Bought For The Greek's Bed

Vicky did not need to ask who he meant.

‘Very handsome indeed,’ she said, as neutrally as possible.

Her uncle seemed pleased with her reply.

‘He’s invited us for lunch at the yacht club tomorrow,’ he informed her. ‘It’s a very popular place—you’ll like it. It’s at Piraeus.’

I might like it more without Mr Handsome there, she thought. But she did not say it. Still, it was a place she had not seen yet—Piraeus, the port of Athens. But, instead of saying anything more on that, she found herself changing the subject.

‘Uncle, is everything all right?’

The enquiry had come out of nowhere, but it had been triggered by a sudden recognition that, despite the smile on her uncle’s face, there was tension in it, too—a tension that had been masked during the evening but which was now, given the late hour, definitely visible.

But a hearty smile banished any tension about him.

‘All right?’ he riposted, rallying. ‘Of course! Never better! Now, pethi mou, it is time for your bed, or you will have dark circles under your eyes to mar your beauty. And we cannot have that—we cannot have that at all!’ He gave a sorrowing sigh. ‘That Andreas were still alive to see how beautiful his daughter is! But I shall take care of you for him. That I promise you. And now to bed with you!’

He shooed her out, and she went, though she was still uneasy. Had she just been got rid of to stop her asking another question in that line of enquiry?

Yet the following day there was no sign of the tension she thought she’d seen in him, and when they arrived at the prestigious yacht club, clearly the preserve of the extremely well-heeled of Athens, her uncle’s spirits were high. Hers were less so, and she found her reserve growing as the tall figure at the table they were being conducted to unfolded his lean frame and stood up.

Lunch was not a comfortable meal. Though the majority of the conversation was in English, Vicky got the feeling that another conversation was taking place—one that she was not a party to. But that was not the source of her discomfort. It was very much the man they were lunching with, and the way his dark, assessing eyes would flick to her every now and then, with a look in them that did not do her ease any good at all.

As the meal progressed she realised she was becoming increasingly aware of him—of his sheer physical presence, the way his hands moved, the strength of his fingers as they lifted a wineglass, or curved around the handle of his knife. The way his sable hair feathered very slightly over his forehead, the way the strong column of his throat moved as he talked. And the way he talked, whether in English or Greek, that low, resonant timbre doing strange things to her—things she would prefer not to happen. Such as raising her heart rate slightly, and making her stomach nip every now and then as her eyes, as they must during conversation, went to his face.

She watched covertly as he lifted his hand in the briefest gesture, to summon the maître d’. He came at once, instantly, and was immediately all attention. And Vicky realised, with a disturbing little frisson down her spine, that there was another reason other than his dark, planed looks that made him attractive.

It was the air of power that radiated from him. Not obvious, not ostentatious, not deliberate, but just—there.

This was a man who got what he wanted, and there would never, in his mind, be the slightest reason to think otherwise.

She gave an inward shiver. It wasn’t right, her rational mind told her, to find that idea of uncompromising power adding to his masculinity. It was wrong for a host of reasons, ethical and moral.

But it was so, all the same.

And she resented it. Resented the man who made her think that way. Respond to him that way.

No! This was ridiculous. She was getting all worked up over someone who was, in the great scheme of things, completely irrelevant to her. He had invited her uncle for lunch, presumably for that singular mix of business and sociality that those in these wealthy circles practised as a matter of course, and she had been included in the invitation for no other reason than common courtesy.

She forced herself to relax. Her uncle was turning to her, saying something, and she made herself pay attention with a smile.

‘You are fond of Mozart, are you not, pethi mou?’

She blinked. Where had that question come from? Nevertheless, she answered with a smile, ‘Yes—why do you ask?’

But it was their host who answered.

‘The Philharmonia are in Athens at the moment, and tomorrow night they are giving a Mozart concert. Perhaps you would like to attend?’

Vicky’s eyes went to her uncle. He was smiling at her benignly. She was confused. Did he want to go? If he did, she would be happy—more than happy—to go with him. Aristides liked showing her off, she knew, and as she did indeed like Mozart’s music, she’d be happy to go to a concert.

‘That sounds lovely,’ she answered politely.

Her uncle’s smile widened. ‘Good, good.’ He nodded. He glanced across at their host and said something in Greek that Vicky did not understand, and was answered briefly in the same language. He turned back to his niece.

‘You can be ready by seven, can you not?’ he asked.

‘Yes, of course,’ she answered. She frowned slightly. Why had her uncle spoken to their host about it?

She discovered, with a little stab of dismay, just why on her way back to Athens with Aristides.

‘He wants to take me to the concert? But I thought we were going?’

‘No, no,’ said Aristides airily. ‘Alas, I don’t have time to go to concerts.’

But he does, thought Vicky. A strange sensation had settled over her and she didn’t like it. She also didn’t like the feeling that she had been stitched up—set up…

With no room to manoeuvre.

Well, she thought grimly now, that was how it had started—and how it had gone on. And even now, after everything that had happened, all the storm and stress, the rage and frustration, she still did not know how it had ended up the way it had. How she had gone from being escorted to a Mozart concert by a man whose company disturbed her so profoundly, to becoming—her mouth pressed together in a thin, self-condemning line—his wife.

Mrs Theo Theakis.

CHAPTER THREE

HOW could I have done it?

The question still burned in her head, just as it always had. How could she have gone and married Theo Theakis? She’d done it, in the end, for the best of reasons—and it had been the worst mistake of her life.

She could still remember the moment when her uncle had dropped the thunderbolt at her feet. Informing her that Theo Theakis was requesting her hand in marriage, as if they were living in the middle of a Victorian novel.

Aristides had beamed at her. ‘Every woman in Athens wants to marry him!’

Well, every woman in Athens is welcome to him! thought Vicky, as she sat there, staring blankly at her uncle, disbelief taking over completely as he extolled the virtues of a man she barely knew—but knew enough to be very, very wary of. Since the Mozart concert she had seen Theo Theakis only a handful of times—and she could hardly have said he’d singled her out in any particular way. Apart from knowing that he was rich, disturbingly attractive, and, from the few conversations she’d had with him about any non-trivial subject, dauntingly and incisively intelligent, he was a complete stranger. Nothing more than an acquaintance of her uncle, and no one she wanted to get any closer to.

In fact, he was someone, for all the reasons she was so disturbingly aware of, her preferred option would have been to avoid. It would have been much, much safer…

And now, out of nowhere, her uncle was saying he wanted to marry her?

It was unbelievable—quite, quite unbelievable.

She wanted to laugh out loud at the absurdity of it, but as she stared at her uncle blindly she started to become aware of something behind the enthusiastic words. Something that dismayed her.

He was serious—he was really, really serious. And more than serious.

Vicky’s heart chilled.

In her uncle’s face was the same tension she’d seen when she’d arrived in Athens. The tension that she’d been moved to ask about the evening she’d met Theo Theakis for the first time. And something more than tension—fear.