The Greek's Convenient Cinderella

by Lynne Graham

  ‘But presumably the cottage belongs to your family as well.’

  Jude shrugged in dismissal of that point.

  ‘I imagine developing a world-famous garden doesn’t come cheap in execution or maintenance either,’ Tansy murmured curiously. ‘Who finances all that?’

  ‘I cover her expenses, but the gardens are now open to the public and more or less pay for themselves.’ Jude grimaced. ‘The prenup she signed was so tight that she was left flat broke after the divorce. My father was needlessly punitive because she demanded a divorce that he didn’t want and she had no family of her own to fall back on for support.’

  ‘I can imagine that she didn’t want to fall back on the sister who had slept with her husband,’ Tansy said with distaste.

  ‘Clio’s still very much a loner.’

  ‘What age were you when she had her breakdown?’ Tansy pressed curiously.

  ‘Six.’

  ‘Did you find her after her…attempt?’ Tansy asked tautly.

  Jude nodded. ‘The memory of it still haunts me. She was lying in a pool of blood, unconscious, and it was the staff’s night off.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Tansy breathed heavily as she attempted with an inner shudder to picture how such a scene would have affected a six-year-old. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I phoned Isidore.’

  ‘Not your father?’

  ‘No, I knew he was partying in his yacht on the other side of the world because Clio had shown me the photos that day in a newspaper. I think even at that age I suspected that he wouldn’t be much good in an emergency. Isidore sent help to the villa and then flew straight to Italy. He took care of everything and brought me back to Greece with him. It was two years before I saw Clio again because she was in a rehab unit for a long time and when I finally did, she and my father had a massive row, which just made everything worse. He had remarried by then and she couldn’t cope with that. Their relationship was toxic long after the divorce.’

  ‘I hope that when we part we can, at least, stay friends,’ Tansy muttered tautly.

  His brilliant dark golden eyes hardened and took on a glittering intensity that seared her. His lush black lashes swiftly screened his expression. ‘I’m the last person likely to make the relationship difficult after the way I grew up,’ he parried stonily. ‘The children’s security must come first.’

  ‘I think you’ll miss Posy when we split up,’ Tansy forecast, feeling very brave in making that comment and admiring the steadiness of her own voice, but she felt the need to continually remind herself that their marriage was only temporary. ‘I miss her now.’

  Jude tensed and stared down at the laptop in front of him. ‘It would have been selfish to make her do this journey with us when we’ll only be at the villa one night—’

  Tansy nodded agreement because she liked to try and keep her sister to a stable routine, which was difficult, she allowed ruefully, when Jude seemed to live flitting from property to property, country to country, and then there was the yacht to throw into his options as well. It was something they would have to discuss because there had to be one place he would surely be willing to call home where they could settle like a normal family. Only they weren’t a normal family, she acknowledged with a sinking sensation in her tummy.

  As they were driven from the airport it was a beautiful sunny day with the sky a clear cerulean blue and the landscape lush and green with the promise of spring moving into summer. Orange and olive groves and serrated lines of vines marched over the rolling hills and a colourful selection of wild flowers flourished on the verges of the lane they drove down.

  ‘We’ll head up to the villa later. Clio is expecting us,’ Jude told her.

  The limousine drew up at a picturesque old stone building embellished with glorious roses and greenery. ‘It looks like a painting,’ Tansy whispered admiringly.

  ‘Wait until you see the gardens,’ Jude advised. ‘The whole place is like this—’

  A tall, beautiful blonde appeared in the doorway and smiled widely at Jude. ‘Come in…lunch is ready.’

  ‘This is Tansy,’ Jude murmured. ‘Clio…’

  Clio looked twenty years younger than Tansy knew her to be and she was still gorgeous, from her long blond hair and bright blue eyes to her leggy grace in workmanlike jeans.

  ‘Tansy.’ Clio extended a cool hand. ‘Rather a common, ordinary herb, I’m afraid.’

  Tansy went pink and smiled, ignoring the comment.

  ‘There’s nothing ordinary about Tansy.’ Jude laughed, resting a hand against her taut spine.

  A light lunch was served in the dining room. The room was dominated by a large portrait of a young, handsome man with black curls, his likeness to Jude so strong that it could only have been his father.

  ‘The resemblance between father and son is striking,’ Clio commented when she saw what had stolen Tansy’s attention.

  ‘It certainly is,’ Tansy agreed, disconcerted by the older woman’s brittle manner and tart tongue while marvelling that Jude was so tolerant of her idiosyncrasies. His kindness, his fondness for his only surviving parent were palpable, but it also helped her to understand why he would be so keen to steer clear of emotional entanglements in his own life after his experiences at his mother’s and Althea’s hands.

  ‘Why aren’t you drinking your wine?’ the blonde woman asked abruptly. ‘Don’t you like it? Perhaps you’d prefer red or rosé? Or perhaps you don’t drink?’

  ‘Tansy’s pregnant,’ Jude said quietly.

  The announcement dropped into a sudden sharp silence. His mother stared at him in dismay. ‘You can’t make me a granny! I’m far too young for that,’ she objected vehemently.

  ‘Fortunately, we don’t need anyone’s permission,’ Jude countered quietly.

  Clio settled indignant blue eyes on Tansy. ‘Jude will ruin your life. He’ll cheat on you like his father cheated on me. The last thing you should be doing is bringing a child into the chaos ahead of you!’

  Tansy breathed in slow and deep to restrain her temper. ‘You can’t know your son very well if you think he would cheat on me. He has an aversion to infidelity that makes me feel safe on that score. He is very loyal,’ she stressed defensively.

  Jude closed a soothing hand over hers where it sat knotted into a fist of tension on her thigh. It infuriated Tansy that a mother could think so little of her own child that she denigrated him in front of an audience.

  Clio snorted. ‘You’ll learn otherwise…eventually.’

  Jude, evidently accustomed to his mother’s attacks, made light conversation for what remained of the meal. Clio didn’t even ask Tansy when her baby was due, indeed appeared to have no interest whatsoever in the topic. By the time coffee was served their hostess was becoming restless and she mentioned a media interview she had mid-afternoon before suggesting that they tour the gardens.

  ‘Your mother’s rather thorny,’ Tansy said ruefully as they walked down an informal path from the cottage. The path gave way into a wide grassed area enclosed by a tunnel of low-hanging trees. An imposing stone temple sat as a focal point at the far end. It was spectacular.

  ‘Always was. Essentially, if you had roots you would get much more attention from Clio,’ Jude remarked wryly.

  ‘No, I wouldn’t, not with the connotations of a name as humble as mine. I think I’m the equivalent of a weed in her eyes!’ Tansy opined with a helpless giggle.

  ‘Thank you for not taking offence.’ Jude sighed. ‘She was rude but that’s not unusual for her. She’s not very fond of her own sex and she doesn’t like to share my attention with anyone else.’

  ‘Or the thought of being made a grandmother.’

  Jude flung back his curly dark head and laughed with appreciation. ‘You weren’t one bit bothered by her, were you?’

  ‘No. You did warn me.’

  �
��Years ago, she deeply offended Althea.’

  ‘Althea has more of an opinion of herself than I do.’ As they wandered below the trees, Tansy was relieved that she was wearing comfortable sandals and a light linen dress because, even in the shade, it was very warm. She was enjoying the fresh air and a sense of relaxation after spending half the day trapped in a seat.

  ‘We have to talk,’ Jude intoned tautly.

  ESP fingered down Tansy’s spine like spectral fingers of warning and her delicate features tensed. As her pace slowed Jude closed a hand over hers to urge her on. ‘About what?’ she said stiffly.

  ‘I would suggest…a potential renegotiation of terms,’ Jude murmured sibilantly.

  ‘What terms?’ Tansy almost whispered, so drawn tight were her nerves at that proposal.

  ‘The legal terms of our marriage,’ Jude specified.

  Tansy tugged her fingers free at the edge of a mossy stone fountain ringed by wild pink orchids. Sunlight glinted on the clear water and the brightness made her blink several times. ‘Why would we need to renegotiate anything?’ she asked uneasily, her heart beating very, very fast in the heat, perspiration breaking out on her upper lip.

  ‘You’re pregnant. That changes everything,’ Jude pointed out, lowering his lean, powerful body in a graceful sprawl of long limbs down onto the stone steps leading up to the temple. The fluid, careless elegance of the movement implied he had not a care in the world, Tansy thought painfully.

  To Jude, Tansy looked very pale. But then that flawless porcelain skin of hers was very pale and translucent in comparison to his own, he conceded, studying her while willing her to respond as he wanted her to respond. In full sunlight, her dress was gossamer-sheer, outlining long shapely legs and the shadows of her areolae, accentuating the reality that she was not wearing a bra on her small pouting breasts. The tightening at his groin, the pulse of arousal made him grit his teeth, but she looked utterly incredible with her long streaky hair tousled in waves and catching the light across her shoulders, her clear green eyes fixed to him.

  ‘I don’t understand what you’re getting at,’ Tansy admitted shakily.

  ‘In our marital agreement it states that the instant a conception occurs we can separate,’ Jude recounted curtly. ‘Of course, you’re free to make your own decision and if that’s what you want—’

  ‘Separate…like now? Immediately?’ Tansy prompted half under her breath, her lungs feeling deprived of sufficient oxygen in the hot, still air. ‘Where did it say that? I don’t remember reading that.’

  ‘It was one of the clauses in the marriage contract.’ She was looking at him as though he were talking in a foreign language, eyes wide, complexion white as milk below the sun.

  Tansy was feeling impossibly dizzy and slightly sick and much too hot for comfort. She made a belated move back towards the shade beneath the trees, but it was too late. Darkness stole her vision, her body swaying, and she folded down on the grass in a heap as she fainted.

  For a split second, Jude almost panicked. He raced down the steps to lift her up and she looked so white and delicate in his arms. He dug out his phone and rang the villa for a staff member to collect them in one of the buggies that were used by his mother’s gardening team. Tansy stirred in his arms and moaned. ‘I’m so hot.’

  ‘You’re going to be fine,’ Jude said unevenly, trying to inject confidence into that optimistic assertion but very aware of his ignorance and digging out his phone again to organise a doctor’s visit to check her out.

  She was pregnant, rather fragile in his estimation and he had sprung a huge choice about the future on her without the smallest preamble. It wasn’t only the heat that had got to her but probably the stress he had heaped on her as well and he felt appallingly guilty.

  ‘You’re holding me too tight,’ Tansy whispered shakily, her head still woozy as she peered up at him, noticing that his stunning dark golden eyes were awash with emotions she couldn’t interpret.

  ‘Sorry,’ Jude breathed tautly, his grip on her loosening a little.

  ‘I’m still so dizzy.’ She sighed apologetically as the world tilted and she was laid into some sort of compact vehicle.

  ‘Close your eyes, relax,’ Jude instructed.

  But Tansy was incapable of relaxation with Jude’s words still weighing heavily on her mind and shadowing everything: separation after conception. A clause in their premarital agreement? Why hadn’t she read it properly? There had been pages and pages and she had given up ten pages in while the document went on to cover every possible and unlikely development under the sun. Even so, separating as soon as she fell pregnant? That was so cold-blooded, she reflected wretchedly. Had she been aware of that fact from the start, she wasn’t sure she would have agreed to consider having a child with him.

  Jude carried her up steps and she heard the low mutter of voices talking in fast, liquid Italian. Her head was still swimming but her lashes fluttered up and she saw a very grand landscape painting and she closed her eyes again, just relieved that they were indoors again and out of the heat.

  He laid her down carefully on a mattress and she looked up into a crown from which elaborate brocade drapes were festooned. Eyes widening, she sat up, ignoring Jude’s advice to stay flat. ‘Good heavens, this place is like a museum—’

  ‘Isidore loves the villa’s antique grandeur but he won’t come here in case he runs into Clio,’ Jude explained with a wry smile. ‘It’s not my style though.’

  ‘You surprise me,’ Tansy told him sharply, angry green eyes locking to his devastatingly handsome features. ‘I would’ve thought the medieval vibe of magnificence would have appealed to you since your ideas seem to be equally barbaric.’

  Jude stiffened, his dark eyes narrowing. ‘I won’t argue with you when you’re in this condition and the doctor’s about to arrive.’

  ‘What condition? Raging? How dare you think for even one moment that it was appropriate to persuade me into a pregnancy when you planned to cut and run as soon as it happened? You think that’s acceptable? I don’t!’ she snapped furiously. ‘I don’t need a doctor. I need a big stick or something to thump you with!’

  Jude spread lean brown hands wide in an eloquent soothing gesture that had no effect at all on his irate wife. ‘You’re right.’

  Tansy just glared at him, eyes as bright and luminous as jewels. ‘You… You!’ Words simply failed her and with difficulty she got a grip on herself again and twisted her head away sooner than look at him. ‘I really don’t want to talk to you right now. To have such a clause in the agreement you had drawn up…’ she condemned. ‘It was callous, selfish and unfeeling to ask me to have a child with you when you planned to walk out and leave me before it was even born.’

  ‘I assumed that you would want your life and your freedom back as I believed I would want mine…but everything’s changed since then,’ Jude intoned, striding back towards the bed. ‘Why aren’t you listening to me?’

  ‘Go away,’ Tansy mumbled wearily, not in the mood to be placated when she was faced with the knowledge that she had been behaving once again as though their marriage were normal when it was not. How could she expect a level of support she was not entitled to receive? He had not told her a single lie about what their marriage would entail.

  Of course, he hadn’t planned to stay with her until the baby arrived! Why would he put himself through that boring duty of care when he didn’t love her or plan to remain married to her? Jude was accustomed to doing what he liked when he liked. Great wealth had given him a freedom that less fortunate people could only dream about. She had been an idiot to make any kind of assumption about their convenient marriage, and what underlined that fact more than anything was a husband who talked blithely about renegotiating terms with her as if they were involved in a business deal.

  ‘Tansy?’

  ‘You can come back when the doctor arrives to translate,�
� Tansy told him grudgingly. ‘Otherwise I don’t think we have anything more to say to each other.’

  As the door closed behind Jude, Tansy patted her flat stomach guiltily, tears burning her eyes as she thought of how much she would love her baby. She questioned if she would ever tell her child the truth of how she had ended up married to Jude Alexandris. Would she lie to conserve her pride? Pretend they had fallen in love? Jude being Jude would probably insist on telling only the truth. Her lower lip wobbled at the prospect of her son or daughter looking at her with less respect and more judgement. A business deal based on money. It sounded so sleazy and yet nothing with Jude felt sleazy. Why was that? Was she simply a pushover for his compelling appeal?

  A doctor arrived, middle-aged and pleasant and with sufficient English to enable her to pretty much ignore Jude, which suited her mood perfectly. He told her that fainting was not that uncommon in early pregnancy, particularly when she had been tired and struggling to deal with the heat. She stole a glance at Jude, who looked as guilty as if he had pushed her down a flight of stairs and, instead of reassuring him that it had not been his fault, she hardened her heart and watched him leave with the doctor.

  The salad she had requested arrived on a tray and she clambered off the bed and went for a shower before eating. She tugged on a light robe afterwards, reluctant to get dressed again.

  When she emerged again, Jude was lounging up against the foot of the tall bed, looking ridiculously beautiful in his favourite ripped jeans and a T-shirt. ‘You haven’t eaten anything,’ he pointed out.

  ‘I wanted a shower first,’ Tansy said stiffly, averting her gaze from his riveting sensual allure. ‘I shouldn’t have shouted at you earlier. I shouldn’t let my emotions go around you. After all, we made a business deal, not a marriage.’

  Jude set his even white teeth together and flashed her a pained glance of reproach. ‘That is not how I think of us being together. Our marriage is not a deal and it’s got nothing to do with business.’

  Tansy sat down at the table by the window and lifted her knife and fork. ‘It is what it is,’ she responded stonily. ‘No point wrapping it up in euphemisms at this late stage. You paid me to marry you.’