The Volakis Vows: The Marriage Betrayal / Bride for Real

‘If you don’t eat your food will get cold,’ Robert Miller drawled.

Dragging her attention from Sander Volakis demanded every atom of self-discipline Tally possessed. She loved to look at him and the temptation to stare at the sculpted masculine perfection of his face pulled at her with embarrassing persistence. She sat down, glanced at the food and realised her appetite had vanished. She took an exploratory sip of the drink she had been sent instead. It was very fruity and much more to her taste than alcohol usually was.

‘Tally …’ Sander murmured, casting a long dark shadow over the table with his brooding stance. ‘Robert …’

Glancing up to encounter shimmering golden eyes and sensing the angry dissatisfaction he was struggling to hide in the set quality of his smile and his clenched fingers, Tally began to stand up. It was a visceral reaction to the unspoken emotional demand in his gaze and her immediate awareness that he did not like seeing her in another man’s company. Sander was jealous. No man had ever been possessive of Tally before and, although for the first time in her life she was feeling her power as a woman, she discovered that she had not the smallest desire to use it on him.

Besides, the volatile flash of the hot-blooded temperament he could not hide thrilled and fascinated her. Eleni Ziakis joined them and began to make determined conversation. In the midst of it Sander boldly closed his hand over Tally’s to tug her out from behind the table. Only pausing to throw Robert an apologetic glance, Tally grabbed her colourful drink and made no objection to Sander closing an arm round her to lock her against his lean, powerful body in a demonstration that lit annoyance in Eleni’s dark eyes. Tally ignored the other woman. Retrieved by Sander and momentarily mentally engaged in reliving the demanding urgency of his mouth on hers the night before, Tally was supremely happy but ever so slightly dizzy.

‘Tonight you’re with me,’ Sander informed her darkly as he walked her away.

‘And tomorrow?’ Tally dared, snatching a thirst-quenching gulp of her drink.

Sander paused, looked down at her and lifted a lean brown hand to push a handful of blonde-coloured corkscrew curls behind one small ear in a confident caressing movement. His scorching golden eyes were welded to her heart-shaped face and she could not have broken free of that hold had her life depended on it. ‘Tomorrow you’ll still be with me, glikia mou,’ he asserted, his other hand closing to her hip to urge her small curvy body closer to his.

And even through their clothing she could feel the long hard ridge of his erection and a dark forbidden excitement gripped her then.

‘What are you drinking?’ Sander prompted huskily.

‘I don’t know … Cosima sent it over. I was surprised because we’d had a disagreement and she was annoyed with me.’ Tally frowned a little because she could hear her words slurring.

‘What did you disagree about?’

‘She wanted to leave with her boyfriend and I said I wouldn’t cover up for her with her father. The boyfriend has drug convictions,’ she whispered thickly, her tongue feeling too large for her mouth and bumping into her teeth.

‘Let me get you something to eat,’ he urged.

‘Not hungry … in fact I feel a bit weird,’ Tally confided, because her lower limbs felt oddly detached from the rest of her body and clumsy and it was taking major effort to get her lips and her tongue to frame words properly.

‘How much have you had to drink?’

‘Only this one … I swear,’ she added vehemently when he sent her a suspicious look. ‘I can’t believe that I’m feeling like this after just one drink …’

Clutching his arm to steady herself on her jellied legs, she was relieved when he slotted her in behind a table and she could give up the struggle to stand upright. Her head felt too heavy for her neck and she propped her chin up on her upturned hand. She felt awful and could feel the world around her fading and closing in round her. ‘Sander … I’m so sorry … I think I’m going to pass out …’

As she began to slump Sander signalled Cosima, who was watching them fixedly. He lifted the glass. ‘Do I give this to the police?’

‘The police?’ Tally struggled to sit up again, mumbling in shock.

‘The police?’ Cosima squealed in horror.

‘You spiked Tally’s drink—’

‘No … police …’ Tally managed to frame with dogged emphasis, catching a glimpse of her sibling’s stricken guilty face. ‘No police.’

‘Was she getting in the way of your fun? Well, you just got in the way of mine!’ Sander completed harshly as Tally slumped down on her forearms on the table top. ‘Not a good idea, Cosima. Now you have to tell me what was put in that drink and I’ll decide what to do next. Meanwhile the boyfriend leaves. Eleni doesn’t want anyone spiking drinks at her party.’

Cosima was watching Sander as a snake watched a snake charmer and fright and fury were warring for top billing on her lovely face. Tally blinked drowsily and then finally closed her weighted eyes in relief. Not even a fire alarm could have roused her from her comatose state …

CHAPTER THREE (#ub266c54b-3059-5e56-91c1-7111eb367262)

TALLY felt wonderfully comfortable as she opened her eyes slowly to focus on the elaborately gathered oyster silk canopy above her …

Propelled by sudden alarm, she sat up with a start, her widened eyes scanning her unfamiliar surroundings in dismay. This was not the bedroom she had been allotted. Morning light was seeping round the edges of the drapes and illuminating the opulent contours of a big room furnished with antiques. This was not Cosima’s room, either. Her attention fell on the masculine clothing draped on a nearby chair and her attention immediately shot to her own body below the sheets. Finding her bra and pants still in place, she winced when she recognised the turquoise dress she had worn the night before lying on the floor in a heap with her shoes and evening bag. Her last memories of the party came flooding back, before she noticed the fact that the pillow beside hers bore an imprint and heard the unmistakeable sound of water running beyond the door that was ajar at the far side of the bed. A door that led to an en-suite bathroom?

Tally was disconcerted and wired with consternation when Sander Volakis, his lean bronzed features extraordinarily handsome, strolled into the bedroom with only a towel anchored round his lean hips. He looked amazing, from his wide brown shoulders to the corrugated flatness of his stomach and long powerful legs. ‘Ah … you’re awake,’ he pronounced in the most incredibly calm greeting.

Hugging the sheet to her throat, Tally viewed him furiously over the edge of it. ‘How on earth did I get here? What happened? Did you sleep here last night as well?’

‘Naturally, this is my room,’ Sander supplied lazily.

‘So what am I doing here?’

‘There was nobody else to take on the job of looking after you. After the doctor had checked you over—’

‘The doctor?’ Tally gasped, becoming suddenly ludicrously aware that her hair was probably standing on end and her make-up smeared all over her face. Her most pressing desire then was to leap under the bed and hide but she was forced to sit there, the squirming focus of his uncomfortably steady scrutiny. ‘What doctor?’

‘Eleni and I thought it best to have the local GP check you out in case it was necessary for you to go to hospital. Cosima swore that she only put a sleeping pill—which she got from a friend, not the boyfriend according to her,’ Sander explained drily. ‘The GP asked for the bottle, consulted a colleague by phone and decided you were unlikely to suffer any lasting harm. He then gave Cosima a lecture about the risks of giving unprescribed drugs to third parties that left her in hysterics.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ Tally groaned, cringing at the amount of fuss and drama her passing out had caused. But she was genuinely disturbed that her sibling had subjected her to such a dangerous experiment and resolved to have a serious talk with the younger woman. However, at that moment she had a more pressing cause for concern: the presence of her underwear suggested that nothing intimate had occurred between her and Sander but she wanted to be sure. ‘I gather that … er … we didn’t do anything last night?’ she prompted, her cheeks reddening fierily.

‘I like my women awake,’ Sander asserted. ‘Awake, lively and consenting. I would never take advantage of a woman while she was helpless.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you but I still don’t understand why I seem to have spent the night in your room …’

‘Cosima didn’t volunteer to assist you and I chose not to leave you in the hands of the staff. None of them knew you. I wanted to be sure you were all right.’

‘Thanks.’ Unable to sit there any longer when she needed to use the bathroom, Tally wriggled out from below the sheet, hurried round the foot of the bed and sped for the bathroom like a runner sprinting for the finishing line.

Happily engaged in enjoying the view of her lush breasts and bottom bouncing in the inadequate support of a skimpy black bra and knickers, Sander just laughed as the door shut behind her. He loved her small but wonderfully curvaceous body and she was shy, which he was even less accustomed to. Shy, possibly even a little prudish, which would be an even more unfamiliar female trait for him, he acknowledged wryly, since the women he usually shared a bed with thought nothing of nudity. He’d had to have a very cold shower in the middle of the night to douse the flames of arousal caused by Tally cuddling her half-naked curves up against him.

Tally loosed a moan of horror at her tousled reflection in the many mirrors surrounding her. It was the bathroom from hell, she decided, unnerved by the number of reflections hitting her from every angle. Grabbing up a masculine comb, she began to enforce order on her curls while striving to discourage the frizz factor. After washing her face and making use of one of the new toothbrushes on offer, she stepped into the shower. She was still embarrassed by the gauche manner in which she had fled from the bedroom.

After all, in the circumstances, Sander Volakis had behaved surprisingly well for a male with the reputation of a rich, spoilt womaniser. Although he hardly knew her and their relationship only encompassed a passionate kiss or two, last night when it mattered he had looked out for her and looked after her. A lot of blokes would just have turned their backs and walked away from so awkward a scenario. That he hadn’t taken the easy way out really impressed her.

Donning the white towelling robe on the back of the door, Tally pushed her underwear into the pocket and returned to the bedroom.

‘Breakfast?’ Sander asked lightly, straightening from the table by the window, which was spread with a selection of food. Clad only in a pair of soft blue denim jeans that moulded his narrow hips and long powerful thighs and a white tee, he was a heartstoppingly attractive figure.

‘No, thanks, I’d better get back to my room.’

‘Why do you always want to run away from me?’ Sander enquired, ebony brows drawing together above his stunning eyes in a frown.

Tally recognised in a thought that was not for sharing that the more he made her feel, the more he scared her, and the more her native caution urged her to keep her distance. Sander Volakis was dangerous to her peace of mind, to everything she had ever known about herself, because with him she wanted to throw away the rule book and stop playing safe. She only had to look at him to want to walk into his arms and touch him, so retreat struck her as the wiser part of valour.

‘I’m not running away,’ she proclaimed with a taut smile.

As poised as a lion ready to spring, Sander paced several steps closer. ‘You feel the same vibe that I do.’