Bridal Bargains

Heart-weary, she made herself get into the car. He didn’t join her immediately. In fact, he remained standing out there for such a long, long time that Mia began to wonder if he had finally come to his senses and changed his mind about all of this. Eventually he appeared, folding his long body into the seat beside her.

He didn’t look at her again, and she didn’t look at him. The car began to move, and the atmosphere inside it was so thick you could almost suffocate in it. ‘It isn’t too late to stop this if you want to,’ she heard herself whisper, hoping … Hoping for what? she asked herself.

‘No,’ he replied.

Relief washed through her because that, she realised bleakly, was what she’d been hoping he’d say. No matter how much she hated this she still wanted it—needed it. Needed him.

Her new surroundings were lush and green, with bright splashes of colour from a flush of very early blooming flowers. Give it another few months and the green would be baked brown by the heat of the sun, she mused sadly. The flowers would be mostly gone. It was Mother Nature’s way of maintaining a balance—hours of unrelenting sunshine but at the expense of floral colour.

Was she destined to wilt along with the flowers as the months went by? she wondered. She had the feeling that that was exactly what she would do, living a life in an emotion-starved desert with this man.

So, what’s new? She mocked her own maudlin fancy. You’ve been living just like that with your own father. Swapping one heartless despot for another isn’t going to be that much of a hardship, is it?

They were travelling along a high, winding road with the sea to the left of them. They passed through tiny hamlets of whitewashed buildings, which would probably be alive with tourists in high season but were at present almost deserted. There was hardly anyone about, in fact. It was a point she dared to remark upon to the man beside her.

‘Most people here spend their winters on the mainland,’ he explained. ‘There is work for them there out of season, and the weather here can be as cold as England sometimes. But in another couple of months the place will come alive again.’

‘Is it a big island?’ she asked curiously.

He shook his dark head. ‘We have driven almost its full length already,’ he said. ‘The house is situated in the next bay.’

Five minutes later they were driving through the gates of what appeared to be a vast private property hidden from the road by a high wall flanked by tall shrubs and trees. The house itself nestled lower down so the only view she got of it was its red slate rooftop.

It was impossible to tell just how big it was, but as they dropped lower she counted six separate windows on the upper floor and four on the lower, split by a wide white arched double door in the centre of a veranda.

By the time they came to a halt at the veranda steps she had counted at least four men who could only have been security guards by the way they made themselves evident as the car pulled in each one of them in turn, giving an acknowledging flick of his hand before he slunk out of sight again.

‘Well, this is it,’ Alexander announced, leaning back in his seat as the car engine died into silence. ‘Your new home for the duration.’

>

Mia made no comment—what could she say? Oh, how lovely? How enchanting? I’m sure I will be happy here? She knew for a fact he had no interest in making her happy.

Anyway, she was too busy stifling the fresh set of butterflies that were attacking her system, apprehension for what was in store for her next being their stimulus.

She opened her door and made herself climb out into the late afternoon sunshine. Once again Alexander took his time to do the same, remaining seated inside the car as though it gave him a chance to relax his cold features and let them show what he was really feeling.

Anger, mostly, she guessed, a bitter sense of resentment at her presence in his life, which was going to be her close companion for what he had called the duration.

The white entrance doors began to open. Mia stood, watching, as they swung wide and a short stocky woman stepped out, dressed in uniform grey.

Her expression was utterly impassive as she studied Mia for a few short seconds, then turned her attention away as Alexander Doumas uncoiled himself from the car. Then a smile of such incredible warmth lit the woman’s rugged features that it made the comparison between welcome and no welcome with a hard, cruel alacrity.

She said something in Greek, and he replied in the same language as he strode up the steps towards her. They did not embrace, which killed Mia’s suspicion that this woman might be his mother. Then they were both turning to gaze in her direction, and all warmth left both of them. Mia’s chin came up accordingly, pride insisting she outface the enemy to her last breath.

‘Come.’ That was all he said, as if he were talking to a pet dog.

Come. Sucking back the wretched desire to tell him to go to hell, she walked around the car and up the steps with her clear green gaze fixed defiantly somewhere between the two of them.

‘This is Elena,’ she was informed. ‘She is my housekeeper here. Anything you require you refer to her. Elena will show you to your room,’ he added coolly. ‘And get Guido to bring up your luggage. I have some calls to make.’

And he was gone. Without a second look in Mia’s direction, he strode into the house and disappeared.

‘This way, madam …’ Surprising Mia with her nearly accent-free English, the housekeeper turned and led the way into the house.

It was warmer inside, with sunlight seeping in through silk-draped windows onto apricot walls and lovingly polished wooden floors and doors. The furniture was old, undoubtedly antique, but solid, with a well used, well lived with look to it. Not what she would have expected of him somehow.

A highly polished wooden staircase climbed up the wall to the left of her, then swept right around the upper landing.