Is that all our marriage is going to be about?
She turned away, feeling that strange tug of emotion coming again, and stepped back into the wide corridor, then into the triple-aspect reception room, her feet taking her towards the view of the Parthenon on the Acropolis. She paused to gaze out over it, still feeling that strange tug of emotion.
Hands closed lightly over her shoulders and she felt Xandros behind her, his breath warm on her neck. Her own breath caught, feeling him so close, catching the spiced scent of his aftershave... She wanted to lean back into him, feel his arms go around her waist to embrace her, but she was too unsure to move.
‘It’s a good sight, isn’t it?’ he murmured softly.
She gave a slow nod, conscious not of the ancient monument but only of his hands upon her. For a moment—just a moment—she felt his touch tighten, as if he would turn her to him. As if he would take her into his arms...
Then, instead, he merely grazed the top of her head with the lightest and most fraternal of kisses, his hands dropping away.
‘I’ll run you back to your hotel,’ he said.
There was nothing in his voice but his usual easy-going manner.
With a flickering smile of acquiescence Rosalie let him usher her out of his apartment, outwardly serene. But inside, she knew, she was conscious of a sense of disappointment. Of a creeping melancholy.
She had no business feeling that way. No right at all.
But she did, all the same.
Xandros was visiting his mother. He didn’t want to, but he owed her that at least. He’d had to make a difficult phone call to her before he’d flown to London, telling her as carefully as he could that Ariadne had pulled out of their engagement.
‘But why?’ his mother had cried, dismayed. ‘I thought it was all agreed!’
‘So did I,’ he’d said. ‘But there it is. I have to respect her decision.’
He knew his mother was upset. She had wanted him to marry Ariadne, the daughter of her childhood friend—to marry her and achieve the merger her husband had urged his son to make as a sure way to increase the Lakaris fortunes he had worked so hard to rescue. She had wanted him to marry and give her grandchildren, to cheer her widowhood and to continue the ancient line to which he had been born, of which he was now the sole representative since the untimely death of his father three years ago.
And if Ariadne had been the perfect bride for him in his mother’s eyes, Xandros knew with foreboding that she would deplore his sudden decision to marry Ariadne’s illegitimate English half-sister instead.
Which was why he had to visit her in person—to explain the precise reasons for his precipitate action.
As he had expected, she did deplore it—and vocally.
‘Xandros, who is this girl? Nobody! You can’t possibly be thinking that she can be a substitute for Ariadne!’
‘That is precisely what I don’t think!’ he answered. He took a breath and looked into his mother’s eyes, which held a troubled expression. ‘She understands my reasons and agrees it will only be a temporary arrangement. And...’ he took another breath ‘...this won’t just be for my benefit. I want to do this for her,’ he said feelingly. ‘She’s had a wretched life. Coustakis never acknowledged her existence. He condemned both her and her mother to lifelong poverty. She deserves better!’
His mother looked at him, her expression still troubled. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked slowly. ‘Are you sure that you know what you’re doing, Xandros?’
He looked at her straight. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And it is very, very simple, I promise you.’
She looked as if she was going to say something more, but he forestalled her. He did not want their conversation moving on to any other aspect of just why he was going through with this marriage—that it was precisely because it was going to be temporary that it appealed to him, and that as soon as he was free of it, his desire for Rosalie slaked, he would resume the carefree, unattached bachelor lifestyle his mother considered a waste of his time.
He changed the subject away from marrying Rosalie and the reasons he was doing so.
‘Tell me, have you heard anything from Ariadne? Her mobile phone isn’t working. Coustakis must have cancelled it—he’s vindictive enough to do that, after disowning her as he has! My guess is she’s gone to stay with her maternal grandmother’s relatives in Scotland. But I don’t know their whereabouts, or even their name.’
His mother shook her head. ‘I have heard nothing from Ariadne either. I try not to worry, but—’
Xandros gave her what reassurance he could. ‘Well, she has a mind of her own—she’ll turn up when she wants to.’
It was the best he could say. No point giving voice to his own growing suspicions of just why Ariadne had bolted, or where she might be now... She was no longer his concern.
Only her half-sister was. The half-sister who held a sensual allure for him that Ariadne had never had, for all her dark beauty. The half-sister he was due to marry in a handful of days, as soon as the paperwork permitted.
His mother would not come—it would be easier that way, both for her and for his bride. After all, theirs was not going to be a real marriage—not by anything other than legal definition. It was simply a means to an end. Two ends. Business, yes. And also pleasure...
The low purring started up along with the powerful engine of his car as he headed back to Athens. Oh, yes...very, very decided pleasure. Pleasure that he was having to exercise all his self-control not to start indulging in before the knot was tied.
That tantalising but fleeting kiss in the hotel restaurant was a torment to remember, and when she’d come to see his apartment he’d had to busy himself with his mail in order to keep his hands off her. Especially when he’d found her gazing at his bed...as if she were already envisaging them there together.
He’d so very nearly obliged her... But he’d drawn back, permitting himself only that light, brief touch on her shoulders—and even that had been a torment before he’d released her again...
It was a torment he was schooling himself to endure. A rushed seduction in a hotel room, or even at his apartment, was not what he wanted. No, there was only one place he wanted to make Rosalie his own...
One perfect place he yearned to be with her...
CHAPTER EIGHT
THEY WERE DINING out the night before their wedding. Not at the hotel this time, but at what was obviously a very exclusive restaurant. Rosalie was thankful that it wasn’t crowded or noisy. Nor was it, as far as she could tell, a fashionable watering hole for their generation.
‘I thought you might like somewhere quiet,’ Xandros said as they sat down at their table. ‘This place is one of my mother’s favourites when she’s in town, for that very reason.’