Betrothed: To the People’s Prince

by Marion Lennox

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ It did, but not tonight. Tonight was hers. Tonight was her dream time, history had never happened and she was surrendering herself to the here and now.

  As was Nikos.

  ‘I believe ten years ago is best forgotten,’ he whispered, tugging her close, folding her against him and wrapping her in his arms. ‘For tonight, at least.’

  And then he kissed her, long and hard, as she’d ached to be kissed for ten long years, as she longed to be kissed for ever.

  Ten years dissipated just like that. He was her Nikos. Hers! And she was his, with every fibre of her being.

  When the kiss ended they both knew it was immutable truth.

  ‘Will you come to my bed, my love?’ he asked, in a voice that sounded shaken. And then the loved laughter returned. ‘Or…your bed?’

  ‘Aren’t there enough stars out here?’

  ‘Not for the serious gazer,’ he told her, and the wicked laughter was back. Gloriously back.

  ‘Counting stars beats counting sheep. That is, if we can’t think of anything else to do.’

  She had to be serious here. Laughter would not do.

  ‘Last time we did what I understand you’re suggesting, I believe we made Nicky,’ she said in a voice that was none too steady.

  ‘So we’re older and wiser-and a bit more prepared.’

  ‘You’re prepared?’

  ‘I believe I am.’ He was tugging her close again, kissing her eyelids, each in turn.

  ‘So am I,’ she whispered.

  The kissing stopped. She was held at arm’s length again. Nikos’s face showed blank astonishment. ‘Did I just hear what I thought I heard?’

  ‘I might be forgetting most of the last ten years,’ she said, beginning to laugh. ‘But there are a couple of things I need to remember. Like the lecture given to me by my doctor after Nicky’s birth. If you think I’d come within a hundred miles of you again without contraception, you’re not the man I think you are, Nikos Andreadis.’

  ‘My Thena!’ And the laughter was back. The wonderful laughter that had blazed between them since the hour they’d first met.

  ‘Don’t you dare laugh,’ she said, but she couldn’t help herself. She was laughing as well, at his laughter, at his joy, at the assurance of joy to come.

  At the knowledge that for this night this man was hers. He always had been, she thought, from the time she’d met him to now. She’d borne his son. She’d carried him in her heart for ever.

  ‘I’m not laughing,’ he told her and it was true. The laughter had changed. He was watching her now with eyes as dark as night, with an expression on his face she’d never seen before-of tenderness, of joy, and of something more.

  Of hope for the future?

  That was what it was, she thought as she melted into him, as he lifted her into his arms and carried her unprotesting down the winding staircase, to a vast bedchamber with windows looking out in every direction to the sea beneath and to the islands beyond. As he laid her tenderly on the bed-a bed big enough for a king or six, piled high with feather pillows so soft she almost disappeared into them. As he pulled the curtains, one after another, cutting out the view, the islands, the sea, the outside world. Everything but the sky.

  As he lit the candles, one by one.

  And as he came to her where she lay, waiting for the man of her dreams.

  He unfastened his shirt and she watched him, awed, fascinated, so deeply in love she thought she could die right now and be happy.

  She matched him button for button, unfastening her robe. His dark eyes flared with passion. His shirt was gone long before she had her robe undone-why weren’t her fingers working?-but it didn’t matter. For he was helping her.

  And finally she was free. His hands slipped in beneath her nightgown to cup her breasts and she wanted to cry out with sheer happiness. Sheer joy.

  She was pushing her nightgown down, desperate to be closer. He helped her, kissing as he went, touching, tasting, loving, until her body was flames.

  Nikos. Her first and last love. Nikos…

  She was naked, gloriously, wonderfully naked, and so was he. He was sinking into the pillows beside her, gathering her into his arms.

  His body was against her body. Skin against skin-the most erotic sensation in the world.

  The heartbreak of years faded to nothing. The children, the island, responsibilities-everything was gone.

  There was only this man, this love and this night. There was only Nikos.

  She woke and the world she’d lived in for ten long years had disappeared.

  This was a fantasy-a fairy tale. At some time in the future it would end, but for now she was selfish enough, needy enough, to say thank you very much, this is where I belong. Maybe when reality hits I’ll have a long time to remember this, so I need to soak up every precious moment.

  She was lying in the arms of the man she loved with all her heart. And, whether she believed it or not-and yes, her head was screaming at her to be wary-the feeling seemed to be reciprocated. Nikos was loving her as he’d loved her ten years ago. But this was a grown man now, a businessman, a prince of the people, a lover, a man with strength and gentleness, laughter and tenderness, wonder and hope.

  He was hers and she was his. For now they were two lovers exulting in each other’s bodies. Drowning in each other’s eyes.

  And the place where they were loving was over-the-top fantastic.

  ‘I’m hoping this glass is one way,’ Nikos murmured in the aftermath of loving. ‘Otherwise we could have some very shocked seagulls. You think we should declare this place a fly free zone?’

  ‘And enforce it how?’

  ‘I can’t,’ he said morosely. ‘I believe it’s you who’s in charge of royal decrees.’

  She giggled.

  But then…Her giggle was echoed from outside the door. Two giggles.

  ‘Uh-oh,’ Nikos said. Athena dived under the covers and Nikos had his pants on and was fastening his shirt before three small faces appeared around the door. Two kids and a dog. Oscar took one look and leaped with joyous abandon onto the bed, and Nicky and Christa landed straight after. Athena was overwhelmed by dog and kids. Nicky hugged her, Christa hugged her too, on the basis of what was good for Nicky was okay by her, and Oscar licked every face in reach.

  Her family. She was buried in family. She hugged and sniffed and she glanced up and saw her emotions reflected on Nikos’s face.

  No. Not her family.

  Their family.

  ‘Did you both sleep in here?’ Nicky demanded, awed.

  ‘I’m happy to tell you your mother didn’t snore-very much,’ Nikos said magnanimously. ‘I slept on this side of the bed, she slept on the other and if I piled the pillows really high it was just a muted little snortle.’

  ‘Ooh,’ Athena said, and emerged from kids and dog long enough to toss a pillow at him. Her aim wasn’t bad considering the handicap she was under-clutching bedclothes so the kids wouldn’t discover she was naked. But Nikos hadn’t defended himself and he was thumped right in the chest.

  ‘Yay,’ Nicky said and took his lead from his mother, and in seconds pillows were going everywhere.

  Her family.

  Their family.

  Betrayal was a thing of the past, she thought mistily, giggling and tossing the odd pillow herself. Now was just for…now.

  They had three days and three nights of magic.

  Athena asked no questions. She was simply living in the moment. Nikos watched her as the days wore on and thought she was holding the kids to her, holding him to her, as if she feared they could be snatched away at any moment.

  Somewhere outside the castle Demos was still plotting. Nikos was sure of it. But Alexandros was working on his behalf. Nikos’s job was to keep his little family here; keep them safe until the threat could be defused.

  It was no hardship at all. It was pure magic.

  He had his kids. He had Thena. As far as he was concerned Alexandros could t
ake as long as he needed to defuse the threat. This time out was theirs.

  Only of course reality finally had to intrude.

  Nikos had organised the lawyers to come on the third day.

  ‘We need to get things settled before we go back to the palace,’ he told her.

  ‘Um…aren’t things settled?’

  ‘The affairs of the island aren’t,’ he said, kissing her on the nose. ‘So tomorrow it’s lawyers.’ Then he hesitated. ‘Thene, it’s going to be a long, boring day. My mother is asking if she could take Nicky and Christa. They’ll be safe-Demos can gain nothing by hurting one of you alone, and I’ll send Joe with them to make sure. Do you think Nicky would like to go?’

  ‘We’ll ask him,’ she said, and did, and Nicky thought the idea of a grandmother was too cool for words.

  When Annia came to fetch them in an ancient Land Rover with no roof, he decided she was even cooler. They piled into the back seat, only to discover one of Annia’s hens had decided this was a great nesting box. So off they went, with a handful of eggs each, with Oscar squished in the middle and with two grins a mile wide.

  For Athena and Nikos the day promised to be far less exciting than the kids’. They needed to announce a coronation date, but first…there were so many papers to read and to sign that her head spun. The contracts and deeds ensuring legal ascension were mind-blowing.

  But between the legal stuff, it was great that the kids were happy, she thought. She had visions of her son and Christa at Annia’s kitchen table, where she’d spent the happiest part of her childhood. They were safe. And Nikos was right here, reading through the contracts with her, trying to make it less boring.

  Her family was where it ought to be. She could cope with a boring day or two. And after she signed…Annia had offered to keep the children until dinner time. That meant Athena had a whole evening with Nikos, and no kids.

  She was already thinking of the little cove under the castle. She’d have a secluded beach with only herself and Nikos.

  She glanced up from the document she was signing and saw Nikos watching her-and she blushed.

  He grinned.

  She blushed some more.

  She was signing the last contract. The lawyers were starting to pack up documents, beaming, congratulating.

  And then Nikos’s phone rang.

  He listened and his face lost colour. She was at his side in an instant. ‘What…what…’

  ‘Mama’s just rung,’ he said. ‘The kids…Demos has the kids.’

  He had her hand. He was running, tugging her behind him, down the castle steps to the limousine parked in front. The lawyers were abandoned, shocked to silence.

  She drove while Nikos barked orders into his phone. Then he told her what had happened.

  ‘Mama used the time while she had the kids to cook dinner for a neighbour who’s ill. The kids were playing-they were happy and she thought it’d only take five minutes to pop the food next door, the children were in the garden and Joe was in the house. He’d taken his eyes off the children only for a moment. The first he knew of trouble was a scream from the cove below the house. By the time he got down there they were gone.’

  Gone…

  ‘Is he sure it’s Demos?’ Athena asked in a voice she scarcely recognised as hers.

  ‘He saw him,’ he said, his voice catching. ‘He had both the children in the boat-the same boat that tried to hit you. I’ve just rung Alexandros on Sappheiros. He has a helicopter. I thought this was safe. I never dreamed…’ His voice broke.

  She wanted to hold him. She had to keep driving, but it took every ounce of self-restraint not to pull over, take him in her arms and comfort him.

  He was her man. She knew it. Whatever had happened in the past, Nikos was her man and she’d fight for him. As she’d fight for her child. Her children, she corrected herself. Her family.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ANNIA was standing in her kitchen, white-faced and tearful. They walked in, she stepped straight into Nikos’s arms and sobbed out her horror on his chest.

  Then she tugged back from Nikos and hugged Athena. And then Joe came lumbering in, looking like a dog who’d been kicked. Before Thena knew it, Joe was a part of the hug.

  Family.

  Despite her terror, here was a glimmer of comfort. She let herself be hugged, she let herself be wept on and if she wept too, it didn’t matter.

  The hugs were fast; there were too many imperatives to indulge in emotion, but it steadied her. For this moment she’d take comfort where she could find it.

  There were more men entering the kitchen now, summoned by Joe-big men, determined, grave-faced. Not knowing what to do.

  She held Nikos and Nikos held her. Who was holding who up? It didn’t matter. They were facing this as one.

  But there was nothing to do. The consensus was that all their hope had to be in Alexandros and his helicopter. It was the only thing fast enough to locate a boat so powerful.

  She was trying so hard to think. How to think when you were enmeshed in panic? She must.

  ‘What…what would Demos do with them?’ she managed, speaking to the room in general, and the unsayable had been said.

  Annia gave one heartrending sob and ended up held again by Nikos.

  But Athena wasn’t thinking like that. She met Nikos’s gaze over his mother’s head. She saw his terror, and inexplicably it steadied her.

  She knew her cousin. He was a weak-willed man, greedy for riches. Desperate even. But he wasn’t completely stupid.

  ‘He wouldn’t hurt them,’ she said, and the words themselves steadied her, for she knew they were the truth. ‘Not deliberately. Yes, he tried to kill Nicky and me, but that was aimed at the two of us, staged to be an accident. Think of all he’d lose by hurting them now. He’s been seen. He knows that. If he’s known to have hurt them, he could never claim this Crown. Plus, this world doesn’t hold a hiding place deep and dark enough if he touches my Nicky.’ She shook her head, still puzzled. ‘And I don’t understand how he got them both onto his boat. Was there only him?’

  ‘Yes,’ Joe said. ‘He had them in the boat by the time I saw them.’

  ‘If he’d grabbed Christa, Nicky might have decided to stay with her,’ Nikos said doubtfully, following her train of thought. ‘Was it Nicky who screamed?’

  ‘It surely was,’ Joe said. ‘I heard him screaming from here, and by the time I reached the beach I could still hear him.’

  ‘If Demos came up here and grabbed them…why didn’t he scream here? You’d surely have heard if he had.’

  Joe had no answers.

  It made less and less sense. She knew her Nicky. ‘For Demos to creep in here and grab them without alerting you…And to get him into the boat…Was he holding him? Why didn’t he jump out?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe Demos tied him up. I couldn’t see.’

  ‘He’ll be trying to blackmail you into giving up the throne,’ Nikos said.

  ‘He must be.’ But she’d steadied. She’d heard enough now to be less panicked. ‘And if he is then he’ll contact us.’ She forced herself to say what they all knew they had to do. ‘We have to wait.’

  But Nikos’s face was still strained to breaking.

  ‘Christa has a heart condition,’ he said numbly to the room in general, and she felt his wash of absolute fear. Her normally daredevil lover was jelly in the face of a threat to his daughter. ‘She’s on medication. She has to have it. If we don’t find her…’

  ‘He can’t have her,’ Annia said fiercely. ‘He’d never love her. Oh…’

  ‘It’s okay, Mama,’ Nikos said, hauling himself together again in the face of his mother’s terror. ‘Demos doesn’t want her and, like Thena said, he can’t afford to hurt them. We’ll find her.’

  Oscar was at Thena’s feet. She knelt and hugged him while Nikos held his mother. ‘Why didn’t you bite him, Oscar?’ she whispered.

  There was no answer.

  Her terror had faded a little. This
had to be an attempt at blackmail, she thought. But…in her confused mind she found room for more questions. What had Annia said? ‘He can’t have her. He’d never love her.’

  Why would Demos want Christa? There were undercurrents here she didn’t understand.

  She straightened and Nikos’s arm came round her waist and held. He was more afraid than she was, she thought.

  How serious was Christa’s heart condition?

  Now wasn’t the time to ask. Now it seemed all they could do was wait, and to wait seemed the hardest thing in the world.

  ‘I’ll make…I’ll make coffee,’ Annia said, but subsided into her handkerchief instead.

  And then Nikos’s phone rang.

  He flipped it open and listened.

  He had the absolute attention of everyone in the room. Even Oscar was looking up, though that probably had more to do with the time and the absence of dinner.

  But Oscar’s dinner was doomed to wait. Nikos flipped the phone closed again. Frowning.

  ‘Alexandros himself is flying the chopper,’ Nikos told them, speaking slowly, thinking it through as he spoke. ‘That was Alex now. Demos and the children are indeed in the boat, and they seem fine. But, according to Alexandros, they’re going nowhere. Their boat’s stopped. He thinks it must have run out of petrol. It’s floating half a mile off the northern end of the island. Alexandros is holding position until we can reach them.’

  He took a deep breath. Moving on.

  ‘We’ll take my runabout. It’s faster than the bigger boats,’ he snapped. ‘Let’s go. I’ll radio as soon as we know. Can you guys bring one of the bigger boats after us?’

  He grabbed Athena’s hand, and they were gone.

  It took fifteen long minutes to get there. Fifteen minutes with the runabout’s motor roaring at full throttle. Smashing through the swells with sickening thumps.

  If Demos had restarted the engine…Or if they’d tipped the boat…

  She glanced at Nikos and his face was grim as death.

  He’d do whatever it took.

  She’d never doubted it. Not for a minute. He’d do whatever he must to keep these children safe. To keep the islanders safe.