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She looked towards the couple. ‘Oh. That must be their little girl with Alex.’ The red-haired cherub was gurgling with laughter. ‘And Dell has a baby in her arms who looks just like a tiny Alex.’ Hayley forced her voice into neutral. She didn’t trust it not to quiver when she talked about babies. Especially to Cristos.
Hayley actually knew quite a lot about Alex and Dell. She’d been dismayed when she’d got all the way to Sydney to find even there she couldn’t escape Cristos’s family. Alex had been Australian born and a hospitality tycoon. His relocating to Greece after his tragic loss and finding happiness with Dell was ongoing fodder for the press.
‘Their son, Georgios. He was born just a year after Litza.’
Hayley couldn’t meet his eyes. The tension between them must be palpable. Their baby would have been just a little older than the little girl being proudly held by Alex if she hadn’t miscarried that terrible night. But she couldn’t, wouldn’t talk about that. Strained silence from Cristos told her he couldn’t either.
The breeze had picked up. She shivered and huddled deeper into her coat—the beautiful, expensive coat Cristos had given her out of guilt for one of his lengthy absences. ‘I’ve come from a hot Sydney summer. It’s freezing here. Not at all how I imagined an idyllic Greek island. I mean, it’s beautiful but so chilly. Why did they choose to renew their vows in winter?’
‘Alex and Dell wanted to have the ceremony here in the chapel where they got married. The resort is fully booked out all through the warmer months. In summer they would not have had the privacy they wanted.’
She looked over to the group outside the chapel. ‘I’m happy for them,’ she said. ‘I liked Alex when I met him and Dell looks lovely.’
‘You weren’t invited but he’ll be glad to see you. And Dell must be dying to be introduced.’
Hayley took an abrupt step back. ‘No! I’ve come to talk to you about the divorce and then go. The boat is waiting to take me back to Nidri.’
Cristos closed the gap between them with one long stride. ‘You can’t do that.’
‘What do you mean?’ He was too close. This close she was too aware of his warmth, his scent, his strength.
‘I can’t allow you to disrupt this special day.’
‘That was not my intention,’ she said. ‘I just—’
He spoke over her, his tone low and urgent. ‘Alex and Dell have been through more than you know. Allow them their day of celebrating their commitment to each other. Your abrupt departure would cause even more speculation than your arrival and put the focus on us instead of them. That wouldn’t be fair. You’ve turned up here uninvited. But you are still legally my wife. Despite our separation, it would be expected that you would greet Alex and Dell and congratulate them. I’m asking you to do the right thing.’
Why did he have to put it like that—appealing to her innate sense of justice? ‘I suppose I could say hello,’ she said tentatively. Although it would take a monumental effort to congratulate the happy couple on their successful marriage while her own was in its death throes. ‘It wouldn’t take long to chat with them and then slip away to the boat.’
Cristos shook his head. ‘That would cause even more disruption than if you left right now. There is to be a lunch at the resort. Stay here for that. Surely we can be civil to each other. But don’t mention the divorce to anyone. It’s none of their business. Let people think we are discussing reconciliation. Just until the party is over and you can leave with the other guests.’
She frowned. ‘You mean pretend I’m still your wife?’
He shrugged. ‘If you put it that way. Just for a few hours. Legally you are still my wife.’
‘You mean I’d have to act loving and—?’ Her breath started to come in tight gasps at the thought of it and she had to put her hand to her chest.
‘Just civil would do, if you find the thought of pretending an affection you no longer feel so distressing,’ he said. ‘Just keep it dignified. You’ve caused me enough humiliation.’
‘I don’t know that I could face explanations and—’
‘No explanations would be required. I have told my family nothing of what happened between us.’
And, no doubt, his relatives had assigned all the blame for the end of their union to her. Slowly, she shook her head, forced her breathing to return to something resembling normality. ‘I’m sorry but I can’t do it.’ Such a charade would bring back old memories, old feelings she had fought so hard to put behind her.
He frowned his displeasure. ‘Do it for my cousin’s sake who liked you and stood up for you. Don’t let us ruin this day for them.’
Us. How thrilled she’d been when they’d become a couple. How she’d loved to drop those magical words we and us into the conversation, preferably while flashing her engagement ring at the same time. Now Cristos used the word in such a different context it made her shudder. Us united in a charade of dishonesty. Although, she was forced to admit, it would be with the best of intentions and just for a few hours. She sighed out loud. He still knew which of her buttons to press. The last thing she’d ever want to do was ruin someone else’s hard-won happiness. Everyone in Sydney knew the tragedy Alex had gone through.
She looked up at Cristos. At that handsome, handsome face that had once been so beloved. ‘I’ll do it. Then after lunch I’m out of here. With the divorce papers signed.’
And she would say goodbye to her husband for the very last time.
CHAPTER TWO
CRISTOS FISTED HIS hands by his sides. He could lie to himself all he liked but his indifference towards his wife was just another mask. Seeing Hayley again had stripped it away, leaving raw the ache for her he had never been able to suppress.
Call it desire, need, obsession—when she had first smiled at him across that crowded pub in Durham it had lodged in his heart like an arrow from Eros, the ancient Greek god of love and desire. He had found it impossible to wrench it out—even when he had tried to hate her for the way she had left him.
What he had felt for her defied logic, reason, common sense. But it hadn’t been enough to see them through the loss of their baby, a time that should have brought husband and wife closer together in a shared grief rather than driven them inexplicably apart. What had gone wrong? He needed answers. And he had to get them from Hayley before she took that boat back to Nidri.
Of course, it wasn’t as simple as that. Hayley had barricades up around her that might be impenetrable. But Cristos was an optimist. To be a successful gambler you had to be an optimist. And he was a gambler. His was not the kind of reckless, addictive gambling that had driven his late father to embezzlement and fraud and stints in prison. Not to mention unending shame for his mother’s family.
Cristos’s gambling took the form of calculated business risks that had led him to invest in start-up internet businesses—most of which had succeeded beyond all expectations. At not yet thirty, he was a multimillionaire. These days the wide spread of his investment portfolio ensured his fortune was secure—and kept growing. Yet he kept the gambler aspect of him a secret from his family. And had never shared it with Hayley.
His father had died when he’d been thirteen, followed six months later by the death of his mother. His grandparents had brought him back to Nidri, aged fourteen, to live with them. He’d been embraced with love by his grandparents and extended family. But he’d soon become uncomfortably aware of how closely he was scrutinised.
He looked so like his father that his family were terrified he had inherited his nature as well as his good looks. It felt as if they were always waiting to pounce and stamp out any undesirable traits. As soon as he’d realised that, he’d become adept at masking his feelings, hiding his true risk-taking self. It was allowed to come out only when he played football where a winner-takes-all attitude was encouraged.
He had started investing in a small way in app developments by his fellow students at university but had kept both his successes and failures well hidden. Even though he saw himself as a canny businessman, he could never admit to his worried grandparents that he could be in any way like his father, the man they blamed for the death of his mother, their only daughter. The secrecy had become a habit, another mask he was beginning to weary of wearing.
But optimism was all he felt now as he looked down into Hayley’s face—a face he had doubted he would ever see again. It was difficult to stop himself from glancing at her every few seconds just to reassure himself she was really there. The sheen of her hair, the blue of her eyes, the curve of her mouth. She was here with him, in the same country, by his side. They were headed for divorce. But he intended to make the most of the hours ahead to get answers to the questions that had plagued him. Then he could put her firmly in the past and move on without being haunted by guilt or bitterness.
That was a much better position than he could have dreamed he’d be in when he’d thought back to their wedding this morning.
‘Alex is looking our way. Let’s go say hi,’ he said. It seemed natural to reach for her, to fold her much smaller hand in his for the first time in years. But she stiffened against him.
Did she hate him so much she couldn’t bear the most simple of touches?
‘You agreed to do this—we have to make it look believable,’ he said in a gruff undertone intended only for her.
He could tell the effort it took for her to release the tension from her body. ‘I guess so,’ she said, expelling a sigh.
She left her hand in his as he led her towards the chapel but there was no answering pressure, no entwining of her fingers through his. Their linked hands were purely for appearances’ sake. But it signalled they were together—for today at least. The fewer questions his family had about her sudden appearance, the better. They would take their cues from him. If he appeared unperturbed they would not question what Hayley was doing here.
His cousin and his wife had been posing for photos with their children but had now handed them over to their doting grandmothers. Cristos was glad. He would find it impossible to keep his mask in place if he had to watch Hayley react to the children, knowing how much she had wanted the baby they had lost that terrible night in Milan. The night that was branded on his memory for ever, to be brought out and poked and prodded in an agony of self-recrimination for failing her. But there had also been fault on her part. He had wanted the baby, but she had not allowed him to share her grief—let alone acknowledge his.
He’d been in a business meeting—a meeting that had turned out to be pivotal to his rapid rise to riches. The deal he’d done that night had been a major step up to the fortune he had sought as security for his wife and the family they had wanted to raise together. He’d had his phone turned off. When he had switched it on it had been to find a series of messages from Hayley, escalating in urgency until the last one had said she was being taken by ambulance to hospital.
When he’d got there it had been too late. She had lost the baby. And he had very quickly realised he had lost his wife.
Now Alex and Dell stepped forward from their crowd of well-wishers to greet him and Hayley. He could tell Dell was bubbling over with curiosity about this unexpected visit from the wife she had never met but had heard so much about. He had to tamp down on his own curiosity at what his lovely wife had been up to since their split. Who was the man who had prompted her to seek a divorce? Jealousy, dark and invasive, roiled in his gut. It was an emotion relatively new to him. He had always felt certain of Hayley’s fidelity. But he had spent the past two and a half years tormented by graphic imaginings of her in the arms of another man.
Alex gave Hayley a welcoming hug. But over Hayley’s shorn blonde head he questioned Cristos with his eyes: What’s going on? Alex had become as close as a brother. They shared secrets. Cristos knew the truth behind his cousin’s hasty marriage and Alex and Dell knew the extent of Cristos’s fortune. Alex would be as surprised as he was by his wife’s sudden reappearance.
‘Where have you been hiding?’ Alex asked Hayley, valiantly tiptoeing around the truth. Alex knew all about Cristos’s fruitless search for her.
‘Sydney,’ Hayley said after hesitating a moment too long.
Alex’s dark brows rose.
‘I was living there for—’
Auburn-haired Dell interrupted. ‘Sydney is my home town!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’d love to hear what you got up to there. Not only that, of course—I’ve been longing to meet you. Unfortunately we now have to go share ourselves around the other guests. But I’ll seat you near us for lunch so we can chat.’
Her ebullient welcome defused the awkwardness of Hayley’s surprise visit and Cristos shot his cousin’s wife a glance of gratitude. He’d made friends with Dell when she had been working for Alex on Kosmimo, before there had been any romance between her and his cousin. There had been no one more delighted when they’d got married and he’d been their best man. If Hayley and Dell hit it off it would help make the rest of the day go smoothly.
‘I’ll look forward to that,’ Hayley said, returning Dell’s smile—her smile was pointedly not directed at him. Dell hugged Hayley before she turned to move away.
That left just the two of them, standing apart from the other guests in the glorious but increasingly chilly grounds of the chapel. But Cristos didn’t even notice the view of the white-capped sea or the profusion of dark clouds rolling in. His senses could only register the presence of his wife. Hayley might be hostile but she was here. Before she got back on that boat to Nidri he would insist he got answers.
But his spirits dipped as he noticed his seventy-seven-year-old grandmother heading their way. Hayley noticed too. He heard her dismay in a hiss of indrawn breath and she tensed as if to flee. ‘I don’t think I can handle a confrontation with your grandmother,’ she said. ‘That wasn’t part of the deal.’
Cristos’s protective instinct kicked in. He’d kept his anger about the ugly way Hayley had ended their marriage to himself. He would not tolerate criticism of her from anyone else. Not even his beloved grandmother, who had rather an impressive track record in that regard.
He put his arm around Hayley and drew her close. She did not object, realising, perhaps, that it would be easier if they gave the appearance of being a couple. ‘Leave my grandmother to me,’ he said.
Dell called Penelope the purveyor of information for the extended family—kind terminology to describe an unashamed gossip and self-appointed matchmaker. His yia-yia had worked to get Alex and Dell together despite seemingly impossible odds. But she was convinced Cristos had made completely the wrong match in Hayley. She’d made that very clear to Hayley the one time they’d met when he’d brought Hayley home to introduce her.
The old woman’s journey towards them now was hindered by the other guests greeting her, but she would be with them in mere minutes. He could not allow old grievances to erupt that might make Hayley change her mind about staying for lunch. Not before he’d had time to thrash out the truth behind the reasons they had parted.
Hayley twisted within the protection of his arm to look up at him, her blue eyes clouded with concern. The wind lifted fine wisps of blonde hair that feathered around her face. He resisted the urge to smooth them into place. Such an intimate touch belonged to their past.
‘Your grandmother hated me before. What will she think of me now?’ she whispered.
‘Hate?’ He frowned. ‘That’s too strong a term. Penelope didn’t approve of you—or me at the time, for that matter—but I’m sure she didn’t hate you. We didn’t ask their permission and married without inviting them to the wedding. That meant we broke all sorts of Greek family rules.’
Her mouth turned down. ‘I didn’t make it any better by telling her that my own parents weren’t invited either. Your grandmother drew her own conclusions about that. Conclusions that didn’t reflect well on me.’
‘Remember your parents didn’t approve of me either. That was another reason we didn’t tell any family about the wedding until we were Mr and Mrs.’
Hayley didn’t deny it. ‘They thought I was too young to get married. Especially while I was still at uni. My father was so disappointed in me.’
There had been more to it than that. ‘They might have thought better of it if you’d married someone they approved of. Your mother was disappointed I was from humble origins.’ Her mother had had a particular sneer for him that had let him know she’d thought her daughter had married way beneath her.
‘That you were a foreigner was reason enough for her disapproval.’ Was that a glimmer of a smile of complicity from his estranged wife, as the memories danced across her face? ‘She saw it as an act of defiance on my part. To get married at the register office and have lunch afterwards at the pub with our friends. What a crime that was in “Surrey mother” circles.’
He smiled in return. ‘We got married exactly the way we wanted. Free from anyone’s expectations but our own. I never regretted that, in spite of the dramas it caused with my family.’
‘Me neither,’ she said. ‘No matter how it turned out in the end.’ Her gaze met his for a long moment. Then the shutters came down and she turned her face away. Why would she want to indulge in reminiscence about their wedding when she’d come seeking a divorce?
‘Penelope is heading our way,’ she said.
He felt a shiver run through her. ‘Cold?’ he asked. As the wind rose, the temperature was beginning to drop.
‘A little scared, to be honest. Your grandma is a formidable lady. She doesn’t look any less hostile than when she interrogated me the first time we met when we came to Greece on our honeymoon.’
‘Which is why we never came to the islands again.’ His family’s rejection of his wife had hurt Hayley so much he had decided to give his grandparents time to get used to the idea of his marriage before they met again. Then when the modelling career he had fallen into so reluctantly had taken off with such speed there hadn’t been the chance to come back, to try and mend bridges. Or, indeed, time to work on the cracks that had been appearing in his marriage that he had seen as hairline and Hayley as canyon-like crevices.
He’d eventually returned home without a wife. And given no explanations for her absence other than she had left him. And that he didn’t particularly care. He’d hidden his heartbreak behind that mask of indifference.
‘Now I’m wishing I’d never come here,’ Hayley said. ‘How can I face her?’
‘Does it matter?’ he replied. ‘You won’t have to see my grandmother again after today. Or me. But for now, let’s present a united front. To keep the peace for Dell and Alex’s sake.’
‘I’ll try,’ she said, slowly. ‘They’re really nice people.’ To his relief, she stayed by his side.
* * *
Hayley braced herself. The last thing she wanted to do was cause a scene with Cristos’s grandmother. But she wasn’t twenty-two any more. Twenty-two and desperate to impress her new husband’s family. Back then she might as well have festooned herself with signs begging them to like her. Now she had learned not to take rubbish from anyone, no matter their age. She had wanted approval and acceptance from Penelope, instead she had been crushed by rejection for no real reason that she could see.
Cristos’s grandmother’s shrewd black eyes flitted from Hayley to her grandson and back again. In spite of her resolve to stand up for herself, Hayley couldn’t help but feel intimidated by the elderly Greek matriarch in full sail. She took a deep breath.
‘It’s always a surprise to see you, Hayley,’ Penelope said in her charmingly accented English, with a smile that didn’t reach those eyes. The surprise of their marriage had not been welcomed by Cristos’s clan. Her surprise visit this time obviously wasn’t either.
Before she could think of a suitable reply, Cristos spoke. ‘A wonderful surprise, Yia-yia, that Hayley could join us for Alex and Dell’s celebration.’
‘Is that why you came here?’ Penelope addressed her question to Hayley.
Hayley wasn’t good at lying; she had to think about her reply. ‘A loving marriage is an excellent thing to celebrate,’ she said.
The old lady’s eyes narrowed until they were mere slits in the wrinkles of her face. ‘And your own marriage? Have you come back to be with your husband?’
‘That’s between Cristos and me,’ Hayley said without hesitation.
‘Hayley is right, Yia-yia.’ Cristos’s tone was kind—she knew how much he loved and respected his grandmother—but firm. His grip around Hayley’s shoulder tightened and she automatically leaned in closer to him. Accepting his protection was something she had always done. Until she’d had to deal with the biggest crisis of her life without him.
Again Penelope addressed Hayley. ‘You’ve put my grandson through hell, young lady. And if you—’
‘There are always two sides to the story,’ Hayley retorted. ‘I—’
‘Our seeing each other again really is our business,’ said Cristos smoothly. ‘While we appreciate your concern, you need to let us handle it in our own way.’ He turned to Hayley. ‘Isn’t that right?’
Hayley nodded. ‘It most certainly is.’
Penelope muttered something in Greek under her breath. Hayley had made an effort to learn Greek when she’d fallen in love with Cristos. She’d let it lapse with the end of their marriage; she didn’t have the heart to speak Greek if it wasn’t to her husband. But she knew enough to know that whatever Penelope had said wasn’t polite. Hayley gritted her teeth. She did not want to get into an argument with Cristos’s formidable grandmother. What would be the point? Their paths would not cross again after today. She looked up to him in mute appeal.
In response, Cristos looked deep into her eyes and smoothed the flyaway hair from her forehead with gentle fingers. Her breath caught at his touch, so familiar and yet so startlingly new, and she could not break her gaze from the deep green of his. ‘I am so happy to have my wife back with me,’ he murmured in that deep, rich, lightly accented voice that had always thrilled her.
Hayley knew he didn’t mean that. It was a message for his grandmother—a subtle way of defusing the situation. But it felt anything but subtle to her as shivers of awareness rippled through her. Her body had not forgotten the pleasure his touch could bring.
It had been so long.
She lifted her face and closed her eyes to better savour the sensation as he made the act of smoothing her hair into a caress. She was so lost in the feeling she was totally unprepared when he kissed her.
Oh!
His mouth firm and warm on hers, the roughness of his chin, his scent, spicy and male. Her own lips soft and yielding under his. His hands sliding around her waist, pulling her closer. This felt so good. Too good. Her eyes flew open.
She didn’t want this. Not this languorous warmth overtaking her. Not this feeling of being lost in his possession. Not this surge of awakening when she’d worked so hard to suppress her longing for him. She didn’t want him. The marriage had been all on his terms—and in loving him so desperately she had lost herself.
She tried to pull away. ‘We have to make this look believable,’ he murmured against her mouth.
Why? She had agreed to play along with the charade of reconciliation so as not to disrupt his cousin’s festivities. Not to kiss Cristos. She did not welcome the whoosh of long-banked-down embers igniting into flames. Because of a kiss. A simple—you could almost call it chaste—kiss.
‘Don’t kiss me again,’ she murmured back against his mouth. His grandmother, watching intently, might take it for sweet talk. She stepped back with a shaky little laugh that sounded fake to her own ears but might fool the grandmother. The smile he gave her in return seemed equally fake, though ragged at the edges. And as soon as his grandmother headed away from them she shrugged herself free, making a play of smoothing down her coat.