by Tessa Radley
But how could he stay married to Pandora now, given the scandalous circumstances? If anyone ever found out…
Yet he’d wanted to stay married despite learning she wasn’t the virgin he’d needed to marry, a little voice at the back of his head taunted. He’d been prepared to hide the truth of her lack of virginity then so that he could keep her. But that was before he’d discovered her relationship with Stavros. He sighed. “I need to think about this. I’m not going to make a hasty decision.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re not going to divorce me straightaway?”
“I’m not going to be rushed into a decision. I need time to absorb the fact that you had—” he paused “—intimate relations with my brother-in-law, to absorb that you lied about his death.” He needed time to decide whether he could stay with a woman his brother-in-law had deflowered. Time to consider whether he could ever let her go. Time to calm down before he made the most important decision of his life. He dragged a ragged breath. “What else did Stavros say?”
“That—” She broke off.
The pain in her eyes damn near killed him. “What?”
“That I’m soiled goods.”
“Damn him. I’m going to kill him.”
“Zac! He’s your sister’s husband.”
She was right. Yet the thought of Pandora with Stavros was driving him mad. He’d never felt like this about a woman. Possessive. Protective. “I can’t believe you let Stavros—” He shook his head. “What is it about Stavros Politsis? My sister’s so besotted with the bastard that I have no chance of convincing her to kick him out.”
“You’ve tried?” she asked.
He nodded. “When they got engaged I tried to pay him off. He wouldn’t take it. No doubt he rubbed his hands in anticipation of more to come down the road. He’s not worthy of associating with our family.” He pinned Pandora with his fiercest glare. “I want you to stay away from him from now on. I don’t want you near him.”
Pandora’s shoulders stiffened and her eyes blazed. “Why would I want to go near him? He means nothing to me.”
“Make sure it stays that way.” Zac threw back his head and closed his eyes. “Tomorrow we return to London. Stavros’s arrival has soured our stay here. I no longer have any taste to honeymoon.”
The following afternoon Zac found himself glaring at Pandora where she’d curled up in the seat of the helicopter. The first he’d seen of her today had been after he’d sent Maria to summon her to the helipad.
Was she sulking? He couldn’t forget the way her silver eyes had blazed at him yesterday after he’d commanded her to stay away from his sister’s husband.
Zac slid into the seat beside her. “What the hell’s the matter with you?” he said finally. “Why are you huddled up in a ball?”
“I don’t like flying in these death traps.”
“We’ll be in Athens soon enough.”
She raised her head and gave him a guarded look. “And what happens then?”
For a moment Zac said nothing. “I told you I need time. Don’t force me to make a decision in haste about something as important as our marriage.”
Her eyes widened in her ashen face. She looked even worse than she’d looked when she’d stepped onto the roof. Zac took in the trepidation in her eyes and for the first time started to wonder if she was afraid of heights—or flying. He pushed the notion away. No, it was unlikely. She’d flown all the way from New Zealand without a qualm. She was simply still angry with him.
He took his cell phone out of his pocket and pretended to be engrossed with the small screen.
But when she turned her head away and her shoulders started to shake, Zac felt something inside him give.
Pandora was crying.
“Pandora…” Her shoulders stiffened. “I know finding yourself face-to-face with Stavros could not have been easy for you—”
She swung around, her cheeks stained with tears. She swallowed visibly. “This—” she jabbed a finger at her eyes “—has nothing to do with Stavros, about what’s happening between us. I hate flying, okay? It terrifies me.”
Guilt spread through him. He remembered her hesitation on the roof, the bleak look she’d shot him before she’d clambered in. More guilt stabbed him as he thought back to her rage when he’d dumped her into the helicopter the day after their wedding. “You should’ve told me.” He moved closer and brushed her silky hair off her face. She pulled away and he let his hand drop. “If you’d spoken up, I would’ve gotten you some medication to take the edge off the phobia.”
“Drugged me, you mean? To make the kidnapping when you brought me to Kiranos easier?”
He felt his face grow tight at the barb. “You’re deliberately misunderstanding me. I’m talking about now, not when I brought you here. A mild sedative would’ve made this flight easier.”
“I don’t need drugs. I shouldn’t have had to make either flight—you should never have put me into a helicopter coming here, then I would never have had to endure it a second time.” She felt so much better for chiding him. It helped take her mind off the fact that however long Zac took to think it through, there was only one outcome for their marriage: divorce.
“You need to get over this irrational fear.”
She rounded on him. “My fear is not irrational. My mother died when one of these crashed.”
He went still. “Dear God, when?”
“When I was seven.” Zac had been sent away by his mother when he was six. Pandora resisted the burgeoning notion that he might understand a little of the loss and bewilderment her seven-year-old self had experienced.
“I didn’t know,” Zac murmured. “Neither you nor your father ever mention her.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better? That you didn’t dump me into a helicopter deliberately?”
“You should’ve told me.”
“When? Do I need to remind you that I thought I was going to the airport to catch a plane? I can survive a trip in a jet.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Because when we reach Athens we’re going to transfer over to the Gulfstream to fly to London.”
Pandora ignored him. “The first I knew of your intention was when I heard the damn thing hovering above me. I was slung over your shoulder at that point. Given the noise and my terror, I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to give lengthy explanations. I begged you, damn you, to let me down.”
“I thought that was because you didn’t want to come with me.”
“And that makes it better? You ignored my objections because you knew I didn’t want to be kidnapped. Right?”
“Sarcasm doesn’t become you.”
She huffed out, “What do you expect? Submission? You’ve got the wrong woman. You know, I really should have you arrested. Think of what a juicy story that would make. I can already see the headlines. ‘Desperate Tycoon Kidnaps Reluctant Bride.’”
He gave her a hard look. “You’re joking, I hope.”
She’d never have him arrested. Never. She loved him. She turned away from him—and found herself facing the window and the yawning emptiness tilting beyond.
“Help.” Covering her face, she fought the surge of panic.
“Come here.” He pulled her into his arms. “I’m holding you and I will not let anything happen to you.” The scent of his body filled her senses and slowly the panic subsided only to be replaced by something infinitely more dangerous—the lazy curl of desire.
As they hurried through Heathrow, Zac kept an eye on Pandora, his brows jerking together. No wonder she hated him. Her mother had died in a helicopter crash, and straight after the strain of their wedding he’d thrust her headlong into the capsule of her nightmares. He’d win the Bastard of the Year award hands down. He told himself he couldn’t have known, that he’d make it up to her.
But would she let him?
A sideways glance revealed that with her black coat pulled around her and her long pale hair streaming down her back, she looked washed out. Her face was
grey, her silver eyes dazed.
When a photographer slithered toward her, Zac barged the guy out of the way and slung a protective arm around his wife’s shoulders, shepherding her to the chauffeur-driven Daimler waiting outside.
Once inside, she turned her face to the window, presenting him with the back of her head. Zac hated this unspeaking silence. He could sense her misery across the space separating them.
This was not the provocative mermaid he’d pleasured in the sea yesterday. Briefly he wished they could go back to that moment, when they were the only people in the deserted cove. Before reality had arrived in the form of his sister and Stavros and the scandalous revelation that had changed everything.
Zac’s London town house was located close to Hyde Park, in the heart of the city. As they passed through electronic gates set in a solid fence of cast-iron pilings and huge white pillars, Pandora caught sight of window boxes planted with lavender, which softened the stark white lines of the architecture.
The phone was ringing when Zac and Pandora walked through the huge, imposing wooden door into the town house. A moment later Aki appeared, said something to Zac in Greek, his gaze sliding sideways to Pandora.
Zac strode away. Pandora followed more hesitantly across the glossy marble floor. She could hear him talking on the phone, his voice guarded, his replies terse, ending with an abrupt, “No comment.”
Pandora tensed. Why were the press calling?
She forced one foot in front of the other and entered what was clearly the sitting room. A warm-hued kilim lay on the floor between a pair of rich brown chesterfield couches and what looked like a Magritte hung over the fireplace.
Zac was standing with his back to her in front of a wide television screen, the handset cradled in his hands revealing that the call had been terminated, and his shoulders were hunched. His reaction offered little comfort and the tension knotting her chest wound tighter.
“Zac?”
He turned and looked across to her, his eyes so dark, so full of turmoil that her heart missed a beat. “Zac, what is it?”
“They know.”
“Know what?” But Pandora didn’t need his answer—she read it in the starkness of his gaze, in the sallow shade of his skin. She sank down onto the nearest couch and dropped her head into her hands.
“The press know about Stavros…that he was your lover before you married me.” Above her bowed head, the citation of facts continued relentlessly. “They know that you were not a virgin bride. The paparazzi are questioning whether I knew, too—and misled everyone—or whether I, the Kyriakos heir, was duped.” And then she heard Zac tap out another number and speak to someone in rapid Greek.
This was it. The end. Zac must hate her.
“I’m so sorry.” There was a deep, hoarse note in his voice that made her heart twist. “The tabloids are going to crucify you. It’s going to be hell on earth for you.”
She blinked, struggling to comprehend what he was saying. His shoes came into her line of vision and her head jerked up. “For me? What about you?”
He shrugged. “I will survive.”
He would, too. Zac had that strong inner sense of self—it was what set him apart, what made him clearly a man among men. Here stood a man who all his life had been groomed for a position of power and followed the path that had been ordained for him from the minute he had been born. A man who had never set a foot wrong…until she had wrecked it all for him. Why should he pay the price for her mistakes?
She stared at his shoes, wishing a hole would open up in the carpet below through which she could sink. There was no doubt in her mind that Zac was going to pay the price, going to be humiliated in front of his peers, his business connections. The Kyriakos name was about to be dragged through the press.
It was all her fault.
At last she lifted her head and scanned his beloved features, taking in the harsh lines of strain around his mouth. The dark rings under his eyes only added to his appeal, giving him a dangerous glamour. “You must wish that you’d never set eyes on me.”
Zac gave her a long, unfathomable look. “It is done.”
He hadn’t denied it. There was no doubt in her mind that he wished he’d never met her. Not that she could blame him. She’d brought him nothing but trouble. The thought hurt desperately.
Finally she asked, “Who leaked the story?”
Zac shook his head, and his eyes turned a dark, stormy green. “I don’t know. I’ve already advised my security team of the breach. Believe me, I’ll have the answer to your question very shortly. And when I get my hands on the bastard’s wretched neck, his life will not be worth living.”
The set of his mouth was grim.
A brief instant of pity for the culprit swept Pandora. It had to be an insider. Briefly she considered Stavros. She glanced at Zac, took in his fierce expression and decided against raising Stavros’s name. Surely Stavros wouldn’t be so stupid? He wouldn’t risk his easy life married to Katy. She thought of the others she’s come to know. Aki, Maria and Georgios and the rest of Zac’s trusted staff and hoped none of them had betrayed him. Zac would be merciless in retribution.
The following morning Pandora wakened in the guest bedroom she’d chosen to sleep in to the sound of a commotion outside. Hurriedly, she slipped out of bed, pulled on a terry robe and crossed to the window.
Peering around the corner of the drawn drapes, she took in the photographers crowding the sidewalk and a security guard hanging out of a car, calling for the mass to disband through a loudspeaker.
Her heart sank and she ducked out of sight. So much for Zac’s “No comment” yesterday.
They must be headline news this morning. Zac would be cursing her as he tried to control the notoriety the publicity must be causing him, his family and Kyriakos Shipping.
She showered and dressed hastily. The mirror revealed that she looked smart and composed in a pair of oyster trousers with a silver-blue silk blouse. By the time she’d slipped on a string of pearls, a pair of high heels and makeup, no one would detect the shame and misery beneath the mask.
Now she simply had to free Zac from the trouble she’d caused him.
Unzipping her purse, she pulled out her cell phone and perched herself on the corner of the bed.
“Daddy? Are you there?” Pandora asked as the line crackled.
There was brief silence, then her father’s sigh came heavily over the line. “I’ve heard, Pandora. The story has already been picked up by the evening news down here. Is it true? Did you lose your virginity to Zac’s brother-in-law?”
“Dad, I need to get out of Zac’s life. I need to come home.” Maybe if she hid at the end of the world and didn’t have to meet Zac’s angry gaze, she’d find the strength to cope with the horror of having her face infamously plastered over the world’s newspapers. Of coming to terms with the fact that she was not the bride Zac Kyriakos needed—or loved.
“Is it true?”
What was the point in obfuscating? It had all happened so long ago. “Yes.”
Even across the line she could hear her father release his breath. “You lost your virginity at seventeen to the man who is now your brother-in-law?”
It sounded so sordid. Pandora bit back a sob. “Yes.”
“Poor Zac!”
Her father’s exclamation cut her to the quick. She’d been worried about what it was all doing to Zac. Perhaps selfishly, she’d expected a little sympathy from her father.
“What about me? You and Zac cooked this marriage up between you. I didn’t know I was supposed to be a virgin—not that the loss of my virginity was the kind of thing I would tell you about. I fell in love with Zac. Only to find out that he married me for my nonexistent virginity, that he didn’t love me at all! I’ve been a silly little goose—twice over.” All the disappointment of the past weeks spilled from her.
Silence met her outburst. Pandora could picture her father standing beside his leather-top desk at High Ridge, his face stern. A wave of l
onging swept her. “Daddy—”
“Pandora, I introduced Zac to you for the best reasons in the world. Zac needed a wife—he’s a man I respect and admire. I leaped at the chance that you two might suit. You’re my only child. I’ve always worried about you. About the unscrupulous men who might target you for your fortune. Your home is with Zac.”
“How can Zac want me anymore? I’ve been nothing but trouble to him.” A sob escaped her throat. “But you’re right. I can’t leave him to weather this crisis alone. Thank you, Daddy.” Pandora said a subdued goodbye and made her way downstairs. From the windows beside the staircase it was clear that the town house was under siege, reporters thronging against the gate.
She shuddered in horror. They were after photos of the scandalous Kyriakos virgin bride. Soiled goods. Stavros’s words taunted her. It was what the tabloids would be screaming, too.
Pausing in the archway to the sitting room, her heart missed a beat as she took in Zac’s tall, lean frame. With a sense of inevitability, she saw the paper in his hands.
“Let me see that.”
Poker-faced, he tried to hide it behind his back, but Pandora would have none of it. “I want to read what they say about me.”
He handed it to her with a sigh. “Don’t let it get to you. So much is lies.”
The headlines were a thousand times worse than she’d anticipated, and for a moment Pandora wished she had fled back to her father, to the sanctuary of High Ridge.
“Zac duped by fake virgin,” proclaimed one. And “Marriage turns tycoon into fool,” screamed another.
“What impact is all this going to have on the company?” she asked, her hand over her mouth.
“The share price has already hiccupped.” He must have read something of the devastation that ripped at her insides, because he said dismissively, “It will be a temporary thing. It will stabilise. We’ll see what happens by the close of day on Wall Street.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said in a small voice.
“Try not to think about it,” Zac advised. “We will get through this.”
“I wish there was something I could do,” she said.
