Bridal Bargains

‘Is that why the family wanted you to marry her?’ she asked curiously. ‘Because they care for her?’

‘No.’ He laughed, a softly mocking, sexily husky sound that curled up her toes. ‘Wanting me to marry Desmona was an act of expediency. She owns rather large blocks of shares in some of our most lucrative companies and they wanted to keep them in the family.’

‘But she is in love with you,’ Claire pointed out. ‘Or why would she agree to marry you?’

‘Desmona loves Desmona,’ he murmured sardonically. ‘But she loves money even more. Marrying me would have given her relatively free access to the Markopoulou fortune once again. A very worthy cause in her eyes, believe me.’

‘You’re so cynical sometimes,’ Claire sighed.

‘Then reform me,’ he invited, and covered her mouth, effectively ending the discussion when other, far more important things demanded her attention: mainly this man, who had become the centre of her universe so quickly that she didn’t dare let herself consider just how deeply she had let herself fall in love with him.

So the next few weeks went drifting by without her giving a single thought to their original agreement. The plaster-cast came off her wrist, and with Andreas looking indulgently on, she celebrated by jumping fully clothed into the indoor swimming pool with a shriek of delight because she had been so looking forward to being able to do that. They visited London a couple of times to appear in front of an adoption panel who wanted to reassure themselves that they were, indeed, fit parents for Melanie.

But there was no problem there. For they were lovers. They were husband and wife. They were a couple in every sense of the wo

rd, which showed in the way they responded to each other.

Life was wonderful, life was great. Claire had never been so happy. And the only blot on her otherwise perfect existence was the way her aunt Laura still hadn’t bothered to get in touch with her.

‘I have to be in Paris for a few days from tomorrow,’ Andreas informed her one morning over the breakfast table. ‘Would you like to come with me?’

‘Yes!’ she agreed, thinking, Paris! The most romantic city in the world, and she was going to go there with the most wonderful man in the world. ‘Will my aunt be there?’ she questioned impulsively.

It was so many weeks since she’d watched his face close up that seeing it happen now came as a bad shock. ‘We will not discuss your aunt,’ he said coldly.

‘But why?’ Claire demanded. ‘Why are you so determined to keep the two of us apart? It isn’t as though she can hurt me, you know. I understand her better than you think I do.’

He got up from the table. ‘We will not discuss her,’ he repeated, and walked arrogantly away.

‘Then I’m not coming to Paris,’ she threw after him. Childish, she knew. Petty, she knew. But she felt childish and petty at that moment.

And Andreas responded accordingly—by not even faltering a single step in his retreat. She sulked for the rest of the day and he retaliated by treating her as if nothing was the matter. But when he reached for her in bed that night it was Claire who surrendered to a power much greater than her will to stand aloof from him.

The next morning she awoke to find him gone to Paris, and she felt so angry and hurt that he hadn’t once attempted to change her mind about going with him that she paid him back by telephoning her aunt’s London apartment. She got her answering service, which, Claire realised belatedly, she should have expected if Aunt Laura was in Paris with Andreas.

So she left a message asking her aunt to call her, then spent the next few days missing Andreas so badly that when he did arrive home she fell on him like a puppy dog who thought it had been deserted by its adored master.

A few more weeks went by. Melanie was changing fast now, becoming a real little personality with squeals and smiles, who liked to kick her legs on a blanket in the warm winter sunshine, as if her Mediterranean blood demanded it of her.

The day they received official notification that Melanie was now their legal daughter, Claire had also begun to suspect that she might be pregnant.

That evening Andreas took her out to celebrate. Decked out in one of her elegant evening gowns and with Andreas in dinner suit and bow-tie, they spent a wonderful evening dining at a very exclusive restaurant he knew in the hills behind Rafina, where they ate food that tasted like a dream and laughed and teased and talked a lot. And as they danced close together to music composed exclusively for lovers there was a point where Claire almost confided her suspicion that she could be pregnant. Only an unwillingness to overshadow the real reason why they were out celebrating like this stopped her.

Plus the fact that she wasn’t sure that she was just experiencing a small glitch in her usual smoothly running cycle.

But she was so happy. So lost in this all-encompassing love that she felt for this man of hers that by the time they drove home again that evening she was weaving delicious fantasies around the two of them that involved passionate declarations of love and a life spent making babies and growing old together. And she made love with him that night as if there were no tomorrow—sublimely unaware that, indeed, tomorrow was so very close.

The next morning, Nikos drove them into the busy sea port of Rafina. Claire had shopping to do and Andreas had several business appointments, so Nikos was to drive her back home when she was ready.

Andreas kissed her deeply before climbing out of the car and leaving her to Nikos’s indulgently smiling care.

‘You have made him very happy,’ he replied to the questioning look he caught her giving him via the rear-view mirror. ‘It is a delight to all of us who have known him for most of his life to see him like this again.’

He meant since the death of his first wife, Claire realised, and felt the tiniest suspicion of a cloud begin to shadow her little bit of clear blue sky. Then she firmly dismissed the sensation as she too clambered out of the car a few minutes later.

For this was now, not six years ago. The sun was shining. Life was great. And she wasn’t going to let anything spoil it!

With the confidence of youth and a determination that it was she, Claire, who counted in his life now, she went about her shopping with her metaphorical chin high and her shining blue eyes set clear ahead—just asking to be tripped up by someone or something.