A Deal at the Altar

by Lynne Graham

  ‘I haven’t even looked at another woman since I married you,’ Sergios spelt out forcefully. ‘Nor will I in the future. That’s a promise. Will you come home with me now?’

  A huge smile was tugging the last of the stress from round her ripe mouth. ‘You still haven’t explained how you knew where I was this afternoon.’

  ‘Your security team know not to listen to you if you try to go anywhere without them in tow. They followed you. What did Townsend want?’

  ‘Me apparently, but after all this time I’m really not interested. I told him that I…er…’ Bee hesitated at what she had almost revealed. ‘I told Jon that I had become quite attached to you.’

  ‘Attached? Is that a fact?’ Sergios prompted softly, sitting down on the bed beside her and tucking her hair back behind one small ear with a gentle hand. ‘I’m quite attached to you as well.’

  ‘Sexually speaking,’ Bee qualified, a glutton for accuracy.

  ‘Well, I have to admit that you have the most fabulous breasts and I’m ashamed to admit that they are the first thing I noticed about you the night we met,’ Sergios confessed with the beginnings of a wicked grin. ‘But you’ve contrived to build whole layers on that initial impression. You’re a great listener, marvellous company, very loyal, intelligent and affectionate. When I’m angry or stressed you make me feel calm. When I’m unkind you make me see another viewpoint. I’m not even mentioning how wonderful you are with the children because that’s not what you and I are about any more—’

  Bee went from hanging on his every flattering word to cutting in with a quick question. ‘It’s…not?’

  ‘Of course, it’s not. We started out with a practical marriage.’

  ‘You told Melita that too, didn’t you?’ Bee recalled unhappily, her brow indenting with a remembered sense of humiliation.

  His forefinger smoothed away the tension that had tightened her mouth. ‘I’m afraid it slipped out but I really did believe we were going to have a marriage that was like a business deal.’

  ‘And how do you feel now?’ she whispered.

  ‘Like I made the killing of a lifetime when I got you to the altar,’ Sergios declared, his eyes warmer than she had ever seen them as he studied her intently. ‘You’ve got to know how crazy I am about you. You taught me to love again. You taught me how to trust and you transformed my life.’

  Bee stared at him wide-eyed. ‘You’re crazy about me?’

  ‘I’m hopelessly in love with you.’

  Bee wrapped both arms round him as though he were a very large teddy bear and dragged him down to her. ‘I was trying to save face when I said I was attached to you.’

  ‘I rather hoped that that was what you were doing, agape mou.’

  ‘I love you too but I still don’t know why.’

  ‘Don’t question it too closely in case you change your mind,’ Sergios warned.

  ‘It’s just you weren’t the most loveable guy around when we got married.’

  ‘But I’m really working at it now,’ he pointed out. ‘And I won’t stop.’

  Bee studied him with bemused green eyes. ‘You promise?’

  ‘I promise. I love you. All I want is to make you happy.’

  The sincerity in his liquid dark gaze went straight to her impressionable heart and tears stung the backs of her eyes. Finally, she believed him. Their marriage was safe. Even better, he was hers in exactly the way she had dreamed. He loved her and love was, she sensed, the only chain that would hold him.

  ‘I should’ve known I was in trouble when I bought that wedding dress,’ Sergios confided with a rueful laugh.

  ‘What were you doing at a fashion show?’ As he winced she guessed the answer. ‘You were there because of Melita and yet you picked a dress for me?’ she prompted in amazement.

  ‘I saw the dress and I couldn’t help picturing you wearing it and I know it was high-handed of me but I was determined that you should have it,’ Sergios revealed.

  She was touched by the admission that even before their wedding he had been attracted to her to that extent. ‘Yet we both thought that I was going to be more of an employee than a real wife.’

  ‘Even I can be stupid.’

  Bee grinned with appreciation. ‘Hold on while I get a microphone and record that statement.’

  ‘Well, I was stupid about you. I was fighting what I felt for you right from the start.’

  ‘Your marriage to Krista hurt you a great deal,’ Bee commented softly, understanding that and willing to forgive the time it had taken for him to recognise his feelings for her.

  ‘I thought I would be happier living without a serious relationship in my life. You rewrote everything I thought I knew about myself. I wanted you. I wanted you in my bed, my home, involved in every aspect of my day.’ Sergios circled her mouth slowly, gently, with his. ‘I know I didn’t tell you that I’d finished with Melita but I didn’t see the need.’

  ‘I thought that maybe you thought you could still have both of us.’

  Unexpectedly, Sergios laughed. ‘No, I was never that stupid. I knew that wasn’t an option but possibly I felt a little foolish about changing my mind so quickly and wanting the kind of marriage I said I definitely didn’t want.’

  Bee brushed a high cheekbone with gentle fingertips, loving the new confidence powering her. ‘That aspect never occurred to me.’

  ‘It should’ve done. I thought I had our marriage all worked out and it blew up in my face because I couldn’t keep my hands off you.’

  ‘When I saw Melita I decided you only liked blondes…and for just a little while I actually considered getting my hair dyed. It was my lowest moment,’ Bee confided with a wince of shame.

  Sergios groaned out loud, his long fingers feathering through her glossy dark hair. ‘I’m very grateful you didn’t do it. I love your hair the way it is—’

  ‘I might grow it longer for you,’ Bee proffered, feeling unusually generous.

  Sergios pressed her back against the pillows and extracted a kiss that was full of hungry urgency. ‘Now that we’re here, we might as well take advantage.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Bee agreed, full pink lips swollen, eyes wide with desire as the tug of arousal pinched low in her tummy.

  And the kissing shifted into a fairly wild bout of lovemaking. Afterwards, Bee lay in her husband’s arms, feeling loved and secure and boundlessly happy and grateful for what she had.

  On the drive back to their London home that evening, Sergios dealt her a slightly embarrassed appraisal and said abruptly, ‘I thought that possibly in a few months’ time we might consider having a baby.’

  ‘On the grounds that we’ve got so many children we might as well have another?’ Bee prompted very drily.

  Sergios grimaced. ‘I suppose I deserve that reminder but I’ve changed. I would like to have a child with you some day in the future.’

  ‘I can agree to that now you’ve got the right attitude,’ Bee told him chirpily and she flung herself into his arms with abandon and snuggled close. ‘And now I know that you love me, you had better get used to me doing stuff like this.’

  His strong arms enfolded her and dark golden eyes rested on her animated face with tender appreciation. ‘And maybe I’ve even learned to like it, yineka mou.’

  Bee relaxed and knew she could hug him to her heart’s content. From here on in there would be no more boundaries she feared to cross.

  EPILOGUE

  ‘HOW do you feel?’ Sergios asked, his anxiety obvious.

  ‘Absolutely fine!’ Bee exclaimed, widening her bright eyes in reproach. ‘Stop fussing!’

  But Bee was less than pleased with her reflection in the mirror. It was Nectarios’s eighty-third birthday and they were throwing a big party for the old
er man at their home on the island. She was wearing a beautiful evening gown in one of her favourite colours but, it had to be said, nothing, not even the fabulous diamonds glittering in her ears and at her throat, could make her elegant in her own eyes while she was heavily pregnant. At almost eight months pregnant with their first child, she felt like a ship in full sail.

  Sergios drew her back against him, his hands splaying gently across her swollen abdomen, his fascination palpable as he felt the slight ripple of movement as their daughter kicked. A little girl, that was what they were having according to the most recent sonogram. Eleni was four years old and she was very excited about the baby sister who would soon be born. Bee had enjoyed furnishing a nursery and had frittered away many a happy hour choosing baby equipment and clothing.

  Bee, however, could hardly believe that she and Sergios had been married for going on for three years. They had waited a little longer than they had originally planned to try for a baby but she had conceived quickly. There was not a single cloud in Bee’s sky. The previous year, Melita Thiarkis had sold her island property and set up permanent home in Milan with an Italian millionaire. Bee had never got involved with the charity Jon Townsend had worked with because he made her uncomfortable, but she had picked another charity, one that concentrated on disabled adults like her mother. When she was not running round after the children or travelling with Sergios, for they did not like to be kept apart for more than a couple of nights, she put in sterling work seeking out sponsors for the organisation and raising funds.

  Bee’s mother, Emilia was firmly settled now in her cottage on Orestos. Happier and healthier than she had been for several years, the older woman was fully integrated into island life and a good deal less lonely and bored. She loved living close to her daughter and took great pleasure in Paris, Milo and Eleni running in and out of her house and treating her as an honorary grandmother. Nectarios was a regular visitor to his grandson’s home and a very welcome one. He was thrilled that his fourth great-grandchild was on the way.

  ‘You’ve made so many arrangements for this party. I don’t want you to tire yourself out,’ Sergios admitted.

  The house was full of guests and there was a distant hum, which probably signified the approach of another helicopter ready to drop off more guests.

  ‘I’ll be fine.’ Bee was wryly amused by the level of his concern, for she had enjoyed a healthy pregnancy that had impinged very little on her usual routine. He was so supportive though, having rigorously attended every medical appointment with her.

  Sergios studied the woman he loved and once again worked to suppress his secret fear of the idea of anything ever happening to her. The more he loved her, the more central she became to his world, and the more he worried but the bottom line, the payoff, he had learned, was a level of love and contentment he had never known until she entered his life.

  ‘I love you, agape mou,’ he murmured gently at the top of the sweeping staircase.

  Bee met his stunning dark golden eyes and felt the leap of every sense with happy acceptance. The world they had made together was a safe cocoon for both them and the children. ‘I love you more than I could ever say.’

  * * * * *

  ISBN: 9781459227170

  Copyright © 2012 by Lynne Graham

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