Wedding Night with a Stranger. Anna Cleary
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and holiday to collect her. Long after she’d returned to Athens to attend university, she’d been told that one of the gardeners employed at the school had in reality been her own personal security guard. Thio Peri had never stopped worrying that she might be kidnapped and held to ransom.
How ironic. Once she’d been their jewel, but since she’d let them down and caused the scandal she must have lost her lustre. In their traditional way of thinking they still believed a large part of family honour depended on the marriages their sons and daughters made, the grandchildren they could boast of.
It wasn’t too hard to understand. They’d never stopped grieving over their own childless state. They’d pinned all their hopes on her, their ‘adopted’ daughter, to provide the nearest thing to grandchildren they could ever achieve.
‘You’ll like the Nikostos,’ Thio Peri had enthused on another occasion, determined to lure her into the trap. ‘They’re good people. They’ll look after you. My father and old Sebastian talked in the taverna every night for fifty years. They were the best of good friends. You will be taken care of there every step of the way.’
Thea Leni had hugged her so tightly. She should have seen then that it all felt like goodbye. ‘It will do you so much good, toula. It’s time you visited your own country.’
‘I thought Greece was my country now,’ Ariadne had put in, grateful they were at last moving on after the months of recriminations. And, face it, a little nervous to be venturing so far on her own at long last.
‘And so it is. But it’s important to see the land of your birth. Admit it. You’ve lost your job, you’ve lost your flat, people are whispering about you…You need the break.’
They needed the break. She could see that now. From her. From the embarrassment she’d brought them.
It wasn’t until she was on the plane buckling her seat belt that she’d woken up.
‘Sebastian will meet you at the airport and show you around Sydney,’ her aunt had said at the very last.
Her uncle’s hearty laugh had followed her down the embarkation corridor. ‘Don’t come back without a ring on your finger and a man in your suitcase.’
She should certainly have known then. Sebastian’s name had hardly been mentioned until that moment. Still, it wasn’t until the hostess was preparing to embark on the safety rigmarole that a shattering possibility had dawned. In a sudden panic, Ariadne had whipped out her mobile and dialled.
‘Thio. Oh, oh, Thio.’ Her voice shaking with a fearful certainty. ‘This isn’t some sort of matchmaking thing, is it? I mean, you haven’t set something up with this Sebastian Nikosto, have you?’
Guilt always made her uncle bluster. ‘You should be grateful your aunt and I have taken matters into our hands for you, Ariadne.’
‘What? How do you mean?’
His voice crackled down the phone. ‘Sebastian Nikosto is a good person. A fine man.’
‘What? No, no, Thio, no. You must be joking. You can’t do this. This isn’t my choice…’
‘Choice.’ His voice rose in her ear. ‘You’ve had choices, and look what you did with them. Look at yourself. You’re nearly twenty-four years old. There isn’t a man in Greece—Europe—who will touch you. Now try to be a good girl and do the right thing. Be nice to Sebastian.’
‘But I don’t know him. And he’s old. You said he was old. This is a holiday. You promised—you said—’
Her tearful protests were interrupted.
‘Miss, miss.’ The flight attendant was hovering over her, something about turning off her mobile phone.
‘I can’t,’ she told the man. She, who had always hated a fuss and had turned herself inside out at times to avoid making trouble. ‘Sorry,’ she tried to explain to the anxious little guy. ‘I have to…’ She made a hurried gesture and turned back to the phone, her voice spiralling into a screech. ‘Thio Peri, this isn’t right. You can’t do this. This is against the law.’ Her uncle hung up on her and she tried furiously to redial.
‘Miss, please…’ The attendant held out his hand for the phone, insistence in his tone. Her neighbours were staring with avid interest. All heads were turned her way.
‘But this is an emergency,’ she said. Glancing around, she realised the plane was already taxiing. She panicked. ‘Oh, no, no. I have to get off.’
She dropped the phone, unbuckled her seat belt and tried to rise. Someone across the aisle dived for her phone.
The urgent voices. ‘Miss, sit down. Miss. Sit, please. You are endangering the passengers.’
People around her stared as she half stood, clinging to the seat in front of her, craning their necks to see the distressed woman. Then the plane accelerated for lift-off, and she plumped down involuntarily. She felt the wheels leave the ground, the air under the wings, and was flooded with despair. They would have to turn back. The pilot would have to be told.
When the white rooftops of Athens were falling away below two more attendants had arrived, concerned and more authoritative. ‘Is anything wrong, Miss Giorgias? Are you ill?’
‘It’s my—my uncle. He…’ Already they were out over the sea and heading up through clouds. ‘We have to go back. There’s been a mistake. Can you please tell the pilot?’
She took in their bemused expressions, the quick exchange of glances, and lurid images of the headlines flashed through her head. Ariadne Giorgias provokes airbus incident. Ariadne of Naxos in more trouble.
More scandal, more shame. More mockery of her name, using the coincidence of the ancient myth. She cringed from the thought of any further notoriety.
In the end she fastened her seat belt and apologised.
But she couldn’t just acquiesce. She might be stranded in a hotel room, in a strange city on the other side of the world with no one to turn to except a man who despised her, but she mustn’t give into panic. She had to keep her wits about her and find a solution.
First, though, she needed to be practical. She had expected many of her meals and all of her accommodation to have been paid in advance for the coming weeks, and her bank account was virtually empty except for the holiday money. Money for a little shopping, taxis, tips, day trips here and there. Holiday money. What a cruel laugh that was.
She took a deep, bracing breath and dialled Thea Leni’s private line at the Athens town house. This time she mustn’t lose control, as she had with the call from the plane.
‘Eleni Giorgias?’
Her aunt’s voice brought Ariadne a rush of emotion, but she controlled it. Thea sounded wary. Expecting the call, Ariadne guessed.
‘Thea. It’s me.’
‘Oh, toula, don’t…Don’t…Your uncle has arranged everything and it will be good. You will see. Are you…all right?’
Ariadne’s heart panged at the note of concern but she made herself ignore it. This wasn’t the time for tears. ‘There’s been a mistake in the hotel booking,’ she said in a low, rapid voice. ‘I find that I’m only booked for one night, and it hasn’t been paid for. The travel agent must have made an error. And when I met the tour director in the lobby my name wasn’t on his list. I thought Thio had paid in advance. And he was supposed to have paid the hotel for four weeks.’
There was a shocked silence. Then her aunt said, ‘Not paid for? But—but how…?’ Then her voice brightened. ‘Oh, I know what he’s thinking. Consider, toula, you won’t need to be in that hotel for long.’
The ruthlessness of the trick stabbed at Ariadne. Whatever had happened to chastity before marriage? ‘Oh, Thea, what are