Eros appeared and fell into step beside her, Teddy clutching his hand.
‘What are you looking at?’ she asked Vivi.
‘Don’t ask,’ Vivi advised, white with suppressed anger.
Zoe grimaced. ‘The Duke of Mancini has taken over another bank. He must be minted.’
‘Let me see...’ Winnie grasped the business magazine, ignoring the photo of the very good-looking Italian banker who had destroyed her sister’s reputation. ‘Have you ever come across him in business?’ she asked Eros.
‘No, he’s rather too rich for my blood.’ Eros curled an arm round his wife’s back and didn’t even raise a brow when Vivi vented a very rude word. ‘A member of the Italian elite.’
‘Pig!’ Vivi pronounced with fierce loathing. ‘He’s a pig!’
‘Don’t read the article,’ Winnie advised softly.
‘That’s the guy who labelled her a prostitute in the tabloids, isn’t it?’ Eros prompted in an undertone as they moved on. ‘I remember the name from the investigation I had done.’
‘Yes, that’s him and, like a rose in a dung heap, he is still flourishing against all the odds!’ Winnie muttered bitterly.
‘I wouldn’t take any bets on that continuing,’ Eros murmured as his son wriggled deftly free of his hold. ‘Not with Stam gunning for him. I could almost, but not quite, feel sorry for the guy.’
‘Grandad has never once mentioned his name,’ Winnie protested.
‘Stam likes to play his cards close to his chest,’ Eros breathed, striding across the floor of the ballroom to stop his son from clamberi
ng up on a chair to reach the precious birthday cake. He ignored the screams of protest that followed with the cool of a practised parent and, surprisingly quickly, Teddy ditched his fake sobs and started chattering to his father instead.
Man and child looked so alike with their matching green eyes and black curls that it always lifted Winnie’s heart to see them together. When Agathe appeared to reclaim the little boy, Winnie relaxed more because Teddy was too lively to be anything other than an accident waiting to happen at an adult party. Some outside exercise and supper would better suit his needs.
Eros brought her a soft drink while she was out on the terrace. ‘Remember the massive row we had out here on our wedding day?’ he prompted.
‘I don’t want to remember that,’ she said truthfully. ‘I was feeling so miserably unhappy and angry.’
‘You have to go through the bad stuff to get to the good stuff,’ Eros told her philosophically. ‘My ego was squashed beyond recovery when my bride walked out on me.’
Winnie gazed up into his darkly handsome face, fingers tingling at the prospect of brushing back that silky black hair from his brow, eyes lost in the mesmeric enticement of his, her body slowly humming to life like an engine being switched on. ‘If it was, you made a very fast recovery.’
‘But then I had you to recover with,’ Eros husked, easing her back against the railings to hungrily claim a kiss, groaning as she strained against him. ‘You are a witch, agape mou. Now I have to stay out here until I’m fit to be seen in company again.’
‘I think we can manage that,’ Winnie whispered with a wanton little shift of her hips that made his lean, powerful length shudder in response against hers. ‘I love you so much, Eros.’
‘And for some reason I love you even when you’re teasing the hell out of me,’ he admitted raggedly.
* * *
If you enjoyed The Greek Claims His Shock Heir, you’re sure to enjoy these other stories by Lynne Graham!