The Heiress Bride

Having yet to regain mastery over herself in that moment and stunned by her own galloping heartbeat and excitement, Ione mumbled. ‘The first to kiss me? No…’

In an abrupt movement, Alexio freed her. Who was she trying to kid? She hadn’t even known how to kiss until he had shown her! But the dreaminess in her eyes had dissipated and she had lost colour. Indeed, she spun away from him as if he no longer existed for her and, registering that withdrawal, he immediately suspected the most likely cause.

‘Who was he?’ Alexio demanded, seized by a sudden dark anger that inflamed him into an instantaneous reaction.

Pale as death in the aftermath of that unwise admission, Ione could have bitten her own tongue out. Wounding memories were attacking her from all sides, but fear had risen uppermost again. If her father found out that she had mentioned Yannis, he would be furious. She did not consider Alexio’s anger abnormal. Her father was a hypocrite too, preaching female purity one moment and taking solace with tarts the next.

‘He was a fisherman’s son. It was over two years ago. He k-kissed me. That’s all,’ she lied shakily.

Alexio’s lean, powerful hands closed back into fists and slowly uncoiled again. Why shouldn’t she have kissed someone else? And it was such a pathetic little confession that he was momentarily ashamed of himself for forcing it out of her. He could not explain the strength of his own irrational anger, and then he looked at her afresh and noted that she had turned a sort of sickly shade, her eyes refusing to meet his. That seething anger came out of nowhere at him again. He recognised that he wasn’t hearing the whole story and was torn by a primitive desire to drag all the rest of it out of her as well, for her pallor told him that that fisherman’s son had been a major event in her life.

CHAPTER THREE

‘LET’S go and see those pictures,’ Alexio breathed in a raw undertone. So he was unaccustomed to the experience of a woman reeling out of his arms to think about another man. But, in the circumstances, he knew his anger was unreasonable.

Ione was trembling. ‘Please don’t mention what I said to my father.’

Alexio flung her an astonished glance from his brilliant eyes and his jawline hardened. ‘Of course not.’

Ione led the way to the ultra-modern picture gallery but her tummy was still churning. Yannis had been her first and only love and it had been sweet and innocent and harmless until the day that she’d been followed and her father’s henchmen had forced her to watch as Yannis had been beaten to a pulp. Soon afterwards his family had left the island. She would never forget what her foolishness had cost him.

And what even greater foolishness it had been to admit to her bridegroom that she was not quite untouched by human hand! He was now thinking that she might not be a virgin. As she watched him view the magnificent paintings, which she believed ought to hang in a museum where at least they would be appreciated as something other than an investment, she recognised the lingering tautness in his strong, bronzed profile. Like her father, he was the contemporary equivalent of a caveman, who wanted a bride no other man had ever dared to touch. And wouldn’t he just love it if she questioned him about his all-too-numerous affairs? Even so, she was puzzled that he had once intended to marry a woman like Crystal Denby, whose reputation had been far from spotless.

But then Crystal had been totally, fantastically gorgeous, Ione conceded with wry acceptance. A woman blessed with such undeniable attributes got away with a great deal more than a plainer one. It must feel really good, she thought with rueful longing, to have that kind of power over a man.

‘I’m sorry about the way I questioned you downstairs,’ Alexio remarked in a driven undertone, swinging round without warning to level dark-as-night eyes on her triangular face. ‘I have no right to question your past.’

His apology surprised her but she immediately sensed that he wanted to know more about Yannis, was indeed expecting and inviting her to respond with further details. Angry defiance stirred in her and only with the greatest difficulty did she resist the temptation to ask if he wanted to tell her about his lost love. Instead she simply nodded agreement in silence.

Even though she had thwarted him, grudging admiration assailed Alexio. His wide, sensual mouth slashed into a wolfish smile of acknowledgement that exuded such innate masculine power over her that she found herself smiling dizzily back at him without even thinking about it.

‘I brought you this…’ He drew a ring from the pocket of his beautifully tailored jacket. ‘It’s the Christoulakis betrothal ring, but if you don’t like it it’s not a problem. You can choose your own ring if you prefer to do so. I will admit upfront that my own mother considered it too old-fashioned for her taste.’

Attacked by sudden discomfiture, Ione studied the diamonds that glittered below the gallery lights. A family betrothal ring, an heirloom. A stab of guilt pierced her for, whatever she might think of his motives, he was on the level about their marriage and she was not. ‘It’s beautiful…’ she muttered and she made herself extend her hand in acceptance lest she betray herself.

Alexio reached for her hand and threaded the ring onto her wedding finger. ‘I may not love you but I will do everything in my power to be a good husband,’ he asserted.

In receipt of that little speech, Ione gritted her teeth together. Well, it was just as well that she had no intention of hanging around to test him out on that unlikely promise! Like any other woman, she deserved to be loved and she intended to be loved by someone one day. In the meantime, she would be playing the field with loads of different boyfriends. Well, if she could get one to start with, she conceded, climbing down from her mental soapbox to allow that until she had tested herself out on the dating scene she had no idea how much man appeal she might possess.

Although a boyfriend who kissed as Alexio did would be a very good start, she acknowledged. Without a doubt, his sexual expertise had roused her own much too enthusiastic response. However, seeking to deny him that small intimacy would have been a major mistake on all fronts. And it had only been her hormones that had got carried away, she told herself in consolation. Since she had been deprived of almost all the natural learning experiences that she should have had with men, she might even qualify as being sex-starved. So, why should she be ashamed of the wild excitement she had felt beneath that hard, hungry mouth of his? There had really been nothing at all personal in her response to him.

‘Ione…’ Alexio began, studying the smooth perfection of her shuttered face and yet far-away gaze and endeavouring to fathom what had stolen her attention from him yet again.

‘Alexio…how are you? Ione should have brought you to me immediately,’ a coy female voice shrilled from the entrance to the gallery.

Sprung from her introspection by the sight of Kalliope heading for Alexio with a delighted smile on her thin face, Ione breathed in deep. She need have no further concern as to how to occupy Alexio, for her aunt, who adored young, handsome men, was more than equal to the task. And over the following hour, while he endured Kalliope’s voluble enquiries about every single member of his family near and far, Alexio demonstrated the most perfect manners, patience and courtesy.

‘You don’t deserve a husband from a good family.’ Kalliope shot her niece a look of angry resentment as the two women walked back to their own wing of the villa to change for dinner. ‘If Alexio Christoulakis knew the truth about your background, nothing would persuade him to marry a girl from the gutter!’

For once, in receipt of her aunt’s venom, Ione felt only a weary compassion. Her mother had once told her that, twenty years earlier, Kalliope had fallen in love with one of her brother’s executives, but Minos Gakis had reacted in fury and had refused his permission for them to marry. Kalliope had dutifully accepted his decision and now she was in her fifties, still unmarried and bitter over the lot life had dealt her.

But at least her aunt still had her life, Ione reasoned with a superstitious shiver as she selected another dull dark dress from her wardrobe. Cosmas had not been so fortunate. The night that her brother had crashed his plane, he had been under enormous stress and his resulting lack of concentration had killed him. If anything, Cosmas had been even more afraid of their father than she was.

Cosmas had had the Gakis head for business laced with their mother’s sensitivity. Her eyes stinging as she thought about the big brother she still missed a great deal, Ione promised herself that, no matter what it took and regardless of what deception might be involved, she would do what Cosmas had been too scared to do: she would break free, she would escape before her self-will was crushed as his had been.

The first course of the lavish dinner had been served when Minos Gakis announced that the wedding would have to take place within two weeks as business commitments would keep him out of the country during the following month. Ione’s startled gaze shot to Alexio, who seemed to be absorbing the news with a lot less surprise than she was. His lean, strong face was not even tense. Indeed, he shot her a long, lingering glance from heavily lidded dark golden eyes that burned hot colour into her cheeks and made her hurriedly look away.

‘The ceremony will, of course, take place here on the island,’ Minos decreed and he turned to study Alexio with a half-smile. ‘I see no reason why you and Ione should not then take up residence here.’

Shock powered through Ione and her fork fell from her nerveless fingers with a clatter.

‘In her own home, my daughter would have the company of her aunt while you are abroad and she would also enjoy the continued security of a full protection team.’

‘No…no!’ Ione gasped in horror, driven into defiance by the stricken conviction that such an arrangement could only have been planned from the outset.

Even as her dismayed aunt dug warning nails into her thigh below the table, Ione’s red-faced father was flying out of his chair like a jet-propelled steamroller and raising a punishing fist as he roared down at his daughter in a rage, ‘What did you say to me?’

Mutely awaiting the blow about to descend and white as milk, Ione jerked as the crash of a chair falling backward sounded from the other side of the table.

‘If you lay one finger on her, I swear I’ll kill you!’ Alexio thundered with a raw aggression more than equal to his host’s.

A silence beyond any silence that had ever fallen in the Gakis household fell at that point. Nobody had ever challenged Minos Gakis like that. Sheer disbelief had paralysed the older man’s heavy features as he slowly turned his big greying head to focus on his challenger. Ione wanted to throw herself across the table and stuff the tablecloth in Alexio’s big, stupid macho mouth before he got himself beaten up. What madness had come over him? Where were his much-vaunted brains when he most needed them? Her father had said that he needed Alexio but her father would still throw him off the island and destroy him sooner than swallow such an insult.

Minos surveyed the younger man with outraged dark eyes and hissed. ‘So you think she’s your property now…eh?’

‘Yes.’ His lean, powerful face rigid, the surge of pure black rage that had powered Alexio was still in the ascendant.

With an abruptness that made his female relatives flinch, Minos Gakis threw back his head and laughed with a derisive appreciation that curdled Ione’s quivering tummy. She would call the police. No matter what it cost her, if he let his henchmen hurt Alexio, she knew that this time she would call the police and inform on her own father.

But a split second later, she could only watch with a dropped jaw as her father dealt Alexio a considering look of ironic approval. ‘You’re a man not unlike me. Possessive, protective of what’s yours. Well, then, you keep your mouth shut from now on!’

Ione just closed her eyes, still sick from the threat of the violence that had so nearly exploded upon them all and equally sick with humiliation. The men resumed their seats. Alexio skimmed a probing glance at Ione and asked himself if he had been guilty of a crazy overreaction, for she did not seem grateful for his intervention. He had believed that her father had been about to hit her, but it was more probable that the older man had only been waving an angry fist in the air. After all, Ione had just sat there and would surely not have done so had she feared a blow. What grounds did he have to suspect Minos of abusive behaviour? And much might be forgiven of a man fighting terminal illness and looking death in the face, Alexio reminded himself with all the discomfiture of a young and healthy male.

‘I feel unwell. Please excuse me,’ Ione muttered chokily.

‘Yes, go,’ her father growled in a tone of disgust. ‘You have already done your utmost to spoil our meal!’

Ione rose on knees that felt like jelly and left the room. Her head was pounding fit to burst and all courage was failing her. Alexio would agree to them living at the villa after their wedding. Why shouldn’t he? Such an arrangement would be very convenient for him. After all, it would give him complete freedom and he wouldn’t need to feel guilty about leaving her for long periods with her own family. Would there even be a honeymoon trip now? Alexio hadn’t wanted to go to Paris in the first place and her father would soon persuade him that a honeymoon was a waste of business time and energy. Tears running down her convulsed face, Ione stumbled into her bathroom and stared at herself in the vanity mirror.

What an idiot she had been to believe that she could escape her father’s control of every aspect of her life! He had been way ahead of her in the planning stakes and she had been stupid not to foresee that likelihood.

Ever since that letter from her twin sister had arrived within months of her eighteenth birthday, Ione’s mail had been vetted and scrutinised. Her sibling, Misty, had wanted contact with her and Ione’s father had been furious that the social services had unsealed the adoption records to aid such an approach to his adopted daughter without his consent. Ione had not been allowed to answer that letter and she only knew that her sister was or had been a Sicilian tycoon’s mistress because that had evidently featured in a more recent newspaper story that had come to her father’s notice. She had not seen that article herself. Her father had simply informed her that the sister she longed to be reunited with was a whore.