The Antonides Marriage Deal

by Anne McAllister

  Not that Elias looked very hard. But he couldn’t help paying attention to what he heard. The trouble was, he didn’t hear anything at all.

  Tallie might as well have dropped off the face of the earth.

  And then one afternoon about two and a half weeks after she left, he got a call from her brother Theo.

  “That windsurfer works.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Elias didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “Tallie sent your brother out to show me the plans for his windsurfer. It’s impressive. You should consider it.”

  It wasn’t the windsurfer or his brother that caught Elias’s attention. “Tallie sent him?” he demanded. “When?”

  “Couple of weeks ago now. Maybe three.” Theo couldn’t remember. “I had work to do here. Pete came with me. We sailed up to Boothbay and back. Then we built his windsurfer.”

  “You built—”

  “Yep. Tested it out. Very cool. Like I said, it’s worth looking at. If you’re expanding, you’ll want to talk to him.”

  “I— Where’s Tallie?”

  “No clue.”

  “But—?”

  “But I talked to her a couple of days ago. She said when I talked to you to tell you she was sorry.”

  Elias’s heart stopped. “Sorry? About what?”

  “Dunno. Quitting, I guess. Women are crazy. Even Tallie, and she’s saner than most. Whatever the hell you asked her to do, you must have pissed her off. She just said if you’d asked for the right reasons, she’d have said yes.”

  She would have said yes?

  Yes, she would marry him?

  Then why the hell hadn’t she?

  Elias had wanted her to say yes. Dear God, he had wanted her to say yes!

  And what were the right reasons? Well, he knew the answer to that. For himself at least, the right reasons to marry were for love and commitment and a lifetime together.

  All the things he hadn’t been able to bring himself to say.

  He had said them once to Millicent, and she’d thrown them back in his face.

  But Tallie wasn’t Millicent.

  Tallie was as pure and honest and forthright as the day was long. She told the truth. He was the one who’d been afraid.

  He bolted out of his office, practically knocking down Rosie.

  “I’m out,” he said. “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

  He broke a speed record getting over to her apartment. He ran up the stairs because the elevator took too long. He hammered on her door and waited and waited and waited, desperate to say his piece.

  And then the door opened and all the words he wanted to say dried up. His jaw dropped.

  “Peter?”

  His brother, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and some shaving cream, grinned broadly. “Hey, Eli. Fancy meeting you here.”

  “Where’s Tallie?” Elias pushed past his brother into the apartment, looking around wildly.

  “She’s gone,” Peter said unhelpfully.

  “What do you mean, gone? Gone where? Theo said he talked to her. When’s she coming back?”

  “Gone means not here. Not sure where she went. Not sure she knew. Gone walkabout, I think Lukas would say.”

  “That’s ridiculous! She wouldn’t do anything of the sort. What are you doing here? And why are you…undressed?”

  “Because I just took a shower. And now I’m shaving,” Peter said, “because I have a hot date tonight, and I want to impress the lady in question with my smooth skin. And I’m here because I’m living here.”

  Elias gaped. “What?”

  Peter shrugged. “As much as I would love to make you think I’m living with Tallie, because I know it would annoy the hell out of you, the truth is I’m cat-sitting.”

  Elias stared in disbelief.

  At that moment, as if on cue, Harvey wandered out of the bedroom, meowing. “Cat-sitting,” he echoed. “So she…really isn’t here.”

  “Read my lips,” Peter said wearily. “She really isn’t here.”

  “And she hired you to cat-sit? For how long?”

  Peter shrugged. “However. She didn’t say. She just offered me her place for the time being—while I find a manufacturer for my windsurfer.”

  The windsurfer he’d tried to interest Elias in. The windsurfer Elias had flat-out rejected because he couldn’t believe that Peter was doing any more than wasting time. But Tallie had believed. At least enough to send him to her brother.

  That was what her reference to Theo in her note had been about. It made sense now. One more thing she’d done for the good of the company.

  “Let me see it again,” he said gruffly.

  “Don’t do me any favors.” Peter’s reply was equally brusque.

  “I’m not doing you favors, damn it,” Elias snapped. “I’m doing business. If it’s a good product—and Tallie and Theo apparently think it is—then we might well be interested.”

  Peter’s dark brows lifted. “You’re serious?”

  “Yes. Bring it by the office tomorrow.” Elias paused. “Tell me where she is.”

  “I don’t know. Honest. She called me a couple of days ago. She was in a hurry, she said. Had someplace to go pronto. Wanted to know if I was planning to stick around the city, wondered if I’d be interested in living in her place. I said I’d be more interested if she was here.” Peter grinned.

  Elias ignored that. “And she didn’t say where she had to go?”

  “No idea. But I gather she’s going to be gone a while. She said if I needed to leave before she got back to take Harvey out to her folks’ house.”

  “I have to find her,” he said simply.

  Peter gave him a not unsympathetic smile. “Good luck, bro.”

  It shouldn’t have been hard.

  A woman with Tallie’s talents and business reputation should have been easy to track down. This was the information age, after all. If you knew their habits, discovering anyone’s whereabouts was a piece of cake.

  Sometimes.

  Not this time.

  Elias tried asking his father again if Socrates had said anything about Tallie—where she was, how she was doing, if she liked her new job.

  Aeolus shook his head. “She called him a few days ago. He offered her a job as his vice president in charge of Pacific Northwest operations. Can you believe she turned it down?”

  Elias couldn’t. Not at first. He knew she’d always wanted to work for her father. But maybe she didn’t want him trying to shove more potential husbands down her throat. With her résumé she could take her pick of job offers.

  He’d just have to use a corporate headhunter to track her down.

  The headhunter struck out. “I have a lot of people I could send to you for interviews if you want a new president,” he told Elias.

  But Elias didn’t want anyone else. He only wanted Tallie.

  So he set about trying to find her himself. He spent a good chunk of every day trying to track down Tallie Savas. He spent more time trying to find Tallie than he did working for Antonides Marine.

  To his surprise, Peter took up the slack.

  His brother came in with his plans for the windsurfer, stayed for a meeting and after that showed up every morning at eight.

  “What?” Peter challenged when Elias looked astonished. “You don’t think I can handle this?”

  “Just surprised,” Elias said. The world seemed full of surprises.

  But the biggest one—and the most painful one—was that days went by, weeks went by, and he never found Tallie anywhere.

  Helena, who had heard through Peter and Cristina that Elias was consumed with a search for Tallie Savas was delighted. “I knew you would want a nice Greek girl,” she said happily. “I can find you a nice Greek girl, Elias.”

  But Elias was done with subterfuge. “I don’t want any other nice Greek girl,” he told his mother. “I want Tallie. I love Tallie.”

  He told everyone else because he couldn’t tell her.

&nbs
p; Sometimes, it felt as if he’d dreamed the whole thing, as if she wasn’t really real. But other people remembered her, talked about her, wished that she was there to tell about a grandchild’s piano recital or a baby’s first tooth, or to bring in some of her linzertorte or apfelstrudel.

  Even that self-absorbed pompous ass Martin remembered Tallie’s apfelstrudel.

  Elias had brought in some from the local bakery that morning and he had the misfortune to ride up in the elevator with Martin who sniffed appreciatively, then said, “Probably not as good as Tallie’s.”

  “No.” He and Martin could agree on that.

  “She is a fantastic cook,” Martin said. “But it’s a bloody waste of talent, her apprenticing herself to a Viennese baker, for God’s sake.”

  Elias, who had been tapping his toe and ready to bolt the moment the door slid open, stopped dead. “What?” he said quietly. “She did what?”

  With Martin he stood every chance of getting a lecture on the guild system and why apprenticeships were going to be ringing the death knell of Central European crafts—or whatever. And he did. But eventually he also got, “She’s got some daft notion of becoming a baker.”

  “A baker?” Elias stared at him. “Tallie? Where?”

  Martin rolled his eyes. “Viennese bakers are generally in Vienna.”

  “Tallie’s in Vienna? How do you know?”

  Martin shrugged. “I ran into her last week when I was there doing a story on the UNO.”

  Her workday started at 4:00 a.m. Tallie was there even before Heinrich, the master baker. She did all the low, tedious jobs that fell to the newest apprentices. Heinrich was a Viennese version of Socrates Savas—and Tallie was having to work her way up.

  She cleaned and scoured and scrubbed and then she measured and ground and kneaded and rolled. She worked long, hard hours in the kitchen in the morning and in the shop in the afternoon.

  It was a far cry from the fast track of corporate America, but the truth was that she was doing something she loved. It had been her hobby, her stress-reliever, and ultimately it had been her salvation.

  She was happy. She was challenged. She was learning German. And she could actually go an hour or two at a time without aching for the loss of Elias.

  Of course, she reminded herself as she filled the display cases before the afternoon onslaught of schoolchildren, she’d never really had Elias. They’d had “great sex.” The rest had been all in her mind.

  The door opened and Frau Steinmetz came in. A regular, she always ordered the same thing. Now she said, “Grûsse Gott. Zwei strudel, bitte,” and let Tallie practice her German on her.

  Tallie filled her order, took the money, then counted out the change. Frau Steinmetz listened, nodded, corrected her pronunciation, told her that her German was getting better and so was her baking.

  The door rattled again and, as Frau Steinmetz said, “Bitte,” and departed, two more women came in. Tallie waited on them, then on a group of schoolboys who banged in and milled around.

  They were always a challenge, the orders coming thick and fast.

  “Pfeffernusse, bitte,” a little boy pointed.

  “Funf powidlkolatschen,” said a bigger one.

  “Vanillekipferln, bitte,” said a third.

  Tallie took all the orders, made all the change, laughed and chatted with them, then looked up to watch them dash out the door with their purchases—and saw Elias standing there.

  For a moment she couldn’t believe her eyes. She had dreamed of him so often, had let her mind drift over memories of his strong handsome face, his hard jaw, his lean muscular body, his lopsided grin.

  Her memories paled against the real man.

  Her knees wobbled. Her stomach lurched. She swallowed against a sudden hard lump in her throat. Instinctively she reached for the counter and hung on. He wasn’t grinning.

  He was looking at her as intently as she was looking at him.

  “Elias?” What was he doing here? How had he found her? Why had he found her? Or was it just happenstance, one of those odd coincidences like the way she’d run into Martin in the Stephansplatz last week.

  Elias closed the door behind him. “Tallie.”

  She wanted to run to him, to throw her arms around him, to hang on and never let go. But she couldn’t. Not when she didn’t know why he was here.

  “Can I help you?” she asked in English.

  His lips quirked. “I don’t know. I hope so. I need to show the woman I want to marry that I love her. Any suggestions?”

  She couldn’t even breathe now. “You…love?”

  He nodded. “Always have. Just too stupid to say so. Too afraid,” he corrected, meeting her gaze honestly. “After Millicent, I thought I could protect myself if I didn’t admit it. I was wrong.”

  “I’m not Millicent!”

  He smiled slightly. “No, thank God. You’re not at all like Millicent. You are honest and brave and forthright and gorgeous and—”

  Tallie’s heart was singing. She almost laughed. “Thrifty, strong and reverent?” she said. “Like a regular Boy Scout.”

  “Believe me, if you were a Boy Scout, I wouldn’t be asking you to marry me,” Elias grinned. Then the grin vanished and his expression grew grave. “Will you marry me, Tallie? For the right reasons this time? For love and honor and commitment. Forever?”

  “Yes. Oh, Elias, yes!” And then Tallie did her best to fling herself into his arms.

  It wasn’t easy kissing a man over the top of a bakery counter. There was a lot of cabinet in the way, for one thing. There was a stern Viennese baker lecturing them in fast and furious German for another.

  “What’s he saying?” Elias wanted to know. He was still kissing her and she was kissing him. It had been so long. She couldn’t get enough of him.

  “He wants to know if you’re buying anything. If not, he wants you to move along,” Tallie reported with a grin.

  “Ask him how much he wants for the woman behind the counter?”

  “She’s yours. For your love, you’ve got her forever,” Tallie promised.

  Elias hauled her right over the counter and wrapped his arms around her and kissed her with all the love he had in him. “It’s a deal.”

  Her flat was about the size of Harvey’s litter pan. It was on the top floor of an apartment block that looked like something out of Stalag 17. But it had a bed, and they fell into it the minute they got there.

  Buttons popped, zippers slid. And then they were skin to skin, heart to heart. And for all that Elias wanted to take it slow and show her how much he loved her, Tallie didn’t let him.

  “We can go slow later,” she told him. “We’ve got forever.” She looked him in the eyes. “Don’t we?”

  “We do,” Elias vowed. He kissed her, rocked her, then slid inside her and knew how much more it was than great sex.

  “I love you, Tallie Savas,” he whispered later. “Don’t ever leave me again.”

  “Never,” Tallie promised. She kissed him long and slow and deep. “I didn’t want to leave you in the first place. But I couldn’t—couldn’t marry for less than love.”

  “Neither could I,” Elias said. “I just couldn’t admit it.” He stroked a hand down her smooth skin, loving the feel of her, wanting her again, even though he’d just had her, but happy to wait, too, because they really did have time—and each other.

  “Are you serious about baking?” he asked. “Really?”

  “I am. I thought I wanted all the business stuff—and it is exhilarating—but the baking centres me. Like your woodworking,” she added, giving him a sideways glance, expecting him to dispute it as he had last time. But he didn’t.

  “I was thinking about that on the flight over,” he said. “Thinking about Pete’s windsurfer and Nikos Costanides’s boatyard and envying them just a little.”

  “You saw Peter’s windsurfer?”

  He nodded. “We’re doing it. Theo recommended it. He said you thought it was worth looking at.”
r />   “I was leaving it up to you. I just thought maybe—”

  “You were right. You were right about Corbett’s, too. We didn’t buy it. We’re doing Pete’s windsurfer instead. And he’s come onboard as a vice president.”

  “Peter?”

  “Will wonders never cease?” Elias said drily. “He’s actually gung-ho about the business now. So I was thinking I might…try my hand at a boat or two. Building, I mean.” He seemed almost tentative.

  Tallie beamed. “Really? Like Nikos?”

  “If you don’t mind. Someday I’d like to have what he’s got.”

  “I want you to do what makes you happy,” Tallie assured him.

  “Boats, then,” he decided. “And working with Pete. But mostly—” he looked deep into her eyes “—loving you makes me happy.”

  “Likewise,” Tallie said, nestling against him, laying her head on his chest, listening to the sound of his heart, loving it. Loving him.

  Then she lifted her head and looked down at him, still smiling. “We could get to work on it now, you know,” she said. “What Nikos has got.”

  “You want to build a boat?”

  “No, darling.” Tallie kissed his nose, his chin and then let her lips linger on his lips. “I want to get started on the three stair-stepsons!”

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-5813-0

  THE ANTONIDES MARRIAGE DEAL

  First North American Publication 2006.

  Copyright © 2006 by Barbara Schenck.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.