“But it was offered,” she said, taking a step backwards, even when all she wanted was to stay right there, close to him, feeling his heat and warmth. “I chose you.”
“You chose nothing.” His eyes swept shut. “You were chosen for Addan and he died, leaving you to me…”
“Do you think you are the only one who had been fighting this?” She shook her head gently, her expression showing anguish. “Addan was so safe, Malik. He adored me and I him, and I knew we would spend the rest of our lives in a very relaxed, respectful friendship. I had lost so much – my father’s death changed me. I didn’t want the highs and lows of a passionate affair. I just wanted calm, easy contentment. Addan and I were perfectly suited in that regard. But you were like a sinkhole. If you were in the room, you were all I could think of, all I could look towards. Instinctively I fought this, and you, but I don’t think I could have fought it forever. I think, after Addan’s birthday, something would have changed. I don’t think two people can be so right for one another as you and I are and not find their way eventually.”
He made a guttural noise, rushing his hands through his hair, dislodging it from the messy bun. “You say that and yet, look what it took? You almost died. I have had to look down the barrel at life without you to realise that no guilt for Addan could prevent me from being honest with you.”
He groaned, moving towards her. “If you had died and never known how sorry I was, how wrong I have been, Sophia, it would have killed me. I fell in love with you so long ago, and I had to fight it. I had to fight wanting you, needing you, craving you. And it became a habit, a habit that didn’t die with my brother. I don’t want to fight you anymore.”
Her sob was completely involuntary. She swallowed it as best as she could.
He wrapped an arm around her back, pulling her towards him gently, mindful of her scars – physical and emotional – mindful that all would take time to heal.
“I stared at you and I read Plato to you, and I kept hearing a quote from it, chasing itself around and around my mind.” He dropped his head, kissing her forehead because he could no longer resist. “I am the wisest man alive –“
“For I know one thing,” she interrupted. “And that is that I know nothing.”
He nodded jerkily. “I thought I had all the answers. I thought I could keep you boxed away in one place, that I could give you one aspect of myself and take one aspect of yours, and that it would be like an addict having a very small fix. I thought it would in some way mitigate my betrayal of Addan, if I didn’t overwrite everything he’d meant to you, if I didn’t demand your heart as well as your body.”
He dropped his head lower, brushing his lips over hers, and her heart squeezed.
“I thought I had all the answers, but I knew nothing. You were never going to be kept in one small box of my life, and nor should you have been. My father was right to select you as Sheikha – you are the most spectacular woman I have ever known. You have spread into my life, into all parts of my soul. I fell in love with you so long ago, Sophia, but I have fallen in love with you again and again, every day of our marriage.” He wrapped her tighter, close to his body.
“I know I cannot say anything here that will take away the damage I have caused. I know it will take time for you to forgive me, to let me back in. But I want, more than anything, to earn my place at your side, Sophia Bin Hazari.”
It was too much. His anguish was too much. “Stop it.”
He was very still for a moment and then he dropped his hands to his side.
“Addan was my best friend. Not for anything on this earth would I have risked hurting him. Can you not see how much more it makes me love you, to know you were willing to walk away from me even when it hurt you, hurt me, all for Addan? You loved him, and you cared for him and respected him. There is no guilt here for you to bear. If our marriage is a resurrection from the ashes of his death, I can’t feel bad about that. Until the day he died, we were faithful to him, to his wishes.”
Malik swallowed roughly, she felt the movement.
“You were faithful to Addan and knowing now what that cost you, it makes me care for you even more. There is only goodness in what you did.”
He groaned. “You are rewriting my actions…”
“No. I’m holding a mirror up and showing you that you can be proud of your conduct with Addan. You sacrificed for him. You were a good brother.”
“And a terrible husband.”
She lowered her eyes, her heart strangely light, her chest tingling. “There’s room for improvement,” she conceded, after a beat.
“Will you let me improve?”
She frowned, looking to him.
“I have had seven days to think about this, Sophia, to think about how I can fix this. And I have to say this to you. You have any option at your disposal that you would wish. Stay here in Abu Faya as my Sheikh, but never see me again, if that is your wish. Stay here in Abu Faya and divorce me, and I will ensure you never worry about anything, all your life. Go back to America; I will understand all these things. These are the options I should have presented you, that night he died, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I wasn’t strong enough then to let you go.”
“And you are now?”
“Keeping you here and watching a part of you die because you are so miserable is not something I can do a second time.” His expression was ash. “Seeing you fade from me, these last few months, knowing myself impotent to fix it, God, Sophia, I cannot do that again. Choose what will make you happy and let me give that to you. Your happiness is all I care for now.”
So much grief flew from her and there was only relief in its place. “You want to make me happy?”
“With all my heart. I must.”
She nodded. “Fine. Then let me tell you what I want.”
And he held his breath, waiting, his expression one of pure wariness.
“Be my husband.” Her eyes bore into his. “Be my husband in every way. Talk to me, laugh with me, share your life with me. Your worries, your frustrations, your triumphs. Let me take my place at your side, as your Sheikha and as your wife. Your partner in all things. Be the parent to our children that I know you are.”
He didn’t speak. He only stared at her.
“Take me to the desert, often. Take me to those magical people, to be a part of their life and culture. Love me, Malik, without guilt, without fear. Love me completely.” She lifted up onto the tips of her toes, pressing a kiss against his lips. He groaned and deepened it, holding her right where she was, his tongue duelling with hers, the force of his relief evident in every cell of his body.
“I promise you, Sophia, all of this, and all of me.”
“And I promise you I will be happy from now on,” she said, smiling, because she knew, without even a hint of doubt, that it was absolutely true. She had everything she needed, and always would, for evermore.
THE END
The Greek’s Marriage Revenge
Prologue
Twenty years earlier
“I’m so hungry,” Helena shivered, her frail seven-year-old frame curled over like a conch shell. The rain was lashing in from every direction, but she had the most sheltered spot in the litter-strewn street. Beneath a threadbare awning, her grotty face dry, her matted hair only a little damp; it was the best Alessandro could do.
“I’m going to find you something to eat,” Alex swore with more determination than clue. “And one day, Helena, we’re going to live like Kings.”
Helena’s teeth chattered. “I-I-I’m not a boy.”
“No,” he agreed, looking from one direction to the other. The commuters were still drifting down the cobbled laneway. It was too early. Soon, though, he’d head out to the restaurant precinct and take what he could. Discarded meals, ignored wallets. Anything that would keep his little sister going. It was harder for her. She was so skinny her bones were protruding through her olive skin; he was big and strong, despite the hunger that constantly gnawed at his gut. He’d
got used to it. At fourteen, he could rationalise it. He could tell himself it was temporary.
Alessandro Petrides was determined not to let homelessness, poverty or fear control him.
He sat down beside Helena and the dirty street water soaked through his already sodden pants. “You need to think your way out of this. Imagine yourself on a tropical beach. Imagine you’re warm and dry and your belly is full of food.”
“But I’m so hungry I could die.”
“Don’t die,” Alex responded jokingly, but inside, his heart was breaking. For three years he’d fought for them. He’d kept them alive, but they weren’t really living. What kind of existence was this? “I’d miss you.”
“You’d only have one of us to feed though.”
How could his sweet little Helena have such a sad understanding of their state in the world? He put an arm around her shoulders. “I’d give my last meal to you, Helena. You know that.” He kissed her head. “It’s just you and me, okay? We’re going to be fine.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m your brother. It’s my job to look after you.”
“But …”
“No buts,” he contradicted. “Forever and ever, whatever you need, I will be there for you.” He nudged her with his body. “Just promise me you won’t quit.”
* * *
Twenty years later
“There is no way your husband is cheating on you, Helena. You are being paranoid.”
“I’m not!” The agony in his sister’s voice reached him, across the continent to his palatial home on the ragged cliffs of Corfu.
“Of course you are. I know Eric. He is one of my oldest friends. He is a good man.”
“Trust you to defend him!”
Alex exhaled a long, slow breath and tried to bring his impatience to order. “If he has slept around, believe me, Helena, I will be the first to condemn his behaviour. But you have no proof.”
“I don’t need proof.”
Alex shook his head ruefully. Beneath him, the moon bathed the cresting waves of the Ionian in a pale milky glow.
“You haven’t seen her.”
“The nanny?” Alex scoffed. For Eric Sandhurst was hardly the kind of man to sleep around with menials in his employ.
“Yes, the nanny.” It was a hiss from between her teeth. “Sophie bloody Henderson. All perfect, blonde, five foot nothing of her.”
Alex ran a hand over the back of his neck, dragging his fingers through the dark hair that curled a little at his nape. “Then your solution is simple. If you truly believe this to be true, fire her.”
“I tried! Eric won’t let me!” Her voice was becoming higher in pitch; her tone obviously desperate.
Alex’s dark eyes, almost as dark and shimmering as the night sky beyond him, were focussed on a trawler in the distance. The nets were lowering, and the boat was lurching in the movements of the current.
“It is a domestic decision. You do not need to listen to him. He is barely around to object, I should have thought.”
“That might have been the case before we hired her, but now? He’s like a love-sick puppy. He follows her to the park with the children. He makes sure he is home for story time. They curl in the bed together and read to the boys. Please, Alessandro, you know I would not trouble you with this if I were not truly afraid for my marriage.”
Alex’s fingers curled more tightly around his phone. His sister had always held a flare for the dramatic. It was entirely possible that she was imbuing perfectly innocent scenarios with a degree of fault that didn’t belong. “Why do you not partake in these events too?”
“You are blaming me for his infidelity.”
“Alleged infidelity,” Alex corrected automatically. “And of course I am not. I am simply reminding you that it is your house. They are your children. He is your husband. You are not forbidden from spending time with them.”
“I’m an outsider.” She sobbed quietly, but Alex heard it, and it tore his heart in two. His sister was grieving, regardless of what the facts might be. “The way he looks at her … I know he loves her. Because it is how he once looked at me.”
A small kernel of worry lodged in Alex’s gut. He knew that his sister’s marriage had been troubled. The difficulties they’d experienced conceiving, coupled with several miscarriages and finally, children who were boisterous and exhausting at times, had strained them.
“I think you must fire her.”
“Eric may leave me.”
“Of course he won’t leave you.” Apart from anything, Alex’s old friend was ambitious as hell. His desire to one day run for mayor of London would smother any divorce notions. Even if he no longer loved Helena? Is that what Alex wanted? For his only sister, a woman he had virtually raised, to be in a marriage with a man who didn’t love her?
“Perhaps you and he should get away for a time. Come here, to Greece, where I can talk with him.”
“No!” Her voice shook. “I already suggested a vacation. He told me he has too much work on.”
Alex’s kernel of doubt was gaining in size and weight. He didn’t want to think the worst of his friend. And yet, his sister was clearly not going to be placated.
“Paidi mou, do not make yourself uneasy. I will come to you.”
“And will you end it, Alex?”
His laugh was a harsh sound in the night. “Believe me, if there is something going on, I will bring an end to it.”
Chapter 1
“Ian! John! Come here now!”
“We’re hiding!” The sweet little voice, unmistakably Ian with it’s huskier tone, emerged from beneath the sofa. Sophie made a show of lifting the cushions on an opposite dais before moving towards the piano. She sat on the stool with a melodramatic sigh and pretended not to see the chubby, tanned fingers splayed across the floor.
“I do hope I haven’t lost those twins. Their mummy and daddy would be so cross with me.”
A giggle erupted – she couldn’t have picked which twin it belonged to, for their laughs were identical. Matching little peals of amusement that always brought an answering grin to her own face.
“Then again, I suppose I could dress their teddies up in the boys’ clothes. Perhaps that would fool them. I would, of course, need to take the teddies to the park. And feed them their marmite toast.” Another giggle.
She walked across the room and picked up one of the teddies. It was threadbare in places, from having been hugged so tight.
“What do you think, Mr Teddy? Would you be Ian? Or John?” She tapped his little nose and then crouched down onto her knees. “What’s that Mr Teddy? You see them? Where?” She pushed the bear under the sofa and moved his head up and down. The giggles were loud now, loud enough to reach the three people assembled in the corridor. Helena, her face pale, looked nervously towards the lounge area.
Alex followed her gaze. His sister was hardly herself. Where once she had smiled easily, her face was now pinched. “Where are my nephews? I am anxious to see them.”
Eric apparently didn’t perceive a hint of tension. Nor did he question the unexpected arrival of his brother-in-law. That a man as powerful as Alessandros Petrides should decide on a whim to visit was not unusual. Alex had always marched to the beat of his own drum, and done very much as he wished, when he wished it. Eric was simply pleased to see the man he cared so much for. He put an arm forward, indicating that Alex should move into the lounge area.
When they arrived at the door, Sophie was lying on her stomach, half under the sofa. What Alex could see earned a flicker of interest. Her waist was narrow, and her shirt had lifted to expose several inches of honey-coloured skin. She wore pale jeans that showed off her slender, curved legs and rounded rear. Her feet were bare.
“Oh, Mr Teddy. How right you were. You are a genius, and so beautifully furry too. What did we do before we found you?” Giggles emerged from beneath the furniture; two boys and one woman’s. Her accent was Australian, her tone pleasingly soft.
; “Now, we have a serious mission this evening, boys.”
“What? What-iddit?” The voice of John emerged, slightly blurred by laughter.
“Ah. You’ll have to come out with me if you want to know that. Are you ready? Shall we fly out together?”
“Fly? We can’t fly.”
“Of course you can. So long as we hold hands, we can do anything.”
“No, that’s not true.” Ian was always more serious than his brother; he was a thinker, intent on knowing how things worked. “Little boys can’t fly.”
“Well, ordinarily not, no.” She leaned closer, and in the darkness beneath the sofa, she saw both boys clamour closer, their eyes shining. “But have I ever told you about Peter Pan and the lost boys?”
They shook their heads in unison. “Goodness me. What an omission. Perhaps that is the book we shall read next.” She held hands with both boys. “Now, I don’t personally have any fairy dust with me right now, but we will learn, from the book, where I can get some.”
“Fairy dust?” Ian was sceptical, and it brought a small smile to Sophie’s lips.
“Or so they say.” She shifted her head so that she could see John; it was no mean feat in the small space she occupied.
“I want to read the book!” It was John. Always enthusiastic and ready for adventure. In many ways, he was a kindred spirit of the lovable Peter Pan.
“Well, let me see if I can remember what we need to say. Second star to the right, and straight on ‘til morning.”
The boys did their best to repeat it, and then Sophie began to slide backwards, with the boys inching along behind her. Their hiding was forgotten now; one adventure completely swamped by the promise of another.
Sophie stood, and for the first time, became aware that there were other people in the room.
Alex was, momentarily, transfixed.
Helena had not exaggerated this woman’s charms. In fact, Helena, as a woman, perhaps didn’t even completely comprehend the sensual promise that was offered in every inch of this petite, curvaceous woman. From her shimmering blonde hair that was scraped carelessly into a pony tail, to the wide-set, clear blue eyes and dainty nose with a little ski jump tip, to the lips that were full and pink, to a body that men would go to war for and skin that was soft and golden, the nanny was undeniably gorgeous.
Billionaire Brides: An Anthology Page 19
