Bride Behind The Billion-Dollar Veil (Crazy Rich Greek Weddings Book 2)

by Clare Connelly

  ‘What comes next is already here.’ She bit down on her lip and he had the most awful feeling that she was trying not to cry. ‘I don’t “think” I’m in love with you. I know I am. And knowing that, there’s no way I can keep pretending to be your wife, making love with you—’ her voice cracked ‘—if it doesn’t mean anything to you.’

  He stood up, rejecting those words, pulling her into his arms. ‘I didn’t say it means nothing,’ he growled, the words almost primal, coming from somewhere deep inside him. ‘I just don’t want you to think sex equates to love.’

  ‘It’s not just sex,’ she said, not facing him, pressing her cheek to his chest. ‘It’s everything I feel when we’re together. At dinner. Waking up beside you. I love you. I love your mind, your ideas, your passion, your determination. I’m head over heels in love with every single part of you and it will suffocate me if I have to stay here with you pretending I don’t feel that way, or knowing that you don’t feel that for me—I can’t do it. I just can’t.’

  He groaned, stepping back from her just enough to see her face. He pressed a finger beneath her chin, tilting her face up to his. ‘So what do you want?’

  She opened her mouth, her eyes laced with disbelief, and every cell in his body was compelling him to say something, to beg her to stay anyway, to promise her just enough to keep her with him. Hell, to lie to her, if that was what it took.

  But he couldn’t do that.

  He couldn’t say he loved her when he didn’t.

  He felt as if he was losing his mind; nothing made sense.

  ‘I want to go home.’ Her voice was hoarse. ‘I know we had a deal. I can try to pay you back what you’ve already spent on Mom. It will take me time but I can—’

  ‘Seriously,’ he interrupted, staying completely still. ‘Don’t. You think I care about money?’

  She jerked her face away from his. ‘I think you’re paying me a lot of money for a marriage that I’m walking out of.’

  ‘You did your part,’ he muttered, dragging a hand through his hair. ‘You saw Kosta, so, as far as I’m concerned, your obligations to me are at an end.’

  She swept her eyes shut for a moment. ‘Then there’s no reason for me to stay here.’

  He was eight years old again, having the rug pulled out from under him, having all the boundaries of his world shift brightly and unexpectedly. He was eight years old and losing someone important and valuable and unique in his life. Except this was different, because he was making this decision; he was in control, just like always.

  The thought didn’t reassure him at all.

  But there was no way he could offer Alice what she needed—no way he’d even try. He knew what she’d been through with Clinton; he wasn’t going to be another asshole who broke her heart.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, simply. ‘I was careless with you. I should have guarded against this better.’

  A tear rolled down her cheek and his gut clenched hard and fast.

  He didn’t touch her. He no longer felt he had any right.

  She swallowed, her face so pale, so pinched. ‘What next?’

  The question caught him by surprise and, briefly, hope flared in his chest, because that sounded like there was the opening to change her mind.

  ‘I can’t get off the island without you,’ she whispered.

  Logistics.

  Ice trickled down his spine. Damn it, he didn’t want her to get off the island.

  He jerked his head once more. ‘Do you want to stay the night?’ Hope was back, his body crying out for just one last time, one last night holding her, breathing her in, one more morning of waking up with her in his arms.

  She shook her head, fear in her expression, and he realised she was drowning in panic and heartbreak—because of him—and he couldn’t fix this. The one thing that would make it all better wasn’t in his power to give.

  Desperation gnawed at him.

  All he could do was to make this smoother and easier. He had to help her leave, had to stop fighting, stop thinking about what he wanted and help her get home. Help her forget him.

  The insides of his gut clenched.

  ‘I’ll fly you to my hotel in Athens,’ he said firmly, not a hint of emotion in the words. ‘You’ll stay the rest of the night in a room there, and in the morning, if you still feel you want to return to America, my plane will take you.’

  She nodded, blinking away from him. ‘Thank you.’

  Thank you?

  For what?

  Thanos Stathakis felt like just about the worst human on the face of the planet. He sure as hell didn’t deserve her thanks.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘SHE’S DOING WELL.’

  Alice looked up at the nurse without hearing what she’d said.

  ‘Your mother. She’s looking well.’

  Alice turned back to Jane Smart, looking at her through fresh eyes. It was true. She looked much better than she had in a long time. The facility was state-of-the-art, but it offered incredible extras. Every day, Jane was wheeled into a beautiful garden, custom-designed for comatose patients. ‘The latest research suggests many of our patients are still capable of absorbing external stimuli—sunshine, warmth, a light breeze, the sound of birds chirping,’ the director of the hospital had explained. ‘Besides, it can’t do any harm.’

  Alice had smiled and nodded, acted as she’d thought she should act, when really she felt exactly as she had done in the two months since leaving Statherá Prásino.

  Like a ghost, living a half-life, going through the motions instead of actually feeling anything.

  She had been wrong on the island. Wrong the night she’d told Thanos how she felt. Wrong in a thousand and one ways.

  Wrong to tell him how she felt, because nothing could have been worse than this. Continuing to be with him, even knowing she loved him and he didn’t love her, would have been preferable to this never-ending state of loss.

  She’d been wrong to think she’d get over this. Wrong to think this pain was on any playing field even remotely near what she’d felt when Clinton had humiliated her. Even the lifelong knowledge that her father had no interest in her paled in comparison to the all-consuming sense of absolute grief that stalked her daily.

  Daily?

  Every minute.

  It had been two months.

  Two months since they’d flown in complete silence over the Aegean, down low into Athens. Two months since he’d accompanied her into his six-star hotel, arranged for a penthouse suite, escorted her to the door, wheeling the luxury suitcase that was stuffed with designer clothes, two months since he’d stood back as she’d pushed open the door and prepared to walk away from him.

  He’d kicked his toe in, leaving the door ajar, his eyes holding hers. ‘If you change your mind,’ he’d said quietly, letting the implication fade away.

  But she’d known she would never act on that. Even if she did—which she had, many times—change her mind, and decide she would take any pain for the promise of a few more nights of Thanos.

  The one thing she was glad for, and proud of, was that she’d stayed strong. She’d returned to New York, and, only a week or so later, had dropped her wedding ring and the enormous necklace into his lawyer’s office, needing any souvenir of their marriage to disappear.

  He hadn’t acknowledged that, but the following week she’d received the title deed and keys to a place on the Upper East Side. When she’d caught a cab to look at it, she’d felt as if she were living in some kind of macabre fairy tale.

  It was beyond anything she could ever imagine. An enormous four-bedroom apartment with two separate living spaces, decorated and furnished in a manner that would please a queen, with a pool on the wide terrace that boasted sensational views over Central Park in one direction and the city in another.

  She hadn’t stayed there
yet.

  She couldn’t bring herself to.

  Not without knowing if it had once been Thanos’s. Or if he’d bought it with her in mind. Neither option was okay. Neither option made her feel good.

  ‘I think she likes the sunshine.’ The nurse was still talking.

  Alice dropped back into the present with a thud, pasting a weak smile on her face.

  ‘She always did.’ Tears filled her eyes, but they were tears for Thanos, for Jane, for Alice, for her dad, tears that had come so easily since she’d left Greece.

  ‘I’ll leave you alone,’ the nurse said softly, excusing herself with a little squeeze of Alice’s shoulder.

  She nodded, and when she was alone, she put a hand on her mom’s. ‘You got through it,’ Alice whispered. ‘I wish I knew how.’

  And she wondered then if it would have felt different, if she’d had a child.

  Thanos’s baby. The very idea made her groan, because having just a piece of him would have kept love warm in her heart, would have filled her with something, at least, to focus on.

  But then what?

  Would he have insisted they stay married? And she’d have been trapped in a marriage with a man who didn’t love her, who couldn’t love anyone, who would no doubt come to resent her?

  She groaned again, and put her head on her mom’s hand, closing her eyes. She breathed in, and told herself it would be okay, even when she really suspected it wouldn’t be.

  * * *

  She went to see her mother every day. She needed routine and rhythm, something to do that might distract her, and seeing her mom at least reminded her that she wasn’t entirely alone in the world.

  Two months became three.

  She still felt no better, but surely one day that would come?

  * * *

  ‘You said it was just for show,’ Leonidas said quietly, looking around Thanos’s office with an expression of disbelief.

  And Thanos could see why.

  The space that was usually kept immaculately ordered more closely resembled a pigsty.

  ‘It was.’

  ‘Pséftis,’ Leonidas drawled. ‘If it was just for show, you wouldn’t be existing on alcohol and coffee three months after she walked out on you.’

  ‘I have told you a thousand times,’ Thanos snapped harshly, reaching for his Scotch glass—which was disappointingly empty, ‘she didn’t walk out on me. We came to a mutual decision that it was time to end the sham of our marriage. It served its purpose. Kosta is having papers drawn up even now, as we speak.’

  Leonidas nodded, his eyes glinting as he studied his brother. ‘Yes? So why are you not celebrating?’

  ‘How do you know I’m not?’

  Leonidas laughed, a sharp sound of rejection. ‘You are wallowing. It is the exact opposite.’

  Thanos ground his teeth together, reaching for his Scotch decanter and refilling the glass. He held the bottle towards Leonidas, who curled his lips in a derisive negative.

  ‘Do you know what I think of, when I look at Isabella?’ Leonidas asked urgently, moving a step closer to his brother’s desk.

  ‘What?’ A snarl.

  ‘I think about what a responsibility it is to be a parent, to be a father. I think about our childhoods, about the way our father let us down time and time again. I think about the way my parents fought constantly, so I knew only acrimony in relationships. I think about the fact I almost let Hannah—the best thing to ever happen to me—walk away because I had no idea how to love someone.’ He lowered his voice, calming his tone a little. ‘I think about you, and how it must have felt to have your mother literally give up on you.’

  Thanos’s spine stiffened and he took a glug of Scotch, wincing as it hit his palate.

  ‘I think about how impossible that should be—to turn your back on your own child. The idea of never seeing Isabella again makes my body ache all over.’ He shook his head. ‘Your mother deserted you, she chose not to love you, and you have spent the rest of your life feeling unlovable.’

  Thanos finished his Scotch and stared into the empty glass, wanting everyone to go away, wanting to be alone. Particularly, not wanting to hear these words.

  ‘You live with a chip on your shoulder the size of this island because it’s easier than accepting your mother failed you and your father failed you and that you deserved better. They failed you, but now you’re taking it one step further and failing yourself.’

  Thanos ground his teeth together. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘You love her, don’t you?’

  Thanos glared at his brother with a rising phoenix of white-hot fury. ‘For the last time, no! I don’t! I don’t love her, okay!’ And he threw the Scotch glass across the room, until it landed with a burst against the wall and shattered into a thousand tiny shards.

  ‘You’re screwing everything up,’ Leonidas said, with the kind of honesty only a sibling could offer.

  ‘Oh, go to hell.’

  * * *

  Thanos hadn’t had a drink in two weeks but he sure as hell could have used one. He sat opposite Kosta on the deck he would always remember from the last visit, when he had sat beside Alice, his arm around her shoulders, her body curved into his side, her fragrance, her sweetness, her willingness to help him in this ruse setting him on fire. Now he sat on the deck in a thoroughly different mindset, in a thoroughly different mood. Even the weather was different. The sky was grey today, clouds low, so the ocean was moody and unimpressed.

  ‘I’m sorry Alice could not be here today,’ Kosta murmured.

  Did Thanos imagine the way the older man’s eyes shifted a little, sympathy swirling in their depths?

  ‘The contracts are ready?’ Thanos barrelled past the statement, beyond caring that he was being rude.

  Kosta nodded slowly.

  ‘She’s not well?’

  Someone, somewhere, had offered this small lie to Kosta, when the trip was being prepared. Perhaps his assistant? He didn’t know.

  Kosta shifted his gaze out to the murky sea, his expression grim.

  She’s not well?

  It was such a simple enquiry, and Thanos had no way of answering. Was Alice well? Was she happy? His chest ached as if he’d been punched.

  He had no way of knowing.

  They didn’t speak, they didn’t communicate at all. He couldn’t have even said if she was still in America.

  Despair groaned through him, as it often had these past three and a half months.

  The whole idea had been stupid.

  Pretend to be married to buy a company he was paying more than market value for from a man who was desperate to sell. Thanos should never have indulged in such a childish game. It had been foolish, foolish, foolish.

  And for the first time in over a decade, he no longer cared if he reacquired Petó. It was not the most important thing in his mind or heart. In fact, the acquisition felt trivial and banal.

  ‘She left me,’ he said instead, turning back to Kosta. ‘We only got married to fool you.’

  Kosta didn’t react for several seconds and Thanos dropped his head, running his fingers through his hair.

  ‘At the time, I thought I wanted Petó badly enough to do anything to get it.’

  Kosta remained silent and watchful, in a way that unnerved Thanos because it reminded him so strongly of his grandfather.

  ‘It seemed easy enough,’ Thanos continued. ‘You wanted me to settle down, so I did. Or at least pretended to.’

  ‘You didn’t change your lifestyle?’

  Thanos shook his head. ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  ‘So you are still making being a bachelor a championship sport?’

  Thanos locked his jaw.

  ‘Because I have not seen you in the papers once since your marriage.’

 
Thanos swallowed. The idea of living the way he had before Alice was something he couldn’t contemplate. He shook his head. ‘I’m not here to discuss my marriage.’

  ‘Your marriage only existed because of my ultimatum,’ Kosta pointed out shrewdly. ‘You think I don’t have a right to understand?’

  ‘There’s nothing to understand. It’s over. It was all a lie.’

  Kosta shook his head slowly, his features laced with pity. ‘No, it wasn’t.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I know more than most.’ He leaned forward a little. ‘Thanos?’

  He lifted his head.

  ‘I like you.’

  Thanos grimaced, feeling somehow even worse than he had before. Because Kosta was a good and kind person to whom Thanos had wilfully lied. What the hell had come over him?

  ‘I have always liked you, more than I let on. Your grandfather told me a story about you, once. We were at a party in Europe and a princess was there. She made a speech, remarking on how her son had built the most amazing tower out of Lego. It was two feet high, she said, with windows and a door, turrets that climbed inches higher. Nicholas leaned towards me, a proud smile on his face, and told me that you’d decided, one summer, to create a house using rocks from down near the beach. According to him, you went down every day with a canvas bag, loaded it up and returned to the garden, where you set to work. It took you months, but, rock by rock, you did it. I didn’t really believe it at the time—grandfathers exaggerate, in my experience—but a year or so later, I went to his island and there it was, still standing, this small house you’d made, all because you’d set your mind to it.’

  Thanos remembered. He remembered the weight of the rocks, the feeling of the sun baking his back, the cuts on his hands as he locked each piece into position.

  He ground his teeth together. ‘What’s your point?’

  ‘I knew then that you were a young man who would achieve whatever he wanted in life. You have a rare talent that disposes you to success. When you form an intention, there is nothing that will get in your way. I knew what I was doing the day I told you I wouldn’t sell you P & A unless you settled down.’