reflection as her face flooded with colour, and beneath her dress her breasts suddenly felt full and heavy. They had not discussed that aspect of their marriage, but Nikos was a supremely virile
male and she guessed he would not want to live a life without sex. But he had given no
indication, either on the day he had asked her to marry him, or the occasions she had seen him
since, that he still desired her.
There had been virtually no physical contact between them since the one time he had made love
to her. Even when they had posed for the official photographs to mark their engagement, Nikos
had pressed his lips lightly to her hand, but hadn’t kissed her properly on the mouth as she had
longed for him to do. And when a member of the press had asked if he was in love, he had
replied with some flippant remark that had made the journalists laugh but had emphasised to
Kitty that she meant nothing to him.
Liss glanced at the clock. ‘We’d better go. Are you ready?’
Was she? How ready could you be when you were about to leap into the unknown? Kitty took a
deep breath and nodded. ‘As ready as I’ll ever be,’ she murmured. Her heart was beating
painfully fast when she walked over to the door, and as she turned and glanced around the room
that had been her bedroom for twenty-six years she felt a sharp pang of sadness that after today
the palace would no longer be her home. From now on home would be Athens, with Nikos, and
she could only pray that her decision to marry him was the right one.
The private chapel in the grounds of the palace was packed with guests. When Kitty stepped
through the arched doorway a murmur of excited voices seemed to echo around the nave, heads
turned and she was conscious of the faint gasp that rippled through the crowd as they caught
sight of her in her bridal gown. But her eyes were fixed straight ahead, on the tall, broad-
shouldered man in a charcoal-grey suit who was standing at the altar.
Nikos must have known from the reaction of the guests that she had arrived, but he remained
unmoving and did not even give a cursory glance over his shoulder towards his bride. His lack of
curiosity, and his obvious reluctance to face the woman he felt obliged to marry, hit Kitty as
painfully as if he had physically struck her, and trepidation knotted in her stomach. For a
moment blind panic swept through her, and she could not restrain a shiver as she faced the reality
of what she was about to do.
‘Are you all right?’ Sebastian whispered as he linked his arm with hers and stared down at her
paper-white face. ‘ Theos, Kitty, you’re not going to faint, are you?’
The deep, pure notes of the organ music swirled up to the roof of the chapel and seemed to
resound through Kitty’s body. She stumbled, and for a few seconds the urge to turn and flee from
the church, from Nikos, and the loveless future that awaited her, was overwhelming. But then
she saw the anxiety in her brother’s eyes, and the lesson that had been ingrained in her
throughout her life— that adherence to duty was paramount—came to her rescue. She gripped
her bouquet of roses and forced a smile for Sebastian, trying to disguise the fact that she felt as
cold as if she had been carved from ice. ‘I’m fine,’ she assured him.
The journey down the aisle seemed to take for ever and when she finally reached Nikos’s side
she lifted her eyes warily to him and met his expressionless gaze. He made his responses in a
cool, clear tone devoid of any emotion, but the constriction in Kitty’s throat meant that her voice
emerged as little more than a whisper, and she felt a deep sense of sadness that they had both lied
when they had vowed to love and honour each other until death parted them. Tears stung her
eyes when he slid a plain gold band onto her finger, and she could not stifle a shocked gasp when
he followed her wedding ring with a spectacular diamond cluster that sparkled like teardrops in
the sunlight that streamed down on them through the high windows.
When the priest murmured that Nikos could kiss his bride, Kitty turned her head, expecting a
perfunctory brush of his lips, but as she lifted her face to him she was startled by the sudden
blaze of heat in his eyes. Her heart thudded erratically in her chest when he drew her into his
arms and she felt his strong, hard body pressed against hers. To her amazement he was no longer
cold and remote, and she made no attempt to deny him when he lowered his head and claimed
her mouth with undisguised hunger.
She had been starved of him for so long that she was unable to control her response to him. She
kissed him back with equal fervour, welcoming the masterful sweep of his tongue between her