The way he’d been treated by her and her parents was a nauseating truth. She wished—not for the first time—that she’d been able to stand up to them. That she’d been wise enough to fight for the relationship that had mattered so much to her.
‘Nikos...’ She furrowed her brows, searching for words. ‘You have to understand why I...why I couldn’t be with you. You know how my parents were after Libby...after...’
He studied her face, torn between listening and shutting down this hollow explanation.
‘I know I never explained it properly at the time. The way I was always in her shadow. The certainty that I was a poor comparison to her. The absolute blinding fact that they wished again and again that I could be more like her.’ She swallowed, an image of her sister clouding her eyes and making her heart ring with nostalgic affection. ‘They wanted me to marry someone like Anderson—her fiancé. And I wanted their approval so badly I would have done anything they asked.’
He compressed his lips. ‘Yes. I presumed as much at the time.’
He brought his face closer to hers, so she could feel the waves of his resentment.
‘You walked away from me and what we were to each other as though I was nothing to you. You can blame your sister, or you can blame your parents, but the only one who made the decision was you.’
‘I’m trying to explain why...’
‘And I’m telling you that it does not matter to me.’ His eyes flared. ‘You were wrong.’
She had been. In the six years since she’d watched Nikos leave for the last time, his shoulders set, his head held high, she’d never met anyone who excited in her even a tenth of the emotions he had. He alone had been her true love. And she’d burned him in a way that he’d apparently never forgive.
He brought the conversation back to the wedding. ‘The guest list will be extensive and the press coverage—’
‘Nikos!’ Marnie interrupted, her voice strained.
Something in the pale set of her features communicated her distress and he was quiet, watchful.
‘Please.’ Her throat worked overtime as she tried to relieve her aching mouth. ‘I can’t do that.’
‘You do agree to marry me?’
She nodded. ‘But not like that. I... You know how I feel about the media. And, more to the point, how they feel about me.’ She flashed a look at him from beneath thick dark lashes. ‘I’ll marry you. I will. But without all the fuss. Please.’
It was tempting to push her out of her comfort zone. To say that it was a big wedding or none at all. She was staring at him with a look of icy aloofness that had no doubt helped earn her the nickname of Lady Heiress. That look of untouchable elegance bordering on disdain that he understood was her tightly held shield in moments of wrenching panic. That same look he was desperate to dislodge as soon as possible, shaking her into showing her real feelings.
‘You don’t like the press any more than I do,’ she said with measured persistence. ‘If you insist on a big wedding we’ll both know it’s simply to be spiteful to me. And you’re not that petty—are you, Nikos?’
He felt his resolve slipping and a grudging admiration for her reasoned argument spread through him. Still, he drawled, ‘I’m blackmailing you into my bed and you don’t think I’m petty?’
Heat flooded her system, warring with the ice that had coated her heart. ‘No, I don’t. I think you want me to marry you. What does it matter how we do it?’
She had an excellent point. Besides Marnie there was only one other person he really cared about having at the wedding.
‘Fine,’ he said, with a nonchalant lift of his shoulders. His eyes glittered with determination. ‘So long as your father is there the rest does not greatly matter.’
* * *
‘It’s enormous,’ she intoned flatly, rubbing her fingertip over the flattened edges of paper.
Nikos’s stare was loaded with emotion. ‘It needs to be.’ His accent seemed thicker, spicier than it had been the night before. Her gaze flicked to his face, then skidded away again immediately. His face was all angles and planes, unforgiving and unrelenting.
Harsh.
She had never comprehended the full extent of that hardness before. Not in the past, anyway. When she’d loved him as much as the ocean loved the shore. She had felt, then, just like that. As if she would spend the rest of her life rolling inexorably towards him, needing to touch him, to wash over him, to feel him beneath her and around her. She had believed them to be as organically dependent as those two bodies—sea and sand. That without him she would have nowhere to go.
Foolishly, she had thought he felt the same.
But Nikos had moved on quickly, despite his protestations of love, and his bed had been such a hot spot it might as well have had its own listing on TripAdvisor.
‘Mind if I have my lawyer check this out?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Sígoura. Certainly. But that may cause a delay to proceedings.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘You mean you might not be able to help Dad in time?’
He sat back in his chair, his body taut, his face unreadable. ‘I will not apply for the marriage licence until you have signed the pre-nup.’
A frown formed a little line between her eyes. ‘Why not?’
His laugh was a sharp sound in the busy café. A woman at the table beside them angled her head curiously before going back to her book.
Marnie lowered her voice, not wanting to risk being overheard. She was obliged to lean a little closer. ‘Does it matter if I don’t sign it in the next week or two? So long as you have it before the wedding...?’
‘The minute I apply for our certificate there’s a high probability the press will pick up on it. Do you want the world to know we were hastily engaged and that the wedding was then cancelled?’
Her cheeks flamed. ‘As if the journalists of the world have nothing better to do than search the registry for your name, waiting with bated breath until such time as you see fit to hang up your well-worn bachelor belt,’ she muttered.
He arched a single brow, his expression making her feel instantly ridiculous. ‘If you believe our wedding won’t excite media interest then you’re more naive than I recall.’
Yes, she definitely felt childish now. She dragged her lower lip between her teeth, then caught the betraying gesture and mentally shook herself. She was Lady Marnie Kenington, and it was not for Nikos to berate and humiliate her.
‘Each of us on our own would create a stir of interest. Marrying one another guarantees press interest.’
‘I know.’ She nodded. There was no point, after all, in arguing the toss. He was absolutely right. ‘But we agreed on a quiet wedding.’
‘And I will do my best to arrange this,’ he promised.
‘Okay.’ She nodded again quickly.
His first instinct was to feel impressed by her ability to be reasonable in the face of an argument. But he quickly realised that she wasn’t reasonable so much as changeable. That she was deferring to him at the first sign of pressure. Was that how it had been with her parents?
His mouth was a grim line in his face. ‘There are four pages you need to sign.’
She expelled a heavy breath and tapped the pen against the side of the table.
Memories, visceral and sharp, twisted his gut. How familiar that tiny gesture was! Flashes of her studying for exams, writing lists, pausing midsentence to capture the next, flashed into his mind. When she’d had a particularly large problem to solve she’d chewed on the end of the pen, waiting for clarity to flood to her from its inky heart.
‘Nikos...’ She lifted her gaze to him. ‘Doesn’t this all seem a bit crazy?’
He didn’t react.
She huffed out a sigh. ‘I don’t know you any more. And you definitely don’t know me.’
He narrowed his eyes almost imperceptibly. ‘I know you perhaps as well as ever.’
She bit on the pen again and shook her head. ‘I just don’t see why we have to rush this.’
‘It is your father’s financial situation that puts a time limit on matters.’
‘But—’
‘No.’
He leaned across the table, pressing his hand on hers. Sparks shimmered in her heart. Angered by her body’s ongoing betrayal to his proximity, she worked overtime to conceal the explosive desire. Her glare was dripping with ice.
‘This is the only way I will help your father. It’s not a negotiation.’
Backed against a wall, she wondered why she didn’t feel more angry.
She looked down at the thick pile of papers. ‘If you expect me to sign this today then you’re going to have to explain it to me.’
‘Fine.’ He flicked a glance at his gold wristwatch.
‘Sorry if I’m taking up too much of your time,’ she snapped sarcastically, and for the briefest moment he felt the full force of her emotions—emotions she was so good at guarding. Fear, worry, stress, uncertainty.
But he had no intention of softening towards his fiancée. He nodded curtly, his expression rock-hard. ‘The first section deals with our assets. Any assets you bring to the marriage will be quarantined against becoming communal.’
‘So I get to keep what’s mine?’ she interpreted.