The Marakaios Marriage (The Marakaios Brides 1)

She shuddered under his touch, his fingers finding her secret places as her head fell forward in surrender, her hair gleaming in the moonlight.

‘You love me,’ Antonios said fiercely and she let out a trembling laugh.

‘I already told you I did.’

‘Say it again,’ Antonios demanded, needing to hear it. To believe it.

‘I love you,’ she told him, her voice choking. ‘I love you, Antonios.’

And, with triumph roaring through him, Antonios kissed her again.

* * *

If he was trying to prove to her how much she loved him, Lindsay thought hazily, he was wasting his time. She knew she loved him. And he set her body on fire. There had never been any question of that.

Already sparks were spreading out from her centre as Antonios kissed his way down her body, his hands cupping her breasts, thumbs teasing the already taut peaks. Need coiled tightly inside her, everything in her straining for the satisfaction only he could give her.

She gasped his name as she pulled at his shirt, craving the feel of his bare skin against hers. Fingers fumbling, she unbuttoned his pants, tugging them down from his hips.

Antonios pulled her onto his lap and she straddled him, his arousal pressing against the soft juncture of her thighs.

The desperate need to have him inside her overwhelmed her, drove out any rational thought. She sobbed his name as he positioned her above him and then drove into her, her legs wrapped around his waist, his name a ragged cry torn from her lips.

Afterwards they remained wrapped around each other, Antonios braced against the stone fountain, Lindsay cradled in his lap with her legs around his waist.

‘We look like a Lissajous curve,’ she murmured against his shoulder and Antonios eased back to smile wryly at her.

‘A what?’

‘A figure eight, I suppose,’ Lindsay explained. She gestured to their legs: his stretched out and hers pretzeled behind his back. ‘A Lissajous curve is the graph of parametric equations that describe complex harmonic motion. It looks a bit like a figure eight.’

‘Complex harmonic motion,’ Antonios repeated thoughtfully, lightly rocking his hips against hers. ‘That sounds about right.’

Lindsay laughed softly and rested her head against his shoulder, breathing in the tangy masculine scent of him. She felt utterly sated, both physically and emotionally. Complete. The resistance she’d kept up for so long had been swept away, just as Antonios had swept her away in New York.

She had no idea what the future would look or feel like, and dwelling too long on the possibilities and pitfalls made fear clench her belly. But, no matter how afraid she might feel, she no longer fought against the future. Against Antonios and her love for him. His love for her.

What they shared, she thought as she pressed a kiss against his bare shoulder, was impossible to fight.

Antonios adjusted their bodies so he could look into her face. His eyes blazed with ferocity and yet his smile was tender. ‘No regrets?’ he asked softly and she smiled back.

‘No. Some reservations, maybe. But no regrets.’

‘It will work out, Lindsay. I swear it.’

And she knew that Antonios was the kind of man who would refuse all obstacles. Who would make things happen by sheer force of will. And maybe, for once, that was a good thing.

Tenderly, Antonios scooped her up from the fountain and carried her back to the table.

‘Our dinner awaits.’

‘I’m naked,’ she pointed out, and Antonios gave a negligent shrug.

‘I don’t mind.’

She laughed, happiness rising inside her like a bubble. ‘I’m also cold.’

He let out a theatrical sigh. ‘Well, if you must,’ he said, and scooped up her underwear and dress. Instead of handing them to her, he dressed her himself, slowly and lingeringly, so by the time he’d tugged up the zip on her dress Lindsay was nearly melting again with desire. ‘Later,’ he promised, and with one last soft kiss he led her back to the table and, with her heart brimming with happiness, Lindsay sat down to eat. She found she was suddenly starving.

* * *

Antonios left the bed, sunlight streaming over Lindsay as she lay tangled amidst the silken sheets, her hair spread over the pillow like a moonbeam. In sleep she looked relaxed and happy, her mouth curved in a small smile, one hand flung, palm upwards, by her face.

Antonios luxuriated in the simple pleasure of watching her and knowing she was his. Finally. Again. His.

Last night, after they’d made love, they’d spent several pleasant hours eating their delayed dinner and chatting in an easy way that he wasn’t sure they’d ever experienced before, not even in those heady days in New York, when everything had been an odyssey of discovery. Certainly not in Greece, which in hindsight he could see had been marked by strain and silence. This was new, and all the more precious because of it.

They were building something good now, he told himself. Something new and strong. And he would make sure it worked. His mouth hardening in a line of resolve, he turned from Lindsay lying asleep in their bed.

The sun was rising in a bright blue sky, the olive groves sparkling under its light. He wanted to wake Lindsay up before he left for work, make love to her again, but he knew he needed to get to the office. He had a staff meeting in a few hours, and he still needed to talk with Leonidas.

Just the thought of his brother had Antonios’s insides tightening in a familiar and unwelcome way. For ten years he’d lived with that tightening, the unrelenting pressure of leading his father’s business away from the precipice of disaster while keeping it all from his family.

When he’d met Lindsay in New York and fallen in love with her, it had felt like the first time he’d truly relaxed or been happy. And even though he now had that again he couldn’t ignore the tension that ratcheted inside him as he scrawled her a note and walked across the estate to Marakaios Enterprises’ offices.

He needed to talk to Leonidas. He hadn’t realized the extent of his brother’s resentment. They’d been close growing up, getting into similar scrapes on the estate, sharing the usual boyish escapades. United, perhaps, in the alienation they’d felt from their father, who had been consumed by the business he’d eventually run into the ground.

Thinking about his father made Antonios’s chest hurt. He loved his parents, his family, and as any Greek man he was fiercely loyal to them. Even acknowledging his father’s faults to himself felt like a betrayal and he forced down the stress that felt as if it had a stranglehold on his soul.

‘You’re late,’ Leonidas remarked, unsmiling, as Antonios came into the reception area of the office. Antonios suppressed a flicker of irritation as he walked past his brother into his office, its floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the olive groves now dazzling in morning sunlight.

‘I didn’t realize you were waiting for me,’ he said. He dropped his briefcase by his desk, shed his suit jacket and sat down before opening up his laptop.

Leonidas stood in front of his desk, arms folded and chin jutting. ‘I want more control, Antonios.’

Antonios didn’t look up from his laptop. He wasn’t surprised by Leonidas’s demand, but he still didn’t know how he was going to deal with it. ‘You’re Head of European—’

‘Don’t fob me off with that,’ Leonidas snapped. ‘I’m not a dog to be tossed a bone. In the ten years since you took over, I’ve never had access to financial information. I’ve never had any true authority. I’m nothing more than a front man who’s meant to do the fancy talk.’

‘And you’re so good at it,’ Antonios pointed out, spite spiking his voice even though he’d meant it to be flattery.

‘Well, I’m done with being patronized,’ Leonidas stated. ‘You either give me more control or I leave.’

Anger surged through Antonios and he rose from his chair, one hand flat on the desk as he glared at his brother. ‘Are you threatening me?’

‘Simply stating a fact.’ They glared at each other and in some distant corner of his brain Antonios wondered how it had come to this.

Because your father made it happen.

‘I wonder,’ Leonidas continued coolly, ‘why you insist on hiding the financial information, Antonios.’

‘Our accountant is completely up to date—’

‘And you never let me in on those meetings. You’ve never let me so much as look at a spreadsheet. What are you hiding, I wonder?’

It took Antonios a stunned second to realize what his brother was implying. That he was cooking the books, skimming money off the top. It was so far from the truth that for a moment he couldn’t speak.

‘Don’t ever,’ he finally warned Leonidas in a low voice, ‘make such a despicable insinuation again. I’ve given my life, my soul, to Marakaios Enterprises.’

Leonidas stared at him for a long moment, his jaw tight. ‘You’re not the only one,’ he finally said, and walked out.

Antonios sank into his chair, his mind still spinning, and pulled his laptop towards him. Grimly he clicked the mouse to download his emails and refused to think about what Leonidas had just said.

A couple of hours later he heard voices in the reception area and lifted his head to see Lindsay coming through his door. A wave of relieved joy broke over him at the sight of her; she wore a floral sundress and her hair tumbled loose about her shoulders. She offered him a shy smile as she came in the room and Antonios rose from behind his desk, barely restraining himself from striding across the room and pulling her into a desperately needed embrace.