by Julia James
His voice grew heavy now—with self-condemnation.
‘Not even when I told myself, as you lay in my arms, that I should make allowances for you being a hot-house creature who could not survive without luxury and someone to look after you all the time. I knew I shouldn’t want a woman like that.’
He halted, and Talia felt his strong fingers spasm suddenly over her limp hand.
‘But I did,’ he said. ‘God help me, I did.’
Abruptly he let her hand drop, turned away again. The cramped confines of the car were claustrophobic suddenly. On an impulse he could not control he threw open the door and vaulted out. He stood in the mild night air, with the moon sailing serenely overhead, the chorus of cicadas in the vegetation all around raucously audible. For him there was only the hectic beating of his heart. Like blows against his chest.
Grimness possessed him.
He had got her wrong. So, so wrong.
He heard her get out of the car as well and take a few steps over the gravel to stand beside him. He tensed at her approach. Heard her speak.
‘And I knew,’ she said, with strain in her voice, ‘that I should not want a man who thought so ill of me...’ She paused. ‘But I did.’ She paused again. ‘I do.’
For the space of a heartbeat he did not move. Then slowly, infinitely slowly, he turned towards her.
‘It cost me so much to leave you that first morning, Luke—after the party. But I had to do it for my mother’s sake. And it cost me even more to leave you when I did on the island. But I had to do that for my sake. Because if I’d stayed it would have destroyed me—day by day, night by night. Knowing what you thought of me...what you believed me to be. What I would have become. A woman in love with a man who despised her.’
She made to turn away, but Luke stopped her with a hand on her arm.
‘What did you say?’
He stepped towards her, and as Talia stared up at him she saw his expression change in the moonlight.
‘You said,’ he told her, and now there was something in his voice that went with the expression on his face, ‘that you would have been “a woman in love”?’
Tears, hot and anguished, pricked her eyes now, breaking away from the control she’d pressed them back with.
‘I shouldn’t have said that, Luke. We have nothing else to say to each other now.’
‘Yes! Yes, we do!’ Luke’s voice cut across hers. Vehement and urgent. ‘After everything we have finally said to each other we haven’t said the one thing that really matters.’
He took a breath, his eyes directed at hers.
‘Right from the very first time I set eyes on you I knew, with every instinct in my body, that you were special. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the goal I had finally achieved, the destruction of the man who had destroyed my parents. I was finally free of that burden—finally free to choose how to live my life. Free to choose, Talia.’ He took another breath, his eyes never leaving her for an instant, a heartbeat. ‘Free to fall in love...’
He heard her give a little cry, but he could not stop.
‘Had you come with me after our first night together I would have fallen in love with you then.’
He saw the tears spilling from her eyes, catching the moonlight, and then his arms were around her, drawing her to him. He felt his heart soar in his chest.
‘Forgive me, I beg you,’ he said, his arms tightening, ‘for all the ill I thought of you. I will strive with all my strength to make amends for it—to be worthy of your love!’
He felt her arms tighten around him, clutching at him, felt her shoulders heave with sobs, and then he was cradling her tear-stained face with his hands, his eyes soft and cherishing. His mouth grazed hers in tender homage.
‘Don’t cry. Never cry again. I honour everything about you—your loving loyalty to your mother, your courage in sticking by her, not abandoning her to your father’s wrath just to gain your own freedom. I honour you for the strength and courage you’ve shown in protecting her after your father’s ruin, whatever the cost to you. And I honour, above all, the choice you made in leaving me—both that very first morning and when you left me in the Caribbean after I got it so, so wrong about you.’
‘I was scared!’ she cried, remembering her mother’s words to her in the hospital. ‘Scared I would repeat what she had done. That I would stay with a man who treated me with contempt—who never loved me.’
He kissed her again. ‘Love me as I love you...and if you do then you will love me.’
His smile seemed to melt away the harsh words that had passed between them and turn her heart over.
‘I love you to all the reaches of infinity.’
She broke into renewed sobbing and he let out a laugh, swirling her around in his arms, lifting her feet off the ground in the moonlight. Then he lowered her gently, tenderly, back to the ground.
‘Weep all you want,’ he said softly. ‘For when you have done I never want you to weep again.’
He shut his eyes momentarily, filled with an emotion he could barely contain, and then they sprang open again as he put his arm around her and they turned together to face the view of the town, the coast and the horizon beyond. A great quietness settled over him...a peace of the heart.
‘We’re finally free,’ he said quietly. ‘Free of what your father did to both of us. Free to live our lives as we wish. Free to love as we wish. And even free,’ he finished wryly, ‘should we wish it, to avail ourselves of my suite at my hotel! It’s a beautiful place up in the hills. An old Moorish fort with fabulous views over the coast.’ His hand tightened over hers. ‘Will you come with me? Stay with me this time?’
Her smile was all he needed to see. And the softening of her gaze with a light that outshone the moon.
‘I’ll never leave you again, Luke,’ she said. ‘Never.’
It was a promise. A vow. To him, and to herself.
EPILOGUE
‘SO, WHAT DO you think, Mum?’
Talia swept an arm around the circular atrium with its cobalt floor and its walls muralled in vivid emerald, with foliage and crimson flowers, wide arches opening to the glorious gardens beyond.
‘You’ve got an incredibly talented daughter,’ said Luke, and smiled, standing beside her.
Talia’s mother clapped her hands. ‘Oh, darling, it’s wonderful!’
The man beside Maxine grinned. ‘Pretty good, Talia.’ He nodded. Then he glanced at Luke. ‘When’s the grand opening?’
Luke helped himself to Talia’s hand. ‘Right after our wedding,’ he said. ‘Until then we’re keeping it private—just for family. Talia and I are going to test-drive the open-air chapel out on the promontory. Shall we go and take a look now?’
‘Oh, Luke, yes!’ Maxine cried. She cast a look at the man beside her. ‘And maybe after you two have tied the knot,’ she said lightly, ‘Mike and I might try it out too!’
Talia’s expression lit up. ‘Oh, Mum! That would be brilliant!’
She cast a warm look at the man beside her mother. Easy-going, weather-beaten, with a piratical beard. He was dressed in cut-off denims and a striped top—the uniform of a seafaring yachtsman—and he was the very antithesis of her father.
She could not have been gladder of it. Already, in the nine months since she and Luke had gone to see her mother in the hospital and told her of their love for each other, her mother had bloomed. And then Mike, who had one day moored his boat off the hotel jetty, had taken one look at Maxine, who had been visiting the island, and recognised in her a teen romance from their youth and stayed to rekindle it.
Now, as the four of them made their way through the restored atrium out on to the terrace beyond, and then along the pristine pathways, there was no sign at all of the devastation that the hurricane had caused.
Talia felt her heart swell with happiness. She leant into Luke. �
�How can I be so happy?’ she breathed.
He smiled down at her, his eyes warm with love. ‘Because you deserve it,’ he told her, and dropped a kiss on her forehead.
He led her out on to a small grassy promontory, where a ring of palm trees swayed in the constant breeze, lifting the heat. A thatched open air chapel, with seating in front was set out there. They paused while Mike and Maxine caught them up, and then they all turned back to look at the hotel, fully restored now, after months of endless work.
Again, Talia felt her heart lift. ‘We’ve made it so beautiful again!’ she exclaimed.
‘It deserves to be,’ Luke said. He looked down at Talia again, squeezing her hand. ‘And I know why I was so determined to save it.’
There was a thread of sadness in his voice that made Talia squeeze his hand in return, to comfort him.
‘Because what is broken can be restored, with enough time and enough love—buildings, people, relationships...’
‘You saved it for your parents’ sake,’ Talia said in a low voice. ‘And I’m glad—so glad.’
Luke turned her gently towards him. ‘Will you truly be happy, getting married here on this spot?’
Her eyes lifted to his, shining with the sun. ‘How can you even ask?’ she said. ‘I would be happy marrying you, my darling, darling Luke, anywhere in the whole wide world! For you are my heart, Luke. My whole heart.’
He lowered his mouth to hers. Peace filled him. Peace, thankfulness and love. Always love. And love embraced him as he embraced the woman he loved...embraced them both for ever.
* * *
If you enjoyed Irresistible Bargain with the Greek you’re sure to enjoy these other stories by Julia James!
The Greek’s Secret Son
Tycoon’s Ring of Convenience
Heiress’s Pregnancy Scandal
Billionaire’s Mediterranean Proposal
Available now!
Keep reading from an excerpt from Redeemed by Her Innocence by Bella Frances.
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Redeemed by Her Innocence
by Bella Frances
CHAPTER ONE
NIKOS KARELLIS WALKED straight into the bridal suite of Maybury Hall, Wedding Venue of the Year, and slung his suit carrier down on the four-poster bed. So this is romance, he thought, frowning at the frills and flowers and buckets of girly fizz. He lifted a bottle, checked the vintage and slipped it back into the watery ice. He was a long way off celebrating yet. He’d travelled through eight time zones and three continents, and he needed something a bit harder to take the edge off.
Finally he saw what he wanted, tucked underneath a gilt mirror featuring chuckling cherubs—a tray with decanter, glasses and water jug. Perfect. He poured a generous measure, then he added a little more, skipped the water, and sank it, the burn and peaty fumes soothing as they slid down his throat.
Cheers, Martin, he thought, tipping his glass at the chandelier. At least his former brother-in-law’s taste in whisky was better than his taste in décor.
The bridal suite.
Of all the rooms in his flagship luxury hotel, Martin had chosen to put him up here. Maybe it was his idea of a joke, but it wasn’t a very funny one. Pretty much nothing about being married to Maria made him laugh any more.
Nikos reached for the decanter, pausing in the act of pouring a second. The temptation was strong, but clear-headed was the only way to be tonight, because tonight was the beginning of the end, the face-to-face to get it all out in the open. Whatever it was that Martin thought had been hidden away in Maria’s legacy, this was the night when they’d sort it out, because it was draining—and not just financially.
Despite what Martin’s lawyers and the Inland Revenue seemed to think, there were no hidden assets, no secret stash of cash, no offshore investments. She had drunk them all, or snorted them all. And that was that. It would be a hard story to tell her doting brother, but Nikos was damned sure he wasn’t going to leave anything out, because he’d had enough.
The tit-for-tat legal wrangling had gone on for too long so he’d done it the old-fashioned way; lifted the phone, and asked for a meeting. When Martin suggested this black-tie event in one of his chain of luxury hotels, Nikos didn’t hesitate. It was that or wait another six weeks until they’d even be on the same continent.
He could barely wait six more minutes now that he finally had the end in sight. Five years since Maria’s death—but it was only his wedding ring he’d tossed into the cool, blue Aegean; the pain and the memories had been much harder to shift.
Too late to stop himself, he touched his ring finger. Empty space, smooth skin. Even though House, his high-end chain of department stores, was now in the Forbes 100, with turnover almost hitting the four billion mark, that feeling of bare skin felt better than anything. It was the feeling of freedom. More than that, it was the cast-iron knowledge that he was on his own now. On his own, forging his path, no wife hanging off his arm, or around his neck, no damage to clean up after—just these final few crumbs and then he really was home free.
He filled up a fresh glass with water and walked to the window. The estate was impressive, immense, expanding off into horizons of oak trees and lawns, and willow-draped lakes. He could just see the roof of the lodge house he’d passed and the huge iron gates at the end of the road, where a car had just pulled up. Something about it made him strain forward to see better...
But just then a knock sounded on the door, and he turned.
‘I heard you’d arrived.’
Martin Lopez stood in the door and for a second they looked at each other. The same dark hair, dark eyes, sallow skin and high cheekbones as Maria—a look that he’d once found ravishing, irresistible, forging a love so strong he’d moved from delinquent eighteen-year-old biker to husband, in three years.
Looking back, which he had done all too often in the ten years they’d been together, it had been a predictable car crash of wrong place, wrong time. The minute he’d rescued her from the Bentley she’d wrapped around a lamp post on the side of the Sydney highway, they’d been inseparable—he was tennis coach, swimming coach, personal trainer, anything she could do to keep him in her life, and, after where he’d been, it had felt like arriving at the Promised Land.
Unfortunately some promises were very hard for Maria to keep.
‘Martin. Good to see you.’
He walked towards him, stretching out a hand, reading in the light press of Martin’s palm an
d the shifting of his gaze that he was on edge.
‘Nikos. I’m glad you came. It’s been a long time.’
‘Too long,’ said Nikos, holding the handshake a second longer, reassuring him that they were friends, no matter what had gone before.
‘Yes, and I wanted to get in touch, but it’s not been easy since Maria died.’
‘I guess not. Our lives have taken different directions.’
‘But we’ll always have her in common.’
‘I can’t deny that,’ said Nikos, staring hard at Martin, wondering what was really going on in his mind. He had done everything for the Lopez family; they were all set up for life. He had nothing left to give.
But something was eating the other man up. Martin dropped his gaze and turned back to the door.
‘Shall I show you around, before the guests start to arrive?’ he said, over his shoulder.
‘Absolutely,’ Nikos said, strolling out to the grand hallway, where the faces of various English rose aristocrats in grand gilt frames hung around the walls, no doubt wondering what the hell had happened to the old house now that the Lopez Hotel Group had transformed it.
‘Yes, it’s great to see you,’ Martin said, stepping alongside him now like a best buddy. ‘And I’m really grateful that you’ve agreed to present an award. We sold an extra fifty seats when it was announced yesterday.’
Nikos shrugged. ‘It’s no problem. I was on the way back from Sydney when I got the call.’
‘Visiting your mother? How is she?’
They were at the top of a wide sweep of carpeted stairs, no doubt a prime photo opportunity for the hundreds of brides who used Maybury Hall.
‘Ah, she’s OK. Thanks for asking. She doesn’t know me any more but she seems quite happy, and they look after her well.’
