Xenakis's Convenient Bride(14)

     



 

Was he adopted? Loved?

Takis had assured her more than once that powerful families didn't like  surprises from the past cropping up. They controlled them from the  outset, which was why they had taken their grandson and cut his humbly  born mother out of the picture as ruthlessly as possible. People at  their level didn't let their heir apparent marry an island girl knocked  up during a holiday romance. They paid her off, then ensured their son's  slip-up was given a silver spoon and an Ivy League education.

Takis was convinced Dorian was in a good situation. Brandon's family  wouldn't have taken him if they only wanted to put him in foster care  and forget about him. They could have left him in Greece if being raised  by strangers had satisfied them.

But was he loved?

That was Calli's best wish for Dorian, but there was a dark side to that  shiny coin. If he was happy, then having his birth mother arrive to  disrupt things could be traumatic for him.

Until she knew exactly what kind of situation he was in, however, until  she knew he was safe and loved, she would never rest easy. She would  always be tortured by this sense that she had let him down.

"You don't like it?"

Stavros's voice startled her out of her introspection. "Pardon?"

"He's one of the top chefs in Paris, but you don't seem pleased. Shall I call back the staff and request something else?"

They'd been speaking to each other in stilted phrases since she had  swiped back at him on the plane. Now she looked at the meal she had  rearranged on her plate, but barely tasted.

"It's fine. Excellent. I'm just...distracted. I'm, um, sorry I was so  bitchy on the plane. This is a big step I've taken. It's finally hitting  me."

His brows twitched with surprise at her apology. His cheeks went hollow,  then he made a dismissive gesture. "Your remark struck too close to  home. And, to be quite honest, my time fixing the pool tiles allowed me  to see what a nuisance it is to lack money."

"A 'nuisance,'" she repeated drily. "Do tell."

He shrugged off her sarcasm. "Even then, I had friends at the end of a  telephone line and knew my dire straits were only for two weeks. I  wasn't sleeping on a beach. When I think of you as a young girl in that  situation..."

His sharp gaze was hard to bear.

She hated thinking about that time, too.

She sipped the very excellent white wine that had been paired with their  meal for this private dining experience in a honeymoon suite with a  view of the Eiffel Tower, then tried to lighten the mood.

"The beach was nothing. I've spent the last six years with a girl going  through puberty. Forget two weeks without credit cards. I challenge you  to survive that."

He chuckled into his own glass as he took it up. "Pass."

"That's what I thought." She took a bite and chewed slowly, awash in the  conflict of leaving Ophelia. She didn't know about Dorian. Takis had  left it to Calli to tell her if the timing ever felt right. It was such a  very difficult subject. Calli had only ever opened up about it with  Takis. Now she wondered if she should have explained better to Ophelia  why she was marrying and moving to New York.

"You'll miss her," Stavros said.

"I will. When I first came to live with them, she was a nightmare. Did  horrible things. Poured sand in my bed. Played dead in the pool. Got  into Takis's liquor cabinet. The first sip made her cough and I heard  her, so not much damage there, but still." Calli shuddered to remember  those first months.

"She resented anyone in the house who wasn't her mother and wanted her  father to stay home with her, but he couldn't. I was quite open about  the fact I had nowhere else to go. I told her it didn't matter what she  did, we were stuck with each other. Then one day we saw my mother as we  were running errands."

Calli's appetite dried up again and she set aside her cutlery.

"Ophelia realized there could be something more awful than your mother  dying. She could be alive and refuse to look at you." The agony of that  painful moment caused a flinch she couldn't control, tightening her  voice even though she attempted to sound unaffected.

Things had never changed and Calli doubted they ever would. Her mother  had had opportunities to back her up about Dorian being taken, when  Takis had first tried to help, but she had stuck with the story that the  baby had died. She had aligned with Calli's father and Calli would  never forgive either of them.

"Ophelia still pulled pranks after that, but they weren't so malicious. We started having fun together."         

     



 

They had grown so close that by the time Calli first scraped together  enough of her wages for airfare to New York, but just airfare, she had  been reluctant to abandon Ophelia. She was finally settling down. Her  grades had improved and Takis wasn't as worried as he'd been.

Calli had let Takis talk her into staying a little longer, unwilling at  that point to confess to him her reasons for wanting to leave. It had  been too humiliating, and it had felt good to hear how much she was  needed by him and Ophelia. For the first time in her life, she had felt  valued. Loved.

"She's excited to go away to school, but I know she's anxious, too. Now  you've bought her home and I'm leaving for New York. It's a lot for her.  I feel guilty." Torn.

"Regretful?"

"No." She was able to state that in a quiet, but firm tone of resolve.  Whatever happened in New York would be painful. That was a given, but  this was too much of a golden opportunity to get answers. She couldn't  let anything hold her back. Not this time. "No, I'm quite committed to  going through with this."

"I'll try to make it pleasant enough you don't have to simply endure it," he drawled.

"What? Oh, that did sound awful, didn't it?" She blushed and covered her hot cheeks. "I didn't mean it like that!"

"I know." His voice held humor, but confidence and anticipation, too.

It provoked a ripple of awareness, sending restlessness prickling  through her. She had been avoiding thinking about sex. It had been a  kind of denial as she focused only on what she would get with this  marriage, not on what she would give up.

Or how easily he made her give up so much.

"Has there been anyone since that tourist?"

"No." She was struck with performance anxiety as she admitted it.

"Why would you do that to yourself when you're so sensual?"

"It was my first time. It was clumsy and awkward, not something I was  excited to try again. Why do you feel a need to make conquests of women  when you're barely interested in them?"

He snorted. "You do love to go on the attack when you feel threatened,  don't you?" He threw his napkin onto his plate and rose. "Quit being so  nervous. I was serious about making it good for you. And now I know how  inexperienced you are, I'll take it slow." He drew her to her feet and  into a close dance.

She stiffened, but couldn't, simply couldn't remain tense when  everything in her was drawn to melt and soften against him. His touch  made her shiver, especially when he found the low back of her dress and  traced the edge, leaving a tickling line of fire against her skin.

With a wince that she hid with a duck of her head, she let herself succumb to his hold until she was resting against him.

"I have not stopped thinking about the way you moved against me that  day, koukla mou." His voice was a low rumble in his chest. "How you  ignited and made those erotic noises as you hit your peak."

"Don't remind me. It's embarrassing."

"It's arousing. Does it not turn you on to remember?"

It did. She was growing weak, even though they were talking about  something that made her squirm. His body brushed against hers. They  moved in a slow rock that didn't even match the muted instrumental music  playing in the background. Was he hard? Was that what she had just felt  as her stomach grazed his pelvis? All of her senses came alive to him.  Attuned. All of her cells honed in like magnets attracted to the  polarity in his. She held her breath, waiting for the next brush of  contact.

"You don't want to hear that I relive it every night? That I can't sleep  unless I let myself imagine I took you against that wall until we were  both groaning and shuddering in a shared release?" His lips nuzzled her  neck, making her whimper.

"Don't be graphic."

"Sex is graphic. You and I will have a lot of sex, glykia mou. Get used  to the idea. Nerves are fine, but I can see you trying to resist what  you feel and I don't like it. You're the one who said you don't want  lies between us."

She stopped moving and glared up at him. "You really think you own me and the entire world, don't you?"

He lifted a hand to smooth back her loose hair, then slowly closed his  fist into the mass at the back, not hurting, but holding her still as he  lightly teased his mouth against hers, making her lips burn.

"You and your world. For the next six months. Beg me to kiss you."