A Deal at the Altar (Marriage by Command 2)

The surgery was completed quickly and successfully and Bee took a seat by Eleni’s bed. By that stage the little girl was already regaining consciousness. While she was groggy she was not, it seemed, in pain and, reassured by Bee’s presence at her bedside, she soon drifted off to sleep. One of the nannies arrived to sit with the child while Sergios took Bee out for a meal and a much-needed break.

‘You’re exhausted. Why do I employ a team of nannies only to find you in this state? Come home with me,’ Sergios urged when Bee’s head began to nod towards the latter stages of their meal.

Her eyes widened and she studied him ruefully. ‘I should be there if Eleni wakes up again and there is a bed in the room for me to use,’ she reminded him. ‘I won’t have an entirely sleepless night.’

‘Sometimes you should put yourself first,’ Sergios reasoned levelly.

Bee tensed at that declaration and lost colour. Would he tell himself that when he felt the need for something a little more exotic than the marital bed could offer him? Would boredom or lust be his excuse? Would he even need an excuse or was sex with Melita already so familiar that it would not feel like a betrayal of his marital vows? She studied his features: the level line of his brows, the stunning dark golden eyes above those blade-straight cheekbones and the wide carnal mouth that could transport her to paradise. Her cheeks burned as she tore her attention from him. She should challenge him about Melita. Why wasn’t she doing that? When would there ever be a right moment for such a distressing confrontation?

When Eleni was lying in a hospital bed was definitely not the right time, she decided unhappily. That conversation was not something she wanted to plunge blindly into either. She needed to know exactly what she planned to say and right at that instant it felt like too emotive a subject for her to maintain a level head. She didn’t want to shout or cry. She was determined to retain her dignity. After all she was in love with him and at the end of the day dignity might be all she had left to embrace, along with the empty shell of her marriage as they both retired behind their respective barriers. Would they ever share a bed again after that conversation?

‘What’s wrong?’ Sergios demanded abruptly. ‘You look haunted. Eleni’s going to be fine. Stop doing this to yourself. It was a straightforward procedure and it went perfectly.’

‘I know…I’m sorry. I think I’m just tired,’ Bee muttered evasively, embarrassed that he could read her well enough to know that she was currently existing in a sort of mental hell. Melita was a sexy stunner; there was no getting round that hard fact. Every man in the taverna between fifteen and eighty-odd years had been staring appreciatively at the racy blonde. Just at that instant Bee could not forget, humiliatingly, that she had had to get half naked and swing provocatively round a pole to tempt her highly sexed and sophisticated husband into making their marriage a real one.

‘You worry far too much about stuff.’ Sergios shook his handsome dark head in emphasis. ‘It’s like you’re always on the lookout for trouble.’

Bee was back by Eleni’s bed when her cell phone vibrated silently in receipt of a text and she took it out of her jacket pocket, wondering wearily if it would be Jon Townsend again. Once he knew she would be over in London he had asked her to lunch with key charity personnel. Too concerned about Eleni’s needs to spare the time for such an occasion, Bee had hedged. But it was not Jon texting her this time…

I’m in London. I would like to meet you in private. Melita.

Aghast at the idea while noting that the word private was emphasised, Bee looked at her phone as though it had jumped up and bitten her. Her husband’s mistress was actually texting her? Was it for real? But for what possible reason would anyone try to set Bee up with a fake text purporting to be from Melita? Assuming the text was genuine, how on earth had Melita Thiarkis got Bee’s phone number? Had she taken it from Sergios’s phone? It was the most likely explanation and as such hit Bee’s spirits hard because it was not long since she had got a new number and if Melita was in possession of it, it suggested very recent contact between Sergios and the other woman.

Bee got little sleep that night although Eleni slept like a little snoring log. Sergios put in an appearance on his way into his London office. Bee was in the corridor and noticed the ripple of interest that her extraordinarily good-looking husband excited among the nursing staff. With his tall, wide-shouldered, long-legged frame encased in a charcoal-grey designer suit, Sergios looked spectacular. Eleni was equally impressed and whooped with glee when he came through the door and held out her arms.

An odd little smile softened the hard line of Sergios’s mouth as he set down the package in his hand. Bending down, he scooped the little girl gently out of her bed, addressing her in Greek as he did so.

And for the very first time Eleni answered, looking up at him with big dark eyes. The words were indistinct and the sentence structure non-existent, but it was a response she would not have attempted before the surgery.

‘I noticed she was more attentive to what I was saying from the minute she woke up this morning,’ Bee told him with forced brightness. ‘She’s definitely able to hear more. Her e

yes don’t wander the same way when you’re speaking to her either.’

Bee helped Eleni unwrap the wooden puzzle that Sergios had brought and pulled up the bed table for the little girl’s use. A ward maid popped her head round the door and offered them a cup of coffee.

‘Not for me, thanks,’ Sergios responded. ‘I have an early meeting.’

‘If her consultant thinks everything is in order, Eleni will be released later this afternoon,’ Bee revealed.

‘Good. The boys missed you last night,’ Sergios told her.

If he had told her that he had missed her she would have thrown herself into his arms like a homing pigeon, but no such encouraging declaration passed his lips. Nor would it, Bee reflected wretchedly. Sergios didn’t say sentimental stuff like that or make emotional statements. She loved a guy who would never ever tell her he loved her back. And why would he settle solely for Bee’s charms when he already had a woman like Melita and countless other discreet lovers eternally on offer to him? He was an immensely wealthy tycoon and, when it came to women and sex, spoilt for choice and it would always be that way. Somehow, she didn’t know yet how, she would have to come to terms with the reality of their marriage. Possibly meeting Melita Thiarkis in the flesh would be a sensible first step in that much-needed process.

That decision made, Sergios had barely left the building before Bee texted the other woman to set up the requested meeting. After all, what did she have to lose? Sergios wouldn’t like the idea of them meeting at all but why should that bother her? He would never find out, would he? Had he chosen to be more frank about the relationship, however, Bee would probably have ignored the text from his mistress. Melita replied immediately and asked Bee to meet her in the bar of her Chelsea hotel mid-morning. Wary of staging such a delicate encounter in a public place, Bee suggested she come to her room instead.

Bee would very much have liked her entire designer wardrobe on hand to choose from before she met up with Melita. But, travelling direct from the hospital, that was not possible and Bee, not only had very little choice about what to wear, but despised the vain streak of insecurity that had prompted such a superficial thought. She could hardly hope to top a fashion designer in the style stakes, she told herself wryly as she freshened up her make-up and left Eleni with her nanny for company. Pausing only to tell her security team of two that she did not require them, she walked out of the hospital.

The receptionist sent her straight up to Melita’s room on the first floor. She knocked only once on the door before it opened to frame the strikingly attractive woman, who even at that point impressed Bee as being vastly overdressed for morning coffee in her low-cut glittering jacket, narrow skirt and very high heels.

‘Beatriz…’ Melita murmured smoothly. ‘I’m so grateful that you agreed to come, but let’s not tell Sergios about this. Men hate it when we go behind their backs.’

CHAPTER TEN

BEE took due note of the fact that her husband’s mistress, Melita, was more scared of consequences than she was. As Bee had no intention of keeping their meeting a secret unless it suited her to do so, she did not reply.

Melita already had a pot of coffee waiting in her opulent hotel room with its black and white designer chic decor. She sat down opposite Bee, a process that took a good deal of cautious lowering and wriggling in six-inch heels and a black skirt so tight it would split if put under too much pressure. Melita walked a thin line between sexy and tarty.

‘I didn’t think that Sergios would ever marry again,’ the Greek woman said plaintively. ‘But we’re adults. There’s no reason why we can’t be, er…distant friends.’