by Lynne Graham
Guilt lacerated Tansy because she remembered that same moment and that conversation very well and knew she could not excuse her silence. ‘As I said earlier, I was keen for the marriage to take place. I didn’t want to give you a reason to write me off as a possibility.’
‘And, of course, it’s too late now,’ Jude completed flatly and then his eyes fired pure scorching gold with rage as he narrowed his fierce gaze on her. ‘Thee mou…no wonder you were so eager for us to marry before we went to Greece! That’s what made it possible for you to continue concealing the child’s existence from me. You were determined to have that ring safely on your finger first.’
There was no way of arguing that point and Tansy bit her lower lip and nodded grudging agreement. Jude, it seemed, had a forensic brain. He would unpick and expose every evasion and half-truth she had given him until there was nothing left for her to hide behind. She glanced up, encountering liquid golden eyes that sent a buzzing energy pulse through the most sensitive areas of her body and the sensation shook her inside out because no man had ever made her feel like that before. Her nipples tight buds pushing against her bra, her slender thighs trembling, the heart of her hot and damp, she hastily averted her attention from him.
The same heat pulsed through Jude like a drumbeat and he was furious with himself. The throbbing swelling at his groin was an unwelcome reminder of his lack of control around her. Although shouldn’t that persistent sexual attraction be something to celebrate rather than something to regret when they were already married? He wanted the full truth of what was going on with her stepfather and then he wanted her in his bed to ease the hard edge of frustration she induced. Whether he liked it or not, evidently they were stuck with the baby and condemned to be a family of three rather than a carefree couple. Dark fury rippled through his big, powerful frame.
‘There’s an imbalance here,’ Jude mused. ‘You’ve landed me with a child in my life for the next couple of years. I’m not the forgiving kind, but if you were willing to consider compensating me for your lies and omissions I may be persuaded to overlook your flaws.’
Tansy lifted clear green eyes full of incomprehension and her smooth brow pleated. ‘I don’t understand.’
Jude studied her with angry, calculating intensity. ‘Try to give me that baby I asked you to consider having and I will not only forgive you but I will also treat your sister as though she were my own child.’
Silence fell. Tansy’s eyes rounded and widened. ‘Oh, my word, you’re trying to use this to put pressure on me! That is so…so unscrupulous.’
‘And you’re surprised?’ Jude sliced in very drily. ‘You’re dealing with an Alexandris, not an angel. I was taught to wheel and deal from childhood.’
Shock set in hard on Tansy. She could barely credit that he would use her plight and her current guilt to bargain with her and do so with such a shameless lack of remorse. But what was even worse, she discovered just then, was that softly given promise to treat Posy the same as his own child. That was huge, particularly when it related to a little girl who had never known a father in her short life. Tansy knew how much she had missed having a daddy and some day her sister would go through the same experience, only not if she agreed to Jude’s suggestion that she try to have a child with him.
‘One question,’ Tansy muttered unevenly. ‘If I were to agree to this, would you be willing to apply to adopt Posy with me?’
‘Of course.’
Tansy felt dizzy with relief because her stepfather continued to lurk at the back of her mind as a lingering threat to his daughter’s security. Removing Posy from Calvin’s care without Tansy having any legal right to keep the child had worried her. Calvin had deliberately misled her by not delivering on the promise he had originally made and why was that? Only if Tansy adopted her sister could she feel that the child was safe from her father’s intrigues, and with Jude by her side, Posy would then be fully protected.
‘If you’re willing to adopt Posy with me, I’ll agree to try to have a child with you,’ Tansy conceded tautly, wondering if she was crazy to lay so much of herself on the line, but then thinking about Posy and knowing she would do anything to keep that little girl safe and secure. And providing her sister with that security and possibly the joy of another sibling as well would be a good result, she told herself squarely.
A slanting smile slashed Jude’s beautiful mouth and her heart skipped a beat and her mouth went dry. ‘Let’s have dinner, hara mou,’ he suggested smoothly.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘I’LL TAKE POSY,’ Jude offered as he lifted Tansy down out of the helicopter and turned to Kerry to extend his arms.
Cross at having her night’s sleep disturbed, the baby pouted and then succumbed to the invitation, a man being a new source of attraction in her mainly female world. Ensconced in Jude’s arms, Posy smiled sleepily.
‘That’s the first time you’ve used her name,’ Tansy remarked as she accompanied him into the waiting SUV.
‘She will be family now.’
His statement felt reassuring because Tansy had yet to have anyone stand by her side when it came to guarding Posy’s welfare and her fear of Calvin’s potential interference receded a little. It was getting dark rapidly and Tansy peered at the formal gardens stretching ahead of them and then off into the distance at the walls she could dimly see in one direction. ‘Where’s your grandfather’s house?’ she asked.
‘Over the hill. The estate is gigantic. Other people downsize at his age but Isidore upsized,’ Jude told her wryly. ‘This place used to belong to one of his biggest business rivals and he bought it the minute it came on the market. He’s very vain and he likes to live like a king.’
‘He sounds quite a character,’ Tansy commented as the car mounted the hill and turned down a central drive to begin an approach to a huge building that, with its twin wings, resembled a French chateau and was lit up like a firework display both inside and outside. ‘Wow…’
‘Isidore may be terse with you,’ Jude warned her. ‘He expected me to marry Althea and he doesn’t like surprises. He won’t like you having a child in tow either and probably won’t believe that she’s your sister.’
‘I can cope with rudeness,’ Tansy said ruefully.
‘You have my permission to be equally rude back. He thinks women should be seen and not heard and all three of his late wives fell into the quiet-little-mouse category.’
‘Oh, dear.’ Tansy grimaced, nervous perspiration dampening her upper lip as the vast dwelling ahead drew closer and the SUV pulled up at the foot of the steps.
Jude strode up the steps, Posy still safely held in his arms. The opulence of the big foyer was overpowering. Mirrors, gilded furniture and giant crystal chandeliers obscured Tansy’s vision and made her blink in disorientation. Jude addressed an older woman who approached him with pronounced subservience and he handed Posy back to the nanny.
‘Cora will show them to their rooms.’
‘I should go up with them,’ Tansy contended, the food she had eaten earlier sitting like a lead weight in her tense stomach.
Jude closed a hand over hers before she could accompany the nanny. ‘No, we don’t run scared in this family,’ he told her firmly, urging her on with him into a room where a small portly man stood by a huge marble hearth.
‘Jude!’ Isidore Alexandris exclaimed in welcome, his heavily lined face smiling even while his deep dark eyes remained steady, and that was the only word Tansy understood because a flood of Greek followed.
‘And this is my wife, Tansy.’ Jude switched smoothly back to English as he moved her forward.
‘Tansy…’ The smile on the older man’s face melted away and he dealt Tansy a brusque nod of acknowledgement before continuing his conversation with his grandson in Greek. He was virtually blanking her, Tansy registered, but she rather suspected that being ignored by Isidore could be more comfortable than attra
cting his attention. The exchange between the two men was sharp-edged and Isidore pursed his thin lips, his displeasure at Jude’s replies patent but the affection in his gaze when he looked at his grandson remained, despite his irritation. While Jude might seemingly be either unaware of or indifferent to his grandfather’s attachment to him, that warmth was blatantly obvious to Tansy.
Feeling like a third wheel, Tansy hovered until Jude wrapped an arm round her stiff spine and guided her back out of the room. ‘Doesn’t he speak English?’ she whispered as they crossed the echoing foyer towards the sweeping staircase.
‘Like me, he was educated at Eton,’ Jude offered. ‘He was being cutting.’
‘Did you have an argument about me?’
‘No. He will accept that you’re my wife for the foreseeable future. He’s not happy about it but he’ll settle because he’s finally got me married off,’ Jude breathed sardonically.
‘Have you been that hard to get to the altar?’ Tansy teased in an excess of relief at having so swiftly escaped his intimidating grandfather.
Long powerful legs ascending the stairs, leaving her breathless in her efforts to keep up, Jude vented a humourless laugh. ‘You have no idea. Marriages don’t work out very well in my family. Of course, I was avoiding it.’
‘Then why now?’ Tansy asked curiously. ‘What’s changed?’
Dark golden eyes swept her face assessingly on the landing. ‘We’d have to be a lot closer for me to explain my reasons.’
Tansy flushed and jerked a slight shoulder in receipt of that snub, falling silent as Jude strode through a door at the foot of a corridor, strolling confidently through a beautiful sitting room adorned with fresh flowers into an equally large bedroom.
Jude approached a pile of boxes sitting on a low table. ‘Isidore is loaning you some family jewellery to wear tomorrow. Festoon yourself in diamonds. Don’t worry about being vulgar or excessive. He loves to show off our wealth.’
‘OK,’ Tansy muttered.
‘I have business to discuss with Isidore,’ Jude told her, striding towards the sitting room. ‘I’ll see you later.’
Tansy fell still. ‘We’re both sleeping in here?’
Jude hitched a mocking black brow. ‘We’re married, and did you really expect separate rooms when the old man is desperate for me to provide the next generation of the family?’
Tansy shifted uneasily where she stood. ‘You said you’d give me time.’
‘And so I will,’ Jude murmured lazily. ‘I’m not sex-starved. I can share a bed with you and resist temptation.’
On the way out of the room, he came to a sudden halt and glanced back at her from lushly lashed narrowed eyes. ‘I should warn you. Althea Lekkas will be one of the guests tomorrow. Isidore invited her and I suppose, on the face of things, it will look better from the guests’ point of view that there’s no apparent bad blood between us,’ Jude declared with a curled lip because he was already weary of Althea’s numerous texts begging for details about his replacement bride. He just wanted her to back off and leave him in peace.
‘No skin off my nose,’ Tansy countered brightly. ‘I know nothing about her or your relationship.’
‘We’ve known each other since we were kids. She was my first love. It didn’t work out but we’ve remained friends,’ Jude advanced with a shrug.
His first love. She wondered why that description only increased her curiosity. It wasn’t as though she were attached to Jude in any way or possessive of him. Tansy stiffened, irritated by her desire to know more about Jude’s past than she had any good reason to know. Keep it impersonal, she urged herself, keep that distance. They could be polite and civilised and sexual, she assured herself, without bringing any real feelings into it. It had to be that way; she couldn’t afford to get involved on any deeper level because that way she would get hurt. Jude needed a wife and he would be happy if she gave him a child, but he had said that at most they would be together for only a couple of years. Nothing lasting or permanent was on offer and it would be a disaster if she allowed herself to become fond of him on any level.
Jude departed and Tansy investigated the other doors that led out of the bedroom, discovering a packed dressing room. Her wedding dress was there in a protective wrap and she uttered a quiet prayer that it would fit. All the other clothes that had been ordered that first day in Jude’s office sat in neat piles on shelves, hung from rails and tumbled in a rainbow of opulence in drawer after drawer. Shoes and bags filled an entire cabinet. She had only ever seen such an array of clothing inside a big store.
In a haze of growing exhaustion, she left the suite to check that Posy had settled for the nanny. Unsure where her sister had been put to sleep, she had only reached the top of the stairs when the housekeeper, Cora, appeared and showed her where to go. Posy was soundly asleep in a fancy cot with Kerry in the room next door. On the way back to bed, Cora asked Tansy if she had any special requests for breakfast the following morning while informing her that Jude’s grandfather had instructed that the usual technicians attend Tansy to prepare her for her wedding day.
Tansy twirled in front of the cheval mirror, pleased with the perfect fit of the gown. An off-the-shoulder neckline and tight half sleeves completed the sophisticated look. Delicate beads and fabulous diamonds shimmered as she moved. Romantic lace motifs overlaid the tulle that snugly encased her from the shoulder, with the skirt falling in soft layers to her feet, hemmed by the same lace that swept back into a small cathedral train. Her mass of hair was up to anchor the magnificent diamond tiara that sat like a crown on her head, while the collar of diamonds encircling her throat and the matching bracelets cast rainbow reflections on the rug below her feet.
From the moment Tansy had wakened she had been waited on hand and foot. Her breakfast had been served in bed with the indent on the pillow next to hers the only evidence that at some stage of the night Jude must have joined her and slept beside her. Tansy remembered nothing after climbing into the blissfully comfortable bed. A hair stylist had arrived after breakfast, soon followed by a nail technician and a beautician. Tansy had insisted on doing her own make-up because she didn’t like it too heavy. A maid arrived to tell her that Jude’s grandfather, Isidore, was waiting downstairs to accompany her to the church.
Tansy descended the stairs with great care because her heels were extremely high. She was disconcerted when the older man extended an arm to her and murmured almost pleasantly, ‘You look very well indeed, my dear, and the diamonds are the ultimate embellishment. Do you like them?’
‘Yes… I’ve never worn diamonds before. Have these pieces been in the family long?’
It was a lucky question. Isidore Alexandris smiled and rested back in the limousine to tell her the history of the jewellery she wore, careful to tell her the worth of each item as well as what was paid for it at auction. She was suitably impressed. That conversation lasted them through the heavy Athens traffic all the way to the doors of the grand church chosen for the traditional ceremony. There she was surprised to see Jude in the entrance hall waiting for her, surrounded by his bodyguards.
Tansy walked through the double doors and Jude fell silent. An impossibly slender figure in delicate white draperies, she looked dazzlingly beautiful. The superb collar of diamonds encircling her elegant white throat and the tiara shining in her luxuriant dark blond hair were the perfect additions. He was stunned by the smile on his grandfather’s face because it looked genuine.
‘You look superb,’ Jude breathed, handing her a beautiful bouquet of tumbling white roses and gypsophila.
Pleased colour brightened Tansy’s cheeks as she looked up at him. Even in her high heels, he still towered over her and he looked hotter than hot in a splendidly tailored dark grey tailcoat, waistcoat and narrow trousers, his glossy black curls glinting in the sunshine illuminating the glorious stained-glass window behind him. Shimmering dark golden eyes of apprecia
tion were welded to her and slow, pervasive heat filtered through her, making it a challenge to breathe.
‘You may not have done as badly as I thought with her,’ Isidore whispered, startling his grandson before he could walk down the aisle with his bride. ‘She’s bright and she may be penniless but so, essentially, is Althea, and Althea’s flighty into the bargain, which is worse.’
Jude almost laughed, astonished that Tansy had won even that amount of grudging approval from the older man, who only the night before had sworn that no Alexandris had ever chosen a less worthy bride.
Tansy hadn’t realised that the Greek Orthodox ceremony would be as long or as elaborate. The exchange of rings, the carrying of a candle followed by the symbolic crowns and the circling of bride and groom were driven by Jude’s nudging guidance and she blushed and stumbled and hesitated more than once, just praying that her uncertainty went unnoticed. The church was packed. At the end of the service, her slim shoulders relaxed from rigidity and she was able to accompany Jude back outside with a little more assurance.
‘I could have done with a rehearsal for that,’ Tansy quipped, ready to reach for Posy when she saw her in the nanny’s arms but prevented by Jude.
‘You can see her at the reception,’ he pointed out smoothly as a wall of cameras and shouted questions greeted them outside the church.
‘When did your mother pass away?’ Tansy asked curiously as they climbed into the waiting limo.
‘Clio’s still alive. Where did you get the idea that she was dead?’ Jude demanded.
‘I just assumed. I mean, I read online about the divorce and your father’s car crash but that was years ago. I thought that a mother would always attend her son’s wedding and there’s been no sign of her—’
‘Clio would sooner drink poison than come to an Alexandris social event and run into my grandfather. They hate each other.’