Bought: The Greek's Baby(24)

A family. Just what Eve wanted more than anything in the world. She nodded, her heart in her throat.

It seemed scant minutes later when, holding freshly cut orange-red roses that matched the blush on her cheeks, she stepped out of the Italian castle into a Tuscan fairyland.

Sunset was falling over the vineyard and green rolling hills. Outside on the covered terrace a million lights drifted from the ceiling, tangled in wisteria. Next to the terrace she saw an old medieval stone wall, overgrown with roses.

The fairy lights sparkled over her head as she stepped onto the stone floor in her simple white sandals. A musician sitting in the back played the first notes on a guitar, accompanied by a flute. All so simple and so magical.

Then she saw Talos.

He was waiting for her at the other end of the terrace. On one side of him stood a friend of Lia’s, the mayor of a nearby town who’d agreed to conduct the hastily arranged civil ceremony. On his other side stood his friend Roark. Eve saw the man’s face light up at the sight of Lia and their little girl walking ahead in a sweet, frothy cotton dress. At her mother’s urging, little Ruby tossed rose petals haphazardly in Eve’s path.#p#分页标题#e#

Roark picked up his daughter with delighted praise when she reached the end of the aisle. His smile widened as he met his wife’s eyes. Seeing their love for each other, as Lia held their plump baby son who looked so dapper in his little suit, Eve’s heart stopped in her chest. This was just what she wanted.

A life like this.

A love like this.

But when she looked back at her bridegroom with a joyful smile, his expression stopped her cold.

His gaze was dark. Full of heat and fire. But there was something else. Something she didn’t understand that frightened her.

The guitar music suddenly trailed off, and she realized that she’d stopped walking halfway down the aisle. With a deep breath, telling herself she was being silly, she started walking again.

Stop acting like a scared virgin! she chided herself.

When she reached the waiting men, Talos pulled her veil up over her head. She looked up at him with a shy smile.

He didn’t return it. Instead, his gaze burned through her, incinerating every drop of blood and bone inside her body. As if they were already in bed.

The mayor began to speak, but his accented words faded into the background. The Navarres disappeared. So did Tuscany, along with the fairy lights and poetry of the mists.

There was only Talos.

His heat.

His fire.

She was dimly aware of repeating the mayor’s words, of hearing Talos’s deep voice beside her. He slipped a big diamond ring over her finger, then kissed her softly, brushing his mouth against hers.

And just like that—they were man and wife.





CHAPTER SEVEN


FROM the moment Talos saw her in the wedding dress, so lovely and sweet with her shy, happy smile, an earthquake went through his soul.

Eve wore a simple, modest cream-colored wedding dress, with her dark hair beneath a light veil, and she held flame-colored roses in her unmanicured hands. There was no artifice about her. Just beauty. And innocence.

In the brief kiss he gave her after they were wed, his soul trembled within his body. He knew he was on a razor’s edge of seducing this beautiful woman, whose fire had once burned him so badly, but who now seemed to shine like the first spring sun after a long, gray winter.

His throat choked as he pulled away from the brief kiss.

Eve, his lying ex-mistress, his hated enemy, was now his wife.

Her big blue eyes shone up at him with such hope and joy, the color of bluebells and violets. He could almost feel the sunlight when he touched her. His longing for her was no longer just about lust, but something more. He longed for her warmth. He could almost hear the laughter of children—his children—bounding through a brightly lit meadow amid cascading sunlight in her innocent promise of happiness.

Lies, he told himself harshly. The woman in front of him, the woman he’d just married, did not really exist.

His hands clenched into fists. She made him want something more. She made him want things he’d never had.

A family.

A home.

This was even more insidious than her earlier betrayal. This kind, loving version of Eve was just an illusion. If he ever allowed himself to care for her, if he ever allowed himself to trust, he would be the biggest fool to walk the earth.

Because as soon as she regained her memory, this woman would disappear. And any day now, she would become the treacherous, selfish woman he remembered.

During the wedding dinner after the ceremony, he watched Eve as she held the baby and entertained three-year-old Ruby. Talos couldn’t take his eyes off his bride’s radiant beauty—or stop wondering at her generous spirit. The dinner was deliberately simple, homemade pasta and wine from the Navarres’ own vintage.#p#分页标题#e#