The Spanish Millionaire's Runaway Bride

by Susan Meier

  She put her hand up to stop him. He noticed it wasn’t quite steady. ‘Stop. Not here. Not with an audience. What I have to say should be said in private. It’s why I had to see you in person rather than—’

  ‘Just say it,’ he said through gritted teeth.

  She played with the strap of her designer handbag—another gift from him—twisting it until he thought it would snap. Then she looked up at him. ‘I want a divorce.’

  He glared at her. ‘The sooner the better,’ he said.

  * * *

  Hayley took a step back and looked up at her soon-to-be-ex-husband. Why, oh, why had she come here? She’d thought she could handle seeing Cristos again. In light of the love they’d once shared, surely it was the right thing to deliver the divorce papers in person rather than have them served on him by her lawyer?

  But the moment she’d seen him standing under that tree in his dark coat staring moodily out to sea, she’d known it was a mistake. She’d been slammed by her impossible attraction to him with such force she’d had to plant her booted feet on the ground to keep herself steady. Dry-mouthed, heart pounding, she’d been unable to do anything but stare at him, stricken with hopeless longing.

  He was now twenty-nine, and still the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. Perhaps beautiful wasn’t the right word. But handsome, good-looking, striking, even gorgeous were not adjectives enough. Not for this man. Not for six feet two of broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped masculine perfection. Not for thick black hair, smooth olive skin that was a delight under a woman’s stroking fingers, the surprise of pure green eyes.

  Cristos could have modelled for the marble statues of the ancient Greek gods she had admired in Athens on their honeymoon. Instead just six months later, on a weekend break in London, he’d been scouted by an international model agency. As a macho Greek male, he’d scorned the idea. But they’d needed money badly and she’d talked him into at least trying it. He’d been booked for a prestigious job the first day he’d reluctantly signed the agency contract.

  That was when she’d begun to lose him, Hayley reflected now, when he’d started to slip slowly away into a world that’d had no place for her. Pushing him into it was the stupidest thing she’d ever done. She had become the insignificant peahen to the glorious peacock of her magnificent husband. And he had allowed it to happen. He had left her alone to tend the nest while he strode with masculine insouciance the catwalks of the fashion capitals of Europe, shot advertising campaigns and commercials, all the while hobnobbing with the wealthy and well-connected. Every time she’d questioned him, he’d told her everything he did was for her and their financial security. For a while she’d believed him. Before she began to doubt him.

  She gritted her teeth. The longing that surged through her wasn’t for this Cristos. It was for the Cristos she’d fallen in love with as a student back in that pub in Durham when she’d been barely twenty-two. After her gap year, she was a year older than most of the people in her class and something about the group of older students had caught her attention. He’d been laughing with some fellow exchange students. The flash of his white teeth against his olive skin, the humour in those amazing green eyes had caught her attention then mesmerised her. He’d looked across to her and their gazes had connected. For a long moment there had been nothing—no one—else but him. The sounds of the pub had receded, the chatter and the clinking of glasses, until it had just been her and him, drinking in each other’s eyes, their souls connecting. Or that was how it had seemed. Then his brow had furrowed in a quizzical frown. He’d put down his glass and left his friends behind to make his way to her side.

  Even back then he’d been good at masking his feelings—she hadn’t known for days he’d been as instantly smitten by her as she’d been by him. It was an attribute that had served him well in his unexpected new career. He’d easily been able to slip into the varied persona required of him as a successful male model. Smouldering and sophisticated in a tuxedo, or sporty and athletic on a yacht, he’d always looked the part on billboards all over Europe.

  He’d got so good at donning those masks that towards the end she’d begun to wonder had she ever seen the true Cristos. But at the word ‘divorce’ his mask slipped and the raw anguish that momentarily darkened his eyes made her heart skip a beat. But it was gone so quickly she might have imagined it.

  ‘Nothing about where you’ve been, what you’ve been doing—all you want to do is demand a divorce,’ he said in a forced, neutral tone. But the tension in his jaw, the shadow in his eyes told her he wasn’t as cool about it as he appeared.

  She swallowed hard. ‘It can’t come as a surprise. We’ve been separated for two and a half years. That’s more than enough grounds to dissolve our marriage.’

  ‘So my lawyer told me when I instructed him to instigate proceedings two years after your desertion. The separation was proof the marriage had irretrievably broken down. That’s all that’s required.’

  His words sounded so grim, so final. The excitement and passion of their early years together had disintegrated into disillusionment. Yet now, just looking at her husband made her remember exactly why she’d defied her family to marry him, given up her own dreams to let him follow his. But that was yesterday. She had to be strong. Good sex and fun weren’t enough to build a lifetime on. She’d learned that on a heart-wrenching night in Milan two and a half years ago, alone in a hospital in a country where she didn’t speak the language as she’d miscarried in pain and anguish, tears streaming down her face for all she had lost.

  She cleared her throat. Although she’d practised the words over and over, they didn’t come easily. ‘I want to be free, to perhaps marry again one day.’

  His mouth set in a tight line. ‘Is there someone else?’

  ‘He’s just a friend at this stage.’

  Steady, reliable Tim, as different from Cristos as it was possible for a man to be. There had not been one word of romance expressed between them but Hayley had sensed Tim wanted to grow the friendship into something more. She wanted security, stability, not the tumult her life with Cristos had been.

  ‘Where did you meet this man?’

  ‘In Sydney. But he’s not—’

  ‘You’ve been living in Australia?’ He hissed a string of curse words in Greek. During their time together she’d worked to learn his language, but he’d refused to teach her the curses—such language was not befitting his wife. If he only knew it was nothing to what she heard in her job as a mechanical engineer—a woman in what was still essentially a man’s world.

  ‘I didn’t think to look for you in Australia, of all places,’ he said.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ she said. ‘It was as far away from you as I believed I could get. I have an aunt there. My parents arranged it.’

  He was silent for a long moment as he looked down at her, searching her face. ‘Did I hurt you that badly?’ His voice was low and hoarse.

  She nodded, too choked to risk attempting to speak.

  His words sounded as though they were being torn from him. ‘So many times I’ve regretted the way I left you alone that day, that I wasn’t there when you needed me. I—’

  Hayley had tried to block that final scene with him from her memory; it was too painful to revisit. She put up her hand to stop him. ‘I don’t want to hear this,’ she said.

  His dark brows drew together. ‘Like you didn’t want to hear it then. You wouldn’t let me explain or try to make it up to you. You were hurting but so was I and you kicked me to the kerb. Then left me and ran so far away I couldn’t find you. After all we’d gone through together you did that. Now you show up out of the blue, crash my family’s party and—’

  ‘Please. I don’t want to go there. It’s over.’ Her voice broke. ‘I just want a divorce. That’s the only reason I’m here.’

  ‘You could have had divorce papers served on me from Australia. Notifi
ed me where you were so my lawyer could be in touch with yours. You shouldn’t be here, Hayley.’

  He turned from her, slanted his broad shoulders away so she once more could see the happy gathering outside the church doors.

  ‘I hope I’m not intruding on a special family occasion,’ she said a little stiffly. His family had hardly been what you would call welcoming to Cristos’s young English bride the one and only time she had met them. His cousin Alex had been the exception.

  ‘Alex and his Australian wife, Dell, are renewing their wedding vows. It’s a special day for them, a gathering only for family and close friends.’ His tone let her know she was now pointedly excluded from those categories.

  ‘Your grandmother’s maid told me. She said they’d only been married two years ago. I’m glad he found someone after the horror he went through.’

  Alex’s then fiancée had been killed in a hostage situation. It had made the news all around the world. ‘We’re all grateful to Dell,’ Cristos said. The wife who had been accepted by the family, as opposed to Hayley, the unwelcome one.

  She knew she didn’t have the right to access his family news but she was curious. ‘Why are they renewing their vows so soon? Isn’t it usually older people who do that?’

  ‘They had to get married in a hurry because their daughter Litza was on the way. Dell wanted to affirm their vows in a more relaxed manner.’

  She looked towards the couple. ‘Oh. That must be their little girl with Alex.’ The red-haired cherub was gurgling with laughter. ‘And Dell has a baby in her arms who looks just like a tiny Alex.’ Hayley forced her voice into neutral. She didn’t trust it not to quiver when she talked about babies. Especially to Cristos.

  Hayley actually knew quite a lot about Alex and Dell. She’d been dismayed when she’d got all the way to Sydney to find even there she couldn’t escape Cristos’s family. Alex had been Australian born and a hospitality tycoon. His relocating to Greece after his tragic loss and finding happiness with Dell was ongoing fodder for the press.

  ‘Their son, Georgios. He was born just a year after Litza.’

  Hayley couldn’t meet his eyes. The tension between them must be palpable. Their baby would have been just a little older than the little girl being proudly held by Alex if she hadn’t miscarried that terrible night. But she couldn’t, wouldn’t talk about that. Strained silence from Cristos told her he couldn’t either.

  The breeze had picked up. She shivered and huddled deeper into her coat—the beautiful, expensive coat Cristos had given her out of guilt for one of his lengthy absences. ‘I’ve come from a hot Sydney summer. It’s freezing here. Not at all how I imagined an idyllic Greek island. I mean, it’s beautiful but so chilly. Why did they choose to renew their vows in winter?’

  ‘Alex and Dell wanted to have the ceremony here in the chapel where they got married. The resort is fully booked out all through the warmer months. In summer they would not have had the privacy they wanted.’

  She looked over to the group outside the chapel. ‘I’m happy for them,’ she said. ‘I liked Alex when I met him and Dell looks lovely.’

  ‘You weren’t invited but he’ll be glad to see you. And Dell must be dying to be introduced.’

  Hayley took an abrupt step back. ‘No! I’ve come to talk to you about the divorce and then go. The boat is waiting to take me back to Nidri.’

  Cristos closed the gap between them with one long stride. ‘You can’t do that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ He was too close. This close she was too aware of his warmth, his scent, his strength.

  ‘I can’t allow you to disrupt this special day.’

  ‘That was not my intention,’ she said. ‘I just—’

  He spoke over her, his tone low and urgent. ‘Alex and Dell have been through more than you know. Allow them their day of celebrating their commitment to each other. Your abrupt departure would cause even more speculation than your arrival and put the focus on us instead of them. That wouldn’t be fair. You’ve turned up here uninvited. But you are still legally my wife. Despite our separation, it would be expected that you would greet Alex and Dell and congratulate them. I’m asking you to do the right thing.’

  Why did he have to put it like that—appealing to her innate sense of justice? ‘I suppose I could say hello,’ she said tentatively. Although it would take a monumental effort to congratulate the happy couple on their successful marriage while her own was in its death throes. ‘It wouldn’t take long to chat with them and then slip away to the boat.’

  Cristos shook his head. ‘That would cause even more disruption than if you left right now. There is to be a lunch at the resort. Stay here for that. Surely we can be civil to each other. But don’t mention the divorce to anyone. It’s none of their business. Let people think we are discussing reconciliation. Just until the party is over and you can leave with the other guests.’

  She frowned. ‘You mean pretend I’m still your wife?’

  He shrugged. ‘If you put it that way. Just for a few hours. Legally you are still my wife.’

  ‘You mean I’d have to act loving and—?’ Her breath started to come in tight gasps at the thought of it and she had to put her hand to her chest.

  ‘Just civil would do, if you find the thought of pretending an affection you no longer feel so distressing,’ he said. ‘Just keep it dignified. You’ve caused me enough humiliation.’

  ‘I don’t know that I could face explanations and—’

  ‘No explanations would be required. I have told my family nothing of what happened between us.’

  And, no doubt, his relatives had assigned all the blame for the end of their union to her. Slowly, she shook her head, forced her breathing to return to something resembling normality. ‘I’m sorry but I can’t do it.’ Such a charade would bring back old memories, old feelings she had fought so hard to put behind her.

  He frowned his displeasure. ‘Do it for my cousin’s sake who liked you and stood up for you. Don’t let us ruin this day for them.’

  Us. How thrilled she’d been when they’d become a couple. How she’d loved to drop those magical words we and us into the conversation, preferably while flashing her engagement ring at the same time. Now Cristos used the word in such a different context it made her shudder. Us united in a charade of dishonesty. Although, she was forced to admit, it would be with the best of intentions and just for a few hours. She sighed out loud. He still knew which of her buttons to press. The last thing she’d ever want to do was ruin someone else’s hard-won happiness. Everyone in Sydney knew the tragedy Alex had gone through.

  She looked up at Cristos. At that handsome, handsome face that had once been so beloved. ‘I’ll do it. Then after lunch I’m out of here. With the divorce papers signed.’

  And she would say goodbye to her husband for the very last time.

  Copyright © 2018 by Kandy Shepherd

  ISBN-13: 9781488089435

  The Spanish Millionaire’s Runaway Bride

  First North American publication 2018

  Copyright © 2018 by Linda Susan Meier

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