Bridal Bargains (18 page)

He entered her with a thrust that brought him to his knees with her straddled across him with his hands clamped to her hipbones.

‘Oh, dear God,’ she groaned against his devouring mouth as her body went wild for him.

But he lost it first, shooting into her like a man experiencing
his first release. He couldn’t control it, could not control the gasping pants that shot from his pulsing body. When she joined him his grip on her hips was locked tight. And as she went limp against him he crumbled sideways, his arms shifting upwards to control her fall as they landed in a tangle of trembling limbs on the bedroom floor.

What now? Claire wondered as she reached rock-bottom of the slow slide back to wretched sanity. Another quick withdrawal followed by a walk-out? She even tensed herself in preparation for it.

‘I’m still here.’

His voice sounded like gravel, vibrating against her cheek where he had her face pressed against him. He hadn’t let go of her, and she was still lying with her limbs locked around him.

‘I’m going nowhere.’

‘Why not?’ she whispered.

‘You were right about me,’ he said. ‘I do prefer to stand alone. I don’t find it easy to be open with my feelings. But—as God is my witness, Claire, I want you. I want
this
with you!’ His arms tightened round her. ‘And if that means I must change then I will damn well change!’ he vowed. ‘And I will start by holding you like this for as long as you want me to.’

He meant it—he really meant it! The tears came back, but she wasn’t sure what they were for any more.

‘Say something,’ he prompted huskily, and she felt the tremor in his lips as they brushed her brow.

Say something, she repeated to herself. But what dared she say? Could she take a chance on this actually meaning something? The trouble was, she loved this man—had known that for quite a while now—while he seemed to only lust after her. How long did lust last? Especially with a man as self-contained as Andreas?

‘I want to go to bed,’ she said.

There was a short, sharp pause, then a heavy sigh as he went to get up.

‘Your bed,’ she added, lifting her face out of his shirt-front so she could look warily into his equally wary eyes. ‘I want to sleep in your bed, in your arms all night and wake up still there in the morning,’ she told him huskily.

‘Then what?’

Claire gave a helpless little shrug. ‘I don’t know,’ she answered honestly. ‘What do you want?’

‘You,’ he said gruffly, then repeated it. ‘I want you.’

Her poor heart fluttered, attempting to reach out and grab those words because they were the closest thing she’d had to a declaration of caring from him.

D
EATH
was a strange thing. It brought some people closer together and pushed others wide apart. In Claire’s own experience, she had lost more than a father when he’d passed away; she’d also lost lifelong friends who could not deal with the tragedy of the situation.

But when she stood beside Andreas as they buried his grandmother she found herself being drawn closer to the last person she would have expected, when Desmona suddenly broke down and began weeping so desperately that Claire didn’t think twice about going over and gently placing her arms around the other woman.

‘You were very kind to her, considering the circumstances,’ Andreas remarked much later as they were preparing for bed.

They shared a room now. They shared a life. Claire was even daring to think that they were sharing a marriage.

‘She needed someone,’ she answered simply. ‘It had never occurred to me until Desmona broke down like that that she and your grandmother must have been close.’

‘Desmona has been a member of this family for many years,’ he reminded her. ‘We all—care for her, though sometimes she makes it difficult to do so,’ he added dryly.

‘Is that why the family wanted you to marry her?’ she asked curiously. ‘Because they care for her?’

‘No.’ He laughed, a softly mocking, sexily husky sound that curled up her toes. ‘Wanting me to marry Desmona was an act of expediency. She owns rather large blocks of shares in some of our most lucrative companies and they wanted to keep them in the family.’

‘But she is in love with you,’ Claire pointed out. ‘Or why would she agree to marry you?’

‘Desmona loves Desmona,’ he murmured sardonically. ‘But she loves money even more. Marrying me would have given her relatively free access to the Markopoulou fortune once again. A very worthy cause in her eyes, believe me.’

‘You’re so cynical sometimes,’ Claire sighed.

‘Then reform me,’ he invited, and covered her mouth, effectively ending the discussion when other, far more important things demanded her attention: mainly this man, who had become the centre of her universe so quickly that she didn’t dare let herself consider just how deeply she had let herself fall in love with him.

So the next few weeks went drifting by without her giving a single thought to their original agreement. The plaster-cast came off her wrist, and with Andreas looking indulgently on, she celebrated by jumping fully clothed into the indoor swimming pool with a shriek of delight because she had been so looking forward to being able to do that. They visited London a couple of times to appear in front of an adoption panel who wanted to reassure themselves that they were, indeed, fit parents for Melanie.

But there was no problem there. For they were lovers. They were husband and wife. They were a couple in every sense of the word, which showed in the way they responded to each other.

Life was wonderful, life was great. Claire had never been so happy. And the only blot on her otherwise perfect existence was the way her aunt Laura still hadn’t bothered to get in touch with her.

‘I have to be in Paris for a few days from tomorrow,’ Andreas informed her one morning over the breakfast table. ‘Would you like to come with me?’

‘Yes!’ she agreed, thinking, Paris! The most romantic city in the world, and she was going to go there with the most
wonderful man in the world. ‘Will my aunt be there?’ she questioned impulsively.

It was so many weeks since she’d watched his face close up that seeing it happen now came as a bad shock. ‘We will not discuss your aunt,’ he said coldly.

‘But why?’ Claire demanded. ‘Why are you so determined to keep the two of us apart? It isn’t as though she can hurt me, you know. I understand her better than you think I do.’

He got up from the table. ‘We will not discuss her,’ he repeated, and walked arrogantly away.

‘Then I’m not coming to Paris,’ she threw after him. Childish, she knew. Petty, she knew. But she felt childish and petty at that moment.

And Andreas responded accordingly—by not even faltering a single step in his retreat. She sulked for the rest of the day and he retaliated by treating her as if nothing was the matter. But when he reached for her in bed that night it was Claire who surrendered to a power much greater than her will to stand aloof from him.

The next morning she awoke to find him gone to Paris, and she felt so angry and hurt that he hadn’t once attempted to change her mind about going with him that she paid him back by telephoning her aunt’s London apartment. She got her answering service, which, Claire realised belatedly, she should have expected if Aunt Laura was in Paris with Andreas.

So she left a message asking her aunt to call her, then spent the next few days missing Andreas so badly that when he did arrive home she fell on him like a puppy dog who thought it had been deserted by its adored master.

A few more weeks went by. Melanie was changing fast now, becoming a real little personality with squeals and smiles, who liked to kick her legs on a blanket in the warm winter sunshine, as if her Mediterranean blood demanded it of her.

The day they received official notification that Melanie
was now their legal daughter, Claire had also begun to suspect that she might be pregnant.

That evening Andreas took her out to celebrate. Decked out in one of her elegant evening gowns and with Andreas in dinner suit and bow-tie, they spent a wonderful evening dining at a very exclusive restaurant he knew in the hills behind Rafina, where they ate food that tasted like a dream and laughed and teased and talked a lot. And as they danced close together to music composed exclusively for lovers there was a point where Claire almost confided her suspicion that she could be pregnant. Only an unwillingness to overshadow the real reason why they were out celebrating like this stopped her.

Plus the fact that she wasn’t sure that she was just experiencing a small glitch in her usual smoothly running cycle.

But she was so happy. So lost in this all-encompassing love that she felt for this man of hers that by the time they drove home again that evening she was weaving delicious fantasies around the two of them that involved passionate declarations of love and a life spent making babies and growing old together. And she made love with him that night as if there were no tomorrow—sublimely unaware that, indeed, tomorrow was so very close.

The next morning, Nikos drove them into the busy sea port of Rafina. Claire had shopping to do and Andreas had several business appointments, so Nikos was to drive her back home when she was ready.

Andreas kissed her deeply before climbing out of the car and leaving her to Nikos’s indulgently smiling care.

‘You have made him very happy,’ he replied to the questioning look he caught her giving him via the rear-view mirror. ‘It is a delight to all of us who have known him for most of his life to see him like this again.’

He meant since the death of his first wife, Claire realised, and felt the tiniest suspicion of a cloud begin to shadow her little bit of clear blue sky. Then she firmly dismissed the
sensation as she too clambered out of the car a few minutes later.

For this was now, not six years ago. The sun was shining. Life was great. And she wasn’t going to let anything spoil it!

With the confidence of youth and a determination that it was she, Claire, who counted in his life now, she went about her shopping with her metaphorical chin high and her shining blue eyes set clear ahead—just asking to be tripped up by someone or something.

It happened sooner rather than later, too. Unexpected and unprepared for it, she walked out of the chemist shop armed with her only purchase—and stopped dead in her tracks as she came face to face with her aunt.

‘Aunt Laura?’ she gasped in delighted surprise.

Dressed to her usual sharp, immaculate standard, Aunt Laura looked so thoroughly disconcerted to see Claire standing there that there was a heart-stopping moment when Claire actually suspected she was going to turn away as if she didn’t know her!

‘Aunt Laura? It’s me—Claire,’ she inserted hurriedly, feeling just a little stupid for declaring herself like that.

Her aunt must have thought so too, because her expression was derisive. ‘I know it’s you,’ she sighed. ‘I’m not blind.’

But she
had
been going to turn away from her; Claire was certain about that now. And it hurt. Hurt almost as much as the realisation that if her aunt was right here in Rafina, then Andreas knew about it but hadn’t bothered to tell her.

Her aunt was looking her over now, the derision more pronounced as her cool grey eyes took in the quality of Claire’s casual linen jacket worn with a simple straight skirt and skinny top that still managed to shriek designer at her.

‘Well, you certainly fell on your feet,’ she commented tightly. ‘You’ve caught yourself a rich man with a rich lifestyle—so who the hell can blame you for not caring if it is all just one big sham?’

‘It isn’t a sham,’ Claire denied, stunned by the bitterness filtering through her aunt’s voice. ‘We’re in love with each other.’

‘Love?’ Her aunt made a scoffing sound. ‘A man like Andreas Markopoulou doesn’t fall in love, Claire. He makes clear-cut, coldly calculating business decisions.’

‘Stop it,’ she responded, not understanding why her aunt was being so nasty. Besides Melanie, they were the only living relatives either of them had left in the world. Surely it had to count for something? But then, it never had before, had it? Claire reminded herself heavily. ‘Andreas is your boss,’ she said a little shakily. ‘I thought you admired and respected him.’

‘My—what?’ Aunt Laura gasped, staring at her niece as if she’d grown an extra head. ‘He isn’t my boss,’ she denied. ‘Where the hell did you get that idea from?’

It was like standing on the edge of a precipice; Claire felt a frightening tingling sensation slither through her body right down to her toes. ‘Don’t play games with me.’ She frowned. Why else would they bump into each other here, in Andreas’s home town of all places? ‘You were both on your way abroad on a business trip the first time I met him!’

‘Is that what he told you?’ Claire’s own confused expression gave her aunt the answer to that question, and she huffed out a tightly sardonic laugh. ‘You have to give it to the ruthless swine,’ she allowed. ‘He doesn’t miss a trick. Has he told you anything, Claire?’ she then asked cynically. ‘Or has the smooth, slick devil managed to con you into his life and into his bed,
and
get what he really wanted from you—which was really only ever Melanie—without having to let a single family skeleton out of the family closet?’

She fell off that precipice. Standing there beneath the Greek winter-blue sky and with her feet planted firmly on solid earth, she felt herself beginning to fall a long, long way into a cold, dark place as she heard herself whisper, ‘What are you talking about?’

Aunt Laura’s angry gaze shifted restlessly away as if she was trying to decide whether to say any more. Then she looked back at Claire—and her face hardened. ‘Why not?’ she decided. ‘He deserves his come-uppance, and I owe him one. So, come on …’ she urged. ‘Let’s find somewhere less public for this, because you’re in for a bad shock, and by the look of you it may be better if you receive it sitting down …’

Nikos kept sending her strange glances via his mirror as he drove her home. Claire didn’t really blame him for looking at her like that. For the bright-eyed, happy person he had dropped off at the shops only an hour before had gone, and in her place was someone else entirely: a sad, pale, haunted-looking creature he had once seen before, lying in a road after she had been knocked down.

‘Are you all right,
kyria
?’ he enquired concernedly.

Claire’s eyelashes flickered in an attempt to bring her glazed eyes into focus, but she wasn’t very successful. ‘Yes,’ she nodded, and tried to swallow the huge lump that was blocking her throat—she wasn’t very successful there either. ‘A small headache, that’s all. I’ll be fine once I get back and take something for it.’

But she wasn’t going to be fine. She knew it—and perhaps Nikos knew it, because she saw him lift his mobile phone to his ear and begin talking in Greek just before she shut herself away inside her own head again.

He was calling Andreas, she was sure. In a way she was glad. For the quicker Andreas was brought back to the house to find out what was the matter with her, the quicker she could leave it.

It wasn’t far from Rafina to the house. Fifteen minutes at most. As Nikos drew the car to a stop, Claire climbed out, walked in through the front door and up the stairs without so much as glancing sideways.

In her room—
her
room, not the one she had been sharing with Andreas for the last few months or so—she came to a
stop in the middle of the carpet, then coldly and precisely began stripping off the casual but chic clothes she was wearing. Leaving them to lie where they fell, she then walked naked into the dressing room hung with the kind of clothes most women only dreamed of owning. When she came back out again a few minutes later, she was wearing her old jeans and a tee shirt. In her arms she carried the rest of the clothes that she had brought with her from London and never worn since.

Now she was shutting the door on the extravagant dressing room knowing that she would never be wearing a single garment in there again.

For he could pay through the teeth for the privilege of having Melanie for his daughter, but he would never pay for the privilege of having Claire again!

She heard a car come racing up the driveway as she placed the stack of clothes on the bed, ready for packing. It was Andreas, she was sure of it, though who he had got to bring him home she had no idea—nor cared. By the time he swung in through her bedroom door, she was just placing her rings in the little velvet jewellery box where she kept all of the things his grandmother had given her.

She didn’t bother to turn and look at him, but could sense him taking in at a glance the mound of discarded clothes on the floor and what she was now wearing. Only a fool would have missed the significance in the change, and Andreas was no fool.