The Cozakis Bride

'And don't come back!' Olympia shouted after him, her voice breaking.

She sat there hunched on the bed, listening to the silence. Her eyes shimmered with tears and the blankness of shock, her emotional turmoil getting worse rather than abating. Just suppose he was telling the truth about Gisele? She crushed out that traitorous voice and hugged herself. If Nik wouldn't trust her, how could she trust him? Why, though, had he no longer been content to hear their marriage termed a 'deal'?

He had had four weeks to tell her that he wanted some­thing more. He hadn't. Not a single word in that line had escaped him. She had her pride to think about. Her nose tickled, her throat closing over with tears. Pride was all she had left now that she was carrying Nik's baby. He had hurt her very badly ten years ago. She wasn't going to be hurt like that again. So she was hurting now, but by breakfast time tomorrow, after she had had a good long sleep, she would be feeling much better.

Nik's kid brother, Peri, flew in five days later.

'Hi, Peri...' Olympia said with a wobbly smile as she showed him into the impressive lounge with its spectacular vaulted ceiling.

Peri studied her shadowed, swollen eyes and her red-tipped nose. His level brown gaze was rueful. 'You're not looking good, Oily. You'd know I was lying if I said otherwise.'

To her horror, the tickly sensation of threatening tears made itself felt. She swallowed and gulped.

'Nik's not crying...but his temper's on a hair trigger and everybody with freedom of choice is staying well out of his way.'

‘Where is he?'

'Athens—working, using his own apartment. My mother implied that your marriage had been a mistake,' Peri volunteered wryly. 'Nik shouted at her for the first time in his life. Then my father tried to defend my mother and I swear that Nik came within inches of hitting him. So if you're not happy, Oily...do try to remember that you're not the only member of this family suffering. We don't usually have punch-ups at the dinner table!'

'It's not my fault that it didn't work out,' Olympia muttered, very much on the defensive.

'May I sit down, or do I belong to the enemy camp now?'

Olympia flushed and remembered her manners. 'Of course you can sit down. Would you like something to drink?'

'No, thanks. Just give me five minutes of your time,' Peri urged. 'Nik doesn't know I'm here, and if he did know, he'd rip my head off!'

'I can't discuss Nik with you. It wouldn't feel right.'

'But you can listen, can't you? Did that filthy blurb in the papers the week after your wedding cause all this trouble between you and my brother? You nod or you shake your head, Oily,' Peri told her. 'That is not discussing Nik.'

Olympia stiffened, and then both nodded and shook her head.

'How am I supposed to read that?' Peri groaned.

Olympia shrugged, determined not to be drawn. She was desperate to confide in somebody, but it wouldn't be fair to use Peri. Her sense of fairness prevented her from telling tales of Nik to his kid brother.

'OK... Nik spent the first five days he was away from you getting drunk as a skunk in a rented chalet in Switzerland.' As Olympia's sea-jade eyes opened very wide, Peri added, 'I discovered he'd taken time out from your honeymoon quite accidentally. The minute that tabloid story broke I tried to contact Nik to warn him, and then found out that I couldn't get hold of him. Being the really nosy guy I am, I didn't let up until I tracked him down. He wasn't very happy to be found.'

'I expect not drunk...alone?'

'Oh, no, Nik never gets to be alone, not with Damianos around. And Damianos very much disapproves of alcohol, so as you can imagine the atmosphere in Switzerland was not one of companionable insobriety. Nik was getting drunk and Damianos was pouring black coffee down him with punitive regularity.'

'Why was he getting drunk?' Olympia prompted shakily.

'He had some ‘stuff to work out’...that's a direct quote from Nik.'

'I got the same.' Her shoulders slumped. 'Why Switzerland?'

'Not many places you can hole up when you're supposed to be on your honeymoon and are very newsworthy. I don't think Nik saw the alpine pastures except through an alcoholic haze.'

Silence stretched. Peri looked at Olympia. Olympia looked hopefully at Peri.

'He sobered up into a rage when I told him about that gutter press article. He spent the last day sorting that out with his lawyers. At no stage was he in a position to enjoy a lusty poolside clinch with Gisele...' Peri's mouth quirked. 'In fact I doubt he'll enjoy a lusty clinch outdoors ever again now that that photo's come back to haunt him. It would make me think twice, I can tell you!'

Olympia reddened. 'You'd lie for Nik—'

'If he had been with Gisele, I'd take the view that it was none of my business and you were better off out of it.'

Olympia chewed at her lower lip. 'Nik's a womaniser.'

'Well, before you came along ten years ago, yes...after you broke up, yes...but never when you were around. Not at present either!' Peri hastened to assure her.

The tears welled up and rolled down her cheeks. 'It's not that I don't appreciate what you're trying to do, Peri,' Olympia admitted chokily. 'I do, but it's too late for Nik and me. Something rotten happened a long time ago and it's always going to be there between us and it can't be fixed. I made Nik go...I practically threw him out and I deliberately said what I knew would drive him away.'

Emanating intense curiosity, Peri studied her with anticipation.

'I'm not saying any more. I've said too much already. Will you stay for dinner?' she asked hopefully, because she was so lonely.

'Sorry. If I don't want Nik to ask where I've been, I need to get back.’ Peri rose upright

Olympia stretched up and kissed his cheek, loving him for trying to help. 'You're so different from Nik.'

'I was the unexpected baby when my parents had given up all hope of the patter of tiny feet sounding again. I was ruined.’ Peri emphasised.

‘Wasn't Nik?'

'No. Nik was told to act like a man when he was scared of the dark as a kid. I got an open door, a night light, and my father held my hand and told me an extra story,' Peri reeled off with a comical grimace. 'Nik got sent to a military academy where a rigorous macho regime of cold showers and assault courses was aimed at honing his competitive in­stincts to a killing edge! I doubt if he got much encourage­ment to share his deepest feelings there.'

'Where did you go to school?' Olympia was fascinated.

'A mile from home and I never boarded. I burst into tears when they mentioned the academy and it was never men­tioned again '

Peri left Olympia with a lot to consider. Even the most suspicious wife would have been challenged to continue be­lieving that Nik had been unfaithful. Olympia had been chal­lenged to believe that even before Peri arrived.

Nik had not shown a hint of guilt or discomfiture when she'd accused him of being with Gisele. Nik had just been furious. All he had cared about was finding out how she had got hold of those wretched photos and ensuring that the cul­prit who had aided his former mistress in her campaign was identified. And the oddest thing was that Olympia was no longer even sure that she had ever really believed at heart that Nik had been unfaithful.

It was as though her mounting resentment at Nik's refusal to listen to her explanation about Katerina and Lukas had destroyed her usual common sense. She had also been feeling increasingly insecure. Yes, she had been very, very happy with Nik during their weeks on Aurora, but underneath there had always been the sinking awareness that Nik had not ac­tually said anything to reassure her that he had overcome his medieval desire to avenge his honour.

And somehow...in retrospect, she didn't really know how...her emotions had just taken over and everything had mushroomed out of all proportion. So she had got rid of him. And the minute Nik had gone out of the door, loweringly, she had wanted him back, but had been too stubborn and proud to admit it. She had spent the night telling herself that she had done the right thing and the early hou

rs worrying that she had been too hasty in throwing him out. She had spent breakfast weeping like a wimp over the acknowledge­ment that Nik had positively glowed like a proud father-to-be once he had realised that she was pregnant.

But, ironically, Olympia was most upset by something which Peri had dropped quite casually: if Alexandra Cozakis had commented that their marriage had been a mistake, Nik had evidently informed his parents that their marriage was in trouble. Announcing that to the wider family circle seemed so final, so horribly, immovably final. Was Nik thinking about a divorce now?

Olympia was still keeping in touch with her own mother on an almost daily basis, and going to enormous lengths not to lie but not to tell the whole truth either! Irini Manoulis was currently living outside Athens with Olympia's grand­father, and naturally awaiting some kind of invitation from her newly married daughter. Olympia had been reduced to saying that Nik was away on business and that she was in­credibly busy...

The phone was brought to her at two that afternoon. Ex­pecting the caller to be her mother, Olympia answered in a bright upbeat tone. 'Mum?'