‘No. In those days he had Timon. Social services discovered my connection to Nectarios and informed him about me. He didn’t know I even existed before that. He came to see me when I was seventeen. I needed a decent education, he offered the opportunity,’ Sergios admitted tautly.
She wanted to ask him more about his parentage but his reluctance to discuss his background was obvious and it seemed neither the time nor the place to probe further. Tense at being so much the centre of attention, she ate a light meal. A celebrity group entertained them. Bee noticed a beautiful female guest casting lascivious eyes in Sergios’s direction and felt her fingers flex like claws ready to scratch. She didn’t like other women looking at him in that speculative sexual way as if trying to imagine what he would be like in bed. It was that wretched kiss, it had changed everything, even the way she thought about him, Bee conceded unhappily.
She had not known that a mere kiss could make her feel hot and hungry and frantic for another. In fact she had always believed that she wasn’t that sexual, and even when she was in love with Jon
keeping him at arm’s length had not proved much of a challenge for her. She had longed for some sign of commitment from him before she slept with him, had wanted sexual intimacy to mean something beyond the physical. With hindsight she suspected that she had always sensed that Jon was holding back as well and reluctant to get in too deep with her.
‘This day seems endless,’ Sergios breathed tersely as he checked his phone for the hundredth time, fingers tapping a restive tattoo on the table.
‘It’ll be over soon,’ Bee said calmly, for she had guessed at the church that he found almost every aspect of their wedding day a demanding challenge. It made her wonder what his first wedding and his first wife had been like. Was he reliving disturbing memories? Had his first wedding been a day of love and joy for him? How could she not wonder? Yet Sergios didn’t strike her as the kind of guy likely to have buried his heart with his dead wife and unborn child in the grave eight years earlier. He was too pragmatic and abrasive and far too fond of female company.
‘Let’s get the dancing over with,’ Sergios breathed abruptly, springing upright and extending a hand to her.
‘I love your enthusiasm,’ Bee riposted, smiling brightly as her mother beamed at her. Emilia Blake was a happy woman and Sergios had not only visited her before the wedding but had also made the effort to sit down and talk that afternoon to her, which Bee appreciated. Emilia believed that her son-in-law was the sun, the moon and the stars and not for worlds would Bee have done or said anything to detract from that positive impression.
This marriage had to work, she reflected anxiously. If her mother came out to live in Greece their relationship would be on constant display, so she had to ensure from the start that the marriage worked for both of them. She would have to be practical, even-tempered and tolerant…for he was neither of the last two things.
Sergios shifted his lean powerful length against her as he danced with a fine sense of rhythm and all those rational uplifting thoughts left her head in one bound for suddenly all she was conscious of were the tightening prominence of her nipples and the smouldering dark gold of his eyes as he gazed moodily down at her. Heat and butterflies rose and fluttered in the pit of her tummy. Desire, she recognised as the twisty sensation stirring up hunger in her pelvis, was digging talon claws of need into her.
‘Theos…you move well,’ Sergios husked, whirling her round and admiring both her energy and the pert stirring curve of her derriere as she wriggled it in time to the music.
‘After years of dance classes, I ought to.’
From there the day seemed to speed up. Moving from table to table, group to group, they spoke to all their guests. Bee was impressed that Sergios put on such a good show. He did not strike her as a touchy-feely guy, but the whole time he was by her side he maintained physical contact with either an arm or a hand placed on her. The children got tired and the nannies took them back to the house. Within an hour of their departure Sergios decided they could leave as well and they climbed into a waiting limousine and were carried off. From below her feathery lashes, Bee glanced covertly at her new husband, recognising his relief that the occasion was over.
‘Is it all weddings you don’t like or just your own?’
‘All of them,’ he admitted, his handsome mouth hardening. ‘I can’t stand the starry eyes and the unrealistic expectations. It’s not real life.’
‘No, it’s hope and there’s nothing wrong with the fact that people long for a happy ending.’
Sergios shrugged a big broad shoulder in what struck her as the diplomatic silence of disagreement. He sprawled back into the corner of the leather seat, long powerful thighs splayed in relaxation. ‘Do you long for a happy ending, Beatriz?’
‘Why not?’ Bee fielded lightly.
‘It won’t be with me,’ he promised her grimly. ‘I don’t believe in them.’
Well, that was certainly telling her, she thought ruefully as the limo drew up outside the London house that had become her new home. They mounted the splendid staircase together and were traversing the landing to head off in different directions when Sergios turned to Bee, his face impassive. ‘I’m getting changed and going out. I’ll see you at the airport tomorrow.’
And with that concluding assurance delivered with the minimum of drama he strode down the corridor where his bedroom suite lay and vanished from view. A door thudded shut. Bee had fallen still and she was very pale. She felt as if he had punched her in the stomach, winding her so that she couldn’t catch her breath. It was the first day of their marriage, their wedding night, and he was going out, leaving her at home on her own.
And why should he not? This was not a normal marriage, she reminded herself doggedly. It was not his duty to keep her company, was it? But was he going to see another woman? Why should that idea bite as if an arrow tipped with acid had been fired into her flesh? She didn’t know why, she only knew it hurt and she felt horribly rejected. It felt humiliating to ask one of the maids for her assistance in getting out of her wedding finery. Yet, she knew that had he even been available she would not have approached Sergios for the same help. Still feeling gutted and furious with herself for a reaction she could not understand, Bee went for a shower to remove the last remnants of bridal sparkle from her body. Sergios wasn’t her husband, not really her husband, so what was the matter with her?
Did Melita live in London or was she here visiting for a prearranged meeting? Or could it be that Sergios was rendezvousing with some other woman? Presumably he would be having sex with someone else tonight. Her tummy muscles tightened as if in self-defence and perspiration dampened her brow, leaving her skin clammy. There was no point being prudish or naive about the emptiness of her marriage, she told herself in exasperation. Right from the start Sergios had demanded the freedom to get naked and intimate with other women on a regular basis. According to the media and those ladies who, when he was younger, were anything but discreet about his habits in the bedroom, he was very highly sexed.
And what exactly did she have to complain about? Sergios was doing only what he had said he would do and by loathing what he was doing she was the one breaking the rules by getting too personally involved! It was time she was more honest with herself, she reasoned irritably. In the normal way a man of Sergios’s dazzling good looks and wealth would never be attracted to a woman as ordinary as she was. She should not forget that his first wife, Krista, had been gorgeous, similar to Zara with her fragile blonde loveliness. Bee had won Sergios as a husband solely by agreeing to allow him to retain his freedom within the marriage and be a mother to his cousin’s children. That was how it was and that was the reality that she had to learn to live with.
A knock sounded on the door and she called out. Paris, clad in his superhero pyjamas and slippers, peered in, a photo album tucked snugly beneath one arm. ‘I saw Uncle Sergios going out. Do you want to see my photos?’
‘Why not?’ Bee said with resolute good cheer, for a regular appraisal of photos of his parents and his baby years had become quite a feature of the little boy’s life in recent days. He would show Bee the pictures and explain who the people were and where and when he thought they were taken and she would ooh and aah with appreciation and ask questions while he worked through his sadness for a period of his life that was now gone.
‘Would you like a hot drink to help you sleep?’ she prompted, deciding that this was a wedding night that she would never forget.
And if Bee blinked back tears while she sat on the side of her bed with an arm anchored comfortingly round Paris’s skinny little body and a mug of cocoa in her other hand, her companion was too intent on sharing his photo album to notice.
CHAPTER FIVE
TWO nannies, Janey and Karen, were accompanying Bee and the children to Greece. Shown around Sergios’s incredibly large and opulent private jet by an attentive stewardess late the next morning, Bee saw the entire party settled in the rear cabin, which was separate from the main saloon. Armed with enough toys, magazines and films to while away a much longer flight, the young women were thrilled by their deluxe surroundings.