A Stormy Greek Marriage

Alexei drew his son awkwardly closer and Nicky burst into noisy floods of tears and wrenched his little body dramatically sideways in his mother’s direction.

Billie reached out to take her distraught son into her arms. ‘Try playing with him first,’ she suggested.

‘I’ve never played with a kid in my life,’ Alexei said flatly. ‘Is he always this jumpy or is it just me?’

‘Babies can be very sensitive to atmosphere and we’re both fairly tense.’

Alexei studied his son’s truculent little face with intense interest. He scanned the baby’s tousled black hair, his olive skin tone, his big dark accusing eyes and the manner in which he was clinging to his mother. Alexei wondered how he hadn’t guessed that Nikolos was his child for, in his opinion, the physical resemblance was marked. How come some sixth-sense prompting hadn’t urged him to take a closer look at Billie’s supposed cousin? How come he hadn’t tied together the evidence of her unexplained sickness as reported by Anatalya and her months-long career break, which had come out of nowhere at him? But he knew exactly why he hadn’t put it all together.

He had had no recollection of their sexual encounter and he had trusted her absolutely while she had gone to extraordinary lengths to deceive him: there was no getting round that unpleasant truth.

Billie lifted up a picture book and pushed it into Alexei’s hand. ‘That’s Nicky’s favourite. I’ll put him in the baby seat and you can read it and show him the pictures.’

‘Surely he’s still too young for stories?’

‘He always looks interested and stays quiet while I read to him. Babies like familiar rituals.’

With a strong air of reluctance, his lean dark features tense, Alexei sank down in the armchair beside the baby seat and leant down to Nicky’s level. ‘You don’t have to stay,’ Alexei told Billie. ‘I don’t need an audience for this.’

Billie would have preferred to stay to act as a buffer and a source of advice, but then Alexei had always been very self-sufficient in the face of a challenge. She walked out of the door and closed it, listened outside as her son started to sob at her departure and heaved a sigh as she moved away again. If there was a lesson to be learned, Alexei would only learn it the hard way and at his own pace.

Alexei had never had to entertain a child before, but his quick intelligence soon came to his aid. In no time he had the box full of toys by the wall emptied and he was demonstrating the different items for his son’s amusement. The tears dried on the little boy’s face as he slowly responded to that stimulation. He smiled when Alexei got him out of the baby seat and sat him on the carpet instead. He gurgled with pleasure when Alexei showed him the different noises one toy made and stretched out his hand for it, pummelling it with a chubby fist, only to start complaining when he couldn’t get the same sound to emerge. Alexei showed him again and took a little fist and showed him where to press. Nikolos chortled with satisfaction, thumped the toy energetically several times with his clenched hand and then suddenly held out his arms to Alexei to be lifted.

Kneeling on the carpet in front of his son, absently wondering when he would be old enough to appreciate mechanical toys, Alexei froze at that unexpected invitation. The baby gave him a huge grin and, ending his hesitation, Alexei moved forward and lifted him. Nikolos grabbed his father’s tie and yanked it, and then put it in his mouth to chew. Alexei deprived him of the tie, sprang up to find a source of distraction and found it in the view from the window. While he was showing his son the trees, the tractor and the sheep that were visible, the little boy laughed and tried to copy him and point his own fingers, brown eyes full of life and fun.

And, for Alexei, that unstudied moment of shared relaxation suddenly became one of the most important and emotionally gripping of his life. Only a few hours earlier he had decided that he was still too young and selfish to be a parent. At the speed of light he had worked out all the drawbacks of parenthood, swiftly recognising the boundaries that would now be imposed on his once free and untrammelled lifestyle. He might have had no experience of young children but he certainly knew enough to know that a child was major baggage.

But now memories were surfacing of his own father and with them a rich appreciation of the fact that he was still young enough to fully understand what his child would enjoy and to actually play with him. Constantine Drakos had never, ever played with his son and had treated him like a miniature adult. Their relationship had always been sedate and a little detached with Alexei’s mother cheerfully supplying the glue of family affection and all the fun.

Ten minutes later Alexei was sitting with Nikolos on his lap and he was reading the few words in the picture book and, what was more, he was bringing an excitement to that familiar pastime, for Alexei mimicked the noises the different animals made when Billie had merely read them.

When Billie reappeared an hour after her departure, all was quiet in the nursery. Alexei moved a silencing finger to his mouth; their son was fast asleep in his arms, as relaxed as if he had known his father from the day of his birth. Both surprised and pleased by that discovery, Billie smiled warmly, relief uppermost. She had no idea what Alexei had done to win the little boy’s trust but, whatever it was, he had clearly done it well.

‘I am grateful you had him,’ Alexei admitted outside the door and as she gazed up at him, a vulnerable light in her emerald-green eyes, his handsome mouth compressed. ‘But he deserved that you should have told me the truth right at the beginning of your pregnancy.’

Her eyes veiled. ‘Maybe so.’

His lean, strong face clenched hard. ‘You know better than that. I have work to catch up on before dinner,’ he responded, heading for the stairs, making no attempt to hide his exasperation with her.

Grovelling didn’t come naturally to her, Billie recognised ruefully as she entered the master bedroom to decide what to wear for their evening meal. He remained angry with her, while refusing to accept that she had grounds for being angry with him as well. There were two sides to every story. He needed to acknowledge that his partial amnesia had put her in an untenable and humiliating position and then Calisto’s arrival on the scene had proved to be the last straw. She had given birth to their child without his support and the deep unhappiness and loneliness that she had endured during the long months of her pregnancy still haunted her. Hilary had been marvellous but her company had also made Billie feel that she had to act as if she were a good deal happier and more positive than she actually was. For months she had lived behind a false face and had maintained that she was feeling fine.

Desperate to escape the circuitous anxiety of her thoughts, Billie took out her father’s letter and read it again. She decided to phone Desmond Bury there and then, have a chat and see how she felt about him without making a major production out of establishing contact. After all, Desmond might be her father but he was also a stranger with whom she might have nothing whatsoever in common. At the same time, however, she and her mother were so different that she could not help hoping that she might find something of her own nature reflected in her other parent.

Her heart was in her mouth when she made the call and a crisp businesslike male voice answered on the fourth ring. She heard his surprise when he realised who she was and then, with an endearing warmth and enthusiasm that touched her, he aimed a flurry of eager questions at her. He was surprised when she told him that she had a son and marvelled that there had been no mention of Nicky’s existence in the newspaper article he had read. When she admitted that she was actually in England, rather than Greece, he asked if she would like to meet him and in receipt of a positive response immediately offered to get together with her in London. She arranged to meet him the very next day for lunch.

Proud that she had had the courage to make that phone call, Billie showered and set out black silk trousers and a sapphire-blue evening top to wear, before lifting a magazine she had bought at the airport to read. She frowned with distaste when she came on a little newsy segment on Calisto, ph

otographed looking every inch a top model dressed in the latest fashion and talking about how much she loved living in Paris. Billie stilled and studied the building in the backdrop of the photo, which struck her as familiar. It dawned on her that she knew that street, knew it really well because she had on several occasions visited the splendid town house that Alexei owned there. Just as suddenly she was recalling that photo of Alexei with Calisto in Paris and appreciating that the pavement café they had been patronising could well be the one she recalled being just round the corner from the town house.

Could Calisto currently be living in Alexei’s Parisian home?

Or were the photos just a ghastly coincidence? His town house was, after all, situated in a very trendy and photogenic part of Paris. Was insecurity making her suffer from increasingly paranoid suspicions? Billie grimaced. Suspicions about the fidelity of a male whom every paparazzo in Europe nourished suspicions about? A guy to whom fidelity was a dirty word, if it came between him and a woman he wanted? Of course, she was suspicious. Alexei might have married her, but he hadn’t come with any cast-iron guarantee of loyalty and there was every possibility that he saw her lies and deceit over Nicky as an excuse to stray. Hadn’t he already told her that they as a couple were over?

Just how had she contrived to overlook that fact? We’re over, we’ve got to be, he had said before flying to London. Her mother, Lauren, who rarely suffered from rose-tinted glasses when it came to the male sex, had believed her daughter’s marriage was already over as well. Only Billie had been naïve enough to arrive at Hazlehurst, groomed within an inch of her life, in the foolish hope that Alexei, having discovered that Nicky was his son, might greet her with apologies, understanding and forgiveness.

CHAPTER SIX

LATER, before dinner that evening, Alexei called Billie on the house phone, told her that two of the business team were off sick and asked her if she would mind helping out for a while.

Billie was quick to agree and stayed only long enough in the bedroom to dress in casual clothes. In the ground-floor office suite, she stepped into the working role she had given up as if she had never been away and although the other staff were now somewhat overawed by her new position as Alexei’s wife she very much enjoyed being kept busy.

‘I miss working,’ she told Alexei when she joined him later for dinner, having finally donned her slinky evening trousers and blue top.

Supremely handsome in his dark suit, Alexei surveyed her slight figure and the bright hair flaming round her pale heart-shaped face and his wide sensual mouth compressed. ‘But you’re a mother now.’

‘Surely I could still work part-time with you?’ Billie prompted, longing for the closeness of that working relationship to be restored.

‘Not when I’m travelling,’ Alexei pointed out drily.

And Billie had overlooked that necessity when she’d come up with her proposition. While she was ready to allow her son to be cared for several hours a day, she was not prepared to leave him for several days at a time or to disrupt his routine by taking him travelling round the world with her.

‘But your talent for efficient organisation and working well under pressure is much missed,’ Alexei conceded wryly.

‘I think I could still work several hours a day from the villa without Nicky suffering any deprivation,’ Billie responded with quiet determination.

His brilliant dark eyes lingered on the obstinate set of her small face and his lush lashes screened his gaze. ‘I’ll think it over.’

‘When you talk to me like that—as if I haven’t a brain or self-will of my own and I’m a possession—I want to slap you hard!’ Billie confided in a rush, pushing her chair noisily back from the table and leaping upright in a temper.

Refusing to rise to the bait, Alexei surveyed her steadily with his stunning dark golden eyes. ‘With reference to most of the decisions you have made over the past year and more, I cannot be impressed.’

Billie gritted her teeth and shot him a look of frustration. ‘Did you think Calisto was more impressive?’ she dared in a driven voice.

His strong jaw line clenched. ‘I have no intention of discussing Calisto with you.’

Her angry flush receding at that wounding snub, Billie muttered, ‘I’m tired. I’m going to bed.’

Coward, she scolded herself once she was lying in the lavish marital bed. Why hadn’t she mentioned that photo of him with Calisto in Paris? Asked where Calisto was staying over there? Yet without proof of anything untoward, what would be the point of questioning Alexei? He would very much resent an interrogation. And with their marriage hanging in the balance did she really want to take the risk of heightening the conflict between them? Of making counter-accusations that might well have no basis in reality? Alexei had still to apologise for suspecting her of a secret affair with Damon Marios, she reminded herself doggedly. She tossed and turned while she swung between angry defiance, fear of losing Alexei and self-loathing. She loved him too much, still wanted him too much in spite of the way he was treating her, and that made her despise herself. Oh, how she longed to reclaim the sensible wall of detachment she had once been able to protect herself with around Alexei!

Alexei was considerate enough not to put on the lights when he came to bed after midnight, but when he swore after colliding with a solid piece of furniture in the darkness Billie stretched up with a sigh to switch on the bedside lights. ‘It’s all right…I’m not asleep,’ she told him.

She tried to go to sleep then, but when the mattress sank beneath his weight, she said abruptly, ‘Did you really think I’d got involved with Damon?’ That demand came to her lips before she even appreciated that she needed to ask him it.

‘I was with Calisto. How do I know what you did during that period? Or whether you would turn to him for sympathy when our marriage was in trouble?’ he fielded stonily.

‘Well, you could start by trying not to assume that everything I say is a lie,’ Billie pointed out gently. ‘Just because I found Damon attractive when I was a teenager doesn’t mean I still feel the same way as an adult—’

‘Why not? He so obviously does still find you tempting,’ Alexei retorted drily.

That response filled her with impatience over his obstinacy. She was damned if she did, damned if she didn’t. ‘There’s just one flaw in that view. I’m in love with you,’ she said boldly.

‘If hiding my child from me is your idea of love, I can live without it. Trust is more important and we’ve lost it,’ he delivered bluntly, turning out the lights again.

As his lean powerful body brushed up against hers Billie froze like an icicle; his take on their marriage chilled her to the marrow. He didn’t love her, he didn’t even want her love and he didn’t trust her either. Did that leave anything left for her to hope for? Any bond with which they might rebuild their relationship? Alexei closed an arm round her and tugged her up close in a movement that took her totally by surprise and reminded her of a potential fringe benefit of matrimony that she had overlooked. The sensitive tips of her breasts swelled and tightened in contact with his hard muscular torso and a sensation like hot liquid lightning snaked through her pelvis, creating moisture on the tender flesh between her slender thighs. His mouth brushed her cheek, his breath fanning her lips, and the musky male scent of him flared her nostrils and left her weaker still. But her defences conjured up that photo of him seated with Calisto in Paris and somewhere down deep inside herself she was able to switch off the current of responsive heat and turn colder than a winter’s day in his arms.

‘No,’ she breathed in fierce rejection.

Alexei tensed. ‘No?’

And a part of her that she didn’t like very much gloried in his lack of familiarity with that negative word between the sheets. She pushed him away and retreated to the far edge of the bed. ‘No. Feeling as you do about me, I don’t think you should be touching me,’ she extended in blunt clarification.

Without warning the lights went on again and she blinked in a

stonishment. Alexei sent her a seething appraisal, his lean dark features hard as iron. ‘You’re not going to punish me with celibacy, glikia mou!’

‘That’s not what I’m trying to do!’ she snapped back, even while she wondered if it actually was and if sometimes he saw her more clearly than she saw herself.

Alexei flung back the sheet and strode naked and still heavily aroused into the bathroom. Seconds later she heard the shower running and she lay there very still for quite a while until he finally reappeared, a towel negligently knotted round his narrow hips. Green eyes wide with consternation, she studied him over the top of the sheet. She could feel his anger like a physical force in the atmosphere and was already wondering if she had made a mistake in refusing him what she wanted herself. But she was ashamed of the fact that regardless of what he said and how he behaved he only had to get close for her to crave him with every fibre of her being.

‘We can’t make love with everything so wrong between us,’ she muttered in urgent appeal.

A sardonic expression stamped to his darkly handsome features, Alexei shot her a harsh narrowed glance of condemnation. ‘Who said anything about making love?’ he repeated the expression with silken derision. ‘I was talking about sex. You think separate beds are likely to help us?’

‘Sex isn’t the answer to everything!’ Billie slung back in frustration.

Alexei looked grim as he walked to the door. ‘No, but it’s important to me, to any man!’

‘Where on earth are you going?’ Billie gasped.

‘I don’t want to run the risk of waking up tomorrow morning and treating you as if you’re my wife,’ he derided. ‘So I’ll sleep elsewhere.’

Tears stung her eyes at the prospect of that cold physical separation. She wasn’t at all sure about what she had just done but his refusal to even countenance the term ‘making love’ for their intimacy had hit hard and had bolstered up her defences. At the same time she just couldn’t get Calisto out of her mind and his refusal to talk about his ex-fiancée only increased her doubts about the nature of his continuing relationship with the other woman. In one way Alexei had been very right: the trust they had once shared had gone and without it she felt lost, scared and out of control.