The Carides Pregnancy

Head up, she pinned on a confident smile and, picking up a corsage that someone had dropped on the floor she tucked it at a jaunty angle into her buttonhole. She intended to see to it that the society wedding of the decade didn’t go without a hitch.

CHAPTER TWO

CHRISTOS watched the irate best man vanish around the side of the building and suppressed a twinge of guilt. For a second he was tempted to follow him, but instead he blew on his fingers to revive the circulation. It struck him as faintly ludicrous that even after all that had happened his first instinct was to bail his cousin out.

What Alex needed was not someone to hold his hand and wipe his nose—he needed to take responsibility for his own actions. Christos’s attempt the previous year to instil a sense of responsibility into the younger man had failed spectacularly.

When he had spelt out the new rules to his cousin, the younger man had laughed.

‘This is a wind-up. You’re bluffing.’

Christos had shaken his head. ‘Turn up at the office more than once every six months, and when you’re there do more than drink coffee and chat up female staff.’

‘I delegate,’ Alex had protested.

‘No. I delegate; you sponge. Work, cousin—or the very healthy cheque that’s credited to your bank account every month won’t be there.’

Christos hadn’t been bluffing.

There were a number of family members who had called him a heartless monster for refusing to be swayed from his decision—though naturally not to his face. Interestingly, there had been an equal number who had said, About time too!

But Alex’s response to the challenge had not been what he’d hoped. In fact it had been something he could not have predicted.

Christos had never decided if Alex had wanted him to find out, but there was no similar ambiguity when it came to his ex-fiancée’s intentions. Melina had known Christos was coming to her flat that evening, to return the keys and pick up the laptop he’d left there.

‘Don’t be silly—there’s no reason we can’t be civilised. We have history,’ Melina had said when he’d rung to say he would send someone round with the keys. ‘You come, darling, and we can have a drink to the good times.’

The look of spiteful triumph in her eyes when he had walked in and found her and Alex naked on the floor, amidst a pile of discarded clothes and several empty wine bottles, had removed any lingering guilt Christos felt about ending their short-lived farcical engagement the previous week.

Mild disgust and contempt were not the responses a man was meant to have when he found the woman he had briefly contemplated spending the rest of his life with making love to another man!

He’d felt no desire to take violent retribution, no desire to wipe the supercilious smirk off his cousin’s face—just a compelling urge to walk away from the sordid and tasteless spectacle.

And that was what he had done. He had slung the keys on the table and left. His only regret being that he had ever been insane enough to think all right and workable were thoughts a man should have as prerequisites for marriage.

Before Christos succumbed to frostbite, or to the austerity of his own grim reflections, his great-aunt, whom he had been delegated to escort, arrived. Christos heard her before he saw her. Her bony frame was swamped by several layers of motley fur, and her grey hair was crammed into an ancient shapeless hat, but her voice was not similarly fettered. It was loud and penetrating.

‘It is not civilised. I shouldn’t be surprised if this British weather kills me!’ she was telling a fellow guest.

‘I should be very surprised.’

A smile illuminated the lined, leathery face as Theodosia Carides identified the tall figure who had materialised at her side.

‘So you did come,’ she grunted, offering her rose-scented withered cheek for her great-nephew’s respectful salute.

‘Seeing you, Aunt Theodosia, makes the effort worth while.’

‘Don’t try your charm on me,’ the old lady recommended, repressing a pleased grin as she accepted the arm her tall handsome nephew offered. ‘I’m immune.’

The still-upright septuagenarian, who did not even reach his shoulder, did not see the need to lower her voice as her favourite nephew escorted her into the hushed, vaulted interior of the Cathedral.

‘I thought you were in Australia, Christos?’

‘I was.’ Christos saw Melina, looking as stunning as ever, seated a few feet away. They nodded in a civilised manner to one another.

‘Did Alex really ask you to be best man?’

‘Yes, he did.’

‘And you said no?’

Christos’s expression didn’t alter as he inclined his dark head in agreement—which, considering the mental picture of his ex, naked astride the groom, which was at that moment flickering across his retina, was no mean achievement.

‘I expect you had your reasons…?’

Christos did not satisfy her curiosity. ‘Can I take that for you, Aunt?’ he asked, indicating the large portmanteau his elderly relative clutched.

‘I am not an invalid.’ Despite this sharp assertion, she paused to catch her breath. ‘I suppose you know that Andrea is saying your refusal is just another symptom of your deep-seated jealousy?’

Christos’s dark brows lifted. ‘Jealousy?’

The old lady nodded. ‘According to her, you’ve always been jealous of her precious Alex.’ No longer able to conceal her amusement, she gave a loud cackle of mirth and shared the joke. ‘Apparently you never lose any opportunity to belittle him and make him look foolish. Though from what I’ve seen he doesn’t need much help—and so I told his mother. Andrea always was a very silly woman.’

‘I must remember to avoid Aunt Andrea.’

‘As if you care what she thinks. As if you care what anyone thinks.’ Her expression suggested she approved of this attitude.

Christos gave one his most charming smiles. ‘I care what you think, Aunt Theodosia,’ he promised slickly.

The old lady dismissed the comment with a derisive snort. ‘Does nobody but me care about tradition any more?’ she wondered out loud. ‘Nobody would even know this was a Carides wedding,’ she continued, in the same disapproving bellow. ‘Nobody has yet explained to me why they’re not having a proper Orthodox ceremony.’

‘Don’t look at me, Aunt Theodosia. This wedding has nothing to do with me.’ He was only here because his mother had got distressed and played the duty card. ‘They’ll think you don’t like your cousin.’

‘I don’t.’

In the event his honesty had not won him any points with his mother. She had bitterly enquired over the phone if he derived some form of malicious pleasure out of tormenting her.

‘If he gets a little loud around you it’s because you make him feel inadequate,’ Mia Carides had explained.

On the other side of the world, Christos had given a wry grin. Inadequate was one of the things a man might be excused for feeling if he found the woman he was to have married having sex with another man. Only he had never really been in love with Melina.

In truth, it had come as something of a surprise to Christos to hear the news of his own engagement!

When Melina had pulled her father to one side and whispered in his ear, Christos had had no inkling of the secret she was sharing. Not until two minutes later, when their host had called for hush and shared the news with the rest of the three hundred or so close friends who were there to celebrate the thirty years of married bliss he and his wife had enjoyed.

‘I am happy to announce that my daughter and our dear friend Christos Carides are to be married.’

Christos had had no desire to humiliate the rather drunk Melina, with whom he had enjoyed a casual on-off relationship for several years, so he had smiled through the inevitable congratulations and gone home with the firm intention of ending the engagement the next day.