Xenakis's Convenient Bride

by Dani Collins

  Somehow she had failed to fully appreciate how rich and powerful Stavros was. Yes, he had bought her countless gowns and dresses from boutiques and salons in Paris, but she hadn’t seen any price tags. She had told herself they couldn’t be that expensive.

  She knew they were. She read gossip magazines. She knew designer dresses could make mortgage payments for average people like her. One bra alone had been her weekly salary. Stavros had bought it in every color.

  She was in a state of denial because she couldn’t believe she was awake, not dreaming this ridiculous charade she had put herself in.

  When they arrived at a freestanding mansion in the middle of the city, however, she began to fully take in what kind of family she had married into. What kind of money. The bricks of the three-story house were a mellowed, burnt orange in the fading sun of the summer evening. The white detailing gave it an elegant Mediterranean feel. It had a proper stone balustrade surrounding a private garden and a wrought iron gate that didn’t make a sound as Stavros held it open for her, allowing her to precede him up the stone path lined with fragrant lavender and thyme.

  “This is your home?”

  “My grandfather’s town house. He stays here three nights a week and spends the rest of the week upstate. I did the same until I had access to my trust and bought my penthouse.”

  “You have a penthouse? In New York?”

  “I have several.” He shrugged it off as no big deal. “Simpson.” Stavros greeted the man who opened the front door before they finished climbing the steps.

  “Master Michaels. Welcome.” He greeted Calli with a nod and showed them down the hall. He knocked briefly, then entered a den, announcing, “Your grandson, sir.”

  The elderly man leaned forward to press a button that muted the television, not rising until he saw Stavros had company. He was heavyset with age, but moved spryly and had an old-world stateliness to his handsome features. The Xenakis genes aged well. Stavros would grow more good-looking over time, as if he needed any more advantages.

  “Will you be dining with us, sir?” Simpson asked.

  “No, we’ll have a proper family dinner later in the week, with my mother and sisters. This is a courtesy visit. To introduce my wife. Edward Michaels, Calli Xenakis.”

  The old man straightened another inch, plainly astonished.

  The rest of what Stavros said should have been directed at the butler, but Stavros’s hard stare remained locked with his grandfather’s.

  “You’ll refer to both of us by our Greek names from now on.”

  * * *

  If Calli had landed in a state of denial, she was nursing white-hot anger by the time she stood in the lounge of one of Stavros’s many penthouses. Uniformed staff finished unloading her parcels from a dolly, hurrying to finish before tugging their caps as they left.

  She dragged her gaze off the open-plan main floor with its ultramodern furniture in masculine tones of charcoal and silver. The stairs climbed at different angles to multiple levels, pausing on a landing where a small sitting room provided a space to enjoy the expansive view over the city through the massive wall of windows. The uppermost flight of stairs ended in a loft she presumed was the bedroom.

  “Don’t worry about unpacking. People will be here tomorrow.”

  “People. More bodies you’ve purchased for use?” She stared with contempt at the mountain of parcels piled up like stacks of money against the wall. Another rich playboy who did as he pleased. She had pegged him right from the first, but had still fallen for his line. She really was the stupidest woman alive.

  “Explain that remark.” His tone might have scared her if she wasn’t so appalled. And hurt. Profoundly hurt.

  “You picked me specifically to annoy your grandfather!”

  Greece? That’s where you’ve been?

  She had seen the disapproval in the old man’s eyes. The flinch as Stavros revealed she had been born on “his” island, like he knew it would get at the old man as nothing else could. The way Edward had stood there, silent and baleful as some kind of silent war raged between them, had stung like a snakebite.

  “I paid you to annoy him.” He waved at the parcels. “And I’ve included a tip.”

  “Why would I wear any of that when the point is to embarrass him? To be an embarrassment.” Humiliation choked off her voice, burning hotly behind her eyes. “That’s an ugly thing to do to someone. I’m not going to be part of it.”

  She moved to stab the button that called the private elevator.

  “We have an agreement.” He pushed a button labeled Cancel, then leaned on the wall next to it, blocking her from hitting the call button again. “A legally binding contract.”

  “That’s what happens when you shop the bargain basement, Steve. You don’t get the longevity you expect from the item. Move.” She jerked her chin, wanting to punch right through him to the button he was blocking.

  * * *

  “Don’t call me that,” Stavros growled, prickling with what might have been his conscience.

  “Don’t call you Steve? It’s better than what I want to call you. I’d take it, if I were you. Move.” She dodged behind him, but he only flattened his back on the panel, aware he was being juvenile, but he hadn’t expected this.

  “You’re overreacting.”

  “I’m reacting with the exact amount of outrage that is appropriate. You lied to me. You are exactly like the entitled, superficial jerk who ruined my life the first time.” She pulled out her cell phone.

  “Who are you calling?” As if he didn’t know. It made him see red.

  “I let myself believe you were better than you are.” Disillusion put a ragged edge on her voice. “You knew I wanted to come to New York and you used that not just to advance your interests, but to belittle me.”

  He took her phone and her arm, turning her toward the sofa. “Come here.”

  “Don’t you touch me.” She shook free of his hold.

  For one second, he stared down a look of genuine violence. He wasn’t scared, precisely. He didn’t expect she could hurt him beyond a few scratches or bruises, but he was taken aback by how deep her rage ran. How anguished she looked at the same time.

  “You dragged me here with a promise of something that means everything to me—” She bit her lip, arms straight at her sides.

  “Yes. Exactly what is that?” he demanded, looming over her so he could see into her eyes.

  She ignored the question, throwing out her hand in a wild wave. “Just so you could parade me in front of your grandfather as something shameful. I can get that by going home to my father, thanks. Go to hell with your arrangement. Steve.”

  They had more to discuss, but “Last one.” He pointed in warning. “I mean that.” If he had come away with nothing else from Sebastien’s challenge, he had at least reclaimed himself.

  “Steve! Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve!”

  He wanted to crush the word right out of her, but kept himself just this side of civilized as he gave her a deadly stare. “Use the name you call me when I’m inside you.”

  Her pupils expanded and a shadow of betrayal moved within them, dimming the angry light in her golden eyes. “Don’t. Just admit you’re a bastard.”

  “Not by birth, but definitely by nature,” he agreed, moving closer. “Now call me by my proper name. My real name, glykia mou. Or I’ll make you. You know I can.” He was pretty sure he could. He had spent most of their honeymoon learning how to wring the prettiest noises possible from her.

  Her jaw set and lifted as he came into her space. She glared up at him, mouth tight, hands still fisted at her sides. “Give me back my phone.”

  “You do not get to call your guard dog every time we have a disagreement.”

  “It’s not a disagreement. You lied.”

  “I told you I wanted to marry you for this.” He shaped the air closest to her body, deliberately keeping his hands in the space where the heat exchanged, but they didn’t touch. Her nipples
peaked as though he fondled her, though. Her breath changed and he knew by the way her thighs twitched that she pulsed in a way that echoed the tightening in his own groin.

  “You said...” She swallowed, gaze clouding. “You said you wanted...”

  He waited, feeling the pull of satisfaction in the corners of his mouth when she couldn’t remember what they were talking about. Neither could he.

  “I want you,” he told her. Truthfully. With gut-wrenching honesty, if she only knew it. “Open your dress.”

  She breathed loud enough for him to hear it. Her mouth trembled.

  “Why are you doing this?” she said with a helpless pang.

  He cupped her cheek and stepped close enough to drop his head and capture her lips. No resistance, just pure, hot response as she welcomed him. He stole greedily past her teeth with his tongue, fingers dispatching her buttons with more urgency than finesse.

  Her hands went into his hair as her dress fell open. He released her bra and took possession of her breasts, loving her groan of abject pleasure as he found both her nipples and rolled his thumbs over the pert tips.

  Bending, he stole a taste of each one, wanting to linger, but wanting other things. The win. Total surrender. He turned her away from him.

  “Put your hands on the wall.”

  She did, breath ragged as she placed each palm flat on either side of the call button on the brushed-nickel panel next to the elevator. As he ran his hands up under her skirt and caught at the lace that was soaked with her response, his breath hissed in, hot and fiery, burning his chest. He lingered to caress her slippery folds, watching her back bow and shudder, feeling her cling to his light penetration.

  “More?” He barely choked out the word. “You want me?”

  “Yes.” She arched as he brought her skirt all the way up to her waist and caressed the smooth globes of her ass.

  “Say it.” He ruthlessly clung to control. Of himself. Her. But rationality was disappearing behind stark need. “Ask me for what you want. Ask me.”

  “Use a condom.”

  He tightened his fingertips into her hips, so aroused by her words of permission he nearly went blind, but fought it, not certain he could keep himself from taking her without getting what he wanted first.

  Then he heard her moan, “Please, Stavros...”

  CHAPTER SIX

  SHE WOKE ALONE in the bed. The humid scent of a recent shower drifted from the open door of the bathroom.

  Her whole body protested when she sat up, muscles aching from exertion, brain lethargic from heavy sleep. She couldn’t help a small whimper as she swung her feet to the floor and sat there naked on the side of the bed, feeling profoundly alone.

  “Sore?”

  She flashed a look into the dark cavern of the walk in closet, heart leaping in surprise. He was naked, but there was no reading his expression or even the tone of that one word. Concerned? Smug? She couldn’t tell.

  He’d been insatiable last night, but there’d been something in his desire for her that had made him undeniable. She knew there was something in his name, his relationship with his grandfather, something that pierced into the very heart of him.

  She had felt him trying to exorcise it last night, as he had immersed himself in their lovemaking, not taking, but giving, again and again. His concentrated attention, his words of praise and pleasure, had been reassuring and compelling, but what had really kept her as lost to passion as he was had been that layer of inner pain she couldn’t reach.

  Succor. They had sought that together last night.

  In the light of day, she still felt flaunted as something substandard, though.

  She pulled the edge of the sheet across herself. It was a flimsy shield.

  He finished pulling on his shorts and skimmed a white business shirt from a hanger. He shrugged into it as he came into the bedroom.

  “I’ll start a bath for you. Tell me next time if it’s getting to be too much.”

  She snorted. “How does that go?”

  “You say, ‘Stavros, it’s too much. Go to sleep.’” He moved into the bathroom and she heard the water turn on.

  She hung her head in her hands, thinking that he might be able to turn his libido off and on like a tap, but hers wasn’t so easily controlled. Not by her at least. By him... God, she hated herself right now, pleasures of the night notwithstanding.

  She felt the weight of his stare as he returned. She lifted her head to see him buttoning his cuffs. He moved his sure fingers down the front of his chest.

  “It’s because you’re Greek.”

  “The lack of stopping sense?”

  He snorted. “That, too, since I don’t possess any, either, but no. I meant my grandfather’s disapproval.”

  He moved back into the closet, where he stepped into a pair of gray pants. He came out threading a belt through the loops, then stood before her as he tucked in his shirt.

  “He’s the son of an immigrant. Loves everything about being American. My father was visiting relatives when he met my mother. She’s very traditional and wanted us raised in Greece. My grandfather wanted us here, so my father could help him expand the pharmacy chain his own father had started. They were developing laboratories, chasing patents.” He zipped and buckled. “There was a lot of push-pull between them.”

  He fetched a blue tie and tied it without a mirror, inscrutable gaze fixed on her.

  “After my father died, my grandfather brought us here and closed the door on Greece. My mother went back to see relatives every year and I’ve been to Athens for business, but my stint as your pool man was my first trip back to our island. My sisters and I spoke Greek to each other as a small rebellion growing up, and I purposely hired a Greek PA so I could keep up the language, but my grandfather has always insisted we speak to him in English. He wanted us to be American and made us answer to our American names. Steven. I’ve always hated it.”

  He disappeared into the bathroom and the rush of water stopped. He came back and smoothly picked her up.

  “What—I can walk!”

  “You can’t sit there naked and not expect me to want to touch you, koukla mou.”

  “I wasn’t inviting you to.”

  “No, you were remembering how angry you are. You probably wouldn’t have let me touch you at all if I had given you a choice.” He gently set her on her feet beside the steaming tub.

  She hugged herself, feeling horribly exposed, standing there naked, staring at his tie, knotted perfectly. All of him was perfect. On the surface anyway.

  His thumb touched the corner of her mouth where it tugged down.

  “I wasn’t throwing you in his face so much as asserting my will. That always annoys him. I want you, Calli. I think I’ve made that obvious.”

  “And I can’t resist you. A match made in heaven. For you.” She hated that she was so defenseless with him. She was raw and vulnerable while he had everything.

  He made a noise and took her jaw in his strong hand. His touch was gentle as he forced her to look up at him. His thumb scraped lightly across her tender mouth.

  “He and I have a contentious relationship. I can’t tell you the number of times he has threatened to disinherit me—which means yanking the financial rug from beneath my mother and sisters. So I do as he wishes, but in my own way. Yes, I knew he would be angry that I’d gone to the island to find my wife. I didn’t do it to hurt or humiliate you, though.”

  “You still accomplished both of those things.” She pulled out of his touch. “But it’s only for six months.” She could endure it. What was a few months of insult against six years of missing her son? She stepped into the tub and lowered, exhaling as the warm water closed over her. She brought her knees up and hugged them.

  Stavros hesitated with his hand in the air before he let it fall to his side.

  “I have to go. I’ve been away from the office too long and I’m holding my grandfather to his promise, now that I’ve fulfilled his demand.” His mouth pulled up, but he
didn’t show his teeth. It wasn’t a smile. “Enjoy the city today.”

  * * *

  Stavros deliberately went to his grandfather’s office—the one he would claim, now that he was married. He arrived before the old man and waited there for him.

  He hadn’t lied to Calli. He had a ton of neglected work to clear up, much of it due to Sebastien’s challenge. He should be at his desk, but he also needed this quiet few minutes to process his behavior last night. He wasn’t an animal, but he’d been completely unable to leave her alone. She had let him make love to her until they were both wrung out, so he shouldn’t feel guilty, but he did.

  Hell, he knew why he felt guilty. You still accomplished both those things. Hurt and humiliation.

  He rubbed the back of his neck, arms aching, shoulders aching. He had held back his own pleasure again and again, determined to give her as much as he could. To bind her to him. He had thought she was with him every step of the way, but this morning she had made it sound like she hated herself for giving in to him.

  That she looked down on herself for it.

  When she talked of their six months, she made it sound like she couldn’t wait for it to be over.

  The door behind him clicked and he turned, ready for confrontation, fueled with Calli’s dented self-esteem.

  “Measuring the windows for new drapes?” Edward asked.

  “You know me so well.” Stavros went to the wet bar to pour the coffee Edward’s assistant had started when she’d let him in.

  “Long way to go for a wife,” Edward said as Stavros brought the coffee over and took the chair in front of the desk.

  “I was there on a dare. Sebastien bet me I couldn’t go two weeks without my credit cards. A trial run of living without my fortune, if you will. Disinherit away. I’ll survive.”

  “That’s a bluff,” Edward said confidently, adding under his breath, “Sebastien. When are you going to grow up and quit risking your life at whatever that man suggests?”

  “Today,” Stavros said, deeply facetious. “I’m married now and ready to take the Dýnami reins.”

  “Who is she?” Edward sipped his coffee.