Bridal Bargains. Michelle Reid
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For Melanie’s sake alone, it has to be her best chance in life, don’t you think?’
For Melanie’s sake, Claire repeated silently, knowing exactly where she had heard those words before, and not liking the sensation that trickled down her spine at the connection.
But, despite that nasty sensation, one important thing she did know for sure was that, having once lived in privileged comfort herself—though not anywhere near the style he was offering Melanie here—and having gained tough experience at the poorer end of the scale, Claire knew which end of that scale she preferred to be.
‘I’ll do it,’ she heard herself say. ‘For Melanie’s sake.’
And only wondered as she did so whether this hadn’t been a case of him caving in first, but simply a very astute man knowing exactly when to play his final card.
‘Thank you,’ he murmured. ‘I will promise you, Claire, that you will never have cause to regret this decision.’
But she was already regretting it as early as the next morning when she came down the stairs ready to tell him that she had changed her mind.
At which point she discovered that Andreas Markopoulou had pulled yet another tactical move on her, by going abroad on business for the next frustratingly long week.
Melanie, in the meantime, was beginning to bloom with all the tender loving care both Lefka and Althea were ladling upon her. Claire didn’t hear her cry once!
Secretly she found it hurtful. For, under Claire’s exclusive care, the little girl had hardly ever stopped crying since their mother had died.
Then, most hurtful of all, was the way her aunt hadn’t once bothered to get in touch with her. Whether that was her aunt’s own indifference or Andreas Markopoulou’s doing she didn’t know. But, knowing Aunt Laura as well as she did, if she’d wanted to contact Claire then she would have done, no matter what her big tycoon boss might say.
But, as the week slid by, at least her body began to heal; the bump on her temple disappeared altogether and her bruises began to fade. Even her hurt feelings had given way to a dull acceptance—along with her acceptance that she could no more take Melanie away from what she was receiving here than sprout wings and fly.
So it was that she was sitting in the solarium at the back of the house, gently pushing Melanie’s pram to and fro to rock the baby to sleep, when a voice murmured to one side of her, ‘You look a lot better …’
She didn’t turn to look at him, but her hand stopped rocking the baby carriage. And her heart gave an excited leap that left her feeling tense and shaky.
Still, at least her voice was steady when she answered coolly, ‘A week is a long time.’
‘Ah …’ He came forward, his footsteps sounding on the quarry-tiled floor beneath his feet. ‘I thought it best to leave you alone to—come to terms with your decision.’
So he was admitting to a retreat, she noted, and was oddly pacified by that—then even more so when he paused at the pram to bend down and inspect Melanie.
‘She’s asleep,’ he whispered. But it was the way he stroked a gentle finger over the baby’s cheek in much the same way that Claire did that touched a warm spot inside her.
Then, pulling up one of the other cane chairs, he sat down beside her. ‘How is the wrist?’ he enquired.
‘Better,’ she told him.
‘And the ribs?’
‘They don’t hurt when I laugh any more,’ she replied with a grin she turned to offer directly to him.
Then wished she hadn’t when her heart gave that funny leap again, making the tiny muscles deep in her stomach coil up in reaction. He looked lean and dark and sun-kissed, as if he’d just stepped off a plane from a place where the weather had been a lot pleasanter than it had been here in England.
She felt a tingling urge to reach out and touch his face just to feel if it was as warm as it appeared to be. ‘Where have you been?’ she asked instead, leaving the less tactile medium of words to assuage her curiosity.
‘You sound like a wife,’ he mocked, his dark eyes flickering slightly as he scanned her face where even Claire had noticed the stray-waif look was beginning to fade.
‘Not yet,’ she drawled in answer. ‘And for all you know I may have changed my mind.’
‘Have you?’
The urge to prolong his agony and lie almost got the better of her, but in the end she said, ‘No,’ and they were both silent for several minutes. The baby made a snuffling sound and she began rocking the pram again. It was all very—ordinary.
‘I’ve been in Greece,’ he announced, answering her earlier question. ‘With my grandmother,’ he added, and though his tone was level Claire knew instinctively that something was wrong.
‘She’s worse, isn’t she?’ she said.
‘Fading fast,’ he grimaced—then added briskly, ‘So I have set her a task to do to keep her mind occupied. She is planning our wedding as we speak.’
Startled, Claire straightened in the chair. ‘Our wedding?’ she repeated. ‘But I thought you wanted to present her with a fait accompli!’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘That would not have worked quite so successfully as the story I have now fed her.’
‘Which is—what?’ she demanded, only managing to keep her angry voice down in respect of the sleeping Melanie.
‘That you are young and very beautiful …’
Beautiful? Claire stared directly ahead and wondered how he could lie so glibly, because the one thing she wasn’t was beautiful! Passably attractive when at her best, she conceded. But nothing more than that.
‘I told her that we had shared a—liaison some time last year,’ he went on. ‘But because of your youth I broke it off, not knowing I was leaving you carrying my child …’
Lie number two, she counted, and began to see for the first time what mire of deceit she was about to fall into.
‘But I could not get you out of my mind—which was why I found it so impossible to agree to marry another woman while I still wanted you. So I went to see you,’ he explained. ‘And as for the rest—’ he shrugged ‘—it tells itself.’
It certainly did, Claire agreed, seeing herself as this tragic young woman who’d fallen for the big handsome Greek tycoon who was, by the sound of it, not far off his dotage.
‘Actually,’ he said, ‘the new slant I have put on our—story—’ he used the word dryly ‘—was done to serve a second purpose …’
Now what? Claire wondered, feeling the fine hairs on the back of her neck begin to prickle warningly.
‘For this way you don’t have to like the fact that you are marrying me,’ he explained. ‘Being the arrogant dictator that everyone seems to think I am—including you—no one is going to question the idea that you have been—coerced into becoming my wife for the sake of our child. Which also means you get your own bedroom without tongues wagging,’ he pointed out. ‘While I must—earn your affections again.’
‘And thereby ends the tale when I eventually turn my back on you and walk away,’ Claire finished for him. ‘Not quite the stuff of a romantic novel, is it?’ she mocked.
‘Life rarely is,’ he drawled, sounding suddenly so cold that Claire couldn’t believe her ears! With one lightly mocking comment she seemed to have turned him to stone!
Stiffly, he came to his feet. ‘We leave for Greece in the morning,’ he announced. ‘Now I have some work to do. So if you will excuse me …’ And, with a curt little bow, he was gone!
What was all that