But it was the dress which had obviously been chosen for the ceremony itself which commanded centre stage. In the softest scarlet silk imaginable, it was the loveliest thing she had ever seen. Marnie swallowed as she ran her fingertips over the slippery fabric, slightly scared by just how much she longed to wear it, but her natural suspicion was never far from the surface.
‘Where did all these things come from?’ she questioned, forcing herself to let the garment slide from her fingers. ‘Did the good fairy drop them by?’
‘The stylist delivered them this afternoon.’
‘A stylist who’s never met me?’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘She must be very perceptive.’
‘Actually, the stylist was a he.’
‘Oh. Right. And how did he know my size?’
‘I gave him your measurements.’
‘I wasn’t aware you knew my measurements, Leon!’
He gave a slow smile. ‘Let’s just say I have a good eye for dimensions.’
The ugly twist of jealousy inside her made Marnie unable to hold back her feelings, even though caution advised her against expressing them. ‘I suppose you’ve kitted out countless women like this in the past?’
‘No, I haven’t,’ he negated silkily. ‘And I’ve certainly never gone to the trouble of finding the best stylist in the business and telling him exactly what I thought you needed.’
Her voice was cautious. ‘And what was that?’
His gaze swept over her. ‘Beautiful things which weren’t too revealing, because you have an essential modesty about you, Marnie, and I like that. In fact, I like it a lot. Call me old-fashioned but the possession of virtue is a dying art and it’s seriously underrated.’ His voice deepened. ‘Though I can’t understand why you insist on covering up so much, when you have the most beautiful body I’ve ever seen.’
It was a rare compliment, which made her heart stab with joy and apprehension, and Marnie busied herself with scouring through another bag, hoping the movement would hide the sudden hotness in her cheeks. He was making her sound like the personification of all that was good and innocent, but the woman he was talking about was nothing but a fiction. Yes, she had been a virgin, but he was making her sound like some kind of saint and she definitely did not have a saint’s pedigree.
Worry began to gnaw away at the pit of her stomach as she wondered just where this affair of theirs was going.
Ever since he’d asked her to accompany him to the wedding, she had been aware of straying into perilous waters. With each day that passed, she felt the growing danger of remaining in this relationship. It was as though she were sleepwalking her way towards the inevitable pain of rejection, by a man whose company was never intended to be anything other than temporary.
And all the warning signs were staring her in the face—signs she had been stubbornly refusing to heed. Leon had told her about his surprisingly painful past. His mother’s failure to disclose her terminal illness must have seemed like a terrible betrayal. He had witnessed other betrayals, too. His father’s infidelity and slavish devotion to a new wife, who had tried to seduce his son.
No wonder he was so set against marriage and permanence.
And if he was? So what? What on earth did that have to do with her?
Her flush deepened.
Unless she was seriously considering herself in the role of Leon Kanonidou’s wife! What had happened to the stubborn sense of determination with which she had entered into this affair? Hadn’t her number one criterion for agreeing to become his de facto mistress been that it could only succeed if she kept the physical and the emotional separate? It was supposed to be about sex. Nothing else.
Nothing else.
‘Well?’
She looked up to see Leon staring at her, his expression indicating he was awaiting her verdict, and she realised how ungrateful she must seem. He’d obviously gone to a lot of trouble to buy these gorgeous clothes, yet she was acting as if he’d committed a crime. And she had agreed to this, hadn’t she? She had agreed to let him dress her up like a doll. Rising to her feet, she walked towards him, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him on the lips. ‘I love them—every one of them,’ she said truthfully.
‘So why don’t you try on the red dress?’ he suggested.
She took a step back. ‘What, now?’
‘Don’t you want to see what it looks like on?’ His voice deepened. ‘I know I do.’
It was a tacit request to take off her dowdy work clothes and replace them with a fairy-tale dress and, although Marnie tried to convince herself that would be a lovely thing to do, she suddenly felt stricken with shyness. Leon had watched her undress countless times before, so why did this feel so different?
Beneath the burn of his gaze she self-consciously removed her jumper and skirt and laid them on the chair to join her coat. She felt like one of those snakes she’d once seen on a TV documentary. As if she were shedding her old skin and taking on a brand-new persona—someone she didn’t know or recognise.
She was down to just her underwear when Leon began to walk towards her and she knew from his expression—which was hard and hot and hungry—just what he wanted. What she wanted, too—because wouldn’t sex successfully eradicate the muddle of her thoughts?
‘On second thought,’ he said, ‘the dress can wait.’
And the crazy thing was that Marnie didn’t make a single objection to his masterful assertion. As he pulled her into his arms she shivered with anticipation, her stomach dissolving, her blood growing heated with need. Because that was the fundamental weakness which flew in the face of her certainty that she was getting in too deep—that the moment Leon touched her, she couldn’t think straight.
His kiss was urgent and she moaned beneath the seeking pressure of his lips. As he slid her panties down over her trembling thighs something told her she would never wear this old underwear again. That from now on she would be dressed in fine satin and silk and lace, like a pampered woman.
Like a mistress.
She felt him tugging urgently at his belt as vulnerability and desire washed over her. ‘I haven’t had a shower yet. I still smell of the salon,’ she whispered.
‘I like the smell of the salon, but all I can smell is you,’ he growled, kicking off the remainder of his clothes and carrying her next door into the bedroom, where he laid her down on the huge bed, and straddled her.
He took his time. He stroked her, knowing exactly how she liked to be touched—but something told her he was teasing her, too. By now she badly wanted him inside her but still he held back. As if he were hell-bent on demonstrating his steely self-control—or her lack of it—as she begged him to take her. As if it gave him a heady kick of power when he elicited her first helpless orgasm with the quick dart of his tongue. ‘Oh!’ she cried. ‘Oh!’
He entered her when she was still caught up in those powerful spasms and as he filled her a soft warmth flooded through her body. She must have gasped something appreciative because his gaze was now focussed on her intently. And when he looked at her that way at a time like this she felt closer to him than she’d ever felt to anyone. ‘Leon,’ she breathed, overcome with an unwanted emotion which threatened to rock the foundations of her world.
‘What is it, Marnie?’ he mocked.
Closing her eyes, she bit back the tender words which were threatening to spill from her lips and concentrated on the ripples of pleasure instead. Already so close to the edge, she buried her head in his neck and began to husk out another orgasm, her fingernails digging into his broad shoulders as he followed her, choking out that incomprehensible sound he always made when he was coming and which had become so familiar to her. They lay there for a while in silence, his fingers running through her hair, when his question came right out of the blue.
‘So what happened to make you so modest and shy, Marnie Porter?’
She fought her instinct to freeze, in case she looked as though she had something to hide.
Because you have.
‘I don’t know if that’s a very accurate description.’ She forced herself to smile. ‘People always say I’m very mouthy.’
‘Well, you are. Sometimes.’ He smoothed a lock of hair away from her cheek. ‘But you are also very reserved. And I’m curious why.’
She wanted to jump up from the bed and run away. She wanted to tell him it was none of his business and if this was only supposed to be a casual relationship, then he had no right to ask her questions. But he had told her all that stuff about himself and if she kept quiet that would only make him suspicious. Men like him didn’t like having things denied them. He would probably start probing and she would have to stonewall him and then they’d have a terrible row.
And she didn’t want it to end like this.
She chewed on the inside of her mouth. She could explain some things. Just not all of them. That was a compromise of sorts, wasn’t it? ‘You haven’t actually met my sister, have you?’
‘No, but I’ve seen a photo of her.’
‘Then you will have seen for yourself how beautiful she is.’
‘She’s certainly a dramatic dresser.’ He shrugged. ‘If you must know, I don’t think she’s nearly as beautiful as you.’
‘Oh, come on, Leon,’ she said crossly, edging away a fraction. ‘You don’t have to flatter me because we’ve just had sex! We’re non-identical twins and, yes, we’re very similar, but beauty is notoriously difficult to define. A centimetre here and a centimetre there makes all the difference and it’s Pansy who has the biggest eyes and the better figure and she was the one who...’
‘The one who, what?’ he questioned softly as her voice tailed away.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Or maybe it does.’
His voice was compelling. It was binding her to him like the strong silk of a spider’s web. It enveloped her and in that present moment it made her feel safe and protected. Was it that which made her speak almost without thinking? ‘I told you how we spent a lot of our time in the care system—’
‘Sure. Because your mother—’
‘Died,’ she said quickly and now she was keen to talk to him, because surely one frank disclosure would rule out the need for another. ‘We had no other relatives. And back then—it may have changed now—the care system used to employ some pretty dodgy people. The sort of people who might take an unhealthy interest in a pretty little blonde girl. I was always looking out for Pansy and I tried...’
‘You tried to shield her,’ he said, his voice tight with repressed fury. ‘Let me guess. You did everything you could to help conceal her burgeoning sexuality from those bastards.’
Marnie stared at him. ‘How can you even know that?’
‘It’s pretty obvious. I’m also guessing you taught yourself to hide behind concealing clothes and made Pansy do the same—and the moment she was able to take care of herself, she probably rebelled against that. You, on the other hand, kept up the habit.’ He frowned. ‘One thing which has always puzzled me is why you were wearing that uncharacteristically flimsy orange bikini when we met.’
‘Oh, that. My work colleagues in London gave it to me before I flew out to Greece, mainly as a joke.’ She turned her face towards his. ‘If it hadn’t been for that—if I’d been wearing one of my all-concealing swimsuits—do you think you’d still have taken me out on your motorbike and then to dinner?’
‘Truthfully?’ He shrugged. ‘I have no idea. I certainly wasn’t impervious to the very obvious visual stimulus of your barely clothed body, but there was also a powerful spark between us which went beyond the merely physical, Marnie.’ There was a pause. ‘There still is,’ he concluded silkily.
Marnie pursed her lips together, trying to keep her reaction hidden. She wanted to thank him for saying that, which probably said a lot about her lack of self-esteem. But the trouble was that his murmured words gave her hope—and false hope could have painful consequences. Sexual chemistry was nothing special. It was fleeting and transient. Everyone knew that—and woe betide the person who thought otherwise.
‘I’m going for a shower,’ she said, sliding out of bed before he could try to change her mind, and it wasn’t until she was standing beneath the steaming jets that she realised she was shaking.
She closed her eyes as hot water rained down on her face. Leon had asked all the right questions—or maybe they were the wrong questions—because she had ended up revealing more about herself than she ever did. More than she was comfortable with. And confidences were like standing at the top of a slippery slope. Once she’d told him one thing, he would want to hear more. And still more. Her sleazy beginnings were fascinating to other people—she remembered that much from school, when someone had found out about their mother. She remembered the row which had resulted after she and Pansy had been taunted and how the school had asked for them to be removed, because they really couldn’t have little girls fighting like that. And yet another set of foster parents had explained to the authorities that they wouldn’t be adopting the twin girls, with the faces of angels.
There was a reason why she had always felt as if she were on the outside, looking in—and why she would always stay that way. Because she was. People like her were scarred by their experiences and sometimes those scars were too deep to ever heal properly. She had never felt ‘normal’ and probably never would. She had always accepted that, until she had met Leon. He had made her want to step out of her comfort zone. He had made her want things which had never even been on her radar before and that was so dangerous.
She went back into the bedroom to get dressed, relieved he was nowhere to be seen, and as she pulled on some of her new lingerie she knew she couldn’t carry on like this, no matter how much she liked Leon Kanonidou.
Liked?
She almost laughed out loud. Who was she trying to kid?
‘Liked’ was a lacklustre description of her feelings for him. Lately Leon had been dominating her thoughts like an addiction, and whenever she saw him it was as if an invisible fist had reached inside her chest and squeezed her heart very hard. She’d never felt love before but that didn’t mean she was immune to it or its power. Did it? And if that was the case it was only going to get worse. If she allowed her feelings free rein they could easily overwhelm her, and then who would she be? Just another foolish woman sobbing into her pillow because she’d fallen into the trap of thinking a man might change.
Leon had told her from the start what he didn’t want and she had gone along with that. And surely if he got any inkling that she’d started to want more, he would move to end it anyway.
She sucked in a deep breath.
She would go to the wedding, as planned. She would provide him with the support she suspected he needed, and afterwards...
She pulled on some pale cotton jeans.
Afterwards she would make her exit from his life.
She would walk, before she was pushed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE MANSION ROSE up before them. A monstrous monolith which dominated the land around and Leon could do nothing to prevent the shudder of distaste which ran down his spine. The last time he had seen this place he had been walking out with a rucksack and the predatory eyes of a frustrated woman burning into his back. Had Marnie detected the bitterness of his feelings and was it that which had prompted her to lay her fingers over his tensed biceps and to give it a soft squeeze? He swallowed. Did she realise what her touch could do to him? That sometimes she had the power to take some of the darkness away?
She was staring up at the multi-tiered concoction, her lips falling open as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.
‘This is your home?’ she verified, but he shook his head in grim denial.
‘This is where I grew up
and lived until the age of sixteen,’ he amended grimly. ‘Do you like it?’
‘Honestly?’
‘Are you ever anything but honest, Marnie?’
He saw her swallow. ‘I can’t imagine ever living somewhere this big,’ she whispered. ‘It looks more like a museum.’
Leon rang the bell and waited but there was no welcoming committee to greet them. No sign of his father. Instead, the door was opened by a housekeeper—a stranger to him, obviously. Her hooded gaze ran over them both with calculating precision, her greeting more formal than warm.
‘Kyrios Kanonidou has been making some last-minute adjustments before the ceremony and would like you to join him on the eastern terrace for a drink straight away,’ she announced. ‘If you would like to follow me, I will make sure your bags are taken up to your suite. Once your meeting with your father is finished, I will send one of the servants to accompany you there.’
Leon was about to inform the woman that he was in no need of any direction before reminding himself that he was here as a guest, not to stamp his mark or assert his ownership—which was non-existent anyway. And nothing ever stayed the same, he reminded himself—wasn’t that apparent with every step they took? As they walked through the wide corridors, he became aware of how much had changed.
The route was familiar, the décor was not. Within its ornate elaborate shell, the building had changed out of all recognition in the years since Leon had last been here. All traces of his childhood gone. It was as though he had never been there—his presence wiped clean. In some ways it felt liberating to acknowledge this break with the past, but it still came as a relief to step outside onto the sun-washed tiles of the eastern terrace. Lush lemon trees in pots adorned a space used mostly used for breakfast and morning coffee and which was currently deserted. A white balustrade framed the dark blue sea and there were steps leading down to a beach of silvery white sand.
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