Wedding Night with a Stranger

by Anna Cleary

  His mother tilted her head in the direction of the hall. ‘In the orangery.’

  Sebastian approached quietly, in case his grandmother was having a late afternoon nap. He needn’t have been concerned.

  Dressed in her gardening smock, her hair coiled loosely into a bun, the small, frail woman was up and active, struggling to lift a terracotta pot onto a bench.

  ‘None of that,’ Sebastian said, striding forward and removing it from her worn hands. ‘You know what the doctor said, Yiayia.’

  ‘Oh, pouf. Doctors,’ his grandmother exclaimed while Sebastian positioned the pot in the miniature rainforest that was her pride and joy, adorning every available space. ‘What do they know?’

  She peeled off her gloves and reached up, tilting her soft, lined cheek for his kiss.

  Sebastian obliged, declining to argue, knowing she worshipped the members of the medical profession as though their words were piped direct from heaven.

  ‘Well, glikia-mou. Now, what are you about?’ She settled herself into a high-backed wicker chair draped with shawls, while Sebastian sat facing her.

  Filtered by leaves both inside and out, the afternoon sun slanted through the glass walls, bathing the room in a greenish light.

  Sebastian made himself relax, aware he was being examined by an almost supernaturally astute observer of human frailty. ‘Do you remember the Giorgias family?’

  Her elderly brows lifted. ‘From Naxos?’ He nodded, and she said, ‘Of course. From when I was a child. There was always a Giorgias in our house. My father and their father were friends.’

  ‘Do you remember Pericles Giorgias?’

  ‘Ah.’ She gave a sage nod. ‘Of course I remember him. He was the one who inherited the shipyard, and the boats. He married Eleni Kyriades. He was such a generous man. It was he who helped your father when the stores nearly collapsed back in the eighties.’

  Sebastian tensed. ‘How do you mean, he helped Papa? Are you sure?’

  ‘For sure I’m sure. When the banks wouldn’t help Pericles made your father a loan. To be repaid without interest over a very long time. No strings attached.’ She shook her head in wonderment. ‘Such a rare thing, generosity.’

  Dismay speared through Sebastian. Such generosity was rare indeed. But there’d been strings attached, all right. Strings of honour. With grim comprehension he recognised the situation. The Nikostos were now under an obligation to the Giorgiases. For some reason Peri Giorgias required a favour, and he’d chosen to collect from the son of his debtor.

  A son for a father. A favour for a favour.

  He could almost hear the clang as the trap snapped shut around him. Chained to a stranger in wedlock.

  In an attempt to break free from the vice sinking its teeth into his gut, he got up and paced the room. Another marriage was the last thing he’d ever intended. How could he dishonour Esther’s memory with some spoiled tycoon’s poppet?

  ‘There were other brothers too. Three. At least three.’ Yiayia’s gentle voice filtered through his reflections. ‘I remember the youngest, but the middle boys…’ The old lady sat back in her chair and closed her eyes. After a moment she said, ‘I remember young Andreas. He didn’t care for the family business. I think he was an artist. He came out here, and married an Australian girl. Oh, that was a terrible tragedy. Poor Andreas and his wife.’

  In spite of his resistance to knowing anything about the Giorgias woman’s history, Sebastian’s attention was arrested, and he turned to watch his grandmother’s face. ‘What happened?’

  ‘A boat accident. Night-time on the harbour. You may not remember. Your parents, your grandfather and me, we all went to the funeral, but you’d have still been a boy. Only imagine a Greek being killed in a boating accident! They said it was a collision. Silly young people out skylarking. Andreas and his wife didn’t stand a chance.’

  He frowned, unwilling to feel sympathy. Unwilling to feel. ‘They left children?’

  His grandmother’s face lit up. ‘That’s right, there was a child. A girl, I think. I’m nearly sure the poor little thing was taken back to Greece with one of the brothers.’

  Sebastian grimaced and resumed his chair. After a smouldering moment he made the curt acknowledgement, ‘Pericles.’

  ‘Ah.’

  A pregnant silence fell.

  Sebastian wondered if by admitting he knew that one fact, he’d given away something crucial. Sooner or later, if he went through with this charade, they would all have to know. What would they think of their brilliant son then, snagged like a greenhorn in a duty marriage? Forced up the aisle with a woman he hated?

  A flash of the Giorgias woman’s drawn, anxious face at the last stirred a sudden unaccountable turmoil in his chest and he had to rescind the thought. No, he didn’t hate her, exactly. He just felt—angry. What man wouldn’t? To have his bride, his life, decided by someone else.

  In the first flush of his outrage Sebastian had blamed—he allowed himself to use her name—Ariadne. He’d imagined her as a spoiled little despot, winding her doting uncle around her little finger. How had she come to choose him? Had he been listed in some cheap catalogue of eligible males?

  Now, after hearing Yiayia’s words he began to see it was almost certainly instigated by Pericles himself.

  His grandmother studied his face, her shrewd black eyes revealing nothing of her thoughts. After a long moment, she said, ‘You have met her? Andreas’s daughter?’

  Sebastian hesitated, then shrugged and said without expression, ‘I have had that pleasure.’

  The wise old eyes scanned his a moment longer, then closed, as if in meditation. ‘I don’t think Pericles and Eleni were blessed.’

  Sebastian knew what she meant. Other people might be blessed with brains, beauty, talent, health or wealth, but to Yiayia children were the most worthwhile of life’s gifts, so blessings referred only to them.

  ‘They ’d have wanted to take on the little one,’ she continued. ‘I expect they’d have been overjoyed. Eleni had nothing much else to fill her heart. That Pericles liked the business. He was the right one to take over the shipping because he had an eye for money. Clever, but not always very smart. Andreas, now…A thoughtful boy, I think. Sensitive.’ She shook her head and clasped her lined hands in her lap. ‘Oh, that was a terrible shame. The young shouldn’t have to die.’

  Was she thinking of Esther now? ‘No,’ he said shortly. ‘They shouldn’t.’

  Again, her wrinkled lids drifted shut. She remained silent for so long Sebastian thought she must have nodded off to sleep. He was about to get up and cover her with one of her shawls when her eyes opened, as clear and focused as ever.

  ‘Is she beautiful?’

  Sebastian’s gut tightened. Resistance hardened in him to the notion of Ariadne Giorgias’s beauty. He opened his mouth to growl something, but nothing would come. Anyway, the less said the better. Regardless of how he felt, whatever he said now could come back to haunt him.

  ‘Do women have to be beautiful, Yiayia?’ he hedged. ‘Wasn’t there an entire generation of women who rebelled against that notion?’

  The old lady made an amused grimace. ‘They usually are, though, aren’t they, glikia-mou? To the men who love them. A man needs something lovely to rest his eyes on.’

  Again, he guessed she was thinking of Esther. And it was true he’d loved her as much as it was possible for a man to love a woman. People in his family rarely made reference to her now, not wanting to remind him of the bad times, all the losing battles with hope after each bout of surgery, the radiation treatment, the nightmare of chemo.

  Even after three years they were still exquisitely careful of his feelings, even Yiayia, tiptoeing around him on the subject, as if his marriage were a sacred area too painful for human footsteps.

  Sometimes he wished they could forget about all that and remember his wife as the person she’d been. He still liked to think of those easy-going, happy days, before he and Esther were married, before he’d start
ed Celestrial.

  A stab of the old remorse speared through him. If only he’d spared her more of his time. In those early days of the company…

  With an effort he thrust aside the useless self-recrimination, thoughts that still had the power to gut him. Too late for regrets, now he’d lost her.

  No one would ever replace her in his heart, but often he was conscious of a hollowness that his work, exciting and challenging as it was, didn’t fill. He hardly spent any time at home now, even sleeping on the settee in his office at times. He could imagine his parents’ amazement if he ended up marrying this Greek woman, after they’d long since given up hope and become inured to the prospect of his ongoing singularity.

  The reality was, he might as well admit it, one way or another a man still needed a woman. Somehow, against his will, against all that he held decent, meeting Ariadne Giorgias in the flesh had roused that sleeping dragon in him.

  Though she wasn’t his choice, she was no less lovely than any of the women he knew. If he’d met her at some other point in time, he might even have felt attracted. But…

  Resistance clenched inside him like a fist. He wasn’t the man to be coerced.

  He became aware of Yiayia’s thoughtful scrutiny. What was it she’d asked? Beautiful. Was she?

  ‘She probably is,’ he conceded drily. ‘To anyone who cares for her type.’

  ‘What type is that?’ Yiayia enquired.

  Defensive, scared, fragile. Pretty. Sexy.

  CHAPTER THREE

  MIDWAY through winding her hair into a coil, Ariadne’s hand stilled. What had Sebastian Nikosto meant by ‘a start’? And how much of a start? Surely he wouldn’t expect to kiss her. Or worse.

  She remembered his cool, masculine mouth, the seductive blue-black shadow on his handsome jaw, and felt a rush in her blood. Panic, that was what it must have been, combined with a fiery inner disturbance to do with how little she’d eaten since she’d boarded the plane.

  The man had revealed himself as a barracuda. Her feminine instincts told her he might want to try something, but she’d just have to hold him off. That shouldn’t be so hard, given how much he’d disliked her at first sight.

  She’d managed to hold Demetri at bay for months, even though they’d been engaged and she’d believed herself in love. She made a wry grimace at herself. What a fool she’d been.

  Afterwards, Thea had hinted that that might have been where she’d gone wrong with her ex-fiancé, but Ariadne knew better. It was because he’d had the mistress that Demetri hadn’t been concerned about making love to her.

  And everyone knew that like or dislike didn’t necessarily have much to do with a man’s sexual desires. Take Demetri’s case. He’d made love to people he didn’t even know. And she’d been such a contemptible pushover, believing his lies every time, doubting the evidence her close friends had tried to give her. Making excuses for his lack of interest in her, because she’d wanted to believe it was all fine and everything was as it appeared. Until she’d gone for lunch at that Athens restaurant and seen him there with his girlfriend.

  It had still taken her days to accept the reality, but she’d never be so naive again.

  It would hardly make sense if Sebastian Nikosto wanted to kiss her, after the things he’d said, but nothing about this whole situation made sense. The more she puzzled over it, the more her confusion increased.

  She felt as if she were locked in a nightmare. If only she could fall asleep she might wake up and find herself back in her bedroom in Naxos. Had Sebastian’s anger been with her, or with the deal he’d struck with her uncle? He’d made it sound as if the whole thing had been her idea.

  Some aspects were so ironic, she’d have laughed if she hadn’t been in such distress.

  Thio had probably thought she would suit an Australian Greek because of her Australian mother. Meanwhile, Sebastian Nikosto had taken one glance at her from across a room and had felt cheated. She’d never forget that frown, how it had speared through her like a red-hot needle.

  Was it because she wasn’t attractive enough? Had her uncle explained to him that the woman he was throwing in to sweeten his pillow had blue eyes, not the dark shining beautiful eyes most Greek women took for granted as their heritage?

  She stabbed a pin into her chignon. Whatever happened, she would die before she kissed a man who’d been paid to take her. No wonder he judged her with contempt. She must seem like the leftovers on the bargain rack in the Easter sales, thrown in as an added incentive. She was almost looking forward to meeting the man again and showing him his mistake. She truly was.

  Despite all her bravado, the coward inside her was tempted not to keep the dinner engagement. What if she were to lie low in her room with a headache instead? In the morning, simply check out of the hotel and disappear from Nikosto’s life without a trace?

  She would have to check out, anyway. She wasn’t sure what the price would be, but with the grand piano and all in the suite she guessed she wouldn’t be able to afford many nights here.

  After the devastating conversation with Thea, desperation had inspired her with a survival plan. If she sold what little jewellery she’d brought and added the proceeds to her holiday money, provided she found somewhere cheaper to stay, she should have enough to get by on until she could find some sort of job. There must be art galleries in Australia. Under the terms of her father’s will, unless she married first she couldn’t inherit her money until she was twenty-five. All she had to do was to stay alive another fourteen months.

  More and more throughout the afternoon her thoughts had returned to that beach house on the coast. She wondered if her mother’s auntie still lived there. Would she remember the little girl who’d come to stay nearly twenty years ago? Would she even be alive?

  It was tempting to just cut all communication with Sebastian Nikosto and his accomplices in the crime right now. That was what the man deserved. What they all deserved, she thought fiercely. She should just vanish into thin air. Trouble was, if she did that he might raise some sort of alarm. She shuddered to think of how it would be if she were pursued by the Australian police. She could imagine the sneering headlines back in Greece.

  Ariadne of Naxos goes missing in Australia. Has Ariadne been eaten by crocodiles?

  Ariadne, lost in the outback.

  And one that made her wince. The runaway bride runs again.

  No, disappearing without saying goodbye could not be an option. And there was no one else who could fix her dilemma for her. She was on her own, in a strange country, and for the first time in her life there was no one else to rely on except herself and her own ingenuity.

  She needed to go downstairs in that lift, face Sebastian Nikosto squarely, and tell him eye to eye that she would never marry him, under any circumstances, and that she never wanted to see him again.

  A surge of nervous excitement flooded her veins. What if he was furious? She almost hoped he was. It would do her heart good to see him lose his cool control and spit with rage.

  She highlighted her cheekbones with liberal application of blush, at the same time boosting her mental courage with some strong, healthy anger. Whatever he said to her this time, however cold and hostile he was, whatever bitter insults he fired at her in that silky voice, there was no way her pride could ever let him think she was afraid of him.

  Let the barracuda do his worst. Make-up would be her shield.

  She painted a generous swathe of eyeshadow across her lids. Even without it her eyes had appeared dark and stormy after the adrenaline-wired past thirty-six hours. Now they looked enormous, and with more adrenaline pumping into her bloodstream every second there was no disguising their feverish glitter. She smoothed some kohl underneath with her fingertip. Somehow the blue of her irises deepened.

  The effect was atmospheric, almost gothic, and intensely satisfying. She felt as if she were in disguise. What to wear was more of a worry.

  She hardly wanted to inflame the man’s desires. A burkha would ha
ve been her choice if she’d had one to hand, but pride wouldn’t allow her to appear like a woman in a state of panic, anyway. In the end she chose a black, heavily embroidered lace dress that glittered with the occasional sequin when she moved. Since the dress had only thin straps she added a feathery bolero to cover her shoulders. The lining ended a few inches short of the hem, revealing a see-through glimpse of thigh in certain lights, but with the feathers added she looked modest enough.

  At last, dressed and ready for battle, her breathing nearly as fast as her galloping pulse rate, she surveyed her reflection.

  Red lipstick, the only touch of colour. Black dress, feathers, purse. The sheerest of dusk-coloured silk stockings, and black, very high heels to lend her some much-needed height.

  All black.

  Well, he wanted his Greek woman, didn’t he?

  Sebastian shaved with care, keeping an eye on the clock. Not that he felt any guilt over failing to meet the plane from Athens. Not exactly.

  He was a busy guy. If he didn’t keep an eye on Celestrial, who knew how much of a tangle things could get into? He could hardly place himself at the beck and call of every heiress with a whim to make him her husband.

  Still, manners dictated that tonight he should make the effort to be punctual. It didn’t have to be a late evening. He could buy her a decent dinner, smooth over the jagged hostilities of the first meeting, and be away by nine to get in some work.

  He hoped Miss Giorgias was in a better frame of mind. She’d have been jet-lagged, of course, which would explain her waspish behaviour.

  He splashed his face with water and reached for a towel, avoiding meeting his gaze in the mirror. He hadn’t really been so hard on her, had he? There was a lot more he could have said. Anyway, hadn’t she thanked him at the end for being kind?

  He felt that uncomfortable twinge again and brushed it aside. For God’s sake, did he have to be a nursemaid simply because he’d agreed—under duress—to meet the woman and check out the possibilities?