Revelations of His Runaway Bride

‘Rings,’ he said.

She jammed them carelessly on her finger. Victory. He held out the crook of his arm and she hesitated before slipping hers through it. All stiff and severe. But her body still fitted into his in a way which enticed him. Caused his heart to thrum, his blood to roar. Strange. Intoxicating. All Thea.

‘Now, smile,’ he said.

She plastered on a mocking grimace.

He leaned down and whispered in her ear. ‘Like you mean it, koukla mou.’

‘I’ll smile when you say that like you mean it, Christo.’

And he laughed.

This second laugh was more practised. More familiar—like an old memory. But the warmth growing in his chest was real. Beyond all expectations, he was enjoying her. For his sanity, perhaps a little too much...

CHAPTER TWO

THEA TUCKED INTO a corner of the limousine, far away from her newly minted husband. No one had noticed her biker chic clothes as they’d left the reception venue. They hadn’t paid much attention to her at all. Everyone had been congratulating Christo. Shaking his hand. Wishing him happiness. The only tears for her had been shed by Elena.

Thea didn’t have time for tears. She had to pull herself together. Devise another plan. Her focus needed to be on the future—which now sat in a white envelope in the pocket of Christo’s jacket.

But how to get it?

She looked over at him. His long, lean legs stretched out, relaxed. His face illuminated by the cool glow of his phone. Some might call him handsome. Incredibly so, with his regal nose, strong jaw and high-cut cheekbones, all cast in a way to make a sculptor swoon. She, on the other hand, loathed the sight of his testosterone-fuelled perfection.

Though seduction might work... It was their wedding night, after all. She could try. Croon something...she wasn’t sure what...slip a hand beneath his jacket, kiss him...

Christo’s mouth formed a disapproving line as he tapped at his phone. She’d already had a taste of that mouth. The soft, chaste kiss at the altar. That shocking moment when he’d brushed his lips against hers at the reception venue and they’d sparked as if touched by a live wire.

She lifted her hand to her mouth, which still tingled.

Even if she could grab the envelope at the perfect moment, what then? She shook her head. A few grains of rice clattered from her hair onto the leather seats. The element of surprise was gone, so she couldn’t try that approach. There must be something else.

Christo turned to peer at her. One eye was shadowed in darkness. The blue light from his phone turning the other inhumanly green. The effect made him look something like a pirate.

There was no way she was going to let him plunder her treasures. Her fresh plans started now.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Home.’

‘No honeymoon? Christo Callas—ever the romantic,’ she said, placing a hand to her heart. ‘I’m so lucky.’

‘You want romance?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re the one who pronounced our marriage a sham. Had you not, we’d have been on our way to a week of wedded bliss on my island.’

An island? Typical. Though, come to think of it, not even her father had one of those. ‘You had to cancel? How inconvenient.’

‘For my staff, perhaps. Though I admit standing down the jet was an irritation.’

Something about being the cause of one of his irritations irked her. ‘So...what? If I’d been a good girl, in exchange for my freedom I’d have been rewarded with a joy-ride and some time at the beach? Lucky me. Would you have supplied chocolate mints on my pillow too?’

He wasn’t looking at her now. Instead he studied the dull glow of the city, which washed his imposing form with gold light. The breath caught in her throat. For a moment she forgot who he was, transfixed by the beauty of the picture.

‘An island in the Echinades, a home in the mountains, a yacht berthed in...’ he opened the calendar on his phone and checked something ‘...Monaco and an apartment in New York—any of which you could have flown to in my jet. And that’s amongst other things. The rewards are many and varied for a good girl, as you put it.’

Thea had come from wealth—though nothing like this. She and Elena had discussed it when her father had made terrifyingly clear she had to marry to prevent Alexis rotting in a jail cell. They’d talked about Thea enjoying the considerable fruits of Christo’s fortune.

Could she do it now? Christo would spend his days in the city, working. She could go anywhere. New York? That was where her mother had promised to take her all those years ago. Before she’d died, when life had held some hope. She’d like New York, she supposed.