“You’re wrong, Perseus. I’m only staying with you for one reason—” Her voice came out sounding breathless.
“And we both know why. Because that valiant, noble spirit of yours won’t allow you to rescind our bargain.”
“Not after all the things you’ve done for me, no. But isn’t that what you want? To present the picture of domestic bliss to the world until you can marry Sofia?” she cried out in fresh pain. Another minute and she’d give herself away completely.
His answer was a long time in coming. “Much as you’re hoping for it, Kyria, marriage to Sofia isn’t going to happen. It was never a possiblity, except in your mind.”
Never?
The exquisite joy those words brought was short-lived when his hands suddenly trailed down her arms, then went back to his pockets once more.
She didn’t want to hear what was coming next, but a compulsion more powerful than anything she’d ever known in her life wouldn’t let her stay silent.
“Why do you say that?” she asked in a barely audible tone. “What has changed? Not your love for her! Surely not her love for you!” It had to be said, and she had to say it, but she couldn’t prevent her voice from quivering.
“No, that hasn’t changed for either one of us.”
Well, Sam. There’s your answer. Your father was wrong because as in love with Anna and wants you to experience that same fulfilling happiness. Don’t you dare go to pieces in front of Perseus.
Schooling herself to remain composed, an effort which was costing her dearly, she said in a wooden voice, “Then I don’t see the problem.”
“That’s because I haven’t told you everything,” he ground out. “She’s in agony because she has a son who’s in love with a local village girl in Turkey. A rather fitting irony to a bizarre tale, wouldn’t you say, Kyria?”
While Sam was barely grasping the implications of that revelation Perseus said, “He doesn’t want to live in Greece, and Sofia can’t bear to live apart from him.”
Sam didn’t think she could take any more. “I-is he your son?” She had to ask the question.
“No,” was his emphatic reply.
Another pain he had to endure. He was Greek to his very soul. It would have meant everything to have a son of his own body. She could scarcely breathe.
“So what you’re saying is, that if you two want to be together, you’d have to set up residence in Turkey?”
“Yes,” he murmured. “Since that’s out of the question for reasons I don’t want to go into, it appears I have no more claim on the bargain you and I made in your apartment.” A hushed silence prevailed before he said, “You’re free to leave and do whatever your heart desires.”
Free to leave... The words she’d been dreading.
Her heart almost failed her. If she lived to be a thousand years old, this was one outcome of a situation she could never have imagined being caught up in.
No wonder he’d practically ravished her in the car earlier tonight. He was fighting demons most humans would never have to endure. But he was Perseus, born on the island of Serifos, where the lines of myth and reality were blurred.
On this island, her own father had exorcised her mother from his heart. It was here Perseus had given his heart to Sofia. But his story had rewritten the history books because the only person who’d turned into stone was a grief-stricken Perseus, cursed by the other gods because of his great courage, strength and male beauty.
She had to get out of here.
“Part of our contract is still in effect,” came the solemn pronouncement. “I will set you up in business whether it be here, New York or Sicily.”
“Sicily?” Anger caused her to shout the word at him. “I don’t want to live there! To damnation with your contract!”
“But you need someone in your life, Samantha,” he spoke on, undaunted. “Your father is prepared to—”
“Enough about my father!” Her entire body was shaking. “It sounds to me like you can’t wait for me to get out of here. If you’ll please give me back my passport, and write me a check for ten thousand dollars tonight, I can leave in the morning with no financial worries.
“Keep the prize money when it comes. No one will be able to tell you endorsed my name on the back of the check. Except for the clothes I need to walk out of here, I’ll leave everything else. When I get where I’m going, you can send me my fabric swatches and tablecloths.
“Now, if you don’t mind—” She stopped to catch her breath. “I’m very tired and would like to go to bed.”
“So would I,” came the silky voice. “With my wife.”
She felt as if a bolt of lightning had just charged her body. Flame licked her cheeks.
“Oh, no. Perseus. You just released me from our contract. I no longer have to be a substitute for Sofia. I was your bride by day, remember?”
“I remember,” his voice rasped, “and I’ve been living in a hell of my own making ever since.”
What was he saying now? “Your hell was being torn away from the woman you loved!”
“That’s true. Sofia was my first love, the kind of love a boy feels for a lovely, exciting girl when he’s on the threshold of becoming a man. But love has to be nurtured, Kyria.”
Her father’s words.
“Though the feelings I had for her died years ago, naturally she’ll always hold a special place in my memory.”
“She still loves you.”
“The memory of me,” he amended. “Like me, she needed to have closure on the past. Now that she’s returning to Turkey, she can start a new life. She’s a beautiful woman with a great deal of love to give. Some lucky man is going to claim her heart one day, and she has a son she adores.”
“How can you say that so glibly when you’ve spent your adult life looking for her?” Her throbbing voice resounded in the bedroom.
“Because I was curious to know why she did what she did, why she disappeared. I halfway suspected it might have been something to do with her father, and worried she could be in serious trouble. When a Greek hates, it is all-consuming, and her father hated me.”
“That’s horrible.” She wanted to reach out and comfort him.
“I agree. I feared he’d take it out on her. As it happens, I wasn’t wrong. For a long time I felt guilty for loving her because it brought her to such grief.”
Sam took a step closer and put a tentative hand on his warm, solid arm. “So that’s why you were so upset when you couldn’t find the phone number.”
“Yes... With all my spy network, I never was able to learn where her father had sent her. When I received word that she was still alive, and possibly trying to make contact with me, the guilt lifted, and all I could feel was profound gratitude.”
Sam’s eyes closed tightly. “To think I shouted at you that my final grade was more important than that phone number...”
Her feelings were in such chaos, it took time to sort everything out until she summoned enough courage to ask the one question haunting her above all else.
“I-if the only emotion you felt was gratitude, then why did you make that contract with me?”
His hands lifted to her hot cheeks, locking her in place. This close, she could see the intensity of his black gaze. “You want the truth, my sweet, adorable wife?”
“Perseus—please don’t be kind to me because you think you have to. Of course I want the truth! No more lies.”
She felt his muscles tense. “So be it.”
The room whirled as he plucked her from the floor and carried her into his bedroom. The dizziness intensified as he lowered her to the mattress, then followed her down with his hard body. Her hands were pinned beneath his above her head.
“You wanted honesty,” he whispered between long, drugging kisses that left her witless. “So do I... Tell me if you can why you made a bargain with the devil, one furthermore who was scarred.”
“I love your scar,” she admitted without thinking, and kissed it. “I felt sorry for you b
ecause your love had been so brutally destroyed. I—I suppose I wanted to comfort you.”
He lifted his head far enough to look down at her. “I felt sorry for you, too, because I knew some man had hurt you in a way that goes too deep for tears. I found myself wanting to protect you from ever being hurt again. But what you’ve said doesn’t explain why you’d enter into a contract as real and binding as marriage with a stranger.”
By now his long, powerful legs had tangled with hers, and he was kissing the creamy smoothness of her shoulder where her robe had slipped down.
“Surely you know I did it because I love you,” she murmured against his neck, wanting to communicate words, but needing his touch desperately. “Love was the reason, Perseus. My only reason. You were the man I wanted for my husband. When we said our vows before the priest, I meant them with all my heart. I was willing to do anything to be near you. Anything!”
“Then we understand each other perfectly,” Perseus whispered against her lips before plundering her mouth once more. “You walked into my office, squeaking with every wet step as you came closer. Like a modern-day Andromeda, wearing jeans and this amazing shirt which had to be an original, it seemed I had literally plucked you from the sea.
“I was in shock because your golden hair and exquisite face were hauntingly familiar. I knew I’d seen you somewhere before. Suddenly I imagined you draped in diaphanous green, and you became the embodiment of the woman in the painting staring down at us.
“Unlike most people who want something from me, you proceeded to vivisect me with that rapier tongue, repudiating me and my possessions with every word coming out of that provocative, delicious mouth I’ll crave until death and beyond.”
To prove his point, he devoured her thoroughly until she was groaning with need.
“I’m still bleeding from the wounds, Kyria, but you’re the only elixir provided by the gods to heal them. I was counting on your compassion over my star-crossed love affair, and made up that absurd contract to bind you to me until I could get you to fall in love with me. You know that, don’t you?
“You know you’re my Andromeda, that I’ve fallen hopelessly in love with you. You have to know it!” he cried in a rush of naked, raw emotion that could leave her in no doubt.
“I’ve wanted to believe it,” she gasped from sheer joy. “My father said that you were in love with me, but—”
“We can thank heaven that Jules is an intelligent man.
“I agree.” The words came out muffled because his mouth was driving her over the brink of sanity. “He said that since I was so deeply in love with you, I should ask you if you were truly going to marry Sofia.”
“So that was the reason for your knock on my door tonight.”
“Yes, my beloved. I adore you.” Her breath caught. “I think I admitted it to myself as early as that scary ride down the elevator of your office building.”
A chuckle broke from his throat before he buried his face in her glorious hair.
“It’s true. At the time, you reminded me of Hades, whisking me off to your underworld, disobeying all the traffic laws, commandeering my apartment. But I found that I rather liked the way you sort of took over my life. To my shame, when you tempted me with marriage, no matter how bogus, I didn’t hesitate to leap right in.”
By now his chuckle came rumbling out as full-bodied laughter. The happiest sound in all the world. “Agape mou,” he murmured in his native tongue. “I knew I loved you when you called me Mr. Kofolopogos. It was then I decided that I was going to have you for myself.”
“Thank God,” she whispered. Delirious with yearning, she raised her mouth to his, her hunger for him becoming insatiable.
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew the sinful thing I was plotting before you came to my room tonight.”
She raised her hands to his face and forced him to look at her. “What sinful thing?”
Lines hardened his face in a grimace of self-abnegation. “Normally a stroll along the beach before bed has always been my way of getting in touch with myself, a sort of sanctuary to work things out.
“But tonight there was no solace in the sand or the water. I found myself in the bitterest purgatory because I thought you were going to leave with your father in the morning, and I knew I had no right to prevent you.”
A shudder shook his magnificent body. “The worst of it is, I knew I was going to stop you from leaving. I had your kidnapping all planned.”
Her eyes widened. “Kidnapping?”
He nodded. “In ways I’m even more ruthless and evil than my former stepfather.”
“Perseus—Don’t say that. You’re the most wonderful man I’ve ever known. It’s a privilege to be loved by you, to be your wife.”
He shook his dark head. “You haven’t heard me out. You may change your mind.”
“Never! But go on if you have to. Finish telling me your terrible tale,” she said with a smile in her voice as she traced the line of his compelling male mouth. She couldn’t believe he loved her, that he was hers to love forever.
“There’s a tiny, uninhabited island near Tinos. No one goes there. I had this plan to take you back to Athens via the sailboat, which I have well stocked for emergencies.
“En route I had every intention of taking us sailing there. Once we’d pulled up on the beach to eat, I planned to pretend illness so you’d have to nurse me back to health. Your compassionate heart wouldn’t have suspected a thing, and I hoped that after a week’s time, when I’d fully recovered, you would have admitted your love for me.”
His eyes flashed dark fire, giving her a deeper glimpse into the passion igniting his psyche. She experienced a thrill of excitement to think that such a primitive passion burned for her.
“If you hadn’t come to your senses by then, I was going to do something really terrible. If necessary, chain you to one of the rocks like Andromeda of old, until you called out your love for me.”
Her lips curved bewitchingly. “I know you would never do such a thing. As if you would need to resort to those kinds of measures when I love you so desperately.” Her voice caught.
“Samantha—” Once more he captured her mouth, showing her just how much he needed her. They couldn’t get enough of each other. “I fear your father’s painting has always been my favorite treasure,” he eventually murmured against her throat.
“But when you appeared to me in the flesh, it was like Pandora’s box had been opened. From that time forth, you became my obsession. Do you think you can handle that? Being the obsession of a man who has laid his heart at your feet? You’ll never know how much I wanted to include conjugal rights as part of our marriage contract.”
His words created too much happiness. All she could do was embrace him harder. “Why didn’t you? I’ve been aching to make love to you,” she confessed openly. “Every time you started making love to me, then stopped, I died a little more inside.”
“That’s because I prized your love more than anything else in life. If you couldn’t give me your beautiful body to worship because you couldn’t help yourself, then I wanted no part of forcing you to sleep with me, never knowing if you truly loved me, or were simply sacrificing yourself to fulfill our bargain.”
“Oh, Perseus. You’ll never know how much I’ve longed to share your bed. I’ve yearned for you. Make love to me now, darling. I need you. I love you,” she cried from her heart, her voice trembling with desire.
“Agape mou.” He crushed her to him, his voice so husky, she didn’t recognize it.
“One day, Perseus, I want us to make love on that tiny, uninhabited island.”
She heard his groan of satisfaction.
“Honestly, darling—I don’t think you could possibly know how jealous I was when you told me about taking Sofia to Delos.”
He began kissing every inch of her face and neck. “Delos is for tourists and lovers, Kyria. Everyone goes there. I’d been there with half a dozen girls from the village before I ever met Sofia.”<
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“Perseus!” she cried in mock anger, then threw her arms around his neck, pulling him down so there was no part of them that wasn’t touching.
“Well, I want my own island where I can give myself to you wholehearted, over and over again, away from any jealous gods who would try to threaten our happiness.”
Feeling suddenly shy, she buried her face in his neck. “I want to give you a son or daughter right away. I want to give you everything. That’s the way your love makes me feel.”
His chest heaved as he began removing the robe from her body. “If you really want to go, are you prepared to be away several months? That’s how long I want you to myself, Kyria.”
She could feel his impatience to make her his true wife. The fire in his kiss was a promise of the rapture to come. He could have no idea how much she needed to love him, to be loved by him...
“After two months, will you cut my chains, beloved Perseus, and take me to my father to ask for my hand in true marriage?”
Perseus began to smile. It illuminated his face. She wanted to paint him just like this. But not right now. Not when she couldn’t think of ever leaving his arms, let alone this bed.
He buried his face in her hair. “You’ve made me feel immortal. I’m in the mood to grant you your slightest wish.”
“Careful, my darling,” she whispered. “You know how much trouble you got into the last time you made me that offer.”
A low chuckle rumbled out of him, thrilling her. “I love getting into trouble with you. I want to get into so much trouble, it will take a lifetime and beyond to work everything out.”
“Well... I was thinking we could name our firstborn son, Hercul—”
“Granted,” he murmured against her lips, his kisses becoming more drugging, more primitive. “Anything else you wish to ask me will have to wait till later. Much, much later.”
ISBN : 978-1-4592-6306-2
BRIDE BY DAY
First North American Publication 1998.
Bride by Day Page 17
