by Lynne Graham
CHAPTER SEVEN
JUDE BREATHED IN slow and deep to calm himself.
Calvin Hetherington had to be dealt with first. No way should he profit from the morally unforgivable arrangement he had set up! That poor baby, Jude reflected with deep repugnance that a father could place such little value on his own flesh and blood. As for Tansy, she suffered from tunnel vision where her sister was concerned. She had not even paused to consider that Jude might not be as corrupt as her stepfather, had not even contemplated telling Jude the truth until the die had been cast. And now he had to sort the mess out and he needed the details to accomplish that feat. Digging out his phone, he contacted his top-notch Greek lawyer, Dmitri, and made him aware of the situation, gritting his teeth when the older man came close to questioning his judgement in entering such a marriage without having taken due consideration and care.
Jude already knew that he had been reckless. It was an Alexandris trait, but it was the first time ever that he had committed that sin. Maddeningly, he had only become reckless after he had first laid eyes on Tansy and she’d turned him down, he acknowledged grimly. He had wanted her the instant he’d seen her, the light glimmering over her long streaky hair, those luminous green eyes wary and anxious, the pulse beating out her nerves at the base of her elegant white throat. And Tansy had spoken the truth when she had accused him of being accustomed to buying anything he wanted, and he had bought himself a wife with no more forethought than a man buying a product off a shelf. That was a sobering truth. What right did he have now to complain about the complications Tansy had brought with her? Dmitri had warned him that it was even possible that, after he contacted the British legal team to check the facts, he would have to start paperwork to safeguard the baby by applying to have Posy made a ward of the court.
While Jude ruminated about what complications might lie ahead and sank entirely naturally into problem-solving mode, Tansy was being a lot less productive. In the spacious shower she let the pent-up tears stream down her face under the cover of the water. Posy was safe now, wasn’t she? That was the all-important bottom line, wasn’t it? Only she hadn’t been quite truthful with Jude when she had acted as though her sister had been her only motivation. She hadn’t intended to play the martyr, but she had been even less keen to admit that she found him incredibly attractive and had been intrigued and fascinated by him from the outset. Ought she to admit that? Why should she expose herself to that extent?
A knock sounded on the bathroom door while she was splashing cold water on her face in an effort to chase the puffiness of tears from her eyes. ‘Yes?’ she called loudly.
‘Dinner in ten minutes,’ Jude told her.
Tansy swallowed hard and waited a few moments before dashing back to the bedroom in a towel. A single case sat there, and she dug into it, rustling through the neatly packed garments to extract a long cotton skirt and a light strappy top. She dressed in haste, combing out her wet hair, scrutinising her wan face with critical eyes, rubbing her cheeks for some colour and then scolding herself for even caring about her appearance around Jude. After all, he was on another level of gorgeous and always would be and she was never going to catch up. Had Jude not needed a wife he could sign up on a temporary basis, he would never have considered someone as ordinary as she was for the role.
As she reached the foot of the stairs, a small, older Greek woman stepped into view and greeted her and moved forward to open a door and show her the way. Smiling politely, striving to conceal her nervous tension, Tansy stepped out onto a terrace and looked in wonder at all the fairy lights strung up above the table and the tea lights burning everywhere, illuminating the walled courtyard and the box-edged beds of herbs planted within its boundaries that sweetly scented the air. Jude leapt up from his seat, his visible discomfiture at the celebratory bridal setting almost making Tansy laugh.
‘Oh, how pretty the table looks!’ she exclaimed for her companion’s benefit, because someone had gone to a lot of trouble stringing up those lights and setting out all those little candles.
Jude spoke in rapid Greek to her companion and the woman beamed happily at Tansy. As she vanished back indoors, Jude lounged back against the low wall edging the terrace, his long powerful legs splayed in tailored chinos. Tansy blinked, freshly assaulted by his vibrant sexuality, mortifying heat blossoming low in her body at the recollection of just how intimate their connection had been only an hour earlier.
‘We have to discuss your arrangement with your stepfather,’ Jude informed her, sending her thoughts crashing back to practical issues again. ‘Did he somehow grant you legal custody of Posy?’
Tansy’s face dropped in dismay at that direct and precise question and she shook her head. ‘He assured me beforehand that he would, but that turned out to be a lie and we got married so fast I didn’t pick up on it until it was too late. He told me that the only way I could have legal custody of my sister was by adopting her and, of course, that would mean that you had to be part of the application as well.’
Jude looked unsurprised by her explanation. ‘His deception was calculated. He won’t want to surrender custody of his daughter while he thinks he could still use her as a blackmail tool.’
Her smooth brow indented. ‘How?’
Jude sprang upright and reached for the bottle of champagne awaiting their attention, unsealing it with a pop and filling the glasses. ‘Hetherington could demand that you return his daughter to him…or that you compensate him accordingly. As my wife, you have access to a great deal of money.’
‘I wouldn’t let him do that!’ Tansy protested heatedly.
‘You’ve already demonstrated that there isn’t much you wouldn’t sacrifice in order to keep your sister with you,’ Jude reminded her sardonically. ‘Including your virginity.’
In the act of tossing back the bubbling champagne, Tansy almost choked on it while the heat of embarrassment enveloped her entire body. ‘I’ve already told you…it wasn’t like that. But I assure you that I have no plans to hand over any more of your money to Calvin. That would be like stealing from you.’
‘Then it will be good news for you to hear that Calvin has yet to receive a penny of what you describe as my money,’ Jude retorted crisply. ‘But that sum was yours to do with as you wish. It became yours the day you married me.’
‘As I told you, I’ve already transferred that money to Calvin,’ Tansy muttered uncomfortably.
‘You tried to but, ultimately, the transaction was blocked.’
‘Blocked?’ she echoed in dismay.
‘Our bank accounts are heavily protected from fraud. Such a large transfer as emptying your new bank account was flagged and would have been run by me before it was allowed to proceed. Now it’s permanently blocked. Hetherington is not going to get that money.’
‘But then I bet he’ll demand Posy back!’ Tansy gasped. ‘I agreed to give him that money.’
‘Just as he agreed to give you legal custody of your sister, which he didn’t,’ Jude reminded her drily. ‘He’s not getting that money, Tansy. Fathers aren’t allowed to sell their children in today’s world. Furthermore, any money changing hands between you and your stepfather would invalidate any adoption proceedings in the future as it would be illegal. No, we will deal with your stepfather together and only through the proper legal channels.’
‘But that’ll put Posy staying with us at risk and I couldn’t b-bear to lose her!’ Tansy framed with a stifled sob of sudden fear half under her breath.
‘We won’t lose her,’ Jude swore. ‘I won’t allow that to happen. That’s the least of what I owe you.’
‘You don’t owe me anything, Jude. I brought Posy into this marriage without your knowledge. You’re not responsible for what happens to her—’
‘You’re my wife. She’s your blood relative. She’s entitled to my protection. I also have an engrained loathing for greedy, dishonest operators like your stepf
ather and no child deserves a parent that heartless.’ Jude yanked out a chair and gently nudged her towards it. ‘Sit down. Our housekeeper, Olympia, is about to serve our meal, moli mou.’
‘I’m not sure I could eat.’ A shaky smile formed on Tansy’s lips. ‘You probably don’t understand but I love Posy as much as though she was born to me. I was the first person to hold her after her birth and she’s been mine to care for ever since.’
‘What sort of stepfather was Calvin before your mother died?’ Jude asked her, surprising her with that question.
Tansy compressed her lips. ‘Absent, uninterested. Mum and him just led their lives and I got on with mine at school and when they went on holiday I moved in with my aunt Violet.’
‘And your mother. What was she like?’
Her sense of wonder lingered, along with a growing pleasure that he was keen to know such facts about her. She wasn’t used to talking about herself but there was a heady feeling of satisfaction inside her at being the sole focus of his interest.
‘She was wrapped up in Calvin and very conscious that she was ten years older than he was,’ Tansy confided wryly. ‘That’s why she was overjoyed when she fell pregnant. Neither of them had expected that but I could see he didn’t share her enthusiasm. He never wanted a child. I think he married Mum because she struck him as a good financial bet. She owned her own home and business. But if you can believe what he told me, they were living well above their means and he’s currently facing bankruptcy.’
‘What did you inherit?’
‘Nothing. Mum left everything to Calvin. If he hadn’t needed someone to look after Posy, he would never have allowed me to stay on in the house for so long,’ she pointed out ruefully. ‘I mean, it’s not like he or I were ever close or that there was any family tie.’
‘And your own father?’ Jude prompted.
Tansy ate the last delicious bite of the starter and set down her cutlery, surprised by how hungry she had been. She lifted her champagne glass. ‘He was an accountant and he died in a car accident when I was a baby. He was a lot older than Mum. I have no memory of him at all, but he left Mum quite well off. She opened up a beauty salon and lived well on the income…well, at least until she and Calvin got together.’
‘A beauty salon?’ Jude was disconcerted because there was nothing remotely artificial about Tansy and, to his way of thinking, artifice flourished in beauty salons.
‘And it made no impression on me… I know.’ Tansy laughed, her small straight nose wrinkling. ‘But if you’d met my mother you’d soon have guessed what the family business was. She had every beauty enhancement on the market and wouldn’t have opened the front door without her false eyelashes on. I was a huge disappointment! She wanted a daughter who was just like her and, although I did all the training courses to please her and worked at the salon whenever I was needed, it never interested me the way it did her.’
The main course arrived, and Tansy realised she had been chattering nonstop about herself and she flushed and fell silent.
‘I was saving the main question until last,’ Jude murmured softly as he watched her, entranced by her pale porcelain skin and delicate features, the strap of the top she wore sliding off one slender shoulder. ‘Why was such a beautiful girl still sexually innocent?’
Tansy dragged in a long, quivering breath, unable to accept that he saw her as beautiful, suddenly plunged into horrible awkwardness by such a query. ‘I’m not going to talk about that on the grounds that it makes me feel like a fool and as days go, this has already been a very long and trying one.’
As her voice fell away Jude simply spread long fingers in an accepting gesture, although he knew that he would be revisiting that topic. ‘You’ll be reunited with your sister tomorrow. My yacht is travelling here overnight.’
‘Your…yacht?’ Tansy repeated.
‘The Alexandris—my twenty-fifth birthday present from Isidore,’ Jude told her flatly.
‘Pretty over the top as gifts go, but then, as you said, he is that way inclined. But even so, he’s enormously attached to you. I could see that.’
Jude glanced across the table with startled dark golden eyes. ‘You could?’
Tansy marvelled at his inky black lashes and the length of them and stiffened at that abstracted thought, shifting in her seat and feeling the soreness at her still-tender core, the legacy of that new experience he had mentioned. Her face burned as she fought to concentrate on the conversation. ‘Yes, it’s obvious. He’s proud of you. It shines out of him every time he looks at you,’ she muttered ruefully.
Jude had never thought of Isidore, his grandfather, as being personally fond of him. For most of his life, albeit secretly, he had viewed his family history from his mother’s side of the fence and had seen both his father and his grandfather as ruthless, often cruel predators with few saving graces, who saw in him only that all-important necessity: the heir to the Alexandris wealth to be groomed to follow in their footsteps. Had he been blind or was Tansy naive and mistaken?
He shook off that wandering thought, acknowledging the armour he had put on from childhood once he’d understood that his father, Dion, didn’t expect him to get emotional about anything because an Alexandris male only expressed violent anger. Dion had been unable to control that anger as Isidore did, and Jude could remember his father raging at staff, at office workers, at his cowering mother, in truth at anyone who ignited his hair-trigger temper. Dion Alexandris had had all the self-control of a spoilt and indulged toddler and, having witnessed that, Jude had learned young to control his anger. In a real rage, Jude turned to ice.
As they ate the main course, Jude talked about the yacht and Tansy giggled at some of the revealing extras that his grandfather had thought to include, like a stripper pole, a giant hot tub and mirrored ceilings. ‘Not really my style,’ Jude insisted. ‘But Isidore and my father were the ultimate playboys back in the days of their youth.’
Unimpressed by the claim, Tansy rolled her bright eyes. ‘I’m pretty sure you’re not that innocent.’
‘I’m not, but I was only a man-whore for a couple of years after Althea when I was wrapped up in being bitter as hell,’ Jude admitted. ‘I’m an adult. I got over it eventually.’
‘But by the sounds of it, your father never did,’ Tansy slotted in before she could think better about getting that personal.
‘That’s how he was raised. Any woman he wanted he should have, regardless of whether or not he was married or with anyone else. He bedded my mother’s sister, her maid, my nanny,’ Jude enumerated drily.
Tansy was truly shocked but fought to hide the fact. ‘I don’t think much of a sister that would do that.’
‘You’d be surprised how easily tempted people can be to do unforgivable things,’ Jude murmured very seriously. ‘I should’ve been less honest…you’re shocked.’
‘I thought Calvin was bad when he brought a woman home for the night less than a month after my mother passed,’ Tansy muttered uncomfortably. ‘I just ignored it, acted like it wasn’t happening because I didn’t have any alternative.’
‘Hetherington didn’t ever come on to you?’ Jude prompted tautly.
‘Oh, my goodness, no!’ Tansy laughed outright at the idea. ‘That’s one sin he didn’t commit. I’m not his type, though. His type is big blond mane of hair, large boobs, very decorative. Didn’t you see his girlfriend outside the register office? Susie is like a much younger version of my mother.’
Olympia brought coffee. Jude stepped away from the table and sank back down with careless grace on the wall to survey Tansy with an intensity that made her uneasy. He had beautiful eyes, but they could also be very piercing and distinctly intimidating.
‘What?’ she said defensively, as though he had spoken.
‘Now we have to talk about the elephant in the room…the topic you don’t want to touch,’ Jude extended softly. ‘I want
to know why you had sex with me this evening. And I need an honest answer. I think I deserve that from you.’
Caught unprepared by that demand, Tansy was aghast at his candour; her lips rounded and her eyes were huge and green with stricken dismay. ‘I… I—’
‘You need to think about it?’ Jude elevated a sardonic ebony brow. ‘Really? Nobody should need to think that hard about telling the truth.’
And that genuinely put Tansy in the hot seat and she sat as stiff and expressionless as a statue in her chair. ‘I can’t even understand why you would be asking me that question,’ she argued.
‘From what I understand, Hetherington virtually blackmailed you into agreeing to marry me. You wanted to protect your sister and that’s why you agreed…correct?’
Tansy nodded as jerkily as a marionette hanging taut on uneven strings.
‘How do you think I feel knowing that you were pressured into sharing my bed?’
‘But you didn’t pressure me…not at all!’ Tansy stressed in fierce disagreement.
‘That doesn’t add up. Before we married you asked me to give you time to get to know me,’ Jude reminded her, causing hot colour to sweep into her cheeks. ‘Then we marry, you produce Posy like a rabbit out of a hat and then all of a sudden you decide you don’t need getting-to-know-me time and we have sex. Was that because you felt you had to please or soothe me in some way to persuade me to accept your sister?’ Jude demanded with all the cool, critical fire of a hanging judge.
‘No!’ Tansy slashed back at him in a temper at being mortified to such an extent. ‘I had sex with you because, stupidly, after you confided in me about Althea, I felt closer to you because someone I cared about was once unfaithful to me as well. Why the hell should you even need an explanation for why I chose to be with you?’
‘Because I will not accept an unwilling partner.’